“Why,” acknowledged Simpson, “when one looks up at the very walls now crumbling into ruin, that were once so magnificent, and that inclosed beings with passions as warm as our own—beings, who have so long since vanished from the earth, one cannot help wishing to know a little of their history and of the scenes they witnessed; but, for your legend, I fear to trust it.” “It speaks of the times of Henry the Third,” said Willoughton, “those were lawless enough to permit many adventures; and, if the citizens of London were then robbed in the streets even at noon-day, what could travellers in the forest of Arden expect? But this Manuscript seems to tell of princely feasts given in the castle, and of adventures passing in the presence of the Court.” “Ay, if one could but believe them.” “A great part of the castle,” pursued Willoughton, “which then existed, is now gone; and much that we look at, stands in its place; but that noble hall, and Cæsar’s tower and several other towers, such as those where the moonlight falls, beheld the very court of Henry the Third, ay, and Montfort, on whom he had bestowed Kenilworth, and who added ingratitude to treason, by holding the fortress against his benefactor and liege lord.” They stood for some minutes in silence, looking up at the ruin and listening, as the breeze rushed by, to the shivering of the ivy, that overhung it,—all the shining leaves trembling in the moonlight. The pauses of solemn stillness, that followed these sighings of the air among the old branches, were very solemn, and the sound itself—so still, uncertain, and sudden, Willoughton could have fancied to have been the warning murmurs of one, who, in his mortal state, had lived within these walls, and now haunted the scene where it had once revelled, or, perhaps, suffered. It seemed like a voice imperfectly uttering forth some dark prophecy, and telling of the illusion of life and the certainty of death. To Willoughton’s recollection this spectacle of the remains of ages past, now glimmering under the soft shadows of moonlight, brought those touching lines of Beattie— “Hail, awful scenes, that calm the troubled breast, And woo the weary to profound repose, Can passion’s wildest uproar lull to rest, And whisper comfort to the man of woes.” Willoughton stood so wrapt, that he heard not his friend’s inquiry, whether he meant to pass a night at Kenilworth, as a sequel to a former one at Stonehenge; nor was he immediately aware of the nearer approach of his aged conductor, who said, in a tone somewhat tremulous, “You are now on the very spot, Sir, where Mortimer’s tower stood; it was the main entrance to the castle, when there was a lake, and it opened from the tilt-yard, that ran along the end of the water into the lower court: you see, Sir, it was quite on the opposite side of the castle from Lord Leicester’s great gate.”