Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/50

42 plunder or provisions; beside the wheels were carelessly thrown two or three coarse carpenter's tools, and the more warlike utilities of a blunderbuss, a rifle, and two broad-swords. In the other corner was an open cupboard, containing rows of pewter platters, mugs, &c. Opposite the fireplace, which was to the left of the entrance, an excavation had been turned into a dormitory, and fronting the entrance was a pair of broad, strong, wooden steps, ascending to a large hollow about eight feet from the ground. This was the entrance to the stables; and as soon as their owners released the reins of the horses, the docile animals proceeded one by one leisurely up the steps, in the manner of quadrupeds educated at the public seminary of Astley's, and disappeared within the aperture.

These steps, when drawn up, which however, from their extreme clumsiness, required the united strength of two ordinary men, and was not that instantaneous work which it should have been, made the place above a tolerably strong hold, for the wall was perfectly perpendicular and level, and it was only by placing his hands upon the