“What a curious place this castle must be,” thought Jane, “and what odd people they are that live in it!” She asked no more questions, but determined to restrain her curiosity till she could satisfy it on the spot; and, luckily, she had not long to wait.  Next day they started on their homeward way.  As they drew nearer their destination, Jane’s anxiety to gain the first glimpse of her future home increased with every mile.  She had, of course, formed many fancy pictures of it in her own mind; and, as love lent the brush and most obligingly compounded the colours, there can be no doubt they made out a very captivating landscape of it between them.

“At the top of the next hill,” said Reginald, “you will see the keep.”

Jane stretched her head forward, and looked through the front window as if she could pierce the hill that lay between her and home.  On went the horses; but the next hill seemed an incredible way off; it was now getting late, and the shadows of evening, like a flock of tired black sheep, began to lie down and rest thenselves on the vast dreary moor they were travelling over.  At last Jane felt that they were beginning an ascent; and a sickly moon, that seemed to have undergone a severe operation, and lost nearly all her limbs, lifted up her pale face in the sky.  The wind, too, began to whistle in long low gusts, and Reginald, who was not of a poetical temperament, as we have already observed, was nearly asleep.  They reached the hill top at last, and a great expanse of rugged and broken country lay before them.

“Where is it?—­on which hand?” said Jane.

“Straight before you,” replied the husband; “it is only three miles off; the high-road turns off to the left, but we go through fields right on.”

Jane looked with almost feverish anxiety.  At a good distance in front, rose a tall black structure, like the chimney of a shot manufactory—­a single, square, gigantic tower—­throwing a darker mass against the darkened sky, and sicklied o’er on one of the faces with the yellow-green moonlight.  There were no lights in it, nor any sign of habitation; and Jane would have indulged in various enquiries and exclamations, if the carriage had allowed her; but it had by this time left the main road, and sank up to the axles in the ruts; it bounded against stones, and wallowed in mire alternately; and all that she could do, was to hold on by one of the arm rests, as if she had been in the cabin of a storm-toss’d ship.

“For mercy’s sake, Reginald, will this last long?” she said, out of breath with her exertions.

“We are about a mile from the drawbridge.  I hope they have not drawn it up.”

“Could we not get into the castle if they have?”

“We might fall into the moat if we tried the postern.”

“Oh, gracious!—­is there a moat?”—­and instinctively she put her hand to her throat, for her mother had brought her up with a salutary dread of colds, and she felt a sensation of choking at the very name.