‘At the top of the seal, if I am not mistaken,’ continued Sir Frederick in pompous tones, and with the air of a man without whose intelligence a great discovery would have passed unnoticed, ‘you will recognise the ring, to unhook which with his lance was the object of the tilter; if he failed to accomplish it, the bar, moving swiftly on its pivot, swung round the bag, which striking smartly on the tilter’s back, was almost certain of unhorsing him.’ ‘We see it—it is here; there is no doubt of it,’ gasped the excited company. ‘Now, mark you, this is not only curious,’ resumed the knight, ‘but corroborative of the genuineness of the document in a very high degree. Observe the very close analogy which this instrument bears to the name of Shakespeare. Is it not almost certain, therefore, that this seal belonged to our immortal bard, and was always used by him in his legal transactions?’ ‘Then rose the hushed amaze of hand and eye.’ For some moments no voice broke the awful silence; but presently, under deep emotion, Mr. Erin spoke. ‘A revelation,’ he said, ‘always needs an expounder, and in our friend Sir Frederick we have found one. Thanks to your keen intelligence, sir, the value of this deed has been placed beyond all question.’ ‘I am very glad to have been of some slight service to the cause of literary discovery,’ returned Sir Frederick modestly. ‘Perhaps some other lights may strike me if you will allow me to take the document home with me.’ ‘Indeed I will do nothing of the kind,’ put in Mr. Erin precipitately; ‘not, of course, my dear friend, that I have the least doubt of your good faith,’ he added in gentler tones, ‘but in justice to my son—unhappily absent, and to whom it belongs—I can hardly suffer the deed to leave my custody. Perhaps at another time’—for his friend was looking anything but pleased—‘your request shall be complied with, but at present it must be here for the satisfaction of doubters. Such a person, I have reason to believe, is among us even now.’ A murmur of indignation arose from all sides. They cast at one another such furious glances as the Thracian nymphs may have done before tearing Orpheus to pieces. ‘Yes, Mr. Dennis,’ continued the host sarcastically, addressing the unhappy Frank, who had hitherto remained unnoticed and quiescent, ‘I have reason to believe from the expression of your features, when I connect it with certain remarks that fell from you in Shottery Park the other day, that you are our only sceptic.’ If to an assembly of divines in Convocation ‘the Infidel,’ so often alluded to in the abstract in their discourses from the pulpit, had been suddenly presented to them in the concrete, they could not have looked at him with a greater horror than that with which the company regarded the young man thus thrust upon their attention. ‘Indeed, indeed, Mr. Erin,’ pleaded Dennis, ‘I have never uttered a syllable that could be construed, or even perverted, into doubt.’