Chapter II: A Bat Behind the Wainscot

"He gazed on the river that gurgled by,
But he thought not of the reeds;
He clasped his gilded rosary,
But he did not tell the beads:
If he looked to the heaven, 'twas not to invoke
The Spirit that dwelleth there;
If he opened his lips, the words they spoke
Had never the tone of prayer.
A pious priest might the Abbot seem,--
He had swayed the crosier well;
But what was the theme of the Abbot's dream,
The Abbot were loath to tell."
W. M. PRAED.

"Harry!" said Celia, coming down with her cloak and hood on, one fine day in the following spring, "one of the pegs in the closet in our room is loose; will you make it secure for us while we are walking?"

The whole family were going for an excursion in the woods, as it was Lucy's birthday, and Harry's sprained ankle kept him at home. He could stand without pain for a short time, but could not walk far; and a horse would not have been able to carry him through the thick underwood. Delay was suggested; but, as Lucy very truly, if somewhat selfishly, asserted, another day would not have been her birthday. All things considered, the Squire had decided that the excursion should not be put off, and the party set out accordingly. After they were gone, Harry went up to Celia's room, to see what would be required. The setting to rights of the offending peg was soon effected. He was retiring from the closet, when he set his foot upon a little round substance, which he guessed to be the head of a nail sticking up from the floor of the closet close to one of the back panels.

"Ah!" observed Harry, apostrophizing the nail, "you must come out. You will be tearing Miss Lucy's gown, and she won't like having to mend it."

Harry accordingly proceeded to attempt the removal of the nail. But he found to his surprise that neither his hand nor his tools seemed strong enough to pull it out. Its position, close to the back of the closet, made it all the more difficult. Was it really a nail? He looked at it more closely. It had a brass head, and Harry came to the conclusion that it was a knob placed there on purpose. But for what purpose? It would go neither backwards nor forwards; but when Harry tried to pull it to one side, to his astonishment a little door flew open, so neatly fitted into the closet floor as to defy detection, the nail or knob being fixed in the midst. Below the little door appeared a tiny box, with a second brass knob fixed in it. At the bottom was a brass plate, from a small round hole in which the knob protruded.

"Now then," remarked Harry, "let me look at you. What are _you_ for?"

He very soon discovered that upon touching it. The moment that the little knob was pushed inwards, the whole panel in the back of the closet suddenly sprang back, showing that it was in reality a concealed door, the catch closing it having been liberated by pressing the little knob in the tiny box. What was behind the door it was impossible to see without a candle, for the closet was a deep one, and the opening of its door cut off the light from the bedroom window. Harry quietly came out of the closet, locked the bedroom door, and went to his own chamber to fetch a taper and his sword. He was determined to follow up his discovery.

The light of the candle revealed no array of skeletons, but a narrow passage, which he saw, on stepping into it, to be the head of a very narrow spiral staircase. With the candle in one hand, and the sword in the other, Harry, in whose mental vocabulary fear had no place, calmly walked down the staircase. The excitement of the adventure overpowered any pain which he felt from his ankle. A faint smell of dried roses met him at the foot of the stairs. On the right hand stood a heavy door. Harry gave it a strong push, and being unlatched, it slowly opened and admitted him. He stood in a very small square chamber. There was no window. A table was in the middle, two chairs stood against the wall, and in one corner was a handsome chest on which two books were lying. All the furniture was of carved oak. Harry opened the books, and then the chest. The former were a Latin missal and breviary; the latter was occupied by a set of church vestments, a crucifix, a thurible, and sundry other articles, whose use was no mystery to the travelled discoverer.

"So you are a priest's hiding-place," said Harry, dryly, to the concealed chamber. "So much is plain. They say mass at this table. Well, I did not know we had one of these at Ashcliffe. I wonder how many years it is since this was inhabited? I protest!--upon my word, I do believe it is inhabited now!"

He had suddenly perceived that while on the stairs the dust lay thick, there was none resting on the furniture within the chamber. Books, chest, chairs, table--all bore evidence of having been used so recently, that no considerable accumulation of dust had time to gather on them. Harry looked coolly around, and descried another door, opposite to the one by which he had entered. Opening this, he found himself at the summit of a second spiral staircase, down which he went--down, down, until he fancied that he must be descending below the foundations of the house. At length the spiral form of the staircase ended, and a further flight of steps ran straight down. Harry wondered whether he was going into the bowels of the earth, but he kept onwards, until once more stopped by a door. This door opened readily, being unlatched like the others, and he looked out into darkness. Casting his eyes upwards, he saw, in the direction wherein he supposed the sky should be, a small round patch of blue.

"Well, you were a cunning fox who planned this hole!" thought he. "One end opens into the closet in Celia's room, and the other into the old well in the garden. There must be some means of climbing up out of the well, I presume, and the worthy gentleman who makes this his abode is probably well acquainted with them. I wonder if my father and mother know of this? If not, I had better make up the entrance, and not tell them. My mother would be too frightened to sleep in any peace if she knew that such a place was hidden in the house, and my father would rouse all Devonshire about it. I wonder, too, who they are that use it? Are they still priests, or Jacobite fugitives? or are they highwaymen? Whatever they be, I must make up this door, as soon as I am a little better able to exert myself."

Thus thinking, Harry withdrew from the secret chamber, and regained Celia's room. Pulling to the door, he found that the panel and the hidden box closed each with a spring. He left the bedroom, and went down-stairs meditating upon his discovery.[1]

A fortnight later, when his ankle had regained strength, he took the opportunity, when both the sisters were out, to make a second visit to the secret chamber. He found its arrangements slightly altered--a proof that its mysterious occupant had been there within a few days. The books were gone, and one of the chairs was now standing by the table. Harry dragged some ponderous logs of wood to the outer door which led into the well, and by means of these barricaded the door effectually against any return of the refugee.

During the interval he had taken the opportunity of asking a few questions of different persons, which might give him some idea whether they were aware of the existence of this concealed chamber.

"Mother," he asked, one evening, when Madam Passmore had been lamenting the sad fact that things wore out much sooner than when she was a girl, "had you ever any of that fine carved furniture like Madam Harvey's?"

"No, my dear, not a bit," said his mother.

"Bell," he asked, on another occasion, "do you ever hear rats or mice in your wainscot?"

"Oh, they tease me infinitely!" answered Isabella. "They make noises behind the wainscot till I cannot sleep, and for the last week I have put cotton wool in my ears to keep out the sound."

"Cicely," he inquired, lastly, "did you ever see a ghost?"

"No, Master Harry, I never have," replied Cicely, mysteriously, thus hinting that there might be some people who had done so. "I never see one, nor never want. But they do haunt old houses, that's a truth."

"How do you know that if you never saw one?" laughed Harry.

"Well, my dear!" exclaimed Cicely, "if you'd a been down with me in the scullery one night last week--I couldn't sleep, and I went down for to get a bit of victuals, and washed my hands in the scullery--I say, if you'd a-heard the din they made over my head, you might have thought somewhat."

"Who made it, Cicely?"

"Them!" said Cicely, in a mysterious whisper. "Nay, I never saw none, but my grandmother's aunt's mother-in-law, she did."

"Ah! she is a good way off us," said Harry, satirically. "But you know, this house is rather too new for ghosts. A fine old castle, now, with all manner of winding stairs and secret passages--that would be the place to see a ghost."

"Eh! my dear, don't you give me the horrors!" cried Cicely. "Why, I could never sleep in my bed if I lived in a place where them secret places and such was--no, never lie quiet, I couldn't! Nay, Master Harry, nobody never seed no ghosteses in this house. I've lived here eight-and-twenty year come Martlemas, and I ought to know."

"And pray, Cicely, who was your great-grandmother's first cousin's niece, or whatever she were? and what did she see?"

"My grandmother's aunt's mother-in-law, Master," corrected Cicely. "She see a little child in a white coat."

"How very extraordinary!" commented Harry gravely.

"Master Harry, I'm certain sure you don't believe a word of it, for all you look so grave," said old Cicely, shaking her head sorrowfully.

"I can't say that I do at present. But you see I have not heard the particulars yet."

"Then you shall, Master," said old Cicely, rather excitedly. "'Twas at Dagworth in Suffolk, in the house of one Master Osborne, where she served as chambermaid. He had been a while in the house, had the ghost, and nobody couldn't get to see him--no, not the parson, though he used to reason with him on doctrine and godliness. They oft heard him a-calling for meat and drink, with the voice of a child of one year, which meat being put in a certain place was no more seen. He said his name was Malke. And after a while, one day she spoke to him and begged him for a sight of him, promising not to touch him. Whereupon he appeared to her as a young child in a white coat, and told her that he was a mortal child, stole by the good-folk,[2] and that he was born at Lanaham, and wore a hat that made him invisible, and so, quoth he, doth many another. He spoke English after the manner of the country, and had many roguish and laughter-stirring sayings, that at last they grew not to fear him."[3]

"How long did he stay there?"

"Now you are asking me more than I know, Master. But don't you never go to say again that there's no such things as ghosteses, when my grandmother's aunt's mother-in-law seen him with her own two eyes!"

"And Mr. Osborne kept no dogs, or cats, I suppose?"

"Master Harry, you don't believe it! Well, to be sure, I never did! You'll be saying next thing that there's no such things as the good-folk, when I've seen their dancing-rings on the grass many a hundred times! I'm sore afeared, Master Harry, that it haven't done you no good a-going for a soldier--I am."

And Harry found that all his arguments produced no further effect than the conviction of old Cicely that he had been in bad company. From the information thus gained, however, he formed these conclusions:--First, His mother knew nothing about the secret chamber. Secondly, Cicely was equally ignorant. Thirdly, It was situated, as he had surmised--above the scullery or behind it--probably both--and below his sister Isabella's bedroom. Fourthly, It had been inhabited as recently as the preceding week. All the more reason, he thought, for stopping up the means of ingress; and all the more for not revealing to old Cicely that her ghost was in all probability a Popish priest.

On the evening of the spring day upon which Harry thus barred the refugee out of his hiding-place, Celia was strolling through the park alone. She fed the fawns and the swans on the ornamental water, and wandered on with no definite object, until she reached the boundary of her father's grounds. She sat down on the grass near a large laurel, and became lost in thought. There happened at this place to be a small gap in the hedge near her, through which her position was plainly observable from the road. She started as she heard a sudden appeal made to her:

"Young Madam, pray you a penny, for the love of God!"

Celia turned and looked at the speaker. He was a dark, good-looking man, dressed in clothes which had once been handsome, but were now ragged and thread-bare. His eyes, dark, sunken, and very bright, were fixed earnestly upon her. She held out to him the penny for which he asked, when he said, abruptly:

"Your pardon, Madam! but are you Squire Passmore's daughter?"

"Yes, I am Celia Passmore," she replied, thinking nothing of the query.

"Be not too certain of it," answered the stranger, softly. "God and our Lady bless you!"

And gently taking the offered coin from Celia's hand, he withdrew before she could recover from her horror at the discovery that she had been conversing with a Papist. When she recovered herself, his words came back to her with strange meaning. The blessing she took to be merely his way of thanking her for the alms which she had bestowed. But had he not told her not to be too sure of something? Of what? Had she said anything to him beyond telling her name? Celia concluded that the poor fellow must have been wrong in his head, and began to feel very compassionate towards him. She sauntered back to the house, and into old Cicely's room, where she found its occupant mending stockings, with her old brown Bible lying open on the table before her.

"Cicely, I have had such an odd adventure."

"Have you so, Mrs. Celia? What was it, my dear?"

"Why, a poor man begged of me over the hedge, and said such strange things!--asked me my name, and told me not to be too sure of it! Was it not droll?"

Instead of a laugh rising to her lips, as Celia expected, a strange light sprang to old Cicely's eyes as she lifted her head and gazed at her. Not a glad light--far from it; a wild, startled, sad expression, which Celia could not understand.

"Ay, sweetheart!" said the old woman, in a voice not like her usual tones. "Did he so? And what manner of man?"

"Oh, not bad-looking," answered Celia. "A comely man, with black hair and eyes. His clothes had been good, but they were very bad now, and he was a Papist, for he said, 'Our Lady bless you.'"

"A Papist!" cried old Cicely, in a voice of horror.

"Yes," said Celia, smiling at her tone. "Why, Cicely, are you afraid of being murdered because there is a Papist in the county?"

"Eh no, my dear," answered old Cicely, slowly; "that's not it. Poor soul! God comfort you when you come to know!"

"Come to know what, Cicely?"

"What you've never been told yet, my dear--and yet he told you, if you did but know."

"I don't understand you, Cicely."

"I am glad you don't, my dear."

"But tell me what you mean."

"No, Mrs. Celia. Ask Madam, if you must. Tell her what you have told me. But if you'll take my counsel, you'll never ask her as long as you live."

"Cicely, what riddles are you talking?" replied Celia. "I will ask Mother."

The opportunity for doing so came the next day, about an hour after dinner. Madam Passmore sat knitting peacefully in her especial chair in the parlor. Henrietta was absent, superintending household affairs; and Isabella, with the velvet ornaments tied round her neck and arms, was occupied as usual with her endless embroidery-frame.

"We shall have an assembly on Monday," observed Madam Passmore, speaking to nobody in particular.

"That is right!" said Isabella, rather less languidly than usual. "I am so glad! Who are coming, Mother?"

"Dr. Braithwaite and his wife, Squire and Madam Harvey, and Squire and Madam Rowe."

"Nobody else?" asked Isabella, in a disappointed tone.

"Well, that I don't know, child," answered her mother. "Maybe some of the young folks may come from over the hill."

"Are they coming to dinner?"

"No, for the afternoon. Put on your blue satin petticoats, girls, and your best gowns; and Bell, bid Harry to have ready the basset-table in the corner. We will draw it out when 'tis wanted."

"But you will have dancing, Mother?" said Isabella, in a tone which indicated that her enjoyment would be spoilt without it.

"Please yourself, child," said Madam Passmore. "I don't know who you'll dance with, unless Johnny and Frank Rowe should come. The old folks will want no dancing, I should think; they would rather have a quiet game."

"How tiresome!" said Isabella.

"Well, I don't think so," replied Madam Passmore. "When you come to my time of life, you won't want to be sent spinning about the room like so many teetotums. Yet I was reckoned a good dancer once, to be sure."

"And you liked it, Mother?" asked Celia.

"Yes, I suppose I did. I was young and foolish," said Madam Passmore, with a little sigh. "But really, when you come to think it over, 'tis only fit for children, I think. I would rather have a good game of hunt-the-slipper--there is more sense in it, and quite as much moving about, and a great deal more fun."

"So very vulgar!" sighed Isabella, contemptuously.

"Very vulgar, Madam!" bowed Harry, who had entered while his mother was speaking; "almost as vulgar as eating and sleeping."

"I wish you would go away, Harry. I don't like arguing with you."

"By all means, Madam," said Harry, bowing himself out of the parlor.

Madam Passmore laughed. "Well, girls," she said, "I think I shall have to give the ladies some tea, though it is a new-fangled drink; and as you are used to pour it for your sisters, Bell, you had better take the charge of it."

"Very well, Mother."

"And, Celia, can you get some flowers and bits of green from the evergreens? They will look better than nothing in the jars. That great laurel at the other end of the park can spare some, and as you take long walks, I leave that to you."

"O Mother!" suddenly cried Celia, in a voice which showed that her thoughts were on anything but evergreens, "I want to tell you something. Yesterday I was sitting by that great laurel, when a man begged of me through the hedge. I gave him a trifle, and he asked me if I were Squire Passmore's daughter. I told him yes, my name was Celia Passmore; and he told me in answer not to be too certain of it. Was it not droll? But the thing yet more strange was, that when I told Cicely of it, she said I had better tell you--no, she said I had better not tell you--but that you could tell me what it meant if I asked you. So very strange! What did it mean, Mother?"

Madam Passmore was silent for a few moments. When she spoke, it was to say, in quite another tone, softer and tenderer than her previous one, "Thou art nineteen, Celia, my dear."

"Yes, Mother," answered Celia, rather surprised at the information. "I was nineteen on the third of June."

"Ay, born the same year as Bell," said Madam Passmore, gravely, and Celia thought a little sadly. "Well, I will tell thee, my dear, for thou oughtest to know, and thou art now a woman grown. Ay, I will tell thee, but wait until Tuesday. After the assembly will be better."

Squire Passmore was riding leisurely home, after having himself carried the invitation to his old friends Mr. and Mrs. Harvey of Ellersley. He had nearly reached his own gates, when he suddenly pulled up to avoid running over a pedestrian. The latter met him as he turned a corner, and was apparently too deeply engaged in his occupation--that of searching into a portfolio in his hand--to see any one coming. He was a young man of some six-and-twenty years, and the brightness of his dark, penetrating eyes struck the Squire as he looked up and hastily drew to one side with an apology.

"Your servant, Sir! I beg your pardon for my carelessness."

"Another time," said the Squire, in his hearty voice, "I should advise you to delay looking into your portfolio till you are round the corner."

"Thank you for your advice, which I shall certainly take," returned the young man. "Might I ask--can I be mistaken in thinking that I am addressing Squire Passmore, of Ashcliffe Hall?"

"My name is John Passmore," said the Squire, "and I live at Ashcliffe. Do you want anything with me?"

"I thought I could not be mistaken," answered the young man, with a very deferential bow. "My object in addressing you, Sir, is to request the very great favor of your permission to take a few sketches of your fine old Hall. I am sketching in this neighborhood in the employ of Sir Godfrey Kneller, the great London painter--you have surely heard of him--and if"--

"A good sensible Whig," interrupted the Squire. "If you want to sketch the Hall for him, you shall have leave to draw all the four sides; if you like. You are a painter, are you? I thought you must be some sort of a moonstruck fellow--painter, author, or what not--that you did not see me coming."

"Permit me to express my very great obligations," said the artist. "Might I venture so far as to ask your leave to take one sketch inside? I have been told there is a fine carved oak staircase"--

"Come and dine with me," replied the Squire, heartily, "and sketch the staircase by all means. We dine at twelve o'clock--old-fashioned folks, Mr.----I have not the pleasure"--

"Stevens, Sir--Cuthbert Stevens, at your service--and very much"--

"Ah! odd name, Cuthbert, but an old name--yes, a good old name. To-morrow at twelve, Mr. Stevens--very glad to see you."

And away rode the hospitable and unsuspicious man, leaving on the face of Cuthbert Stevens a look of amused contempt.

"'Moonstruck!'" he whispered to himself. "We shall see which is the cleverer, John Passmore, Esquire--we shall see."

"Lucy, my dear," said the Squire to his wife when he came in, "I have asked a gentleman to dinner to-morrow;--a painter--making sketches for Sir Godfrey Kneller--monstrous clever fellow!--take your portrait in no time--wants to draw the Hall."

When the Squire conveyed his information in this abrupt and detached style, Madam Passmore knew from experience that he was not altogether satisfied with his own act, and desired to justify himself in his own eyes. He was, in truth, beginning to feel rather uneasy. Though he called the artist a "monstrous clever fellow," he had not seen a single sketch; he had taken the man on his own word, and at his own valuation; he had yielded to the charm of his voice and manner; and now that this was withdrawn, he began to doubt whether he had done well in introducing a complete stranger into the bosom of his family. So Madam Passmore, seeing this, and also acting on her favorite maxim of "what must be, must," quietly said, "Very well, John," and left her husband to his own devices.

Noon came, and with it Mr. Cuthbert Stevens. The Squire inspected him as he entered, and could find nothing with which to be dissatisfied. His taste in dress was excellent, his manners were faultless; and the Squire began to think his first thoughts had been the best. Dinner passed without a single _contretemps_. The stranger talked with the Squire about hunting and poaching, and was quite alive to the enormities of the latter; to Charley upon snaring rabbits and making rabbit-hutches; to Henrietta and Isabella upon the fashions and London life (with which he seemed perfectly familiar); and told Madam Passmore of a new method of distilling cordial waters of which she had not previously heard. Of Celia he took little apparent notice. The family began to think that they had lighted on a very agreeable and accomplished man; and when dinner was over, and the sketch of the staircase made--(which latter the Squire, though no artist, could see was a faithful copy, and pronounced "as like as two peas")--the stranger was pressed to remain longer, but this offer, with many thanks, Mr. Stevens declined. His time, he said, was growing short, and he must make all possible use of it. He had still several sketches to complete before quitting the neighborhood; but he could assure Mr. Passmore that he would never forget the kindness shown him at Ashcliffe, and would inform Sir Godfrey of it on his return to London.

"Well, Sir, if you will remain no longer," said Madam Passmore, her kind heart compassionating his probably precarious circumstances, "you will put one of these raised pies in your pocket for your journey? I think you liked them at dinner."

The artist gratefully accepted the offer. With a very respectful bow he took leave, Charley volunteering to accompany him to the gate. There was a good deal of conversation on the way through the park, chiefly on Charley's side, the stranger contenting himself with an occasional simple and careless query. At the gate they parted--Charley to run home at the top of his speed, and Mr. Stevens to walk rather quickly for half a mile in the direction of Exeter. Having so done, he turned aside into a coppice bordering on the road, and, slackening his pace, commenced whistling a lively air. The verse was still unfinished, when an answering whistle of the same tune was heard, and the man who had accosted Celia over the hedge came in view, advancing to meet him.

"Well, Gilbert!" was the artist's greeting, "any good news?"

"The same that I left you with, Father," said the elder man in reply; "and if you call it good news, you have the heart of a stone. I am all but famished, and sick-tired of being cooped up in that miserable hole."

"And the inquiries, Gilbert? You told me all that before, you know."

"And much you cared about it!" answered Gilbert, ill-humoredly, kicking some dead sticks out of his way. "Inquiries! no, of course nothing has come of them, except what we knew before: that she passes as the third daughter, and she is short and dark."

Stevens sat down on a green knoll. "What a surpassing clever man you are, Gilbert Irvine!" he observed.

"Well, Father Cuthbert, you are uncommon complimentary," remonstrated Gilbert, leaning back against a tree. "Seven mortal weeks have I been cooped up in that dog-hole, with as much to eat as a sparrow, and wearing myself out, dodging about to get a glimpse of this girl--all to please my Lady and you; never slept in a bed except just these four nights we have been at Exeter--and the only reward of my labors which I have seen anything of yet, is to be told I am an ass for my pains: because, of course, that is what you mean."

"My excellent Gilbert, your temper is a little below perfection. You shall see what a mistake you have made. Look at me. I have just been dining with Squire Passmore."

Gilbert's mouth opened for an exclamation, but shut again without one, as if his astonishment passed the power of words to express.

"Now why could not you have done the same? Seven weeks you have been here, as you say, and caught one glimpse of the girl; and I, who have not been here as many days, have already seen and spoken to her, and found out more about her than you have. And I have dined like a prince in addition, while you are pretty near starving, Gilbert."

"Nice consolation that is to give to a famished wretch!" snarled Gilbert. "Father Cuthbert, you have a heart of stone."

"Not quite so hard as that, my friend," answered Stevens, feeling in his pocket, and bringing out of it the pie. "I only wished to show you what a very ingenious fellow you were. Eat that."

"Where did you get it?" was all the thanks Gilbert vouchsafed.

"It was offered me, and I accepted it," said Stevens. "I never say 'No, thank you!' to anything good. Always take all you can get, Gilbert."

Gilbert was too busy with the pie to answer.

"Now listen, Gilbert. I was wise enough to take no notice of the girl that any could see: but I studied her quietly, and I sounded the youngest brother well. I am satisfied that none of them know who she is, and I imagine only the parents know any thing at all. She seems very comfortable, and well taken care of, and will probably be in no haste to leave; at least so I judge from what I can see of her disposition, which is quiet and timid. Then"--

"Father Cuthbert, I wish you would wait a minute. ''Tis ill talking between a full man and a fasting.' Do let me finish this pie in peace."

"Finish it, Gilbert, and much good may it do you."

"But how did you get in?" was the question that followed the last mouthful of the pie.

"I represented myself as an artist, in the employ of Sir Godfrey Kneller "--

"Did you ever see him?"

"I once had him shown to me in London. And I asked leave to draw the Hall, and the staircase inside. I knew, after that, Mr. Passmore would ask me to dinner."

"Can you draw?"

"If I could not, my friend, I should have been unwise to take that character. I can do a good many things."

"You are a more ingenious man than I am, Father."

"You are not far wrong there, Gilbert," complacently assented the disguised priest.

"But I cannot believe, Father," pursued Gilbert, "that you came over from France only to see Sir Edward's daughter."

"I protest, Gilbert, you are even more surpassing than I took you for! It must be your conversation with that Jezebel of yours which has dulled your wits. You were a sharper fellow once."

"You are welcome to revile my wife as much as you please, Father," said Gilbert, calmly. "I can't think how in the world I ever came to marry the daughter of an old, ranting, canting Covenanter. The devil must have set me up to it."

"Probably he did, my friend," was the reply of Cuthbert. "But to relieve your mind: I came here on secret service--you will not ask me what it was. Suffice it you to know that it was at once for Church and King."

"Well!" sighed Gilbert, "the Church is infallible--is she not?--and immortal: she will get along all right. But for the King"--

An expressive pantomime of Gilbert's hands and shoulders completed the sentence.

"Faint-hearted, Gilbert?" asked Stevens, with a smile.

"Faint-hoping, Father," said he. "The King will never 'have his ain again.' Ay! that song you were whistling by way of signal is to me the saddest of all our songs. 'Tis easy to chant 'It was a' for our richtfu' King,'--or I can even stand 'Lilliburlero;' but 'The King shall have his ain again'--it but saddens me, Father Cuthbert. He will never have it."

"Why, Gilbert, has your solitude made you hopeless? You used to have more faith in right, and in the final triumph of the good cause."

"The cause is lost, Father Cuthbert," said Gilbert, stooping to pick up one of the dry twigs which lay before him. "'Tis as dead and dry as this branch; and as easily to be broken by the Princess and her Ministers, or by the Elector of Hanover and his, as I can break this--so!"

And the broken twig fell at Stevens' feet.

"Come, Gilbert, come!" said Stevens, encouragingly. "Remember how many friends the King has throughout England, and Scotland, and Ireland."

"Friends! what are they worth?" asked the other. "Good to sing 'Awa' Whigs, awa'!' or to pass their glasses over the water-jug when they say, 'The King, God bless him!'[4] But how many of them are ready to put their hands in their pockets to maintain your good cause? How many are ready to melt down their plate, as their fathers and ours did for King Charles? How many would die for the King now, as for his grandfather then?"

"_That_ cause triumphed, Gilbert," said Stevens, suggestively.

"Did it?" answered Gilbert, more suggestively still. "How much worse had we been off now, Father Cuthbert--how far different, if the one at St. James's had been called Richard Cromwell instead of Anne Stuart? Trust me, England will henceforth be constant but to one thing--her inconstancy. She will go on, as she hath gone, from bad to worse, with short reactions every now and then. First King Charles--then my Lord Protector--then a little fit of reaction, and King Charles again. Then comes King James, and wounds her pride by being really a King and not a puppet, and off she goes to Dutch William--my Lord Protector over again. And now, the Princess Anne"--

"And after her, Gilbert?"

"After her? The saints know!--at least I hope they do; for I am sure I don't. But if these fellows had the King in to-morrow, they would kick him out again the day after."

"Probably," rejoined Stevens, calmly. "However, it does not much matter to me. I have a safe refuge in France in either case--my Lady Ingram's income to draw upon if we succeed--and, if we fail--well, I have friends on the other side. And at the worst, the Jesuit College at Rome would provide me with a shelter for my old age."

"Yes, there is no fear for you, Father," said Gilbert. "But we poor wretches, who have not the good fortune to be of your Order--we are proscribed exiles. Should we have been anything worse under Oliver?"

"Why, you might very likely have been in the pillory," said Stevens, "and had an ear or two less than now. And you might have been at Tyburn."

Gilbert took no notice of this flattering allusion. He answered as if he were pursuing his previous train of thought:

"No, the King will never 'have his ain again.' There are two things that England has come to value above even her throne and her peace: these are her Protestantism and her liberties. For these, and these alone, she will fight to the death. Of course the two monsters cannot live long together; the one must devour the other in the end. And whether heresy will swallow liberty, or liberty eat up heresy,--our great-grandsons may see, but we scarcely shall."

"On what does it depend, Gilbert?" asked Stevens, who seemed at once curious to draw out his companion's ideas, and reluctant to present his own.

"On the man who holds the helm when the two engage in battle," said Gilbert, thoughtfully.

"That is a battle that may last long," hinted Stevens.

"And probably will," replied the other. "But when the present notions shall have come to their full growth, as they must do--when the King shall have permanently become the servant of the Minister, and the Minister the mere agent of the mob--when, instead of '_Ego et Hex mens,_' it shall have become '_Nos_' without any '_Rex_' at all--when all men shake hands over the sepulchre of their religious prejudices and political passions--Father Cuthbert, then will be the triumph of the Catholic Church. If only she knew how to use the interval!--to be patient, never to be in a hurry--to instil gently and unperceivedly into men's minds the idea that all are equal, have equal rights, and are equally right--to work very slowly and very surely; she needs but one thing more, and that is the man at the helm. Let her choose the man. He must be plausible--able to talk well--to talk in a circle, and come to no conclusion--to throw dust in Protestant eyes: the bigger cloud he can raise the better. Let him hold out openly one hand to Protestantism, and give the other behind his back to Rome. When the foundation is so laid, and the man stands at the helm--our work is finished, Father Cuthbert. But I doubt if any Stuart will be reigning then--nay, I doubt if any will reign at all."

"So much for England, then!" responded Stevens, with a rather dubious smile. "And Scotland?--and Ireland?"

"Scotland!" said Gilbert, slowly. "I am a Scot, Father Cuthbert, though 'tis years since I saw Scotland. And I tell you, as a nation, we are hard-headed and long-sighted; and we do not as a rule take up with anything before testing it. But just as the sweetest-tempered man can be the most terrible when he is angry, so, when you can throw dust in a Scotchman's eyes, you make him blind indeed."

"And Ireland?" repeated Stevens.

"The cause was lost there, Father, on a certain 1st of July, more than twenty years ago. And as yet Ireland has been rather too busy setting her own house in order to have much leisure left to meddle with ours."

"You forget one thing, Gilbert," said Stevens, gravely. "Think how many Catholic emissaries we have in Ireland and Scotland, and how Catholic the Gaelic heart once was, and the Erse heart has ever been."

"Father Cuthbert, how many members of the Society of Jesus were in Oliver Cromwell's army?"

"A good many," admitted Stevens.

"Hundreds," resumed Gilbert.[5] "And do you think they did the cause any good?"

"Well, it scarce looked so at the time," said Stephens. "But in the end it seemed more like it."

"'Liberty' is our watchword now," said Gilbert. "Liberty to do anything and everything: which, of course, in six cases out of every ten, means to do wrong. So long as the Church is uppermost--despotism: she can allow no liberty. But let the Church be undermost, and she must set herself to obtain it by all means. Liberty for the sects, we ought never to forget, means liberty for the Church. And to the Church it is not of much consequence whether she herself, or her friend Liberty, devour the dying monster, Protestantism. When the Church sits once again on the throne of Great Britain, the first dish served up to her at her coronation banquet will be the dead body of her jackal, Liberty."

"Gilbert!" said Stevens, rising from his grassy seat, "you are not so stupid as I thought you. Unfortunately, your talents do not lie in the particular path which circumstances have marked out for you. But you have parts, Gilbert. Let us return to Ashcliffe."

"And go back to that dog-hole?" inquired Gilbert, suddenly subsiding into his former discontented self.

"I fear, my son Gilbert," said Stevens, placidly, "that the dog-hole will have to be your habitation for a few days longer. But be comforted, Gilbert. As soon as I can, I will take your place there."

"Hope you may enjoy it!" muttered Gilbert, as they emerged on the Exeter road.

[1] Evidence of twenty-one such concealed chambers will be found in _Notes and Queries_ alone. They exist all over England, in old houses built between the time of Henry VIII. and that of James II.--possibly later still. I append the descriptions of the two which appear to have been most cleverly concealed and best preserved.

The first chamber is at Ingatestone Hall, Essex, which was anciently a grange belonging to the Abbot of Barking, and was in possession of the Petre family from the reign of Henry VIII. to about 1775. "The secret chamber at Ingatestone Hall was entered from a small room on the middle-floor, over one of the projections of the south front. It is a small room, attached to what was probably the host's bedroom.... In the south-east corner of this small room, on taking up a carpet the floor-boards were found to be decayed. The carpenter, on removing them, found a second layer of boards about a foot lower down. When these were removed, a hole or trap about two feet square, and a twelve-step ladder to descend into a room beneath, were disclosed.... The use of the chamber goes back to the reign of James I.... The hiding-place measures 14 feet in length, 2 feet 1 inch in width, and 10 feet in height. Its floor-level is the natural ground-line. The floor is composed of 9 inches of remarkably dry sand, so as to exclude damp or moisture."--_Notes and Queries_, 1st S., xi. 437.

The other example is at Irnham Hall, Lincolnshire. "The situation of this ingeniously-contrived place had been forgotten, though it was well known to exist somewhere in the mansion, till it was discovered a few years ago. In going round the chimney-stacks, it was observed that one of the chimneys of a cluster was without any smoke or any blackness, and as clean as when the masonry was new. This led to the conjecture that it was not in reality a chimney, but an open shaft to give light and air to the priest's hiding-place; yet so forming one of a group of chimneys as to obviate all suspicion of its real purpose. It was carefully examined, and the conjecture fully borne out by the discovery of the long-lost hiding-place. The opening into it was found by removing a beam behind a single step between two servants' bed-rooms. You then come to a panel which has a very small iron tube let into it, through which any message could be conveyed to the occupant of the hiding-place. This panel being removed, a ladder of four steps leads down into the secret chamber.... The hiding-place is 8 feet long by 5 feet broad, and just high enough to allow of standing upright."--_Notes and Queries_, 1st S., xii.

Other instances occur at Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk; Sawston Hall, Cambridgeshire; Coldham Hall, Suffolk; Maple Durham, Watcomb, and Ufton Court, Berkshire; Stonyhurst and Berwick Hall, Lancashire; Bourton, Gloucestershire; Henlip, Worcestershire; Chelvey Court, Somerset; Nether Witton, Northumberland; Paxhill, Sussex (built by Sir Andrew Borde, jester of Henry VIII., and the original of "Merry Andrew"); Treago, Hereford; Weybridge, Surrey; Woodcote, Hampshire; and elsewhere. In several of these instances the secret chamber was formed in the roof of the house, and in two cases at least it was accompanied by a small chapel.

[2] Fairies.

[3] The reader can appraise this ghost-story at what he thinks it worth. It is not the produce of the author's imagination, but may be found reported in the translation of the _Chronicon Roberti Montensis_, by John Stowe, Harl. MS., 545, fol. 190, _b_.

[4] In this way the more timid of the Jacobites drank the toast of "The King over the water."

[5] Dean Goode's "Rome's Tactics," pp. 50-53.