no wise astonished that the priest should now appear before him in a riding-dress, with large buff leather boots, and a feather to his hat, plain, but such as gentlemen wore.

"You know the secret of the cupboard," said he, laughing, "and must be prepared for other mysteries"; and he opened a wardrobe, which he usually kept locked, but from which he now took out two or three dresses and wigs of different colours, and a couple of swords, a military coat and cloak, and a farmer's smock, and placed them in the large hole over the mantelpiece from which the papers had been taken.

"If they miss the cupboard," he said, "they will not find these; if they find them, they'll tell no tales, except that Father Holt wore more suits of clothes than one. All Jesuits do. You know what deceivers we are, Harry."

Harry was alarmed at the notion that his friend was about to leave him; but "No," the priest said, "I may very likely come back with my lord in a few days. We are to be tolerated; we are not to be persecuted. But they may take a fancy to pay a visit at Castlewood ere our return; and, as gentlemen of my cloth are suspected, they might choose to examine my papers, which concern nobody—at least not them." And to this day, whether the papers in cipher related to politics, or to the affairs of that mysterious society whereof Father Holt was a member, his pupil, Harry Esmond, remains in entire ignorance.

The rest of his goods Father Holt left untouched on his shelves and in his cupboard, taking down—with a laugh, however—and flinging into the brazier, where he only half burned them, some theological treatises which he had been writing. "And now," said he, "Henry, my son, you may testify, with a safe conscience, that you saw me burning Latin sermons the last time I was here before I went away to London; and it will be daybreak directly, and I must be away before Lockwood is stirring."

"Will not Lockwood let you out, sir?" Esmond asked. Holt laughed; he was never more gay or good-humoured than when in the midst of action or danger.

"Lockwood knows nothing of my being here, mind you," he said; "nor would you, you little wretch! had you slept better. You must forget that I have been here; and now farewell. Close the door, and go to your own room, and don't come out till—stay, why should you not know one secret more? I know you will never betray me."

In the Chaplain's room were two windows, the one looking into the court facing westwards to the fountain, the other a small casement strongly barred, and looking onto the green in front of the Hall. This window was too high to reach from the ground; but, mounting on a buffet which stood beneath it, Father Holt showed Harry how, by pressing on the base of the window, the whole framework descended into a cavity worked below, from which it could be restored to its usual place from without, a broken pane being purposely open to admit the hand which was to work upon the spring of the machine.

"When I am gone," Father Holt said, "you may push away the buffet, so that no one may fancy that an exit has been made that way; lock the door; place the key—where shall we put the key?—under 'Chrysostom' on the book shelf; and if any ask for it, say I keep it there, and told you where to find it, if you had need to go to my room. The descent is easy down the wall into the ditch; and so once more farewell, until I see thee again, my dear son."

And with this the intrepid Father mounted the buffet with great agility and briskness, stepped across the window, lifting up the bars and framework again from the other side, and only leaving room for Harry Esmond to stand on tiptoe and kiss his hand before the casement closed, the bars fixing as firmly as ever, seemingly, in the stone arch overhead.

Esmond, young as he was, would have died sooner than betray his friend and master, as Mr. Holt well knew; so, then, when Holt was gone, and told Harry not to see him, it was as if he had never been. And he had this answer pat when he came to be questioned a few days later.

The Prince of Orange was then at Salisbury, as young Esmond learned from seeing Dr. Tusher in his best cassock, with a great orange cockade in his broad-leafed hat, and Nahun, his clerk, ornamented with a like decoration. The Doctor was walking up and down in front of his parsonage when little Esmond saw him and heard him say he was going to Salisbury to pay his duty to his Highness the Prince. The village people had orange cockades too, and his friend, the blacksmith's laughing daughter, pinned one into Harry's old hat, which he tore out indignantly when they bade him to cry "God save the Prince of Orange and the Protestant religion!" But the people only laughed, for they liked the boy in the village, where his solitary condition moved the general pity, and where he found friendly welcomes and faces in many houses.

It was while Dr. Tusher was away at Salisbury that there came a troop of dragoons with orange scarfs, and quartered in Castlewood, and some of them came up to the Hall, where they took possession, robbing nothing, however, beyond the hen-house and the beer-cellar: and only insisting upon going through the house and looking for papers. The first room they asked to look at was Father Holt's room, where they opened the drawers and cupboards, and tossed over the papers and clothes, but found nothing except his books and clothes, and the vestments in a box by themselves, with which the dragoons made merry, to Harry Esmond's horror. To the questions which the gentlemen put to Harry, he replied that Father Holt was a very kind man to him, and a very learned man, and Harry supposed would tell him none of his secrets if he had any. He was about eleven years old at that time, and looked as innocent as boys of his age.

A kingdom was changing hands whilst my lord and lady were away. King James was flying; the Dutchmen were coming; awful stories about them and the Prince of Orange Mrs. Worksop used to tell to the idle little page, who enjoyed the exciting narratives. The family were away more than six months, and when they returned they were in the deepest state of dejection, for King James had been banished, the Prince of Orange was on the throne, and the direst persecutions of those of the Catholic faith were apprehended by my lady, who said that she did not believe there was a word of truth in the promises of toleration that Dutch monster made, or a single word the perjured wretch said. My lord and lady being loyal followers of the banished king, were in a manner prisoners in their own house, so her ladyship gave the little page to know, who was by this time growing of an age to understand what was passing about him, and something of the character of the people he lived with.

Father Holt came to the Hall constantly, but officiated no longer openly as chaplain. 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 secret window in Father Holt's room, though how often 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 he 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 lookout on the great gate, and those who went out and in.