A
statistical eye, it is supposed, can count no fewer than forty of
these picturesque, ramshackled old castles from a point on the
Kuchelberg. For myself, I hate statistics (except as an element in
financial prospectuses), and I really don't know how many ruinous
piles Isabel and Amelia counted under Cesarine's guidance; but I
remember that most of them were quaint and beautiful, and that their
variety of architecture seemed positively bewildering. One would be
square, with funny little turrets stuck out at each angle; while
another would rejoice in a big round keep, and spread on either side
long, ivy-clad walls and delightful bastions. Charles was immensely
taken with them. He loves the picturesque, and has a poet hidden
in that financial soul of his. (Very effectually hidden, though, I
am ready to grant you.) From the moment he came he felt at once
he would love to possess a castle of his own among these romantic
mountains. "Seldon!" he exclaimed contemptuously. "They call Seldon
a castle! But you and I know very well, Sey, it was built in 1860,
with sham antique stones, for Macpherson of Seldon, at market rates,
by Cubitt and Co., worshipful contractors of London. Macpherson
charged me for that sham antiquity a preposterous price, at
which one ought to procure a real ancestral mansion.
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