'Hear me, and hold thy peace, master Richard Heywood,' she said. 'As
good horses as ever stamped in Redware stables go down into Raglan
vaults; but yet they eat their oats and their barley, and when they
lift their heads they look out to the ends of the world. Whether it
be by the skill of the mason or of such as the hidden art of my lord
Herbert knows best how to compel, let them say that list to make
foes where it were safer to have friends. But this I am free to tell
thee--that in the pitched court, betwixt the antechamber to my
lord's parlour that hath its windows to the moat, and the great bay
window of the hall that looks into that court, there goeth a
descent, as it seemeth of stairs only; but to him that knoweth how
to pull a certain tricker, as of an harquebus or musquetoon, the
whole thing turneth around, and straightway from a stair passeth
into an easy matter of a sloping way by the which horses go up and
down. And Thomas he telleth me also that at the further end of the
vaults to which it leads, the which vaults pass under the marquis's
oak parlour, and under all the breadth of the fountain court, as
they do call the other court of the castle, thou wilt come to a
great iron door in the foundations of one of the towers, in which my
lord hath contrived stabling for a hundred and more horses, and
that, mark my words, my son, not in any vault or underground
dungeon, but in the uppermost chamber of all.
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