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They were shattered, hollow, and moss-grown, it is true, and their "leafy honors" were nearly departed; but like mouldering towers they were noble and picturesque in their decay, and gave evidence, even in their ruins, of their ancient grandeur.
Here is the sacred spot where Millet's saintly old grandmother was laid to rest. A rough stone wall surrounds the churchyard, as old and moss-grown as the building itself. Some stone steps leading into the yard are hollowed by the feet of many generations of worshippers. In the rear is a low stone house embowered in trees.
And it was from a merry evening there that, with a "tumbler" or two inside his ample waistcoat, he set out for home one black February night when a gusty wind drove thin sleety rain rattling against the window panes of the quiet little town, and emptied the silent, moss-grown streets very effectively.
The new prison was, as I have said, a castle, or to speak more precisely, the ruins of one. It had once been a place of considerable dimensions and of great strength; but it was now far gone towards demolition. The outer walls still stood, completely encircled by a moat, the only entrance being by way of the drawbridge which, to judge by its moss-grown edges, had not been raised for many a day.
We appointed meetings in one of these straggling rooms, and from there would go to the "I don't know where" or the "As you please" of fancy. From the attic where I was supposed to be playing scales, I could see a labyrinth of roofs, sheds, lofts, and slopes, all covered with moss-grown tiles and decorated with broken chimneys, offering a vast field for new explorations. So on the roof we went.
With such criticisms on the occupations of those by whom the ruins had been formerly possessed, they wandered for some time from one moss-grown shrine to another, under the guidance of Oldbuck, who explained, with much plausibility, the ground-plan of the edifice, and read and expounded to the company the various mouldering inscriptions which yet were to be traced upon the tombs of the dead, or under the vacant niches of the sainted images.
A cool breezed fanned his face, and he knew that he was approaching the Thames. Ten more paces and he came to the bank. In his weak condition the short run had exhausted him. His bruised throat was throbbing painfully, and he experienced some difficulty in breathing. He leaned up against the moss-grown wall, looking back into the darkness of the lane. No one was in sight.
Ye see," said the old man, setting down his basket, and seating himself with great nicety on the moss-grown doorstep, "ye see, 't were a tur'ble storm that night rain, and wind, wi' every now an' then a gert, cracklin' flame o' lightnin'. I mind I'd been up to th' farm a-courtin' o' Nancy Brent she 'm dead now, poor lass, years an' years ago, but she were a fine, buxom maid in those days, d'ye see.
Brown figures, with gay sarong and turbaned headgear, bring bamboo buckets to moss-grown wells, gray water-buffaloes crop marshy herbage, a little bronze-hued figure seated on each broad back, and busy workers stand knee-deep in slush, to transplant emerald blades of rice or to gather the yellow crops, for seedtime and harvest go on together in this fertile land.
By ten o'clock that morning, Arthur, his dog, and his portmanteau, had all arrived together in front of the Abbey House. Before his feet had touched the moss-grown gravel, the hall-door was flung open, and Angela appeared to welcome him, looking, as old Sam the ostler forcibly put it afterwards to his helper, "just like a hangel with the wings off."
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