family wash, the linen subjected to that operation might usually be seen drying on lines stretched across the reception-rooms and bed-chambers.

AVENEL CASTLE*

SIR WALTER SCOTT

W HILE he thus spoke, the verge of the morass was

attained, and their path lay on the declivity. Greensward it was, and, viewed from a distance, checkered with its narrow and verdant line the dark-brown heath which it traversed, though the distinction was not so 5 easily traced when they were walking on it. The old man pursued his journey with comparative ease; and, unwilling again to awaken the jealous zeal of his young companion for the Roman faith, he discoursed on other matters. The tone of his conversation was still grave, 10 moral, and instructive. He had traveled much, and knew both the language and manners of other countries, concerning which Halbert Glendinning, already anticipating the possibility of being obliged to leave Scotland for the deed he had done, was naturally and anxiously desirous 15 of information. By degrees he was more attracted by the charms of the stranger's conversation than repelled by the dread of his dangerous character as a heretic, and Halbert had called him father more than once, ere the turrets of Avenel Castle came in view.

The situation of this ancient fortress was remarkable. It occupied a small rocky islet in a mountain lake, or *The Monastery. Chapters 23 and 24.

†This sort of path, visible when looked at from a distance, but not to be seen when you are upon it, is called on the Border by the significant name of a blind-road.

20

"tarn," as such a piece of water is called in Westmoreland. The lake might be about a mile in circumference, surrounded by hills of considerable height, which, except where old trees and brushwood occupied the ravines that 5 divided them from each other, were bare and heathy. The surprise of the spectator was chiefly excited by finding a piece of water situated in that high and mountainous region, and the landscape around had features which might rather be termed wild, than either romantic or 10 sublime; yet the scene was not without its charms. Under the burning sun of summer, the clear azure of the deep unruffled lake refreshed the eye, and impressed the mind with a pleasing feeling of deep solitude. In winter, when the snow lay on the mountains around, these dazzling 15 masses appeared to ascend far beyond their wonted and natural height, while the lake, which stretched beneath, and filled their bosom with all its frozen waves, lay like the surface of a darkened and broken mirror around the black and rocky islet, and the walls of the gray castle 20 with which it was crowned.

As the castle occupied, either with its principal buildings, or with its flanking and outward walls, every projecting point of rock, which served as its site, it seemed as completely surrounded by water as the nest of a wild swan, 25 save where a narrow causeway extended betwixt the islet and the shore. But the fortress was larger in appearance than in reality; and of the buildings which it actually contained, many had become ruinous and uninhabitable. In the times of the grandeur of the Avenel 30 family, these had been occupied by a considerable garrison of followers and retainers, but they were now in a great measure deserted; and Julian Avenel would probably have fixed his habitation in a residence better suited to his diminished fortunes, had it not been for the great security

which the situation of the old castle afforded to a man of his precarious and perilous mode of life. Indeed, in this respect, the spot could scarce have been more happily chosen, for it could be rendered almost completely inaccessible at the pleasure of the inhabitant. The distance 5 betwixt the nearest shore and the islet was not indeed above a hundred yards; but then the causeway which connected them was extremely narrow, and completely divided by two cuts, one in the mid-way between the islet and shore, and another close under the outward gate of 10 the castle. These formed a formidable, and almost insurmountable, interruption to any hostile approach. Each was defended by a drawbridge, one of which, being that nearest to the castle, was regularly raised at all times during the day, and both were lifted at night.

15

When, issuing from the gorge of a pass which terminated upon the lake, the travelers came in sight of the ancient castle of Avenel, the old man looked with earnest attention upon the scene before him. The castle was, as we have said, in many places ruinous, as was evident, even at this 20 distance, by the broken, rugged, and irregular outline of the walls and of the towers. In others it seemed more entire, and a pillar of dark smoke, which ascended from the chimneys of the donjon, and spread its long dusky pennon through the clear ether, indicated that it was 25 inhabited. But no But no corn-fields or enclosed pasture-grounds on the side of the lake showed that provident attention to comfort and subsistence which usually appeared near the houses of the greater, and even of the lesser, barons. There were no cottages with their patches of infield, 30 and their crofts and gardens, surrounded by rows of massive sycamores; no church with its simple tower in the valley; no herds of sheep among the hills; no castle on the

lower ground; nothing which intimated the occasional prosecution of the arts of peace and of industry. It was plain that the inhabitants, whether few or numerous, must be considered as the garrison of the castle, living within its 5 defended precincts, and subsisting by means which were other than peaceful.

THE DUCAL PALACE*

JOHN RUSKIN

BEFORE the reader can enter upon any inquiry into

the history of the Ducal Palace, it is necessary that he should be throughly familiar with the arrangement 10 and names of its principal parts, as it at present stands; otherwise he cannot comprehend so much as a single sentence of any of the documents referring to it. I must do what I can, by the help of a rough plan and bird's-eye view, to give him the necessary topographical knowledge.

15

20

The reader will observe that the Ducal Palace is arranged somewhat in the form of a hollow square, of which one side faces the Piazzetta, and another the quay called Riva de' Schiavoni; the third is on the dark canal called Rio del Palazzo, and the fourth joins the Church of St. Mark. Of this fourth side, therefore, nothing can be seen. Of the other three sides we shall have to speak constantly; and they will be respectively called, that toward the Piazzetta, the "Piazzetta Façade;" that toward the Riva de' Schiavoni, the “Sea Façade;" and that toward 25 the Rio del Palazzo, the "Rio Façade." This Rio, or *Stones of Venice. Library edition, vol. 10.

canal, is usually looked upon by the traveler with great respect, or even horror, because it passes under the Bridge of Sighs. It is, however, one of the principal thoroughfares of the city; and the bridge and its canal together occupy, in the mind of a Venetian, very much the position 5 of Fleet Street and Temple Bar in that of a Londoner,at least at the time when Temple Bar was occasionally decorated with human heads. The two buildings closely resemble each other in form.

We must now proceed to obtain some rough idea of 10 the appearance and distribution of the palace itself; but its arrangement will be better understood by supposing ourselves raised some hundred and fifty feet above the point in the lagoon in front of it, so as to get a general view of the Sea Façade and Rio Façade (the latter in very 15 steep perspective) and to look down into its interior court. Fig. II* roughly represents such a view, omitting all details on the roofs, in order to avoid confusion. In this drawing we have merely to notice that, of the two bridges seen on the right, the uppermost, above the Rio del Pa- 20 lazzo, is the Bridge of Sighs; the lower one is the Ponte della Paglia, the regular thoroughfare from quay to quay, and, I believe, called the Bridge of Straws, because the boats which brought straw from the mainland used to sell it at this place. The corner of the palace, rising above 25 this bridge, and formed by the meeting of the Sea Façade and Rio Façade, will always be called the Vine angle, because it is decorated by a sculpture of the drunkenness of Noah. The angle opposite will be called the Fig-tree angle because it is decorated by a sculpture of the Fall so of Man. The long and narrow range of building, of which the roof is seen in perspective behind this angle, is the part of the palace fronting the Piazzetta; and the angle under *Ruskin's drawings have been omitted.