roughish lot in their lifetimes. Look how squarely those towers stand
out against the sky. They always remind me of the men who built them--
sturdy, overbearing fellows, setting their shoulders against the sea
of circumstance and caring neither for man nor devil till the priests
got hold of them at the last. Well, God rest them, they helped to make
England, whatever their faults. Queer place to choose for a castle,
though, wasn't it? right out in an open plain."

"I suppose that they trusted to their moat and walls, and the hagger
at the bottom of the dry ditch," said the Colonel. "You see there is
no eminence from which they could be commanded, and their archers
could sweep all the plain from the battlements."

"Ah, yes, of course they could. It is easy to see that you are a
soldier. They were no fools, those old crusaders. My word, we must be
getting on. They are hauling down the Union Jack on the west tower. I
always have it hauled down at sunset," and he began walking briskly
again.

In another three minutes they had crossed a narrow by-road, and were
passing up the ancient drive that led to the Castle gates. It was not
much of a drive, but there were still some half-dozen of old pollard
oaks that had no doubt stood there before the Norman Boissey, from
whose family, centuries ago, the de la Molles had obtained the
property by marriage with the heiress, had got his charter and cut the
first sod of his moat.

Right before them was the gateway of the Castle, flanked by two great
towers, and these, with the exception of some ruins were, as a matter
of fact, all that remained of the ancient building, which had been