The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

When somewhat recovered, Miss Hallet asked for her bonnet and shawl: which had been taken away to be shaken and brushed. Leaving her thanks with the Sisters, she departed with Jane, and walked home in humility. Now than the actual, present fear had subsided, she felt ashamed of herself for having given way to it, and particularly for having disturbed the Nunnery in the frantic manner described. But hers had been real, genuine terror; and she could no more have helped its laying complete hold of her at the time than she could have taken wings and flown away from the spot, as an arrow flies through the air. A staid, sober-aged, well-reared woman like herself, to have made a commotion as though she had been some poor ignorant fish girl! Miss Hallet walked dumbly along, keeping her diminished head down as she toiled up the cliff.

After supper and prayers were over that night at the Nunnery, and most of the Grey Ladies had retired to their rooms--which they generally did at an early hour when there was nothing, sickness or else, to keep them up--Sisters Mildred and Mary Ursula remained alone in the parlour. That they should be conversing upon what had taken place was only natural. Mary Ursula had not, herself, the slightest faith in the supernatural adjunct of the Grey Friar; who or what it was she knew not, or why it should haunt the place and show itself as it did, lamp in hand; but she believed it would turn out to be a real presence, not a ghostly one. Sister Mildred prudently shook her head at this heterodoxy, confessing that she could not join in it; but she readily agreed that the Friar's Keep was a most mysterious place; and, in the ardour of conversation, she disclosed a secret which very much astonished Mary Ursula. There was an underground passage leading direct from the vaults of the Nunnery to the vaults of the Keep.

"I have known of it for many years," Mildred said, "and never spoken of it to any one. My Sister Mary discovered it: you have heard, I think, that she was one of us in early days: but she died young. After we took possession of this building, Mary, who was lively and active, used to go about, above ground and under it, exploring, as she called it. One day she came upon a secret door below, that disclosed a dark, narrow passage: she penetrated some distance into it, but did not cate to go on alone. At night, when the rest of the ladies had retired, she and I stayed up together--just as you and I have stayed up to-night, my dear, for it was in this very parlour--and she got me to go and explore it with her. We took a lantern to light our steps, and went. The passage was narrow, as I have said, and apparently built in a long straight line, without turnings, angles, or outlets. Not to fatigue you, I will shortly say, that after going a very long way, as it seemed to us, poor timid creatures that we were, we passed through another door, and found ourselves in a pillared place that looked not unlike cloisters, and at length made it out to be vaults under the Friar's Keep."

"What a strange thing!" exclaimed Mary Ursula, speaking into the instrument she had recently made the good Sister a present of--a small ear-trumpet, for they were talking almost in a whisper.

"Not so strange when you remember what the place was originally," dissented Sister Mildred. "Tradition says, you know, that these old religions buildings abounded in secret passages. I did not speak of the discovery, and enjoined silence on Mary; the Sisters might have been uncomfortable; and it was not a nice thing, you see, to let the public know there was a secret passage into our abode."

"Did you never enter it again?"

"Yes, once. Mary would go; and of course I could not let her go alone. It was not long before the illness came on that terminated in her death. Ah, my dear, we were young then, and such an expedition bore for us a kind of pleasurable romance."

Mary Ursula sat in thought. "It strikes me as not being a pleasant idea," she said--"the knowledge that we may be invaded at any hour by some ill-disposed or curious straggler, who chooses to frequent the Friar's Keep."

"Not a bit of it, my dear," said Sister Mildred, briskly. "Don't fear. We can go to the Keep at will, but the Keep cannot come to us. The two doors are firmly locked, and I hold the keys."

"I should like to see this passage!" exclaimed Mary Ursula. "Are you--dear Sister Mildred, do you think you are well enough to show it to me?"