e lost to the world, as
those who go to the county histories and general topographical
works for information will find.

Inside the mansion, like the exterior, the hand of decay is
perceptible on every side; the rooms are ruined, the windows
broken, the floors unsafe (excepting, by the way, a small portion
of the building which is habitable). A ponderous broad oak staircase
leads to a dismantled state-room, shorn of the principal part of
its panelling, carving, and chimney-pieces.[1] Other desolate
apartments retain their names as if in mockery; "the drawing-room,"
"the chapel," "Lady Yates's nursery," and so forth. At the top
of the staircase, however, we must look around carefully, for
beneath the stairs is a remarkable hiding-place.

[Footnote 1: Most of the interior fittings were removed to Coughton
Court, Warwickshire.]

With a slight stretch of the imagination we can see an indistinct
form stealthily remove the floorboard of one of the stairs and
creep beneath it. This particular step of a short flight running
from the landing into a garret is, upon closer inspection, indeed
movable, and beneath gapes a dark cavity about five feet square, on
the floor of which still remains the piece of sedge matting whereon
a certain Father Wall rested his aching limbs a few days prior to
his capture and execution in August, 1679. The unfortunate man
was taken at Rushock Court, a few miles away where he was traced
after leaving Harvington. There is a communication between the
hiding-place and "the banqueting-room" through, a small concealed
aperture in the wainscoting large enough to admit of a tube,
through which a straw could be thrust for the unhappy occupant
to suck up any liquid his friends might be able to supply.

In a gloomy corridor leading from the tower to "the reception-room"
is another "priest's hole" beneath the floor, and entered by a
trap-door artfully hidden in the boards; this black recess is
some seven feet in depth, and can be made secure from within.
Supposing the searchers had tracked a fugitive priest as far
as this corridor, the odds are in favour that they would have
passed over his head in their haste to reach the tower, where
they would make sure, in their own minds at least, of discovering
him. Again, here there is a communication with the outside world.
An oblong aperture in the top oak beam of the entrance gateway
to the house, measuring about four inches across, is the secret
opening--small e