Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/135

 been refreshing my memory of him in Quentin Durward, hating him dreadfully; but I did have a spasm of pity when I saw the big, well-like place where he was suspended for so many years, like an imprisoned canary, in a wooden cage, because he betrayed Louis' secrets to the Duke of Burgundy. Henry James says, in a fascinating Tauchnitz volume I bought in Tours (A Little Tour in France), that Cardinal Balue "survived much longer than might have been expected this extraordinary mixture of seclusion and exposure." Isn't that just the cunningest way of expressing it?

Last of all we went up to the top of a high tower in the midst of the Château, and there, as if we'd been on the mast-head of a ship, we had a bird's-eye view of the pretty white town, with the Indre murmuring by in sedgy meadows outside. There were some wonderful old cuttings in the stone, made by the soldiers who acted as sentinels and prisoners' guards; and Aunt Mary Kodaked me as I sat studying them. We could spy, across the plateau of the castle, the tomb of Agnes Sorel, and decided to go to it; but we left the poor girl till so late, finally, that we could only see her glimmering white in effigy of marble, with a sweetly resigned face, modest, folded hands, and a dear little soft sitting-down lamb to rest her pretty feet on. She had, besides, two very pretty young angels to watch over her and wake her up when it should be time.

I'm sure it would have taken at least three such angels to wake me up, until I had "slept out," after our long afternoon in the castle, and later in the town.