the gate and bid my squires to follow, and, in front of the old flag tower, I cut with a spade three square feet of green sod into a barrier for my feet, in the once happy nursery—­the mother’s joyful upstairs parlour—­the only room now standing, and quite roofless.  I found not a voice to cheer me, nothing but naked plasterless walls; a hearth with no frame of iron; the little chapel which contains the sacred tombs of the silent dead, and the dishonoured ashes of my grandsires.

“All here is in a death-like repose, no living thing save a few innocent pigeons, half wild; but there has been a tremendous confusion, a wild and wilful uproar of rending, and a crash of headlong havoc, every angle is surrounded with desolation, and the whole is a monument of state vengeance and destruction.  But here is the land—­the home of my fathers—­which I have been robbed of; this is a piece of the castle, and the room in which they lived, and talked, and walked, and smiled, and were cradled and watched with tender affection.  You never saw this old tower nearer than from the road; the walls of it are three feet or more in some parts thick, and of rough stone inside.  The floor of this room where I am writing this scrawl is verdure, and damp with the moisture from heaven.  It has not even beams left for a ceiling, and the stairs up to it are scarcely passible; but I am truly thankful that all the little articles I brought are now up in this room, and no accident to my men.

“Radcliffe’s flag is once more raised! and the portraits of my grandfather and great-grandfather are here, back again to Devilstone Castle (alias Dilstone), and hung on each side of this roofless room, where both their voices once sounded.  Oh! as I gaze calmly on these mute warders on the walls, I cannot paint you my feelings of the sense of injustice and wrong, a refining, a resenting sorrow—­my heart bleeds at the thought of the cruel axe, and I am punished for its laws that no longer exist.  I pray not to be horror-stricken at the thoughts of the past ambition and power of princes who cast destruction over our house, and made us spectacles of barbarity.  But, nevertheless, many great and Christian men the Lord hath raised out of the house of Radcliffe, who have passed away; and now, oh!  Father of Heaven! how wonderfully hast Thou spared the remnant of my house, a defenceless orphan, to whom no way is open but to Thy Fatherly heart.  Now Thou hast brought me here, what still awaits me?  ’Leave Thou me not; let me never forget Thee.  Thou hast girded me with strength into the battle.  I will not therefore fear what man can do unto me.’

“These are my thoughts and resolutions.  But I am struggling with the associations of this lone, lone hearth—­with no fire, no father, no mother, sister or brother left—­the whole is heartrending.  I quit you now, my kind friends; I am blind with tears, but this is womanly weakness.