us. Think how could I betray you, without betraying myself? My Lady believed that my Lord had travelled north to join the Queen, leaving his marriage half made, like the madman they call him. She might never have been wiser, had not you pounced down on his men wandering in the snow on the moors. Why did you not leave them to perish naturally, or what mattered it if they came back to Ruddiford, a drove of asses as they were, having missed their master? You must needs ride after them, catch them, rob them, kill them, capture them, leaving two alive and free to start for home and meet their mistress. They are riding with her now. So get you back to King's Hall for a foolish gentleman, before they ride up and know you again. That might well start suspicion. My Lady is a clever woman, and has a strong escort. Also, you will do well not to put yourself deeper in the wrong with Sir William." Jasper swore violently. "Ay," he said, "I have four of those fellows in my prison. But on my life, Tony, 'twas not my doing, and I was angry at it. Leonard and a few more of them went after the Marlowe men when I was busy with his Lordship. He had talked of money, and they liked the notion, being all of us as poor as rats in an empty barn. They didn't get much, when it came to be shared. You are right for once; 'twas foolish, and I told them so. I nearly broke off the Fellowship and swore to live like a pious hermit; but then they said if they stood by me I must stand by them, and with Marlowe on my hands I could scarce do without them." "Ah! How long do you mean to keep him?" "Till he swears to give up that marriage. Then I'll send him off on my best horse to join the Queen.” "And will he keep such an oath? Will he not ride straight to Ruddiford, or Swanlea, or wherever Mistress Margaret may be?" Jasper laughed contemptuously. “You low-born son of a black foreign beggar," he said, "what do you know of gentlemen?" It might have been the red sunset that made Antonio's face glow and his eyes burn. "As you will, Master Tilney," he murmured. "Men or women, high-born or low, methinks love levels them." They were now at the top of the hill. Jasper suddenly turned his horse, and without a word of farewell plunged off across the fields towards King's Hall. The foremost of my Lady's cavalcade, just beginning wearily to climb, saw a black horseman against the evening sky, galloping hard away from them. Antonio too put spurs to his horse, and dashed on to overtake his companions, smiling a little to himself as he rode. Jasper Tilney was not aware of his new rival, or of Lady Marlowe's firm intention to marry Margaret to her own young son. If he had known, it was likely enough that neither Richard nor his mother would have reached the journey's end in safety. True, Antonio himself, looking into the future, had no intention of advancing that marriage; but a certain hard daring in his nature inclined him to let events roll on as they pleased, confident in his own power to stop or turn them. Even the strange new experience of my Lady's favor, carrying with it a kind of fascination he had never yet known, did not touch any depths in him. Life lay beyond all that, with prizes such as Isabel Marlowe had not to give. It was only for the present that he was her slave; and the woman herself, attracted by his beauty and foreign charm, neither knew, nor would have cared had she known, the real strength and remoteness of the cat-like, gentle creature that it pleased her to caress. For the present, however, Antonio was. at my Lady's feet; the new mistress had taken the place of the old master, though no one intended Sir William Roden to find out that. In the highest gable of King's Hall there was a narrow window, unglazed and barred. It gave little light to the long garret room, low, with heavy rafters almost touching a man's head, where Lord Marlowe had for some six weeks been imprisoned. He had air enough; the bitter frosty wind of the Midlands blew down the river, and howled in the chimneys of King's Hall, and played what pranks it liked with that topmost story. When the weather became damp and soft with February, rills of water ran down the black walls. Now and then the sun shone warmly in, and then the prisoner spent much of his time clinging to the bars of the window, enjoying the warmth and looking down on the distant flats and the road that crossed them, the road along which he had ridden so prosperously on Christmas Eve in the snow. Much Harry wondered, as he stared at the dismal prospect, what had happened at Ruddiford after his disappearance. What did Sir William think of it? What were his own men doing? What could the Queen think, as the weeks went by, and her faithful servant did not rejoin her? He had heard nothing of Wakefield, and supposed her to be still collecting forces in the north. He had felled timber, and sold cattle, and done all he could to raise a sum to help the cause he believed in. Those money-bags of his, were they still lying in the west tower of Ruddiford Castle? No one had told him that they, with four of the good fellows who guarded them, were under the same roof with himself. He might have been wiser if his window had overlooked the north instead of the south road, for then by straining he could have seen the court and gateway of the house. As it was, his first view was of the rugged tiles of the church roof, long and low, and then, past the fir-trees, of the lonely track winding away into white or brown, but always foggy distance. There was nothing to be learnt from an old bent man, who night and morn ing brought him more food than he cared to eat, but who seemed deaf to any questions he might ask. Jasper Tilney's almost daily visits were not more satisfactory. His manner was fierce and forbidding. He would stride in suddenly, banging the heavy door: he would cast his wild blue eyes round the room; and strangely enough, some slight extra comfort was often the result of these careless glances. But certainly in look or bearing there was no kindness, scarcely any courtesy. Something furtive in the glance that flashed over Harry suggested to him that the man was ashamed of what he had done, but in words Jasper gave no sign of this. He saw the fine features sharpening, the color of the face changing from healthy brown to sickly yellow, while purple circles widened round the clear eyes, the hands grow. ing thin and white, the dark hair matted and long. His question was always the same. Holding up the cross handle of his dagger, he would say, "Have you changed your mind, my Lord?"; and when Harry replied, "Nay, Sir, it knows not change," he would leave him, generally without a word more, sometimes frowning sulkily, sometimes with an angry laugh as he slid the great bolts again. And so at last came that February day when Harry, pale and dishevelled at his high window, saw a distant train passing in the evening light, disappearing behind the thorns and hollies that grew along the ditches by the road, coming forth again into the reach of his eagerly watching eyes. They had the keenness of the old world, and Harry forgot all bodily discomfort in ! the gaze; for he saw his own colors, his own men, the gorgeous length of his stepmother's clumsy carriage, and young Dick, gay as ever, caracoling on horseback near by. Antonio, whom he had never noticed, was beyond his recognition; but he saw the three men in Roden livery who followed that dark figure at a gallop in advance of the party, disappearing from his sight as they breasted the hill; and he saw the two fugitives from his own band, hanging like broken men on the broad backs of the pack-horses, and wondered what my Lady was doing with two poor sick fellows in her train. He tore off the white silk shirt he was wearing, and waved it wildly from the bars; but it seemed to him that no one looked up, and in a few minutes the whole cavalcade passed out of sight behind the parapet of the church and was hidden by the projection of the hill. Then Harry Marlowe's constant patience deserted him. He saw it all, and the view was not reassuring. Sir William Roden, bewildered by his disappearance-and what wonder?-had sent an express messenger to Lady Marlowe. She was angry,-there was little doubt of that; his strange action in substituting himself for Dick would seem to her unaccountable, the burning of her letters an act of treason. These indeed were matters which no one but himself could atone for or explain. Even Harry, accustomed to take his own way like a prince without consulting any man, knew that by his own code he had gone far. And after six weeks' absence, six weeks of voluntary prison for the sake of Meg's sweet eyes her entrancing charm seemed no longer an entire justification. Love and Beauty! they think they rule the world, but on its battlefield they may meet stronger powers, such as Honor and Duty. Harry's soul not a little. As the twl- After all, this present state of things Harry's mind was not one to which mistrust came naturally. It was part of his pride to put a careless confidence in all with whom he had to do. And yet a strange uneasiness was eating at his heart as he sat there, telling himself that if only Meg were true to him, -and force alone, he swore, could separate their lives from each other-then there was nothing to be feared from supposed to be for Lancaster. You earth or heaven. The bolts were drawn with a sudden grinding, the great rusty key screeched in the lock, the enormous hinges groaned. Jasper Tilney stalked into the room, and Harry lifted his head, with a grave and haughty look meeting the bold stare of his jailer. Jasper came up to the table, leaned on it with both hands, and for a moment their eyes met like clashing swords, without speech. Even then Harry Marlowe was detached enough from his own misery to admire the young fellow's splendid bearing. "Young-and in love with Meg! I might have done the same myself,"the thought crossed his brain. "Ask what you will," said Jasper; then, seeing his prisoner smile, he colored angrily. "I am not used to asking," Harry said. "I will tell you something, and I will advise. Will you listen?" Jasper nodded, then tossed back the red locks that tumbled over his brow. "The Lady Marlowe, my mother, with a troop of my people, passed along the road there half-an-hour since. signalled from the window. Could I have wrenched your bars aside, I might have leaped to the church roof, and so climbed down and followed her." I "And broken your Lordship's bones. Though I hate you, I should be sorry," said Jasper, and smiled, but not sweetly. "Your signal,-did they answer it?" "I saw no reply," Harry said; "but I warn you, Master Tilney, it will by some means be discovered where I am. My own men are doubtless still at Ruddiford, waiting in confusion of mind my Lady's orders. There will be a search, and bold as you and your Fellowship may be, King's Hall will not escape. The Queen, too,-remember that she waits in the north, for the little help I may bring, and you are at least laugh, Sir?" "I laugh at your ignorance, my Lord, at your rashness, too, for what is to hinder me from changing your lodging? I have dungeons under the river, as well as cells in the clouds, and if you divert yourself with signalling from our nest here, why, or there is a shorter way, my Lord, if we find our selves in danger through keeping you. But as to your ignorance, do not believe Queen Margaret is waiting for you. Much has happened since Christmas morning. Without your help, they have fixed Duke Richard's head over the gate of York town. The snow and the rain and the wind have made a black object of it by this time." Lord Marlowe sprang to his feet, his own affairs forgotten. "The Duke of York dead?" "Ay, and the Queen is marching on London." "And I not there! By heaven, Sir, you should have told me this before," -and without noticing Jasper's mocking laugh, he hurried out a dozen eager questions. For a few minutes these two men of the Red Rose, the half-hearted and the true, talked of Wakefield, of Mor timer's Cross, of the nobles on either side, of Queen Margaret's dashing march and its chances. At last Harry stopped, drew a long breath, walked up to Jasper Tilney and seized him by the arm. As the young fellow, starting violently, tried to shake him off and snatched at his own sword, Harry's grip tightened and he cried impatiently: "Shame, Sir, shame! You a servant of King Henry, and draw on an unarmed man, your prisoner? Nay, come, you cannot keep me here. Give me arms and a horse, and let me ride after the Queen. Send word to my men to join me, and-" Jasper stared at him fiercely under level brows. "Remember, my Lord, you are your own prisoner, not mine. Promise you know what, and you are free." With these words he seemed to hurl Harry Marlowe back into the slough from which the news of the Queen had lifted him. Renounce Meg! That was the condition of being free to ride abroad and fight loyally. Then it seemed he must rot in prison. He measured Jasper with his eye, then flung himself back into the chair from which he had risen. "I have no new answer for that," he said. "But-" he thought deeply for a minute or two, while Jasper watched him. "But as you have the best of me, I will offer you this. No such promise can I make and live; but set me free from this hole of yours, let me ride to Ruddiford, speak on urgent affairs with my mother, take my men and follow the Queen. Hark to me, Master Tilney. In return for this courtesy of yours, I will not seek to have you punished, and furthermore, I will take my oath not to speak with Mistress Roden till my return from the wars." He lowered his voice, speaking reverently, as of some saint. "In her grandfather's charge," he said, "or in that of my mother, she will remain. If you choose to put yourself forward again among her suitors, you are free to do so. You will be answered as she and her guardians may will it. And my mother shall hear from me that I have made you this promise." While he spoke, Jasper never reMacmillan's Magazine. moved his blue angry eyes from his face. That a prisoner, with every mark of suffering and hardship upon him, could look so majestically and speak so proudly, was not without its effect on a nature which had its better side. But even with the recognition of Lord Marlowe's great nobleness flamed up a fury of envious rage, and when Harry paused, the young man burst into scornful laughter. "'Fore God, my Lord Marlowe, your insolence is beyond limit," he said. "You talk of saving me from punishment. Who will punish me, think you, or my bold Fellowship? And you suppose we have done nothing more than shut up your Lordship for six weeks in a garret, while your men sit round the fire at Ruddiford and spend your money in the alehouses? Ask the crows on the north moors what we have done with your men, and our sweethearts how we have scattered your money. And by all the Powers of heaven and hell, shall I thank you humbly for leave to woo my wife? No! die where you are, and we'll throw your carcass into the Ruddy, and Mistress Meg shall see it from the window whence she saw you first, floating down stream." So saying, young Tilney flung himself out of the room. The door clanged, the bolts screeched into their places, and Lord Marlowe was left alone with his thoughts, while the darkness of night descended. (To be continued.) CLIMBING THE (JOINT-STOCK) TREE. Among all that has been written in recent years concerning the education and equipment required by a youth who proposes to win his way to fortune, it is rather surprising to find that little or no attention has been given to the question as to how far the young aspirant's task has been made more difficult or |