light-shot, I will bestow a forked
shaft on him; and that I swear by salt and bread."

As he spoke, the door opened, and Master Mumblazen appeared--a withered,
thin, elderly gentleman, with a cheek like a winter apple, and his
grey hair partly concealed by a small, high hat, shaped like a cone,
or rather like such a strawberry-basket as London fruiterers exhibit at
their windows. He was too sententious a person to waste words on mere
salutation; so, having welcomed Tressilian with a nod and a shake of the
hand, he beckoned him to follow to Sir Hugh's great chamber, which the
good knight usually inhabited. Will Badger followed, unasked, anxious to
see whether his master would be relieved from his state of apathy by the
arrival of Tressilian.

In a long, low parlour, amply furnished with implements of the chase,
and with silvan trophies, by a massive stone chimney, over which hung
a sword and suit of armour somewhat obscured by neglect, sat Sir Hugh
Robsart of Lidcote, a man of large size, which had been only kept within
moderate compass by the constant use of violent exercise, It seemed to
Tressilian that the lethargy, under which his old friend appeared to
labour, had, even during his few weeks' absence, added bulk to his
person--at least it had obviously diminished the vivacity of his eye,
which, as they entered, first followed Master Mumblazen slowly to a
large oaken desk, on which a ponderous volume lay open, and then rested,
as if in uncertainty, on the stranger who had entered along with him.
The curate, a grey-headed clergyman, who had been a confessor in the
days of Queen Mary, sat with a book in his hand in another recess in the
apartment. He, too, signed a mournful greeting to Tressilian, and laid
his book aside, to watch the effect his appearance should produce on the
afflicted old man.

As Tressilian, his own eyes filling fast with tears, approached more
and more nearly to the father of his betrothed bride, Sir Hugh's
intelligence seemed to revive. He sighed heavily, as one who awakens
from a state of stupor; a slight convulsion passed over his features;
he opened his arms without speaking a word, and, as Tressilian threw
himself into them, he folded him to his bosom.

"There is something left to live for yet," were the first words he
uttered; and while he spoke, he gave vent to his feelings in a paroxysm
of weeping, the tears chasing each other down his sunburnt cheeks and
long white beard.

"I ne'er t