s to hide so much as a
mouse in this chamber, other than in yonder closet, which is as plain as
the door or the window."

Edward replied by an amused smile.

"You've a deal of book-learning, Father Garnet," said he, "but under
your leave, there's a few things you don't know in this world."

He walked into the chimney-corner.

Chimneys, be it remembered, were much wider in the seventeenth century
than they have been since the invention of grates. There was room in
every chimney-corner, not only for the fire, but for one or two chairs
and settles, where people could sit when they wished to warm themselves;
and as there was no fire on Edward's hearth, moving about on it was as
easy as in a closet.

"Are we to fly up the chimney on a pair of broomsticks?" laughed Hall.

Edward only smiled again, and after a moment's feeling with his hand
among the bricks at the side of the chimney, they heard a sound as of
the pushing back of bolts. Slowly, as if it moved with some difficulty,
a square door opened in the chimney, so cleverly concealed that it
required a skilful detective indeed to guess its existence. The door
was of wood, "curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast"
to it, "and coloured black like the other parts of the chimney, that
very diligent inquiry might well have past by." Behind it was a very
small square recess, large enough to hold the two, though not
sufficiently high for them to stand upright. A narrow tunnel, in
outward appearance like a chimney, led up to the top of the house,
designed for the admission of light and air to the hiding-place, but
capable of conveying no great quantity of either. Having fetched a
short ladder, Edward placed it in position, so that the priests could
climb up into the chamber.

"It had been more to your comfort, Fathers, could we have cast forth
some of this furniture," he said, looking round it: "but it were scarce
wise to defer the matter, the house being already invested."

"Let be, we will serve ourselves of it as it is, and well."

The priests mounted into the tiny hiding-place.

"See you, holy Fathers," Edward asked, "a vessel of tin, standing below
a little hole in the wall? Have a care that you move it not without you
first stop the hole, for it runneth through into my mistress's chamber,
and by a quill or reed therein laid can she minister warm drinks unto
you, as broths and caudle. She can likewise speak to you through the
hole, and be