There was one object more in view--one which spoke of man even in that solitude, and man in his better aspect. It was the slated roof and belfry, all overgrown with moss and stone-crop, of a small wayside chapel, in the old Saxon architecture, peering out from the shadows of the tall oaks which overhung it in the far distance. It was, as we have said, very small, in the old Saxon architecture, consisting, in fact, merely of a vaulted roof supported upon four squat, massy columns, whence sprung the four groined ribs which met in the centre of the arch. Three sides alone of this primitive place of worship, which would have contained with difficulty forty persons, were walled in, the front presenting one wide, open arch, richly and quaintly sculptured with the indented wolf’s teeth of the first Saxon style. Small as it was, however, the little chapel had its high altar, with the crucifix and candle, its reading-desk of old black oak, its font, and pix, and chalices, and all the adjuncts of the Roman ritual. A little way to the left might be discovered the low, thatched eaves of a rustic cottage, framed of the unbarked stems of forest-trees--the abode, probably, of the officiating priest; and close beside the walls of the little church a consecrated well, protected from the sun by a stone vault, of architecture corresponding to the chapel. Upon the nearer slope, not far from the roadside, but entirely concealed from passers by the nature of the ground and the dense thickets, there were collected, at an early hour of the morning, five men, with as many horses, who seemed to be awaiting, in a sort of ambush, some persons whom they would attack at unawares. The leader of the party, as he might be considered, as much from his appearance as from the deference shown to him by the others, was a tall, active, powerful man, of thirty-eight or forty years, with a bold and expressive countenance--expressive, however, of no good quality, unless it were the fiery, reckless daring which blazed from his broad, dark eye, and that was almost obscured by the cloud of insufferable pride which lowered upon his frowning brow, and by the deep, scar-like lines of lust, and cruelty, and scorn, which ploughed his weather-beaten features. His dress was a complete suit of linked chain-mail--hauberk, and sleeves, and hose--with shoes of plaited steel, and gauntlets wrought in scale, covering his person from his neck downward in impenetrable armor. He had large gilded spurs buckled upon his heels, and a long, two edged dagger, with a rich hilt and scabbard, in his belt; but neither sword, nor lance, nor any other weapon of offence, except a huge steel mace, heavy enough to fell an ox at a single blow, which he grasped in his right hand; while from his left hung the bridle of a tall, coal-black Norman charger, which was cropping the grass quietly beside him. His head was covered by a conical steel cap, with