Then the fiddler changed the tune into one of sly and artful purport; and the nigger, assuming an attitude and a manner of audacious drollery, sang a song of such comical force that all the forward passengers greeted the end of each verse with roars of laughter, forgetting, in their own enjoyment, to applaud the singer: a form of commendation doing much more homage to the performer than all the cool and calculating approval that accepts and adopts the dry formula of hand smiting hand as a mark of satisfaction. So successful was this song that some of the critical loungers on the bridge turned to others and said, "Not half so bad," in a tone indicating the possession of responsible critical discernment and chivalric honour in the interests of truth.
Among the men on the bridge was a merchant of Daneford accompanied by a nephew, a young lad from the country who had come on a first visit to the city; to him the merchant was indicating the various objects of interest they passed on the way down.
"This," said the merchant, pointing, "is the Foundery. Although it is called the Foundery, it is in reality, as you see, a dockyard fer building iron steamers. The last one launched was 2,500 tons register.
"That is the Cove, and there bathing is allowed all day long. The water is not clear, and the bottom is very muddy; but in the hot weather city-folk of the lower order are not nice in such matters. We haven't any clear streams or mill-ponds such as you have in the country.
"That is the Glashouse over there, and this part of the river is called Glashouse Reach.
"Farther down you see a windmill on a headland; that headland is called Windmill Head, and that large white house in the glen there is Windmill Hall, the residence of Colonel Wood Maitland, who distinguished himself in the Crimean War. A Cossack thrust at Maitland's colonel, who was wounded and propped up against a dead trooper's dead horse. Captain Wood Maitland (he was only a captain then) lifted the Cossack's lance with an up-cut. The Cossack wheeled, thrust at the captain; the lance caught the captain in the left forearm, and the shaft being wounded by the up sword cut, broke off two feet from the head, and stuck in the captain's forearm. The captain was borne down. The Cossack wheeled again and drew. Captain Maitland had lost his sword in the fall. The Cossack rode up, brandishing his sword and making again for the wounded colonel, who lay helpless against the belly of the dead horse. Captain Maitland was now unarmed and wounded. A few paces in advance of the captain was a large fragment of a shell; he rose, picked this up, and, at the moment the Cossack was within a few yards of the wounded colonel, threw the piece of the shell with all his force, and struck the horse on the head, causing the horse to swerve and the rider to lose his cut. As the Cossack swept by Captain Maitland pulled the lance-head out of his left forearm, and thrust it through the bowels of the Cossack, who rode on a little and then tumbled out of his saddle. But that was only one of a dozen or more brave things Maitland did.
"That snug little cottage under the slope on the other shore is where Samuel Sholl, the richest merchant in Daneford, lives. He is a Quaker, and many men of five hundred a year have finer houses. But this one is the most beautifully kept in the neighbourhood.
"If you look right ahead now you will see the Island. Its name is Warfinger. On the top of the hill in the Island is the Castle. Sir Alexander Midharst lives there. He has a fine property, worth more than twenty thousand a year; but he is a miser, and saves up nineteen out of every twenty pounds of his income.
"Wat Grey, the banker, a very rich man too, takes care of all Sir Alexander's money. The Castle is old, as you see, and has a deserted, lonely look.
"Wat Grey lives at the Manor, in the Manor House, another queer house, and he has called the two houses the Weird Sisters. You see that round tower. Now you can see it better as we come in front of the archway to the Castle-yard, the western tower. Well, they used to say it was haunted by the ghost of one of the wives of the family which owned it before the Midharsts came into the property. There's a tower on the Manor also, and no doubt you have heard or read of places in the East—China, I think, or maybe Rangoon—where they put their dead on the top of towers, called the Towers of Silence. The carrion birds eat off the flesh, and the bones fall through a grating. Well, Wat Grey calls these two towers the Towers of Silence.