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.
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