excavated earth had caved in upon him, where he burrowed ninety feet
beneath the clover. In the blind tomb of the midnight he stretched his
two arms sideways, and felt as if coffined at not being able to extend
them straight out, on opposite sides, for the narrowness of the cell. He
seated himself against one side of the wall, crosswise with the cell,
and pushed with his feet at the opposite wall. But still mindful of his
promise in this extremity, he uttered no cry. He mutely raved in the
darkness. The delirious sense of the absence of light was soon added to
his other delirium as to the contraction of space. The lids of his eyes
burst with impotent distension. Then he thought the air itself was
getting unbearable. He stood up at the griffin slits, pressing his lips
far into them till he moulded his lips there, to suck the utmost of the
open air possible.

And continually, to heighten his frenzy, there recurred to him again and
again what the Squire had told him as to the origin of the cell. It
seemed that this part of the old house, or rather this wall of it, was
extremely ancient, dating far beyond the era of Elizabeth, having once
formed portion of a religious retreat belonging to the Templars. The
domestic discipline of this order was rigid and merciless in the
extreme. In a side wall of their second storey chapel, horizontal and on
a level with the floor, they had an internal vacancy left, exactly of
the shape and average size of a coffin. In this place, from time to
time, inmates convicted of contumacy were confined; but, strange to say,
not till they were penitent. A small hole, of the girth of one's wrist,
sunk like a telescope three feet through the masonry into the cell,
served at once for ventilation, and to push through food to the
prisoner. This hole opening into the chapel also enabled the poor
solitaire, as intended, to overhear the religious services at the altar;
and, without being present, take part in the same. It was deemed a good
sign of the state of the sufferer's soul, if from the gloomy recesses of
the wall was heard the agonized groan of his dismal response. This was
regarded in the light of a penitent wail from the dead, because the
customs of the order ordained that when any inmate should be first
incarcerated in the wall, he should be committed to it in the presence
of all the brethren, the chief reading the burial service as the live
body was sepulchred. Sometimes several weeks elapsed ere