The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 | Page 8

since I touched English shores,--why not this? I
climb the steep slope leading to the principal entrance, and knock at the
gate. Hark! is not that the sound of an answering horn? Is not that
distant rattling the clash of armor on the stones? Do I not hear the voice
of the stout baron mustering his retainers to bid me welcome? If so,
they are a long time about it,--for I have knocked once, twice, three
times, and there is no admittance. It is a severe process, too; for, though
the original gate, which may have been an iron portcullis for aught I
know, has given place to rough boards, the latter are not particularly
tender of my knuckles, and, though romance is romance, pain is a fact.
So I fold my airy wings for the present, and look about me for a big
stone to pound with. It is of no use. The old castle is deaf and dumb. It
neither hears nor answers. I creep along the edge of a steep bank, pry

round a corner of the building, gaze up at the high Gothic windows, but
see nothing like a practicable approach, and turn back, discouraged. We
take counsel together, I and my party, and at length condescend to the
belief that our best hope of obtaining an entrance lies in a modern
farm-house, at the foot of the eminence on which the fortress stands.
The farm-house is beyond the hail of our voices, but our coachman,
who is stationed there with his post-chaise, a witness of our
embarrassment, makes an encouraging sign. That the farm-house bears
some relation to the manor-house is suggested also by the fact that its
garden boasts a yew-tree cut into the form of a peacock, and the book
of heraldry says that the crest of the noble Earls of Rutland, who
occupied the hall for centuries, includes, among its other belongings, "a
peacock, in pride, proper."
At last, just as our impatience had reached the verge of indignation, a
little figure emerged from the shadow of the farm-house, and sauntered
towards us. She was a pretty child, a true daughter of the Saxon race,
fair-haired, blue-eyed, and sunny-complexioned. She was the pink of
neatness, too, and it was evident that the time we had spent in waiting
had been passed by her at her toilet, for the folds were still fresh in her
snowy apron, and her golden hair glistened smoothly within the bars of
a net,--that unfailing net, sure emblem of British female nationality.
Her dainty little hat was trimmed with white ribbons, which streamed
behind her in the breeze, and, altogether, she was as complete a picture
as one would wish to see of youth, health, and self-complacency.
The nonchalance with which she approached us was a thing I have
never seen equalled. The independence of American children is
proverbial; but democratic institutions never produced anything more
saucily self-reliant than this little Briton. Without looking at us, or
deigning any apology for the great gate,--which, it seems, is a mere
barricade, not made to be opened,--she unlocked a side-postern, a rude
door, consisting of two or three rough boards, and made a motion for us
to enter. As we trod the time-worn pavement of the outer court, and
gained an open quadrangle round which various apartments were
grouped, imagination once more took possession of me, and I found
myself peopling the place with its original inmates.

"Oh, how old and story-like!" I exclaimed to my companions. "Can you
not imagine knights on horseback prancing over these stones, and
alighting at the great hall-door beyond?"
"Horses never came up here!" was the interruption which my
suggestion met from our practical little guide. "Horses couldn't climb
those stairs," she added, somewhat scornfully; and I then observed that
I had unconsciously ascended a rough, angular stairway, passable only
to foot-passengers.
Knights on foot, then, my fancy at once substituted; and as the child,
now commencing her duties as show-woman, pointed out the servants'
offices, it was no difficult matter to picture the baron's retainers lazily
grouped around the stone walls of the low cells, for such the apartments
were, polishing their master's armor, or bousing over jugs of ale, while
handsome pages loitered about the court-yard, waiting the summons of
their lord, or the sound of their lady's silver whistle. Fancy was an
indispensable attendant in making the circuit of the apartments, which
surrounded at least three sides of this outer quadrangle. Without her aid,
they were simply remarkable for their similarity, their vacancy, their
unfitness for any modern purpose save that of sheep-pens or
lumber-rooms. Destitute of windows, so that the sun and air found
admittance only through the doorway, without fireplaces, boarded
floors, or plastered walls, they presented simply so many square