each took his place in silence; they were but few, and they crossed themselves often as they sat, and offered internal vows to their various saints for the overpassing of the storm, in which each heard pealing the remembrance of crime, or the summons of vengeance. The torches of the attendants waned as the lightning flashed through the vast windows-and the tapestry, waving to and fro in the blast that rushed through door and casement, gave to its distorted forms the appearance of gigantic spectres, who menaced the guests as they sat by their fitful and shadowy movements. the night advanced the storm diminishedthe attendants were desired to remove their torches; and the knights, gathering round the vast wood-fire that blazed on the hearth, about which their benches had been placed by the attendants, began to feel that kind of gloomy comfort with which men, after a day of toil and a night of terror, gaze on glowing embers and listen to the gossip's tale, while the blast is raving at the casement and rocking the battlement, and the excluded world without As is wrapt in darkness and in danger. One single minstrel in the dim gallery touched his harp; but, whether from impulse or command, he chose a wild theme of spirits abroad on the elements guiding their force and aggravating their mischief, launching the lightning at the chieftain's tower, pouring the deluge over the peasant's hut, scaring the traveller on the brow of the precipice, and luring the wanderer to the verge of the cold dark flood or the foot ing of the treacherous morass. The haughty spirits, who had a thousand times braved death in the field, subdued (as the fiercest animals are said to be) by the terrors of the elements and the lassitude produced by confinement within walls, listened with a kind of gloomy and passive relaxation; and the Lord of Courtenaye, who saw their minds lowered to the very key he wished and was well skilled to touch, gradually and cautiously introduced the subject of the appearance of disembodied spirits, and of the possibility of holding safe intercourse with the invisible world. Full of the spirit of the age, which inculcated such belief, rather as matter of creed than of debate, the guests eagerly embraced the topic; and those who could relate nothing in support of the prevailing impression, listened with wild and breathless anxiety to the evidences produced by others; and though all were traditional and obscure, and many trivial and even ludicrous, the feeling deepened, and the awe became general. Among the group there were but two silent and absent listeners, the bishop of Toulouse, a resolute sceptic, who sat on perhaps for that very reason, and by a strong effort concealed his smiles; and Paladour, who internally struggled with the fearful ascendancy which early and undated feelings, combined with supposed experience, was obtaining over his intellects. It was remarkable, that though the conversation among the other guests was at first adopted incidentally, and without any appearance of interest, yet the interest now strongly increased the embers were on the wane the ball waxed dim -- men could not see the speaker's face, or catchi from his expression the horrors of his tale, or how that expression was affected by their influence- the laugh, under which some sought to disguise their fears, grew fainter and then ceased; and the fire, though roused by the pages at the order of their lord, was at length. reflected from pale cheeks, (which no other fear could blanch,) unclosed and breathless lips, and sunk but eager eyes fixed on the teller of the last tale; and no sound was heard in the pause, but the rustling of the mantles of the guests, who laid down their untasted wine, or started as the blast, putting to full proof the strength of the casement and door, seemed like the dark menace of the entrance of something that was steering on its pinion, and mingling its voice with its roar. The Lord of Courtenaye, like all cowards, grew stronger amid the fears he had inspired-and as he watched with anxious eye the hall gradually thinned, (while some retired to pray, and some lest they should hear what would keep them sleepless that dreary night,) saw, with unuttered satisfaction, the group reduced to all he wished it to contain the bishop of Toulouse, who lingered to guard his scepticism from suspicion- the Count de Monfort, on whom some dark convictions pressed, which he felt the narratives of others were a kind of silent channel for the abbot of Normoutier, who dozed over his goblet, but who generally awoke at the end of a relation in due time to utter an ave, or make the sign of the cross- Paladour, who loitered because he dreaded, and Sir Aymer, because he hated the hour of retiring, be the cause what it might - De Verac and Semonville, who tarried, the former in visions of new garbs, armour, and devices, and the latter in downright honest terror, afraid alike of his bed, of the passages that led to it, of the very floor he trod, and almost of the air he breathed, for every thing around him seemed to partake of a hideous and preternatural vitality; of the latter the Lord of Courtenaye recked not, but he inwardly rejoiced that the two dignitaries were of the number. The group was now so dimi |