hough, once upon a time, it was as stately a
stronghold as ever echoed to the clash of knightly arms. One evening
there came to its gates a monk, who in the name of the Holy Virgin
asked alms, but the lady of the Castle liked not his gloomy brow, and
bade him begone. Resenting such treatment, the monk drew up his
well-knit frame, and vowed:--"All that is thine shall be mine, until
in the porch of the holy church, a lady and a child shall stand and
beckon."

Little heed was taken of these ominous words, and as years passed by a
baron succeeded to the Lynton estates, whose greed was such that he
dared to lay his sacrilegious hand even upon holy treasures. But as he
sate among his gold, the black monk entered, and summoned him to his
fearful audit; and his servants, aroused by his screams, found only a
lifeless corpse. This was considered retribution for his sins of the
past, and his son, taking warning, girded on his sword, and in
Palestine did doughty deeds against the Saracen. By his side was
constantly seen the mysterious Black Monk--his friend and guide--but
"at length the wine-cup and the smiles of lewd women lured him from
the path of right." After a time the knight returned to Devonshire,
"and lo, on the happy Sabbath morning, the chimes of the church-bells
flung out their silver music on the air, and the memories of an
innocent childhood woke up instantly in his sorrowing heart." In vain
the Black Monk sought to beguile him from the holy fane, and whispered
to him of bright eyes and a distant bower. He paused only for a
moment. In the shadow of the porch stood the luminous forms of his
mother and sister, who lifted up their spirit hands, and beckoned. The
knight tore himself from the Black Monk's grasp and rushed towards
them, exclaiming, "I come! I come! Mother, sister, I am saved! O,
Heaven, have pity on me!" The story adds that the three were borne up
in a radiant cloud, but "the Black Monk leapt headlong into the depths
of the abyss beneath, and the castle fell to pieces with a sudden
crash, and where its towers had soared statelily into the sunlit air
was now outspread the very desolation--the valley of the rocks--" and
thus the vow was accomplished, all that remains nowadays to remind the
visitor of that stately castle and its surroundings being a lonely
glen in the valley of rocks where a party of marauders, it is said,
were once overtaken and slaughtered.

In some cases churches have been built in perfor