ll open, and ferns and things grew underneath. There was a round stone
stair going up in the middle. Alice began to gather ferns while we went
up, but when we had called out to her that it was as the pig-man had
said, and daylight all the way up, she said:

"All right. I'm not afraid. I'm only afraid of being late home," and
came up after us. And perhaps, though not downright manly truthfulness,
this was as much as you could expect from a girl.

There were holes in the little tower of the staircase to let light in.
At the top of it was a thick door with iron bolts. We shot these back,
and it was not fear but caution that made Oswald push open the door so
very slowly and carefully.

Because, of course, a stray dog or cat might have got shut up there by
accident, and it would have startled Alice very much if it had jumped
out on us.

When the door was opened we saw that there was no such thing. It was a
room with eight sides. Denny says it is the shape called octagenarian;
because a man named Octagius invented it. There were eight large arched
windows with no glass, only stone-work, like in churches. The room was
full of sunshine, and you could see the blue sky through the windows,
but nothing else, because they were so high up. It was so bright we
began to think the pig-man had been kidding us. Under one of the windows
was a door. We went through, and there was a little passage and then a
turret-twisting stair, like in the church, but quite light with windows.
When we had gone some way up this, we came to a sort of landing, and
there was a block of stone let into the wall--polished--Denny said it
was Aberdeen graphite, with gold letters cut in it. It said:

"Here lies the body of Mr. Richard Ravenal.
Born 1720. Died 1779."

and a verse of poetry:

"Here lie I, between earth and sky,
Think upon me, dear passers-by,
And you who do my tombstone see
Be kind to say a prayer for me."

"How horrid!" Alice said. "Do let's get home."

"We may as well go to the top," Dicky said, "just to say we've been."

And Alice is no funk--so she agreed; though I could see she did not like
it.

Up at the top it was like the top of the church tower, only octagenarian
in shape, instead of square.

Alice got all right there; because you cannot think much about ghosts
and nonsense when the sun is shining bang down on you at four o'clock in
the afternoon, and you can see red farm-roofs betwee