in searching the Catholic houses of the neighbourhood for arms. What
authority they had for it never came to be clearly understood.
Plainly they believed themselves possessed of all that was needful,
or such men would never have dared it. As it was, they prosecuted it
with such a bold front, that not until they were gone did it occur
to some, who had yielded what arms they possessed, to question
whether they had done wisely in acknowledging such fellows as
parliamentary officials without demanding their warrant. Their day's
gleanings up to this point--of swords and pikes, guns and pistols,
they had left in charge of the host of the inn whence they had just
issued, and were now bent on crowning their day's triumph with a
supreme act of daring--the renown of which they enlarged in their
own imaginations, while undermining the courage needful for its
performance, by enhancing its terrors as they went.

At length two lofty hexagonal towers appeared, and the consciousness
that the final test of their resolution drew nigh took immediate
form in a fluttering at the heart, which, however, gave no outward
sign but that of silence; and indeed they were still too full of the
importance of unaccustomed authority to fear any contempt for it on
the part of others.

It happened that at this moment Raglan Castle was full of
merry-making upon occasion of the marriage of one of lady Herbert's
waiting-gentlewomen to an officer of the household; and in these
festivities the earl of Worcester and all his guests were taking a
part.

Among the numerous members of the household was one who, from being
a turnspit, had risen, chiefly in virtue of an immovably lugubrious