Its gnarled stump, now stunted and decaying,
had scarcely one token of life upon its scattered branches. Following a
narrow walk, nearly obliterated, I entered a paved court. The first
tramp awoke a train of echoes that seemed as though they had slumbered
since my departure, and now started from their sleep to greet or to
admonish the returning truant. Grass in luxuriant tufts, capriciously
disposed, grew about in large patches. The breeze passed heavily by,
rustling the dark swathe, and murmuring fitfully as it departed.
Desolation seemed to have marked the spot for her own--the grim abode of
solitude and despair. During twenty years' sojourn in a strange land
memory had still, with untiring delight, painted the old mansion in all
its primeval primness and simplicity--fresh as I had left it, full of
buoyancy and delight, to take possession of the paradise which
imagination had created. I had, indeed, been informed that at my
father's death it became the habitation of a stranger; but no
intelligence as to its present condition had ever reached me. Being at
L----, and only some twenty miles distant, I could not resist the
temptation of once more gazing on the old Manor-house, and of comparing
its present aspect with that but too faithfully engrafted on my
recollections.
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