Chapter 14

Sometimes, methinks, I hear the groans of ghosts,
Then hollow sounds and lamentable screams;
Then, like a dying echo from afar,
My mother's voice, that cries, "Wed not, Almeyda--
Forewanvd, Almeyda, marriage is thy crime."
DON SEBASTIAN.

The evening at Baldringham would have seemed of portentous and
unendurable length, had it not been that apprehended danger makes
times pass quickly betwixt us and the dreaded hour, and that if
Eveline felt little interested or amused by the conversation of
her aunt and Berwine, which turned upon the long deduction of
their ancestors from the warlike Horsa, and the feats of Saxon
champions, and the miracles of Saxon monks, she was still better
pleased to listen to these legends, than to anticipate her retreat
to the destined and dreaded apartment where she was to pass the
night. There lacked not, however, such amusement as the house of
Baldringham could afford, to pass away the evening. Blessed by a

grave old Saxon monk, the chaplain of the house, a sumptuous
entertainment, which might have sufficed twenty hungry men, was
served up before Ermengarde and her niece, whose sole assistants,
beside the reverend man, were Berwine and Rose Flammock. Eveline
was the less inclined to do justice to this excess of hospitality,
that the dishes were all of the gross and substantial nature which
the Saxons admired, but which contrasted disadvantageously with
the refined and delicate cookery of the Normans, as did the
moderate cup of light and high-flavoured Gascon wine, tempered
with more than half its quantity of the purest water, with the
mighty ale, the high-spiced pigment and hippocras, and the other
potent liquors, which, one after another, were in vain proffered
for her acceptance by the steward Hundwolf, in honour of the
hospitality of Baldringham.

Neither were the stated amusements of evening more congenial to
Eveline's taste, than the profusion of her aunt's solid refection.
When the boards and tresses, on which the viands had been served,
were withdrawn from the apartment, the menials, under direction of
the steward, proceeded to light several long waxen torches, one of
which was graduated for the purpose of marking the passing time,
and dividing it into portions. These were announced by means of
brazen balls, suspended by threads from the torch, the spaces
betwixt them being calculated to occupy a certain time in burning;
so that, when the flame reached the thread, and the balls fell,
each in succession, into a brazen basin placed for its reception,
the office of a modern clock was in some degree discharged. By
this light the party was arranged for the evening.

The ancient Ermengarde's lofty and ample chair was removed,