"And there is a room for you, sister, just out of it," said my
uncle, opening a little low prison-like door into a charming room,
for its window was low, and it had an iron balcony; "and out of that
is the bed-room. For you, Pisistratus, my boy, I am afraid that it
is soldier's quarters, indeed, with which you will have to put up.
But never mind; in a day or two we shall make all worthy a general
of your illustrious name--for he was a great general, Pisistratus
the First--was he not, brother?"
"All tyrants are," said my father: "the knack of soldiering is
indispensable to them."
"Oh, you may say what you please here!" said Roland, in high
good humour, as he drew me down stairs, still apologising for my
quarters, and so earnestly that I made up my mind that I was to be
put into an _oubliette_. Nor were my suspicions much dispelled on
seeing that we had to leave the keep, and pick our way into what
seemed to me a mere heap of rubbish, on the dexter side of the
court. But I was agreeably surprised to find, amidst these wrecks,
a room with a noble casement commanding the whole country, and
placed immediately over a plot of ground cultivated as a garden.
The furniture was ample, though homely; the floors and walls well
matted; and, altogether, despite the inconvenience of having to
cross the courtyard to get to the rest of the house, and being
wholly without the modern luxury of a bell, I thought that I could
not be better lodged.
"But this is a perfect bower, my dear uncle! Depend on it, it was
the bower-chamber of the Dames de Caxton--heaven rest them!"
"No," said my uncle, gravely; "I suspect it must have been the
chaplain's room, for the chapel was to the right of you. An earlier
chapel, indeed, formerly existed in the keep tower--for, indeed, it
is scarcely a true keep without chapel, well, and hall. I can show
you part of the roof of the first, and the two last are entire; the
well is very curious, formed in the substance of the wall at one
angle of the hall. In Charles the First's time, our ancestor lowered
his only son down in a bucket, and kept him there six hours, while
a Malignant mob was storming the tower. I need not say that our
ancestor himself scorned to hide from such a rabble, for _he_ was a
grown man. The boy lived to be a sad spendthrift, and used the well
for cooling his wine. He drank up a great many good acres."
"I should scratch him out of the pedigree, if I were you. But,
pray, have you not discovered the proper chamber of that great Sir
William, about whom my father is so shamefully sceptical?"
"To tell you a secret," answered the Captain, giving me a sly poke
in the ribs, "I have put your father into it! There are the initial
letters W. C. let into the cusp of the York rose, and the date,
three years before the battle of Bosworth, over the chimneypiece."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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