The next step then was to learn
from the housekeeper who slept in the neighbourhood of the
turret-chamber, and then to narrow the ground of search by inquiring
which, if any of them, slept alone.
He found there were two who occupied each a chamber by herself; one
of them was Amanda, the other mistress Watson.
Now therefore he knew distinctly in what direction first he must
point his tentatives. Before he went farther, however, he drew from
Dorothy an accurate description of the ring to which Richard's
letter alluded, and immediately set about making one after it, from
stage to stage of its progress bringing it to her for examination
and criticism, until, before the day was over, he had completed a
model sufficiently like to pass for the same.
The greater portion of the next day he spent in getting into perfect
condition a certain mechanical toy which he had constructed many
years before, and familiarising himself with its working. This done,
he found himself ready for his final venture, to give greater
solemnity to which he ordered the alarum-bell to be rung, and the
herald of the castle to call aloud, first from the bell-tower in the
grass-court, next from the roof of the hall-porch in the stone-
court, communicating with the minstrels' gallery, that on the
following day, after dinner, so soon as they should hear the sound
of the alarum-bell, every soul in the castle, to the infant in
arms, all of whatever condition, save old mother Prescot, who was
bed-ridden, should appear in the great hall, that lord Herbert might
perceive which amongst them had insulted the lord and the rule of
the house by the locking of one of its doors to the imprisonment and
wrong of his lordship's cousin, mistress Dorothy Vaughan.
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