old foot-worn slabs, firmly cemented together. The closest search failed
to show any hole or cranny where a rat could have escaped, far less a
man.

It is a very strange thing, my dears, to sit down in cold blood, and
think that the chances are that within a few hours your pulses will
have given their last throb, and your soul have sped away upon its final
errand. Strange and very awesome! The man who rideth down into the
press of the battle with his jaw set and his grip tight upon reign and
sword-hilt cannot feel this, for the human mind is such that one emotion
will ever push out another. Neither can the man who draws slow and
catching breaths upon the bed of deadly sickness be said to have
experience of it, for the mind weakened with disease can but submit
without examining too closely that which it submits to. When, however,
a young and hale man sits alone in quiet, and sees present death hanging
over him, he hath such food for thought that, should he survive and live
to be grey-headed, his whole life will be marked and altered by those
solemn hours, as a stream is changed in its course by some rough bank
against which it hath struck. Every little fault and blemish stands
out clear in the presence of death, as the dust specks appear when the
sunbeam shines into the darkened room. I noted them then, and I have, I
trust, noted them ever since.

I was seated with my head bowed upon my breast, deeply buried in this
solemn train of thoughts, when I was startled by hearing a sharp click,
such as a man might give who wished to attract attention. I sprang to my
feet and gazed round in the gathering gloom without being able to tell
whence it came. I had well-nigh persuaded myself that my senses had
deceived me, when the sound was repeated louder than before, and casting
my eyes upwards I saw a face peering in at me through the slit, or part
of a face rather, for I could but see the eye and corner of the cheek.
Standing on my chair I made out that it was none other than the farmer
who had been my companion upon the road.

'Hush, lad!' he whispered, with a warning forefinger pushed through the
narrow crack. 'Speak low, or the guard may chance to hear. What can I do
for you?'

'How did you come to know where I was?' I asked in astonishment.

'Whoy, mun,' he answered, 'I know as much of this 'ere house as Beaufort
does himsel'. Afore Badminton was built, me and my brothers has spent
many a day in climbing over the old Bote