To this attractive catalogue the preceptor husband, no doubt, listened with the expression of Crabbe's Old Bachelor:
"that kind of cool, contemptuous smile
Of witty persons overcharged with bile,"
but she at least succeeds in interrupting his flow of information for the time being. He retires routed. Crabbe's close acquaintance with "the flowery pages of sublime distress," with "vengeful monks who play unpriestly tricks," with banditti
"who, in forest wide Or cavern vast, indignant virgins hide,"
was, as he confesses, a relic of those unregenerate days, when
"To the heroine's soul-distracting fears
I early gave my sixpences and tears."[108]
He could have groped his way through a Gothic castle without the aid of a talkative housekeeper:
"I've watched a wintry night on castle-walls,
I've stalked by moonlight through deserted halls,
And when the weary world was sunk to rest
I've had such sights—as may not be expressed.
Lo! that chateau, the western tower decayed,
The peasants shun it—they are all afraid;
For there was done a deed—could walls reveal
Or timbers tell it, how the heart would feel!
"Most horrid was it—for, behold, the floor
Has stain of blood—and will be clean no more.
Hark to the winds! which through the wide saloon
And the long passage send a dismal tune,
Music that ghosts delight in—and now heed
Yon beauteous nymph, who must unmask the deed.
See! with majestic sweep she swims alone
Through rooms, all dreary, guided by a groan,
Though windows rattle and though tap'stries shake
And the feet falter every step they take.
Mid groans and gibing sprites she silent goes
To find a something which will soon expose
The villainies and wiles of her determined foes,
And having thus adventured, thus endured,
Fame, wealth, and lover, are for life secured."[109]
Crabbe's Ellen Orford in The Borough (1810) is drawn from life, and in grim and bitter irony is intended as a contrast to these timorous and triumphant creatures