"Nay," said Ruth, pointing up the staircase, to where the moonbeams streaming in through the criss-cross mullioned panes, flooded all the length of a long gallery to almost the clearness of day, "We want no light but that;" and followed at a more sober pace by Maudlin, she tripped up the stairs towards a door opening into a circular stone chamber, whose vaulted roof was supported in its centre by a huge pillar of roughly-hewn stone, graced about its base with rusty iron rings, and remnants of chain, whilst a concourse of plethoric-looking sacks lay stacked about the floor, which was of grayish flags seamed and worn as if by the ceaseless tread of feet, especially round the pillar. Icy chill the air struck in this place; and with no little shivering and shuddering old Maudlin hurried on through it as fast as her rheumatic twinges permitted. "'Tis a cruel shame!" she muttered, and the observation was by no means a novel one in her mouth, "that you can't get snug between the sheets without first catchin' your death o' cold; and havin' your wits all terrified out o' you with passin' through that gruesome den." Not, however, till she was well clear of the vaulted chamber, and had gained the corridor beyond, did Maudlin indulge in the latter part of her running commentary. "Marry! I come goose-flesh from top to toe when I think of all the poor souls those walls have seen die an' rot." "Nay," said Ruth, "but that was only the Debtors' Prison, where the poor creatures were kept when they couldn't pay their rents and their tithes to the great lords and barons who used to live here. The state prison--" "Lord forgive us!" shuddered Maudlin, "and state that poor skeleton Master Lockit says they found there was in, you may depend. Every bone rheumatics and lumbago, I doubt Ugh! Yes, I know. It lies down below water-mark, and opens into the underway that runs to Nether Hall." "Ah! nonsense, Maudlin," laughed Ruth. "That's an old wives' tale."