This was not much use, thought Robin; but, at least, it gave him something to begin at:  so he thanked the clerk solemnly and reverentially, and was rewarded by another discreet pat on the arm.

* * * * *

The sight of the Chartley woods, tall and splendid in the light of the setting sun, and already tinged here and there with the first marks of autumn, brought his indecision to a point; and he realized that he had no plan.  He had heard that Mary occasionally rode abroad, and he hoped perhaps to get speech with her that way; but what he had heard from the clerk and others showed him that this small degree of liberty was now denied to the Queen.  In some way or another he must get news of Mr. Bourgoign.  Beyond that he knew nothing.

* * * * *

The great gates of Chartley were closed as the two came up to them.  There was a lodge beside them, and a sentry stood there.  A bell was ringing from the great house within the woods, no doubt for supper-time, but there was no other human being besides the sentry to be seen.  So Robin did not even check his weary horse; but turned only, with a deliberately curious air, as he went past and rode straight on.  Then, as he rounded a corner he saw smoke going up from houses, it seemed, outside the park.

“What is that?” asked Arnold suddenly.  “Do you hear—?”

A sound of a galloping horse grew louder behind them, and a moment afterwards the sound of another.  The two priests were still in view of the sentry; and knowing that Chartley was guarded now as if it had all the treasures of the earth within, Robin reflected that to show too little interest might arouse as sharp suspicion as too much.  So he wheeled his horse round and stopped to look.

They heard the challenge of the sentry within, and then the unbarring of the gates.  An instant later a courier dashed out and wheeled to the right, while at the same time the second galloper came to view—­another courier on a jaded horse; and the two passed—­the one plainly riding to London, the second arriving from it.  The gates were yet open; but the second was challenged once more before he was allowed to pass and his hoofs sounded on the road that led to the house.  Then the gates clashed together again.

Robin turned his horse’s head once more towards the houses, conscious more than ever how near he was to the nerves of England’s life, and what tragic ties they were between the two royal cousins, that demanded such a furious and frequent exchange of messages.

“We must do our best here,” he said, nodding towards the little hamlet.

II

It was plainly a newly-grown little group of houses that bordered the side of the road away from the enclosed park—­sprung up as a kind of overflow lodging for the dependants necessary to such a suddenly increased household; for the houses were no more than wooden dwellings, ill-roofed and ill-built, with the sap scarcely yet finished oozing from the ends of the beams and the planks.  Smoke was issuing, in most cases, from rough holes cut in the roofs, and in the last rays of sunshine two or three men were sitting on stools set out before the houses.