repeated warnings and exhortations to discretion, Hilyard then,
whose busy, active mind had made all the necessary arrangements,
summoned a stout-looking fellow, whom he had left below, and with his
aid conveyed the heavy machine across the garden, to a back lane, where
a mule stood ready to receive the burden.

"Suffer this trusty fellow to guide thee, dear Adam; he will take thee
through ways where thy brutal neighbours are not likely to meet and
molest thee. Call all thy wits to the surface. Speed and prosper!"

"Fear not," said Adam, disdainfully. "In the neighbourhood of kings,
science is ever safe. Bless thee, child," and he laid his hand upon
Sibyll's head, for she had accompanied them thus far in silence, "now go
in."

"I go with thee, Father," said Sibyll, firmly. "Master Hilyard, it
is best so," she whispered; "what if my father fall into one of his
reveries?"

"You are right: go with him, at least, to the Tower gate. Hard by is the
house of a noble dame and a worthy, known to our friend Hugh, where thou
mayest wait Master Warner's return. It will not suit thy modesty and sex
to loiter amongst the pages and soldiery in the yard. Adam, thy daughter
must wend with thee."

Adam had not attended to this colloquy, and mechanically bowing his
head, he set off, and was greatly surprised, on gaining the river-side
(where a boat was found large enough to accommodate not only the human
passengers, but the mule and its burden), to see Sibyll by his side.

The imprisonment of the unfortunate Henry, though guarded with
sufficient rigour against all chances of escape, was not, as the reader
has perceived, at this period embittered by unnecessary harshness.
His attendants treated him with respect, his table was supplied more
abundantly and daintily than his habitual abstinence required, and the
monks and learned men whom he had favoured, were, we need not repeat,
permitted to enliven his solitude with their grave converse.

On the other hand, all attempts at correspondence between Margaret or
the exiled Lancastrians and himself had been jealously watched, and when
detected, the emissaries had been punished with relentless severity. A
man named Hawkins had been racked for attempting to borrow money for the
queen from the great London merchant, Sir Thomas Cook. A shoemaker
had been tortured to death with red-hot pincers for abetting her
correspondence with her allies. Various persons had been racked for
similar offence