Charlotte Smith

“ The old domestic, who could not have undertaken such a journey on foot, seemed in the expectation of reaching once more the protection of his ancient master, to be sensible of the only gleam of hope that could cheer his forlorn and melancholy existence ”

“ Feeble and dispirited, and trembling with age and sorrow, the faltering hands of the honest old domestic were but of little use; but D'Alonville, whom the hope of success roused to the utmost exertion, laboured with such diligence and effect, that in about an hour the bricks and stones were removed; the iron door, which had probably been concealed from the plunderers by the arras with which the room was hung, was now visible; but the wood work was destroyed that had encompassed it, and the rubbish had broken in. D'Alonville, at the risk of bringing the wall down upon him, forced it open ”

“ Those sensations of sorrow were now renewed; yet when D'Alonville reflected on all he had since suffered, and looked forward in mournful presentiment to what was probably still to come, he hardly wished his father had lived to struggle with the bitterest evils of life;—poverty and exile. To mourn over the dereliction of principle which had estranged him from his eldest son; the convulsions that had imprisoned the sovereign to whom he was attached, and the overthrow of the government he had sworn to support. "The dead are happy," cried he ”

“ To recur thus to self is but too natural to the old and helpless; Rodolph forgot the success of D'Alonville in behalf of his lord, in reflecting that he himself should not personally partake of the satisfaction such a circumstance would occasion in the family. "You shall not die," cried D'Alonville, in your cold shed. "I am very sure that when the Baroness knows what has happened—for yet you know she is ignorant that the village has been plundered and the castle burnt ”

“ Have you a wife or any other connection that you cannot leave?" "Alas! no," answered the old man. "My wife has been dead many years; she left me a daughter, who married the valet of a French nobleman that came about five years ago on a visit to my lord. ”