a plain Cook's tourist and mechanically
advised to pay strict attention to the rules which would be explained to
him by the guide.

"Cook's tourist, eh?" muttered King wrathfully as they ambled down the
shady path together. He looked with disparaging eye upon the plain
little chap beside him.

"It's no disgrace," growled Hobbs, redder than ever. "You're inside the
grounds and you've got to obey the rules, same as any tourist. Right
this way, sir; we'll take a turn just inside the wall. Now, on your
left, ladies and--ahem!--I should say--ahem!--sir, you may see the
first turret ever built on the wall. It is over four hundred years old.
On the right, we have--"

"See here, Hobbs," said King, stopping short, "I'm damned if I'll let
you lecture me as if I were a gang of hayseeds from Oklahoma."

"Very good, sir. No offence. I quite forgot, sir."

"Just _tell_ me--don't lecture."

For three-quarters of an hour they wandered through the spacious
grounds, never drawing closer to the Castle than permitted by the
restrictions; always coming up to the broad driveway which marked the
border line, never passing it. The gorgeous beauty of this historic old
park, so full of traditions and the lore of centuries, wrought strange
fancies and bold inclinations in the head of the audacious visitor. He
felt the bonds of restraint; he resented the irksome chains of
convention; he murmured against the laws that said he should not step
across the granite road into the cool forbidden world beyond--the world
of kings. Hobbs knew he was doomed to have rebellion on his hands before
long; he could see it coming.

"When we've seen the royal stables, we'll have seen everything of any
consequence," he hastened to say. "Then we'll leave by the upper gates
and--"

"Hobbs, this is all very beautiful and very grand and very slow," said
King, stopping to lean against the moss-covered wall that encircled the
park within a park: the grounds adjoining the grotto. "Can't I hop over
this wall and take a peep into the grotto?"

"By no means," cried Hobbs, horrified. "That, sir, is the most
proscribed spot, next to the Castle itself. You _can't_ go in there."

King looked over the low wall. The prospect was alluring. The pool, the
trickling rivulets, the mossy banks, the dense shadows: it was maddening
to think he could not enter!

"I wouldn't be in there a minute," he argued. "And I might catch a
glimpse of a dream-lady. Now, I say, Hobbs, here's