It was surrounded by a wide moat, fed from the river Stour, which rolled its deep and sluggish flood in mazy windings through the ancient park, which, rich with hoary oak and mossy beech, surrounded the castle. A part of the massive buildings had been adapted to the ideas of the sixteenth century, and fashioned so as to form a convenient dwelling for the family, while the Keep and other portions were left to decay. It formed a picturesque group, the modern dwelling, with its airy windows and open aspect, contrasting the venerable towers, which suggested dungeons, as deep as the walls were high; wherein the captives of past generations once wept, and “appealed from tyranny to God.” Here, in the early days of “Bluff King Hal,” dwelt the good knight Sir Geoffrey Redfyrne, with his lady and their four children. The eldest boy, Geoffrey, was the darling of his father’s heart, frank and generous, full of chivalrous courage, affectionate, and gifted with the power of winning affection. The younger boy, John, differed greatly--he was morose and selfish in disposition, vindictive and passionate; his only good quality the courage which was hereditary in his family. As a natural consequence, the father’s preference for Geoffrey was almost too manifest, for it increased the secret hatred the younger brother, younger by a year only, bore to his elder, whom he continually crossed in a variety of ways--maiming his pet animals, leading him into scrapes and then betraying him, yet cunningly keeping his hand concealed when he was able. They had of course many quarrels, but the elder was always as ready to forgive, as the younger to resent. Of the sisters we shall not speak, further than to say that they were often peace-makers between their brothers, and that John was many a time forgiven at their intercession. It was on the whole a happy family, and had the parents lived, the faults of the younger son might, under their judicious training, have been corrected. But into this unfortunate household came a deadly visitor--the plague. It was conveyed into the village by a bale of cloth, consigned to a tailor, from abroad--the tailor’s family sickened, and all died; then those who out of Christian charity had attended them to render good offices in their last distress, sickened also, and infected their own households; from house to house the dreadful malady spread; the parish priest died, the physicians (leeches they called them) died; and, at last, the awful scourge reached the hall--for Sir Geoffrey could not keep away from his sick tenantry. Death knocks with equal foot at the palaces of kings and the huts of the poor, the plague was no respecter of persons; the good and charitable knight carried the infection home, and ere three days had passed both he and his faithful wife were gone; she watched by him and nursed him till he died, and then falling sick at once, followed him to a better world.