"Ay, that's a sad come-down too, sir. Why, even when I was out under your grandfather, things were better and fighting fairer. People tried to see who was best man then with their swords. Now men goes to hide behind hedges and haystacks, to try and shoot you like they would a hare." "Why, they did the same sort of thing with their bows and arrows, Ben, and their cross-bows and bolts." "Well, maybe, sir; but that was a clean kind o' fighting, and none of your sulphur and brimstone, and charcoal and smoke." "I say, Ben, it'll take you some time to get things straight. Mean to polish up the old swords and spears, too?" "Every man jack of 'em, sir. I mean to have this armoury so as your father, when he comes back from scattering all that rabble, will look round and give me a bit of encouragement." "Ha, ha!" laughed the boy; "so that's what makes you so industrious." "Nay it aren't, sir," said the man, with a reproachful shake of his head. "I didn't mean money, Master Roy, but good words, and a sort o' disposition to make the towers what they should be again. He's a fine soldier is your father, and I hear as the king puts a lot o' trust in him; but it always seems to me as he thinks more about farming when he's down here than he does about keeping up the old place as a good cavalier should." "Don't you talk a lot of nonsense," said Roy, hotly; "if my father likes to live here as country gentlemen do, and enjoy sport and gardening and farming, who has a better right to, I should like to know?" "Oh, nobody, sir, nobody," said the man, scouring away at the rusted steel. "And besides, times are altered. When this castle was built, gentlemen used to have to protect themselves, and kept their retainers to fight for them. Now there's a regular army, and the king does all that." That patch of rust must have been a little lighter on, for the man uttered a low grunt of satisfaction. "It would be absurd to make the towers just as they used to be, and shut out the light and cover the narrow slits with iron bars." "Maybe, Master Roy; but Sir Granby might have the moat cleared of mud, and kept quite full." "What! I just hope it won't be touched. Why, that would mean draining it, and then what would become of my carp and tench?" "Ketch 'em and put 'em in tubs, sir, and put some little uns back." "Yes, and then it would take years for them to grow, and all the beautiful white and yellow water-lilies would be destroyed." "Yes; but see what a lot of fine, fat eels we should get, sir. There's some thumpers there. I caught a four-pounder on a night-line last week." "Ah, you did, did you?" cried the lad; "then don't you do it again without asking for leave." "All right, sir, I won't; but you don't grudge an old servant like me one eel?"