Such a hiding-place as would have filled the heart of almost any boy
with sweet delight Myles and Gascoyne found one summer afternoon. They
called it their Eyry, and the name suited well for the roosting-place
of the young hawks that rested in its windy stillness, looking down upon
the shifting castle life in the courts below.

Behind the north stable, a great, long, rambling building, thick-walled,
and black with age, lay an older part of the castle than that peopled
by the better class of life--a cluster of great thick walls, rudely but
strongly built, now the dwelling-place of stable-lads and hinds, swine
and poultry. From one part of these ancient walls, and fronting an inner
court of the castle, arose a tall, circular, heavy-buttressed tower,
considerably higher than the other buildings, and so mantled with a
dense growth of aged ivy as to stand a shaft of solid green. Above its
crumbling crown circled hundreds of pigeons, white and pied, clapping
and clattering in noisy flight through the sunny air. Several windows,
some closed with shutters, peeped here and there from out the leaves,
and near the top of the pile was a row of arched openings, as though of
a balcony or an airy gallery.

Myles had more than once felt an idle curiosity about this tower, and
one day, as he and Gascoyne sat together, he pointed his finger and
said, "What is yon place?"

"That," answered Gascoyne, looking over his shoulder--"that they call
Brutus Tower, for why they do say that Brutus he built it when he came
hither to Britain. I believe not the tale mine own self; ne'theless, it
is marvellous ancient, and old Robin-the-Fletcher telleth me that there
be stairways built in the wall and passage-ways, and a maze wherein