armed with guns and culverins, and besieged it
doggedly for five weeks and three days. A
wicked justice named Yelverton and other
lawyers also tried to get pickings out of the place,
and at one time Lord Scales took actual
possession of it in the name of King Edward the
Fourth, who, however, eventually restored it
to the Pastons, who soon afterwards nearly lost
it by fire. Besides Caistor, Sir John had a
house at Norwich in Pokethorp, opposite St.
James's Church. This largo-minded soldier was
a great benefactor to Cambridge, helping to
found philosophical schools; nor did he forget
the sister seat of learning, for he gave broad
lands to Magdalene College, out of friendship
to William Wainfleet, the founder (who, indeed,
had the intention of founding a special
college where Sir John's soul might be prayed
for). It is a singular fact (considering that,
following some vague old story, Shakespeare
has traduced this excellent man) that among
other property left by Falstolf to Magdalene
College was the Boar's Head in Southwark,
where the poet might have found the name still
traditional. By a strange caprice of genius the
invincible old warrior was changed into that
delightful fat rascal to whose sins we are
so lenient; that bragging, toping, witty,
good-for-nothing master of Nym and Bardolph.

There is a wild legend about Caistor (worthy
of some old German tower under the shadow of
the Brocken) that on certain midnights a black
coach drawn by headless horses, and driven
by a skeleton, or some such appropriate coachman,
rolls silently into the ruined and echoing
court-yard and carries off a freight of unearthly
passengers; whether ghosts of sinful
knights long dead, or a relieved guard of demon
sentinels, is not exactly known. But indeed
Norfolk legends are often wild enough, for at
Over-Strand the country people believe in a
headless coal-black demon dog, with flaming
hair, known to mortals as " Old Shock," which
on stormy nights chases along the desolate and
dangerous shores between Over-Strand and
Beeston, exulting at the frequent shipwrecks.

But the crow must by no means leave the
old brick ruin without a word about those
delightful "Paston Letters," many of which
where here indited by anxious Yorkists. They
present a perfect picture of social life during
the bloodthirsty wars of the Roses. One
almost wonders, when England was streaming
with blood, how people could have the heart
to propose marriage, or to write for figs and
raisins, and " ij pots off oyle for saladys."
Soon after the battle of Mortimer Cross, when
Henry the Sixth was in London lying feebly
in the iron grip of the king-maker, one of the
Pastons writes about the troubled state of
Norfolk, that traitors had risen after the Battle
of Wakefield to murder John Dameme
(whoever he might be); that the people at Castle
Rising were gathering and hiring armour; also
that plunderers in Yarmouth had robbed a ship
"under colour of my Lord of Warwick." In
December, 1463, John Paston, the youngest,
writing home to the old Norfolk house from
Northumberland, whither he had gone to
besiege three castles recently taken by Queen
Margaret, says:

"I pray you let my father have knowledge
of this letter, and of the other letter that I
sent to my mother by a Felbrigg man, and how
that I pray, both him and my mother lowly
of their blessing I pray you that this
bill may reccomend me tomy sister Margery
[he had before sent remembrances to his granddam
and cousin Clere], and to my mistress
Joan Gayne, and to all good masters and fellows
within Caster." Then what a picture of Caxton's
times is given in the letter dated Coventry,
Tuesday after Corpus Christi Day (circa 1445).
It is addressed by one John North wood, to
Viscount Beaumont, a nobleman afterwards
slain by Jack Cade's men.

"On Corpus Christi even last passed between
eight and nine of the clock at afternoon,
Sir Humphrey Stafford had brought my
master Sir James of Ormond towards his inn
from my Lady of Shrewsbury, and returned
from him towards his inn; he met with Sir
Robert Harcourt, coming from his mother towards
his inn, and passed Sir Humphrey, and
Richard his son came somewhat behind, and
when they met together, they fell in hands
together, and Sir Robert smote him a great
stroke on the head with his sword, and Sir
Richard with his dagger hastily went towards
him, and as he stumbled one of Harcourt's men
smote him in the back with a knife; men wot
not who it was readily; his father heard a
noise and rode towards them, and his men ran
before him thitherward; and in the going down
off his horse, one, he wot not who, behind
him smote him on the head with an edged tool,
men know not with us with what weapon, that
he fell down, and his son fell down before him
as good as dead, and all this was done as men
say in a paternoster while and forthwith Sir
Humphrey Stafford's men followed after and
slew two men of Harcourt's, one Swynnerton
and Bradshawe, and more be hurt, some be
gone, and some be in prison, in the jail at
Coventry .... and Almighty Jesu preserve your
high estate, my special lord, and send you long
life and good health."

Such were the rough-and-ready times when
the streets of English towns were crowded by
the quarrelsome Montagues and Capulets of
those gusty days.

And now the bird darts through the Norfolk
air to Filby decoy, to other scenes and far
different associations, going back to those days of
bolster breeches and peasecod doublets, when
King James spluttered out his alarm at Jesuit
plots in clumsy Latin or uncouth Scotch. But
Ranworth decoy, lucidly explained by a recent
traveller in Norfolk, gives even a better notion
of the Norfolk decoys than that at Filby. At
Ranworth, where the marshes vein the flat
pastures with a deep green, and where the
pools and dykes are marked in the ground plan
by waving green patches and long sharp
lines, where gnats darken the aguish air, and
all day and night you hear the restless clank