The house itself was a
large one, but was now obviously too big for the inmates; several
windows were built up, especially those which opened from the lower
story; others were blockaded in a less substantial manner. The court
before the door, which had once been defended with a species of low
outer-wall, now ruinous, was paved, but the stones were completely
covered with long gray nettles, thistles, and other weeds, which,
shooting up betwixt the flags, had displaced many of them from their
level. Even matters demanding more peremptory attention had been left
neglected, in a manner which argued sloth or poverty in the extreme.
The stream, undermining a part of the bank near an angle of the
ruinous wall, had brought it down, with a corner turret, the ruins of
which lay in the bed of the river. The current, interrupted by the
ruins which it had overthrown, and turned yet nearer to the site of
the tower, had greatly enlarged the breach it had made, and was in the
process of undermining the ground on which the house itself stood,
unless it were speedily protected by sufficient bulwarks.
All this attracted Roland Graeme's observation, as they approached the
dwelling by a winding path, which gave them, at intervals, a view of
it from different points.
"If we go to yonder house," he said to his mother, "I trust it is but
for a short visit. It looks as if two rainy days from the north-west
would send the whole into the brook."
"You see but with the eyes of the body," said the old woman; "God will
defend his own, though it be forsaken and despised of men.
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