Though with feminine susceptibility, my companions caught all the
melancholy associations of the scene, yet these could but imperfectly
overcome the gayety of girlish spirits. Their emotions came and went
with quick vicissitude, and sometimes combined to form a peculiar and
delicious excitement, the mirth brightening the gloom into a sunny shower
of feeling, and a rainbow in the mind. My own more sombre mood was
tinged by theirs. With now a merry word and next a sad one, we trod
among the tangled weeds, and almost hoped that our feet would sink into
the hollow of a witch's grave. Such vestiges were to be found within the
memory of man, but have vanished now, and with them, I believe, all
traces of the precise spot of the executions. On the long and broad
ridge of the eminence, there is no very decided elevation of any one
point, nor other prominent marks, except the decayed stumps of two trees,
standing near each other, and here and there the rocky substance of the
hill, peeping just above the wood-wax.
There are few such prospects of town and village, woodland and cultivated
field, steeples and country seats, as we beheld from this unhappy spot.
No blight had fallen on old Essex; all was prosperity and riches,
healthfully distributed.
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