thick arbours, and overlooked from the far end by the tower
of the abbey church.

The house might contain, upon a pinch, the retinue of a greater person
than Sir Daniel; but even now it was filled with hubbub. The court rang
with arms and horseshoe-iron; the kitchens roared with cookery like a
bees'-hive; minstrels, and the players of instruments, and the cries of
tumblers, sounded from the hall. Sir Daniel, in his profusion, in the
gaiety and gallantry of his establishment, rivalled with Lord Shoreby,
and eclipsed Lord Risingham.

All guests were made welcome. Minstrels, tumblers, players of chess, the
sellers of relics, medicines, perfumes, and enchantments, and along with
these every sort of priest, friar, or pilgrim, were made welcome to the
lower table, and slept together in the ample lofts, or on the bare
boards of the long dining-hall.

On the afternoon following the wreck of the _Good Hope_, the buttery,
the kitchens, the stables, the covered cartshed that surrounded two
sides of the court, were all crowded by idle people, partly belonging to
Sir Daniel's establishment, and attired in his livery of murrey and
blue, partly nondescript strangers attracted to the town by greed, and
received by the knight through policy, and because it was the fashion of
the time.

The snow, which still fell without interruption, the extreme chill of
the air, and the approach of night, combined to keep them under shelter.
Wine, ale, and money were all plentiful; many sprawled gambling in the
straw of the barn, many were still drunken from the noontide meal. To
the eye of a modern it would have looked like the sack of a city; to the
eye of a contemporary it was like any other rich and noble household at
a festive season.

Two monks--a young and an old--had arrived late, and were now warming
themselves at a bonfire in a corner of the shed. A mixed crowd
surrounded them--jugglers, mountebanks, and soldiers; and with these the
elder of the two had soon engaged so brisk a conversation, and exchanged
so many loud guffaws and country witticisms, that the group momentarily
increased in number.

The younger companion, in whom the reader has already recognised Dick
Shelton, sat from the first somewhat backward, and gradually drew
himself away. He listened, indeed, closely, but he opened not his mouth;
and by the grave expression of his countenance, he made but little
account of his companion's pleasantries.

At last his eye, which t