It was a very large and splendid hall, with a high arched roof and tall embrasured windows, whose broad panes were rich with heraldic devices in coloured glass. The walls were panelled with carved oak and adorned with stags' horns, suits of armour, halberds, swords, and crossbows. The lower parts of the windows and the heavy clamped doors were covered with tapestry to keep out the draught, and in the huge red cavern of the fireplace the flaming logs roared and crackled, sending forth strange moving shadows across the rush-strewn floor, and casting a bright flicker of light upon the wings of the brass pelicans that stood gazing out from either side of the hearth. At the head of the long table sat the aged baron himself, Gilbert Oglander's grandfather, a kindly, white-haired, white-bearded gentleman, wearing a doublet of black velvet with gold chains and a snowy white ruff. His guests and the members of his household were all grown-up persons, with the one exception of Drusilla Oglander; and Drusilla, who was still scarce more than a little girl and had but lately left the nursery, seemed to be very lonely in consequence. She had no companion near her at the table saving the family bloodhound, Nero, whose ponderous head rested upon her knee, ready to gobble such morsels of meat as the girl might pick from her plate and give to him. There was a vacant seat at her side, but her brother Gilbert, who had gone into Plymouth that afternoon, had not returned to occupy it, and she was perforce content to listen silently to the talk that was going on among her elders at the upper end of the table. Yet quite as often did she find entertainment in listening to the men and women who sat below the great salt-cellar--the barrier which separated them from those who were above them in station. One of the men, a rosy-faced young falconer who had been with the hawking party, was boasting of how Sir Walter Raleigh had deigned to hold speech with him, and to ask his opinion concerning the possibility of stopping a falcon in its full flight and making the bird return obediently to the lure. The fact that the great courtier had thus honoured him seemed to have given the man the right to speak with authority on all matters with which Sir Walter Raleigh was personally concerned. "Wait until the meal is over," Drusilla heard him say; "wait and you shall see him taking tobacco. 'Tis a wonderous sight, my masters. I have seen him at it with mine own eyes. He can blow the smoke out through his nostrils in two long tubes, or drink it down into his inside as one might drink a cup of malmsey. Ay, 'tis a marvellous habit, is it not, Christopher Pym?"