leads to a dismantled state-room, shorn of the principal part of
its panelling, carving, and chimney-pieces.[1] Other desolate
apartments retain their names as if in mockery; "the drawing-room,"
"the chapel," "Lady Yates's nursery," and so forth. At the top
of the staircase, however, we must look around carefully, for
beneath the stairs is a remarkable hiding-place.

[Footnote 1: Most of the interior fittings were removed to Coughton
Court, Warwickshire.]

With a slight stretch of the imagination we can see an indistinct
form stealthily remove the floorboard of one of the stairs and
creep beneath it. This particular step of a short flight running
from the landing into a garret is, upon closer inspection, indeed
movable, and beneath gapes a dark cavity about five feet square, on
the floor of which still remains the piece of sedge matting whereon
a certain Father Wall rested his aching limbs a few days prior to
his capture and execution in August, 1679. The unfortunate man
was taken at Rushock Court, a few miles away where he was traced
after leaving Harvington. There is a communication between the
hiding-place and "the banqueting-room" through, a small concealed
aperture in the wainscoting large enough to admit of a tube,
through which a straw could be thrust for the unhappy occupant
to suck up any liquid his friends might be able to supply.

In a gloomy corridor leading from the tower to "the reception-room"
is another "priest's hole" beneath the floor, and entered by a
trap-door artfully hidden in the boards; this black recess is
some seven feet in depth, and can be made secure from within.
Supposing the searchers had tracked a fugitive priest as far