It was a pile of vast extent, built around three quadrangular courts, the farthest of which spread to the very verge of the gray, tall cliffs that overhung the sea; in this court was a rude tower, which, according to tradition, had contained the apartments ordinarily inhabited by our ill-fated namesake and distant kinsman, Robert Devereux, the favourite and the victim of Elizabeth, whenever he had honoured the mansion with a visit.

There was nothing, it is true, in the old tower calculated to flatter the tradition, for it contained only two habitable rooms, communicating with each other, and by no means remarkable for size or splendour; and every one of our household, save myself, was wont to discredit the idle rumour which would assign to so distinguished a guest so unseemly a lodgment.

But, as I looked from the narrow lattices of the chambers, over the wide expanse of ocean and of land which they commanded; as I noted, too, that the tower was utterly separated from the rest of the house, and that the convenience of its site enabled one on quitting it, to escape at once, and privately, either to the solitary beach, or to the glades and groves of the wide park which stretched behind,--I could not help indulging the belief that the unceremonious and not unromantic noble had himself selected his place of retirement, and that, in so doing, the gallant of a stately court was not perhaps undesirous of securing at well-chosen moments a brief relaxation from the heavy honours of country homage; or that the patron and poetic admirer of the dreaming Spenser might have preferred, to all more gorgeous accommodation, the quiet and unseen egress to that sea and shore, which, if we may believe the accomplished Roman,* are so fertile in the powers of inspiration.
* "O mare, O litus, verum secretumque Movoetov, quam multa dictatis, quam multa invenitis!"-- PLINIUS.
"O sea, O shore, true and secret sanctuary of the Muses, how many things ye dictate, how many things ye discover!" However this be, I had cheated myself into the belief that my conjecture was true, and I had petitioned my uncle, when, on leaving school, he assigned to each of us our several apartments, to grant me the exclusive right to this dilapidated tower.

I gained my boon easily enough; and--so strangely is our future fate compounded from past trifles--I verily believe that the strong desire which thenceforth seized me to visit courts and mix with statesmen--which afterwards hurried me into intrigue, war, the plots of London, the dissipations of Paris, the perilous schemes of Petersburg, nay, the very hardships of a Cossack tent--was first formed by the imaginary honour of inhabiting the same chamber as the glittering but ill-fated courtier of my own name.

Thus youth imitates where it should avoid; and thus that which should have been to me a warning became an example.
In the oaken floor to the outer chamber of this tower was situated a trap-door, the entrance into a lower room or rather cell, fitted up as a bath; and here a wooden door opened into a long subterranean passage that led out into a cavern by the sea-shore.