where I slept I had a view of one of these
old places--an indistinct one, it is true, the distance being too great
to permit me to distinguish more than the general outline. I had an
anxious desire to explore it. It stood to the south-east; in which
direction, however, a black bog intervened, which had more than once
baffled all my attempts to cross it. One morning, however, when the sun
shone brightly upon the old building, it appeared so near, that I felt
ashamed at not being able to accomplish a feat seemingly so easy; I
determined, therefore, upon another trial. I reached the bog, and was
about to venture upon its black surface, and to pick my way amongst its
innumerable holes, yawning horribly, and half filled with water black as
soot, when it suddenly occurred to me that there was a road to the south,
by following which I might find a more convenient route to the object of
my wishes. The event justified my expectations, for, after following the
road for some three miles, seemingly in the direction of the Devil's
Mountain, I suddenly beheld the castle on my left.

I diverged from the road, and, crossing two or three fields, came to a
small grassy plain, in the midst of which stood the castle. About a gun-
shot to the south was a small village, which had, probably, in ancient
days, sprung up beneath its protection. A kind of awe came over me as I
approached the old building. The sun no longer shone upon it, and it
looked so grim, so desolate and solitary; and here was I, in that wild
country, alone with that grim building before me. The village was within
sight, it is true; but it might be a village of the dead for what I knew;
no sound issued from it, no smoke was rising from its roofs, neither man
nor beast was visible, no life, no motion--it looked as desolate as the
castle itself. Yet I was bent on the adventure, and moved on towards the
castle across the green plain, occasionally casting a startled glance
around me; and now I was close to it.

It was surrounded by a quadrangular wall, about ten feet in height, with
a square tower at each corner. At first I could discover no entrance;
walking round, however, to the northern side, I found a wide and lofty
gateway with a tower above it, similar to those at the angles of the
wall; on this side the ground sloped gently down towards the bog, which
was here skirted by an abundant growth of copsewood, and a few evergreen
oaks. I passed through the gateway,