Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1904-10-25
CHAPTER VII.
IN THE OLD wATcH-TowER.

RATION did not nnd the
n time Of his Imprisonment
hang heavily on his hands.
An only child, whose moth
er, like Anne de Rohan's, had died in
his infancy, he had been early sent to
sea. He knew but little Of family life,
therefore, and even less Of children.
Through his connections and influence
he was not without some acquaintance
with the high life Of the court Of
England-a somewhat unusual privi-
lege for young naval offlcer-and he
easily moved in the first circles in
America when his duties permitted
him a rare visit there. Mingling in
this good society he had acquired an
ease and manner which, added to his
native breeding and instructive dig
nifty, enabled him to bear himself
gracefully wherever he found himself
but he had no experience with young
girls Of the age of the young coun-
tess.
Fortunately his was a sunny, lively
disposition, full Of laughter and hu-
NOR, which made 1t not difficult for
him to enter into the spirit Of the
play in accordance with his new
friends fancies. He had been attracted
In some strange way to the little de
Rohan from the first moment he had
seen her-nay, from that morning hour
when he had only heard her in the
garden-and the romantic friendship
which she had instituted between
them, and upon which he had entered
to please her and as a pastime for
prisoner, unconsciously assumed a per-
manent aspect.
He took part in the play with zest
which surprised him, and the more he
was thrown in contact with the
strange and peculiar mind Of the girl
the more she interested him. She
vas a singular mixture Of the young
and the old, the very childish and the
very wise. She stood, as it were,
poised halfway between the intel
lectual level of Josette, her playmate,
on the one hand. and of the courtly old
marquis. her preceptor and guide. on
the other.
She was too old to play at dolls, he
thought, too young to play at love.
And yet she had done the one and was
doing the other, although the "ador-
able Toto" had been neglected of late
for the more adorable Philip. Shrewd-
ness, wit, and common sense mingled
in equal measure with unbounded
credulity and the most romantic imag-
ination. And her impetuosity and
abandon were as evident as were her
wisdom or her innocence.
Grafton kissed the little brown hand
so often that he rather grew to like 1t.
Every day brought him different
love-token of some sort and new
and imaginary task to be achieved.
But Mademoiselle Anne at last tired
of simulation-the most obstinate i'm
agination will weary in the end-and
determined to endeavor to impart a
touch of realism to the pretty game.
One day, therefore, she took him
into one of the rooms Of the high
tower, the keep or watch-tower, the
oldest part Of the chateau, which he
had never visited before. There she
told him a tale Of one Of the ancient
ladies Of Rohan who had a lover who
came from an alien and antagonistic
family, who gained access to her
chamber by climbing in some strange
way the wall or face Of the tower,
until he reached the oriel window be-
fore them. He was finally caught and
killed by the lords Of the house on
the threshold of the very room in
which they were standing, she said,
and she wondered If Sir Philip could,
or would, have done that thing.
LET us go to the window and look
out, your little ladyship, and we will
see," answered the pseudo knight
gaily. 81 am sailor. can climb al
most anything that any one else can
ascend"
Together and hand in hand the two
stepped out on the little balcony over
looking the sea. Just outside the oriel
window, the wall of the castle, follow
ing the coast line, turned sharply,
making a narrow re-entrant angle
where it joined the round tower. The
tower and the wall were built of rough
stone and their surfaces were much
broken by jutting projections. The
wall and tower sloped slightly inward
from the base to the top.
Philip gravely surveyed the stone
surface of the weather-beaten tower
sweeping below the little platform on
which he stood, and made up his mind
that a daring climber taking advan-
tage Of the irregularities and pro-
jections in the stone, and favored by
the slope and the angle, might, if he
had a cool head, gain the balcony, pro-
vided no one opposed his ascent. In
deed, since the Baron de Croisic, the
unfortunate lover of the legend had
done so, he felt sure that he himself
could accomplish the feat-given a
sufficient incentive, of course. At the
foot of the tower lay the little bay
spoken of before, and in the bay a
small boat was moored.
He looked again and more carefully,
leaning far out over the wall, and
with the trained observation OF a
sailor to whom the minutest indlca-
yolnp he