avy as
she could carry. She could not understand French, but looked much
interested, and very eager and curious as she brought in several of the
bundles and mails of the travellers.

'Thank the saints,' cried the lady, 'they do not mean to strip us of our
clothes!'

'They have stolen us, and that is enough for them,' said Eleanor.

Jean lay apparently too much exhausted to take notice of what was going
on, and they hoped she might sleep, while they moved about quietly. The
room seemed to be a cell in the hollow of the turret, and there were two
loophole windows, to which Eleanor climbed up, but she could see nothing
but the stars. 'Ah! yonder is the Plough, just as when we looked out at
it at Dunbar o'er the sea!' she sighed. 'The only friendly thing I can
see! Ah! but the same God and the saints are with us still!' and she
clasped her rosary's cross as she returned to her sister, who was
sighing out an entreaty for water.

By and by the woman returned, and with her the child. She made a low
reverence as she entered, having evidently been informed of the rank of
her captives. A white napkin was spread over the great chest that served
for a table--a piece of civilisation such as the Dunbar captivity had
not known--three beechen bowls and spoons, and a porringer containing a
not unsavoury stew of a fowl in broth thickened with meal. They tried
to make their patient swallow a little broth, but without much success,
though Eleanor in the mountain air had become famished enough to make a
hearty meal, and feel more cheered and hopeful after it. Barbe's evident
sympathy and respect were an element of comfort, and when Jean revived
enough to make some inquiry after poor Skywing, and it was translated
into French, there was an assurance that the hawk was cared for--hopes
even given of its presence. Barbe was not only compassionate, but ready
to answer all the questions in her power. She was Burgundian, but her
home having been harried in the wars, her husband had taken service as
a man-at-arms with the Baron of Balchenburg, she herself becoming the
bower-woman of the Baroness, now dead. Since the death of the good lady,
whose influence had been some restraint, everything had become much
rougher and wilder, and the lords of the castle, standing on the
frontier as it did, had become closely connected with the feuds of
Germany as well as the wars in France. The old Baron had been lamed in a
raid into Burgundy, since which time