She gazed on him for a moment in serious silence, and then merely replied--"It is very strange!" Hugh de Mortmar cast himself down again by her side, and once more pressed her to sing; but it was in vain. Alice was agitated and alarmed; and finding it impossible to shake off her terror, she besought her uncle to break up the party and return to the castle, notwithstanding assurances from all that she must have been deceived by the waving of some of the boughs, or the misty spray of the cataract.
Finding, at length, that to reason with her was fruitless, her uncle agreed to return; and the horses being led forward, the whole party remounted, and, with their hawks once more upon their hands, made the best of their way back towards the castle of Hannut. For the first two or three miles, Alice continued anxiously to watch every opening of the trees on either side of the road; remaining in such a state of alarm, that her falcon's wings were continually flapping, from the agitated haste with which she turned to gaze on every object that they passed on the road. It was only when they came within sight of the vassal town, and the castle on its high rock, about half a mile beyond, that she seemed to consider herself in safety; and the long, deep breath she drew, as they passed through the barbacan, announced what a load was taken off her mind when she found herself within the walls of her uncle's castle.
"You have dwelt so long in cities, dear Alice," said the Lord of Hannut, laughing, "that the forest is a strange world to you; and your imagination peoples it with creatures of its own. I shall write to your father, my good Lord of Imbercourt, to say, that he must leave you many a month with me yet, till we have cured you of seeing these wild men of the woods."
"Nay, uncle," replied the young lady, who had by this time recovered her playful spirits, and looked up in his face as she spoke, with a smile of arch meaning; "if I were to be terrified with imaginary things, I can tell you I should not have come at all; for my maids have got many a goodly story of the castle of Hannut and its forest, ay, and of its lord to boot; and, on the morning after our arrival, I found that they had all burnt shoes and twisted necks, with sitting the whole of the night before, with their feet in the fire and their heads turned over their shoulders."
The Lord of Hannut heard her with a melancholy smile. "And hadst thou no fear thyself, my fair Alice?" he demanded; "didst thy imagination never fill the dark end of the chamber with sprites and hobgoblins?"
"Nay, nay, in truth, not I!" replied the young lady; "such things have no terrors for me; but, when I saw three armed men looking down upon us in the forest, and thought that there might be thirty more behind, there was some cause for terror."
The Lord of Hannut and Hugh de Mortmar--in whom the reader has, doubtless, by this time discovered that Hugh of Guildres, who, twenty years before, was found sleeping by the cascade--looked at each other with a meaning smile, but replied nothing; and, indeed, the conversation was here brought to a conclusion by a variety of unwonted sounds which now suddenly rose up from the forest below. Seldom was it, in truth, that those wild woods rang with the clang of charging horse, and echoed to the blast of the trumpets; but such was the case in the present instance; and, as the sounds came borne upon the wind through the open windows, the brow of the Lord of Hannut darkened, and his eye flashed, while the cheek of the younger cavalier flushed as if with anger.
"By the Lord! our fair Alice is right, it would seem!" cried Hugh de Mortmar; "there are more men in the wood than we thought for. What, ho! warder!" he exclaimed, leaning from the narrow window and shouting to some one stationed in the gallery of a tall slender tower, which, more like some Moorish minaret than anything else, rose, towering above all the others on the opposite side of the court-yard. "What, ho! warder, what seest thou down in the woods below? By the Lord! there is another blast," he added, as the trumpets again echoed through the woods.
The next moment the loud voice of the warder was heard in reply: "I see a plump of spears under the arms of Burgundy, running down a handful of the green riders; but they have not caught them yet. They come closer: they come closer," he added; "but the riders make face; they turn again, and spur on; the men-at-arms are thrown out; but I can see no more, my lord; they have all got beneath the haggard hill."
"Sound the ban-cloche, ho!" exclaimed the young cavalier: "arm, and saddle! arm, and saddle, below there!" he continued, shouting to some of the groups who were assembled in the court-yard. "I would fain see who it is," he added, turning to the Lord of Hannut, "who dares to hunt down any men in these woods, your free domain, without your good leave, my lord."