Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/456

 heraldic devices, and a representation of a full purse, symbolic, we imagined, of the post of Lord-Treasurer held by the owner. Over one fireplace we noticed an inscription in Norman-French, Nay le Droit, which, rightly or wrongly, we translated into "Have I not the right?"

We ascended to the top of the keep, and beyond to the top of one of the flanking turrets, by a spiral staircase of innumerable steps that is happily complete and is contained within one of the angle towers. This staircase is provided with a handrail ingeniously recessed in the side wall. A Lincolnshire antiquary we afterwards met assured me that this is the earliest handrail to a staircase known. I merely repeat what I have been told on apparently good authority, but I must confess I should have imagined that this convenience was of more ancient origin; however, in this matter my antiquarian knowledge does not carry me far enough. From the topmost tower we had a truly magnificent panorama presented to us; we looked down upon a wide green world, enlivened by the gray gleam of winding water-ways, and encircled by a horizon darkly, intensely blue. Our visions ranged over vast leagues of flat Fenland and wild wold. On one hand we could just trace the distance-dwarfed outlines of Lincoln's lordly minster, on the other the faint form of Boston's famous "stump."

Before leaving Tattershall we made a sketch of the glorious old tower that uprises so grandly from the level land around, which sketch is engraved with this chapter, and will give a better idea of the