"That is the sloping roof of the pantry, only," said my Cousin Tom.

I confessed myself outwitted; and then with great mirth he shewed me
how, over the door into the paved hall, there was a space large enough
to hold three or four men; and how the panels opened on this side, as
well as into the kitchen passage on the other.

"A priest or suchlike might very well lie here a week or two, might he
not?" asked my Cousin Tom delightedly; "and if the sentry was at the one
side, he might be fed from the other. It is cunningly contrived, is it
not? A man has but to leap up here from a chair; and he is safe."

I praised it very highly, to please him; and indeed it was very curious
and ingenious.

"But those days are done," I said.

"Who can tell that?" he cried--(though a week ago he had told me the
same himself). "Some priest might very well be flying for his life along
this road, and turn in here. Who knows whether it may not be so again?"

I said no more then on that point; though I did not believe him.

"And there is one more matter I must shew you in your own chamber; if
you have any private papers and suchlike."

Then he shewed me in my own room, by the head of the bed that stood
along the wall, how one of the panels slid back from its place,
discovering a little space behind where a man might very well keep his