“Not, sir? Well, if you’ll excuse me for saying as you’re wrong, I’ll say it. Where’s your garrison? where’s your horses? and where’s your guns, and powder, and shot, and stores?”
“Fudge, then! We don’t want any garrison nowadays, and as for horses, why, it was a sin to keep ’em in those old underground stables that used to be their lodging. Any one would think you expected to have some one come and lay siege to the place.”
“More unlikely things than that, Master Roy. We live in strange times, and the king may get the worst of it any day.”
“Oh, you old croaker!” cried Roy. “I believe you’d like to have a lot more men in the place, and mount guard, and go on drilling and practising with the big guns.”
“Ay, sir, I should; and with a place like this, it’s what ought to be done.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be bad fun, Ben,” said the boy, thoughtfully.
“Fun, sir? Don’t you get calling serious work like that fun.—But look ye there. Soon chevy these spots off, don’t I?”
“Yes, it’s getting nice and bright,” said Roy, gazing down at the steel headpiece.
“And it’s going to get brighter and better before I’ve done. I’m going to let Sir Granby see when he comes back that I haven’t neglected nothing. I’m a-going to polish up all on ’em in turn, beginning with old Sir Murray Royland. Let me see: he was your greatest grandfather, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he lived in 1480,” said the boy, as the old man rose, set down the morion, and followed him to where the farthest suit of mail stood against the wall. “I say, Ben, this must have been very heavy to wear.”