pretending to love locks and screws and pistols and such like. "But
why should she haunt the place when my lord is not there?" you will
ask. Her pretence will hold the better for it, no doubt, and Caspar
will report concerning her. And if she pleases my lord well, who
knows but he may give her a pair of watches to hang at her ears, or
a box that Paracelsus himself could not open without the secret as
well as the key? I have heard of both such. They say my lord hath
twenty cartloads of quite as wonderful things in that vault he calls
his workshop. Hast thou never marked the huge cabinet of black
inlaid with silver, that stands by the wall--fitter indeed for my
lady's chamber than such a foul place?'

'I have seen it,' answered Scudamore.

'I warrant me it hath store of gewgaws fit for a duchess.'

'Like enough,' assented Rowland.

'If mistress Dorothy were to find the way through my lord's favour
into that cabinet--truly it were nothing to thee or me, Rowland.'

'Assuredly not. It would be my lord's own business.'

'Once upon a time I was sent to carry my young lady Raven
thither--to see my lord earn his bread, as said my lady: and what
should my lord but give her no less than a ball of silver which,
thrown into a vessel of water at any moment would plainly tell by
how much it rose above the top, the very hour and minute of the day
or night, as well and truly as the castle-clock itself. Tell me
not, Rowland, that the damsel hath no design in it. Her looks