Here it was apparently as well preserved as when first constructed, probably a hundred years or more ago, the side walls faced with stone, the roof supported by roughly hewn oak beams.

I was convinced there was no great weight of earth resting upon these, and the tunnel, which I followed without difficulty, or the discovery of any serious obstruction, for fifty feet, inclined steadily upward, until, in my judgment, it must have come within a very few feet of the surface.

Here there occurred a sharp turn to the right, and the excavation advanced almost upon a level.
Knowing nothing of the conformation above, or of the location of buildings, I was obliged to press forward blindly, conserving the faint light of the candle, and praying for a free passage.

It was an experience to test the nerves, the intense stillness, the bare, gray walls, cold to the touch, the beams grazing my head, and upholding that mass of earth above, the intense darkness before and behind, with only the flickering radius of yellow light barely illuminating where I trod.

Occasionally the wood creaked ominously, and bits of earth, jarred by my passage, fell upon me in clods.