After my last letter, I spent two tedious days in employments that I now blush to relate;—no less than doing all the dirty work of the cottage, such as sweeping the room, kindling the fire, cooking the victuals; and trying, by dint of comb and soap, to make cherubs of the children. What bewitched me, I cannot conceive, for the humanity of other heroines is ever clean, elegant, and fit for the reader. They give silver and tears in abundance, but they never descend to the bodily charity of working, like wire-drawers, for withered old women and brats with rosy noses. I can only say, in vindication of myself, that those who sheltered me were poor and helpless themselves, and that they deserved some recompense on my part for their hospitality to me. So you must not condemn me totally; for I do declare to you, that I would much rather have relieved them with my purse, and soothed them with my sympathy, than have fried their herrings and washed their faces.

At the same time, take notice, I was not totally forgetful of my nobler destiny; for I dedicated part of this period to the composition of a poem, which I reserve for my memoirs. My biographer can say that it was suggested by the story of Susan; and even if it should still appear to be somewhat forced into my book, I would rather have this the case, than suffer posterity to go without it altogether. Here it is.

This morning, having resumed my muslins, I repaired to my castle, and seated on the stump of a withered oak, began an accurate survey of its strength, for the purpose of ascertaining whether it could stand a siege, in case Lady Gwyn should attempt to dispossess me of it. I must now describe it to you.

It is situated about a quarter of a mile from the road, on a waste tract of land, where a few decayed trunks of trees are all that remain of a former forest. The castle itself, which I fear is rather too small for long corridors and suites of apartments, forms a square, with a turret at each corner, and with a large gateway, now stopped up with stones, at the southern side. While I surveyed its roofless walls, over-topt with briony, grass, and nettles, and admired the gothic points of the windows, where mantling ivy had supplied the place of glass, long suffering and murder came to my thoughts.

As I sat planning, from romances, the revival of the feudal customs and manners in my castle, and of the feudal system among my tenantry (all so favourable to heroines), I saw a magnificent barouche, turning from the road into the common, and advancing towards me. My heart beat high: the carriage approached, stopt; and who should alight from it, but Higginson and Jerry!

After Higginson, with reverence, and Jerry, with familiarity, had congratulated me on my good fortune, the latter looked hard at the castle.

'The people told us that this was Monkton Castle,' said he; 'but where is the Monkton Castle that your ladyship is to live in?'

'There it is, my friend,' answered I.

'What? there!' cried he.

'Yes, there,' said I.

'What, there, there!'

'Yes, there, there.'

'Oh! murder! murder!'

'How far are we from your ladyship's house?' said the postilion, advancing with his hat off.

'This castle is my house,' answered I.

'Begging your ladyship's pardon,' said he; 'what I mean, is, how far are we from where your ladyship lives?'

'I live in this castle,' answered I.

Jerry began making signs to me over the fellow's shoulder, to hold my tongue.

'What are you grimacing about there, Mr. Sullivan?' said I.

'Nothing at all, Ma'am,' answered he. ''Tis a way I have got; but your ladyship, you know, is only come down to this castle on a sort of a country excursion, to see if it wants repairing, you know: you don't mean to live in it, you know.' And he put his finger on his nose, and winked at me.

'But I know I do mean to live in it,' cried I, 'and so I request you will cease your grinning.'

'Oh, murder, murder!' muttered he, swinging round on his heel.

The postilion now stood staring at the venerable edifice, with an expression of the most insolent ridicule.

'And what are you looking at?' cried Jerry.

'At the sky through the castle window,' said the fellow, reddening, and shaking with smothered laughter.

'Why then mind your own business,' cried Jerry, 'and that is, to take the horses from the carriage, and set off with yourself as fast as you can.'

'Not till I am paid for their journey down,' said the postilion. 'So will your ladyship have the goodness to pay me?'

'Certainly,' said I. 'Jerry, pay the fellow.'

'Deuce a rap have I,' answered Jerry. 'I laid out my last farthing in little things for your ladyship.'

'Higginson,' said I, 'shall I trouble you to pay him?'

'It irks me to declare,' answered Higginson, 'that in equipments for this expedition;—a nice little desk, a nice little comb, a nice little pocket-glass, a nice little——'

'In short you have no money,' cried I.

'Not a farthing,' answered he.

'Neither have I,' said I; 'so, postilion, you must call another time.'

'Here is a pretty to do!' cried the postilion. 'Damme, this is a shy sort of a business. Not even the price of a feed of oats! Snuff my eyes, I must have the money. I must, blow me.'

''Tis I that will blow you,' cried Jerry, 'if you don't unloose your horses this moment, and pack off.'

The postilion took them from the carriage, in silence; then having mounted one of them, and ridden a few paces from us, he stopped.

'Now you set of vagabonds and swindlers,' cried he, 'without a roof over your heads, or a penny in your pockets, to go diddle an honest man out of his day's labour; wait till master takes you in hand: and if I don't tell the coachmaker what a blockhead he was to give you his barouche on tick, may I be particularly horsewhipt! Ladyship! a rummish sort of a tit for a Ladyship! And that is my Lord, I suppose. And this is the Marquis. Three pickpockets from Fleet-street, I would bet a whip to a wisp. Ladyship! Oh, her Ladyship!' and away he cantered, ladyshipping it, till he was out of hearing.

'That young person deserves a moral lecture,' said Higginson.

'He deserves a confounded drubbing,' cried Jerry. 'But now, 'pon your conscience, does your ladyship intend to live in this old castle?'

'Upon my honour I do,' replied I.

'And is there no decent house on the estate, that one of your tenants could lend you?' said he.

'Why you must know,' replied I, 'that though Lady Gwyn, the person who has withheld my property from me so long, acknowledged my right to it but a few days since, still, as she has not yet yielded up the title deeds, in consequence of a quarrel which obliged me to quit her house, it is improbable that the tenantry would treat me as their mistress. All I can do, is, to seize this uninhabited castle which lies on my own estate. But I can tell you, that a heroine of good taste, and who wishes to rise in her profession, would infinitely prefer the desolation of a castle to the comforts of a villa.'

'Well, of all the wise freaks——' cried Jerry, standing astride, sticking his hands in his ribs, and nodding his head, as he looked up at the castle.

'I tell you what, Mr. Sullivan,' interrupted I, 'if you have the slightest objection to remaining here, you are at perfect liberty to depart this moment.'

'And do you think I would leave you?' cried he. 'Oh then, oh then, 'tis I that wouldn't! And the worse your quandary, the more I would stick by you;—that is Jerry Sullivan. And if it was a gallows itself you were speculating in, I would assist you all the same. One can find friends enough when one is in the right, but give me the fellow that would fight for me right or wrong.'

I shook his honest hand with warmth, and then asked him if he had performed my commissions.

'Your ladyship shall hear,' said he. 'As soon as I got your letter, I went with it in my hand, and shewed it at fifty different shops;—clothiers, and glaziers, and upholsterers, and feather-makers, and trumpet-makers; but neither old tapestry, nor old painted glass, nor old flags stained with old blood, nor old lutes, nor old any thing that you wanted, could I get; and what I could get, I must pay for; and so what I must pay for, I would not get; and the reason why, I had no money; and moreover, as sure as ever I shewed them your letter, so sure they laughed at it.'

'Laughed at it!' cried I.

'All but one,' said Jerry.

'And he?' cried I.

'Was going to knock me down,' answered Jerry. 'So, as I did not wish to come without bringing something or other to you, and as you commanded me to get everything old; egad, I have brought three whole pieces of damaged black cloth out of our own shop, that I thought might answer for the hangings and curtains; and I bought a parcel of old funeral feathers and an old pall, from an undertaker; and I bought an old harp with five strings, that will do any thing but play; and I stole our own parlour bell; and I borrowed a horn from the guard of a mail-coach, which I hope will do for a trumpet; and now here they are all in the barouche, and my bed and trunk; and a box of Mr. Higginson's.'

'But the barouche?' said I; 'how did you get that?'

'By not shewing your letter,' answered Jerry; 'and besides, the coach-maker knew me; and I told him it was for my Lady De Willoughby, as beautiful as an angel—but he did not mind that—and as rich as a Jew;—but he minded that; and so he gave me the barouche, and a shake-hands into the bargain.'

'Well, my friend,' said I, 'you did your best; so as soon as I can raise a sufficient sum, I will furnish my castle in a style of gothic grandeur, which your modern painters and glaziers have no notion of. Meantime, if you and Higginson will pull down those stones that choak the gateway, we will enter the building, and see what can be done with our present materials.'

They commenced operations with such alacrity, that they soon cleared away the rubbish, and in we went. Not a sign of a roof on the whole edifice: the venerable verdure of damp stained the walls, nettles and thistles clothed the ground, and three of the turrets, inaccessible to human feet, were to be come at only by an owl or an angel. However, on examining the fourth, or eastern turret, I found it in somewhat better condition than the rest. A half-decayed ladder, leaning against an aperture in the ceiling above, tempted me to mount, and I got into a room of about eight feet square (the breadth of the turret), overrun with moss and groundsel, and having a small window in one of its sides. From the floor, another ladder reached to another aperture in the ceiling above; and on ascending it, I found myself at the top of the tower, round which ran a broken parapet. This tower, therefore, I determined to fit up and inhabit; and to leave the other three in a state of classical dilapidation, as receptacles for strange noises, horrid sights, and nocturnal Condottieri.

I then descended, and made the minstrel and warden (for they have consented to undertake these offices) draw the barouche within the gateway, and convey the luggage up to the room that I meant for my residence.

The next matter that we set about was hanging the chamber with the black cloth; and this we contrived to do by means of wooden pegs, which the warden cut with his knife, and drove, with a stone, through the drapery, into the crevices of the walls. We found two of the three pieces of black cloth sufficient to cover the sides of the room; and when the hangings were all arranged, I gazed on their sombrous and antique effect with the most heartfelt transport. I then named it the Black Chamber, and gave orders that it should always be called so.

Our next object was to contrive a bed for me. Jerry, therefore, procured some branches of trees, and after much labour, and with no small ingenuity, constructed a bedstead, as crazy as any that ever creaked under a heroine. We then hung it round with curtains of black cloth; and Jerry's own bed being placed upon it, we spread the black pall over that. Never was there a more funereal piece of furniture; and I saw, with pride, that it rivalled the famous bed in the Mysteries of Udolpho.

The minstrel all this time appeared stupified with astonishment, but worked like a horse, puffing and panting, and doing every thing that he was desired, without uttering a word.

Dinner now became our consideration, and I have just dispatched the warden (like Peter, in the Romance of the Forest) to procure provisions. Not a farthing has he to purchase any, since even the half-crown which Susan gave me is already exhausted.

But the light that enters at my window begins to grow grey, and an appropriate gloom thickens through the chamber. The minstrel stands in a corner, muttering poetry; while I write with his pen and ink on a stool that the warden made for me. My knees are my desk.

Adieu.