We imagined her stately figure in
antique robes, standing beneath the groined arches of the oratory. There
seem to have been three chambers, one above another, in these towers, and
the one in which was the embowed window was the middle one. I suppose
the diameter of each of these circular rooms could not have been more
than twenty feet on the inside. All traces of wood-work and iron-work
are quite gone from the whole castle. These are said to have been taken
away by a Lord Conway in the reign of Charles II. There is a grassy
space under the windows of Queen Eleanor's tower,--a sort of outwork of
the castle, where probably, when no enemy was near, the Queen used to
take the open air in summer afternoons like this. Here we sat down on
the grass of the ruined wall, and agreed that nothing in the world could
be so beautiful and picturesque as Conway Castle, and that never could
there have been so fit a time to see it as this sunny, quiet, lovely
afternoon. Sunshine adapts itself to the character of a ruin in a
wonderful way; it does not "flout the ruins gray," as Scott says, but
sympathizes with their decay, and saddens itself for their sake. It
beautifies the ivy too.
We saw, at the corner of this grass-plot around Queen Eleanor's tower, a
real trunk of a tree of ivy, with so stalwart a stem, and such a vigorous
grasp of its strong branches, that it would be a very efficient support
to the wall, were it otherwise inclined to fall.
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