Lord Spoonbill then took his departure from Neverden hall. It was a fine moonlight night, and the road from Neverden to Smatterton was peculiarly well calculated for the enjoyment of a moonlight ride. The domain of Neverden was for the most part on low and level ground; and the road from the hall towards Smatterton lay partly by the side of the park, over the low fence of which a person on horseback might have a most beautiful view of plantation scenery, and a distant glimpse of lofty and swelling hills, dark with abundant foliage, but softened by indistinctness and remoteness. The ground then gradually rose, and on the left hand might be seen at no great distance a broad and gracefully undulating river, far indeed from the sea, but bearing on its bosom the sails of commerce and the barks of pleasure. And there ran rippling by the side of the road a little prattling infant streamlet, bounding along its bright pebbly channel as in haste to reach the calmer and more majestic expanse of waters. On the right hand a dense and dark plantation of firs skirted an abruptly rising ground, at the end of which the road brought the traveller by a sudden turn to an immediate and full view of the massive and whitened towers of Smatterton castle. The castle rose, as some writers would say, but stood, we think, is the most proper, majestically towering above all surrounding objects, and enjoying from its lofty turrets a view of four counties; what these counties were we will not say,--we dislike personalities.