Page:Tales of a Voyager to the Arctic Ocean, vol. 3 (1826).djvu/337

 weather was now calm and serene, the wind had subsided, not a drop of rain fell from the unclouded sky, and a pure and beautiful evening had succeeded to the tempestuous afternoon; nor would it have been suspected that such a storm had so recently occurred, had not the swoln streams, that rushed amongst the rocks, and over the pathways, been unusually large, and their waters turbid, and loaded with fragments of branches, and the spoils of their banks.

“By the time the eager lover arrived within sight of the cottage of his mistress, the first stars of evening had appeared, and a gentle gloom had fallen on all the surrounding objects. A calm stillness was spread over the vast desert of shattered rocks, only interrupted by the croak of the raven, which sate among the overhanging trees, or by the shriek of the owl, which floated forth from the recesses amongst the cliff. But of a sudden, as Hendrick spurred his horse up to the door of the hermitage, a strange wild shout of mirth burst from within the dwelling, composed of sounds and voices he had never heard before. The chimney, too, smoked violently, and a bright gleam of light shot from the casement across the pathway, and small rays