and partake of the good cheer before him, without speaking
till the baron should be more intelligible in his demeanour.
The knight and the friar, accordingly, proceeded to refect
themselves after their ride; the baron looking first at the one
and then at the other, scrutinising alternately the serious looks
of the knight and the merry face of the friar, till at length,
having calmed himself sufficiently to speak, he said,
"Courteous knight and ghostly father, I presume you have some
other business with me than to eat my beef and drink my canary;
and if so, I patiently await your leisure to enter on the topic."

"Lord Fitzwater," said Sir Ralph, "in obedience to my royal master,
King Henry, I have been the unwilling instrument of frustrating
the intended nuptials of your fair daughter; yet will you, I trust,
owe me no displeasure for my agency herein, seeing that the noble
maiden might otherwise by this time have been the bride of an outlaw."

"I am very much obliged to you, sir," said the baron;
"very exceedingly obliged. Your solicitude for my daughter is
truly paternal, and for a young man and a stranger very singular
and exemplary: and it is very kind withal to come to the relief
of my insufficiency and inexperience, and concern yourself
so much in that which concerns you not."

"You misconceive the knight, noble baron," said the friar.
"He urges not his reason in the shape of a preconceived intent,
but in that of a subsequent extenuation. True, he has done
the lady Matilda great wrong----"

"How, great wrong?" said the baron. "What do you mean by great wrong?