e foremost dragoon seizing a vast
iron knocker struck the steel-plated gate so powerfully, that the echo
on a more quiet night would have startled all the deer in the adjacent
park for two miles round.

CHAPTER XV.

_Goaler._ You shall not now be stolen: you have locks upon
you: So graze as you find pasture.--_Cymbeline_, Act. V.

During the two or three minutes that the cavalry and their prisoner
were waiting for an answer to the summons,--Bertram, who was relapsing
at every instant into a dozy slumber and then as suddenly starting
awake (probably in consequence of the abrupt stillness succeeding to
the severe motion of a high-trotting horse), was suddenly awakened by
the noise and stir of admission into the castle, which unfolded a
succession of circumstances as grand and impressive as if they had been
arranged by some great artist of scenical effect. From one of the
towers which flanked the gates, a question was put and immediately
answered by the foremost trooper: question and answer however were
alike lost to Bertram and dispersed upon the stormy ravings of the
wind. Soon after was heard the clank of bars and the creaking of the
gates,--gates

That were plated with iron within and without
Whence an army in battle array had march'd out.[1]

They were like the gates of a cathedral, and they began slowly to swing
backward on their hinges. As they opened, the dimensions and outlines
of their huge valves were defined by the light within; and, when they
were fully open, a beautiful spectacle was exposed of a crowd of faces
with flambeaus intermingled fluctuating on the further side of the
court. The gateway and the main area of the court were now cleared for
the entrance of the cavalry; and the great extent of the court was
expressed by the remote distance at which the crowd seemed to stand.
Then came the entrance of the dragoons, which was a superb expression
of animal power. The ground continued to ascend even through the
gateway and into the very court itself; and to the surprise of Bertram
who had never until this day seen the magnificent cavalry of the
English army, the leading trooper reined up tightly, and spurred his
horse, who started off with the bounding ramp of a leopard through the
archway. Bertram's horse was the sixtieth in the file; and, as the
course of the road between him and the gates lay in a bold curve, he
had the pleasur