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?"