All this Sir Owen heard, and grieved for all; He with the husband mourn’d Alicia’s fall; But urged the vengeance with a spirit strong, As one whose own rose high against the wrong. He saw his tenant by this passion moved, Shared in his wrath, and his revenge approved. Years now unseen, he mourn’d this tenant’s fate, And wonder’d how he bore his widow’d state; Still he would mention Ellis with the pride Of one who felt himself to worth allied. 660 Such were his notions—had been long, but now He wish’d to see if vengeance lived, and how; He doubted not a mind so strong must feel Most righteously, and righteous measures deal. Then would he go, and haply he might find Some new excitement for a weary mind; Might learn the miseries of a pair undone, One scorn’d and hated, lost and perish’d one. Yes, he would praise to virtuous anger give, And so his vengeance should be nursed and live. 670 Ellis was glad to see his landlord come, } A transient joy broke in upon his gloom, } And pleased he led the knight to the superior room; } Where she was wont in happier days to sit, Who paid with smiles his condescending wit. There the sad husband, who had seldom been Where prints acquired in happier days were seen, Now struck by these, and carried to the past, A painful look on every object cast. Sir Owen saw his tenant’s troubled state, 680 But still he wish’d to know the offenders’ fate. “Know you they suffer, Ellis?”—Ellis knew; “’Tis well! ’tis just! but have they all their due? Have they in mind and body, head and heart, Sustain’d the pangs of their accursed part!”— “They have!”—“’Tis well!”—“and wants enough to shake The firmest mind, the stoutest heart to break.”— “But have you seen them in such misery dwell?”— “In misery past description.”—“That is well.” “Alas! Sir Owen, it perhaps is just; 690 Yet I began my purpose to distrust; For they to justice have discharged a debt, That vengeance surely may her claim forget.”— “Man, can you pity?”— “As a man I feel Miseries like theirs.”— “But never would you heal?”— “Hear me, Sir Owen:—I had sought them long, Urged by the pain of ever present wrong, Yet had not seen; and twice the year came round— Years hateful now—ere I my victims found. But I did find them, in the dungeon’s gloom 700 Of a small garret—a precarious home; For that depended on the weekly pay, And they were sorely frighten’d on the day. But there they linger’d on from week to week, Haunted by ills of which ’tis hard to speak; For they are many and vexatious all, The very smallest—but they none were small. “The roof, unceil’d in patches, gave the snow Entrance within, and there were heaps below; I pass’d a narrow region dark and cold, 710 The strait of stairs to that infectious hold;