Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/207

 left Ferdinand standing in an attitude of fixed despair.

He stood for some moments insensible to every thing around him, when the sound of a distant bell roused him from the torpor that had seized him, and instantly recollecting the convent mentioned by the old Nun, with reluctant steps, and an oppressed mind, he walked through the wood, keeping to the left as she had directed him; but overwhelmed by a thousand doubts and painful conjectures, he proceeded so slowly that night overtook him, and it was with much difficulty he espied through the trees a rising hill before him which terminated the wood, and on reaching to the foot of it, he perceived an old building on one side of the declivity, with large pieces of rock suspended over it, which seemed to threaten hourly danger: He recollected the shepherd's cottage; "strange (thought he) that people should choose such dangerous situations to erect dwellings on! It appears to me a daring presumption, or a total insensibility." He