One man, however, a big young fellow in a velveteen coat, scouted the idea. He was one of Sir Anthony Ringwood’s keepers.
“Witches and ghosts!” he exclaimed, scornfully. “’Tain’t neither one nor t’other; ’tis poachers, that’s what ’tis. They’ve bin and found some room in the castle as nobody knows on, and ’tis them as is making this’ere smoke.”
But this very reasonable idea of our friend in velveteen was received with equal scorn by the others. They preferred the witch theory. I have no doubt but that every single one of them took care to stop up his keyhole that night, in case one of the witches, offended at this officious prying into her affairs, should think fit to pay him a visit.
Having concluded their fruitless search, the party returned to their homes; while Percy and I, readjusting the ropes, went back to the den, where we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting by the fire and chuckling over the mystification of the villagers.
But though the villagers had no trouble in deciding that the supernatural smoke was due to the agency of witchcraft, Sir Anthony was by no means so easily satisfied. The old Baronet was the largest landowner and chief magnate of the neighbourhood. He had been a great sportsman in his day, having shot buffaloes on the plains of America and tigers in the Indian jungles, and though he was now too old for such enterprises, he was still as keen as ever with his gun, and preserved the game upon his large estates with great strictness. Poachers were the bane of his existence; and his declaration that he would prosecute to the utmost extent of the law anyone found infringing upon his game-rights was well known to us and to everybody else in the village.
The poachers happened to be particularly active at this time, and the young keeper’s theory that some of that troublesome fraternity had discovered a secret chamber in the castle found favour with the better-educated people of the neighbourhood; Sir Anthony in particular was convinced of its correctness. In consequence, he ordered a strict examination of the old ruin to be made under the direction of the head-keeper, a very intelligent man; but Percy and I, getting wind of his intention, removed the telltale ropes, and as the ivy was not strong enough to bear the weight of a grown man, none of the keepers could get upon the top of the wall, and our secret therefore remained a secret, its value being only enhanced by the wonder which the mystery excited in the whole community.
CHAPTER II
THE FLIGHT
SOME six months previous to our discovery of the secret chamber, it happened that all the boys in our class at school had been taken with a desire to become archers,—the result of reading the story of Robin Hood,—and Percy and I, among the rest, had procured bows and arrows, and had spent many hours practising at a sack full of straw suspended from a bough in the playground. With the others the craze, as such crazes will, had died out again in a short time; we two alone kept it up. For one thing, my chum’s persevering nature impelled him, having undertaken to be an archer, to be one; another reason was that our bows were very superior to those of the other boys. In the churchyard there grew a splendid old yew-tree, the pride of the village, and we, young rascals that we were, had purloined from it two straight branches, which, with great pains, we had fashioned into very serviceable bows. By constant practice we became highly respectable shots, and many a luckless small bird did we thoughtlessly slay for the mere pleasure of killing; we even became so expert as now and then to kill a rabbit “on the wing,” as Percy put it.