cousin Betty.

Thus they walked in the twilight across the fields and through the
narrow streets beyond that lay between Westminster and Holborn. In front
tripped Margaret beside her stately cavalier, with whom she was soon
talking fast enough in Spanish, a tongue which, for reasons that shall
be explained, she knew well, while behind, the Scotchman's sword still
in his hand, and the handsome Betty on his arm, came Peter Brome in the
worst of humours.

John Castell lived in a large, rambling, many-gabled, house, just off
the main thoroughfare of Holborn, that had at the back of it a garden
surrounded by a high wall. Of this ancient place the front part served
as a shop, a store for merchandise, and an office, for Castell was a
very wealthy trader--how wealthy none quite knew--who exported woollen
and other goods to Spain under the royal licence, bringing thence in his
own ships fine, raw Spanish wool to be manufactured in England, and with
it velvet, silks, and wine from Granada; also beautiful inlaid armour of
Toledo steel. Sometimes, too, he dealt in silver and copper from the
mountain mines, for Castell was a banker as well as a merchant, or
rather what answered to that description in those days.

It was said that beneath his shop were dungeon-like store-vaults, built
of thick cemented stone, with iron doors through which no thief could
break, and filled with precious things. However this might be, certainly
in that great house, which in the time of the Plantagenets had been the
fortified palace of a noble, existed chambers whereof he alone knew the
secret, since no one else, not even his daughter or Peter, ever crossed
their threshold. Also, there slept in it a number of men-servants, very
stout fellows, who wore knives or swords beneath their cloaks, and