Page:Glenarvon (Volume 1).djvu/20

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seen, whilst Heremon and Inis Tara, raising their lofty summits, capped with snow, soar above the clouds.

The abbey of Belfont, and the priory of St. Alvin, both the property of the Glenarvon family, were now, in consequence of the forfeiture of the late Earl of that name, transferred to Lord de Ruthven, a distant relation. The deserted priory had fallen into ruin, and Belfont abbey, as yet unclaimed by its youthful master, and pillaged by the griping hand of its present owner, exhibited a melancholy picture of neglect and oppression.—No cheerful fires blaze in its ancient halls; no peasants and vassals feast under its vaulted roofs.—Glenarvon, the hero, the lord of the demesne is dead:—he fell on the bloody field of Culloden:—his son perished in exile:—and Clarence de Ruthven, his grandson, an orphan, in a foreign land, has never yet appeared to petition for his attainted titles and forfeited estates.—Of relations and of friends he has never heard.