t-houses, when a tall young gentleman in a grey suit, with a
light-brown periwig, just the colour of my lord's, had been seen to pass.
He had set off at six that morning, and we at three in the afternoon. He
rode almost as quickly as we had done; he was seven hours ahead of us
still when we reached the last stage.

We rode over Castlewood Downs before the breaking of dawn. We passed the
very spot where the car was upset fourteen years since; and Mohun lay. The
village was not up yet, nor the forge lighted, as we rode through it,
passing by the elms, where the rooks were still roosting, and by the
church, and over the bridge. We got off our horses at the bridge and
walked up to the gate.

"If she is safe," says Frank, trembling, and his honest eyes filling with
tears, "a silver statue to Our Lady!" He was going to rattle at the great
iron knocker on the oak gate; but Esmond stopped his kinsman's hand. He
had his own fears, his own hopes, his own despairs and griefs, too: but he
spoke not a word of these to his companion, or showed any signs of
emotion.

He went and tapped at the little window at the porter's lodge, gently, but
repeatedly, until the man came to the bars.

"Who's there?" says he, looking out; it was the servant from Kensington.

"My Lord Castlewood and Colonel Esmond," we said, from below. "Open the
gate and let us in without any noise."

"My Lord Castlewood?" says the other; "my lord's here, and in bed."

"Open, d--n you," says Castlewood, with a curse.

"I shall open to no one," says the man, shutting the glass window as Frank
drew a pistol. He would have fired at the porter, but Esmond again held
his hand.

"There are more ways than one," says he, "of entering such a great house
as this." Frank grumbled that the west gate was half a mile round. "But I
know of a way that's not a hundred yards off," says Mr. Esmond; and
leading his kinsman close along the wall, and by the shrubs, which had now
grown thick on what had been an old moat about the house, they came to the
buttress, at the side of which the little window was, which was Father
Holt's private door. Esmond climbed up to this easily, broke a pane that
had been mended, and touched the spring inside, and the two gentlemen
passed in that way, treading as lightly as they could; and so going
through the passage into the court, over which the dawn was now reddening,
and where the fountain plashed in the silence.

They sped instantly to the por