The being, the subject of these remarks, had been for many months a periodical visitor at the Hall, where he went by the name of "Noman." It is not a little remarkable that tradition should here point out an adventure something analogous to that of Ulysses with the Cyclop as once happening to this obscure individual, and that his escape was owing to the same absurd equivoque by which the Grecian chief escaped from his tormentor. Our tale, however, hath reference to weightier matters, and the brief space we possess permits no further digression. This aged but hale and sturdy beggar wore a grey frieze coat or cloak loosely about his person. Long blue stocking gaiters, well patched and darned, came over his knee, while his doublet and hosen, or body-gear, were fastened together by the primitive attachment of wooden skewers--a contrivance now obsolete, being superseded by others more elegant and seemly. A woollen cap or bonnet, of unparalleled form and dimensions, was disposed upon his head, hiding the upper part of his face, and almost covering a pair of bushy grey eyebrows, that, in their turn, crouched over a quick and vagrant eye, little the worse for the wear of probably some sixty years. A grizzled reddish beard hung upon his breast; and his aspect altogether was forbidding, almost ferocious. A well-plenished satchel was on his shoulder; and he walked slowly and erect, as though little disposed to make way for his betters in the narrow path, where they must inevitably meet. When they came nearer he stood still in the middle of the road, as though inclined to dispute their passage. His tall and well-proportioned figure, apparent even beneath these grotesque habiliments, stood out before them in bold relief against the red and burning sky, where an opening in the lane admitted all the glow and fervour of the western sunset. His strange, wayward, and even mysterious character was no bar to his admittance into the mansions of the gentry through a wide circuit of country, where his familiarities were tolerated, or perhaps connived at, even by many whose gifts he received more as a right than as an obligation. He looked steadfastly on them as they approached, but without the slightest show either of respect or good-will. "Prithee, stand a little on one side, that we may pass by without fear of offence," said Nicholas Haworth, good-humouredly. "And whither away, young master and my dainty miss?" was the reply, in his usual easy and familiar address, such as might have suited one of rank and condition. Haworth, little disturbed thereat, said with a careless smile,--"Troth, thou hast not been so long away but thou mightest have heard of the wedding-feast to-night, and, peradventure, been foremost for the crumbs of the banquet." "I know well there's mumming and foolery a-going on yonder; and I suppose ye join the merry-making, as they call it?" "Ay, that do we; and so, prithee, begone."