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Updated: May 8, 2025
A sharp turn to the right after a dozen groping-paces, a narrow stairway, a bump or two against unexpected saliences of rough mortared wall, two steps upward and one very surprising step downward through a cavernous doorway that took away Ronald's breath for a moment, and sent it back again with a hot, creeping wave of sudden perspiration all over him, as is the way with missteps, and two more sharp turns, brought the three into a black no-thoroughfare of a hall, whose further end was closed by a locked door.
The outer walls were of slabs of stone neatly chiselled, but badly mortared with felspathic clay and pounded slate, instead of lime; the partition walls were of clay, shaped in moulds of wood; parallel planks, four feet asunder, being placed in the intended position of the walls, and left open above, the composition was placed in these boxes, a little at a time, and rammed down by the feet of many men, who walked round and round the narrow enclosure, singing, and also using rammers of heavy wood.
I fairly staggered in astonishment; he who can remove mortared bricks from a solid wall with one blow, I thought, must surely be able to displace the teeth of tigers! "A number of men have physical power such as mine, but still lack in cool confidence. Those who are bodily but not mentally stalwart may find themselves fainting at mere sight of a wild beast bounding freely in the jungle.
The first object encountered was a rough table, the surface of which I explored, discovering thereon a candlestick with flint and steel beside it. With relief I struck a spark, and a yellow flame revealed my surroundings. What I saw was a low room some fifteen feet square, the walls and roof apparently of stone securely mortared, the only exit the narrow circular stairs. The floor was of earth.
The house, solidly built of grey stone traced with iron, had two rooms on the lower floor. The table was set before a fireplace that filled the length of the wall, its mantel a great, roughly squared log mortared into the stones on either side.
In spite of long bridge table, lobby divan, and table-d'hôte séances, "tea" where the coffee was served with whipped cream and the tarts built in four tiers and mortared in mocha filling, the Bon Ton hotel was scarcely more than an average of fourteen pounds overweight.
Behind the house was a storeroom built in 'lean-to' fashion, and not far away stood the barn and stable, made usually of timbers laid one upon the other with chinks securely mortared. Somewhat aloof was the root-house, half dug in the ground, banked generously with earth round about and overhead.
Standing there in the expensive, the formal, the enormous French parlor of his up-town apartment de luxe, from not one of whose chairs would his mother's feet touch floor, a wall of living flesh, mortared in blood, was throbbing and hedging him in. He would pace up and down the long room, heavy with the faces of those who mourn, with a laugh too ready, too facetious, in his fear for them.
Then there was the door to be made and hung, and the windows to be put in, and the crevices between the logs to be mortared, and the floors laid long and tedious operations, where everybody was over-busy, and labor could be hired neither "for love nor money." Mr. Payson found that much of the work had to be done by himself, with the occasional help of Tom.
These chimney-conveyances being so strangely formed, having the entrances into them so curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast to planks of wood, and coloured black, like the other parts of the chimney, that very diligent inquisition might well have passed by, without throwing the least suspicion upon such unsuspicious places.
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