woods of variegated verdure stretched up many of their steep ascent, and the summit of one of the highest was crowned with the ruins of a once noble castle, the residence, according to tradition, of some of the ancient Counts of Dauphiny. This shattered pile, the record of departed greatness and the power of time, was carefully shunned by the peasant after sun-set, for the village legends were swelled with an account of the horrid noises, and still more horrid sights, heard and beheld within its dreary walls: but though feared by superstition, it was the favourite haunt of taste and sensibility; and thither, as the last beams of the sun glimmered o'er the scene, Clermont and Madeline often wandered; they loved to explore its grass-grown court and winding avenues, and picture to themselves the scenes that had once passed to all appearance within them: they also frequently ascended to its broken battlements, covered with wild vegetation, where the birds of night held their unmolested reign, startling by their melancholy
