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The Mysteries of Udolpho

Page 316

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,

Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,

Lingering, and sitting, by a new-made grave.

MILTON

On the following day, Montoni sent a second excuse to Emily, who was

surprised at the circumstance. 'This is very strange!' said she to

herself. 'His conscience tells him the purport of my visit, and he

defers it, to avoid an explanation.' She now almost resolved to throw

herself in his way, but terror checked the intention, and this day

passed, as the preceding one, with Emily, except that a degree of awful

expectation, concerning the approaching night, now somewhat disturbed

the dreadful calmness that had pervaded her mind.

Towards evening, the second part of the band, which had made the first

excursion among the mountains, returned to the castle, where, as they

entered the courts, Emily, in her remote chamber, heard their loud

shouts and strains of exultation, like the orgies of furies over

some horrid sacrifice. She even feared they were about to commit some

barbarous deed; a conjecture from which, however, Annette soon relieved

her, by telling, that the people were only exulting over the plunder

they had brought with them.

This circumstance still further confirmed

her in the belief, that Montoni had really commenced to be a captain of

banditti, and meant to retrieve his broken fortunes by the plunder of

travellers! Indeed, when she considered all the circumstances of his

situation--in an armed, and almost inaccessible castle, retired far

among the recesses of wild and solitary mountains, along whose distant

skirts were scattered towns, and cities, whither wealthy travellers were

continually passing--this appeared to be the situation of all others

most suited for the success of schemes of rapine, and she yielded to

the strange thought, that Montoni was become a captain of robbers. His

character also, unprincipled, dauntless, cruel and enterprising, seemed

to fit him for the situation. Delighting in the tumult and in the

struggles of life, he was equally a stranger to pity and to fear; his

very courage was a sort of animal ferocity; not the noble impulse of

a principle, such as inspirits the mind against the oppressor, in the

cause of the oppressed; but a constitutional hardiness of nerve, that

cannot feel, and that, therefore, cannot fear.

Emily's supposition, however natural, was in part erroneous, for she was

a stranger to the state of this country and to the circumstances, under

which its frequent wars were partly conducted. The revenues of the many

states of Italy being, at that time, insufficient to the support of

standing armies, even during the short periods, which the turbulent

habits both of the governments and the people permitted to pass in

peace, an order of men arose not known in our age, and but faintly

described in the history of their own. Of the soldiers, disbanded at

the end of every war, few returned to the safe, but unprofitable

occupations, then usual in peace. Sometimes they passed into other

countries, and mingled with armies, which still kept the field.

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