Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/275

 porting the arrogance of riches, where there could be no superiority of birth to my own. Five years I dragged on an inactive life without enjoying any advantages from my seclusion, but what arose from lording it over my tenantry, without knowing the blessings of society, for there were none I deigned to converse with. In a kind of gloomy magnificence that was confined to my own estate, which inspired awe, but which repressed love or reverence, I passed my days in riding over the same track of ground which had no variety, and my nights in constant regrets for the loss of that consequence I was born to assume, but which the prodigality of my ancestors had compelled me to resign.

"One day, attended by several of my vassals, I was riding round the skirts of a wood which bounded my estate, when I was suddenly alarmed by quick and repeated shrieks that seemed to issue from the wood: I instantly rode to the side from whence the voice proceeded, and in a few moments perceived a carriage surrounded by four or five