Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/264

250 arrival of the wagonettes that were to convey them to the ruins. Each Form was accompanied by its own mistress, and Miss Poppleton and Miss Edith completed the party. Every girl wore her briar rose badge, and the officers their sashes and wreaths. The banner was carried rolled up, but ready to be unfurled when the ceremonies should begin. Riggside Tower, the old ruined keep that was the goal of their excursion, had a romantic history of its own, and had been the scene of many an exciting struggle in border warfare. The guidebook related the legends of illustrious prisoners, fierce hand-to-hand combats, doughty champions, secret passages, underground dungeons, thrilling escapes, and other episodes of the past that added greatly to the attraction of the ancient building.

Some of the girls had been there before, but to others it was a fresh spot, and all looked with interest as the wagonettes turned a particular corner of the road where the first glimpse of the castle could be seen. It was a grey, turreted fortress, with half of its west wall battered down by Cromwell's cannon, and the rest in a crumbling state, chiefly held together by the great masses of ivy that clung round the worn stones. In former days it must have been grim and bare enough, but kindly Nature had thrown her mantle of greenery around it, and softened its rugged outlines. Wallflowers and scarlet valerian and the pretty trailing ivy-leaved toadflax were growing in every nook and cranny where they could find root-hold; a thick grove of trees clothed the base of the south front; and the courtyard was a strip of verdant sward thickly covered with daisies. Gipsy took a