Parting the foliage we
found ourselves at a natural grotto of light-colored stone, where a
stream of "the purest of crystal" came from under the rock at one end,
and glancing in the stray beams of sunlight that found their way in
through the arch of leaves, flashed down a tiny cascade in a shower of
diamonds, and with a little gurgling laugh hid under the rock again,
racing on to join the subterranean waters that laugh together over the
failure of the great canal.
The new tower is built after the fashion of the ancient towers with the
spiral staircase, that was common to all castles and abbeys of the west.
The mason work was much coarser and more roughly done, but the imitation
of the ancient tower was very good other ways. I do not believe that
modern masons could produce so perfect a specimen of workmanship as the
tower of Moyne Abbey, with its spiral staircase of black marble. The
view from the top of the tower at Ashford repaid well the expenditure of
breath to climb up to it.
The house is a castle and made after the pattern of ancient castles; it
is large and must contain any amount of lofty and spacious rooms, which
it is to be supposed are furnished as luxuriously and magnificently as
possible.
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