The room was hung with green, with panels of another pattern upon it; and the dishes were put in through a little hatch from the kitchen passage.

My man James waited with the rest, and acquitted himself very well.

Then after dinner, when the servants were gone away, my Cousin Tom carried me out, with a mysterious air, to the foot of the stairs.
"Now look well round you, Cousin Roger," he said, when he had me standing there; "and see if there be anything that would draw your attention." I looked this way and that but saw nothing; and said so.
"Have you ever heard of Master Owen," he said, "of glorious memory ?" "Why, yes," I said, "he was a Jesuit lay-brother, martyred under Elizabeth: and he made hiding-holes, did he not ?" "Well; he hath been at work here.

Look again, Cousin Roger." I turned and saw my Cousin Dorothy smiling--( and it was a very pretty sight too!)--but there was nothing else to be seen.

I beat with my foot; and it rang a little hollow.
"No, no; those are the cellars," said my Cousin Tom.
I beat then upon the walls, here and there; but to no purpose; and then upon the stairs.
"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.