midnight
But the honours of the Bellersdale family were speedily tarnished . A spendthrift successor squandered all the revenues which he could touch ; and the last time I visited that part of the country , the splendid mansion of Bellersdale Castle was stripped of all its movables ; the collections of many years of aristocratic pride -- the pictures , the statues , the very board destined for baronial hospitality -- were all brought to the hammer for payment of a tailor 's bill for gewgaws to grace a court pageant ; and the nominal inheritor of the wide domains and honours of his lordship 's house , is an obscure and useless , though good-natured dependent upon Hebrew usurers and Gentile pettifoggers -- a mere cumberer of the ground -- a sycophant of the vulgar ! I need not point the moral of my tale . `` The desert gave him visions wild -- The midnight wind came wild and dread , Swell 'd with the voices of the dead ; Far on the future battle-heath His eye beheld the ranks of death : Thus the lone seer , from mankind hurl 'd , Shap 'd forth a disembodied world . '' SCOTT . In a certain wild and romantic glen in the Highlands of Scotland , there is a cave opening beneath the brow of a huge overhanging cliff , and half concealed by wreathed roots and wild festoons of brier and woodbine . Several indistinct traditions remain of this cave 's having been , in former days , the abode of more than one holy hermit and gifted seer .