He turned first to the right towards the castle, and
presently was passing down its long length.
It looked, indeed, a royal prison. A low wall on his right protected the
road from the huge outer moat that ran, in the shape of a fetterlock,
completely round all the buildings; and beyond it, springing immediately
from the edge of the water, rose the massive outer wall, pierced here
and there with windows. He thought that he could make out the tops of
the hall windows in one place, beyond the skirting wall, the pinnacles
of the chapel in another, and a row of further windows that might be
lodgings in a third; but from without here nothing was certain, except
the gigantic keep, that stood high to the west, and the strong towers
that guarded the drawbridge; this, as he went by, was lowered to its
place, and he could look across it into the archway, where four men
stood on guard with their pikes. The inner doors, however, were closed
beyond them, and he could see nothing of the inner moat that surrounded
the court, nor the yard itself. Neither did he think it prudent to ask
any questions, though he looked freely about him; since the part he must
play for the present plainly was that of one who had a right here and
knew what he did.
He came back to the inn an hour later, after a walk through the village
and round the locked church: this was a splendid building, with flying
buttresses and a high tower, with exterior carvings of saints and
evangelists all in place.
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