It was a most delicious supper--a great ham with the aromatic flavour of wood-smoke, eaten with pickled cowslips; brawn; a red-deer pie; and, in honour of the distinguished guests, a fat roast swan. The wine was from the widow's own grapes and was flavoured with honey and blackberries. Most of the talking was done by the widow and Endymion Leer. He was asking her if many trout had been caught that summer in the Dapple, and what were their markings. And she told him that a salmon had recently been landed weighing ten pounds. Ranulph, who had been munching away in silence, suddenly looked up at them, with that little smile of his that people always found a trifle disconcerting. "That isn't real talk," he said. "That isn't the way you really talk to each other. That's only pretence talk." The widow looked very surprised and very much annoyed. But Endymion Leer laughed heartily and asked him what he meant by "real talk;" Ranulph, however, would not be drawn. But Luke Hempen, in a dim inarticulate way, understood what he meant. The conversation between the widow and the doctor had not rung true; it was almost as if their words had a double meaning known only to themselves. A few minutes later, a wizened old man with very bright eyes came into the room and sat down at the lower end of the table. And then Ranulph really did give everyone a fright, for he stopped eating, and for a few seconds stared at him in silence. Then he gave a piercing scream. All eyes turned toward him in amazement. But he sat as if petrified, his eyes round and staring, pointing at the old man. "Come, come, young fellow!" cried Endymion Leer, sharply; "what's the meaning of this?" "What ails you, little master?" cried the widow. But he continued pointing in silence at the old man, who was leering and smirking and ogling, in evident delight at being the centre of attention. "He's scared by Portunus, the weaver," tittered the maids. And the words "Portunus," "old Portunus the weaver," were bandied from mouth to mouth down the two sides of the table. "Yes, Portunus, the weaver," cried the widow, in a loud voice, a hint of menace in her eye. "And who, I should like to know, does not love Portunus, the weaver?" The maids hung their heads, the men sniggered deprecatingly. "Well?" challenged the widow. Silence. "And who," she continued indignantly, "is the handiest most obliging fellow to be found within twenty miles?" She glared down the table, and then repeated her question. As if compelled by her eye, the company murmured "Portunus." "And if the cheeses won't curdle, or the butter won't come, or the wine in the vats won't get a good head, who comes to the rescue?" "Portunus," murmured the company. "And who is always ready to lend a helping hand to the maids--to break or bolt hemp, to dress flax, or to spin? And when their work is over to play them tunes on his fiddle?" "Portunus," murmured the company.