Constant friction produces on the mind the same effect that it does on the body—a rankling sore, more painful than the result of one sharp blow. A few affectionate words, a filial embrace, had often seemed sufficient reparation for an ebullition of hasty temper; love readily forgets and forgives; but when the conduct repented of to-day is repeated tomorrow, when hastiness becomes habitual, when pride and self-will gain increasing strength, what wonder if a feeling of resentment mingle even with maternal affection?
Mrs. Cleveland was in a state of nervous irritation, and not disposed to meet the constrained advances of her son. Deeply mortified by her silence, vexed with his mother, but far more vexed with himself, Horace again threw himself back in the carriage. No enjoyment could he find in surveying the exquisite landscape around him, over which the beams of the setting sun were now throwing a golden glory.
[CHAPTER IV.]
SEPARATION.
Scarcely had the upper rim of the golden sun dipped below the horizon, when the dark curtain of night was thrown over the landscape, spangled with tremulous stars. Horace was startled from his disagreeable reflections by what seemed almost like sudden darkness; and Mrs. Cleveland became yet more nervously alive to the dangers of the road, when she could no longer see their approach.
Having reached the bottom of a long, steep hill, Jacomo got down from his seat, and lit the carriage lamps. In reply to the lady's anxious question as to whether it would not yet be better to go back, he replied that it would now be as easy to proceed to Staiti as to return to the inn, for the road down which they had just descended was one fitted for goats rather than for horses. Jacomo muttered and: grumbled a good deal, as he remounted his seat, about the folly of having started at all; and words, though but half understood, did not tend reassure Mrs. Cleveland.
The momentary glare which the lamps threw in passing on gray rock, or gloomy thicket, seemed to make the darkness beyond more deep and oppressive; and the jingle of the horse-bells, and rumble of the wheels, but drearily broke the stillness of that unfrequented road.
Horace knew well that his mother was in an agony of nervous alarm, dreading to catch sight of a bandit behind every bush; and notwithstanding his natural courage, he began in some measure to share her apprehensions. Raphael's warning rang in his ears—and the more vividly memory recalled the countenance of him who had given it, the more Horace wondered at himself for having allowed so little weight to his words. Horace had often longed for an adventure; but night traveling through a wild and desolate country, known to be infested by robbers, has in it more of romance than of pleasure even to one of courageous spirit.
The road now lay through the deep recesses of a wood, where the boughs, meeting and intermingling above, formed an arch over the way, and blotted out from view the few stars that had gleamed in the sky.
Suddenly there was heard the sharp report of a pistol, which made Mrs. Cleveland start and shriek. The next moment, the horses were thrown violently back upon their haunches, and the lamplight dimly showed indistinct forms glancing like phantoms through the darkness. Then came wild, fierce faces at the window; the door was forced open and the travelers dragged out of the carriage almost before they had time to be certain that all was not some terrible dream!