“One of my tenants was going to be married; his bride was a very young creature, not more than eighteen, and on the wedding-day, as I always was ready for a joke in those days—­ah! ’tis thirty years ago, or more—­I asked the bridal party to the Tower.  Ho! ho! such laughing we had!—­Giles Mallet and Robin Henslow fought with redhot brands out of the fire, till I thought we should all have died; and Giles—­the cleverest fellow and the wittiest, ho! ho!—­such a fellow was Giles!—­he took up the poker instead of the fir-log, and watched his opportunity, ho! ho!—­it was redhot too—­a good stout poker as ever you saw—­and ran it clean through his cheek—­you heard the tongue fizz! as it licked the hot iron—­’twas a famous play.  How Robin roared, to be sure, and couldn’t speak plain—­ho! ho!  Well, the games went on; and nothing would please some of the young ones but we should see the Oubliette.  ’Twas a dark hole where my forefathers imprisoned their refractory vassals, and sad stories were told about it—­how that voices were heard from the bottom of it, and groans, and sometimes gory heads were seen at the top of it, looking up to the skylight, and struggling to escape, but ever tumbling back into the deep dark hole, with screams and smothered cries; a rare place for a man’s enemies—­but it had not been used for many years.  Well—­nothing would do, but when we were all merry with ale, we should all go and see the Oubliette, and a kiss of the bride was promised to the one who should go down the furthest.  Now, the stone steps were very narrow at best; and were all worn away—­and that was the best of it—­all along the passages we went, and past the dungeon grating, till we came to the open mouth of the Oubliette.  Ho! ho! how you’ll laugh.  Down a step went one—­no kiss from the bride for him—­two steps went another—­some went down six steps, and one bold fellow went down so far that we lost sight of him in the darkness.  Then the bridegroom, a stout young yeoman—­thought it shame to let anyone beat him in daring, for so rich a prize as a kiss from the rosy lips of his bride, and down—­down—­he went—­step after step—­till finally, far down in the gloom, we heard a loud scream—­such a scream—­ho! ho!  I can’t help laughing yet when I think of it—­and in a minute or two, whose voice should we hear but Giles Mallet’s! There was Giles, hollowing and roaring for us to send down a rope but how he had got down, or when he had gone down, nobody knew.  However, a rope was got, and merrily, stoutly, we all pulled, but no Giles came up.  Instead of him, we drew forth the bridegroom! but such a changed man.  His eyes were fixed, and his face as white as silver—­his mouth was wide open, and his great tongue went lolling about from side to side—­and he shook his head, and mumbled and slavered—­he was struck all of a sudden into idiocy, and knew nobody; not even his bride.  She was sinking before him, but he never noticed her, but went moaning, and muttering,