But a strange excitement seized upon Dorothy, which arose from a sense of trust and delegation, outwardly unauthorised.  She had not the presumption to give it form in words, even to Caspar, but she felt as if they two were the special servants of the absent power.  Ceaselessly therefore she kept open eyes, and saw and spoke and reminded and remedied where she could, so noiselessly, so unobtrusively, that none were offended, and all took heed of the things she brought before them.  Indeed what she said came at length to be listened to almost as if it had been a message from Glamorgan.  But her chief business was still the fire-engine, whose machinery she anxiously watched—­for if anything should happen to Caspar and then to the engine, what would become of them when driven into the tower?

Discipline, which of late had got very drowsy, was stirred up to fresh life.  Watch grew strict.  The garrison was drilled more regularly and carefully, and the guard and sentinels relieved to the minute.  The armoury was entirely overhauled, and every smith set to work to get the poor remainder of its contents into good condition.

One evening lord Charles came to his father with the news that some score of fresh horses had arrived.

‘Have they brought provender with them, my lord?’ asked the marquis.

‘Alas, no, my lord, only teeth,’ answered the governor.

‘How stands the hay?’

‘At low ebb, my lord.  There is plenty of oats, however.’

’We hear to-day nothing of the round-heads:  what say you to turning them out and letting them have a last bellyful of sweet grass under the walls?’

’I say ’tis so good a plan, my lord, that I think we had better extend it, and let a few of the rest have a parting nibble.’

The marquis approved.

There was a postern in the outermost wall of the castle on the western side, seldom used, commanded by the guns of the tower, and opening upon a large field of grass, with nothing between but a ditch.  It was just wide enough to let one horse through at a time, and by this the governor resolved to turn them out, and as soon as it was nearly dark, ordered a few thick oak planks to be laid across the ditch, one above another, for a bridge.  The field was sufficiently fenced to keep them from straying, and with the first signs of dawn they would take them in again.

Dorothy, leaving the tower for the night, had reached the archway, when to her surprise she saw the figure of a huge horse move across the mouth of it, followed by another and another.  Except Richard’s mare on that eventful night she had never seen horse-kind there before.  One after another, till she had counted some five-and-twenty, she saw pass, then heard them cross the fountain court with heavy foot upon the tiles.  At length, dark as it was, she recognised her own little Dick moving athwart the opening.  She sprang forward, seized him by the halter, and drew him in beside her.  On and on they came, till she had counted eighty, and then the procession ceased.