The table had been smashed as by the blow of an axe, and pewter dishes were everywhere.

The bed in one corner had been stripped of its coverlets, many of them slashed by a knife, and the straw tick had been ripped open in a dozen places.

Coals from the fireplace lay widespread, some of them having eaten deeply into the hard wood before they ceased smouldering.
I saw all this, yet my eyes rested upon something else.

A man lay, bent double across an overturned bench, in a posture which hid his face from view.

His body was there alone, although a child's shoe lay on the floor, and a woman's linsey dress dangled from a hook against the wall.