From the platform a narrow ledge of rock led to the ditch, now dry, and
nearly filled with fragments from the ruins. He passed the tottering
arch of the portcullis;--long weeds choked up the entrance, waving
drearily as the light breeze went over them. Hildebrand heard not the
moan of the coming blast. Evening approached, and the thousand shadows
haunted him,--grim spectres that crossed his path, crowding upon him
with anger and menace. From a ruined doorway he ascended a narrow stair,
and had penetrated far into the interior of that part of the castle
which, in some measure, remained entire, when, for the first time, he
seemed startled into a consciousness of his situation. It was an
appalling scene of solitude and decay. The realities, to which he almost
instantaneously awoke, might have awed a less guilty spirit than that
which inhabited the bosom of Hildebrand Wentworth. A long gallery,
supported by huge pillars, terminated in the distance by a long and
narrow oriel. On each side, broken but richly-variegated windows threw
down a many-tinted light, which, oppressed by the dark and caverned
arches, gave a strange and mysterious character to the grotesque
reflections hovering on the floor.
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