admitted a ray of sunshine and a breath of pure air. A small fire burned on the hearth, a black pot bubbled beside it. For the room itself, a litter of old iron stood in every corner; bunches of keys and rows of rusty locks--padlocks, fetter-locks, and door-locks--hung on all the walls. One or two chests, worm-eaten and rickety, but prized by their present possessor for the antiquity of their fastenings, stood here and there; with a great open press full of gun-locks, matchlocks, wheel-locks, spring-locks and the like. Half a dozen arquebuses and pistols decorated the mantel-piece, giving the room something of the air of an armoury.

In the midst of all this litter sat old Peter himself, working away, with a pair of horn glasses on his forehead, at a small lock; which seemed to be giving him a vast amount of trouble. A dozen times at least I watched him fit a number of tiny parts together, only to scatter them again in his leather apron, and begin to pare one or other of them with a little file. At length he laid the work down, as if he were tired, and looking up found my eyes fixed upon him.

He nodded cheerfully. 'Good,' he said. 'Now you look yourself, Martin. No more need of febrifuges. Another night's sleep, and you may go abroad.'

'What day is it?' I said, striving to collect my thoughts.

'Friday,' he answered, looking at me with his shrewd, pleasant eyes. He was an old man, over sixty, a widower with two young children, and clever at his trade. I never knew a better man. 'Wednesday night you came here,' he continued, showing in his countenance the pleasure it gave him to see me recovering.

'I must go to the castle,' I exclaimed, rising abruptly and sitting up. 'Do you hear? I must go.'

'I do not see the necessity,' he answered, looking at me coolly, and without budging an inch.

'My lady will need me.'

'Not at all,' he answered, in the same quiet tone. 'You may make your mind easy about that. The Countess is safe and well. She is in the castle, and the gates are shut.'

'But she has not----' Then I stopped. I was going to say too much.

'She has not half a dozen men with her, you would say,' he replied. 'Well, no. But one is a man, it seems. The young lord has turned a couple of cannon on the town, and all our valiant scoundrels are shaking in their shoes.'

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