Very soon after this my lord and lady went to London with Mr. Holt, leaving the page behind them. The little man had the great house of Castlewood to himself; or between him and the housekeeper, Mrs. Worksop, an old lady who was a kinswoman of the family in some distant way, and a Protestant, but a staunch Tory and kings-man, as all the Esmonds were. Harry used to go to school to Dr. Tusher when he was at home, though the Doctor was much occupied too. There was a great stir and commotion everywhere, even in the little quiet village of Castlewood, whither a party of people came from the town, who would have broken Castlewood Chapel windows, but the village people turned out, and even old Sievewright, the republican blacksmith, along with them; for my lady, though she was a Papist, and had many odd ways, was kind to the tenantry, and there was always plenty of protectors for Castlewood inmates in any sort of invasion. One day at dawn, not having been able to sleep for thinking of some lines for eels which he had placed the night before, the lad was lying in his little bed waiting for the hour when he and John Lockwood, the porter's son, might go to the pond and see what fortune had brought them. It might have been four o'clock when he heard the door of Father Holt's chamber open. Harry jumped up, thinking for certain it was a robber, or hoping perhaps for a ghost, and, flinging open his own door, saw a light inside Father Holt's room, and a figure standing in the doorway, in the midst of a great smoke which issued from the room. "Who's there?" cried out the boy. "_Silentium!_" whispered the other; "'tis I, my boy!" holding his hand out, and Harry recognised Father Holt. A curtain was over the window that looked to the court, and he saw that the smoke came from a great flame of papers burning in a bowl when he entered the Chaplain's room. After giving a hasty greeting and blessing to the lad, who was charmed to see his tutor, the Father continued the burning of his papers, drawing them from a cupboard over the mantelpiece wall, which Harry had never seen before. Father Holt laughed, seeing the lad's attention fixed at once on this hole. "That is right, Harry," he said; "see all and say nothing. You are faithful, I know." "I know I would go to the stake for you," said Harry. "I don't want your head," said the Father, patting it kindly; "all you have to do is to hold your tongue. Let us burn these papers, and say nothing to anybody. Should you like to read them?" Harry Esmond blushed, and held down his head; he _had_ looked, but without thinking, at the paper before him; but though he had seen it before, he could not understand a word of it. They burned the papers until scarce any traces of them remained.