Arriving at the top, after a few seconds' delay, Tom opened a small door, and they stood in a large and well-proportioned room, where some worm-eaten bed-furniture yet remained. The door had been once, as a small, fragment of glass showed, the frame of a large mirror, and must have been quite beyond the reach of ordinary powers of detection.
"That was a cunning way to steal down among the play acthers," said Keane, grinning, while Linton, with the greatest attention, remarked the position of the door and its secret fastening.
"I suppose no one but yourself knows of this stair?" said Linton.
"Sorra one, sir, except, maybe, some of the smugglers that used to come here long ago from the mouth of the Shannon. This was one of their hiding-places."
"Well, if this old mansion comes ever to be inhabited, one might have rare fun by means of that passage; so be sure, you keep the secret well. Let that be a padlock on your lips." And, so saying, he took a sovereign from his purse and gave it to him. "Your name is--"
"Tom, yer honer--Tom Keane; and, by this and by that, I'm ready to do yer honer's bidding from this hour out--"
"Well, we shall be good friends, I see," interrupted Linton; "you may, perhaps, be useful to me, and I can also be able to serve you. Now, which is the regular entrance to this chamber?"
"There, sir; it's the last door as ye see in the long passage. Them is all bedrooms alone there, but it's not safe to walk down, for the floor is rotten."
Linton noted down in a memory far from defective the circumstances of the chamber, and then followed his guide through the remainder of the house, which in every quarter presented the same picture of ruin and decay.
"The bit of candle is near out," said Tom, "but sure there is n't much more to be seen; there's rooms there was never opened, and more on the other side, the same. The place is as big as a barrack, and here we are once more on the grand stair."
For once, the name was not ill applied, as, constructed of Portland stone, and railed with massive banisters of iron, it presented features of solidity and endurance, in marked contrast to the other portions of the edifice. Linton cast one more glance around the gloomy entrance, and sallied forth into the free air. "I 'll see you to-morrow, Tom," said he, "and we'll have some talk together. Good night."