Rollo in Geneva

by Jacob Abbott

The dinner which Rollo had ordered was soon ready, and they sat down to eat it with excellent appetites. While they were at dinner, Rollo inquired of the waiter what time the omnibus went to Villeneuve, and he learned that it did not go for some hours. So Mr. Holiday told his wife that she might either have a chamber, and lie down and rest herself during that time, or they might go out and take a walk.

Mrs. Holiday said that she did not feel at all fatigued, and so she would like to go and take a walk.

There was a castle on a rising ground just in the rear of the village, which had attracted her attention in coming into the town, and she was desirous of going to see it.

So they all set off to go and see the castle. They found their way to it without any difficulty. It proved to be an ancient castle, built in the middle ages, but it was used now for a prison. The family of the jailer lived in it too. It looked old and gone to decay.

When they entered the court yard, a woman looked up to the windows and called out Julie! Presently a young girl answered to the call, and the woman told her that here were some people come to see the castle. So Julie came down and took them under her charge.

The party spent half an hour in rambling over the castle. They went through all sorts of intricate passages, and up and down flights of stone stairs, steep, and narrow, and winding. They saw a number of dismal dungeons. Some were dark, so that the girl had to take a candle to light the way. The doors were old, and blackened by time, and they moved heavily on rusty hinges. The bolts, and bars, and locks were all rusted, too, so that it was very difficult to move them.

The visitors did not see all the dungeons and cells, for some of them had prisoners in them then, and those doors Julie said she was not allowed to open, for fear that the prisoners should get away.

After rambling about the old castle as much as they desired to do, and ascending to the tower to view the scenery, the party came down again, and returned to the inn.

They found the dining room full of boys. These boys were sitting at a long table, eating a luncheon. They were the boys of a school. The teacher was at the head of the table. Rollo talked with some of the boys, for he found two or three that could talk French and English, though their English was not very good.