"Thank you," said Pauline, to whom a sudden idea had occurred. "How far is it from here to--how do you call the place--Hurstcastle?"
"To where, ma'am? O, Hurst Castle. I didn't understand you, you see, at first--you didn't make two words of it. It is Hurst Castle, where the king was kept a prisoner--him as had his head cut off--and where there's a barracks and a telegraph station for the ships now."
"Yes," she said, "exactly; that's the place. How far is it from here?"
"Well, it's about seven mile, take it altogether; but you can't drive all the way. You could have a fly to take you four miles, and he'd bring you to a boat, and he'd take you in and out down a little river through the marshes, until you came to a beach, on the other side of which the castle stands. But, lor' bless me, miss, what's the use o' going at all, there's nothing to see when you get there?"
"I wish to go," said Pauline, smiling. "You see, I am a foreigner, and I want to see where your British king was kept a prisoner. Can I get a fly here?"
The porter said he would find her one at once, and speedily redeemed his promise.
Through neat villages and wooded lanes Pauline was driven, until she came to a large, bare, open tract of country, on the borders of which the fly stopped, and the flyman descending, handed her down some steps cut in the steep bank, and into an old broad-bottomed boat, where a grizzled elderly man, with his son, were busy mending an old duck-gun. They looked up with astonishment when the flyman said, "Lady wants to go down to have a look at the castle, Jack. I'll wait here, ma'am, until they bring you back."
They spread an old jacket for her in the stern of the boat, and when she was seated, took to their oars and pulled away with a will. It was a narrow, intricate, winding course, a mere thread of shallow sluggish water, twisting in and out among the great gray marshes fringed with tall flapping weeds; and Pauline, already over-excited and overwrought, was horribly depressed by the scene.
"Are you always plying in this boat?" she asked the old man. "Most days, ma'am, in case we should be wanted up at the steps there," he replied; "but night's our best time, we reckon."
"Night!" she echoed. "Surely there are no passengers at night-time?"