I bolted the cheese in a panic. I felt much more afraid of the French since I had seen them so near in Brestgarn kitchen, and since they had nabbed Llewelyn.
“Here’s the hole—you go first. I’ll close it up after us with a pew door.”
Nancy dexterously lifted one off its hinges, while I, mounted on the back of a pew, groped my way into a pitch dark cavity in the wall, the entrance to which was situated at the height of some three or four feet above the floor-level.
“Take care, there are steps,” said Nan, just as I had discovered the fact by the aid of my shin-bone. She was still wrestling with the pew door, and I smothered my agony chiefly, I must own, from fear of the French.
“Get on a bit higher up, Dan,” whispered Ann, as she followed me, dragging the door after her as quietly as she could. Nancy was certainly a wonderful woman, with a head on her shoulders.
At this moment I felt that it was so, for I was propelled somewhat violently upward by the member in question. I can also add my testimony that she was a hard-headed woman. She was also perhaps a little hard-hearted, for in answer to my remonstrance, “Hold hard, Nancy, that hurts!” she merely said,
“Oh, do get on, Dan; I expect them here every minute.”
I did get on, and found after mounting half-a-dozen steps of a twirling stair, that my head was opposite an opening just at the place where the roof of the church sprung; one of the oaken beams was, in fact, a little scooped out to make room for this slit, which being under the heavy shadow of the woodwork was almost completely screened from the glances of those below; while to the person placed behind this coign of ’vantage the whole of the interior of the church was visible—chancel as well as nave.
“What a queer place—what’s it for, Nancy?” I asked.
“That is called the Priest’s Peep-hole; I suppose in old times he got a friend to go up there and keep an eye on the congregation—see who went to sleep, and what they were at altogether,” explained Nan; but at this moment her eloquence came to a sudden end. Our voices and our hearts died within us, for there came to our ears the dreaded but expected sound—the clamorous jabber of many tongues.