A white face looked out for a moment from the casement, and as quickly ducked within. Then the voice continued its bleating.
"My lords, I will open the door. But forgive the fears of a poor old man in a wide, empty house."
The door opened and a curious figure appeared within. It was a man apparently decrepit and trembling, who in one hand carried a lantern and in the other a staff over which he bent with many wheezings of exhausted breath.
"What would you with a poor old man?" he said.
"We would have shelter and fodder, if it please you to give them to us for the sake of God's grace."
The old man trembled so vehemently that he was in danger of shaking out the rushlight which flickered dismally in his wooden lantern.
"I am a poor, poor man," he quavered; "I have naught in the world save some barley meal and a little water."
"That will do famously," said James Douglas; "we are hungry men, and will pay well for all you give us."
The countenance of the cripple instantly changed. He looked up at the speaker with an alert expression.
"Pay," he said, "pay—did you not say you would pay? Why, I thought you were gentlefolks! Now, by that I know that you are none, but of the commonalty like myself."