Descending from our lofty eyrie, we pass through the little village of Allithwaite, and then strike into a pleasant leafy lane on the left, bordered with tall trees—oak, and ash, and beech—that look as green and luxurious as if they were buried in some inland combe instead of having had the sea breezes sweeping over them for many a long winter past. A little rindle keeps us in pleasant companionship, sparkling here and there in the deep shadow, and now and then we get glimpses of the level waste of silver sand and the sea beyond, shining through the summer haze. A few minutes’ walking and we come in sight of the crumbling remains of Wraysholme Tower, the object of our present pilgrimage, standing a little way back on the left of the road. A bright-eyed youngster holds the gate open for us, with expectant glances, as we pass through into the farmyard, in which the old weather-worn relic stands, and the gladsome looks with which our modest _largesse_ is received assure us that it is not unworthily bestowed. [Illustration: WRAYSHOLME TOWER.] The embattled tower or peel is all that now remains, and whatever of other buildings there may have been have long since disappeared. Built for defence, and as a place of refuge for men and cattle against the incursions of Scottish marauders and enemies approaching from the Irish Sea, it formed the strongest and most important feature of the original structure; and even now, though dismantled and forlorn, and applied to “base uses” its founders little dreamt of, with its thick walls, its small jealous windows, and its gloomy apartments, it gives evidence of purposed resistance to sudden intrusion, and shows that security rather than convenience was the object of its builders—a lingering memorial of those grim and stern old times ere order had spread and law had superseded might, when even power could only feel secure when protected by strongly-fortified walls, a Monument of rudest times, When science slept entombed, and o’er the waste, The heath-grown crag, and quivering moss of old Stalk’d unremitted war.