notice had no name that his companions knew of, and was chiefly
distinguished by a sneer that always contorted his thin visage, and by
a prodigious pair of spectacles which were supposed to deform and
discolor the whole face of nature to this gentleman's perception. The
fifth adventurer likewise lacked a name, which was the greater pity,
as he appeared to be a poet. He was a bright-eyed man, but woefully
pined away, which was no more than natural if, as some people
affirmed, his ordinary diet was fog, morning mist and a slice of the
densest cloud within his reach, sauced with moonshine whenever he
could get it. Certain it is that the poetry which flowed from him had
a smack of all these dainties. The sixth of the party was a young man
of haughty mien and sat somewhat apart from the rest, wearing his
plumed hat loftily among his elders, while the fire glittered on the
rich embroidery of his dress and gleamed intensely on the jewelled
pommel of his sword. This was the lord De Vere, who when at home was
said to spend much of his time in the burial-vault of his dead
progenitors rummaging their mouldy coffins in search of all the
earthly pride and vainglory that was hidden among bones and dust; so
that, besides his own share, he had the collected haughtiness of his
whole line of ancestry. Lastly, there was a handsome youth in rustic
garb, and by his side a blooming little person in whom a delicate
shade of maiden reserve was just melting into the rich glow of a young
wife's affection. Her name was Hannah, and her husband's Matthew--two
homely names, yet well enough adapted to the simple pair who seemed
strangely out of place among the whimsical fraternity whose wits had
been set agog by the Great Carbuncle.

Beneath the shelter of one hut, in the bright blaze of the same fire,
sat this varied group of adventurers, all so intent upon a single
object that of whatever else they began to speak their closing words