tice, and leave it in the
house in some safe place. God can guide his hand to it, if He will.
Otherwise, let us leave it be."

That was the course resolved on in the end. It was also decided that
they should not attempt to repeat the night escape which had already
taken place. They were to set forth openly in daylight, but separately,
and on three several pretexts. Mistress Grena was to go on a professed
visit to Christabel, old Osmund escorting her; but instead of returning
home afterwards, she was to go forward to Seven Roods, and there await
the arrival of Mr Roberts. He was to proceed to his cloth-works at
Cranbrook, as he usually did on a Tuesday; and when the time came to
return home to supper, was to go to Seven Roods and rejoin Grena. To
Gertrude, at her own request, was allotted the hardest and most perilous
post of all--to remain quietly at home after her father and aunt had
departed, engaged in her usual occupations, until afternoon, when she
was to go out as if for a walk, accompanied by the great house-dog,
Jack, and meet her party a little beyond Seven Roods. Thence they were
to journey to Maidstone and Rochester, whence they could take ship to
the North. Jack, in his life-long character of an attached and
incorruptible protector, was to go with them. He would be quite as
ready, in the interests of his friends, to bite a priest as a layman,
and would show his teeth at the Sheriff with as little compunction as at
a street-sweeper. Moreover, like all of his race, Jack was a forgiving
person. Many a time had Gertrude teased and tormented him for her own
amusement, but nobody expected Jack to remember it against her, when he
was summoned to protect her from possible enemies. But perhaps the
greatest advantage in Jack's guardianship of Gertrude was the fact that
there had always been from time immemorial to men--and dogs--an
unconquerable aversion, not always tacit, especially on Jack's part,
between him and the Rev. Mr Bastian. If there was an individual in
the world who might surely be relied on to object to the reverend
gentleman's appearance, that individual was Jack: and if any person
existed in whose presence Mr Bastian was likely to hesitate about
attaching himself to Gertrude's company, that person was Jack also.
Jack never had been able to see why the priest should visit his master,
and had on several occasions expressed his opinion on that point with
much decision and lucidity. If, ther