Anthony said that he agreed with him as to the complete baffling of the pursuers, but added that Isabel was still a little shaken, and would Mr. Buxton say a word to her.
“Why, I will take her round the hiding-holes myself after supper, and show her how strong and safe we are. We will all go round.”
In the withdrawing-room he said a word or two of reassurance to her before the others were down.
“Anthony has told me everything, Mistress Isabel; and I warrant that the knaves are cursing their stars still on Stanstead hills, twenty miles from here. You are as safe here as in Greenwich palace. But after supper, to satisfy you, we will look to our defences. But, believe me, there is nothing to fear.”
He spoke with such confidence and cheerfulness that Isabel felt her fears melting, and before supper was over she was ashamed of them, and said so.
“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Buxton, “you shall not escape. You shall see every one of them for yourself. Mistress Corbet, do you not think that just?”
“You need a little more honest worldliness, Isabel,” said Mary. “I do not hesitate to say that I believe God saves the priests that have the best hiding-holes. Now that is not profane, so do not look at me like that.”
“It is the plainest sense,” said Anthony, smiling at them both.
They went the round of them all with candles, and Anthony refreshed his memory; they visited the little one in the chapel first, then the cupboard and portrait-door at the top of the corridor, the chamber over the fireplace in the hall, and lastly, in the wooden cellar-steps they lifted the edge of the fifth stair from the bottom, so that its front and the top of the stair below it turned on a hinge and dropped open, leaving a black space behind: this was the entrance to the passage that led beneath the garden to the garden-house on the far side of the avenue.
Mistress Corbet wrinkled her nose at the damp earthy smell that breathed out of the dark.