&utnel) FtUagc* in tlje Xcfo jfpoust. 153 



to rest beside the walls. He who passed the next day 

 over the wide waste, saw only ruins black with smoke, 

 trampled fields, and dismantled churches. Here and 

 there broken implements of husbandry met the view, 

 and beside them, not unfrequently, the corpse of him 

 who had dared to resist the harsh mandate of the Con- 

 queror. Females, too, had fallen to the earth in their 

 terror and distress, and young children were in their 

 death-sleep, among the tufts of flowers where they had 

 sported the day before. Many stately buildings were 

 pulled down at once ; others, having their roofs thrown 

 open, were left to be destroyed by the weather, and 

 hence it not seldom happened that a stranger, in passing 

 through a meadow into one of those shady coverts, which 

 still varied the aspect of the country, forgetting, in the 

 freshness and the loveliness of all around him, the 

 terrible undoings of previous days, might see through the 

 undulating branches of the trees, the walls or roofs of 

 houses, which looked as if they had escaped the general 

 ruin. They stood, apparently, in the midst of cultivated 

 fields, occasionally by the road side, and their pointed 

 roofe were covered with the vine* or honeysuckle. On a 

 nearer approach the illusion vanished, not a sound dis- 

 turbed the silence of the place ; the houses which looked 

 so inviting when seen at a short distance, showed that the 

 hand of ruin had done its work. The doors were broken 

 open, the windows dashed in, the roofs were open to the 

 winds of heaven, and the little gardens overrun with 



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