"Yes, honourable sir," replied the porter. "But, by my faith, my lord perhaps reckons without his host; for the good priest calculates upon no marriages, baptisms, or burials, to-night; and he is just the man to forget that such a case may happen, and lay in a share of ale or Bordeaux, too large to let any other thoughts enter."
"Oh, he will be sober enough to work matrimony, though he must not undertake it himself," answered Arden. "Ha, ha, ha!"
The porter laughed too, right joyously, saying, "Jack stopped a minute to tell me his errand; and I could not help laughing, to think how suddenly the matter had come on at last."
And, as he spoke, he hung the enormous bunch of heavy keys up by the side of the door, addressing to them the words, "Ay, you are rusty enough to be spared more labour. Nobody will try to get into the castle now-a-days."
"It would be a hard morsel," answered Arden. "But who are those I saw riding up the hill at so much speed?"
"Heaven knows," replied the porter. "There were only two of them; and we shall soon see what they want if they come here. It does those knaves good to make them wait a little. So, by your leave, worshipful sir, I will go and finish my supper."
Sir William Arden still stood near the gate; and a minute or two after a horn without sounded; and the porter, creeping out of his den once more, came forward to demand, through the little iron grate, who it was that asked admission.
"We must see my Lord Chartley immediately," replied the man. "It is on business of great importance."
"Who are you, and what are you?" demanded the porter; "and who is that old woman in white on horseback? We don't admit any witches here."
These words were addressed to a man bearing the appearance of an ordinary servant, with a badge upon his arm; but the janitor, as he spoke the last words, pointed with his hand to the figure of good Ibn Ayoub, who sat his horse like a statue, while all this was going on, wrapped up in his white shroud-like garments, so that little or nothing of face or person was to be seen.