“Why did you not go in at once according to your intention?”

“Because my mother said that she thought some important work was on hand, and that maybe the baron would not like that women should know aught of it, for he was of suspicious and evil mind.  More than this I know not.  The castle had already been finished, and most of the masons discharged.  There were, however, a party of serfs kept at work, and also some masons, and rumour had it that they were engaged in making the secret passages.  Whether it was so or not I cannot say, but I know that none of that party ever left the castle alive.  It was given out that a bad fever had raged there, but none believed it; and the report went about, and was I doubt not true, that all had been killed, to preserve the secret of the passage.”

Cuthbert lost no time in making use of the information that he had gained.

Early next morning, at daybreak, he started on his pony to Wortham.

As he did not wish the earl or his followers to know the facts that he had learned until they were proved, he made his way round the camp of the besiegers, and by means of his whistle called one of the foresters to him.

“Where is Cnut?” he asked.

“He is with a party occupied in making ladders.”

“Go to him,” Cuthbert said, “and tell him to withdraw quietly and make his way here.  I have an important matter on which I wish to speak to him,’”

Cnut arrived in a few minutes, somewhat wondering at the message.  He brightened greatly when Cuthbert told him what he had learned.

“This is indeed important,” he said.  “We will lose no time in searching the copse you speak of.  You and I, together with two of my most trusty men, with axes to clear away the brush, will do.  At present a thing of this sort had best be kept between as few as may be.”

They started at once and soon came down upon the stream.

It ran at this point in a little valley, some twenty or thirty feet deep.  On the bank not far from the castle grew a small wood, and it was in this that Cuthbert hoped to find the passage spoken of by Gurth.

The trees and brushwood were so thick that it was apparent at once that if the passage had ever existed it had been unused for some years.

The woodmen were obliged to chop down dozens of young saplings to make their way up from the water towards the steeper part of the bank.

The wood was some fifty yards in length, and as it was uncertain at which point the passage had come out, a very minute search had to be made.

“What do you think it would be like, Cnut?” Cuthbert asked.

“Like enough to a rabbit-hole, or more likely still there would be no hole whatever.  We must look for moss and greenery, for it is likely that such would have been planted, so as to conceal the door from any passer-by, while yet allowing a party from inside to cut their way through it without difficulty.”