Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 23 (1831).djvu/194

 she may, scare her back with rough words; she is but a paltry player's wench after all."

"Nay for that matter," said Lawrence, "I might shut the iron wicket upon her that stands without the double door, and so force per force she will be bound to her answer without more trouble."

"Then Tressilian will not get access to her," said Lambourne, reflecting a moment. "But 'tis no matter; she will be detected in his chamber, and that is all one. But confess, thou old bat's-eyed dungeon-keeper, that you fear to keep awake by yourself in that Mervyn's Tower of thine?"

"Why, as to fear, Master Lambourne," said the fellow, "I mind it not the turning of a key; but strange things have been heard and seen in that tower. You must have heard, for as short time as you have been in Kenilworth, that it is haunted by the spirit of Arthur ap Mervyn, a wild chief taken by fierce Lord Mortimer when he was one of the Lords Marchers of Wales, and murdered, as they say, in that same tower which bears his name."

"Oh, I have heard the tale five hundred times," said Lambourne, "and how the ghost is always most vociferous when they boil leeks and stirabout, or fry toasted cheese, in the culinary regions. Santo Diavolo, man, hold thy tongue, I know all about it!"

"Ay, but thou dost not, though," said the turnkey, "for as wise as thou wouldst make thyself. Ah, it is an awful thing to murder a prisoner in his ward!--you that may have given a man a stab in a dark street know nothing of it. To give a mutinous fellow a knock on the head with the key