overeign to high place in the empire, derived his
chief pleasure from contemplating, in a secret apartment, the pipe,
crook, and rude habiliments of his happier days, suggested to me that we
also should have our secret apartment, in which to store up, for future
contemplation, our bayonet and pistol, pot and pitcher; and I
recommended that we should set ourselves to dig a subterranean chamber
for that purpose among the woods of the Hill, accessible, like the
mysterious vaults of our story-books, by a trap-door. The proposal was
favourably received; and, selecting a solitary spot among the trees as a
proper site, and procuring spade and mattock, we began to dig.

Soon passing through the thin crust of vegetable mould, we found the red
boulder clay beneath exceedingly stiff and hard; but day after day saw
us perseveringly at work; and we succeeded in digging a huge square
pit, about six feet in length and breadth, and fully seven feet deep.
Fixing four upright posts in the corners, we lined our apartment with
slender spars nailed closely together; and we had prepared for giving it
a massive roof of beams formed of fallen trees, and strong enough to
bear a layer of earth and turf from a foot to a foot and a half in
depth, with a little opening for the trap-door; when we found, one
morning, on pressing onwards to the scene of our labours, that we were
doggedly tracked by a horde of boys considerably more numerous than our
own party. Their curiosity had been excited, like that of the Princess
Nekayah in Rasselas, by the tools which we carried, and by "seeing that
we had directed our walk every day to the same point;" and in vain, by
running and doubling, by scolding and remonstrating, did we now attempt
shaking them off. I saw that, were we to provoke a general _melee_, we
could scarce expect to come off victors; but deeming myself fully a
match for their stoutest boy, I stepped out and challenged him to come
forward and fight me. He hesitated, looked foolish, and refused; but
said, he would readily fight with any of my party except myself. I
immediately named my friend of the Doocot Cave, who leaped out with a
bound to meet him; but the boy, as I had anticipated, refused to fight
him also; and, observing the proper effect produced, I ordered my lads
to march forward; and from an upper slope of the hill we had the
satisfaction of seeing that our pursuers, after lingering for a little
while on the spot on which we had left the