Up and down I went, thinking only of her wrongs. Now the worn steps wound up to a turret, and now descended to a secret postern. Here was the orchard, and there the lake, and there the plaisance: now you look out of a prison-like window, and now you stand in the deep recess of a lordly oriel. Going into the ancient grounds, I scattered a hundred sheep, and away they went, bounding over grass as green and velvety, as they were white and fleecy. These are the successors of those red deer, fallow deer, and roes, which once stored the chase. The “swifts” darted from bush to bush, and the thrushes fluttered in the hawthorn; and then all was as still as if the past hung over the place like a spell, and as if it were haunted with its own history. Of all this noble castle, there remains only one outer part, which can shelter a human inhabitant. The barbican, beneath which Elizabeth must have made that superb entrance, is still a dwelling; but its occupant is a plain farmer, who would, no doubt, prefer to be more snugly housed. It seemed strange to find such a picturesque abode devoted to so homely a use. How glad I should be to hire it, myself, for a summer lodge, provided I might have the range of the surrounding domains, without the annoyance of everybody’s intrusion, and provided I had nothing better to do than to read romances and history! Here this farmer lives, in a room of panelled oaken wainscot, enclosed by walls that might defy artillery. The chimney-piece is a massive bit of antiquity, partly alabaster curiously wrought, and partly wood of rich and costly carving. The ragged-staff of Dudley is conspicuous, in the decorations; it betrays the relics of its former gilding; the speaking initials R. L. tell the story of its origin, and the motto _Droit et Loyal_ shows itself, as if in mockery of historical justice, amid the arms and cognizances of the once proud possessor of the princely castle of Kenilworth. The long twilight enabled me to visit Leamington Priors, and to get a very pleasing impression of its trim and fair abodes, and showy modern streets. Then away, by night, to Warwick, where I slept at the “Warwick Arms,” after such a comfortable supper, as one finds nowhere, at the close of a traveller’s day, except at an English Inn. It proved a most beautiful morning, next day, and I was up very early, resolved, before tasting breakfast, to taste all the sweets of the hour of prime, in one of the most beautiful rural districts of England. I walked out some two or three miles, on the Kenilworth road, to Guy’s Cliff, and to the scene, beyond it, of Piers Gaveson’s murder. The beauty of the day and of the Scenery, the song of birds, and the blossoms of the hawthorn along the road, were singularly in keeping with the imagery by which the poet has pictured the early history of a reign, strikingly coincident with that in which Gaveson’s fortune was made and ruined:—