Courageous chatelaines, striving after cheerfulness, have made efforts from time to time to brighten Lorge. The drawbridge and portcullis, which jealously barred the entrance, have been removed from the double archway and replaced by wooden doors. The moat which guarded the three sides landward, with a defensive wall along the outer bank, has become a garden with trim green slopes, and a wealth of glorious roses. The ends that used to join the river have been walled up, and adorned with flights of steps which lead to decaying boat-houses. Private posterns, drilled in the masonry, afford easy access from the courtyard to the moat-pleasaunce for such as may possess the keys; but in spite of every effort, the flowering hedges and rose-bushes only serve by contrast to make Lorge more dreary--a skull bedecked with flowers. One specially brave lady had the hardihood once to plan great gardens in the Dutch style beyond the moat, on the other side of the road. There were long alleys of clipped yew and beech; _tonelles_ or arched bowers to give grateful shade; a procession of weird animals, fashioned of holly, that cast fantastic shadows on the sward; oblong tanks where swans serenely sailed, steering among isles of water-lily. But no subsequent chatelaine was sturdy enough to carry on the hopeless war. The alleys were soon choked, the _tonelles_ grew into thickets, the mimic menagerie degenerated into ragged rows of bushes. By the time the marechal inherited, there was no place devoted to flowers except the moat-pleasaunce, and even that was sadly neglected. Though you see them not, dank dungeons honeycomb the foundations. There are noisome cells on the level of the water-line that may at will be flooded. You know that they are there, although some lord with tender nerves fastened them up long since. There they are, under your feet, audibly crooning their low song of woe unmerited, of dumb despair, of remorseless cruelty. The ancient implements of torture that still ornament the wainscot of the banquet-hall take up their parable, and sing. Time does not still that wailing chaunt which tells of robbery, and tyranny, and persecution. No skill may exorcise the train of shades, undone for greed or lust, or victims for conscience' sake, who parade the corridors of Lorge.