Excerpt from Cerise, Vol. 3 of 3: A Tale of the Last Century Behind her stood the grim and weather-worn mansion, with its thick stone walls, dented, battered, and defaced, as if it had defied a thousand tempests and more than one siege, which, indeed, was the fact. Every Old woman in the country-side could tell how the square grey keep, at the end of the south wing, had resisted the Douglas, and there was no mistaking Cromwell's handwriting on more than one rent in the comparatively modern portions of the building. Hamilton Hill, though it had never been called a fort, a castle, or even a hall, was known far and wide for a stronghold, that, well supplied and garrisoned, might keep fifty miles Of the surrounding district in check; and the husband Of Cerise was now lord of Hamilton Hill. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.