“Will not Lockwood let you out, sir?” Esmond asked.  Holt laughed; he was never more gay or good-humored than when in the midst of action or danger.

“Lockwood knows nothing of my being here, mind you,” he said; “nor would you, you little wretch! had you slept better.  You must forget that I have been here; and now farewell.  Close the door, and go to your own room, and don’t come out till—­stay, why should you not know one secret more?  I know you will never betray me.”

In the Chaplain’s room were two windows; the one looking into the court facing westwards to the fountain; the other, a small casement strongly barred, and looking on to the green in front of the Hall.  This window was too high to reach from the ground; but, mounting on a buffet which stood beneath it, Father Holt showed me how, by pressing on the base of the window, the whole framework of lead, glass, and iron stanchions descended into a cavity worked below, from which it could be drawn and restored to its usual place from without; a broken pane being purposely open to admit the hand which was to work upon the spring of the machine.

“When I am gone,” Father Holt said, “you may push away the buffet, so that no one may fancy that an exit has been made that way; lock the door; place the key—­where shall we put the key?—­under ‘Chrysostom’ on the book-shelf; and if any ask for it, say I keep it there, and told you where to find it, if you had need to go to my room.  The descent is easy down the wall into the ditch; and so, once more farewell, until I see thee again, my dear son.”  And with this the intrepid Father mounted the buffet with great agility and briskness, stepped across the window, lifting up the bars and framework again from the other side, and only leaving room for Harry Esmond to stand on tiptoe and kiss his hand before the casement closed, the bars fixing as firmly as ever, seemingly, in the stone arch overhead.  When Father Holt next arrived at Castlewood, it was by the public gate on horseback; and he never so much as alluded to the existence of the private issue to Harry, except when he had need of a private messenger from within, for which end, no doubt, he had instructed his young pupil in the means of quitting the Hall.

Esmond, young as he was, would have died sooner than betray his friend and master, as Mr. Holt well knew; for he had tried the boy more than once, putting temptations in his way, to see whether he would yield to them and confess afterwards, or whether he would resist them, as he did sometimes, or whether he would lie, which he never did.  Holt instructing the boy on this point, however, that if to keep silence is not to lie, as it certainly is not, yet silence is, after all, equivalent to a negation—­and therefore a downright No, in the interest of justice or your friend, and in reply to a question that may be prejudicial to either, is not criminal, but, on the contrary, praiseworthy; and as lawful a way as