第24章

St.Aubert was silent; Emily perceived a warm tear fall upon the hand he held; she knew the object of his thoughts; hers too had, for some time, been occupied by the remembrance of her mother.He seemed by an effort to rouse himself.'Yes,' said he, with an half-suppressed sigh, 'the memory of those we love--of times for ever past! in such an hour as this steals upon the mind, like a strain of distant music in the stillness of night;--all tender and harmonious as this landscape, sleeping in the mellow moon-light.' After the pause of a moment, St.Aubert added, 'I have always fancied, that I thought with more clearness, and precision, at such an hour than at any other, and that heart must be insensible in a great degree, that does not soften to its influence.But many such there are.'

Valancourt sighed.

'Are there, indeed, many such?' said Emily.

'a few years hence, my Emily,' replied St.Aubert, 'and you may smile at the recollection of that question--if you do not weep to it.But come, I am somewhat refreshed, let us proceed.'

Having emerged from the woods, they saw, upon a turfy hillock above, the convent of which they were in search.A high wall, that surrounded it, led them to an ancient gate, at which they knocked;1

They had not descended half way down the cliffs, before they heard the voice of the muleteer echoing far and wide.Sometimes he called on St.Aubert, and sometimes on Valancourt; who having, at length, convinced him that he had nothing to fear either for himself, or his master; and having disposed of him, for the night, in a cottage on the skirts of the woods, returned to sup with his friends, on such sober fare as the monks thought it prudent to set before them.While St.Aubert was too much indisposed to share it, Emily, in her anxiety for her father, forgot herself; and Valancourt, silent and thoughtful, yet never inattentive to them, appeared particularly solicitous to accommodate and relieve St.Aubert, who often observed, while his daughter was pressing him to eat, or adjusting the pillow she had placed in the back of his arm-chair, that Valancourt fixed on her a look of pensive tenderness, which he was not displeased to understand.

They separated at an early hour, and retired to their respective apartments.Emily was shown to hers by a nun of the convent, whom she was glad to dismiss, for her heart was melancholy, and her attention so much abstracted, that conversation with a stranger was painful.She thought her father daily declining, and attributed his present fatigue more to the feeble state of his frame, than to the difficulty of the journey.A train of gloomy ideas haunted her mind, till she fell asleep.

In about two hours after, she was awakened by the chiming of a bell, and then heard quick steps pass along the gallery, into which her chamber opened.She was so little accustomed to the manners of a convent, as to be alarmed by this circumstance; her fears, ever alive for her father, suggested that he was very ill, and she rose in haste to go to him.Having paused, however, to let the persons in the gallery pass before she opened her door, her thoughts, in the mean time, recovered from the confusion of sleep, and she understood that the bell was the call of the monks to prayers.It had now ceased, and, all being again still, she forbore to go to St.Aubert's room.

Her mind was not disposed for immediate sleep, and the moon-light, that shone into her chamber, invited her to open the casement, and look out upon the country.

It was a still and beautiful night, the sky was unobscured by any cloud, and scarce a leaf of the woods beneath trembled in the air.

As she listened, the mid-night hymn of the monks rose softly from a chapel, that stood on one of the lower cliffs, an holy strain, that seemed to ascend through the silence of night to heaven, and her thoughts ascended with it.From the consideration of His works, her mind arose to the adoration of the Deity, in His goodness and power;wherever she turned her view, whether on the sleeping earth, or to the vast regions of space, glowing with worlds beyond the reach of human thought, the sublimity of God, and the majesty of His presence appeared.Her eyes were filled with tears of awful love and admiration; and she felt that pure devotion, superior to all the distinctions of human system, which lifts the soul above this world, and seems to expand it into a nobler nature; such devotion as can, perhaps, only be experienced, when the mind, rescued, for a moment, from the humbleness of earthly considerations, aspires to contemplate His power in the sublimity of His works, and His goodness in the infinity of His blessings.

Is it not now the hour, The holy hour, when to the cloudless height Of yon starred concave climbs the full-orbed moon, And to this nether world in solemn stillness, Gives sign, that, to the list'ning ear of Heaven Religion's voice should plead? The very babe Knows this, and, chance awak'd, his little hands Lifts to the gods, and on his innocent couch Calls down a blessing.**CaractacusThe midnight chant of the monks soon after dropped into silence; but Emily remained at the casement, watching the setting moon, and the valley sinking into deep shade, and willing to prolong her present state of mind.At length she retired to her mattress, and sunk into tranquil slumber.