scaring the country folks with the splendor of her diamonds, which she
always wore in public. They said she wore them in private, too, and
slept with them round her neck; though the writer can pledge his word
that this was a calumny. "If she were to take them off," my Lady Sark
said, "Tom Esmond, her husband, would run away with them and pawn them."
'Twas another calumny. My Lady Sark was also an exile from Court, and
there had been war between the two ladies before.

The village people began to be reconciled presently to their lady, who
was generous and kind, though fantastic and haughty, in her ways; and
whose praises Dr. Tusher, the Vicar, sounded loudly amongst his flock.
As for my lord, he gave no great trouble, being considered scarce more
than an appendage to my lady, who, as daughter of the old lords of
Castlewood, and possessor of vast wealth, as the country folks said
(though indeed nine-tenths of it existed but in rumor), was looked upon
as the real queen of the Castle, and mistress of all it contained.




CHAPTER III.

WHITHER IN THE TIME OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT, I HAD PRECEDED HIM AS
PAGE TO ISABELLA.


Coming up to London again some short time after this retreat, the Lord
Castlewood despatched a retainer of his to a little Cottage in the
village of Ealing, near to London, where for some time had dwelt an
old French refugee, by name Mr. Pastoureau, one of those whom the