Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/111

 more hurtful then than now-a-days; for in our times it breeds a rheum and sets our noses running, but in the days of Humphrey III, it was very apt (if the hole were large enough) to breed men-at-arms and set blood running; the which sanguinary defluction is worse than any rheum, and cannot be treated with hot water and a handkerchief. Below the ground story, some ten feet beneath the earth, and full twenty feet from the slope of the mound was a sweet capacious dungeon, a dungeon where a man could lie snug and still, without bothering his head about politics, or theology or any knotty points, since nobody could disturb him in this retreat. For some reason or other Dom Benedict when he first came to Caldicot, and saw all the splendour of the palace (for in the later days it was no less), the fair rooms on the walls and in the towers, whence one could step out on the alures or galleries and take the air easily and pleasantly, came to a stand at the old donjon and would have my lord assign him an apartment there, saying that it was very fit for his purposes. The High Constable was astonished at this request, and showed him how much fairer and better rooms there were in Caldicot, and wondered greatly when the adept still desired a place in the keep. But here it was that Dom Benedict went to work and lit his fires, filling the whole tower with dreadful stenches, that seemed to make their way even through those mighty walls and float out on to the court and to the noses of the lords and ladies as they sat in the hall or in the bowers. Father Raymond