my childhood
has already been realized 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