only my lord ordered it to be new varnished, so as to make it more plain; and he did think of gilding the letters, he so liked the inscription, but was afraid of spoiling the antiquity of it."

"And is there no tradition of it to be found in the castle ?" asked I.

"My lord, I believe, has a book about it somewhere," answered the civil Mr. Simcoe, "but I never took the liberty of inquiring; only Mr. Parrot, his attorney, told me that it was supposed to be put there by one of the Earls of Northumberland, to whom the place then belonged, and who, being in trouble, concealed himself here in Queen Elizabeth's time, till he went to Scotland, and was there betrayed by all his friends, and beheaded.* This is all I know."

"A very good account," said I, "of the inscription ;" and I would have gone on with my questions, but was stopt by a maid's coming in to say the marquess was awake, and desired to see Mr. Simcoe; a summons which that gentleman immediately obeyed.

In a few minutes he returned, with his lord's

* The earl alluded to must have been Thomas Earl of North. umberland, who, being guilty of a little matter of rebellion in favour of Popery, took refuge, and lay concealed in different parts of the borders, till he was betrayed by Morton, Regent of Scotland, whom he had protected in his need when an exile in England. Morton delivered him up to Hunsdon, governor of Berwick, who sent him to York, where he was beheaded.

compliments, and request that I would deliver the despatch I had brought from Lord Castleton to him (Simcoe), and my lord hoped to be well enough to see me the next day; meantime desired, that a bed and supper might be prepared for me, and that I would dismiss my chaise.

The latter was done, very much to the discomfort of the driver, who had been making good cheer in the buttery, and would have had no objection to have continued it during the night, instead of encountering the spirits of the Scotch prisoners starved to death in the donjon, who, all Belford believed, as they did their Bible, wandered about the park all night.

It may be supposed that I accepted the marquess's hospitality, and enjoyed a comfortable supper, followed by a tumbler of Mr. Simcoe's punch, which I found the gauger (no doubt a good judge) had not overrated.

The great major-domo being talkative, as well as civil, and I sufficiently curious, I asked him if he knew any thing of the history of the castle, and whether the tradition of the post-boy, as to the starving of prisoners in the donjon, was

true.

He said that in one instance it was, which was quite enough to engraft a hundred others upon it. It seems that in the days of Elizabeth a prisoner was brought in, and as usual committed to the don

jon by the then warder, Sir Wilfred Rochfort, an ancestor of my lord, who never parted with the keys, and who meant to dispose of him according to law. Unhappily, within an hour afterwards, he was sent for by Lord Hunsdon, governor of Berwick, to reinforce that garrison, expecting to be attacked by the Scots. The service lasted near a week, during which the prisoner was forgotten, and not remembered till the return of Sir Wilfred, whose misery may be conceived, when the unhappy man was found dead, with part of his arm eaten off by himself.

The story ended with true poetical justice, for it was said that Sir Wilfred never was his own man again. Nor was that wonderful, if the close of the legend was true; for it seems that, though a powerful, strong man, he never could stir out alone, without encountering his victim, who shewed his bitten arm, which wielded a sword notwithstanding. With this he forced the knight to fight him, and always came off conqueror. This was proved by Sir Wilfred never returning home without his person exhibiting signs that he had been overthrown in the mire.

With this story to comfort me, I followed the relator, who now acted the part of chamberlain, up at least a hundred steps, to my bedroom, formerly a barrack for twenty men, and where many a swinkt borderer had deposited his limbs, after

VOL. III.

battling all day with moss troopers on this, or perhaps joining in a foray on the other side the Tweed.

I blessed myself as I passed through deserted chambers, or echoing passages, whose only inhabitants for years had been bats and spiders, till I laid me down in a bed, not over comfortable, and in no very good humour with my undertaking, and still less with the mode in which a disappointed marquess chose to indulge his disgusts at the world.

My regrets at this lasted some time, till they were lost in feelings still less agreeable; for I could never close my eyes but I encountered the bitten arm of the starved prisoner, and also, strange to say, the handsome mustachios of Prince Adolphus, who, with the whole train of jealous thoughts which this generated, rose perpetually and sensibly before me.

This, the shrieking of the weathercocks above, and the roaring of the sea below, rendered my night wakeful and melancholy, to say nothing of the dreary vastness of an unfurnished border castle, half in ruins, calculated for a company of a hundred brisk soldiers, but whose garrison was reduced to a gouty, discontented peer, with one male and two female menials for the whole of his retinue.

Had I been superstitious, or had any thing been on my conscience, all this would have murdered sleep; but Youth, and his younger brother,

Hope, will bear up against greater difficulties than these before their buoyancy can be repressed. I succeeded, therefore, at last, in laying all spectres, of whatever kind, that endeavoured to disturb my rest, and I fell into a refreshing slumber, from which I was only awakened by the sun shining in all his splendour

"From his chamber in the east."

I immediately sprang up, and was gratified with a noble view of the German Ocean, and our good town of Berwick-upon-Tweed in the distance.

While dressing, the attentive Simcoe came in to administer to my wants, and told me his lord was better, and hoped to get down stairs after breakfast. Meantime, looking round at the sorry equipment of the room, he expressed fears that my night could not have been comfortable.

"Rather different, Sir, this, from Grosvenor Square," said he, "and still more from the house and fine gardens of Beaulieu, my lord's grand place in Northamptonshire. When we shall get away from this, and return there, I don't know. But, Lord! Sir, I am glad you're come, for I hope it is to take his lordship back again from this sad place, where he has nobody to speak to but a vulgar exciseman, and nothing to do but dig in his garden-for he actually does both-great nobleman as he is. I am sure if I had not known him, man and boy, these twenty years, I would not stay in this wild place