ld pierce your foot through,
and pitfalls deep enough to bury you in them for ever; for you are now
within the precincts of the royal demesne, and we shall presently see
the front of the Chateau."

"Were I the King of France," said the young man, "I would not take so
much trouble with traps and gins, but would try instead to govern so
well that no man should dare to come near my dwelling with a bad intent;
and for those who came there in peace and goodwill, why, the more of
them the merrier we should be."

His companion looked round affecting an alarmed gaze, and said, "Hush,
hush, Sir Varlet with the Velvet Pouch! for I forgot to tell you, that
one great danger of these precincts is, that the very leaves of the
trees are like so many ears, which carry all which is spoken to the
King's own cabinet."

"I care little for that," answered Quentin Durward; "I bear a Scottish
tongue in my head, bold enough to speak my mind to King Louis's face,
God bless him--and for the ears you talk of, if I could see them growing
on a human head, I would crop them out of it with my wood knife."

CHAPTER III: THE CASTLE

Full in the midst a mighty pile arose,
Where iron grated gates their strength oppose
To each invading step--and strong and steep,
The battled walls arose, the fosse sunk deep.
Slow round the fortress roll'd the sluggish stream,
And high in middle air the warder's turrets gleam.

ANONYMOUS

While Durward and his acquaintance thus spoke, they came in sight of
the whole front of the Castle of Plessis les Tours, which, even in
those dangerous times, when the great found themselves obliged to reside
within places of fortified strength, was distinguished for the extreme
and jealous care with which it was watched and defended.

From the verge of the wood where young Durward halted with his
companion, in order to take a view of this royal residence, extended,
or rather arose, though by a very gentle elevation, an open esplanade,
devoid of trees and bushes of every description, excepting one gigantic
and half withered old oak. This space was left open, according to the
rules of fortification in all ages, in order that an enemy might not
approach the walls under cover, or unobserved from the battlements, and
beyond it arose the Castle itself.

There were three external walls, battlemented and turreted from space
to space and at each angle, the second enclosure rising higher than th