; the sunbeams were falling with a rich
and melancholy lustre upon the fine old trees, which stood in lordly
groups, casting their long sweeping shadows over rock and sward; there
was an air of neglect and decay about the spot, which amounted almost
to desolation, and mournfully increased as we approached the building
itself, near which the ground had been originally more artificially
and carefully cultivated than elsewhere, and where consequently
neglect more immediately and strikingly betrayed itself.

As we proceeded, the road wound near the beds of what had been
formerly two fish-ponds, which were now nothing more than stagnant
swamps, overgrown with rank weeds, and here and there encroached upon
by the straggling underwood; the avenue itself was much broken; and in
many places the stones were almost concealed by grass and nettles; the
loose stone walls which had here and there intersected the broad park,
were, in many places, broken down, so as no longer to answer their
original purpose as fences; piers were now and then to be seen, but
the gates were gone; and to add to the general air of dilapidation,
some huge trunks were lying scattered through the venerable old trees,
either the work of the winter storms, or perhaps the victims of some
extensive but desultory scheme of denudation, which the projector had
not capital or perseverance to carry into full effect.

After the carriage had travelled a full mile of this avenue, we
reached the summit of a rather abrupt eminence, one of the many which
added to the picturesqueness, if not to the convenience of this rude
approach; from the top of this ridge the grey walls of Carrickleigh
were visible, rising at a small distance in front, and darkened by the
hoary wood which crowded around them; it was a quadrangular building
of considerable extent, and the front, where the great entrance was
placed, lay towards us, and bore unequivocal marks of antiquity; the
time-worn, solemn aspect of the old building, the ruinous and deserted
appearance of the whole place, and the associations which connected
it with a dark page in the history of my family, combined to depress
spirits already predisposed for the reception of sombre and dejecting
impressions. When the carriage drew up in the grass-grown court-yard
before the hall-door, two lazy-looking men, whose appearance well
accorded with that of the place which they tenanted, alarmed by
the obstreperous barking of a great chained d