dividual, was received as a guarantee of
succours from England. S.]

While the boat was rowed up the sluggish waters of the Maes, and passed
the defences of the town, Quentin had time enough to reflect what
account he ought to give of his adventure in Liege, when he returned to
the Bishop's palace of Schonwaldt, and disdaining alike to betray any
person who had reposed confidence in him, although by misapprehension,
or to conceal from the hospitable Prelate the mutinous state of his
capital, he resolved to confine himself to so general an account as
might put the Bishop upon his guard, while it should point out no
individual to his vengeance.

He was landed from the boat, within half a mile of the castle, and
rewarded his rowers with a guilder, to their great satisfaction. Yet,
short as was the space which divided him from Schonwaldt, the castle
bell had tolled for dinner, and Quentin found, moreover, that he had
approached the castle on a different side from that of the principal
entrance, and that to go round would throw his arrival considerably
later. He therefore made straight towards the side that was nearest to
him, as he discerned that it presented an embattled wall, probably that
of the little garden already noticed, with a postern opening upon the
moat, and a skiff moored by the postern, which might serve, he thought,
upon summons, to pass him over. As he approached, in hopes to make his
entrance this way, the postern opened, a man came out, and, jumping into
the boat, made his way to the farther side of the moat, and then, with
a long pole, pushed the skiff back towards the place where he had
embarked. As he came near, Quentin discerned that this person was the
Bohemian, who, avoiding him, as was not difficult, held a different path
towards Liege, and was presently out of his ken.

Here was a new subject for meditation. Had this vagabond heathen been
all this while with the Ladies of Croye, and for what purpose should
they so far have graced him with their presence? Tormented with this
thought, Durward became doubly determined to seek an explanation with
them, for the purpose at once of laying bare the treachery of Hayraddin,
and announcing to them the perilous state in which their protector, the
Bishop, was placed, by the mutinous state of his town of Liege.

As Quentin thus resolved, he entered the castle by the principal gate,
and found that part of the family who assembled for dinner in the
great hall,