Ernest Maltravers, Complete

SOME four miles distant from one of our northern manufacturing towns, in the year 18-, was a wide and desolate common; a more dreary spot it is impossible to conceive-the herbage grew up in sickly patches from the midst of a black and stony soil. Not a tree was to be seen in the whole of the comfortless expanse. Nature herself had seemed to desert the solitude, as if scared by the ceaseless din of the neighbouring forges; and even Art, which presses all things into service, had disdained to cull use or beauty from these unpromising demesnes.