wixt Charleroi and Peronne, which, as the reader is aware, shone with
peculiar lustre. The great Keep was in form nearly resembling the
White Tower in the Citadel of London, but still more ancient in its
architecture, deriving its date, as was affirmed, from the days of
Charlemagne. The walls were of a tremendous thickness, the windows very
small, and grated with bars of iron, and the huge clumsy bulk of
the building cast a dark and portentous shadow over the whole of the
courtyard.

"I am not to be lodged there," the King said, with a shudder that had
something in it ominous.

"No," replied the gray headed seneschal, who attended upon him
unbonneted. "God forbid!--Your Majesty's apartments are prepared in
these lower buildings which are hard by, and in which King John slept
two nights before the battle of Poitiers."

"Hum--that is no lucky omen neither," muttered the King; "but what of
the Tower, my old friend? and why should you desire of Heaven that I may
not be there lodged?"

"Nay, my gracious Liege," said the seneschal, "I know no evil of the
Tower at all, only that the sentinels say lights are seen, and strange
noises heard in it at night; and there are reasons why that may be the
case, for anciently it was used as a state prison, and there are many
tales of deeds which have been done in it."

Louis asked no further questions; for no man was more bound than he to
respect the secrets of a prison house. At the door of the apartments
destined for his use, which, though of later date than the Tower, were
still both ancient and gloomy, stood a small party of the Scottish
Guard, which the Duke, although he declined to concede the point to
Louis, had ordered to be introduced, so as to be near the person of
their master. The faithful Lord Crawford was at their head.

"Crawford--my honest and faithful Crawford," said the King, "where
hast thou been today?--Are the Lords of Burgundy so inhospitable as to
neglect one of the bravest and most noble gentlemen that ever trode a
court?--I saw you not at the banquet."

"I declined it, my Liege," said Crawford, "times are changed with me.
The day has been that I could have ventured a carouse with the best man
in Burgundy and that in the juice of his own grape; but a matter of four
pints now flusters me, and I think it concerns your Majesty's service to
set in this an example to my gallants."

"Thou art ever prudent," said the King, "but surely your toil is the
less when