His legs were protected by boots of fine brown Spanish leather, lined
with deer-skin, tanned with the fur on, and buttoned from the ankle to
the knee. He had gloves of the same material, reaching to the elbow when
drawn up, but now turned down with the fur outwards. The hands and feet
were remarkably small, but well shapen. A low grey cap of coarse
woollen completed the costume of this singular visitor. There was, at
times, in the expression of his eye, an indescribable mixture of
imbecility and enthusiasm, as though the spirit of some Eastern fakir
had reanimated a living body. A gleam of almost supernatural
intelligence was mingled with an expression of fatuity, that in less
enlightened ages would have invested him with the dangerous reputation
of priest or prophet in the eyes of the multitude.

Oliver Tempest led the way with great care and formality. To a keen-eyed
observer, though, his courtesy would have appeared over acted and
fulsome; but the object of his assiduities seemed to pay him little
attention, further than by a vacant smile that struggled around the
corners of his melancholy and placid mouth.

Dame Joan Tempest now came forth, bending thrice in a deep and formal
acknowledgment. The stranger stayed her speech with a look of great
benignity.

"I know thy words are what our kindness would interpret, and I thank
thee. Your hospitality shall not lose its savour in my remembrance, when
England hath grown weary of her guilt,--when the cry of the widow and
the fatherless shall have prevailed. I am hunted like a partridge on the
mountains; but, by the help of my God, I shall yet escape from the
noisome pit, and from the snares of the fowler."

Yet the look which accompanied this prediction seemed incredulous of its
purport. He heaved a deep sigh, and his eyes were suddenly bent on the
ground. Being introduced into the hall, the seat of honour was assigned
him at the table.

Elizabeth, when she saw him, uttered an ill-suppressed exclamation of
surprise, and her pale countenance grew almost ghastly. Her lips were
bloodless, quivering with terror and dismay. Agony was depicted on her
brow--that agony which leaves the spirit without support to struggle
with unknown, undefined, uncomprehended evil. Not a word escaped her;
she hurried out of the hall, as she thought, without observation; but
this sudden movement did not escape the eye of her father. Triumph sat
on his brow; and his cheek seemed flushed with jo