Читать книгу The Stranger's Handbook to Chester and Its Environs онлайн

36 страница из 41

Wheeling sharp round to the left, for the Walls here take a direction southward, we cross a second Railway Bridge, and then turn to regale ourselves with an immediate foreground of startling interest. We are looking upon a Tower erected in 1322, by one Helpstone, a mason, who contracted to build it for 100l., a high price in those days, when workmen for their day’s wage, “received but every man his penny.” It consists of a higher and lower tower, the former being distinguished by the break jaw name of Bonewaldesthorne’s Tower, and connected by a steep flight of steps and an embattled terrace with the lower or Water Tower. This tower was erected while the tidal waters of the Dee flowed up to Chester Walls; and within the memory of man the rings and bolts were to be seen about the old turret, to which, centuries ago, the ships that came up to the city were safely moored. The case is altered now, and, thanks to the duplicity of a public company, “Deva’s wizard stream” ebbs and flows almost in vain for “rare old Chester.” “Stone walls tell no tales,” says the proverb; but yon crumbling old ruin, so stern, so ragged, so venerable to look upon, tells us in plain though silent language its own unvarnished tale. Look at its broken and serrated surface, its disfigured battlements? Think you old Time alone has wrought all this? Turn to the annals of the city, and there read that the Roundhead battery on Bruera’s Hall hill yonder played its artillery fiercely against this tower during the great Civil War; and though its fair form was shattered, its buttresses shaken by the terrible cannonade, yet the proud old structure remained intact, and the hearts of its defenders unfaltering, through the whole of that fierce and lamentable struggle. The scenes then enacted have passed away, as we hope for ever, and this venerable stronghold has become subservient to another and more peaceful purpose, as a local and general antiquarian Museum. Of course we must go in and examine it for ourselves, and think, as we do so, with becoming honour of the gallant spirits who once kept watch and ward over its safety. It will cost us just sixpence each to pass in; but never mind that, were the charge a crown, it would not have been money injudiciously thrown away.