peverell's castle in the peak. 209 little information wc can glean respecting this is of more immediate importance. Close at the back of the town of Castleton*^ rises a lofty hill, accessible only in one direction, and that with conside- rable difficulty, the other sides being the rough mountain rock, all equally steep, and impracticable of ascent. A thin tongue, having a bold escarpment on either side, connects like a peninsula, the hill itself with another of still loftier elevation, but few persons are found adventurous enough to pass over this narrow link for the sake of gaining its woody summit. A deep and contracted valley lies perpendicularly below on the eastern side, and presents an unusual aspect of barren- ness and solitude. Even nature herself seems to have marked it with the stamp of desolation, and hatred. On the western side the Devil's cavern, below the beholder's feet, vomits forth from its dark and ample mouth, a torrent of crystal water, which rushing impetuously forth in many an eddying curl, throws up its silvery spray in mockery of the sm'rounding gloom, or in equal joyfulness at having burst through the secret recesses of the earth where it was imprisoned. Timid man looks down into the abyss, his nerves become enfeebled, and awe-struck and shuddering he rapidly turns aside his giddy head from the yawning chasm. It was here among the wild freaks and horrid convulsions of nature, on the brink of an isolated, rugged precipice, uplifted by the throes of a primeval world, that Peverell, like an eagle in the air, selected the site of his castle in the Peak. Before William the Conqueror touched the English shores, two Saxons named Gernebern and Hundinc held the spot where the monarch's natural son William subsequently had his castle of Pechfers^. In the second year of his reign (1008) the king gave him the castle of Nottingham, and various lordships in different parts of England : forty-four in Northamptonshire, two in Essex, two in Oxfordshire, two in Bedfordshire, fifty-five in Nottinghamshire, six in Derby- shire, including Bolsover, which, with some smaller grants, constituted the honour of Peverell The whole of these vast •• Henry the Third granted it a charter the King of the honor of Wm. Peverell, and for a weekly market to beheld on Wedncs- the Earl de Ferrars has that with the day, in the seventh year of his reign. (Rot. whole forest. So that the labonrers of the Clause.) forest should be answerable to the carl liini- e Domesday, 276. self in the same way as formerly they were ' " The Castle of the High Peak (Caslnim to the king."— Testa de Ncvil. 19. de Alto Pecco) is an escheat of the Lord
