their stalls, the rattle of their head-ropes, and the
pawing of their feet. He dared not light a lamp, but horses as a rule
knew him for a friend. He went into the stall of the first, petted it
for a moment and ran his hand down its legs. He repeated the process
with the second, and with so much investigation he was content. No
farm-horse that ever Wogan had seen had such a smooth sleek skin or
such fine legs as had those two over which he had passed his hands. "Now
where are the masters of those horses?" he asked himself. "Why do they
leave their cattle at this inn and not show themselves in the kitchen or
the courtyard? Why do they not ask for a couple of my rooms?" Wogan
stood in the dark and reflected. Then he stepped out of the door with
even more caution than he had used when entering by it. He stole
silently along to the shed where his trap was housed, and felt beneath
the seat. From beneath the seat he drew out a coil of rope, and a lamp.
The rope he wound about him under his coat. Then he went back to his
staircase and the parlour.

Clementina could read in his face that something was amiss, but she had
a great gift of silence. She waited for him to speak. Wogan unwound the
coil of rope from his body.

"Your Highness laughed at me for that I would not part with my rope. I
have a fear this night will prove my wisdom." And with that he began
deliberately to break up the chairs in the room. Clementina asked no
questions; she watched him take the rungs and bars of the chairs and
test their strength. Then he cut the coil of rope in half and tied loops
at intervals; into the loops he fitted the wooden rungs. Wogan worked
expeditiously for an hour without opening his mouth. In an hour he had
fashioned a rope-ladder. He went to the window which looked out on the
back of the wing, upon the little thicket of fir-trees. He opened the
window cautiously and dropped the ladder down the wall.

"Your Highness has courage," said he. "The ladder does not touch the
ground, but it will not be far to drop, should there be need."

The window of Clementina's bedroom was next to that of the parlour and
looked out in the same direction. Wogan fixed the rope-ladder securely
to the foot of the bed and drew the bed close to the window. He left the
lamp upon a chair and went back to the parlour and explained.

"Your Highness," he added, "there may be no cause for any alarm. On the
other hand, the Governor of Trent may have taken a lea