guide belated travellers. Plunging with it
across the down he came to a hedgeless road that entered a park or
chase, which flourished in all its original wildness. Tufts of rushes
and brakes of fern rose from the hollows, and the road was in places
half overgrown with green, as if it had not been tended for many years;
so much so that, where shaded by trees, he found some difficulty in
keeping it. Though he had noticed the remains of a deer-fence further
back no deer were visible, and it was scarcely possible that there
should be any in the existing state of things: but rabbits were
multitudinous, every hillock being dotted with their seated figures till
Somerset approached and sent them limping into their burrows. The road
next wound round a clump of underwood beside which lay heaps of faggots
for burning, and then there appeared against the sky the walls and
towers of a castle, half ruin, half residence, standing on an eminence
hard by.

Somerset stopped to examine it. The castle was not exceptionally large,
but it had all the characteristics of its most important fellows.
Irregular, dilapidated, and muffled in creepers as a great portion of it
was, some part--a comparatively modern wing--was inhabited, for a light
or two steadily gleamed from some upper windows; in others a reflection
of the moon denoted that unbroken glass yet filled their casements. Over
all rose the keep, a square solid tower apparently not much injured by
wars or weather, and darkened with ivy on one side, wherein wings could
be heard flapping uncertainly, as if they belonged to a bird unable
to find a proper perch. Hissing noises supervened, and then a hoot,
proclaiming that a brood of young owls were residing there in the
company of older ones. In spite of the habitable and more modern wing,
neglect and decay had set their mark upon the outworks of the pile,
unfitting them for a more positive light than that of the present hour.

He walked up to a modern arch spanning the ditch--now dry and
green--over which the drawbridge once had swung. The large door under
the porter's archway was closed and locked. While standing here the
singing of the wire, which for the last few minutes he had quite
forgotten, again struck upon his ear, and retreating to a convenient
place he observed its final course: from the poles amid the trees
it leaped across the moat, over the girdling wall, and thence by
a tremendous stretch towards the keep where, to judge by s