Charlotte Smith

“ At the time, however, of which I am speaking, this desolate spot inspired all that melancholy sort of horror which naturally gives rise to the reports of supernatural appearences; there was not a servant who would on any account have gone thither of a night, and even the gardeners and workmen, who were at any time occupied near it, related strange stories of uncommon noises, as of mourning and complaint, and more than once have run in terror to their fellow labourers, declaring that some obscure figures had issued from the vaults beneath, and then melted into air. ”

“ As I sat musing, I recollected the stories I had often heard of spectres being seen, and strange noises being heard round these receptacles of the dead.——So little pleasure had I in looking forward to any thing that life could now afford me, so long had my thoughts been accustomed to consider death as the only end of all my miseries, that I felt no horror in the idea of seeing, or, if it were possible, of conversing with departed spirits. ”

“ It was merely the chancel of a larger edifice which had belonged to a monastery, some of the ruins of which remained scattered over the ground, and when I and my brother were children, we had been told by the servants many of those legends that almost always belong to such places. It was said too among them, that beneath these vestiges of buildings, which were not considerable above the ground, there were arched vaults, and subterraneous passages, which formerly served as burial places for the religious persons of this monastery. ”

“ Thus compelled to stifle our infantine fears, they were gradually subdued as our reason became stronger; and we were accustomed not only to find our way in the dark all over the extensive old buildings of Holmwood, but to traverse without fear the avenue that led to, and even the area that surrounded, the ruined church, though we credited the probable account that in the vaults beneath rested the remains of the former inhabitants of the decayed monastery. ”

“ At the end of a long row of elms, of which now a few single trees only remain, you recollect a high mount now planted with firs, poplar, and larches, into which, as it is railed round, nobody now enters ”