This poetical enchantment, however, was soon dissolved. The road along the skirt of the lake, as it approached the castle, was rugged and steep, and where it turned off into the peninsula, towards the gate, it literally lay on the cornice of a precipice, which, with all his valour, made Walkinshaw more than once inclined to leap from the gig. Here and there a fragment of an old wall showed that it had once been fenced, and where the rains had scooped hollows on the edge of the cliff, a few stakes had recently been put up; but there was an air of decay and negligence around, that prepared the mind of the visitor for the ruinous aspect of the castle. Mr. Frazer, owing to his professional avocations, had seldom resided there, and he was too ambitious to raise the means to redeem the bonds he had granted for the purchase, to lay anything out in improvements. The state and appearance of the place was, in consequence, lone and dismal. Not only were the outer walls mantled with ivy, but the arch of the gateway was broken. Many of the windows in the principal edifice were rudely filled up with stones. The slates in several places had fallen from the extinguisher-less desolate roofed turrets, and patches of new lime on different places of the habitable buildings, bore testimony to the stinted funds which the proprietor allowed for repairs. Within the gate the scene was somewhat more alluring. The space inclosed by the walls had been converted into a garden, which Mrs. Frazer and her daughters superintended, and had ornamented with evergreens and flowers. The apartments of the family were also neatly repaired, and showed, in the midst of an evident parsimony, a degree of taste that bespoke a favourable opinion of the inhabitants, which the reception given to Walkinshaw confirmed. Mr. Frazer, an elderly gentleman, of an acute and penetrating look, met him at the door, and, heartily shaking him by the hand, led him into a parlour, where Mrs. Frazer, with two daughters, the sisters of Ellen, were sitting. The young ladies and their mother received him even with more frankness than the advocate. It was, indeed, not difficult to perceive, that they had previously formed an agreeable opinion of him, which they were pleased to find his prepossessing appearance confirm. But after the first congratulatory greetings were over, a slight cloud was cast on the spirits of the family by his account of the health of their relation Mrs. Eadie. It, however, was not of very long duration, for the intelligence that she might be daily expected with Ellen soon chased it away. CHAPTER LXXXVII As Mr. Eadie found he could not conveniently get away from his parish, and the health of his lady requiring that she should travel by easy stages, it was arranged, after Walkinshaw’s departure, that his sister should take the spare corner of the carriage. Accordingly, on the day following his arrival at Glengael, they all made their appearance at the castle.