their destination.  Hildebrand forbade him to mention the place where he wished to conceal the children, lest it should be known to their iniquitous relatives.  Each horseman, with a child mounted before him, slowly passed the outer court, at the entrance of which Alice disappeared.  The iron tramp of the steeds rang shrilly from underneath the arched gateway; Hildebrand stood by the platform; he bade them good speed.  Anthony passed first; Michael checked his horse for a moment, when Hildebrand took the hand of the boy, and pressed it; but one portentous look, as at the recognition of some sinister purpose, passed between Michael and the old man, unobserved by his colleague.  Hildebrand raised his hand above his mouth, and slowly whispered—­

“Remember!—­the gulf underneath the waterfall.”

The horsemen departed.  Passing the bridge they were just rising over the green slope when the children recognised Alice upon her mistress’s palfrey.  They screamed out loudly to her; but she was riding in a contrary direction, and soon passed out of their sight.

The narrow glades of the forest suddenly encompassed them.  The morning was pretty far advanced; the merry birds twittered in their dun covert, brushing the dewdrops from the boughs with their restless wings.  The thrush and blackbird poured forth a more melancholy note; whilst the timid rabbit, scared from his morning’s meal, rushed by and sought his burrow.  The wood grew thicker, and the sunbeams that shot previously in broad slopes across their path soon became as lines of intensely-chequered light piercing the grim shadows beneath.  The trees, too, put on a more sombre character; and the sward appeared choked with rank and noxious weeds.  It seemed a path rarely trod, and only to be recognised by occasional openings through the underwood.

They travelled for some hours.  Michael had taken the lead, and Anthony with his prattling charge rode carelessly on.  Looking round, the latter suddenly checked his horse.  A momentary alarm overspread his features as he cried—­

“Michael, you have surely mistaken the path:  an hour’s ride should have brought us to the end of our journey, and our beasts have been footing it on since morning.”

“Heed not, comrade; thou wilt soon find we have the right track before us.  We shall be through the wood presently.”

“Why, this is the road to Ingleton, if I mistake not; I hear the roar of the Greta.”

“Right—­we shall be on our road to the old castle shortly.”

They travelled on more silently than before, until the brawling of the torrent they had heard for some time increased with rapid intensity.  The road now widening, Anthony spurred on his beast by the side of his companion, who slackened his pace to afford an opportunity for further parley.

“Whither are we bound?” inquired Anthony.

“Where the children will be well cared for.”