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

—From Douglas to Peel. 115to 8 ^J.?/i., and on Sundays from 2 p.m. to bp.m.) An attendant,generally a young lady, sits in a little recess at the side of theentrance, to receive the admission money.Near the entrance is the guard-room, where, according tothe legend told to and apparently believed by, Waldron, andquoted by Walter Scott in his notes to " Peveril of the Peak,''the spectral " Moddey Dhoo " (incorrectly spelt by Waldron"Mauthe Dhoo"), or black dog, used to appear nightly.Scott teUs the story so admirably in the novel, in the chapterwhere Fenella is conducting Julian Peveril by night to thetower, beneath which the boat is waiting to receive him, thatwe prefer to quote the passage rather than Waldron's moreverbo'se version of the strange story :"It was by a secret passage through this church that in former times theguaid-room of the garrison, situated at the lower and external defences, communicatedwith the keep of the Castle ; and tlirough this passage were thekeys of the Castle every night carried to the Gtovernor's apartment, so soonas "the gates were locked and the watch set. This custom was given up inJames the First's time, and the paseage abandoned, on account of the wellknownlegend of the Mauthe Dhoo—a fiend or demon in the shape of a large,shaggy, black mastiff, by which the church was said to be haunted. It wasdevoutly believed that in former times this spectre became so familiar withmankind as to appear almost nightly in the guard-room, issuing from thepassage which we have mentioned at night, and retiring to it at. daybreak.The soldiers became partly familiarized to its presence, yet not so much boas to use any licence of language whUe the apparition was visible ; untU onefellow, rendered daring by intoxication, swore that he would know whetherit was dog or devil, and with his drawn sword followed the sjiectre when itretreated by the usual passage. The man returned in a few minutes, soberedby terror, his mouth gaping, and his hair standing on end, under which horrorlie died ; but, ujihappUy for the lovers of the mai-vellous, altogether unable toilisclose the horroi-s which he had seen. Under the evil repute arising fromthis tale of wonder, the guard-room was abandoned and a new one constnicted.1 n like manner, the guards aft«r that period held another and more circuitouacommunication with the governor or seneschal of the Castle ; and that whichlay through the ruinous chiuch was entii'ely abandoned."The legend appears to have been stronglj^ impressed onthe imagination of Scott ; for, many years before he wrote"Peveril,"' he described one of the characters in his earliestgreat poem, " The Lay of the Last Minstrel," as being"Ghastly, wan.Like him of whom the story ranThat spoke the spectre-houud in Man."A good ghost story, or tale of terror like that quoted, isa capital introduction to ruined towers and cathedrals. Itmakes antiquity appear the more awe-inspiring, and inducesa general feeling of '• creepiness," under the influence ofwhich ruined arches and the shattered framework of antiquewindows seem more picturesque than they ordinarily do.There are gloomy corners where strange apparitions maylurk, and shadowy forms gliding among the time-worn