“There’s a secret passage leads from there right up to the Hall.”
“Secret grandmother, sir!”
“There is, I tell you,” cried Fred, with his voice trembling from excitement. “Scar and I found it one day, and traced it right to the edge of the lake.”
“Not gammoning me, are you, sir?”
“No, no, Samson.”
“You didn’t dream all this?”
“No, I tell you. We found it by accident, and when we were looking for the end we found that hole where that fallen tree had broken a way into the passage. We piled up all those branches to hide the place.”
“Well, you stun me, Master Fred. And you think our Nat heard ’em there, and has gone to jine ’em?”
“He found them, or they found him. Hist!”
Fred crept close to the heap of dead wood, a portion of which, sufficient for a man to creep through, had been removed, and pressing as far in as he could, he made a trumpet of his hands and cried softly—