p should arrive within a few days, they would be
obliged to capitulate. All the flour was gone, and the bacon and
salted beef, and the cocks and hens and pigeons, and even the horses
had been killed and eaten, though these had been kept till the very
last. The worst of the trouble was that there was treachery within the
walls. Dame Joan was well aware of it, though she could not be
absolutely sure which of her men were disaffected, for they all still
pretended loyalty to their master and to the King. Nobody, she felt,
was really to be trusted, though the walls were still manned, and the
cannon blazed away with what ammunition was left. If the Grange were
to be saved at all, it was imperative that a message asking for help
should be conveyed to the Royalist forces. But how could it be taken?
The Roundheads were encamped all round the walls, and would promptly
shoot anyone who attempted to penetrate their lines. None of the
garrison would be stout-hearted enough to venture.

"Sir Hugh's eldest son was away fighting with his father, but there
was a daughter at home, a girl of about thirteen, named Joyce. She
came now to her mother, and begged to be allowed to take the message.
It was a long time before Dame Joan would give her consent, for she
knew the terrible danger to which Joyce would be exposed; but she had
the lives of her younger children to think of as well, and in the end
she gave her reluctant permission. Just when it was growing dusk, she
took her little daughter to a secret doorway in the panelling, from
which a subterranean passage led underneath the moat into the
adjoining wood. This secret passage was known only to Sir Hugh and his
wife and their eldest son, and it was now shown to Joyce for the first
time. It was a horrible experience to go down it alone, but she was a
brave lassie, and ready to risk her life for the sake of her mother,
and her younger brothers and sisters. She took a lantern to guide
her, and set off with as cheerful a face as she could show. The air
was stale and musty, and in some places she felt as if she could
scarcely breathe. Her footsteps, light though they were, rang hollow.
After what seemed to her a very long way, she found herself in a small
cave, and could catch a gleam of twilight sky through the entrance.
She at once extinguished the lantern, and advanced with extreme
caution. She was in the wood at the farther side of the moat, a place
where she had often played with her bro