"Nonsense," said Mrs. Jones, "I'll have a mason this minute, and get to the bottom of it." So away she ran and brought a mason; but the first thing was to make him keep secresy; and having conducted him in pomp to the cellar, she shut the door, and made her daughter Lucy give him the Bible. "Swear!" said Mrs. Jones, in a solemn tone, like the Ghost in Hamlet--"Swear!"
The mason held up his hand.
"Swear never to reveal," etc. etc.
"Je jure tout ce que vous voudrez--I swear any thing you like," replied the mason; and Mrs. Jones, finding this oath quite comprehensive enough, set him forthwith to work upon the wall just under the iron cross; when, to the triumph of Mrs. Jones and the astonishment of Lucy and the mason, a strong plated door was soon discovered, which readily yielded them admission into a small chamber only ventilated by a round hole, which seemed to pass through the walls of the building and mount upwards to the outer air. Nothing else was to be found. The rubbish was then nicely cleared away, a chair and a table brought down, and the mason paid and sent about his business; when, after having looked in the dark to see that there were no sparks, for the chamber was all of wood, Mrs. Jones and her daughter mounted to upper air, and retired to bed, not to sleep, but to meditate over the convent subterranean.
It was about the middle of the next day that an officious neighbour came in to tell Mrs. Jones that the British forces were approaching the town. "There could be no danger," he said; "but nevertheless the tricolored flag still flew on the walls of the Château Trompette, and Lord Wellington had sworn he would deliver the town to the soldiery if there was a shot fired. It was very foolish to be afraid," he said, trembling every limb, "but the people were flying in all directions, and he should leave the town too, for he had no idea of being bayonetted by the Spaniards."
"Let us shut the street-door," said Lucy, as soon as he was gone, "and all go down together to the hole in the wall, and when it's all over we can come out."
"No," replied Mrs. Jones; "you, Lucy, and the maid, shall go down; but I will stop here, and take care of my property; perhaps I may be able to modulate their barbarosity."
"Lord, ma'am!" cried the maid, "you'll be killed--you'll be ill-treated."
Mrs. Jones replied, very coolly, that they never would think of killing an old woman like her, who had but a few years to live, and she was not afraid of anything else.
The maid then vowed if her mistress remained she would stay with her, and the tears rolled, down her cheeks at the idea her self-devotion. Lucy said, very quietly, that she also would stay with her mother. But Mrs. Jones would not hear of it, finding her daughter very much resolved to do as she said, she had recourse to a violent passion, which was aided by the noise of a drum in the street, and seizing Lucy by the arm, she snatched up the box that held her money, carried them both down stairs to the cellar, and pushing them into the dark chamber, shut the door with a bang; after which, she returned to the maid, for whose safety she had not the same maternal regard, and waited the event with "indomptible" fortitude.