FullReads

Stanton was thinking thus, when all power of thought was suspended, by seeing two persons bearing between them the body of a young, and apparently very lovely girl, who had been struck dead by the lightning. Stanton approached, and heard the voices of the bearers repeating, “There is none who will mourn for her!” “There is none who will mourn for her!” said other voices, as two more bore in their arms the blasted and blackened figure of what had once been a man, comely and graceful;–“there is not ONE to mourn for her now!” They were lovers, and he had been consumed by the flash that had destroyed her, while in the act of endeavoring to defend her. As they were about to remove the bodies, a person approached with a calmness of step and demeanor, as if he were alone unconscious of danger, and incapable of fear; and after looking on them for some time, burst into a laugh so loud, wild, and protracted, that the peasants, starting with as much horror at the sound as at that of the storm, hurried away, bearing the corpses with them. Even Stanton’s fears were subdued by his astonishment, and, turning to the stranger, who remained standing on the same spot, he asked the reason of such an outrage on humanity. The stranger, slowly turning round, and disclosing a countenance which–(Here the manuscript was illegible for a few lines), said in English–(A long hiatus followed here, and the next passage that was legible, though it proved to be a continuation of the narrative, was but a fragment.)

. . . . .

The terrors of the night rendered Stanton a sturdy and unappeasable applicant; and the shrill voice of the old woman, repeating, “no heretic–no English–Mother of God protect us–avaunt Satan!”– combined with the clatter of the wooden casement (peculiar to the houses in Valencia) which she opened to discharge her volley of anathematization, and shut again as the lightning glanced through the aperture, were unable to repel his importunate request for admittance, in a night whose terrors ought to soften all the miserable petty local passions into one awful feeling of fear for the Power who caused it, and compassion for those who were exposed to it.–But Stanton felt there was something more than national bigotry in the exclamations of the old woman; there was a peculiar and personal horror of the English.–And he was right; but this did not diminish the eagerness of his. . . .

. . . . .

The house was handsome and spacious, but the melancholy appearance of desertion . . . .

. . . . .

–The benches were by the wall, but there were none to sit there; the tables were spread in what had been the hall, but it seemed as if none had gathered round them for many years;–the clock struck audibly, there was no voice of mirth or of occupation to drown its sound; time told his awful lesson to silence alone;–the hearths were black with fuel long since consumed;–the family portraits looked as if they were the only tenants of the mansion; they seemed to say, from their moldering frames, “there are none to gaze on us;” and the echo of the steps of Stanton and his feeble guide, was the only sound audible between the peals of thunder that rolled still awfully, but more distantly,–every peal like the exhausted murmurs of a spent heart. As they passed on, a shriek was heard. Stanton paused, and fearful images of the dangers to which travelers on the Continent are exposed in deserted and remote habitations, came into his mind. “Don’t heed it,” said the old woman, lighting him on with a miserable lamp;–“it is only he. . . .