busy to pay much attention to the
high cliff that juts out against the sky above the steep red roofs of
the old town. But if they do look up for a moment they notice a pile
of grey stones at the very top of the hill. 'Oh, that is the old
ruined castle,' they say to themselves; and then they forget all about
it and devote themselves to the important task of digging a new castle
of their own that shall not crumble into ruins in its turn, as even
sand castles have an uncomfortable way of doing, if they are
unskilfully made.

Those children are only modern children. They have not gone back, as
you and I are trying to do, two hundred and fifty long years up the
stream of time. If we are really to find out what Scarborough looked
like then, we must put on our thinking caps and flap our fancy wings,
and, shutting our eyes very tight, not open them again until that
long-ago Scarborough is really clear before us. Then, looking up at
the castle, what shall we see? The same hill of course, but so covered
with stately buildings that we can barely make out its outline.
Instead of one old pile of crumbling stones, roofless, doorless,
windowless, there is a massive fortress towering over us, ringed round
with walls and guarded with battlements and turrets. High above all
stands the frowning Norman Keep, of which only some of the thick outer
stones remain to-day. Scarborough Castle was a grand place, and a
strong place too, in the seventeenth century.

In order to reach it, then as now, it was necessary to climb the long
flights of stone steps that stretch up from the lower town near the
water's edge to the high, arched gateway upon the Castle Hill. We will
climb those steps, only of course the stones were newer and cleaner
then, and less worn by generations of climbing feet. Up them we mount
till we reach the gateway with its threatening portcullis, where the
soldiers of King Charles the Second, in their jackboots, are walking
up and down on guard, determined to keep out all intruders. Intruders
we certainly are, seeing that we belong to another generation and
another century. There is no entrance at that gateway for us. Yet
except through that gateway there is no way into the castle, and all
the windows on this side are high up in the walls, and barred and
filled with strong thick glass.

Now let us go round to the far side of the cliff where the castle
overlooks the sea. Here the fortress still frowns above us; but lower
down, n