Читать книгу The Pedestrian's Guide through North Wales. A tour performed in 1837 онлайн

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Evening at length drew near to a close, and the shadows of the mountains spreading over the peaceful valley, gave signal to depart. It was pleasing to listen to the distant and retiring notes of the minstrel’s harp, and the hum of laughter, echoed from the beetling cliff and dying in the gorge of the Ceriog valley. Sometimes the wild halloo of the mountaineer was heard shouting above the heads of those beneath; until at length only two persons stood upon the sloping sides of the castle hill, with fixed attention, looking in each others face, and with arms entwined around their youthful forms.

There are few who have not felt the power of love: but very few perhaps have stood as these two stood, upon the slope of a dark mountain rock, listening to the parting accents of their friends as they subsided into silence, while beneath them roared the never quiet-waters, brawling through rocky fragments, and shaking the wild tangled shrubs that grew upon their banks; with limpid kisses pure and fresh. And there they paused, and looked, and sighed, and loved, and murmured sweet words of anticipated happiness; when suddenly the sky, serene before, was overcast with clouds, and the wind rushed by them with a fury powerful as unexpected. The night grew darker and darker, and they were nearly half a league from Mary’s house. They cautiously pursued their way through the dew-dripping heather, when presently a light appeared on the opposite side of the valley; and shadowy forms were distinctly seen moving behind it in slow procession. They had reached the spot where the aqueduct now crosses the vale, within a short distance of Mary’s dwelling, but terror prevented them from moving, while the procession with the corpse-light at its head, glided along without a sound, becoming more distinct as it approached within a hundred paces of the spot where the terrified lovers stood almost breathless. Four shadowy, headless figures followed the light, and were succeeded by a hearse, which moved without the aid of horses or creature of any kind to draw or propel it forward, upon which lay extended the form of a man, bloody, as newly slain. Owen fancied he saw a resemblance of himself in that bloody corpse, and the increasing weight of Mary upon his arm, assured him she had likewise recognised the likeness, for she had fainted. With eyes that almost burst from their sockets, he continued to gaze on, and saw, or thought he saw, many of his kind friends weeping, in the long train that followed. The corpse-light still advanced, and he distinctly saw it leading towards the churchyard of the village, where it vanished amongst the old yew trees, and with it the phantoms that made up the procession.