rcote
the broken minstrel, John the cook, and other survivors of more
prosperous days, who still clung to the old house as the barnacles to
some wrecked and stranded vessel.

One evening about a week after the breaking of the yellow horse, Nigel
and his grandmother sat on either side of the large empty fireplace in
this spacious apartment. The supper had been removed, and so had the
trestle tables upon which it had been served, so that the room seemed
bare and empty. The stone floor was strewed with a thick layer of green
rushes, which was swept out every Saturday and carried with it all the
dirt and debris of the week. Several dogs were now crouched among these
rushes, gnawing and cracking the bones which had been thrown from the
table. A long wooden buffet loaded with plates and dishes filled one
end of the room, but there was little other furniture save some benches
against the walls, two dorseret chairs, one small table littered with
chessmen, and a great iron coffer. In one corner was a high wickerwork
stand, and on it two stately falcons were perched, silent and
motionless, save for an occasional twinkle of their fierce yellow eyes.

But if the actual fittings of the room would have appeared scanty to one
who had lived in a more luxurious age, he would have been surprised on
looking up to see the multitude of objects which were suspended above
his head. Over the fireplace were the coats-of-arms of a number
of houses allied by blood or by marriage to the Lorings. The two
cresset-lights which flared upon each side gleamed upon the blue lion of
the Percies, the red birds of de Valence, the black engrailed cross of
de Mohun, the silver star of de Vere, and the ruddy bars of FitzAlan,
all grouped round the famous red roses on the silver shield which the
Lorings had borne to glory upon many a bloody field. Then from side to
side the room was spanned by heavy oaken beams from which a great number
of objects were hanging. There were mail-shirts of obsolete pattern,
several shields, one or two rusted and battered helmets, bowstaves,
lances, otter-spears, harness, fishing-rods, and other implements of war
or of the chase, while higher still amid the black shadows of the peaked
roof could be seen rows of hams, flitches of bacon, salted geese, and
those other forms of preserved meat which played so great a part in the
housekeeping of the Middle Ages.

Dame Ermyntrude Loring, daughter, wife, and mother of warriors, was
hers