"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."