ravely, opened a privy cupboard, took out a large
bottrine of stout old wine, shook it to examine how low the contents
had ebbed, filled and drank a hearty cup; then took his seat, half
reclining, on the great oaken settle; and having once again slowly
shaken his head, received so much apparent benefit from the oscillation,
that, like the toy called a mandarin, he continued the motion until he
dropped into a slumber, from which he was first roused by the signal to
dinner.

When Quentin Durward left his uncle to these sublime meditations, he
followed his conductor, Master Oliver, who, without crossing any of the
principal courts, led him, partly through private passages exposed
to the open air, but chiefly through a maze of stairs, vaults, and
galleries, communicating with each other by secret doors and at
unexpected points, into a large and spacious latticed gallery, which,
from its breadth, might have been almost termed a hall, hung with
tapestry more ancient than beautiful, and with a very few of the hard,
cold, ghastly looking pictures, belonging to the first dawn of the arts
which preceded their splendid sunrise. These were designed to represent
the Paladins of Charlemagne, who made such a distinguished figure in the
romantic history of France; and as this gigantic form of the celebrated
Orlando constituted the most prominent figure, the apartment acquired
from him the title of Rolando's Hall, or Roland's Gallery.

[Charlemagne... was accounted a saint during the dark ages: and
Louis XI, as one of his successors, honoured his shrine with peculiar
observance. S.]

[Orlando: also called Roland. His history may be read in the Chanson de
Roland.]

"You will keep watch here," said Oliver, in a low whisper, as if the
hard delineations of monarchs and warriors around could have been
offended at the elevation of his voice, or as if he had feared to awaken
the echoes that lurked among the groined vaults and Gothic drop work on
the ceiling of this huge and dreary apartment.

"What are the orders and signs of my watch?" answered Quentin, in the
same suppressed tone.

"Is your harquebuss loaded?" replied Oliver, without answering his
query.

"That," answered Quentin, "is soon done;" and proceeded to charge his
weapon, and to light the slow match (by which when necessary it was
discharged) at the embers of a wood fire, which was expiring in the huge
hall chimney--a chimney itself so large that it might have been called