The Mysteries of Udolpho

Over the beautiful plains of this country the devastations of war

were frequently visible. Where the lands had not been suffered to lie

uncultivated, they were often tracked with the steps of the spoiler;

the vines were torn down from the branches that had supported them, the

olives trampled upon the ground, and even the groves of mulberry trees

had been hewn by the enemy to light fires that destroyed the hamlets and

villages of their owners. Emily turned her eyes with a sigh from

these painful vestiges of contention, to the Alps of the Grison, that

overlooked them to the north, whose awful solitudes seemed to offer to

persecuted man a secure asylum.

The travellers frequently distinguished troops of soldiers moving at

a distance; and they experienced, at the little inns on the road, the

scarcity of provision and other inconveniences, which are a part of

the consequence of intestine war; but they had never reason to be much

alarmed for their immediate safety, and they passed on to Milan with

little interruption of any kind, where they staid not to survey the

grandeur of the city, or even to view its vast cathedral, which was then

building. Beyond Milan, the country wore the aspect of a ruder devastation; and

though every thing seemed now quiet, the repose was like that of

death, spread over features, which retain the impression of the last

convulsions. It was not till they had passed the eastern limits of the Milanese, that

the travellers saw any troops since they had left Milan, when, as the

evening was drawing to a close, they descried what appeared to be an

army winding onward along the distant plains, whose spears and other

arms caught the last rays of the sun. As the column advanced through

a part of the road, contracted between two hillocks, some of the

commanders, on horseback, were distinguished on a small eminence,

pointing and making signals for the march; while several of the officers

were riding along the line directing its progress, according to the

signs communicated by those above; and others, separating from the

vanguard, which had emerged from the pass, were riding carelessly along

the plains at some distance to the right of the army.

As they drew nearer, Montoni, distinguishing the feathers that waved

in their caps, and the banners and liveries of the bands that followed

them, thought he knew this to be the small army commanded by the famous

captain Utaldo, with whom, as well as with some of the other chiefs, he

was personally acquainted. He, therefore, gave orders that the carriages

should draw up by the side of the road, to await their arrival, and

give them the pass. A faint strain of martial music now stole by, and,

gradually strengthening as the troops approached, Emily distinguished

the drums and trumpets, with the clash of cymbals and of arms, that were

struck by a small party, in time to the march.