THE SMUGGLER. 43 



abode; but it was laid out upon a particular plan, which it 

 may not be amiss to write down, for the practical instruction 

 of the reader unlearned in such edifices. 



In the centre of the ground-floor was a large hall of a cru- 

 ciform shape, each of the limbs being about fifteen feet wide. 

 The two shorter arms of the cross stretched from side to side 

 of the building in its width ; the two longer from end to end 

 of its length. The southern termination of the shorter arms 

 was the great hall-door; the northern arm, which formed the 

 passage between the various ranges of offices, extended to a 

 door at the back, opening into a court-yard surrounded by 

 coach-houses, stables, cow-sheds, pig-sties, and hen-roosts. 

 But the offices, and the passage between them, were shut off 

 from the main hall and the rest of the mansion by double 

 doors; and the square of fifteen feet in the centre of the hall 

 was, to the extent of about two-thirds of the whole, occupied 

 by a large, low-stepped, broad-ballustraded oaken staircase. 

 The eastern and western limbs of the cross afforded the means 

 of communicating with various rooms, such as library, dining- 

 room, drawing-room, music-room, magistrate's-room, gentle- 

 man's-room, and billiard-room, with one or two others to which 

 no name had been applied. Many of these rooms had doors 

 which led into the one adjacent; but this was not invariably 

 the case, for from the main corridor branched off several little 

 passages, separating in some instances one chamber from the 

 other, and leading out upon the terrace by the smaller doors 

 which we have noticed above. What was the nse of these 

 passages and doors nobody was ever able to divine, and it re- 

 mains a mystery to the present day, which I shall not attempt 

 to solve by venturing any hypothesis upon so recondite a sub- 

 ject. The second floor above was laid out much in the same 

 way as the one below, except that one of the limbs of the 

 cross was wanting, the space over the great door being appro- 

 priated to a very tolerable bed-room. From this floor to the 

 other descended two or three staircases, the principal one being 

 the great open flight of steps which I have already men- 

 tioned; and the second, or next in importance, being a stone 

 staircase, which reached the ground between the double doors 

 that shut out the main hall from the offices. 



Having thus given some idea of the interior of the building, 

 I will only pause to notice that, at the period I speak of, it 



