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Updated: May 3, 2025
He reached Stirling in the breaking of the day, and galloping across the bridge, caused its gates to be closed after him, that no pursuer might cross the river; and was received with great rejoicing in the castle, where everything had been prepared for his coming, and where the captain, having let down the portcullis and made all secure, "laid the King in his bed, because he had ridden all that night."
And thus the band of bold adventurers plunged at once into the darkness, and soon found themselves contending with the tempest, and wading breast high in the black waters of the Scheldt. After a long and perilous struggle, they at length reached the appointed gate, The external portcullis was raised and the fifteen foremost of the band rushed into the town.
The drawbridge had been raised, and the portcullis protected the door, but the gallant assailants had apparently thrown a bridge hastily constructed across the moat, and they were certainly as busy as a hive of bees that had struck a mine of sugar.
Then there is Glosmont Castle, the fortified residence of the Earl of Lancaster; Skenfrith Castle, White Castle, the Album Castrum of the Latin records, the Landreilo of the Welsh, with its six towers, portcullis and drawbridge flanked by massive towers, barbican, and other outworks; and Raglan Castle with its splendid gateway, its Elizabethan banqueting-hall ornamented with rich stone tracery, its bowling-green, garden terraces, and spacious courts an ideal place for knightly tournaments.
And the access to this portcullis place if I may so call it, being no portcullis there was through certain rocky chambers known to the tenants only.
Like wild beasts, driven, at length, to their lair, they retreated with their faces to the foe; and when Muza came, the last his cimiter shivered to the hilt, he had scarcely breath to command the gates to be closed and the portcullis lowered, ere he fell from his charger in a sudden and deadly swoon, caused less by his exhaustion than his agony and shame.
When all about her spoke a language so different from his own, how could he hope to make himself heard? He knew that her family and her immediate friends Mr. Langhope, the Gaineses, Mrs. Ansell and Mr. Tredegar far from being means of communication, were so many sentinels ready to raise the drawbridge and drop the portcullis at his approach.
A moat filled with wild shrubs and brambles surrounded the place; the drawbridge had been replaced by a stone arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate. I stood for a long time on the hither side of the moat, gazing about me, and letting the influence of the place sink in.
There were forty of us in the Tower, mounting guard with drawn swords at the portcullis gate and at the entrances to the lodgings of such as were in hold, and otherwise attending upon unfortunate noblemen and gentlemen who were in trouble.
Portray Castle was really a castle, not simply a country mansion so called, but a stone edifice with battlements and a round tower at one corner, and a gate which looked as if it might have had a portcullis, and narrow windows in a portion of it, and a cannon mounted upon a low roof, and an excavation called the moat, but which was now a fantastic and somewhat picturesque garden, running round two sides of it.
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