“Ah, Lawrence,” replied Lambourne, “thou art thinking of Black Joan Jugges of Slingdon, and hast sympathy with human frailty.  But, corragio, most noble Duke of the Dungeon and Lord of Limbo, for thou art as dark in this matter as thine own dominions of Little-ease.  My most reverend Signior of the Low Countries of Kenilworth, know that our most notable master, Richard Varney, would give as much to have a hole in this same Tressilian’s coat, as would make us some fifty midnight carousals, with the full leave of bidding the steward go snick up, if he came to startle us too soon from our goblets.”

“Nay, an that be the case, thou hast right,” said Lawrence Staples, the upper-warder, or, in common phrase, the first jailer, of Kenilworth Castle, and of the Liberty and Honour belonging thereto.  “But how will you manage when you are absent at the Queen’s entrance, Master Lambourne; for methinks thou must attend thy master there?”

“Why thou, mine honest prince of prisons, must keep ward in my absence.  Let Tressilian enter if he will, but see thou let no one come out.  If the damsel herself would make a break, as ’tis not unlike she may, scare her back with rough words; she is but a paltry player’s wench after all.”

“Nay for that matter,” said Lawrence, “I might shut the iron wicket upon her that stands without the double door, and so force per force she will be bound to her answer without more trouble.”

“Then Tressilian will not get access to her,” said Lambourne, reflecting a moment.  “But ’tis no matter; she will be detected in his chamber, and that is all one.  But confess, thou old bat’s-eyed dungeon-keeper, that you fear to keep awake by yourself in that Mervyn’s Tower of thine?”

“Why, as to fear, Master Lambourne,” said the fellow, “I mind it not the turning of a key; but strange things have been heard and seen in that tower.  You must have heard, for as short time as you have been in Kenilworth, that it is haunted by the spirit of Arthur ap Mervyn, a wild chief taken by fierce Lord Mortimer when he was one of the Lords Marchers of Wales, and murdered, as they say, in that same tower which bears his name.”

“Oh, I have heard the tale five hundred times,” said Lambourne, “and how the ghost is always most vociferous when they boil leeks and stirabout, or fry toasted cheese, in the culinary regions.  Santo Diavolo, man, hold thy tongue, I know all about it!”

“Ay, but thou dost not, though,” said the turnkey, “for as wise as thou wouldst make thyself.  Ah, it is an awful thing to murder a prisoner in his ward!—­you that may have given a man a stab in a dark street know nothing of it.  To give a mutinous fellow a knock on the head with the keys, and bid him be quiet, that’s what I call keeping order in the ward; but to draw weapon and slay him, as was done to this Welsh lord, that raises you a ghost that will render your prison-house untenantable by any decent captive for