cross the courtyard to get to the rest of the house, and being wholly
without the modern luxury of a bell, I thought that I could not be
better lodged.

"But this is a perfect bower, my dear uncle! Depend on it, it was the
bower-chamber of the Dames de Caxton,--Heaven rest them!"

"No," said my uncle, gravely, "I suspect it must have been the
chaplain's room, for the chapel was to the right of you. An earlier
chapel, indeed, formerly existed in the keep tower; for, indeed, it is
scarcely a true keep without a chapel, well, and hall. I can show you
part of the roof of the first, and the two last are entire; the well is
very curious, formed in the substance of the wall at one angle of the
hall. In Charles the First's time our ancestor lowered his only son
down in a bucket, and kept him there six hours, while a malignant mob
was storming the tower. I need not say that our ancestor himself
scorned to hide from such a rabble, for he was a grown man. The boy
lived to be a sad spendthrift, and used the well for cooling his wine.
He drank up a great many good acres."

"I should scratch him out of the pedigree, if I were you. But pray,
have you not discovered the proper chamber of that great Sir William
about whom my father is so shamefully sceptical?"

"To tell you a secret," answered the Captain, giving me a sly poke in
the ribs, "I have put your father into it! There are the initial
letters W. C. let into the cusp of the York rose, and the date, three
years before the battle of Bosworth, over the chimney-piece."

I could not help joining my uncle's grim, low laugh at this