I was very happy when this was done. I went back to the room to make up a packet of food to take with me. This I thrust into an inner pocket, before launching out up the hole. When I had cleaned up the mess of mortar, I started up the chimney, carefully replacing the bar behind me. Soon I was seven or eight feet above the room, trying to get at the upper bars. I was scrambling about for a foothold, when I noticed, to my left, an iron bar or handle, well concealed from below by projecting bricks. I seized hold of it with my left hand, very glad of the support it offered, when, with a dull grating noise, it slid downwards under my weight, drawing with it the iron panel to which it was clamped. I had come upon a secret chamber in the chimney; there at my side was an opening big enough for a man's body. I was pretty well startled by it, not only by the suddenness of the discovery, but from the fear I had lest it should lead to some inhabited room, where my journey would be brought to an end. I peered into it well, before I ventured to enter. It was a little low room, about five feet square, lit by two loopholes, which were concealed from outside by the great growth of ivy on the side of the house. I clambered into it with pleasure, keeping as quiet as I could. It was a dirty little room, with part of its floor rotten from rain which had beaten in through the loopholes. It had not been used for a great while. The pallet bed against the wall was covered with rotten rags, dry as tinder. There were traces of food, who could say how ancient, in a dish by the bed. There was a little crucifix, with a broken neck-chain, lying close to the platter. Some priest who had used this priest-hole years before had left it there in his hurry; I wondered how. Something of the awe which had been upon him then seemed to linger in the place. Many men had lain with beating hearts in that room; the room seemed to remember. I have never been in a place which made one's heart move like that room. Well. The priest's fears were dead as the priest by this time. Nothing but the wreck of his dinner, perhaps the last he ever ate, remained to tell of him, beside the broken symbol of his belief. I shut-to the little panel-door by which I had entered, so that I might not have the horrible fancy that the old priest's shaven head was peering up the chimney at me, to see what I was doing in his old room, long since given over to the birds.
As I expected, there was a way of escape from the hiding-place. A big stone in the wall seemed to project unnecessarily; the last comer to that room had shut the door carelessly; otherwise I might never have found it. Seeing the projecting stone, I took it for a clue feeling all round it, till I found that underneath it there was a groove for finger tips. The stone was nothing more than a large, cunningly fashioned drawer, which pulled out, showing a passage leading down, down, along narrow winding steps, just broad enough for one man to creep down at a time. The stairs were more awesome than the room, for they were dark. I could not see where they led; but I meant to go through this adventure, now that I had begun it. So down I crept cautiously, clinging to the wall, feeling with my feet as I went, lest there should be no step, suddenly, but a black pit, far down, into which a man might fall headlong, on to who knows what horrors. I counted the steps. I thought that they would never end. There were thirty-seven altogether. They brought me to a dark sort of room, with damp earth for its floor, upon which water slowly dropped from some unseen stalactite. I judged that I must be somewhere under the bath-chamber, not more than ten feet from the abbot's old fish-pond. If there was a way out I felt that it must be to my left, under the garden; not to my right, which would lead back under the body of the house.
Very cautiously I felt along to my left, till I found that there was indeed a passage; but one so low that I had to stoop to get along it. A few steps further brought me with a shock against a wall, a sad surprise to me, for I thought that I was on the road to safety. When I recovered from my fear I felt along the wall till I found that the passage zigzagged like a badger's earth. It turned once sharply to the right, going up a couple of steps, then again sharply to the left, going up a few more steps, then again to the right up one step more, to a broader open stretch, lit by one or two tiny chinks, more cheering to me than you can imagine. I guessed that I was passing at last under the garden, having gone right below the house's foundations. The chinks of light seemed to me to come from holes worn in the roof by rabbits or rats. They were pleasant things to see after all that groping in the blackness of night. On I went cautiously, feeling my way before me, till suddenly I stopped dead, frightened terribly, for close to me, almost within touch as it seemed, some men were talking to each other. They were evidently sitting just above my head, in the cool morning, watching for me to come through my window, as I suppose. They were some of Sir Travers's sentries. A moment's thought told me that I had little to fear from them, if I moved quietly in my burrow. However, as my walk was often noisy, through stumblings on stones, I waited till they moved off, which was not for some minutes. One of the men was asking the other what was the truth about the Duke.
“Why,” his mate answered, “they say as he got beat back coming towards London. They say he be going to Bridgewater, now, to make it a castle, like; or perhaps he be a coming to Taunton. They say he have only a mob, like, left to en, what with all this rain. But I do-an't know. He be very like to come here agen; so as us'll have to watch for our stock.”
“Ah?” said the first. “They did say as there was soldiers come to Evilminster. So as to shut en off, like. I seed fires out that way, myself, like camp-fires, afore it grew light. They do say the soldiers be all for the Duke.”
“Yes,” the other answered, “he be very like to win if it come to a battle. He'd a got on to London, I dare-say, if the roads had but been dry.”
“What do ee say to a bit of tobaccy, master?” said the first, after a pause.
“Why, very well,” said the other. At this instant, without any warning, something in the wall of my passage gave way, some bit of rotten mortar which held up a stone, or something of the sort. At any rate, a stone fell out, with a little rush of rotten plaster, making a good deal of noise, though of course it seemed more to me than to the men outside.
“What ever in the world was that?” said one of them.
“I dunno,” said the other. “It seemed to come from down below somewhere, under the earth, like. Do you think as it could be a rabbit?”