The stately old hall had been in process of cleaning and adapting to the banquet purposes of the nineteenth century, which it was accustomed to subserve, in so proud a way, in the sixteenth. It was, in the first place, well swept and cleansed; the painted glass windows were cleansed from dust, and several panes, which had been unfortunately broken and filled with common glass, were filled in with colored panes, which the Warden had picked up somewhere in his antiquarian researches. They were not, to be sure, just what was wanted; a piece of a saint, from some cathedral window, supplying what was lacking of the gorgeous purple of a mediæval king; but the general effect was rich and good, whenever the misty English atmosphere supplied sunshine bright enough to pervade it. Tapestry, too, from antique looms, faded, but still gorgeous, was hung upon the walls. Some suits of armor, that hung beneath the festal gallery, were polished till the old battered helmets and pierced breastplates sent a gleam like that with which they had flashed across the battle-fields of old. [Endnote: 1.] So now the great day of the Warden’s dinner had arrived; and, as may be supposed, there were fiery times in the venerable old kitchen. The cook, according to ancient custom, concocted many antique dishes, such as used to be set before kings and nobles; dainties that might have called the dead out of their graves; combinations of ingredients that had ceased to be put together for centuries; historic dishes, which had long, long ceased to be in the list of revels. Then there was the stalwart English cheer of the sirloin, and the round; there were the vast plum-puddings, the juicy mutton, the venison; there was the game, now just in season,--the half-tame wild fowl of English covers, the half-domesticated wild deer of English parks, the heathcock from the far-off hills of Scotland, and one little prairie hen, and some canvas-back ducks--obtained, Heaven knows how, in compliment to Redclyffe--from his native shores. O, the old jolly kitchen! how rich the flavored smoke that went up its vast chimney! how inestimable the atmosphere of steam that was diffused through it! How did the old men peep into it, even venture across the threshold, braving the hot wrath of the cook and his assistants, for the sake of imbuing themselves with these rich and delicate flavors, receiving them in as it were spiritually; for, received through the breath and in the atmosphere, it was really a spiritual enjoyment. The ghosts of ancient epicures seemed, on that day and the few preceding ones, to haunt the dim passages, snuffing in with shadowy nostrils the rich vapors, assuming visibility in the congenial medium, almost becoming earthly again in the strength of their earthly longings for one other feast such as they used to enjoy.