Both exterior and interior of Heale House as it stands to-day
point to a later date than 1651, though there are here and there
vestiges of architecture anterior to the middle of the seventeenth
century; the hiding-place, however, is not among these, and looks
nothing beyond a very deep cupboard adjoining one of the bedrooms,
with nothing peculiar to distinguish it from ordinary cupboards.

But for all its modern innovations there is something about Heale
which suggests a house with a history. Whether it is its environment
of winding river and ancient cedar-trees, its venerable stables
and imposing entrance gate, or the fact that it is one of those
distinguished houses that have saved the life of an English king,
we will not undertake to fathom.




CHAPTER VIII

CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.

An old mansion in the precincts of the cathedral at Salisbury is
said to have been a favourite hiding-place for fugitive cavaliers
at the time of the Civil War. There is an inn immediately opposite
this house, just outside the close, where the landlord (formerly a
servant to the family who lived in the mansion) during the troublous
times acted as a secret agent for those who were concealed, and
proved invaluable by conveying messages and in other ways aiding
those Royalists whose lives were in danger.