r at the
gate. "I have his orders to wait upon him."

"What is your name and condition?"

"That matters not. I am here by the earl's orders. He sent me a ring,
by which it might be known that I am authorized to have access to him."

On seeing the ring, the warder at once called to one of the servitors,
and bade him conduct Oswald to the earl's apartment.

"Whom shall I say?" he asked, when he reached the door.

"Give this ring to him, and say that the bearer awaits admittance to
him."

The man entered the room and then, opening the door again, motioned to
Oswald to enter. The earl, a tall and powerfully-built man, looked with
a keen scrutiny at him.

"From whom come you, young sir?"

"From the holder of that ring, my Lord Earl," Oswald said, presenting
the ring that Percy had given him. "My name is Oswald Forster, and I
have the honour to be one of Lord Percy's esquires."

"Come you alone?" the earl asked.

"I came with a companion, a monk. I was in the disguise of a young
servitor of his convent. We came on foot from Roxburgh."

He then unscrewed the handle of a dagger Percy had given him, for the
purpose, and pulled out a small roll of paper, which he handed to the
earl. It contained only the following words:

"Do not intrust undue confidence in the bearer. The matters you wot of
are in good train; of them my messenger knows nothing."

"This was so writ by Sir Henry Percy," said Oswald, "in order that, if
I were detained and searched on the way, and this paper found on me, I
might not be forced, by torture, to say aught of my message."

"But this signet ring would have shown to whom you were coming."

"It was concealed in my staff, my lord, and could not have been
discovered, had not that been split open. Had it been so, I should have
admitted that Lord Percy had indeed committed the signet and the
writing to me to carry, and had bid me travel as the servitor of a monk
on his journey north; but that, more than that these were to be
delivered to you, I knew nothing. Lord Percy selected me as his
messenger partly because, from my youth, I should not be likely to be
suspected of being a messenger between two great lords; and in the
second place because, if arrested, and these matters found on me, the
statement in the letter would be readily believed. It would not be
supposed that important state secrets would be committed to a lad, like
myself."

The earl made no reply, for a time, but sat with his ey