By Anna Maria Marianne Matilda Pottingen,
Author of the Bloody Bodkin, Sonnets on most of the Planets, &c. &c. &c.
Oh, Sophonisba, Sophonisba, oh!
Thompson.
CHAPTER I
Blow, blow, thou wintry wind.—Shakespeare.
Blow, breezes, blow.—Moore.
A Storm. — A rustic Repast. — An Alarm. — Uncommon readiness in a Child. — An inundated Stranger. — A Castle out of repair. — An impaired Character.
It was on a nocturnal night in autumnal October; the wet rain fell in liquid quantities, and the thunder rolled in an awful and Ossianly manner. The lowly, but peaceful inhabitants of a small, but decent cottage, were just sitting down to their homely, but wholesome supper, when a loud knocking at the door alarmed them. Bertram armed himself with a ladle. 'Lackadaisy!' cried old Margueritone, and little Billy seized the favourable moment to fill his mouth with meat. Innocent fraud! happy childhood!
The father's lustre and the mother's bloom.—Thompson.