A pitcher of water lay by his side, and a stuffed rat peering from the straw added a further touch of realism.

Winona shuddered.

It was a ghastly sight, and she was thankful to run up the stairs and go from the keep out into the spring sunshine.

She had always had a romantic admiration for the Middle Ages, but this aspect of thirteenth-century life did not commend itself to her.

"They were bad old times, after all!" she decided, and came to the conclusion that the twentieth century, even with its horrible war, was a more humane period to live in.
At the foot of the crag, close by the river, lay the remains of the old Priory Church, an ivy-covered fabric, whose broken chancel still gave a shelter to the battered tombs of the knights who had lived in the Castle above.