some benches against the walls, two dorseret chairs, one small
table littered with chessmen, and a great iron coffer. In one
corner was a high wickerwork stand, and on it two stately falcons
were perched, silent and motionless, save for an occasional
twinkle of their fierce yellow eyes.

But if the actual fittings of the room would have appeared scanty
to one who had lived in a more luxurious age, he would have been
surprised on looking up to see the multitude of objects which were
suspended above his head. Over the fireplace were the
coats-of-arms of a number of houses allied by blood or by marriage
to the Lorings. The two cresset-lights which flared upon each
side gleamed upon the blue lion of the Percies, the red birds of
de Valence, the black engrailed cross of de Mohun, the silver star
of de Vere, and the ruddy bars of FitzAlan, all grouped round the
famous red roses on the silver shield which the Lorings had borne
to glory upon many a bloody field. Then from side to side the
room was spanned by heavy oaken beams from which a great number of
objects were hanging. There were mail-shirts of obsolete pattern,
several shields, one or two rusted and battered helmets,
bowstaves, lances, otter-spears, harness, fishing-rods, and other
implements of war or of the chase, while higher still amid the
black shadows of the peaked roof could be seen rows of hams,
flitches of bacon, salted geese, and those other forms of
preserved meat which played so great a part in the housekeeping of
the Middle Ages.

Dame Ermyntrude Loring, daughter, wife, and mother of warriors,
was herself a formidable figure. Tall and gaunt, with hard craggy
features and intolerant dark eyes, even her snow-white hair and