From the wall on the highest point of the mound, one has a wide prospect. It was a clear lucent day and when we climbed a broken tower the whole peninsula of Purbeck spread beneath us like a map. It is now bleak and sterile, spotted with gorse and heather and broken in places with chalk cliffs. Yet when the castle was built the region was covered with a stately forest, of which no trace now remains. Far to the north we see the Wareham road winding away like a serpent, while a stony trail cuts squarely across the moor to the west. When we prepare to take our leave, we ask the custodian concerning the road to Lulworth, and he points out the uninviting byway through the fields. We had planned to return to Wareham, but this route, he assures us, is shorter and "very good,"--strange ideas of good roads had the old man if he could so describe the ten miles through the moors to Lulworth, quite as bad as any of equal distance we found in ten thousand miles. But before we go shall we ask the story of Corfe? The tales of the abbeys and castles are much alike and their end nearly always the same--dismantled by Henry, destroyed by Cromwell. Still, Corfe is very old; its records go back to Saxon times. How weird it is to think that in front of the towers that grimly guard the entrance King Edward the Martyr was stabbed by order of his stepmother, Elfrida, as he paused to quaff a goblet of wine. It happened more than a thousand years ago, and from that time until Cromwell's gunpowder sent walls and towers tottering to destruction, the sequestered castle was the scene of intermittent turmoil and bloodshed. Sir Christopher Hatton built the more modern portions during the reign of Elizabeth, but Corfe brought him only trouble. In 1633 it passed from the possession of his descendant to Sir John Bankes, a loyal supporter of King Charles, and while he was active in court and field, his energetic wife held the castle against all comers. One siege she repulsed and the surrender in 1646 was brought about only by treachery. Brave Lady Bankes! The story of her gallant defense will not be forgotten while a single fragment of the old fortress remains on its bleak, wind-swept hill. But they have told us that Lulworth and its cove are worth seeing and we are soon away over the moorland road. A strenuous ten miles it is, rough, stony, steep, with numerous gates to open and close between the fields, and in places the road is so overgrown with grass and heather as to be hardly discernible. But from the uplands which it traverses one may see the ocean on the left and to the right a long array of rolling hills and winding valleys, all in the purple glow of full-blown heather, with here and there a lonely cottage or group of trees. We begin a long descent, following the edge of the hill toward the sea, and a sharp turn leads down a short steep grade into Lulworth.