esty will never be groom to a traitor's posset.' The
royal exile smiled, even in the midst of his misfortune; he deigned to
raise me with words of consolation. The Viscount, my husband, himself,
could not be angry at the august salute with which he honored me!"

The public misfortune had the effect of making my lord and his lady
better friends than they ever had been since their courtship. My
lord Viscount had shown both loyalty and spirit, when these were rare
qualities in the dispirited party about the King; and the praise he got
elevated him not a little in his wife's good opinion, and perhaps in his
own. He wakened up from the listless and supine life which he had been
leading; was always riding to and fro in consultation with this friend
or that of the King's; the page of course knowing little of his doings,
but remarking only his greater cheerfulness and altered demeanor.

Father Holt came to the Hall constantly, but officiated no longer openly
as chaplain; he was always fetching and carrying: strangers, military
and ecclesiastic (Harry knew the latter, though they came in all sorts
of disguises), were continually arriving and departing. My lord made
long absences and sudden reappearances, using sometimes the means of
exit which Father Holt had employed, though how often the little window
in the Chaplain's room let in or let out my lord and his friends, Harry
could not tell. He stoutly kept his promise to the Father of not prying,
and if at midnight from his little room he heard noises of persons
stirring in the next chamber, he turned round to the wall, and hid his
curiosity under his pillow until it fell asleep. Of course he could
not help remarking that the priest's journeys were constant, and
understanding by a hundred signs that some active though secret business
employed him: what this was may pretty well be guessed by what soon
happened to my lord.

No garrison or watch was put into Castlewood when my lord came back, but
a Guard was in the village; and one or other of them was always on the
Green keeping a look-out on our great gate, and those who went out and
in. Lockwood said that at night especially every person who came in or
went out was watched by the outlying sentries. 'Twas lucky that we had
a gate which their Worships knew nothing about. My lord and Father Holt
must have made constant journeys at night: once or twice little Harry
acted as their messenger and discreet little aide-de-camp. He rememb