A HUNTED KING! pointed out to us "Barn Hill House," an old gray stone building more interesting historically than architecturally, for it was within its walls that Charles I. slept his last night "as a free man." He arrived there disguised as a servant, and entered by the back-door—a hunted king! Such are the chances and changes of fate: the ruler of a kingdom coming stealthily in by a back-door, and seeking shelter and safety in the house of a humble subject, clad in the lowly garb of a serving-man! But I am moralising, a thing I dislike when others do it! possibly through having an overdose thereof when I was a boy, for almost every book I had, it seemed to me, concluded with a moral; till at last, I remember, I used first to look at the end of any new work that was given to me, and if I found the expected moral there, I troubled it no further!
We were shown much more of interest in Stamford, a town every square yard of which is history; but space forbids a detailed description of all we saw. One old house we were taken over had a very quaint and finely-enriched plaster ceiling, for builders of ancient homes did not believe in a flat void of whitewash. The ornaments of this ceiling were rendered in deep relief, the chief amongst them being animals playfully arranged; for instance there was, I remember, a goose in the centre of one panel with a fox greedily watching it on either side; another panel showed a poor mouse with two cats eyeing it on either hand; then there was a hare similarly gloated over by two hounds; and so forth. We visited the site of the castle and saw the last
