They stared on each other, and on the bloody
work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain
steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices
sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they
saw, while their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they
had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep.
Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned
cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there
occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed
much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence,
had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been
supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The
daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and
distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of
struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more
readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm
concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father
sinking under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all
the fury she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their
figures disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so
dreadfully agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom
she had seen before.
Pages:
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496