tch a glimpse of the stream, which wheels,
flashes, and foams below, as if exulting in the surrounding silence and
solitude.

This spot was not unwisely chosen, as a point of no ordinary strength,
for the erection of a massive square tower or keep, one side of which
rises as if in continuation of the precipitous cliff on which it is
based. Originally, the only mode of ingress was by a narrow portal in
the very wall which overtopped the precipice, opening upon a ledge
of rock which afforded a precarious pathway, cautiously intersected,
however, by a deep trench cut with great labour in the living rock; so
that, in its original state, and before the introduction of artillery
into the art of war, this tower might have been pronounced, and that not
presumptuously, almost impregnable.

The progress of improvement and the increasing security of the times
had, however, tempted its successive proprietors, if not to adorn, at
least to enlarge their premises, and at about the middle of the last
century, when the castle was last inhabited, the original square tower
formed but a small part of the edifice.

The castle, and a wide tract of the surrounding country, had from time
immemorial belonged to a family which, for distinctness, we shall call
by the name of Ardagh; and owing to the associations which, in Ireland,
almost always attach to scenes which have long witnessed alike the
exercise of stern feudal authority, and of that savage hospitality which
distinguished the good old times, this building has become the subject
and the scene of many wild and extraordinary traditions. One of them I
have been enabled, by a personal acquaintance with an eye-witness of the
events, to trace to its origin; and yet it is hard to say whether the
events which I am about to record appear more strange or improbable as
seen through the distorting medium of tradition, or in the appalling
dimness of uncertainty which surrounds the reality.

Tradition says that, sometime in the last century, Sir Robert Ardagh, a
young man, and the last heir of that family, went abroad and served
in foreign armies; and that, having acquired considerable honour and
emolument, he settled at Castle Ardagh, the building we have just now
attempted to describe. He was what the country people call a DARK man;
that is, he was considered morose, reserved, and ill-tempered; and, as
it was supposed from the utter solitude of his life, was upon no terms
of cordiality with the