The loyalists : $b an historical novel, Vol. 1-3West, Jane
History
The loyalists : $b an historical novel, Vol. 1-3
West, Jane
Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction
In the way back he called on Dame Humphreys, whose attention to him,
during his illness, corresponded with her usual artless kindness and
true benevolence. He found her in the most dreadful distress; her
husband's malady was increased to violent frenzy; she assigned as the
cause, his incessantly listening to what she called "long preachments
about the Devil;" but he gave a different account. He was sure he had
seen Sir William Waverly sitting at the outside of a mausoleum he had
built in the park, without his head, and an angel standing by him. He
knew it was an angel, for it looked white and shining; and the other
must be Sir William, because he had in part pulled down the old church,
which his fore-fathers had built, to make a grand burying-place for
himself and his family, and though his body was thrown into a hole where
he was killed, that was no reason why his spirit might not walk in his
own park. The Dame was prevented from making further comments on this
narrative by concern for her husband's situation. He lay, she said,
roaring and foaming at the mouth, thinking what he had seen was a
warning of his own death. The chamber was full of godly ministers, who
would not let her send for a doctor, saying the case was in their way,
and that they would dispossess him. But in spite of all they did, he
grew worse, and was in such terrible convulsions, that she feared if he
did not make away with himself, still he must die.
Sedley sincerely pitied her distress, and, in compliance with her
wishes, promised to send the good old Doctor to her to try if he could
do any good. A lover sees his mistress in every object. Combining the
suspicions of Morgan, the appearance at the mausoleum, and the
night-wanderings of Isabel, a sudden apprehension came across Sedley's
mind, and determined him to see to what part of the park the sycamore
avenue pointed, and he soon found it ended in a coppice, which shaded a
ruined church, and a stately sepulchre, inclosed with iron pallisades,
that had escaped the general pillage, which, in those times of rapacious
sacrilege, spared not the altar of religion nor the silent repositories
of the dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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