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'True; that's a point, sir. You would outshine 'em all, and be picked off at the very beginning as a too-dangerous brave man. 'But if I stay here and urge on the faint-hearted ones, or get up into the turret-stair by that gateway, and pop at the invaders through the loophole, I shouldn't be so completely wasted, should I? 'You would not, Mr. Derriman.
Now, as I toiled up the steep turret-stair, after flying, yesterday, up the matted steps of the wealthy house of the Im Hoffs, meseemed that the two men's lives had been like to these staircases, and, young as I was, I nevertheless could say to myself that the humbler man's steep stair, which of late he could not mount without much panting, led up to a higher and brighter home than the wide steps of the rich merchant's palace.
If desirous of a loftier elevation, about a dozen more steps of the turret-stair will bring the occupant to the summit of the tower, where Pope used to come, no doubt, in the summer evenings, and peep poor little shrimp that he was! through the embrasures of the battlement.
With this, we grieve to say, selfish reflection which, if the thought of his model could have slept a while, Adam would have blushed to recall, as an affront to Hilyard's wrongs the philosopher followed Catesby across the spacious yard, along a narrow passage, and up a winding turret-stair, to a room in the third story, which opened at one door into the king's closet, at the other into the spacious gallery, which was already a feature in the plan of the more princely houses.
After that I crept hastily out of the room, for I don't like a set-to in a trap. "It was darker than ever now in the hall, or so it seemed, and as I backed away I came upon a jog in the wall, behind which I crept. For the sound I had heard was no fancy. Some one besides myself was in the house, and that some one was coming up the little turret-stair, striking matches as he approached.
In the confusion, while the king's falcon flew wildly about the turret till James set his foot on its chain, the man with the dagger vanished. The Master was slain by two of James's attendants; the Earl, rushing with four or five men up the turret-stair, fell in fight by Ramsay's rapier.
Ascending this turret-stair, and arriving at the third story, we entered a chamber, not large, though occupying the whole area of the tower, and lighted by a window on each side. It was wainscoted from floor to ceiling with dark oak, and had a little fireplace in one of the corners. The window-panes were small, and set in lead.
If desirous of a loftier elevation, about a dozen more steps of the turret-stair will bring the occupant to the summit of the tower, where Pope used to come, no doubt, in the summer evenings, and peep poor little shrimp that he was! through the embrasures of the battlement.
But on examination of the interior finding the walls, though six feet thick, rent to the foundation and as cold as rocks, and the floors all sodden through with walnut oil and rotten-apple juice heaps of the farm stores having been left to decay in the ci-devant drawing room, I gave up all medieval ideas, for which the long-legged black pigs who lived like gentlemen at ease in the passage, and the bats and spiders who divided between them the corners of the turret-stair, have reason if they knew it to be thankful.
In the Im Hoffs' great house all was silence till the burying was done; up in the tower, where old Adam Heyden lay asleep, the bells rang out as they did every day, for wedding and christening, for mass and mourning; yet by the low door which led to the narrow turret-stair I saw a crowd of little lads and maids with their mothers; and albeit the leaves were off the trees and the last flowers were frozen to death, many a child had found a green twig or carried a little bunch of everlasting flowers in its little hand to lay on the bier of that kind old friend.
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