Till comparatively lately, the public were freely admitted to what is still called the Castle yard, and public meetings of deep import to the state were held there. But now it is difficult to obtain even permission to visit the Castle ruins and the Old Prison.
Jean Bower had walked quickly through the keen morning air, and so, being full half an hour early, she paced up and down for what seemed a long time under the stout walls; at last, when her watch told her it was a quarter to ten, she rang the bell of the small postern door cut into the great gate.
There came the sound of footsteps on stone flags, the clanking of big keys, and then the door was opened by a gray-haired man in uniform.
Taking the admission order from her hand, he glanced over it, and looked at her with quickened interest.
“You’re a bit early, if I may say so,” he said kindly, “but you follow me, miss, and I’ll see what I can do.”
As she walked under the vaulted gateway, past the quaint little opening which evidently led into her guide’s home, Jean found herself on the edge of a vast paved enclosure.
To her left rose the huge mound, and in front of the mound, as if cut out of the paving stones, was a round lawn of closely cropped turf.
Then, gradually, she became aware that behind a row of tall, now leafless, plane trees was a strange-looking building of dark red brick and gray stone. There was something stark and desolate about the irregular outline which showed sharply clear against the pale blue of the winter sky.
Her companion followed the direction of her eyes.
“Ay, that’s the Old Prison,” he observed. “Folk used to come from a long way to go over that place, but now it isn’t shown—ever. But as you’ve got a few minutes to spare, miss, maybe you’d like to have a look at it?”