of plenty, tranquility, and security, such as had probably never before
been experienced in England.

Castle and cottage, church and convent, alike showed the prosperity and
safety of the inhabitants, at once by the profuseness of embellishment
in those newly erected, and by the neglect of the jealous precautions
required in former days of confusion and misrule. Thus it was with the
village of Lynwood, where, among the cottages and farm-houses occupying
a fertile valley in Somersetshire, arose the ancient Keep, built of
gray stone, and strongly fortified; but the defences were kept up
rather as appendages of the owner's rank, than as requisite for his
protection; though the moat was clear of weeds, and full of water, the
drawbridge was so well covered with hard-trodden earth, overgrown at
the edges with grass, that, in spite of the massive chains connecting
it with the gateway, it seemed permanently fixed on the ground. The
spikes of the portcullis frowned above in threatening array, but a
wreath of ivy was twining up the groove by which it had once descended,
and the archway, which by day stood hospitably open, was at night only
guarded by two large oaken doors, yielding to a slight push. Beneath
the southern wall of the castle court were various flower-beds, the
pride and delight of the old seneschal, Ralph Penrose, in his own
estimation the most important personage of Lynwood Keep, manager of the
servants, adviser of the Lady, and instructor of the young gentleman in
the exercises of chivalry.

One fine evening, old Ralph stood before the door, his bald forehead
and thin iron-gray locks unbonneted, and his dark ruddy-brown face
(marked at Halidon Hill with a deep scar) raised with an air of
deference, and yet of self-satisfaction, towards the Lady who stood on
the steps of the porch. She was small and fragile in figure; her face,
though very lovely, was pale and thin, and her smile had in it
something pensive and almost melancholy, as she listened to his
narration of his dealings with a refractory tenant, and at the same
time watched a noble-looking child of seven or eight years old, who,
mounted on an old war-horse, was led round the court by a youth, his
elder by some ten or eleven years.

"See mother!" cried the child, "I am holding the reins myself. Uncle
Eustace lays not a finger on them!"

"As I was saying, madam," continued Ralph, disregarding the
interruption, "I told him that I should not have thou