But on the land side there remained traces of a moat, and loop-holes in the walls, and a massive gate.
It was scarcely to be called a picturesque ruin, except inasmuch as every ruin is picturesque.

Its bare walls rose gaunt and black out of the ground, not out of a heap of tumbled moss-grown masonry, or covered over with ivy.

There were very few signs of decay about the place, ruinous as it was, and very little examination was enough to show that it had suffered not from old age, or from the cannon of an enemy, but from fire.
No one about could tell me its story, and the mystery of the place only added to its charm.

Indeed I was quite glad to discover that it had not even a name, and that the country folk would as soon have thought of crossing the old moat after nightfall as they would have done of stepping over the edge of the cliff.

The only thing I could learn about it, in fact, was that it was haunted, and that the one little turret which still retained a roof, and over which the only ivy visible tried to creep, was railed the Lady Tower, and was the "most haunted" spot of all.
I could not believe that the one corner of the old ruin where there still remained a sign of life and verdure, could be infested by any very terrible ghost.