Perhaps _he_ was a spirit if one only knew it, but as no one _did_ know {182}it, it never entered anybody’s head to say so. He was hardly mortal though, for he not only hooted like an ordinary owl, but spoke like a Christian; at least so I suppose, or how would he have made himself understood by other beings who were _not_ owls, and who yet had to communicate with him? For beings more extraordinary than owls inhabited the old castle. A large number of mannikins had taken possession of it some years after its abandonment by mortals, and here the merry little creatures would sport and gambol all the livelong day. They used to clamber about the strong ivy-trees that grew up the sides of the old walls, playing at hide and seek among the thick leaves, and making the place re-echo with their joyous shouts. They were wont to sport and play with the large lizards which basked upon the walls when the sun came out with rays bright and strong, and warm enough to tempt them to do so, and they would scamper up and down the whole place, trying their skill in ascending and descending the steepest and most perpendicular places in the old walls, where the stone was crumbling away from sheer age, and where no being of mortal frame and mould could have found a secure footing for a moment. Oh, they were merry little chaps, those mannikins! Within the precincts of the castle itself, in the ancient courtyards which once reverberated with the shrill blast of trumpets calling men forth to war; where men-at-arms formerly strode boldly along, filled with warlike ardour, and where martial sounds rang out loud and oft in the days of old, grass was now growing long and rank, which was trodden under foot only by the lively mannikins in their daily and nightly dances, whilst their shrill and merry cries replaced those sterner sounds which had long {183}since ceased, and those who had caused them had passed for ever from mortal ken and mortal vision. All was indeed changed; but I am not prepared to say that the change was not for the better, for I was never fond of the old feudal times myself; and the barons who used to possess such castles, and send forth their retainers to fight, were much more troublesome people to the world at large, and their neighbours in particular, than were the little mannikins who played around the old place, or the wise old owl who blinked his eyes cosily and comfortably in the stone window.