Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (194 page)

“We shall do well to act upon this supposition,” replied Vivaldi, “but, though I am inclined to believe them emissaries from San Stefano, it is not improbable that they are only Carmelites returning to some convent on the lake of Celano.”

“I cannot hear a syllable, Signor,” said Paulo. “Pray do listen yourself! and there is not a single chink in this door to afford one consolation. Well! if ever I build a cottage, there shall be a window near— “ “Listen!” said Vivaldi.

“Not a single word, Signor!” cried Paulo, after a pause, “I do not even hear a voice! — But now I hear steps, and they are coming to the door, too; they shall find it no easy matter to open it, though;” he added, placing himself against it. “Ay, ay, you may knock, friend, till your arm aches, and kick and lay about you — no matter for that.”

“Silence! let us know who it is,” said Vivaldi; and the old shepherd’s voice was heard without. “They are gone, Signors,” said he, “you may open the door.”

“Which way did they go?” asked Vivaldi, when the man entered. “I cannot say, as to that, Signor, because I did not happen to see them at all; and I have been looking all about, too.”

“Why, I saw them myself, crossing this way from the wood yonder,” said Paulo.

“And there is nothing to shelter them from our view between the wood, and this cottage, friend,” added Vivaldi; “What can they have done with themselves?”

“For that matter, gone into the wood again, perhaps,” said the shepherd.

Paulo gave his master a significant look, and added, “It is likely enough, friend; and you may depend upon it they are lurking there for no good purpose, You will do well to send somebody to look after them; your flocks will suffer for it, else. Depend upon it, they design no good.”

“We are not used to such sort of folks in these parts,” replied the shepherd, “but if they mean any harm, they shall find we can help ourselves.” As he concluded, he took down a horn from the roof, and blew a shrill blast that made the mountains echo; when immediately the younger shepherds were seen running from various quarters towards the cottage.

“Do not be alarmed, friend,” said Vivaldi, “these travellers mean you no harm, I dare say, whatever they may design against us. But, as I think them suspicious persons, and should not like to overtake them on the road, I will reward one of your lads if you will let him go a little ways towards Celano, and examine whether they are lurking on that route.”

The old man consented, and, when the shepherds came up, one of them received directions from Vivaldi.

“And be sure you do not return, till you have found them,” added Paulo.

“No master,” replied the lad, “and I will bring them safe here, you may trust me.”

“If you do, friend, you will get your head broke for your trouble. You are only to discover where they are, and to watch where they go,” said Paulo.

Vivaldi, at length, made the lad comprehend what was required of him, and he departed; while the old shepherd went out to keep guard.

The time of his absence was passed in various conjectures by the party in the cabin, concerning the Carmelites. Vivaldi still inclined to believe they were honest people returning from a pilgrimage, but Paulo was decidedly against this opinion. “They are waiting for us on the road, you may depend upon it, Signor,” said the latter. “You may be certain they have some great design in hand, or they would never have turned their steps from this dairy-house when once they had spied it, and that they did spy it, we are sure.”

“But if they have in hand the great design you speak of, Paulo,” said Vivaldi, “it is probable that they have spied us also, by their taking this obscure road. Now it must have occurred to them when they saw a dairy-hut, in so solitary a region, that we might probably be found within — yet they have not examined. It appears, therefore, they have no design against us. What can you answer to this Paulo? I trust the apprehensions of Signora di Rosalba are unfounded.

“Why! do you suppose, Signor, they would attack us when we were safe housed, and had these good shepherds to lend us a helping hand? No, Signor, they would not even have shewn themselves, if they could have helped it; and being once sure we were here, they would skulk back to the woods, and lurk for us in the road they knew we must go, since, as it happens, there is only one.”

“How is it possible,” said Ellena, “that they can have discovered us here, since they did not approach the cabin to enquire.”

“They came near enough for their purpose, Signora, I dare say; and, if the truth were known, they spied my face looking at them through the lattice.”

“Come, come,” said Vivaldi, “you are an ingenious tormentor, indeed, Paulo. Do you suppose they saw enough of thy face last night by moonlight, in that dusky glen, to enable them to recollect it again at a distance of forty yards? Revive, my Ellena, I think every appearance is in our favour.”

“Would I could think so too!” said she, with a sigh.

“O! for that matter, Signora,” rejoined “Paulo, there is nothing to be afraid of; they should find tough work of it, if they thought proper to attack us, lady.”

“It is not an open attack that we have to fear,” replied Ellena, “but they may surround us with their snares, and defy resistance.”

However Vivaldi might accede to the truth of this remark, he would not appear to do so; but tried to laugh away her apprehensions; and Paulo was silenced for a while, by a significant look from his master.

The shepherd’s boy returned much sooner than they had expected, and he probably saved his time, that he might spare his labour, for he brought no intelligence of the Carmelites. “I looked for them among the woods along the road side in the hollow, yonder, too,” said the lad, “and then I mounted the hill further on, but I could see nothing of them far or near, nor of a single soul, except our goats, and some of them do stray wide enough, sometimes; they lead me a fine dance often. They sometimes, Signor, have wandered as far as Monte Nuvola, yonder, and got to the top of it, up among the clouds, and the crags, where I should break my neck if I climbed; and the rogues seemed to know it, too, for when they have seen me coming, scrambling up, pussing and blowing, they have ceased their capering, and stood peeping over a crag so fly, and so quiet, it seemed as if they were laughing at me; as much as to say, “Catch us if you can.”

Vivaldi, who during the latter part of this speech had been consulting with Ellena, whether they should proceed on their way immediately, asked the boy some further questions concerning the Carmelites; and becoming convinced that they had either not taken the road to Celano, or, having taken it, were at a considerable distance, he proposed setting out, and proceeding leisurely, “For I have now little apprehension of these people,” he added, “and a great deal lest night should overtake us before we reach the place of our destination, since the road is mountainous and wild, and, further, we are not perfectly acquainted with it.”

Ellena approving the plan, they took leave of the good shepherd, who could with difficulty be prevailed with to accept any recompence for his trouble, and who gave them some further directions as to the road; and their way was long cheered by the sound of the tabor and the sweetness of the hautboy, wafted over the wild.

When they descended into the woody hollow mentioned by the boy, Ellena sent forth many an anxious look beneath the deep shade; while Paulo, sometimes silent, and at others whistling and singing loudly, as if to overcome his fears, peeped under every bough that crossed the road, expecting to discover his friends the Carmelites lurking within its gloom.

Having emerged from this valley, the road lay over mountains covered with flocks, for it was now the season when they had quitted the plains of Apulia, to feed upon the herbage for which this region is celebrated; and it was near sun-set, when, from a summit to which the travellers had long been ascending, the whole lake of Celano, with its vast circle of mountains, burst at once upon their view.

“Ah Signor!” exclaimed Paulo, “what a prospect is here! It reminds me of home; it is almost as pleasant as the bay of Naples! I should never love it like that though, if it were an hundred times finer.

The travellers stopped to admire the scene, and to give their horses rest, after the labour of the ascent. The evening sun, shooting athwart a clear expanse of water, between eighteen and twenty leagues in circumference, lighted up all the towns and villages, and towered castles, and spiry convents, that enriched the rising shores; brought out all the various tints of cultivation, and coloured with beamy purple the mountains which on every side formed the majestic background of the landscape. Vivaldi pointed out to Ellena the gigantic Velino in the north, a barrier mountain, between the territories of Rome and Naples. Its peaked head towered far above every neighbouring summit, and its white precipices were opposed to the verdant points of the Majella, snow crowned, and next in altitude, loved by the socks. Westward, near woody hills, and rising immediately from the lake, appeared Monte Salviano, covered with wild sage, as its name imports, and once pompous with forests of chestnuts, a branch from the Appemine extended to meet it. “See,” said Vivaldi, “where Monte Corno stands like a ruffian, huge, feared, threatening, and horrid! — and in the south, where the sullen mountain of San Nicolo shoots up, barren and rocky! From inhence, mark how other overtopping ridges of the mighty Aperinine darken the horizon far along the east, and to circle approach the Vehinon the north!” “Mark too,” said Ellena, “how sweetly the banks and undulating plains repose at the feet of the mountains, what an image of beauty and elegance they oppose to the awful grandeur that overlooks and guards them! Observe, too, how many a delightful valley, opening from the lake, spreads its rice and corn fields, shaded with groves of the almond, far among the winding hills; how gaily vineyards and olives alternately chequer the anclivities, and how gracefully the lofty palms bend over the higher cliffs.”

“Ay, Signora!” exclaimed Paulo, “and have the goodness to observe how like are the fishing boats, that sail towards the hamlet below, to those one sees upon the bay of Naples. They are worth all the rest of the prospect, except indeed this fine sheet of water, which is almost as good as the bay, and that mountain, with its sharp head, which is almost as good as Vesuvius — if it would but throw out fire!”

“We must despair of finding a mountain in this neighbourhood, so good as to do that, Paulo,” said Vivaldi, smiling at this stroke of nationality; “though, perhaps, many that we now see, have once been volcanic.”

“I honour them for that, Signor; and look at them with double satisfaction; but our mountain is the only mountain in the world. O! to see it of a dark night! what a blazing it makes! and what a height it will shoot to! and what a light it throws over the sea! No other mountain can do so. It seems as if the waves were all on fire. I have seen the reflection as far off as Capri, trembling all across the gulf, and shewing every vessel as plain as at noon day; ay, and every sailor on the deck. You never saw such a sight, Signor.”

“Why you do, indeed, seem to have forgotten that I ever did, Paulo, and also that a volcano can do any mischief. But let us return, Ellena, to the scene before us. Yonder, a mile or two within the shore, is the town of Celano, whither we are going.”

The clearness of an Italian atmosphere permitted him to discriminate the minute through very distant features of the landscape; and on an eminence rising from the plains of a valley opening to the west, he pointed out the modern Alba, crowned with the ruins of its ancient castle, still visible upon the splendor of the horizon, the prison and tomb of many a Prince, who, “fallen from his high estate,” was sent from Imperial Rome to finish here the sad reverse of his days; to gaze from the bars of his tower upon solitudes where beauty or grandeur administered no assuaging feelings to him, whose life had passed amidst the intrigues of the world, and the feverish contentions of disappointed ambition; to him, with whom reflection brought only remorse, and anticipation despair; whom “no horizontal beam enlivened in the crimson evening of life’s dusty day.”

“And to such a scene as this,” said Vivaldi, “a Roman Emperor came, only for the purpose of witnessing the most barbarous exhibition; to indulge the most savage delights! Here, Claudius celebrated the accomplishment of his arduous work, an aqueduct to carry the overflowing waters of the Celano to Rome, by a naval fight, in which hundreds of wretched slaves perished for his amusement! Its pure and polished surface was stained with human blood, and roughened by the plunging bodies of the slain, while the gilded gallies of the Emperor floated gaily around, and these beautiful shores were made to echo with applauding yells, worthy of the furies!”

“We scarcely dare to trust the truth of history, in some of its traits of human nature,” said Ellena.

“Signor,” cried Paulo, “I have been thinking that while we are taking the air, so much at our ease, here, those Carmelites may be spying at us from some hole or corner that we know nothing of, and may swoop upon us, all of a sudden, before we can help ourselves. Had we not better go on, Signor?”

“Our horses are, perhaps, sufficiently rested,” replied Vivaldi, “but, if I had not long since dismissed all suspicion of the evil intention of those strangers, I should not willingly have stopped for a moment.”

“But pray let us proceed,” said Ellena.

“Ay, Signora, it is best to be of the safe side,” observed Paulo. “Yonder, below, is Celano, and I hope we shall get safe housed there, before it is quite dark, for here we have no mountain, that will light us on our way! Ah! if we were but within twenty miles of Naples, now, — and it was an illumination night!” —