eep and tumble. There was another place near by where they loved even better to play; that was the ancient house of Dethick. I ought rather to say the ancient kitchen, for little else remained of the once stately mansion. The rest of the house was comparatively new, but the great kitchen was (and no doubt is) much as it was in the days of Queen Elizabeth.
Imagine a great room with heavy timbered roof, ponderous oaken doors, and huge open fireplace over which hung the ancient roasting jack. In the ceiling was a little trap-door, which looked as if it might open on the roof; but in truth it was the entrance to a chamber hidden away under the roof, a good-sized room, big enough for several persons to hide in.
Florence and her sister loved to imagine the scenes that had taken place in that old kitchen; strange and thrilling, perhaps terrible scenes; they knew the story of Dethick, and now you shall hear it too.
In that old time which Tennyson calls " the spacious days of great Elizabeth," Dethick belonged to a noble family named Babington. It was a fine house then. The oaken door of the old kitchen opened on long corridors and passages, which in turn led to stately halls and noble galleries. There were turrets and balconies overlooking beautiful gardens; and on the stone terraces gay lords and ladies used to walk and laugh and make merry, and little children run and play and dance, and life go on very much as it does now, with work and play, love and laughter and tears.
One of the gay people who used to walk there was Anthony Babington. He was a gallant young gentleman, an ardent Catholic, and devoted to the cause of the beautiful and unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots.
Though ardent and devoted, Babington was a weak and foolish young man. He fell under the influence of a certain Ballard, an artful and designing person who had resolved to bring about the death of the great English Queen, and was induced by him to form the plot which is known in history as Babington's Conspiracy; so he was brought to ruin and death.
In the year 1586 Queen Mary was imprisoned at Wingfield Manor, a country house only a few miles distant from Dethick. The conspirators gathered other Cathohc noblemen about them, and planned to release Queen Mary and set her once more on the throne.
They used to meet at Dethick, where, it Is said, there is a secret passage underground leading to Wingfield Manor. Perhaps — they may have sat in the kitchen, gathering about the great fireplace for warmth; the lights out, for fear of spies, only the firelight gleaming here and there, lighting up the dark corners and the eager, intent faces. And when the plot was discovered, and Queen Elizabeth's soldiers were searching the country round for the young conspirators, riding hither and thither along the pleasant country lanes and thrusting their sabres in among the blossoming hedgerows, it was here at Dethick that they sought for Anthony Babington. They did not find him, for he was in hiding elsewhere, but one of his companions was actually discovered and arrested there.
Perhaps — again, who knows? — this man may have been hiding in the secret chamber above the trap-door. One can fancy the pursuers rushing in, flinging open cupboards and presses, in search for their prey; and finding no one, gathering baffled around the fireplace. Then one, chancing to glance up, catches sight of the trap-door in the ceiling. " Ha! lads, look up! the rascal may be hiding yonder! Up with you, you tall fellow! '' Then a piling up of benches, one man mounting on another's shoulders — the door forced open, the young nobleman seized and overpowered, and brought down to be carried off to London for trial.
Anthony Babington and his companions were executed for high treason, and Queen Mary, who was convicted of approving the plot, was put to death soon after.
All this Florence Nightingale and her sister knew, and they never tired of *' playing suppose " in old Dethick kitchen, and living over again in fancy the romantic time long past. And on Sundays the two children went wnth their parents to old Dethick church, and sat where Anthony Babington used to sit, for in his days it was the private chapel of Dethick. It is a tiny church; fifty people would fill it to overflowing, but Florence and her sister might easily feel that the four bare walls held all the wild history of Elizabeth's reign.