But the modern fever and fret which consumes people before they can grow old was also signified by the wire; and this aspect of to-day did not contrast well with the fairer side of feudalism--leisure, light-hearted generosity, intense friendships, hawks, hounds, revels, healthy complexions, freedom from care, and such a living power in architectural art as the world may never again see.
Somerset withdrew till neither the singing of the wire nor the hisses of the irritable owls could be heard any more.

A clock in the castle struck ten, and he recognized the strokes as those he had heard when sitting on the stile.

It was indispensable that he should retrace his steps and push on to Sleeping-Green if he wished that night to reach his lodgings, which had been secured by letter at a little inn in the straggling line of roadside houses called by the above name, where his luggage had by this time probably arrived.

In a quarter of an hour he was again at the point where the wire left the road, and following the highway over a hill he saw the hamlet at his feet.
III.
By half-past ten the next morning Somerset was once more approaching the precincts of the building which had interested him the night before.
Referring to his map he had learnt that it bore the name of Stancy Castle or Castle de Stancy; and he had been at once struck with its familiarity, though he had never understood its position in the county, believing it further to the west.

If report spoke truly there was some excellent vaulting in the interior, and a change of study from ecclesiastical to secular Gothic was not unwelcome for a while.
The entrance-gate was open now, and under the archway the outer ward was visible, a great part of it being laid out as a flower-garden.