第36章

As I walked under the shades and mused, I heard music at a distance, and thought it was Claude playing upon his flute, as he often did of a fine evening, at the cottage door.But, when I came to a place where the trees opened, (I shall never forget it!) and stood looking up at the north-lights, which shot up the heaven to a great height, Iheard all of a sudden such sounds!--they came so as I cannot describe.It was like the music of angels, and I looked up again almost expecting to see them in the sky.When I came home, I told what I had heard, but they laughed at me, and said it must be some of the shepherds playing on their pipes, and I could not persuade them to the contrary.A few nights after, however, my wife herself heard the same sounds, and was as much surprised as I was, and Father Denis frightened her sadly by saying, that it was music come to warn her of her child's death, and that music often came to houses where there was a dying person.'

Emily, on hearing this, shrunk with a superstitious dread entirely new to her, and could scarcely conceal her agitation from St.Aubert.

'But the boy lived, monsieur, in spite of Father Denis.'

'Father Denis!' said St.Aubert, who had listened to 'narrative old age' with patient attention, 'are we near a convent, then?'

'Yes, sir; the convent of St.Clair stands at no great distance, on the sea shore yonder.'

'Ah!' said St.Aubert, as if struck with some sudden remembrance, 'the convent of St.Clair!' Emily observed the clouds of grief, mingled with a faint expression of horror, gathering on his brow; his countenance became fixed, and, touched as it now was by the silver whiteness of the moon-light, he resembled one of those marble statues of a monument, which seem to bend, in hopeless sorrow, over the ashes of the dead, shewn by the blunted light That the dim moon through painted casements lends.** The Emigrants.

'But, my dear sir,' said Emily, anxious to dissipate his thoughts, 'you forget that repose is necessary to you.If our kind host will give me leave, I will prepare your bed, for I know how you like it to be made.' St.Aubert, recollecting himself, and smiling affectionately, desired she would not add to her fatigue by that attention; and La Voisin, whose consideration for his guest had been suspended by the interests which his own narrative had recalled, now started from his seat, and, apologizing for not having called Agnes from the green, hurried out of the room.

In a few moments he returned with his daughter, a young woman of pleasing countenance, and Emily learned from her, what she had not before suspected, that, for their accommodation, it was necessary part of La Voisin's family should leave their beds; she lamented this circumstance, but Agnes, by her reply, fully proved that she inherited, at least, a share of her father's courteous hospitality.

It was settled, that some of her children and Michael should sleep in the neighbouring cottage.

'If I am better, to-morrow, my dear,' said St.Aubert when Emily returned to him, 'I mean to set out at an early hour, that we may rest, during the heat of the day, and will travel towards home.In the present state of my health and spirits I cannot look on a longer journey with pleasure, and I am also very anxious to reach La Vallee.' Emily, though she also desired to return, was grieved at her father's sudden wish to do so, which she thought indicated a greater degree of indisposition than he would acknowledge.St.

Aubert now retired to rest, and Emily to her little chamber, but not to immediate repose.Her thoughts returned to the late conversation, concerning the state of departed spirits; a subject, at this time, particularly affecting to her, when she had every reason to believe that her dear father would ere long be numbered with them.She leaned pensively on the little open casement, and in deep thought fixed her eyes on the heaven, whose blue unclouded concave was studded thick with stars, the worlds, perhaps, of spirits, unsphered of mortal mould.As her eyes wandered along the boundless aether, her thoughts rose, as before, towards the sublimity of the Deity, and to the contemplation of futurity.No busy note of this world interrupted the course of her mind; the merry dance had ceased, and every cottager had retired to his home.The still air seemed scarcely to breathe upon the woods, and, now and then, the distant sound of a solitary sheep-bell, or of a closing casement, was all that broke on silence.At length, even this hint of human being was heard no more.Elevated and enwrapt, while her eyes were often wet with tears of sublime devotion and solemn awe, she continued at the casement, till the gloom of mid-night hung over the earth, and the planet, which La Voisin had pointed out, sunk below the woods.She then recollected what he had said concerning this planet, and the mysterious music; and, as she lingered at the window, half hoping and half fearing that it would return, her mind was led to the remembrance of the extreme emotion her father had shewn on mention of the Marquis La Villeroi's death, and of the fate of the Marchioness, and she felt strongly interested concerning the remote cause of this emotion.Her surprise and curiosity were indeed the greater, because she did not recollect ever to have heard him mention the name of Villeroi.

No music, however, stole on the silence of the night, and Emily, perceiving the lateness of the hour, returned to a scene of fatigue, remembered that she was to rise early in the morning, and withdrew from the window to repose.