“Well, it was more or less accident; the parchment is exactly the size of the paper and as I shut the book I naturally made it all even. So, when I opened it in this room, it was lying even on the page and I could not help seeing the letters and what they spelt.” “I should never have noticed it, Aline; why I did not even notice at once that the letters spelt anything after you had shown me.” “Let us go back to the beginning and then,” said Aline, “we shall discover what it is all about.” So she turned to the beginning of the book and placed the parchment over the page and found that it began like this;--“Having regard to the changes and misfortunes of this life and the dangers that we may incur, I have provided for myself and my heirs a place of refuge and a way of escape in the evil day. This book containeth a full account of the building of Holwick Hall; so that it will be easily possible to follow that which I now set down. Below the Library on the west side of the house just above the level of the moat, there is a secret chamber, which communicateth with a passage below the moat that hath an exit in the roof of the small cave in the gully that lieth some two hundred paces westward of the Hall of Holwick. The way of entrance thereto is threefold. There is an entrance from the library itself. There is also an entrance from the small Chamber that occupieth the southwest corner of the building on the topmost floor.” “Why, that is our bedroom, the room that we are in now!” Audry exclaimed. “Do let us try and find it.” “Wait a moment; the book will probably tell us all about it,” and Aline resumed her reading. “‘There is a third method of approach from the store-chamber or closet on the ground floor in the southeast corner of the lower quadrangle.’” “That is the treasury, where the silver and the other plate is kept,” said Audry; “go on.” “‘In the corner of the library that goeth round behind the newel stair there is a great oaken coffer that is fastened to the floor, in the which are the charters and the license to crenellate[5] and sundry other parchments.’” [5] To make battlements or crenellations. A house could not be fortified without a royal license. “Oh, I have often wondered what was in that kist,” said Audry; “how really exciting things have become at last, but I want to find out the way to get down from our room; do go on.” [Illustration: THE OLD SWORD-KIST.] “You must not keep interrupting then,” said Aline and continued her reading. “‘Now the bottom of this kist can be lifted for half its breadth, if the nail head with the largest rosette below the central hinge be drawn forth. After so doing, the outer edge of the plank next the wall in the bottom of the chest can be pushed down slightly, which will cause the inner edge to rise a little. This can then be taken by the hand and lifted. In exactly the same manner the plank of the floor immediately underneath can be raised.’