"Bamborough surpasses all Northumbrian castles"
There might be volumes of history, as well as romances, written about Bamborough Castle—as Sir Walter Scott, and Harrison Ainsworth, and Sir Walter Besant knew. Why, the thrill of unwritten stories and untold legends is in the air! From the moment I passed through the jaws of outer and inner gateways, I seemed to hear whispers from lips that had laughed or cursed in the days of barbaric grandeur, when Bamborough was the king of all Northumbrian castles. There are queer echoes everywhere, in the vast rooms whose outer walls are twelve feet thick; but more deliciously "creepy" than any other place is the keep, I think—even more thrilling than the dungeons. Yet the castle, as it is now, is far from gloomy, I can tell you. Not only are there banqueting-halls and ball-rooms, and drawing-rooms and vast galleries which royalties might covet, but there are quantities of charming bedrooms, gay and bright enough for débutante princesses. My bedroom, where I am writing, is in a turret; quaintly furnished, with tapestry on the wall which might have suggested to Browning his "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came."
It's very late, but I don't like to go to bed, partly because I can't keep jumping up and down to look out of my window at wild crags and moonlit sea when I'm asleep; partly because I have such silly, miserable dreams about Sir Lionel hating me, that I wake up snivelling; and to write to you when I'm a tiny bit triste is always like warming my hands at a rainbow-tinted fire of ship's logs.
To-morrow afternoon we are going back to Newcastle, where we will "lie" one night, as old books say, and then make a very matinal start to do our great day in Yorkshire, passing first through Durham, with just a glance at the great cathedral. Once upon a time we would have given more than a glance. But, as I told you, Sir Lionel seems to have lost heart for the "long trail."
I never saw him so interested in Mrs. Senter as he has appeared to be these last two nights at Cragside and here. Certainly she is looking her very, very best; and in her manner with him there is a gentleness and womanliness only just developed. One would fancy that a sympathetic understanding had established itself between them, as it might if she told him some piteous story about herself which roused all his chivalry.
Well, if she has told him any such story, I'm sure it is a "story" in every sense of the word. And I don't know how I should bear it if she cajoled him into believing her an injured innocent who needed the shelter of a (rich and titled) man's arm.
Perhaps it is a little sad wind that cries at my window like a baby begging to come in; perhaps it is just foolishness; but I have a presentiment that something will happen here to make me remember Bamborough Castle forever, not for itself alone.
Afternoon of next day