Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 046.djvu/242

234 her dislike of him, and that he afterwards endeavoured, most accursedly, to fasten the crime on my father? He escaped from prison, scaled the wall of the garden, and in the grotto there, plunged his dagger into my father's heart."

"Roberto! the old Roberto!" cried the hag as if in high glee; "ay, ay, what is there that one does not live to learn! This Roberto was in his early years a right good hypocrite— to all appearance a most holy dog; but he is now become, as I hear, a lad of the most determined metal. He stabbed him in the grotto, too? —well, it is wonderful how all things hang together. In that same grotto your father often sat with his first bride in the early years of their love and there did he first swear to her eternal constancy. But drink, my son, drink, and go on with your story."

"I swore to avenge my father's death," said Antonio.

"Quite right," answered the old woman; "revenge, revenge is a sweet and precious word!"

"But Roberto," added Antonio, "had escaped, and was nowhere to be found."

"What a pity!" cried she. "And now the thirst for revenge drives you through the world in pursuit of him?"

"It does. I have traversed Italy and searched every city, but as yet have discovered no trace of the murderer. The fame of Pietro d'Abano at length made me a sojourner in Padua. I wished to learn wisdom from his lips; but when I was introduced to the family of Podesta"—

"Now, speak out, child!"

"I know not what to say. I know not whether I am mad or dreaming. There I beheld the daughter of that house, the charming, the lovely Crescentia: and here also I behold her very self. Surely that funeral ceremony was a bad unseasonable jest, and surely this disguise, this flight into the wilderness, is just as ill-timed a deception. Discover yourself, discover yourself to me, my dear delightful Crescentia; do you not k now that my heart lives only in your bosom? Wherefore subject me to this cruel trial? Perhaps your parents are in the next room, and hear all that we are saying. Oh! if so, let them be called in. I have now suffered enough from this terrible test, which has been like to drive me mad."

The pale Crescentia gazed upon him with such an unutterable woefulness of expression, that tears forced themselves from his eyes. "The man is surely drunk!" said the old woman. "Come, tell me, is the daughter of Podesta dead? And when did she die?"

"This very evening," answered the weeping Antonio, "I met her funeral." "Is it. possible?" cried the old woman, delighted, and filling herself another glass. "That will be news for the family of Marconi in Venice."

"Why so!" asked Antonio.

"Because they are now the sole heirs of the wealthy Podesta. This is what that crafty family wished, but scarcely could have hoped ever to be."

"Woman!" cried Antonio, with renewed astonishment, "you know every thing!"

"Not quite every thing," returned she, "but some things; and witchcraft, let me tell you, has something to do with it. Do not be too much shocked; but it was not for nothing that these Florentine gentry wished to bring me to the stake. Look me in the face. youngster, and brush aside the locks from your forehead. There now, give me your left hand—now your right. Well, that is strange and wonderful! —a terrible danger impends over you. but if you survive it, you shall again behold your beloved one."

"T'other side the grave!" sighed Antonio.

"T'other side the grave!" shouted the old woman, reeling with intoxication—"T'other side—what means that! I say on this side of it. T'other side, indeed? The grave has no t'other side. What words fools make use of!"

Antonio was about to give her an angry answer, when Crescentia threw upon him such a beseeching glance as much as to say "Spare my mother!" that his indignation was completely disarmed. The old woman now began to yawn and rub her eyes, and at length overpowered by her repeated draughts of strong wine, she sank down fast asleep. The fire was extinguished on the hearth, and the lamp was burning low. Antonio stood meditating on his strange situation, and Crescentia was sitting at the window on a low footstool. At length the wearied youth put the question—" Where am I to sleep?"

"There is a chamber above us,"