By old, I do not mean Roman or even Norman. Indeed in that sense it was comparatively modern; for the building, what was left of it, looked more like one of those Tudor manor-houses which dot the country still, than a fortress. And yet, that it had been fortified was plain enough even still. On the side towards the sea it needed no protection; indeed looking up at it from below, it seemed almost to overhang its precipitous foundation. But on the land side there remained traces of a moat, and loop-holes in the walls, and a massive gate. It was scarcely to be called a picturesque ruin, except inasmuch as every ruin is picturesque. Its bare walls rose gaunt and black out of the ground, not out of a heap of tumbled moss-grown masonry, or covered over with ivy. There were very few signs of decay about the place, ruinous as it was, and very little examination was enough to show that it had suffered not from old age, or from the cannon of an enemy, but from fire. No one about could tell me its story, and the mystery of the place only added to its charm. Indeed I was quite glad to discover that it had not even a name, and that the country folk would as soon have thought of crossing the old moat after nightfall as they would have done of stepping over the edge of the cliff. The only thing I could learn about it, in fact, was that it was haunted, and that the one little turret which still retained a roof, and over which the only ivy visible tried to creep, was railed the Lady Tower, and was the "most haunted" spot of all. I could not believe that the one corner of the old ruin where there still remained a sign of life and verdure, could be infested by any very terrible ghost. Still I am not quite sure whether I should have enjoyed a solitary night's rest there, and to have suggested the thing to the natives of W-- would have been enough to secure my incarceration as a raving lunatic. So I did not. But by daytime I added myself one more to the spirits that haunted the place, and yielded myself up completely to its fascination. One day towards the end of my visit I walked over to a coastguard station some miles along the shore for the sake of taking a last survey of the beautiful coast. When I reached it I found, to my pleasure, one of the W-- fishing-boats just preparing to put out and sail round the headland back to the village. One of the coastguardsmen was on board, and I was glad to accept the invitation of my honest friend to form another of the party. I found the coastguardsman a most intelligent fellow--well informed on many subjects, and even professing to be something of an art critic. I showed him one or two of my pictures, and he was graciously pleased to approve of them, especially a sketch of the ruined castle from the south, with the Lady Tower in the foreground.