Memoirs of an Author - a Novel Author:Jane Harvey General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1812 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: '.'.- - ' ' ..! CHAPTER III. AT the top of the stone staircase was a narrow door, leading to a closet which had served as a dressing-room to the late Rector, who slept in the chamber which Stanhope was given to understand was now that of Miss Ingleby. This door, as he well knew, was nailed up, for he was present when Dr. Nugent, who thought such a communication between his own apartment and the lower parts of the house both insecure and unnecessary, caused it to be fastened in the before-mentioned manner, and covered on the inside with paper the same as the hangings of the closet. Stanhope was aware that to open this door vould be a matter of difficulty; force was requisite, but it mustbe used with gentleness and caution, for to have attempted bursting it open with sudden violence would have been a certain means of bringing down the tottering remains of the roof; to loosen the nails seemed the only method of proceeding, and to do this Auberry was furnished with no instrument except a large knife, which he had used for the purpose of cutting hazels on his morning and evening walks in Cumberland, and which happened now to be in his waistcoat pocket: with this he set himself assiduously to work, and, after infinite labour and difficulty, succeeded in dislodging the nails, and forcing open the door; but in effecting this some of the broken iron work lacerated the flesh of his left arm in a dreadful manner; it bled profusely, and the pain was excruciating, but it must be endured, complaint was unavailing; and binding his shirt sleeve tightly over it, Stanhope entered the closet, in which no vestige of rui...« less