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 porter's lodge, where the fellow had not fastened his door that led into the court; and pistol in hand came upon the terrified wretch, and bade him be silent. Then they asked him (Esmond's head reeled, and he almost fell as he spoke) when Lord Castlewood had arrived? He said on the previous evening, about eight of the clock.—“And what then?”—His lordship supped with his sister.—“Did the man wait?” Yes, he and my lady's maid both waited: the other servants made the supper; and there was no wine, and they could give his lordship but milk, at which he grumbled; and—and Madam Beatrix kept Miss Lucy always in the room with her. And there being a bed across the court in the Chaplain's room, she had arranged my lord was to sleep there. Madam Beatrix had come down stairs laughing with the maids, and had locked herself in, and my lord had stood for a while talking to her through the door, and she laughing at him. And then he paced the court awhile, and she came again to the upper window; and my lord implored her to come down and walk in the room; but she would not, and laughed at him again, and shut the window; and so my lord, uttering what seemed curses, but in a foreign language, went to the Chaplain's room to bed.