ourteenth
century painted windows, the special pews reserved for His Excellency,
and the ladies and gentlemen of the court; the coats of arms belonging
to the various Governors of Ireland, extending over a period of many
hundreds of years--all these, I say, he carefully pointed out, drawing
especial attention to one over which, at the moment, a thin ray of
golden sunlight was falling, and which, he informed me, was the coat of
arms of the Earl of Rochester--poor Rochester, the gay, the witty, the
wicked, and the repentant. On quitting the chapel we began to ascend,
under the auspices of another guide, a tremendously steep staircase,
which is cut inside the fifteen-feet stone wall which leads to the
chamber in the Round Tower wherein the Ulster King-at-Arms preserves the
ancient records of the Castle. On our pilgrimage up this weary flight of
stairs the guide drew our attention to a gloomy little dungeon, cut out
of the thickness of the wall, in which there is but little light, and
wherein the musty smell of ages is plainly discernible. "This,"
whispered Mr. Greville in my ear, "reminds me of Mark Twain's 'Innocents
Abroad.'" After a glance at the record chamber, which was crammed with
documents, we passed, with a sense of relief, into the bright sunny air
and the large courtyard, round which are built the handsome lofty
stables in which the Castle horses--of which there are an immense
number--are kept, and which stables, Colonel Forster, the Master of the
Horse, told me, are upwards of two hundred years old.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE.]

[Illustration: CASTLE YARD. BAND PLAYING.]

"And now, Mr. Blathwayt," said Mrs. Henniker, as we passed the two
sentries on guard at the entrance to the great hall, and proceeded up a
staircase lined with rifles and through long sunlit corridors, "you must
come with me to my own special sanctum, and rest yourself, after the
object lessons in history which we have been giving you this morning."
Here, in a lofty, white-panelled room, with long windows looking down
upon the private gardens of the Castle in which His Excellency and
Captain Streatfield, one of the A.D.C.'s, were walking up and down, Mrs.
Henniker and I sat talking of the past almost more than we did of the
actual present. For, though my hostess is quite a young woman, yet as a
daughter of the celebrated Richard Monckton Milnes, the first Lord
Houghton, she cannot fail to have the most delightful reminiscences of
the many c