Ella looked round, and beheld the man whom she had found speaking with the porter a moment before, bending his brows sternly upon the servant of Sir Simeon Roydon, whom she had seen watching near the hermitage of St. Catherine, as she passed up the Strand. The latter, however, seemed to be animated by no very pugnacious spirit, for he merely replied, "Methinks one man has a right to walk the high road to London as well as another."
But he did not proceed to enforce this right by following the course he had been pursuing; and, crossing over from the south to the north side of the way, he was soon lost amongst the low shops and small houses which there occupied the middle of the road.
"I will ride along beside you, fair maiden," said Ned Dyram, for he it was who had come up, "though I should not wonder, from what the porter told me just now, if you were the person I am looking for."
He spoke civilly and gravely; and Ella replied, with a bright smile, "Ha! perhaps it is so; for he said he would send. Whom do you come from?"
"I come from Richard of Woodville," answered the man; "and I am sent to a maiden named Ella Brune, living not far up the new street somewhat beyond the Old Temple, in an hostelry called the Falcon."
"'Tis I--'tis I!" cried Ella. "Oh! I am glad to see you."
Her bright eyes lighted up, and her fair face glowed with an expression of joy and satisfaction, which added in no small degree to its loveliness; for, though we hear much of beauty in distress being heightened by tears, yet there is an inherent harmony between man's heart and joy, which makes the expression thereof always more pleasant to the eye than that of any other emotion.
Ned Dyram gazed at her with admiration, but withdrew his eyes the moment after, and resumed a more sober look. "I will give you all his messages by and by," he said, "for I shall lodge at the Falcon to-night, and have much to say. But yet I may as well tell you a part as we go along," he continued, dismounting from his horse, and taking the bridle on his arm. "First, fair maiden, I was to ask how you fared, and what you intended to do?"
"I have fared ill and well," answered Ella Brune; "but that is a long story, and I will relate it to you afterwards; for that I can talk of, though the people of the house should be present; but what I am to do is a deeper question, and I know not well how to answer it. I have friends at the court of Burgundy--"
"What, then, are you of noble race, lady?" asked Ned Dyram, in an altered tone.