e same coat of arms that was
sculptured over the entrance without. This one was in somewhat better
preservation than the other, and seemed to bear something resembling
three golden storks (cigognes) on an azure field; though it was so much
in shadow, and so faded and dingy, that it was impossible to make it out
clearly. Fastened to the wall, at a convenient height from the ground,
were great iron extinguishers, blackened by the smoke from torches in
long by-gone years, and also iron rings, to which the guests' horses
were made fast in the olden times, when the castle was in its glory. The
dust that lay thick upon them now showed that it was long since they had
been made use of.

From this portico--whence a door on either side opened into the main
building; one leading into a long suite of apartments on the ground
floor, and the other into what had probably been a guard-room--the
explorer passed into an interior court, dismal, damp, and bare. In the
corners nettles and various rank weeds were growing riotously amid the
great heaps of rubbish fallen from the crumbling cornice high above, and
grass had sprung up everywhere in the crevices of the stone pavement.
Opposite the entrance a flight of dilapidated, shaky steps, with a heavy
stone balustrade, led down into a neglected garden, which was gradually
becoming a perfect thicket. Excepting in one small bed, where a few
cabbages were growing, there was no attempt at cultivation, and nature
had reasserted her rights everywhere else in this abandoned spot,
taking, apparently, a fierce delight in effacing all traces of man's
labour. The fruit trees threw out irregular branches without fear of
the pruning knife; the box, intended to form a narrow border to the
curiously shaped flower-beds and grass-plots, had grown up unchecked
into huge, bushy shrubs, while a great variety of sturdy weeds had
usurped the places formerly devoted to choice plants and beautiful,
fragrant flowers. Brambles, bristling with sharp thorns, which had
thrown their long, straggling arms across the paths, caught and tried
to hold back any bold adventurer who attempted to penetrate into the
mysterious depths of this desolate wilderness. Solitude is averse to
being surprised in dishabille, and surrounds herself with all sorts of
defensive obstacles.

However, the courageous explorer who persisted in following the ancient,
overgrown alley, and was not to be daunted by formidable briers that
tore his hands