"Oh-aye," said he, and shuffled off.
He left me fuming, for his last mutteration, as he shook his lantern to
stir the flame up a bit, was, "Knows a true man when he sees one. More
used to a carving-knife than a sword, I'll be bound. What did he say?
Wheatman o' sommat! Reg'lar farmering name!"
I kicked the door wide open and watched the lantern bobbing along the
hall. The light made pale shimmerings on complete suits of mail hanging so
life-like on the high, bare, stone walls, that it seemed for all the world
as if the knights had been crucified there and, little by little, age
after age, had dropped to dust, leaving their warrior panoplies behind
--empty shells on the shore of time from which the life had dripped and
rotted. The old man toiled up the grand staircase at the far end of the
hall and turned to the right along a gallery. The friendly light
disappeared, leaving me darkling and alone. Sultan sniffed his way to the
door, pushed in his head and neck, and rubbed his nose against my breast
in all friendliness. I flung my arms round his neck and caressed him, and
in those anxious minutes in the doorway of Ellerton Grange he was comrade
and sweetheart to me, and comforted my spirit greatly.
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