We had thought it sufficiently unpleasant to be located for a whole summer in the forest, although during that time we could occasionally make a sortie from our wooden walls, and breathe the sea-air. But the approach of winter, and the conviction that the whole of its dreary days must pass before we could finally escape from our Castle Dismal, was in truth a severe trial of endurance. If even sunshine lost its brightness in that somber forest gloom, what a thrice-dreary aspect did it wear in those days, and weeks, and months of almost incessant rain! Sometimes it rained very hard, and sometimes harder still; sometimes like a continuous thunder-shower, and sometimes in one mighty sheet of water, like an upper ocean that had burst its bounds. The ground was always something wetter than a bog, and most often resembled a flooded river: such were the pleasant varieties we enjoyed; and when Mr. Meredith's horse used to be brought in a morning for him to ride down to the police-office, it came beside the veranda for him to embark, as a boat would alongside a ship, for a lagune lay between the house and the garden gate, where he usually mounted; and the whole road he had to traverse was an alternation of deep water, shallower water, and bogs.