Jasper Oglander and his son were up betimes on the following morning, and had come down to the lower rooms while yet the housemaids were sweeping up the rushes from the floors and dusting the furniture. Seeing one of the serving-men coming from the buttery Jasper called out to him, commanding him to bring two stoups of small ale. The man was waiting to take the emptied vessels, when the sound of a loud bell clanged through the house. At this Philip Oglander bowed his head and crossed himself; whereupon his father trod upon his toe and frowned at him.
"Thou fool!" said Jasper when the man had left them. "Dost want to betray us so soon? Did I not warn thee an hundred times that these people are all of the Protestant faith--heretics and Lutherans who would but despise us and regard us as enemies did they know that we are of the Holy Church? By the Rood, boy, thy forgetfulness hath nearly cost us dearly, for look at who cometh behind thee--thy cousin Drusilla, a saucy maid, by her favour, and it may be a dangerous."
Drusilla was at the moment descending the broad staircase, carrying a little basket of apples in her one hand, and with the other drawing the hood of her mulberry-coloured cloak over her fair hair. She curtsied low and bade them a good-morrow when she came before them into the front hall.
"Art going abroad so early?" asked her uncle, returning her greeting, and taking up his wide-brimmed hat from the bench where he had dropped it when drinking his cup of small ale. "If so, we would go with thee, for I am fain to show thy cousin what manner of home he hath come to. To have such escort as thine will make our inspection doubly agreeable."
"I was but going to the stables to give these apples to my brother's favourite horse," answered Drusilla. "But if ye would see the grounds I will willingly bear you company."
"And how fares Master Gilbert, prithee?" inquired Jasper, leading the way out into the porchway, and standing there a moment looking out across the terrace and the wide expanse of lawn to the misty woodlands beyond.
"The wound in his arm hath troubled him but little," she answered, "but his sprained ankle hath swollen greatly and is very painful. I fear me it will be many days ere he can leave his bed."