and then added, "But it will be different now, I fancy; for honest Tim is as deaf as a miller, and his boy is sound asleep, I suspect. Tim Morris, I say!--He will keep us here all night:--Tim Morris!--How now, old sluggard!" he continued, as the ancient porter rolled back the gate; "were you snoring in your wicker-chair, that you make us dance attendance, as you do the country folk of a Monday morning?" "'Tis fit they should learn to dance the Morris dance, as they call it, Master Dick," answered the porter, laughing, and holding up his lantern. "God yield ye, sir! I thought you were gone for the night, and I was stripping off my jerkin." "Is Simeon of Roydon gone, then?" asked Woodville. "Nay, sir, he stays all night," answered the porter. "Here, boy! here, knave! turn thee out, and run across the court to take the horses." A sleepy boy, with senses yet but half awake, crept out from the door, and followed Richard of Woodville and his companion, as they rode across the small space that separated the gate from the Hall itself. There, at a flight of steps, leading to a portal which might well have served a church, they dismounted; and, advancing before his fellow-traveller, Richard of Woodville raised the heavy bar of hammered iron, which served for a latch, and entered the hall, singing aloud-- "'As I rode on a Monday, Between Wettenden and Wall, All along the broad way, I met a little man withal.'" As he spoke he pushed back the door for Hal of Hadnock to enter, and a scene was presented to his companion's sight which deserves rather to begin than end a chapter. CHAPTER II. THE HALL AND ITS DENIZENS.