Ward & Lock's descriptive and pictorial guide to the Isle of Man ...

BallasaUa. 83many interesting spots, the scenery being of a wild andromantic character. In a valley a little to the west stoodthe Black Fort, and once more our memory reverts to•'Peveril of the Peak." Julian Peveril is described by thegreat novelist as visiting Bridgenorth and his dauglitcr Alice,who resided in " an old house of an irregular structure, witha terraced garden and a cultivated field or two beside it. Informer times, a Danish or Norwegian fastness had stoodhere, called the Black Fort, from the colour of a huge heathyhill, which, rising behind the building, appeai'cd to be theboundary of the valley, and to afford the source of the brook.But the original structure had been long demolished, as,indeed, it probably only consisted of dry stones, and itsmaterials had been applied to the construction of the presentmansion, the work of some churchman during the sixteenthcentury."Near this house stood, according to Scott—and stood tillneai-ly our own times, according to fact—a huge graniteboulder, weighing about thirty tons, known as Gudrod, or" Goddard, Govan's Stone." Scott writes :" The monumentalstone, designed to commemorate some feat of anancient king of Man, which had been long forgotten, waserected on the side of a narrow lonely valley, or rather glen,secluded from observation by the steepness of its banks, upona projection of which stood the tall, shapeless, solitary rock,froAvniug like a shrouded giant over the brawling of thesmall rivulet which Avatered the ravine." This was the spotto which Julian rode in such hot haste fi'om Peel Castle,and " achieved the distance at the rate of twelve miles withinthe hour," having made an appointment to meet AliceBridgenorth, a meeting which Fenella endeavoured to prevent,by warning Peveril that danger would attend it, andletting him know that she knew the place of rendezvous,by " sketching, with a rapid pencil, a scene which she showedto Juhan. To his infinite surprise he recognised GoddardGovan's stone, a remarkable monument, of which she had giventhe outline with sufficient accuracy." It was ©n this occasionthat Peveril, as readers of the novel will remember, caughtFeneUa up in his arms, and set her down on the steps aboveMm, getting away as speedily as possible, leaving the strangelittle creature " clapping her hands repeatedly, and expressingher displeasure in a sound, or rather a shriek, so extremelydissonant, that it resembled more the cry of a wild creaturethan anything which could have been uttered by femaleorgans." The good folks who reveal to us the wonders of