He contemplated it for some time in a kind of reverie. There, it stood,
sombre and silent;--its gray walls mouldering away--its windows dark and
broken;--like a man forsaken by the world, compelled to bear the storms
of life without the hand of a friend to support him, though age and
decay render him less capable of enduring them. For a momont fancy
repeopled it;--again the stir of life, pastime, mirth, and hospitality
echoed within its walls; the train of his long departed relatives
returned; the din of rude and boisterous enjoyment peculiar to the
times; the cheerful tumult of the hall at dinner; the family feuds and
festivities; the vanities and the passions of those who now slept in
dust;--all--all came before him once more, and played their part in the
vision of the moment!
As he walked on, the flitting wing of a bat struck him lightly in
its flight; he awoke from the remembrances which crowded on him, and,
resuming his journey, soon arrived at the inn of the nearest town, where
he stopped that night. The next morning he saw his agent for a short
time, but declined entering upon business. For a few days more he
visited most of the neighboring gentry, from whom he received sufficient
information to satisfy him that neither he himself nor his agent
was popular among his tenantry. Many flying reports of the agent's
dishonesty and tyranny were mentioned to him, and in every instance he
took down the names of the parties, in order to ascertain the truth.
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