“My listening powers Were awed, and every thought in silence hung
And wondering expectation.”—Akenside.
“My dear Fanny,” said Mrs. Duncan, addressing our heroine by her borrowed name, “if at all inclined to superstition, you are now going to a place which will call it forth. Dunreath Abbey is gothic and gloomy in the extreme, and recalls to one’s mind all the stories they ever heard of haunted houses and apparitions. The desertion of the native inhabitants has hastened the depredations of time, whose ravages are unrepaired, except in the part immediately occupied by the domestics. Yet what is the change in the building compared to the revolution which took place in the fortunes of her who[Pg 411] once beheld a prospect of being its mistress. The earl of Dunreath’s eldest daughter, as I have often heard from many, was a celebrated beauty, and as good as she was handsome, but a malignant step-mother thwarted her happiness, and forced her to take shelter in the arms of a man who had everything but fortune to recommend him—but, in wanting that, he wanted everything to please her family. After some years of distress, she found means to soften the heart of her father; but here the invidious step-mother again interfered, and prevented her experiencing any good effects from his returning tenderness, and, it was rumored, by a deep and iniquitous scheme, deprived her of her birthright. Like other rumors, however, it gradually died away; perhaps from Lady Malvina and her husband never hearing of it, and none but them had a right to inquire into its truth. But if such a scheme was really contrived, woe be to its fabricator; the pride and pomp of wealth can neither alleviate nor recompense the stings of conscience. Much rather,” continued Mrs. Duncan, laying her hands upon her children’s heads as they sat at her feet,—"much rather would I have my babes wander from door to door, to beg the dole of charity, than live upon the birthright of the orphan. If Lady Dunreath, in reality, committed the crime she was accused of, she met, in some degree, a punishment for it. Soon after the Earl’s death she betrayed a partiality for a man every way inferior to her, which partiality, people have not scrupled to say, commenced and was indulged to a criminal degree during the lifetime of her husband. She would have married him, had not her daughter the Marchioness of Roslin, interfered. Proud and ambitious, her rage at the prospect of such an alliance, knew no bounds, and, seconded by the marquis, whose disposition was congenial to her own, they got the unfortunate mother into their power, and hurried her off to a convent in France. I know not whether she is yet living; indeed, I believe there are few either know or care, she was so much disliked for her haughty disposition. I have sometimes asked my aunt about her, but she would never gratify my curiosity. She has been brought up in the family, and no doubt thinks herself bound to conceal whatever they choose. She lives in ease and plenty, and is absolute mistress of the few domestics that reside at the Abbey. But of those domestics I caution you in time, or they will be apt to fill your head with frightful stories of the Abbey, which sometimes, if one’s spirits are weak, in spite of reason, will make an impression on the mind. They pretend that the Earl of Dunreath’s first wife haunts the Abbey, venting the most[Pg 412] piteous moans, which they ascribe to grief for the unfortunate fate of her daughter, and that daughter’s children being deprived of their rightful patrimony. I honestly confess, when at the Abbey a few years ago, during some distresses of my husband, I heard strange noises one evening at twilight as I walked in a gallery. I told my aunt of them, and she was quite angry at the involuntary terror I expressed, and said it was nothing but the wind whistling through some adjoining galleries which I heard. But this, my dear Fanny,” said Mrs. Duncan, who on account of her children had continued the latter part of her discourse in a low voice, “is all between ourselves; for my aunt declared she would never pardon my mentioning my ridiculous fears, or the yet more ridiculous fears of the servants, to any human being.”
Amanda listened in silence to Mrs. Duncan’s discourse, fearful that if she spoke she should betray the emotions it excited.
They at last entered between the mountains that enclosed the valley on which the Abbey stood. The scene was solemn and solitary. Every prospect, except one of the sea, seen through an aperture in one of the mountains, was excluded. Some of these mountains were bare, craggy, and projecting. Others were skirted with trees, robed with vivid green, and crowned with white and yellow furze. Some were all a wood of intermingled shades, and others covered with long and purple heath. Various streams flowed from them into the valley. Some stole gently down their sides in silver rills, giving beauty and vigor wherever they meandered. Others tumbled from fragment to fragment, with a noise not undelightful to the ear, and formed for themselves a deep bed in the valley, over which trees, that appeared coeval with the building, bent their old and leafy heads.
At the foot of what to the rest was called a gently swelling hill lay the remains of the extensive gardens which had once given the luxuries of the vegetable world to the banquets of the Abbey; but the buildings which had nursed those luxuries were all gone to decay, and the gay plantations were overrun with the progeny of neglect and sloth.
The Abbey was one of the most venerable looking buildings Amanda had ever beheld; but it was in melancholy grandeur she now saw it—in the wane of its days, when its glory was passed away, and the whole pile proclaimed desertion and decay. She saw it when, to use the beautiful language of Hutchinson, its pride was brought low, when its magnificence was[Pg 413] sinking in the dust, when tribulation had taken the seat of hospitality, and solitude reigned, where once the jocund guest had laughed over the sparkling bowl, whilst the owls sang nightly their strains of melancholy to the moonshine that slept upon its mouldering battlements.
The heart of Amanda was full of the fond idea of her parents, and the sigh of tender remembrance stole from it. “How little room,” thought she, “should there be in the human heart for the worldly pride which so often dilates it, liable as all things are to change! the distress in which the descendants of noble families are so often seen, the decline of such families themselves, should check the arrogant presumption with which so many look forward to having their greatness and prosperity perpetuated through every branch of their posterity.
“The proud possessors of this Abbey, surrounded with affluence, and living in its full enjoyment, never perhaps admitted the idea as at all probable, that one of their descendants should ever approach the seat of her ancestors without that pomp and elegance whi............