y."

She led the way down an L-shaped passage, which led past the kitchens
and the servants' hall, and gave out upon a little stone courtyard set
apart from the house and bounded about with a high wall through which
arrow-slits gave the true mediaeval touch, and then down to the right of
this through a huge oaken door which opened noiselessly, showing a
flight of steep, uneven stone steps leading down into a dark,
damp-smelling interior.

At the top of the steps she paused and looked back at him over the curve
of her shoulder, making a wry face.

"You still want to go?" she asked jestingly. "I'm a brave woman, Mr.
Deland, but I wouldn't undertake this journey alone for anything!
There's--_rats_!"

"As well as ghosts? But this is morning, and Scotland, and the twentieth
century--so lead on, Macduff," he answered her in the same jesting
spirit. "Or would you like me to go first?"

She shivered and twitched up her shoulders.

"No; I'll do the honours properly. This way. If you've a torch on you,
you'll need it at the bottom of these stairs. It's as dark as pitch."

"I have."

Cleek produced it, and they proceeded upon the uncanny journey. The
steps led down, down, into what seemed the very bowels of the earth
(which indeed they were), until they reached a little square opening
from which iron-grilled doorways looked out upon them from every side,
saving for one oak door on the left, which Miss Duggan pointed out as
the wine-cellar.

"H'm! And smells like it, too," put in Cleek, with a sniff--"What's
behind that door is worth a fortune, I'll be bound. Hello! here's a
candle-end stuck in a bottle! Now, who the dickens uses that, I wonder?"

"The servants, I suppose. They come down through their own stairs, Mr.
Deland--over there on the left--you can see them if you look hard
enough. They're wooden ones, and were put in by my father's grandsire,
for the convenience of the house. The servants don't like this way at
all. They prefer to come through the butler's pantry."

"And those stairs lead up there? I see. Hello! Here's a chain attached
to this iron post. What's that?"

"The prisoner's chain. This room here"--she pointed to the grilled door
opening next to the cellar "was kept for political prisoners, I believe.
And those two across the way were for personal enemies of the family."

"And are there any others?"

"Yes--through that first door on the right--but you won't get _me_ to go
into them," she respond