descend safely."

Gabriel whispered the fair companion whose side he still kept to.

"Now, my dear Sir Miles," cried the girl, "I positively won't stir
without you; I am sure we could get down the chair without a jolt. Look
there, how nicely the ground slopes! Jane, Lucy, my dears, let us take
charge of Sir Miles. Now, then."

The gallant old gentleman would have marched to the breach in such
guidance; he kissed the fair hands that lay so temptingly on his chair,
and then, rising with some difficulty, said,--

"No, my dears, you have made me so young again that I think I can walk
down the steep with the best of you."

So, leaning partly on his valet, and by the help of the hands extended to
him, step after step, Sir Miles, with well-disguised effort, reached the
huge roots of the oak.

"The hollow then was much smaller," said he, "so he was not so easily
detected as a man would be now, the damned crop-ears--I beg pardon, my
dears; the rascally rebels--poked their swords through the fissure, and
two went, one through his jerkin, one through his arm; but he took care
not to swear at the liberty, and they went away, not suspecting him."

While thus speaking, the young people were already playfully struggling
which should first enter the oak. Two got precedence, and went in and
out, one after the other. Gabriel breathed hard. "The blind owlets!"
thought he; "and I put the letter where a mole would have seen it!"