Meantime, so great was the expectation and interest that it was not until the minister had moved from the table that the first communicants began to come up to the two white-hung benches, left empty till now, next to the table.
* * * * * Then those who still watched, and who spread the tale about afterwards, saw that the squire did not move from his seat to kneel down.

He had put off his hat again after the homily, and had so sat ever since; and now that the minister came to him, still there he sat.
Now such a manner of receiving was not unknown; yet it was the sign of a Puritan; and, so far from the folk expecting such behaviour in their squire, they had looked rather for Popish gestures, knockings on the breast, signs of the cross.
For a moment the minister stood before the seat, as if doubtful what to do.

He held the plate in his left hand and a fragment of bread in his fingers.

Then, as he began the words he had to say, one thing at least the people saw, and that was that a great flush dyed the old man's face, though he sat quiet.

Then, as the minister held out the bread, the squire seemed to recover himself; he put out his fingers quickly, took the bread sharply and put it into his mouth; and so sat again, until the minister brought the cup; and this, too, he drank of quickly, and gave it back.
Then, as the communicants, one by one, took the bread and wine and went back to their seats, man after man glanced up at the squire.
But the squire sat there, motionless and upright, like a figure cut of stone.
IV The court of the manor seemed deserted half an hour before dinner-time.
There was a Sabbath stillness in the air to-day, sweetened, as it were, by the bubbling of bird-music in the pleasaunce behind the hall and the high woods beyond.