be removed.

CHAPTER XIII
They told me, by the sentence of the law,
They had commission to seize all thy fortune.
Here stood a ruffian with a horrid face,
Lording it o'er a pile of massy plate,
Tumbled into a heap for public sale;
There was another, making villainous jests
At thy undoing; he had ta'en possession
Of all thy ancient most domestic ornaments.

OTWAY.

Early next morning Mannering mounted his horse and, accompanied by his
servant, took the road to Ellangowan. He had no need to inquire the way.
A sale in the country is a place of public resort and amusement, and
people of various descriptions streamed to it from all quarters.

After a pleasant ride of about an hour, the old towers of the ruin
presented themselves in the landscape. The thoughts, with what different
feelings he had lost sight of them so many years before, thronged upon
the mind of the traveller. The landscape was the same; but how changed
the feelings, hopes, and views of the spectator! Then life and love were
new, and all the prospect was gilded by their rays. And now, disappointed
in affection, sated with fame and what the world calls success, his mind,
goaded by bitter and repentant recollection, his best hope was to find a
retirement in which he might nurse the melancholy that was to accompany
him to his grave. 'Yet why should an individual mourn over the
instability of his hopes and the vanity of his prospects? The ancient
chiefs who erected these enormous and massive towers to be the fortress
of their race and the seat of their power,--could they have dreamed the
day was to come when the last of their descendants should be expelled, a
ruined wanderer, from his possessions! But Nature's bounties are
unaltered. The sun will shine as fair on these ruins, whether the
property of a stranger or of a sordid and obscure trickster of the abused
law, as when the banners of the founder first waved upon their
battlements.'

These reflections brought Mannering to the door of the house, which was
that day open to all. He entered among others, who traversed the
apartments, some to select articles for purchase, others to gratify their
curiosity. There is something melancholy in such a scene, even under the
most favourable circumstances. The confused state of the furniture,
displaced for the convenience of being easily viewed and carried off by
the purchasers, is disagreeable to the e