Even Neville
could not refrain from commending his nephew's conduct, while brushing a
tear from his eye he attempted to revive the expiring flame of
vindictive indignation. "The villain, then," said he, "knows now what it
is to want the service of a worthy child. Tell me, Eustace, does he
suffer deeply? Is his soul ground down with compunction by recollecting
the inhumed Neville, doomed by him and his rebel partizans to shelter
with the dead. Shut for years from the light of the sun, excluded from
human converse, and daily fed by that dear girl with the bread of
affliction, though born to stand before Kings, and sit as judge among
Princes! Walter De Vallance now suffers what I never endured. The
gnawing worm of remorse must inflict on him the agonies of despair, but
conscious innocence illumined my dungeon with hope. Yes, the spirits of
my ancestors, offended at the foul pollution of their pure ermine, point
at my son as the restorer of their tarnished honours, and bid me exult
in the agonies which await the death-bed of a villain!"
A look of grave rebuke from Dr.
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