Elzevir had thought carefully over this plan, and when we left the Bugle next morning we were better masons in our splashed clothes than ever we had been farm servants.  I carried a bucket and a brush, and Elzevir a plasterer’s hammer and a coil of stout twine over his arm.  It was a wet morning, and had been raining all night.  The sky was stagnant, and one-coloured without wind, and the heavy drops fell straight down out of a grey veil that covered everything.  The air struck cold when we first came out, but trudging over the heavy road soon made us remember that it was July, and we were very hot and soaking wet when we stood at the gateway of Carisbrooke Castle.  Here are two flanking towers and a stout gate-house reached by a stone bridge crossing the moat; and when I saw it I remembered that ’twas here Colonel Mohune had earned the wages of his unrighteousness, and thought how many times he must have passed these gates.  Elzevir knocked as one that had a right, and we were evidently expected, for a wicket in the heavy door was opened at once.  The man who let us in was tall and stout, but had a puffy face, and too much flesh on him to be very strong, though he was not, I think, more than thirty years of age.  He gave Elzevir a smile, and passed the time of day civilly enough, nodding also to me; but I did not like his oily black hair, and a shifty eye that turned away uneasily when one met it.

‘Good-morning, Master Well-wright,’ he said to Elzevir.  ’You have brought ugly weather with you, and are drowning wet; will you take a sup of ale before you get to work?’

Elzevir thanked him kindly but would not drink, so the man led on and we followed him.  We crossed a bailey or outer court where the rain had made the gravel very miry, and came on the other side to a door which led by steps into a large hall.  This building had once been a banquet-room, I think, for there was an inscription over it very plain in lead:  He led me into his banquet hall, and his banner over me was love.

I had time to read this while the turnkey unlocked the door with one of a heavy bunch of keys that he carried at his girdle.  But when we entered, what a disappointment!—­for there were no banquets now, no banners, no love, but the whole place gutted and turned into a barrack for French prisoners.  The air was very close, as where men had slept all night, and a thick steam on the windows.  Most of the prisoners were still asleep, and lay stretched out on straw palliasses round the walls, but some were sitting up and making models of ships out of fish-bones, or building up crucifixes inside bottles, as sailors love to do in their spare time.  They paid little heed to us as we passed, though the sleepy guards, who were lounging on their matchlocks, nodded to our conductor, and thus we went right through that evil-smelling white-washed room.  We left it at the other end, went down three steps into the open air again, crossed another small court, and so came to a square building of stone with a high roof like the large dovecots that you may see in old stackyards.