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