She breathed freely, but they were out of bounds, and had to scramble back, which they did undetected, and with much more mirth than the first time.  Cicely was young enough to be glad to throw off her anxieties and forget them.  She did not want to talk over the plots she only guessed at; which were not to her exciting mysteries, but gloomy terrors into which she feared to look.  Nor was she free to say much to Humfrey of what she knew.  Indeed the rebound, and the satisfaction of having fulfilled her commission, had raised Cicely’s spirits, so that she was altogether the bright childish companion Humfrey had known her before he went to sea, or royalty had revealed itself to her; and Sir Amias Paulett would hardly have thought them solemn and serious enough for an edifying Sunday talk could he have heard them laughing over Humfrey’s adventures on board ship, or her troubles in learning to dance in a high and disposed manner.  She came in so glowing and happy that the Queen smiled and sighed, and called her her little milkmaid, commending her highly, however, for having disposed of the dangerous parcel unknown (as she believed) to her companion.  “The fewer who have to keep counsel, the sickerer it is,” she said.

Humfrey meantime joined the rest of the household, and comported himself at the evening sermon with such exemplary discretion as entirely to win the heart of Sir Amias Paulett, who thought him listening to Mr. Blunden’s oft-divided headings, while he was in fact revolving on what pretext he could remain to protect Cicely.  The Knight gave him that pretext, when he spoke of departing early on Monday morning, offering him, or rather praying him to accept, the command of the guards, whose former captain had been dismissed as untrustworthy.  Sir Amias undertook that a special messenger should be sent to take a letter to Bridgefield, explaining Humfrey’s delay, and asking permission from his parents to undertake the charge, since it was at this very crisis that he was especially in need of God-fearing men of full integrity.  Then moved to confidence, the old gentleman disclosed that not only was he in fear of an attack on the house from the Roman Catholic gentry in the neighbourhood, which was to take place as soon as Parma’s ships were seen on the coast, but that he dreaded his own servants being tampered with by some whom he would not mention to take the life of the prisoner secretly.

“It hath been mooted to me,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, “that to take such a deed on me would be good service to the Queen and to religion, but I cast the thought from me.  It can be nought but a deadly sin—­accursed of God—­and were I to consent, I should be the first to be accused.”

“It would be no better than the King of Spain himself,” exclaimed Humfrey.

“Even so, young man, and right glad am I to find one who thinks with me.  For the other practices, they are none of mine, and is it not written ’In the same pit which they laid privily is their foot taken’?”