The whole miserable multitude, both sinful souls and
false spectres of good men, groaned horribly and gnashed their teeth, as
they looked upward to the calm loveliness of the midnight sky, and beheld
those homes of bliss where they must never dwell. Such was the
apparition, though too shadowy for language to portray; for here would be
the moonbeams on the ice, glittering through a warrior's breastplate, and
there the letters of a tombstone, on the form that stood before it; and
whenever a breeze went by, it swept the old men's hoary heads, the
women's fearful beauty, and all the unreal throng, into one
indistinguishable cloud together.
I dare not give the remainder of the scene, except in a very brief
epitome. This company of devils and condemned souls had come on a
holiday, to revel in the discovery of a complicated crime; as foul a one
as ever was imagined in their dreadful abode. In the course of the tale,
the reader had been permitted to discover that all the incidents were
results of the machinations of the wizard, who had cunningly devised that
Walter Brome should tempt his unknown sister to guilt and shame, and
himself perish by the hand of his twin-brother.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208