Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/425

Rh Babylonish garments and a wedge or two of gold in dealing destruction to these superfluous things; and they are accused of having despoiled Kenilworth of all that could be made transportable and marketable.

After the Restoration, Charles II gave the castle to Lawrence Hyde, the second son of the great Chancellor, and through his descendants it has come into the possession of the present Earl of Clarendon, who fully appreciates its value as a historical monument of interesting and romantic associations. The facing of the massive and lofty Cæsar's Tower must be nearly three centuries old, and it is wonderfully perfect. The perpendicular lines from base to battlement are as straight as if the walls were run in a mould. The eye cannot detect a deflection of a hair's-breadth; nor has time been able to eat into the smooth and even surface. I noticed, however, that "the brave old ivy green" which braids such bandages for the wounds made by time and human violence in abbeys and castles, had wound around the front of this huge tower such a thick spread that it had deadened the skin of the wall and was eating into the solid body of it like a caustic blister. There were men at work on tall ladders removing this thick green bandage, and letting the sun in upon the stone, which had not seen its light for years.