Neither the dungeons nor the kitchens are
any longer used; the spits and grates are rusted where the fires
blazed, and the cells where the Pilgrims suffered are now full of
large earthen jars. For no other or better reason, the large open
spaces of the basement outside of them were scattered about with
agricultural implements, ploughs, harrows, and the like. It was
the belief of my companion, founded on I know not what fact, that
the hall in which the Pilgrims were tried was a large upper
chamber which we found occupied by a boys' school. The door stood
partly ajar, and we could see the master within walking up and
down before some twenty boys, as if waiting for one of them to
answer some question he had put them. Perhaps it was a question
of local history, for none of them seemed able to answer it;
presently when a boy came out on some errand, and we stopped him,
and asked him where it was the Pilgrims had been tried, he did
not know, and apparently he had never heard of the Pilgrims. He
was a very nice-looking boy, and otherwise not unintelligent;
certainly he was well-mannered, as nice-looking English boys are
apt to be with their elders; perhaps he had heard too much of the
Pilgrims, and had purposely forgotten them.
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