We went on, however, a few steps, still at the foot of the wall. Suddenly Tib gave a little exclamation.
"Look here, Gussie," she said, and with her hands she pulled back some branches of ivy—"look here—there's a door in the wall—a very old door, and not opened for ever so long; for see, the ivy has grown right across it."
Gerald and I pushed forward eagerly. Yes, Tib was right. There was a door in the wall—not a very big one, but very strong, for it did not rattle or shake at all when we pounded on it. It was locked, firmly locked we soon found out, when we had torn away as much of the ivy as we could. The lock was a great big one, clumsy, but very strong, and so rusty that, even without the testimony of the ivy, it would have been clear that no one had passed through that doorway for a great number of years.
We all three stood and looked at each other.
"Another mystery," was what Tib and I were thinking, though we did not say it aloud.
But Gerald looked rather "funny;" his round rosy cheeks were rosier than usual, and there was a queer sparkle in his eyes as he said—
"Wouldn't you like to open it? Wouldn't it be nice if one could find the key?" and he jumped about and turned—or tried to turn—head over heels: there wasn't much room in among the bushes, and he kept saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if somebody could find a key to fit it? But little boys are too little and silly to know anything, aren't they? They're not like big young ladies."
And though Tib got hold of him, and we both shook him we were so provoked, that was all he would say. So we settled that he was just in one of his teasing humours; he didn't have them very often, it is true.
So the only use to make of the door in the wall was another pretence. We settled that it should be the entrance to the dungeon; it didn't do badly for that, as two or three steps, looking very black and slimy, led down to it. And we fixed that, instead of "scaling the wall," the lady should escape by hiding in the wood till the prince who was to be her rescuer passed that way. Gerald had to be the prince, in turns with the horrid little hump-back, for I had to be the baron, and also a lady attendant on the heiress, and Tib, of course, was the heiress. We didn't much like having Gerald after the tiresome way he had been going on, but there was no help for it.
And the next two or three days passed very happily. There was still a great deal to see and inspect about Rosebuds; the house itself—especially the drawing-room, with its treasures, which Mrs. Munt showed us, and sometimes, when she found that we were careful children, allowed us to examine for ourselves; the stables, where lived the old pony who was still able to draw the still older pony-carriage, or "shay"—as the farm-man called it—as far as the little town, where Mrs. Munt liked to go once a month, and to bring home her purchases herself instead of trusting them to the railway. Then there were the dairy and poultry-yard, her great pride, though she was rather mortified to hear that we had never known that the butter and fresh eggs we ate in London were sent up from Rosebuds every week.