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For the Rat's-Hole was the secret exit that existed behind the jamb of the fireplace at the upper end of the hall. So cunningly had the panelled door been joinered into the wainscoting that a man might search for hours and yet not discover the spring that threw it open.
Constans's mind reverted to the one occasion in his remembrance on which the Rat's-Hole had been used, that day a fortnight back, when his sister Issa came out of the birch-copse, with her hands full of May-bloom and Quinton Edge had waited under cover of the alders. It was possible; his father might have forgotten. And yet Constans took the key and slipped it into the bosom of his doublet.
But I fear we shall not get her. Even so Hereward will flee with her, maybe escape to Flanders, or Denmark. He can escape through a rat's-hole if he will. And then we are at peace. I had sooner kill him and have done with it: but out of the way he must be put."
Furthermore, the wainscoting was but a screen for the real door of iron-bound oak giving passage directly through the outer wall of the keep to the open country. A jealously guarded secret, this matter of the Rat's-Hole, and supposed to be known only to the master of the household and his immediate family.
Even among them its existence was never referred to in ordinary conversation, while its actual use was restricted to the gravest of emergencies. "The Rat's-Hole!" A message, an agreement, an appointment? By whose hand had these words been written? For whose eye had they been intended?
Constans awoke just as the footsteps died away; he listened, but again the stillness was profound. He felt his way to the secret door; the wainscot screen stood ajar. It was plain that some one had come to the Rat's-Hole only to discover that the key of the outside door was missing. Constans realized that he, too, had missed something his chance to get to the bottom of the mystery.
I was not going to wait till I was chained up in some rat's-hole with a half-hundred of iron on my leg, and flogged till I confessed that I was what I am not, a runaway monk." "And why art here?" "Because I am going with you." "Going with me?" said Hereward; "what can I do for thee?" "I can do for you," said Martin. "What?"
Again the blades engaged, and a great fear suddenly tightened at the boy's heart. His champion had been exhausted by his previous efforts, and now his strength was going fast. Constans saw Touchett stagger and Quinton Edge preparing for a final stroke; he turned and ran for the upper end of the hall the Rat's-Hole.
He must have used the "Rat's-Hole" for egress; he hurried down the green slope, calling his daughter by name. All this Constans saw in that swift backward glance. Well, there was but one thing that he could do. And Night knew it, too; brave little Night, how cleverly you forced yourself under the towering bulk of that brute of a blood-bay!
Of course the peddler would now spend the night at the keep, and at his own request he was allowed to remain in the hall, a straw pallet being brought in for his accommodation. "The Rat's-Hole!" Constans repeated the words half aloud, holding the paper close to the guttering candle. It was but a tiny scrap, scarce large enough for the writing that it held.
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