Frances caught Betty in her arms, crying, “Let me go to him at once, at once!”

Betty and Frances went downstairs, and after waiting a minute or two, Betty said, “Now there is no one in the courtyard, and you may cross unseen.”

Frances hastened across the courtyard and down the cellar steps.  On reaching the outer door of which Betty had spoken, she halted in fear.  But she dared not retreat, so inserting the key, she entered.

In the dim light of the room the images of faded knights, angels, saints, and dragons seemed to stand like a small army of ghosts ready to deny her passage.  But soon she discovered the figure of St. George, pressed the eye of the dragon, lifted the tapestry, and entered the room of a printing shop.

While Frances had been standing in hesitation before the figure of the saint, she had heard with some alarm a rumbling noise in the room she was about to enter.  The rumbling is destined, in my opinion, to go down the line of the ages, an instrument of untold good to mankind, for it was the rumbling of a printing-press.

Standing at the press, lifting and lowering it by means of a foot lever, and feeding it with broad strips of paper, stood a man in his shirt-sleeves.  At an inclined desk, a type-case, stood another man setting type, close beside the press.  He, also, was in his shirt-sleeves and was much older and stouter than the man at the press.

The rumbling had drowned the slight noise occasioned by the opening of the door, so that Frances stood waiting a full minute before she was observed.  The stout man at the type-case was the first to see her, and when he turned, she asked, trembling:—­

“I am seeking Master Hamilton.  Shall I find him here?”

The man at the press then turned quickly to Frances.  His face was smooth shaven, but was almost covered with printers’ ink, giving him the appearance of a blackamoor.  The stout man at the type-case, failing to respond, and the other being apparently too surprised to speak, Frances went to the blackamoor and, standing beside the press, was about to repeat her inquiry.

The type-case, press, and a small table, on which lay a bundle of white paper, all stood huddled together in the centre of the room, occupying a space of perhaps eight feet square.

Before Frances had gained courage to speak, a small bell rang.  Immediately the stout man sprang from the type-case, ran in great haste to a chest near the wall, opened the lid and drew forth a long red cloak and a fez-shaped cap of the same color, each embroidered with signs of the zodiac in tarnished gold.  He hurriedly put on the gown and cap, and again diving into the chest, drew forth a long black coat, a broad Quaker hat, a false beard, and a white wig.  These he tossed to the blackamoor, then ran across the room, opened a concealed panel in the wall, drew down a lever, closed the panel, sprang to a large desk near by, sat down and began to write diligently.