noon
The stirring events which had within the last few weeks diversified the quiet life of the scholar had somewhat roused him from his wonted abstraction , and made the actual world a more sensible and living thing than it had hitherto seemed to his mind ; but now , his repast ended , the quiet of the place -LRB- for the inn was silent and almost deserted -RRB- with the fumes of the wine -- a luxury he rarely tasted -- operated soothingly upon his thought and fancy , and plunged him into those reveries , so dear alike to poet and mathematician . To the thinker the most trifling external object often suggests ideas , which , like Homer 's chain , extend , link after link ; from earth to heaven . The sunny motes , that in a glancing column came through the lattice , called Warner from the real day , -- the day of strife and blood , with thousands hard by driving each other to the Hades , -- and led his scheming fancy into the ideal and abstract day , -- the theory of light itself ; and the theory suggested mechanism , and mechanism called up the memory of his oracle , old Roger Bacon ; and that memory revived the great friar 's hints in the Opus magnus , -- hints which outlined the grand invention of the telescope ; and so , as over some dismal precipice a bird swings itself to and fro upon the airy bough , the schoolman 's mind played with its quivering fancy , and folded its calm wings above the verge of terror . Occupied with her own dreams , Sibyll respected those of her father ; and so in silence , not altogether mournful , the morning and the noon passed , and the sun was sloping westward , when a confused sound below called Sibyll 's gaze to the lattice , which looked over the balustrade of the staircase into the vast yard . She saw several armed men , their harness hewed and battered , quaffing ale or wine in haste , and heard one of them say to the landlord , -- `` All is lost ! Sir Geoffrey Gates still holds out , but it is butcher work . The troops of Lord Hastings gather round him as a net round the fish ! ''