we must use his subtilty. Pardon me, my
lord," continued the accuser, seeing symptoms of impatience gathering on
the brow of the haughty chieftain, "though I am plain of speech, yet is
it the more easily understood. This delinquent of whom we speak hath
not, as the general report testifieth, the same nature and existence as
our own. He useth magic--I have credible testimony thereto, my
lord;--and anointeth his body so that it shall be invisible. The free
unconfined air is not more accessible to the scared bird than rocks and
walls are to this impalpable mockery of our form; and yet he may be
dealt with."

"Troth, a man of many faculties. How came he thus?"

"The vulgar do imagine that by dint of great maceration and humility, by
prayer and fasting, he hath attained communion with angels; but I
suspect they be those of the bottomless pit!"

"And why should he withhold the deed?"

"I know not, save that he purposeth by fraud and subtilty to cast these
fair possessions into the treasury of the holy church, and build an
abbey hereabout, the like whereof hath not been seen for glory and
magnificence."

"Doth he then deny our right to the inheritance? The Lady Fitz-Eustace
had a fair copy of the deed, purporting to be sent by the holy confessor
who shrived the testator in his extremity. But how hath this canting
hermit gotten the writing into his possession?"

"I know not, my lord, unless it be that the like arts have enabled him
to appropriate it by other means than those of honesty and good faith.
But give me a band of men, together with leave so to deal with him as I
shall see fit, and I trust ere long to render a good account of the
matter. I will come upon him unawares, ere he can render his body
inaccessible, and lay hold of the traitor."

"Traitor!" echoed a voice from behind a screen at the lower extremity of
the hall. Every eye was turned in that direction; when lo! the hermit
himself, the end and object of their deliberations, stalked forth,
unquestioned and unobstructed.

The baron rose, and his grim eyebrows were fiercely knit and contracted.
He looked inquiringly towards the dean, who, for a moment, was
confounded by this unexpected event. Yet his presence of mind and
fertility of expedient did not forsake him.

"Let him be instantly bound, my lord," whispered De Whalley, "and holden
by main force, or he will escape like a limed bird from the twigs. Let
him be led forthwith to the dungeon, where I mys