“We’ll wait till we find it first!” said Julian. He shut the guide-book and put it into his pocket. “Well, we seem to be the only people here. Let’s get going. We’ll walk round the courtyard first.”

They walked round the courtyard that surrounded the castle. It was strewn with great white stones that had fallen from the walls of the castle itself. In one place a whole wall had fallen in, and they could see the inside of the castle, dark and forbidding.

They came round to the front of it again. “Let’s go in at the front door — if you can call that great stone archway that,” said Julian. “I say — can’t you imagine knights on horseback riding round this courtyard, impatient to be off to some tournament, their horses’ hoofs clip-clopping all the time?”

“Yes!” said Dick. “I can just imagine it!”

They went in at the arched entrance, and wandered through room after room with stone floors and walls, and with small slit-like windows that gave very little light indeed.

“They had no glass for panes in those days,” said Dick. “I bet they were glad on cold windy days that the windows were so tiny. Brrrrrrr! This must have been a terribly cold place to live in.”

“The floors used to be covered with rushes, and tapestry was hung on the walls,” said Anne, remembering a history lesson. “Julian — let’s go and look for the stairway to that tower now. Do let’s! I’m longing to find out whether there really is a face up in that tower!”

Chapter Fourteen

Faynights Castle

“Chack-chack-chack! Chack-chack-chack!” The jackdaws circled round the old castle, calling to one another in their cheerful, friendly voices. The five children looked up and watched them.

“You can see the grey at the backs of their necks,” said Dick. “I wonder how many years jackdaws have lived round and about this castle.”

“I suppose the sticks lying all over this courtyard must have been dropped by them,” said Julian. “They make their nests of big twigs — really, they must drop as many as they use! Just look at that pile over there!”

“Very wasteful of them!” said Dick. “I wish they would come and drop some near our caravan to save me going to get firewood each day for the fire!”

They were standing at the great archway that made the entrance to the castle. Anne grew impatient. “Do let’s look at the towers now,” she said.

They went to the nearest one, but it was almost impossible to realize that it had been a tower. It was just a great heap of fallen stones, piled one on top of another.

They went to the only good tower. They had hoped to find some remains of a stone stairway, but to their great disappointment they could not even look up into the tower! One of the inner walls had fallen in, and the floor was piled up, completely blocked. There was no sign of a stairway. Either it too had fallen in, or it was covered by the stones of the ruined wall.