Having reached the inn, and Mr. Simpson, late as it was, having ordered a good supper, they walked out to take a view of the castle. Finding that, at this hour, they could not gain admittance by the porter’s gate, they went to the bridge over the Avon, on the outside of the town, and thence had a fine retrospect of the castle, with all its towers crowning the high, woody bank of that peaceful and classic stream. One vast, round tower of most warlike air, looking down upon the precipice, delighted Willoughton more than any other. A part of the edifice, repaired and adorned in the time of James the First, containing the state rooms, which run in a long line upon the steep, was not in harmony with this tower, and gave very different ideas of the character and manners of the respective ages to which they belonged. The moonlight touched this tower with a fine solemnity, and fell on the tops of the dark cedars and other trees, that clothe the precipice, as it glanced to Shakspeare’s stream below, where it rested in all its silver radiance, as if pleased to claim it for its home. Willoughton leaned over the bridge, and looked upon the scene in silence. The brightness of the river, the dark, clear shade of the woods, reflected on its margin and rising with majesty up the steep, with the grey towers, in softened light, crowning all, formed a harmony of tints and of objects such as he had not often seen, and which recalled to him that state of holy peace he had so lately experienced. Amidst the stillness of this scene, there arose a strain, as if commanded by Shakspeare’s wand, and to which his words might have been applied. “O! it came o’er mine ear, like the sweet south, that breathes upon a bank of violets.” It was the music of French horns, sweetened by distance and by the water, over which it passed, accompanied by a few voices addressing the river and celebrating the bard in the well-known song of Garrick and Arne,—“Thou soft-flowing Avon!” Nothing could exceed the beauty of some of the cadences, prolonged by the deep, mellow tones of the horns, or of the chorus, and of the close, that gave these words:— “The fairies by moonlight dance round the green bed, For, hallow’d the turf is, that pillows his head.” They brought tears into the eyes of Willoughton, and drew from him a deep sigh long after silence had returned. Mr. Simpson looked about to discover whence this charming tribute to the memory of the loved poet came, and perceived two little boats stealing along the margin of the stream, under shadow of the bank that rose to the castle. The white awning of the first betrayed it to his eye, before it emerged on the moonlight; and now the measured trampling of the oars told its departing course upon the waters, till once again that chorus died along the air, and then the steps of the oars were heard no more.