After the serving men, with some difficulty, had brought in the supper, consisting of enormous joints of meat, hot and cold, and deposited on the sideboard vast tankards of strong ale and other potent beverages, Mr Peeper rose, and folding his hands across his breast, and bending forward his head with every appearance of devotion, muttered some words evidently intended to represent a grace; but so indistinct that it was utterly impossible to make the slightest guess at their meaning, whereupon they all fell to with prodigious activity, and cut and slashed the enormous dishes as if they had been famished for a year. Mr Lutter, after making an observation that true thankfulness was as much shown by moderate enjoyment of good gifts as by long prayers said over them, made a most powerful assault on the cold sirloin, and, of all the party, was the only one who had the politeness to send a helping to Jane. She was tired and hungry, and felt really obliged by the attention, but could scarcely do justice to the viands from surprise at the conversation of the guests. "Ho, ho!" said Sir Bryan de Barreilles, "I once knew a thing--such a thing it was too--ho! ho!" And partly the vividness of the recollection, and principally an enormous mouthful of beef, produced a long fit of coughing--"'twill make you laugh," he continued--"'twas a rare feat--ho! ho!--even this lady will be pleased to hear it." Jane bowed in expectation of an amusing anecdote. "One of my tenants was going to be married; his bride was a very young creature, not more than eighteen, and on the wedding-day, as I always was ready for a joke in those days--ah! 'tis thirty years ago, or more--I asked the bridal party to the Tower. Ho! ho! such laughing we had!--Giles Mallet and Robin Henslow fought with redhot brands out of the fire, till I thought we should all have died; and Giles--the cleverest fellow and the wittiest, ho! ho!--such a fellow was Giles!--he took up the poker instead of the fir-log, and watched his opportunity, ho! ho!--it was redhot too--a good stout poker as ever you saw--and ran it clean through his cheek--you heard the tongue fizz! as it licked the hot iron--'twas a famous play. How Robin roared, to be sure, and couldn't speak plain--ho! ho! Well, the games went on; and nothing would please some of the young ones but we should see the Oubliette. 'Twas a dark hole where my forefathers imprisoned their refractory vassals, and sad stories were told about it--how that voices were heard from the bottom of it, and groans, and sometimes gory heads were seen at the top of it, looking up to the skylight, and struggling to escape, but ever tumbling back into the deep dark hole, with screams and smothered cries; a rare place for a man's enemies--but it had not been used for many years. Well--nothing would do, but when we were all merry with ale, we should all go and see the Oubliette, and a kiss of the bride was promised to the one who should go down the furthest.