With whoop and scream the wild November wind
sweeps over the great rolling downs, tossing the branches of the
Cosford beeches, and rattling at the rude latticed windows. The
stout old knight of Duplin, grown even a little stouter, with
whiter beard to fringe an ever redder face, sits as of yore at the
head of his own board. A well-heaped platter flanked by a foaming
tankard stands before him. At his right sits the Lady Mary, her
dark, plain, queenly face marked deep with those years of weary
waiting, but bearing the gentle grace and dignity which only
sorrow and restraint can give. On his left is Matthew, the old
priest. Long ago the golden-haired beauty had passed from Cosford
to Fernhurst, where the young and beautiful Lady Edith Brocas is
the belle of all Sussex, a sunbeam of smiles and merriment, save
perhaps when her thoughts for an instant fly back to that dread
night when she was plucked from under the very talons of the foul
hawk of Shalford.
The old knight looked up as a fresh gust of wind with a dash of
rain beat against the window behind him. "By Saint Hubert, it is
a wild night!" said he. "I had hoped to-morrow to have a flight
at a heron of the pool or a mallard in the brook. How fares it
with little Katherine the peregrine, Mary?"
"I have joined the wing, father, and I have imped the feathers;
but I fear it will be Christmas ere she can fly again.
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