‘And whence comes all this water, my lord?’ she said, for she was one who would ask until she knew all that concerned her.

’Have you not chanced to observe a well in my workshop below, on the left-hand side of the door, not far from the great chest?’

‘I have observed it, my lord.’

’That is a very deep well, with a powerful spring.  Large pipes lead from all but the very bottom of that to my fire-engine.  The fuller the well, the more rapid the flow into the cistern, for the shallower the water, the more labour falls to my giant.  He is finding it harder work now.  But you see the cistern is nearly full.’

‘Forgive me, my lord, if I am troubling you,’ said Dorothy, about to ask another question.

‘I delight in the questions of the docile,’ said his lordship.  ’They are the little children of wisdom.  There! that might be out of the book of Ecclesiasticus,’ he added, with a merry laugh.  ’I might pass that off on Dr. Bayly for my father’s:  he hath already begun to gather my father’s sayings into a book, as I have discovered.  But, prithee, cousin, let not my father know of it.’

‘Fear not me, my lord,’ returned Dorothy.  ’Having no secrets of my own to house, it were evil indeed to turn my friends’ out of doors.’

’Why, that also would do for Dr. Bayly!  Well said, Dorothy!  Now for thy next question.’

’It is this, my lord:  having such a well in your foundations, whence the need of such a cistern on your roof?  I mean now as regards the provision of the keep itself in case of ultimate resort.’

‘In coming to deal with a place of such strength as this,’ replied his lordship, ’—­I mean the keep whereon we now stand, not the castle, which, alas! hath many weak points—­the enemy would assuredly change the siege into a blockade; that is, he would try to starve instead of fire us out; and, procuring information sufficiently to the point, would be like enough to dig deep and cut the water-veins which supply that well; and thereafter all would depend on the cistern.  From the moment therefore when the first signs of siege appear, it will be wisdom and duty on the part of the person in charge to keep it constantly full—­full as a cup to the health of the king.  I trust however that such will be the good success of his majesty’s arms that the worst will only have to be provided against, not encountered.—­But there is more in it yet.  Come hither, cousin.  Look down through this battlement upon the moat.  You see the moon in it?  No?  That is because it is covered so thick with weeds.  When you go down, mark how low it is.  There is little defence in the moat that a boy might wade through.  I have allowed it to get shallow in order to try upon its sides a new cement I have lately discovered; but weeks and weeks have passed, and I have never found the leisure, and now I am sure I never shall until this rebellion is crushed.  It is time I filled it.  Pray look down upon it, cousin.  In summer it will be full of the loveliest white water-lilies, though now you can see nothing but green weeds.’