Tom Keane held up the flickering light, that the other might see the torn and tattered remnants of the decorations, and the fragments of scenes, as they flapped to and fro. “It's a dhroll place, anyhow,” said he, “and there's scarce a bit of it hasn't a trap-door, or some other contrivance of the like; but here's one stranger than all; this is what I towld yer honer about.” He walked, as he spoke, to the back wall of the building, where, on the surface of the plaster, a rude scene, representing a wood, was painted, at one side of which a massive pile of rock, overgrown with creepers, stood. “Now, ye 'd never guess what was there,” said Tom, holding the candle in different situations to exhibit the scene; “and, indeed, I found it by chance myself; see this,”—and he pressed a small but scarcely perceptible knob of brass in the wall, and at once, what appeared to be the surface of the rock, slid back, discovering a dark space behind. “Come on, now, after me,” continued he. Linton followed, and they ascended a narrow stair constructed in the substance of the wall, and barely sufficient to admit one person.
Arriving at the top, after a few seconds' delay, Tom opened a small door, and they stood in a large and well-proportioned room, where some worm-eaten bed-furniture yet remained. The door had been once, as a small, fragment of glass showed, the frame of a large mirror, and must have been quite beyond the reach of ordinary powers of detection.
“That was a cunning way to steal down among the play acthers,” said Keane, grinning, while Linton, with the greatest attention, remarked the position of the door and its secret fastening.
“I suppose no one but yourself knows of this stair?” said Linton.
“Sorra one, sir, except, maybe, some of the smugglers that used to come here long ago from the mouth of the Shannon. This was one of their hiding-places.”
“Well, if this old mansion comes ever to be inhabited, one might have rare fun by means of that passage; so be sure, you keep the secret well. Let that be a padlock on your lips.” And, so saying, he took a sovereign from his purse and gave it to him. “Your name is—”
“Tom, yer honer—Tom Keane; and, by this and by that, I'm ready to do yer honer's bidding from this hour out—”
“Well, we shall be good friends, I see,” interrupted Linton; “you may, perhaps, be useful to me, and I can also be able to serve you. Now, which is the regular entrance to this chamber?”
“There, sir; it's the last door as ye see in the long passage. Them is all bedrooms alone there, but it's not safe to walk down, for the floor is rotten.”
Linton noted down in a memory far from defective the circumstances of the chamber, and then followed his guide through the remainder of the house, which in every quarter presented the same picture of ruin and decay.