Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 024.djvu/904

884 nation had converted into a death-rattle.

Dismissing the mailed gardeners to their armoury, I retired immediately to bed; and, deferring until morning my proposed investigation of the mysterious incidents in the sepulchre, I slept in defiance of the storm, until roused by a summons from my aunt and cousin to join them in the outer room to breakfast.

When I met my amiable relatives at the breakfast table, I was concerned to observe the lovely Julia still more pallid than I had found her the previous evening, and expressed my fear that she was indisposed.

“I have passed a sleepless and miserable night,” she replied, “in consequence of an appalling incident which occurred last night in your immediate vicinity. Soon after you left us, four nuns from the convent of St Clara, called upon me on their way to chant a midnight requiem over the dear remains of my blessed sister, and requested me to accompany them on a harp, which is usually left for this purpose in the sepulchre. As I have found a melancholy gratification in this solemn service, which the nuns perform twice every week, when their convent duties permit, I did not allow the still distant storm, nor the cool white gown which had replaced my hot mourning dress, to deter me from an act of duty to the dear departed one. I accompanied the nuns to the sepulchre, and, after they had sung the requiem, I was kneeling in silent prayer against the sarcophagus, when suddenly, the brazen gates of the vault were shaken with a giant’s graspI beheld the figure of a colossal woman in white garments on the outside—and a voice shrieked “Cecilia! Cecilia!” in tones so wild and unearthly, that the nuns in terror dropped their tapers, and we fled into the inner vault, pulling the heavy door after us with a shock, which reverberated like thunder, and greatly increased our alarm. There we remained some time in an agony of terror, and in total darkness, until the hoarse voice of the approaching storm warned us to depart, and we fled through the grove to the villa, trembling at the sound of our own footsteps.”

It was now my turn to explain the various wonders of the night; and, with a view to cheer my drooping and agitated relatives, I endeavoured to relieve with humourous colouring the extraordinary adventures which had crowded upon me in such rapid succession. I enjoyed the heartfelt gratification to see my efforts crowned with success. The pale and care-worn features of my aunt and cousin relaxed into frequent smiles as I pursued my strange narrative, and the ludicrous climax of my adventure with the two gardeners created even a hearty laugh at my expense. When I had concluded, the lovely Julia repaired the awful damage inflicted on my dressing-gown, and my aunt made me a present of the formidable portrait of the hapless Leah; the removal of which, she said, would alone convince the villagers that the unhappy original no longer walked the castle at midnight.

During a few weeks of delightful intercourse with these intelligent and amiable women, I greatly recruited my injured constitution, and at length succeeded in my earnest endeavours to prevail upon my aunt and her daughter to quit for some months an abode fraught with melancholy associations, and to pass the autumn and winter under my mother’s roof in Berlin.

There I had the delight to see their deeply seated woe gradually yield to the influence of frequent collision with a select and sympathising circle, and assume a more tranquil and cheerful character. There, too, my daily intercourse with the unassuming and lovely Julia rapidly matured my early prepossession into a fervent and enduring attachment; and the following summer I revisited the “Robber’s Tower,” no longer an emaciated and fanciful invalid, but in the full enjoyment of health and happiness, the husband of my adored Julia, and the joint consoler of her still mourning, but resigned and tranquil parent.