Truxton King

"It's no disgrace," growled Hobbs, redder than ever. "You're inside the grounds and you've got to obey the rules, same as any tourist. Right this way, sir; we'll take a turn just inside the wall. Now, on your left, ladies and--ahem!--I should say--ahem!--sir, you may see the first turret ever built on the wall. It is over four hundred years old. On the right, we have--"

"See here, Hobbs," said King, stopping short, "I'm damned if I'll let you lecture me as if I were a gang of hayseeds from Oklahoma."

"Very good, sir. No offence. I quite forgot, sir."

"Just tell me--don't lecture."

For three-quarters of an hour they wandered through the spacious grounds, never drawing closer to the Castle than permitted by the restrictions; always coming up to the broad driveway which marked the border line, never passing it. The gorgeous beauty of this historic old park, so full of traditions and the lore of centuries, wrought strange fancies and bold inclinations in the head of the audacious visitor. He felt the bonds of restraint; he resented the irksome chains of convention; he murmured against the laws that said he should not step across the granite road into the cool forbidden world beyond--the world of kings. Hobbs knew he was doomed to have rebellion on his hands before long; he could see it coming.

"When we've seen the royal stables, we'll have seen everything of any consequence," he hastened to say. "Then we'll leave by the upper gates and--"

"Hobbs, this is all very beautiful and very grand and very slow," said King, stopping to lean against the moss-covered wall that encircled the park within a park: the grounds adjoining the grotto. "Can't I hop over this wall and take a peep into the grotto?"

"By no means," cried Hobbs, horrified. "That, sir, is the most proscribed spot, next to the Castle itself. You can't go in there."

King looked over the low wall. The prospect was alluring. The pool, the trickling rivulets, the mossy banks, the dense shadows: it was maddening to think he could not enter!

"I wouldn't be in there a minute," he argued. "And I might catch a glimpse of a dream-lady. Now, I say, Hobbs, here's a low place. I could jump--"

"Mr. King, if you do that I am ruined forever. I am trusted by the steward. He would cut off all my privileges--" Hobbs could go no further. He was prematurely aghast. Something told him that Mr. King would hop over the wall.

"Just this once, Hobbs," pleaded his charge. "No one will know."

"For the love of Moses, sir, I--" Hobbs began to wail. Then he groaned in dismal horror. King had lightly vaulted the wall and was grinning back at him from the sacred precincts--from the playground of princesses.