between us and them. Everything is peaceful and remote;
even the sound of the river is lost in the wind that blows freely upon
us from the great moorland wastes stretching away to the western
horizon. It is a romantic country that lies around us, and though the
cultivated area must be infinitely greater than in the fighting days
when these battlements were finished, yet I suppose the Vale of Mowbray
which we gaze upon to the east must have been green, and to some extent
fertile, when that Conan who was Duke of Brittany and also Earl of
Richmond looked out over the innumerable manors that were his Yorkshire
possessions. I can imagine his eye glancing down on a far more
thrilling scene than the green three-sided courtyard enclosed by a
crumbling grey wall, though to him the buildings, the men, and every
detail that filled the great space, were no doubt quite prosaic. It did
not thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning weapons, when the man and
his clothes, and even the sword, were as modern and everyday as the
soldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves, but how much would
we not give for a half-an-hour of his vision, or even a part of a
second, with a good camera in our hands?

In the lower part of what is called Robin Hood's Tower is the Chapel of
St. Nicholas, with arcaded walls of early Norman date, and a long and
narrow slit forming the east window. More interesting than this is the
Norman hall at the south-east angle of the walls. It was possibly used
as the banqueting-room of the castle, and is remarkable as being one of
the best preserved of the Norman halls forming separate buildings that
are to be found in this country. The hall is roofless, but the corbels
remain in a perfect state, and the windows on each side are well
preserved. The builder was probably Earl Conan, for the keep has
details of much the same character. It is generally called Scolland's
Hall, after the Lord of Bedale of that name, who was a sewer or dapifer
to the first Earl Alan of Richmond. Scolland was one of the tenants of
the Earl, and under the feudal system of tenure he took part in the
regular guarding of the castle.

There is probably much Norman work in various parts of the crumbling
curtain walls, and at the south-west corner a Norman turret is still to
be seen.

Alan, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of Earl
Edwin, was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received this
splendid reward for his se