And as Robin turned to listen, he beheld the strangely contrasted party lounging slowly along the castle yard, with the indolent gait of men having little to do save to eat, to drink, to sleep, and to gossip, while around them the lazy hours of the silent castle-walls dragged onward with wings of lead.
“Talk not to me of thrift, sir steward,” cried the bluff-faced and thick-headed huntsman. “When my Lord, Count Julian, was well—not a day passed but a lusty buck was steaming on the castle hearth—”
“Wine flowed like water,” chimed in the soldier with the fiery nose. “Your true soldier swore by his beaker alone—”
“Now!” interrupted the sharp-faced steward, waving his thin hands, and with an expressive shrug of the shoulders; “now, my lord the Count is sick. The scholar Aldarin hath the rule. Tell me, sir huntsman, and you, sir, of the fiery nose, is there any waste o’ flesh or liquor in the castle? Is not the signer careful of the beeves of my lord. No longer are we quiet folks disturbed by your carousings: no silly dances, no rude catches o’ vile camp-follower songs! By the Virgin, no!”
“By the true wood o’ th’ cross, sir steward, thou’rt a rare one!” growled a white-haired esquire, as his scarred and sunburnt visage was turned angrily toward the sharp-faced steward. “Dost think men o’ mettle are made o’ such broomstick bones and mud-puddle blood as thou? Body o’ Bacchus, no! ‘No carousing!’ I’d e’en like to see thee on a jolly carouse!”
“Say rather, sir esquire,” Robin the Rough exclaimed, as the party reached his side, “say rather, you’d e’en wish to see a death’s-head making mirth at a feast, or a funeral procession strike up a jolly fandango! Sir steward at a feast!—the owl at a gathering o’ nightingales!”
The sharped-faced steward was about to make an angry reply, when a sudden thrill ran through the party. Each tongue was stilled, and each man stood motionless in the full glare of the noon-day sun.
“Hist! The Signor Aldarin approaches,” whispered the page Guiseppo. “He comes from the castle gate along to the castle hall.”
And as each head was stealthily turned over the shoulder toward the castle gate, there came gliding along, with cat-like steps and downcast look, a man of severe aspect, whose gray eye—cold, flashing, and clear, in its unchangeable glance—seemed as though it could read the very heart.
A tunic of dark velvet, disclosing the spare outlines of his slim figure, reached to his ankles, and over this garment, depending from his right shoulder, he wore a robe of similar color, passed under his left arm, joined in front by a chain of gold, and then falling in sweeping folds to his sandaled feet.