ndeed important," he said. "We will lose no time in searching
the copse you speak of. You and I, together with two of my most trusty
men, with axes to clear away the brush, will do. At present a thing of
this sort had best be kept between as few as may be."

They started at once and soon came down upon the stream.

It ran at this point in a little valley, some twenty or thirty feet deep.
On the bank not far from the castle grew a small wood, and it was in this
that Cuthbert hoped to find the passage spoken of by Gurth.

The trees and brushwood were so thick that it was apparent at once that
if the passage had ever existed it had been unused for some years.

The woodmen were obliged to chop down dozens of young saplings to make
their way up from the water towards the steeper part of the bank.

The wood was some fifty yards in length, and as it was uncertain at which
point the passage had come out, a very minute search had to be made.

"What do you think it would be like, Cnut?" Cuthbert asked.

"Like enough to a rabbit-hole, or more likely still there would be no
hole whatever. We must look for moss and greenery, for it is likely that
such would have been planted, so as to conceal the door from any
passer-by, while yet allowing a party from inside to cut their way
through it without difficulty."

After a search of two hours, Cnut decided that the only place in the
copse in which it was likely that the entrance to a passage could be
hidden, was a spot where the ground was covered thickly with ivy and
trailing plants.

"It looks level enough with the rest," Cuthbert said.

"Ay, lad, but we know not what lies behind this thick screen of ivy.
Thrust in that staff."

One of the woodmen began to probe with the end of a staff among the ivy.
For some time he was met by the solid ground, but presently the butt of
the staff went through suddenly, pitching him on his head, amidst a
suppressed laugh from his comrades.

"Here it is, if anywhere," said Cnut, and with their billhooks they at
once began to clear away the thickly grown creepers.

Five minutes' work was sufficient to show a narrow cut, some two feet
wide, in the hill side, at the end of which stood a low door.

"Here it is," said Cnut, with triumph, "and the castle is ours. Thanks,
Cuthbert, for your thought and intelligence. It has not been used lately,
that is clear," he went on. "These creepers have not been moved for
years. Shall we go and tell the earl