It was so large that
they were able to lead their horses within its protection and wait the
cessation of the rain.
Between the flashes the sky was intensely dark, but they were almost
incessant, and revealed the city of the dead in which they had found
refuge. It was an ancient Welsh town, and in the latter years of the
deadly struggle with the English, had been taken after a protracted
resistance. Tradition had not even preserved its name, and only stated
that every living soul had perished in the massacre when the outer walls
were at length stormed and the town given to fire and sword. The
victors, as was frequently the case, had avoided the spot, preferring to
build elsewhere, and, like Silchester or Anderida, it had fallen into
desolation such as befell mighty Babylon.
And now the ignorant rustic peopled its buildings with the imaginary
forms of doleful creatures, and shunned the fatal precincts where once
family love and social affections had flourished; where hearts, long
mouldered to dust, had beaten with tender affection, where all the
little circumstances which make up life--the trivial round, the common
task--had gone on beneath the summer's sun or winter's storm, till the
great convulsion which ended the existence of the whole community.
Dunstan noticed that his whole party crowded closely together, and when
the lightning illuminated each face saw that fear had left its visible mark.
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