54 THE SMUGGLER. 



ford, his character, and proceedings, will beg those who have 

 gone on with me thus far, to step back with me to the same 

 night on which Mr. Warde and his young friend met the 

 smuggler in his evening walk along the heights. 



Not very far from the town of Hythe, nor very far from the 

 village of Sandgate, are still to be found the ruins of an an- 

 cient castle, which, by various deeds that have been performed 

 within its walls, has acquired a name in English history. The 

 foundation of the building is beyond our records ; and tradition, 

 always fond of the marvellous, carries back the period when 

 the first stone was laid to the times of the Eoman invaders of 

 Great Britain. Others supposed that it was erected by the 

 Saxons, but, as it now stands, it presents no trace of the han- 

 diwork of either of those two races of barbarians, and is simply 

 one of those strongholds constructed by the Normans, or their 

 close descendants, either to keep their hold of a conquered 

 country, or to resist the power both of tyrannical monarchs 

 and dangerous neighbours. Various parts of the building are 

 undoubtedly attributable to the reign of Henry II. ; and if any 

 portion be of an earlier date, of which I have some doubts, it 

 is but small; but a considerable part is, I believe, of a still 

 later epoch, and in some places may be traced the architecture 

 common in the reign of Edward III. and of his grandson. The 

 space enclosed within the outer walls is very extensive, and 

 numerous detached buildings, chapels, halls, and apparently a 

 priory, are still to be found built against those walls them- 

 selves, so that it is probable that the castle in remote days 

 gave shelter to some religious body, which is rendered still 

 more likely from the fact of Saltwood Castle and its manor 

 having formerly appertained to the church and see of Can- 

 terbury. 



Many a remarkable scene has undoubtedly passed in the 

 courts and halls of that now ruined building, and it is even 

 probable that there the dark and dreadful deed, which, though 

 probably not of his contriving, embittered the latter life of the 

 second Henry, was planned and determined by the murderers 

 of Thomas a-Becket. With such deeds, however, and those 

 ancient times, we have nothing here to do; and at the period 

 to which this tale refers, the castle, though in a much more 

 perfect state than at present, was already in ruins. The park 

 which formerly surrounded it had been long thrown open and 



