mansion are in parts over twelve feet thick, and in them are
several curious recesses, notably near the windows of the "stone
hall." The secret chamber, or "Fyvie-room," as it is sometimes
called, is said to have a window, which nevertheless has not
led to the identification of its situation. Sir Walter Scott
once slept a night at Glamis, and has described the "wild and
straggling arrangement of the accommodation within doors." "I
was conducted," he says, "to my apartment in a distant corner
of the building. I must own, as I heard door after door shut
after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too
far from the living and somewhat too near the dead--in a word,
I experienced sensations which, though not remarkable either for
timidity or superstition, did not fail to affect me to the point
of being disagreeable." We have the great novelist's authority
for saying that the entrance of the secret chamber (in his time,
at any rate), by the law or custom of the family, could
be known to three persons at once--_viz._ the Earl of
Strathmore, his heir-apparent, and any third person whom they
might take into their confidence.

The great mystery of the secret chamber was imparted to the heir
of Glamis, or the heir-presumptive, as the case might be, upon the
eve of his arriving at his majority, and thus it passed into modern
times from the dim and distant feudal days. That the secret should
be thus handed down through centuries without being divulged is
indeed remarkable, yet so is the story; and many a time a future
lord of Glamis has boasted that he would reveal everything when
he should come of age. Still, however, when that time _did_
arrive, in every case the recipient of the deadly secret has
solemnly refused point blank to speak a word upon the subject.

There is a secret chamber at the old Cumberland seat of the ancient
family of Senhouse. To this day its position is known only by
the heir-at-law and the family solicitor. This room at Nether
Hall is said to have no window, and has hitherto baffled every
attempt of those not in the secret to discover its whereabouts.

Remarkable as this may seem in these prosaic days, it has been
confirmed by the present representative of the family, who, in a
communication to us upon the subject, writes as follows: "It may
be romantic, but still it is true that the secret has survived
frequent searches of visitors. There is no one alive who has
been in it, that I am aware