‘Then you are turning them out into the fields, my lord?’

‘Yes—­at the little postern.’

‘Is it safe, my lord, with the enemy so near?’

’It is my father’s idea.  I do not think there is any danger.  There will be no moon to-night.’

‘May not the scouts ride the closer for that,’ my lord?’

‘Yes, but they will not see the better.’

’I hope, my lord, you will not think me presumptuous, but—­please let me keep my Dick inside the walls.’

’Do what thou wilt with thine own, cousin.  I think thou art over-fearful; but do as thou wilt, I say.’

Dorothy led Dick back to his stable, a little distressed that lord Charles seemed to dislike her caution.

But she had a strong feeling of the risk of the thing, and after she went to bed was so haunted by it that she could not sleep.  After a while, however, her thoughts took another direction:—­Might not Richard come to the siege?  What if they should meet?—­That his party had triumphed, no whit altered the rights of the matter, and she was sure it had not altered her feelings; yet her feelings were altered:  she was no longer so fiercely indignant against the puritans as heretofore!  Was she turning traitor? or losing the government of herself? or was the right triumphing in her against her will?  Was it St. Michael for the truth conquering St. George for the old way of England?  Had the king been a tyrant indeed? and had the powers of heaven declared against him, and were they now putting on their instruments to cut down the harvest of wrong?  Had not Richard been very sure of being in the right?  But what was that shaking—­not of the walls, but the foundations?  What was that noise as of distant thunder?  She sprang from her bed, caught up her night-light, for now she never slept in the dark as heretofore, and hurried to the watch-tower.  From its top she saw, by the faint light of the stars, vague forms careering over the fields.  There was no cry except an occasional neigh, and the thunder was from the feet of many horses on the turf.  The enemy was lifting the castle horses!

She flew to the chamber beneath, where, since the earl’s departure, in the stead of the cross-bow, a small minion gun had been placed by lord Charles, with its muzzle in the round where the lines of the loop-hole crossed.  A piece of match lay beside it.  She caught it up, lighted it at her candle, and fired the gun.  The tower shook with its roar and recoil.  She had fired the first gun of the siege:  might it be a good omen!

In an instant the castle was alive.  Warders came running from the western gate.  Dorothy had gone, and they could not tell who had fired the gun, but there were no occasion to ask why it had been fired—­for where were the horses?  They could hear, but no longer see them.  There was mounting in hot haste, and a hurried sally.  Lord Charles flung himself on little Dick’s bare back, and flew to reconnoitre.