With a clearer conscience he went about unbuckling his armor and bedecking himself in the rich finery that had been so thoughtfully provided for him. Sir Richard was the last guest to come down the wide stairway to the floor of the hall. Along each balustrade was a row of carved sockets in which wax torches had been set, and when the young knight stepped slowly down between their soft light, full many a languishing glance sped upward toward him; full many a feminine heart beat in a perfect rhythm with his tread upon the gray stone steps.
Following Sir Richard's appearance there was a concerted movement in the direction of the dining hall, with Lord Douglas, Lady Anna, and the belated arrival in the lead. The room in which the feast of Crispian had been spread was of vast dimensions. Its ceiling seemed low in comparison with its great length and breadth, and was paneled in highly polished red cedar. Wainscoting of the same wood, extending to a height of five feet above the floor, stretched around its four sides. Above this the walls were covered with rich tapestries, with designs woven in arras, representing a brave array of martial scenes, pictures of the chase and conflicts within the lists. Stretching from end to end of the hall stood the magnificently decorated table, which had been spread with lavish and bountiful hands. Forty wax torches shed a bright glow over the scene of princely festivities.
Sir Richard was indeed the guest of honor, having a seat above the salt between the lord and lady of the castle. A silken canopy, depending from gilded chains fastened to the ceiling, swung just above their heads. Musicians, dressed in the fantastic garb of the troubadours of that time, filled the room with delightful melodies. Merrily the feast progressed, with constantly augmenting talk and laughter as the delicately chased silver flagons emptied their sparkling streams into the tankards held beneath them. There was wassail on wassail, downed amid the tinkling of golden cups and the hoarse bellowing of bearded, tipsy knights. Sir Richard took his full measure of enjoyment out of the occasion, though he suffered a secret regret because of his inability to keep up his end with some of the old campaigners in the matter of the drink. Even now he was sensible of the fact that surrounding objects were assuming an exaggerated brilliancy and beauty, combined with a certain vagueness that rendered their charm indefinably more alluring. He felt his blood coursing like molten silver through his veins. His only outward manifestations of the wine's stimulating influence, however, were a fastidious politeness and solicitous interest on behalf of those about him.
When Lady Anna pressed his foot softly beneath the board, the young knight again committed the sin of being untrue to the cutting of saffron velvet.
"'Tis now your turn to give us wassail, Richard," said she, with a slight uplifting of her brows that went to his head with a greater effect than the wine.
"Give thee all bonnie Scotland, ... her good sovereign, ... Lord Douglas, our good host, the lovely Lady Anna, and the King of England," Sir Richard shouted, getting to his feet, with brimming glass stretched half across the table.
A brawny knight, dressed handsomely in brown leather slashed with crimson velvet, reached across and rudely struck his hand, slopping a good portion of the wine about among the guests. Without a moment's hesitation Sir Richard gave his insulter the remainder of it in his face, amid a transitory silence, profound and tomblike.
Followed then, upon the instant, the excited babbling of many voices, from which entanglement of sound Sir Richard contrived to isolate the fact that he had been challenged, and that they were to meet in the castle yard at dawning of that morning.
"There are here, around this board to-night, a dozen better blades than he," Lady Anna whispered low in the young knight's ear when something approaching order had been restored. "For my sake, Richard, you must not fail to vanquish him," she added, with another pressure of her dainty foot.