it I found, to my pleasure, one
of the W-- fishing-boats just preparing to put out and sail round the
headland back to the village. One of the coastguardsmen was on board,
and I was glad to accept the invitation of my honest friend to form
another of the party.

I found the coastguardsman a most intelligent fellow--well informed on
many subjects, and even professing to be something of an art critic. I
showed him one or two of my pictures, and he was graciously pleased to
approve of them, especially a sketch of the ruined castle from the
south, with the Lady Tower in the foreground.

The examination of this picture naturally turned the conversation on to
the ruin, and I was delighted to find my companion seemed almost as
interested in the subject as I was.

"It's a strange thing," said I, "that the one thing wanting seems to be
a story."

"Ah! that was burnt out by the fire, sir."

I was rude enough to laugh. He fancied I was lamenting the absence of
the top storey!

"I don't mean that," I said. "What I mean is, no one seems to know
anything about the place or its history."

"Not they! What should they bother their heads about it for?"

"But it must have a history of some sort," said I.

"Of course it has."

"Do you know it?"

"Of course I do."

It was quite a shock to me to find any one knew anything about my ruin,
and it was some time before I ventured to ask--

"Would you tell it to me?"

Instead of saying "Yes," the coastguardsman laid down his telescope,
pulled a plug of tobacco out of his pocket, and, cutting off a small
quid, put it into his mouth, looked up at the sail, shifted himself once
or twice in his seat, and then, looking to see if I was ready, began--

"It's not such a wonderful yarn after all, sir. You see, something like
two hundred and fifty years ago, when our Civil Wars were going on--
you've heard of them, I suppose?--yonder castle belonged to a stout
Charles the First's man called Fulke. He owned a good bit about this
coast, I'm told, and the folk at the New Manor are sort of descendants.
But direct descendants they can't be, for Fulke only had one daughter,
sir, and she never married. If it hadn't been for those cruel wars she
would have been married, though, for she was betrothed to a neighbour,
young Morgan, who lived beyond that hill there, and mightily they loved
one another too! Fulke, whose lands joined on Morgan's, was pleased
enough to have the two families u