[Illustration: SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY]

There are still certain "priests' holes" in the house, but the most
interesting hiding-place is situated in the most innocent-looking
of summer-houses in the grounds. The interior of this little
structure is wainscoted round with large panels like most of
the summer-houses, pavilions, or music-rooms of the seventeenth
century, and nothing uncommon or mysterious was discovered until
some twenty-five years ago. By the merest accident one of the
panels was found to open, revealing what appeared to be an ordinary
cupboard with shelves. Further investigations, however, proved
its real object. By sliding one of the shelves out of the grooves
into which it is fixed, a very narrow, disguised door, a little
over a foot in width, in the side of the cupboard and in the
thickness of the wall can be opened. This again reveals a narrow
passage, or staircase, leading up to the joists above the ceiling,
and thence to a recess situated immediately behind the carved
ornamental facing over the entrance door of the summer-house.
In this there is a narrow chink or peep-hole, from which the
fugitive could keep on the look-out either for danger or for the
friendly Royalist agent of the "King's Arms."

When it was first discovered there were evidences of its last
occupant--_viz._ a Jacobean horn tumbler, a mattress, and a
handsomely worked velvet pillow; the last two articles, provided
no doubt for the comfort of some hunted cavalier, upon being
handled, fell to pieces. It may be mentioned that the inner door
of the cupboard can be securely fastened from the inside by an
iron hook and staple for that purpose.