O!
Pale and wan she crept out of sight, and wept

'Tis a sorry--

A loud knock that echoed ominously through the mean chamber, fell in
that instant upon the door. And with it came a panting cry of--

"Open, Cris! Open, for the love of God!"

Sir Crispin's ballad broke off short, whilst the lad paused in the act
of quitting the room, and turned to look to him for direction.

"Well, my master," quoth Galliard, "for what do you wait?"

"To learn your wishes, sir," was the answer sullenly delivered.

"My wishes! Rat me, there's one without whose wishes brook less waiting!
Open, fool!"

Thus rudely enjoined, the lad lifted the latch and set wide the door,
which opened immediately upon the street. Into the apartment stumbled a
roughly clad man of huge frame. He was breathing hard, and fear was writ
large upon his rugged face. An instant he paused to close the door after
him, then turning to Galliard, who had risen and who stood eyeing him in
astonishment--

"Hide me somewhere, Cris," he panted--his accent proclaiming his Irish
origin. "My God, hide me, or I'm a dead man this night!"

"'Slife, Hogan! What is toward? Has Cromwell overtaken us?"

"Cromwell, quotha? Would to Heaven 'twere no worse! I've killed a man!"

"If he's dead, why run?"

The Irishman made an impatient gesture.

"A party of Montgomery's foot is on my heels. They've raised the whole
of Penrith over the affair, and if I'm taken, soul of my body, 'twill be
a short shrift they'll give me. The King will serve me as poor Wrycraft
was served two days ago at Kendal. Mother of Mercy!" he broke off,
as his ear caught the clatter of feet and the murmur of voices from
without. "Have you a hole I can creep into?"

"Up those stairs and into my room with you!" said Crispin shortly. "I
will try to head them off. Come, man, stir yourself; they are here."

Then, as with nimble alacrity Hogan obeyed him and slipped from the
room, he turned to the lad, who had been a silent spectator of what
had passed. From the pocket of his threadbare doublet he drew a pack of
greasy playing cards.

"To table," he said laconically.

But the boy, comprehending what was required of him, drew back at sight
of those cards as one might shrink from a thing unclean.

"Never!" he began. "I'll not defile--"

"To table, fool!" thundered Crispin, with a vehemence few men could have
withstood. "Is this a time for Presbyterian scruples? To table, and help
a me