Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/264

250 In good season next morning we set out on our day's walk and exploration. The weather was beautiful, and all the scenery was rich with the golden glory of autumn. We went first to Tong Castle, a large, turreted, Tudor-like mansion, standing back from the road about a third of a mile. It seemed at first sight from this distance a misnomer to call it a castle in a fortified sense or position, for it apparently stood in a great and level meadow flanked with park trees. But as we approached we found that it was girdled by a water-wall more insurmountable in its day than a steep and lofty precipice of rock. A little artificial river had been brought from a long way off in a channel that deepened and widened as it neared the castle. Whether nature had helped the work or not, it must have been a prodigious undertaking and achievement in its day. Two rivers seemed to have been united before the west front of the building, forming a crescent basin or bay deep enough, when full, to float a frigate. The water had just been drawn off, and loads of fish of almost every name and size known to inland rivers had been taken. Pike or pickerel as large as the stoutest floppers caught in Lake Ontario had been left stranded and splashing in the mud. Although the castle must have once been nearly surrounded by one or two artificial rivers, we found the channel on the south side for