Women's wits are proverbially quick, but apparently those of Catherine
suggested no better expedient than fairly to betake herself to speed of
foot, in hopes of baffling the page's vivacity, by getting safely lodged
before he could discover where. But a youth of eighteen, in pursuit of
a mistress, is not so easily outstripped. Catherine fled across a
paved court, decorated with large formal vases of stone, in which yews,
cypresses, and other evergreens, vegetated in sombre sullenness, and
gave a correspondent degree of solemnity to the high and heavy building
in front of which they were placed as ornaments, aspiring towards a
square portion of the blue hemisphere, corresponding exactly in extent
to the quadrangle in which they were stationed, and all around which
rose huge black walls, exhibiting windows in rows of five stories, with
heavy architraves over each, bearing armorial and religious devices.