Adjoining the library, a room with no direct communication with the
court by means of either door, or window, was a small and retired
apartment containing a cot-bed, to which the captain was accustomed to
retire in the cases of indisposition, when Mrs. Willoughby wished to
have either of her daughters with herself, on their account, or on her
own. This room was now given to the major, and in it he would be
perfectly free from every sort of intrusion. He might eat in the
library, if necessary; though, all the windows of that wing of the
house opening outward, there was little danger of being seen by any but
the regular domestics of the family, all of whom were to be let into
the secret of his presence, and all of whom were rightly judged to be
perfectly trustworthy.

As the evening promised to be dark, it was determined among the
gentlemen that the major should disguise himself still more than he was
already, and venture outside of the building, in company with his
father, and the chaplain, as soon as the people, who were now crowded
into the vacant rooms in the empty part of the house, had taken
possession of their respective quarters for the night. In the meantime
a hearty supper was provided for the traveller in the library, the
bullet-proof window-shutters of which room, and indeed of all the
others on that side of the building, having first been closed, in order
that lights might be used, without drawing a shot from the adjoining
forest.

"We are very safe, here," observed the captain, as his son appeased his
hunger, with the keen relish of a traveller. "Even Woods might stand a
siege in a house built and stockaded like this. Every window has solid
bullet-proof shutters, with fastenings not easily broken; and the logs
of the buildings might almost defy round-shot. The gates are all up,