battlemented mass of cloud on the horizon. In a few minutes more he was
quite close, all of a sudden, to the great front, rising gray and dim in
the feeble light, and not till he could have struck it with his good oak
"wattle" did he discover it to be only one of those wild, gray frontages
of living rock that rise here and there in picturesque tiers along the
slopes of those solitary mountains. And so, till dawn, pursuing this
mirage of the castle, through pools and among ravines, he wore out a
night of miserable misadventure and fatigue.

Another night, riding up the glen, so far as the level way at bottom
would allow, and intending to make his nag fast at his customary tree,
he heard on a sudden a horrid shriek at top of the steep rocks above his
head, and something--a gigantic human form, it seemed--came tumbling and
bounding headlong down through the rocks, and fell with a fearful
impetus just before his horse's hoofs and there lay like a huge
palpitating carcass. The horse was scared, as, indeed, was his rider,
too, and more so when this apparently lifeless thing sprang up to his
legs, and throwing his arms apart to bar their further progress,
advanced his white and gigantic face towards them. Then the horse
started about, with a snort of terror, nearly unseating the priest, and
broke away into a furious and uncontrollable gallop.

I need not recount all the strange and various misadventures which the
honest priest sustained in his endeavours to visit the castle, and its
isolated tenants. They were enough to wear out his resolution, and
frighten him into submission. And so at last these spiritual visits
quite ceased; and fearing to awaken inquiry and suspicion, he thought it
only prudent to abstain from attempting them in the daytime.

So the young ladies of the castle were more alone than ever. Their