own door, saw a light inside
Father Holt's room, and a figure standing in the doorway, in the midst of
a great smoke which issued from the room.

"Who's there?" cried out the boy.

"_Silentium!_" whispered the other; "'tis I, my boy!" holding his hand
out, and Harry recognised Father Holt. A curtain was over the window
that looked to the court, and he saw that the smoke came from a great
flame of papers burning in a bowl when he entered the Chaplain's room.
After giving a hasty greeting and blessing to the lad, who was charmed
to see his tutor, the Father continued the burning of his papers,
drawing them from a cupboard over the mantelpiece wall, which Harry had
never seen before.

Father Holt laughed, seeing the lad's attention fixed at once on this
hole. "That is right, Harry," he said; "see all and say nothing. You are
faithful, I know."

"I know I would go to the stake for you," said Harry.

"I don't want your head," said the Father, patting it kindly; "all you
have to do is to hold your tongue. Let us burn these papers, and say
nothing to anybody. Should you like to read them?"

Harry Esmond blushed, and held down his head; he _had_ looked, but
without thinking, at the paper before him; but though he had seen it
before, he could not understand a word of it. They burned the papers
until scarce any traces of them remained.

Harry had been accustomed to seeing Father Holt in more dresses than one;
it not being safe, or worth the danger, for Popish priests to wear their
proper dress; so he was in 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