Standing where she did, she could see a corner of the court-yard of the inn, busy as it was, beyond its wont. The great window, where sat the unconscious object of Dame Dutton’s fears, was immediately below. She had been standing thus for some time, conscious of the sweet air and sunshine, and vacantly watching the figures in the yard, when a cavalier, dressed in the fantastic fashion of the time, rode briskly in at the gate. His rich dress was travel-soiled, his attendants looked dusty and fatigued, and calling hurriedly for refreshments, he waited the return of the servants who ran to obey his orders, as if he did not mean to alight. “Ha, Sir Jasper!” exclaimed some unseen person below, whose voice had a finer modulation than belonged to the Border. “What makes you so far from town?” “From town!” echoed the new comer; “in what hyperborean region have you hidden yourself, gentle Sir Philip, that your happy ignorance needs to ask? From town! why the town itself, I fear, ere long will take to traveling:--the matter is who shall get furthest away in these days.” “A marvel!” said Sir Philip Dacre, laughing. “I fancied you courtiers could breathe no air less dainty than the perfumes of Whitehall.” “Faith, there are odors abroad less delectable,” said the cavalier, shrugging his shoulders. “Hast not heard of the enemy who hath established his garrison--for longer, I fear me, than the bivouac of a night--in yonder unhappy London?” “Enemy! what mean you?” “Truly what I say, good Philip--the leader of yonder forces suffers no equivoque; the roads are covered with fugitives who never learned to fly before. Myself am not apt to turn my back on an enemy’s line of battle; but yonder grim rascal is not to be faced. The king himself has fled.” “Now pray heaven it be not Oliver risen again,” exclaimed Dacre, in a tone of anxiety. “Oliver! nay, it is another incarnation of the evil one frightfuller than he. Hark thee, Sir Philip--the plague!” “The plague!” Edith could hear the ring of the young man’s sword and spurs as he sprang to his feet. The bystanders in the yard began to form a circle round the cavalier and his servants, eager to hear, and yet afraid to press upon those who had so lately left the neighborhood of the pestilence. “So I e’en bethought myself of seeing what cheer my noble kinsman holds in Naworth,” said the cavalier, with an affectation of carelessness. “When old London hath shaken herself free of her spectral visitant, she will have the greater zest for the contrast. Thou should’st hie thee to Court. Sir Philip: never better chance for thee, man. His Majesty goes to Oxford--where all the learning of merry England will overshadow him.”