Chapter 9 - Page 2

behind; but, though a
considerable extent of the narrow, rocky, and grass-grown road was
visible, he was the only traveller there. Yet again he heard the sound,
which, he now discovered, proceeded from among the trees that lined the
roadside. Alighting, he entered the forest, with the intention, if the
steed proved to be disengaged, and superior to his own, of appropriating
him to his own use. He soon gained a view of the object he sought; but the
animal rendered a closer acquaintance unattainable, by immediately taking
to his heels. Fanshawe had, however, made a most interesting discovery;
for the horse was accoutred with a side-saddle; and who but Ellen Langton
could have been his rider? At this conclusion, though his perplexity was
thereby in no degree diminished, the student immediately arrived.
Returning to the road, and perceiving on the summit of the hill a cottage,
which he recognized as the one he had entered with Ellen and Edward
Walcott, he determined there to make inquiry respecting the objects of his
pursuit.

On reaching the door of the poverty-stricken dwelling, he saw that it was
not now so desolate of inmates as on his previous visit. In the single
inhabitable apartment were several elderly women, clad evidently in their
well-worn and well-saved Sunday clothes, and all wearing a deep grievous
expression of countenance. Fanshawe was not long in deciding that death
was within the cottage, and that these aged females were of the class who
love the house of mourning, because to them it is a house of feasting. It
is a fact, disgusting and lamentable, that the disposition which Heaven,
for the best of purposes, has implanted in the female breast--to watch by
the sick and comfort the afflicted--frequently becomes depraved into an
odious love of scenes of pain and death and sorrow. Such women are like
the Ghouls of the Arabian Tales, whose feasting was among tombstones and
upon dead carcasses.

(It is sometimes, though less frequently, the case, that this disposition
to make a "joy of grief" extends to individuals of the other sex. But in
us it is even less excusable and more disgusting, because it is our nature
to shun the sick and afflicted; and, unless restrained by principles other
than we bring into the world with us, men might follow the example of many
animals in destroying the infirm of their own species. Indeed, instances
of this nature might be adduced among savage nations.) Sometimes, however,
from an original _lusus naturae_, or from the influence of
circumstances, a man becomes a haunter of death-beds, a tormentor of
afflicted hearts, and a follower of funerals. Such an abomination now
appeared before Fanshawe, and beckoned him into the cottage. He was
considerably beyond the