From whatever motive it proceeded, Philip's hospitality was but lukewarm towards the strangers; and the manner in which he rinsed out the tankard, drew the wine from a _barrique_ standing in one corner of the room, half covered with a wolf-skin, and placed it on a table by the side of Chavigni, bespoke more churlish rudeness than good-will. But the Statesman heeded little either the quality of his reception or of his wine, provided he could obtain the information he desired; so, carrying the tankard to his lips, he drank, or seemed to drink, as deep a draught as if its contents had been the produce of the best vineyard in Medoc. "It is excellent," said he, handing it to Lafemas, "or my thirst does wonders. Now, good friend, if we had some venison-steaks to broil on your clear ashes, our supper were complete." "Such I have not to offer, Sir," replied Philip, "or to that you should be welcome too." "Why, I should have thought," said Chavigni, "the hunters who ran down a stag at your door to-day, should have left you a part, as the woodman's fee." "Do you know those hunters, Sir?" demanded Philip, with some degree of emphasis. "Not I, in truth," replied Chavigni; though the colour rose in his cheek, notwithstanding his long training to courtly wile and political intrigue, and he thanked his stars that the lamp gave but a faint and glimmering light: "Not I, in truth; but whoever ran him down got a good beast, for he bled like a stag of ten. I suppose they made the _curée_ at your door?" "Those hunters, Sir," replied Philip, "give no woodman's fees; and as to the stag, he is as fine a one as ever brushed the forest dew, but he has escaped them this time." "How! did he get off with his throat cut?" demanded Chavigni, "for there is blood enough at the foot of yon old tree, to have drained the stoutest stag that ever was brought to bay." "Oh! but that is not stag's blood!" interrupted Charles, the woodman's son, who had by this time not only tended the strangers' horses, but examined every point of the quaint furniture with which it was the fashion of the day to adorn them. "That is not stag's blood; that is the blood of the young Cavalier, who was hurt by the robbers, and taken away by--" At this moment the boy's eye caught the impatient expression of his father's countenance. "The truth is, Messieurs," said Philip, taking up the discourse, "there was a gentleman wounded in the forest this morning. I never saw him before, and he was taken away in a carriage by some ladies, whose faces were equally strange to me." "You have been somewhat mysterious upon this business, Sir Woodman," said Chavigni, his brow darkening as he spoke; "why were you so tardy in giving us this forest news, which imports all strangers travelling through the wood to know?"