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 woodwax.
There are few such prospects of town and village, woodland and
cultivated field, steeples and country seats, as we beheld from this
unhappy spot.
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