It was difficult to conceive a scene more silent and more desolate.
There was no sign of life, and not a sound save the occasional
cawing of a rook. Advancing towards the abbey, they passed a pile of
buildings that, in the summer, might be screened from sight by the
foliage of a group of elms, too scanty at present to veil their
desolation. Wide gaps in the roof proved that the vast and dreary
stables were no longer used; there were empty granaries, whose doors
had fallen from their hinges; the gate of the courtyard was prostrate
on the ground; and the silent clock that once adorned the cupola over
the noble entrance arch, had long lost its index. Even the litter of
the yard appeared dusty and grey with age. You felt sure no human foot
could have disturbed it for years. At the back of these buildings were
nailed the trophies of the gamekeeper: hundreds of wild cats, dried to
blackness, stretched their downward heads and legs from the mouldering
wall; hawks, magpies, and jays hung in tattered remnants! but all
grey, and even green, with age; and the heads of birds in plenteous
rows, nailed beak upward, and so dried and shrivelled by the suns and
winds and frosts of many seasons, that their distinctive characters
were lost.
'Do you know, my good Pauncefort,' said Lady Annabel, 'that I have
an odd fancy to-day to force an entrance into the old abbey.
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