The manor-house of Vermund the Refugee, which our two travellers had now reached, was one of those places about which popular superstition has woven endless amazing histories and marvellous legends. By its walls--composed of pebbles bedded in cement, now harder than stone--it was easy to determine that it was built about the fifth or sixth century. But one of its five towers remained standing; the other four, more or less dilapidated, and strewing the top of the rock with broken fragments, were connected by a line of ruins, which also showed the ancient limits of the inner courts of the castle. It was very difficult to penetrate this enclosure, littered as it was with stones and shattered blocks of granite, and overgrown with weeds and brambles which, clambering from ruin to ruin, crowned the broken walls with verdure, or overhung the precipice with long, flexible branches. On these drooping tendrils, it was said, dim ghosts often swung in the moonlight,--the guilty spirits of those who had wilfully drowned themselves in Lake Sparbo; and to these twigs, too, the water-sprite fastened the cloud which was to bear him home again at sunrise. Fearful mysteries were these, more than once witnessed by hardy fishermen, when, to take advantage of the time when dogfish sleep,[13] they ventured to row as far as Oëlmœ cliff, which loomed up in the darkness over their heads like the broken arch of some huge bridge. Our two adventurers climbed the manor wall, though not without some difficulty, and crept through a crevice, for the door was filled with fragments. The only tower which, as we have said, remained standing, was at the extreme edge of the rock. It was, Spiagudry told Ordener, from the top of this tower that Munkholm lighthouse could be seen. They went towards it, although the darkness was at that moment complete, the moon being hidden by a great black cloud. They were about to cross a breach in another wall, in order to enter what was once the second courtyard of the castle, when Benignus stopped short, and suddenly seized Ordener’s arm with such a trembling hand that the young man himself almost fell. “What now?” asked Ordener in surprise. Benignus, without answering, pressed his arm more firmly, as if begging him to be silent. “Well--” said the young man. Another pressure, accompanied by an ill-suppressed sigh, decided him to wait patiently until this fresh fright should cease. At last Spiagudry asked, in a stifled voice: “Well, master, what do you say now?” “To what?” said Ordener. “Yes, sir,” added the other, in the same tone; “I suppose you are sorry now that you came here?” “No, indeed, my worthy guide; on the contrary, I hope to climb higher still. Why should you think that I am sorry?” “What, sir, did you not see?” “See! What?” “You saw nothing?” repeated the honest keeper, with ever-increasing terror.