We must look for moss and greenery, for it is likely that such would have been planted, so as to conceal the door from any passer-by, while yet allowing a party from inside to cut their way through it without difficulty." After a search of two hours, Cnut decided that the only place in the copse in which it was likely that the entrance to a passage could be hidden was a spot where the ground was covered thickly with ivy and trailing plants.
"It looks level enough with the rest," Cuthbert said.
"Ay, lad, but we know not what lies behind this thick screen of ivy.
Thrust in that staff." One of the woodmen began to probe with the end of a staff among the ivy.
For some time he was met by the solid ground, but presently the butt of the staff went through suddenly, pitching him on his head, amid a suppressed laugh from his comrades.
"Here it is, if anywhere," said Cnut, and with their billhooks they at once began to clear away the thickly grown creepers.
Five minutes' work was sufficient to show a narrow cut, some two feet wide, in the hillside, at the end of which stood a low door.
"Here it is," said Cnut, with triumph, "and the castle is ours.

Thanks, Cuthbert, for your thought and intelligence.

It has not been used lately, that is clear," he went on.

"These creepers have not been moved for years.

Shall we go and tell the earl of our discovery?
What think you, Cuthbert ?" "I think we had better not," Cuthbert said.
"We might not succeed in getting in, as the passage may have fallen further along; but I will speak to him and tell him that we have something on hand which may alter his dispositions for fighting to-morrow." Cuthbert made his way to the earl, who had taken possession of a small cottage a short distance from the castle.
"What can I do for you ?" Sir Walter said.
"I want to ask you, sir, not to attack the castle to-morrow until you see a white flag waved from the keep." "But how on earth is a white flag to be raised from the keep ?" "It may be," Cuthbert said, "that I have some friends inside who will be able to make a diversion in our favor.