heard the echo of our footsteps running in and out of the ruined halls and climbing the winding stairways of the broken towers, we really felt the shadow of an august presence above and around; as if the mighty Past stood before us fresh in its weeds from the funeral of five hundred years. A cold skylight paned the glassless windows of the banquet hall, and shadows of waving treebranches waltzed up and down within the roofless walls of that salon where "brave men and fair women" met in dance when Elizabeth was queen. Passing on towards the great gateway, we stopped before the chapel of the Castle to catch a striking feature. The passing moon was looking into the great window like a broad human face whose smile was light. It was a serene and genial smile, as of one who looks upon a cradle, not a grave; or as of one visiting the trysting-place of happy memories. At least ten thousand Pater Nosters a century had been chaunted or said within those walls, and other invocations and voices of devotion, when that same moon looked in through windows alive with painted images of all the saints,
Having thus communed awhile with the Past, where the castle walls shut away the living Present from the view, we ascended the citadel, or lofty donjon tower, planted upon the highest cliff of the mountainous ridge. The old man of the
