CHAPTER THE FIRST.
A SILVERY MOON AND A CLOUDLESS SKY.
THE AGED DAME OF THE COT ON THE HILLSIDE LEARNS THE MYSTERY OF AN UNFASTENED DOUBLET.
“Night among the mountains—oh, glorious and beautiful!” arose the voice of the Wanderer, as with one bold grasp he attained the topmost rock of the hoary steep, rising far above forest and stream—“Night among the mountains—the calm moonbeams sleeping on the lake—the boundless azure arching above—the rolling sweep of forest and the rugged outline of precipice and steep—the far-off convent, its towers looming through the distance, like a cloud of evil omen—Night among the mountains, glorious and grand and beautiful!
“Thank God for the breeze, the cool and freshening breeze! It sweeps over my forehead, burning as with the ravages of hidden flame, it bears the fever from my cheek, and the madness from my brain. And yet I must on, and on—afar I behold the peaceful cot, appearing amid the luxuriance of the hill-side vines—my steed lays bleeding and dead in the vale below, still must I on, and on!
“God of Heaven, will that face never depart from my soul, the brow darkened by superhuman hate, the eyes all aflame with the Curse of the Fratricide, the white lips, and the sunken jaws; with the blood oozing from every pore! Even now I behold the face! And to her ear—help me Saints of Light—to her ear must I bear the manner of his doom!
“The moon shines in the heavens, calm and beautiful—when the mild radiance of her beams pales before the glory of the uprising sun—then, then, will the angels of fate, write in the books of the Unknown, the Doom of Adrian, the last of the race of Albarone!”
And as the words broke murmuring from his lips, he flung his form from the summit of the steep, and grasping with eager hands the point of each projecting rock, at last descended to the bed of the valley, and sped onward on his errand of woe, while higher in the heavens up rose the moon.
High in the heavens arose the full orbed moon, and calm and lovely was the sight, as enthroned in the very zenith of the boundless azure, this thing of beauty and of beams, shed a shower of silver radiance down on the silent bosom of the quiet vale, mirroring her rounded glory in the deep waters of the mountain lake, giving a ghastly lustre to the white precipice, from whose foundations arose the walls of the lonely convent, mossy with age and darkened by time.
In this wide world of ours—so runs the wild rhapsody of the Chronicler of the ancient MSS.—in this wide world of ours, there are, I ween, many things sublime and beautiful and grand, yet what sight may compare with a cloudless heaven, a silvery moon and a lovely extent of woody hills and grassy vales? Never minstrel struck harp—never romancer spoke the fancies of his brain, that did not hymn thy praise, O! beauteous thing of brilliance and of beams! For ages and for ages thou hast held thy way of glory through the arching heavens—thou hast looked down upon warriors marching in all their pomp, and thou hast beheld their withered forms strewn over the battle plain;—lovers have poured forth their love beneath thy light, and again thou hast looked down upon their quiet graves;—nations have risen and fallen;—monuments that gave promise of eternal duration, have crumbled in the dust;—cities have towered in deserts, and deserts have won the place of gorgeous cities, yet still kind nurturer of holy thoughts, inspirer of heavenly fancies, yet still thou passest on in thy course of light, and thus, with brilliance unpaling and unpaled, glorious as when God first bade thee roll through the azure expanse, thou shalt urge thy way until the final trump of doom.
Arising in the calm moonbeams, the roof of the lonely cottage gave its wreathing vines, all gay with flowers, to the motion of the night air, while the gleam of a taper, shooting from a crevice of the closed lattice, varied the shadows which darkened over one side of the tenement, by a single thread of light.
Meanwhile the beams of the taper gave light to the principal chamber of the cottage, where the stately mother of Leone the student, sate wrapt in deep meditation.