"No, sir," replied the man; "I have been awake these ten minutes."
"Did you hear any one speak just now?" demanded Woodville.
"To be sure I did," answered Dyram. "Some one called you by your name: it was that which roused me. They asked about the maiden, Ella, and bade you beware. Foul fall them! we have witches near."
Richard of Woodville instantly sprang from his bed, and advanced towards the casement. The moon was still shining; but when the young gentleman gazed forth, all without was in the still quiet of midnight. He could see the court of the hostel, and the angle of the building, formed by a sort of wing which projected from the rest, close to where he stood; but all was calm; and not a creature seemed stirring. He looked up to the windows in the wing, but there was no light in any.
"Whence did the sound seem to come, Ned?" he asked.
"It seemed in the room," replied the man. "Shall I strike a light? I have always wherewithal about me."
Richard of Woodville bade him do so; and a lamp was soon lighted. But Ned Dyram and his master searched the room in vain; and the other two inhabitants of the chamber slept soundly through all. At length, puzzled and disappointed, Woodville retired to bed again, and the light was extinguished; but the young gentleman did not sleep for some hours, listening eagerly for any sound. None made itself heard through the rest of the night, but the hard breathing of the sleeping yeomen; and, after watching till near morning, slumber once more fell upon Woodville's eyes, and he did not wake till the sun had been up an hour. The yeomen had already quitted the room without his having perceived it; and, dressing himself in haste, he proceeded to inquire of the host what strangers had lodged in his house during the preceding night, besides himself and his own attendants?
"None, but a party of monks and nuns," the man replied, through the interpretation of Ella Brune, whom Woodville had called to his aid.
"Ask him, Ella, of what country they were," said Richard of Woodville. But the man replied to Ella's question, that they were all Hainaulters, except two who came from Friesland; and that they were going on a pilgrimage to Rome.
Richard of Woodville was more puzzled than ever. For a moment he suspected that Ned Dyram might have played some trick upon him; for, notwithstanding the bluntness of that worthy personage, a doubt of his being really as honest and straightforward as the King believed him, had entered into Woodville's mind, he knew not well why. Reflecting, however, on the fact of Ned Dyram having encouraged Ella Brune to accompany them to the Continent, notwithstanding the opposite advice given by his master, the young gentleman soon rejected that suspicion, and remained as much troubled to account for what had occurred as before.