Dick, threading the skirts of these skirmishers, led his followers
briskly in the direction of the abbey church; but when he came the
length of the main street, a cry of horror broke from his lips.
Sir Daniel's great house had been carried by assault. The gates
hung in splinters from the hinges, and a double throng kept pouring
in and out through the entrance, seeking and carrying booty.
Meanwhile, in the upper storeys, some resistance was still being
offered to the pillagers; for just as Dick came within eyeshot of
the building, a casement was burst open from within, and a poor
wretch in murrey and blue, screaming and resisting, was forced
through the embrasure and tossed into the street below.
The most sickening apprehension fell upon Dick. He ran forward
like one possessed, forced his way into the house among the
foremost, and mounted without pause to the chamber on the third
floor where he had last parted from Joanna. It was a mere wreck;
the furniture had been overthrown, the cupboards broken open, and
in one place a trailing corner of the arras lay smouldering on the
embers of the fire.
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