Never in his life had he visited the Tower, which he looked upon as a
place frequented only by Americans or country people; but as, after the
park, this was the spot of all others which Bessie wished to see, he
went there with her, and joining the party waiting for their ranks to be
full, followed the pompous beefeater up stairs and down stairs, and into
the lady's chamber, and saw the steps by the water-gate where Elizabeth
sat down when she landed there a prisoner to her sister, and saw the
thumb-screws and other instruments of torture, and more fire-arms and
bayonets grouped in the shape of sunflowers and roses than he had
supposed were in the world, and climbed to the little room where
Guilford Dudley was imprisoned, and stared stupidly at the name of Jane
cut upon the wall, and looked down the staircase under which it was said
the murdered princes were thrown, and horrified Bessie by asking who all
these people were he had been hearing about.
"Of course I knew once," he said. "Such things were thrashed into me at
school, but hanged if I have them and their history at my tongue's end,
as you have.
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