"
The hermit departed without awaiting the reply.
But great was the stir and tumult in the stronghold of the Lacies on
that memorable day. The hurrying to and fro of the victuallers and
cooks--the clink of armourers and the din of horses prancing in their
warlike equipments--kept up an incessant jingle and confusion. A
watchman was stationed on the keep, whose duty it was to give warning
when the dust, curling on the wind, should betoken the approach of
strangers. The guards were set, the gates properly mounted, and the
drawbridge raised, so that their future lord might be admitted in due
form to his possession.
The sun went gloriously down towards the wide and distant verge of the
forest, and the brow of Pendle flung back his burning glance. Nature
seemed to welter in a wide atmosphere of light, from which there was no
escape. Panting and oppressed, the hounds lay basking by the wall, and
the shaggy wolf-dog crept, with slouching gait and lolling tongue, from
the glare into the shadow of some protecting buttress. The watchman sat
beneath the low battlements, hardly able to direct his aching eyes
towards the forest path below the hill.
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