After having injured her shins several times over unexpected obstacles, Nancy sighed forth, “Oh for a light!” “Oh for something to eat!” I responded. “I’ve got a flint and steel in my pocket; but I can’t eat that. You can have it if you like.” “I daren’t strike a light,” said Nancy; “but I’ve got a bit of cheese in my pocket along with the silver spoons. Here, stretch out your hand.” “Don’t you want it?” I felt impelled by manners to say this, though I felt wolfish. “Not I. I had my dinner as usual. I put it in my pocket in case of meeting—a friend.” “Do your—friends like cheese?” I asked with my mouth full. “You seem to, any way,” retorted Nancy. “I hear them coming.” I bolted the cheese in a panic. I felt much more afraid of the French since I had seen them so near in Brestgarn kitchen, and since they had nabbed Llewelyn. “Here’s the hole—you go first. I’ll close it up after us with a pew door.” Nancy dexterously lifted one off its hinges, while I, mounted on the back of a pew, groped my way into a pitch dark cavity in the wall, the entrance to which was situated at the height of some three or four feet above the floor-level. “Take care, there are steps,” said Nan, just as I had discovered the fact by the aid of my shin-bone. She was still wrestling with the pew door, and I smothered my agony chiefly, I must own, from fear of the French. “Get on a bit higher up, Dan,” whispered Ann, as she followed me, dragging the door after her as quietly as she could. Nancy was certainly a wonderful woman, with a head on her shoulders. At this moment I felt that it was so, for I was propelled somewhat violently upward by the member in question. I can also add my testimony that she was a hard-headed woman. She was also perhaps a little hard-hearted, for in answer to my remonstrance, “Hold hard, Nancy, that hurts!” she merely said, “Oh, do get on, Dan; I expect them here every minute.” I did get on, and found after mounting half-a-dozen steps of a twirling stair, that my head was opposite an opening just at the place where the roof of the church sprung; one of the oaken beams was, in fact, a little scooped out to make room for this slit, which being under the heavy shadow of the woodwork was almost completely screened from the glances of those below; while to the person placed behind this coign of ’vantage the whole of the interior of the church was visible—chancel as well as nave. “What a queer place—what’s it for, Nancy?” I asked. “That is called the Priest’s Peep-hole; I suppose in old times he got a friend to go up there and keep an eye on the congregation—see who went to sleep, and what they were at altogether,” explained Nan; but at this moment her eloquence came to a sudden end. Our voices and our hearts died within us, for there came to our ears the dreaded but expected sound—the clamorous jabber of many tongues.