The cellar lay in a thick darkness on which the light of our lanthorn made but a little impression. It was a great dismal hole, hewn deep into the rock, and was damp as a garden wall in February. I could never remember that it was used for aught in my time, save that one corner of it had been set apart and prepared for a wine-cellar. It was too cold or too damp for the keeping of ale--a hogshead of October kept down there would have come out more dead than it went in. Then there was nobody but Gregory ever descended the steps, though in bygone times there must have been considerable wear of them seeing that they were hollowed out in the middle to such an extent that it was dangerous to walk down them without exceeding care. “A dismal hole, Gregory,” says I, holding up the lanthorn and gazing round me at the damp walls, up the chiselled face of which crawled a multitude of slugs and snails that left a slimy silver track behind them. “I should not care to spend much time down here.” “I ha’ spent many a merry hour here,” says he, glancing at the door of the wine-cellar. “’Tis a quietish spot enow, but a man gets used to that. Give me the lanthorn, Master Richard,” he says, “and look to your footing as you come after me, for the floor’s ill-paved and as slippery as mud can make it.” As he went before me in the gloom and I followed, keeping a strict watch over my ways, I saw and heard things that made me turn cold and shiver with a nauseous dread. There was the scatter of rats amongst the old timber that lay strewn here and there, there were slimy creeping things that seemed to writhe and quiver in helpless silence under one’s foot, and more than once a foul, cold shape that had hung or crawled on the roof detached itself and fell on my face or neck. “This cellar of yours is like to give me the horrors, Gregory,” says I. “Egad, it seems to be the home of all that’s foul--I should not wonder to see ghouls and afrites in it!” “I never heard of them,” says he, “but, faith, Master Dick, there be things here that pass a christened man’s understanding. Look here,” says he, going a little way aside and holding his lanthorn to the floor. “What do you make of that?” says he. I looked and saw that which turned me sick. There was a pool of black water in the floor, and on the edge of it, their staring eyes and wide mouths turned upward to the glimmer of the light, sat a row of great toads, fat and slimy, that stretched their webbed feet along the damp brink of the rock. “In with you!” says Gregory, swinging the lanthorn towards them, and they plunged in, sending the foul water in brimming beads about our feet. “They feed on the slugs,” says he, with a chuckle, “faith, there’s some nice picking down here! But that’s naught, toads and slugs is common enough, Master Dick. Now, here’s something that’s of a vast difference. Look at it, Master Richard--faith, I never can make it out!”