Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/106



OF MY lord Humphrey de Bohun, tenth and last of that name, many pleasant adventures are related, for he had livery of Caldicot Castle when he was but a young man, and so was disposed to hold a merry court therein. In this he succeeded admirably; but not so well in his designs of afterwards turning over a new leaf and being gravely sober, since he died young, as if to show there was quite enough gravity already if not too much. But during the ten or twelve years of his reign that fine Castle of Caldicot was full of jokes and entertainments; indeed, some have supposed that this plenitude of jest caused the walls to bulge out and afterwards to crack; but I believe the great hole by the eastern tower was made in the muddled times of the Roses when Earl Humphrey had been under earth for many years. You know he married my lady Joan of Arundel, with whom he had been brought up, so that husband and wife understood each other's little ways, and managed to live together very comfortably at Caldicot, where there was plenty of room for everybody. And one of my lord's whims was to gather about him a company of those quaint fellows sometimes called "men of genius"; for what reason I know not, but so goes the