3 

 TREVALLYAN : 



A TALE OF CORNWALL. 



« like the pine, uprooted by the blast, he fell ; and the wailing wind sighed o'er 

 his grave. Bards wept ; for he left no son. Mourn for him I mourn for him ! — 

 Oscar was the last of his race !" Ossian . 



Chapter I. 



On the south-western point of the county of Cornwall, there stood, 

 in the sixteenth century, a fortress, named Trevallyan Castle. It 

 was an extremely old fabric, and no vestige thereof now remains. 

 Its architecture was, for the most part, in the Gothic style, though 

 frequent additions, made by its successive lords to add to its strength 

 and capabilities for resisting the attacks of an enemy, did not so strictly 

 adhere to the ai'chitectural fashion of the rest of the building, as a 

 fastidious critic would desire. No record remained to shew the exact 

 date at which the castle was commenced ; but it was the prevailing 

 belief that it had been erected by one of the nobles of Harold, as a 

 sort of fastness to which he might convey for safety spoils unscrupu- 

 lously obtained, either from the ocean, or by inroads upon the lands of 

 his warlike neighbours. This nobleman, tradition tells us, was slain 

 on the bloody field of Hastings, by the side of his brave, though 

 unfortunate piince. Shortly subsequent to tliis fatal strife, by which 

 the Normans gained possession of England, the castle and its domains 

 were given to a follower of the Conqueror, by name Evereux, who 

 added considerably to the extent of the edifice, by building on every 

 side a massive battlemented wall, and by digging a moat on three sides 

 of it ; the one remainmg being sufficiently defended by a precipice, 

 which, though it might, by great courage and perseverance, be 

 ascended, yet could be maintained by one man against any number 

 of the most fearless assailants. These fortifications, natm'al and 

 artificial, contributed to render this fortress one of the strongest in 

 Cornwall, and its possessor both feared and lespected. The last of 

 the Evereux family. Sir Ralph d'Evereux, was slain in the Holy 



