So it was nothing to us children, unless it were a relief, that after I was about four years old, we missed our father almost entirely. We never knew why he tarried away for months at a time. We had not a notion that he was first in the prison of the Tower, and afterwards a refugee over seas. And we saw without seeing that our mother grew thin and white, and her sweet eyes were heavy with tears which we never saw her shed. All we perceived was that she came oftener to the nursery, and stayed longer with us, and petted the babies more than had been her wont. And that such matters had a meaning,--a deep, sad, terrible meaning--never entered our heads. Later on we knew that during those lonely years her heart was being crucified, and crucifixion is a dying that lasts long. But she never let us know it. I think she would not damp our fresh childish glee by even the spray of that roaring cataract wherein her life was overwhelmed. Mothers--such mothers as she--are like a reflection of God. I remember well, though I was but just seven years old, the night when news came to Ludlow Castle that my father had escaped from the Tower. It was a very hot night in August--too hot to sleep--and I lay awake, chattering to Kate and Isabel, who were my bedfellows, about some grand play we meant to have the next afternoon, in the great gallery--when all at once we heard a horse come dashing up to the portcullis, past our chamber wall, and a horn crying out into the night. Isabel sat up in bed, and listened. "Is it my Lord coming home?" I said. "What, all alone, with no company?" answered Isabel, who is four years elder than I. "Silly child! It is some news for my Lady my mother. The saints grant it be good!" Of course we could hear nothing of what passed at the portcullis, as our window opened on the base court. But in a few minutes we heard the horse come trotting into our court, and the rider 'lighted down: and Isabel, who lay with her head next the casement, sat up again and put her head out of the curtain. It was a beautiful moonlight night, almost as bright as day. "What is it, Ibbot?" said Kate. "It is a man in livery," answered Isabel; "but whose livery I know not. It is not ours." Then we heard the man call to the porter, and the door open, and the sound of muffled voices to and fro for a minute; and then Master Inge's step, which we knew--he was then castellan--coming in great haste past our door as if he were going to my Lady's chamber. Then the door of the large nursery opened, and we heard Dame Hilda within, saying to Tamzine, "Thou wert better run and see." And Tamzine went quickly along the gallery, as if she, too, were going to my Lady. For a long, long time, as it seemed to us--I dare say it was not many minutes--we lay and listened in vain. At length Tamzine came back. "Good tidings, or bad?" we heard Dame Hilda ask. "The saints wot!" whispered Tamzine. "My Lord is 'scaped from the Tower."