Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 2).djvu/186

 re-enter them; and start back, chilled and affrighted by their neglect and desertion, as if it was unexpected. Oh, my father, what a change has a few days produced! The sound of social mirth no longer enlivens the Castle; a death-like stillness reigns throughout it, scarcely ever interrupted but by the wind sighing through its long galleries, as if in unison with the grief of its inhabitants.

"Things without appear almost as dreary as they do within. The fury of a late storm has scattered the lawn with broken boughs and fragments from the chateau, and thus given the place an appearance of desolation saddening in the extreme. The poor peasants, too, who are employed within the wood, appear (to me at least) quite altered. They seem to pursue their labours with reluctance, and, often suspending them, look towards the Castle with a melancholy air, as if to say the comforts that cheered their toils, and supported their strength, died with its honoured and lamented owner.