come back with my lord in a
few days. We are to be tolerated; we are not to be persecuted. But they
may take a fancy to pay a visit at Castlewood ere our return; and, as
gentlemen of my cloth are suspected, they might choose to examine my
papers, which concern nobody--at least not them." And to this day,
whether the papers in cipher related to politics, or to the affairs of
that mysterious society whereof Father Holt was a member, his pupil,
Harry Esmond, remains in entire ignorance.

The rest of his goods Father Holt left untouched on his shelves and in
his cupboard, taking down--with a laugh, however--and flinging into the
brazier, where he only half burned them, some theological treatises which
he had been writing. "And now," said he, "Henry, my son, you may testify,
with a safe conscience, that you saw me burning Latin sermons the last
time I was here before I went away to London; and it will be daybreak
directly, and I must be away before Lockwood is stirring."

"Will not Lockwood let you out, sir?" Esmond asked. Holt laughed; he
was never more gay or good-humoured than when in the midst of action
or danger.

"Lockwood knows nothing of my being here, mind you," he said; "nor would
you, you little wretch! had you slept better. You must forget that I have
been here; and now farewell. Close the door, and go to your own room, and
don't come out till--stay, why should you not know one secret more? I
know you will never betray me."

In the Chaplain's room were two windows, the one looking into the court
facing westwards to the fountain, the other a small casement strongly
barred, and looking onto the green in front of the Hall. This window was
too high to reach from the ground; but, mounting on a buffet which stood
beneath it, Father Holt showed Harry how, by pressing on the base of the
window, the whole framework descended into a cavity worked below, from
which it could be restored to its usual place from without, a broken pane
being purposely open to admit the hand which was to work upon the spring
of the machine.

"When I am gone," Father Holt said, "you may push away the buffet, so
that no one may fancy that an exit has been made that way; lock the door;
place the key--where shall we put the key?--under 'Chrysostom' on the
book shelf; and if any ask for it, say I keep it there, and told you
where to find it, if you had need to go to my room. The descent is easy
down the wall into the ditch; and so once more fare