The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

64 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
had represented them as engaged. Lovel looked on this strange scene
devoid of wonder (which seldom intrudes itself upon the sleeping fancy),
but with an anxious sensation of awful fear. At length an individual
figure among the tissued huntsmen, as he gazed upon them more fixedly
seemed to leave the arras and to approach the bed of the slumberer. As
he drew near, his figure appeared to alter. His bugle-horn became a
brazen clasped volume; his hunting-cap changed to such a furred head-gear
as graces the burgomasters of Rembr-andt; his Flemish garb remained,
but his features, no longer agitated with the fury of the chase, were changed
to such a state of awfil and stern composure, as might best portray the
first proprietor of M3onkbarns, such as he had been described to Level by
his descendants in the course of the preceding evening. As this metamorphobsis took place, the hubbub among the other personages in the arras disappeared from the imagination of the dreamer, which was now exclusively
benlt on the single figure before him. Lovel strove to interrogate this awful
person in the form of exorcism proper for the occasion; but his tongue, as
is usual in frightful dreams, refused its office, and clung, palsied, to the
roof of his mouth. Aldobrand held up his finger, as if to impose silence
upon the guest who had intruded on his apartment, and began deliberately
to unclasp the venerable volume which occupied his left hand. When it
was unfolded, he turned over the leaves hastily for a short space, and then
raising his figure to its full dimensions, and holding the book aloft in his
left hand, pointed to a passage in the page which he thus displayed.
Although the language was unknown to our dreamer, his eye and attention
were both strongly caught by the line which the figure seemed thus to press
upon his notice, the words of which appeared to blaze with a supernatural
light, and remained riveted upon his memory. As the vision shut his
volume, a strain of delightful music seemed to fill the apartment —Lovel
started, and became completely awake. The music, however, was still in
his ears, nor ceased till he could distinctly follow the measure of an old
Scottish tune.
He sate up in bed, and endeavoured to clear his brain- of the phantoms
which had disturbed it during this weary night. The beams of the morning
sun streamed through the half-closed shutters, and admitted a distinct light
into the apartment. He looked round upon the hangings, -but the mixed
groups of silken and worsted huntsmen were as stationary as tenter-hooks
could make them, and only trembled slightly as the early breeze, which
found its way through an open crevice of the latticed window, glided along
their surface.'Lovel leapt out of bed, and, wrapping himself in a morninggown, that had been considerately laid by his bedside, stepped towards the
window, which commanded a view of the sea, the roar of whose billows
announced it still disquieted by the storm of the preceding evening, although
the morning was fair and serene. The window of a turret, which projected
at an angle with the wall, and thus came to be very near Lovel's apartment,
was half open, and from that quarter he heard again the same music which
had probably broken short his dream. With its visionary character it had
lost much of its charms -it was now nothing more than an air on the
harpsichord, tolerably well performed - such is the caprice of imagination
as affecting the fine arts. A female voice sung, with some taste and great
simplicity, something between a song and a hymn, in words to the following effect:" Why sitt'st thou by that ruined hall, "Before my breath, like blazing flax,
Thou aged carle so stern and grey? Man oid his marvels pass away;
)ost thenou its former pride recall, And changing empires wane and wax,
Or ponder how it passed away?' — Are founded, flourish, and decay.
"Know'st thou not me!" the Deep Voice cried, "Redeem mine hours - the space is brief —
So lon (enjoved, so oft misused- While in my glass the sand-grails shiver,
Alternate, in thy fickle pride, And measureless thy joy or grief,
Desired., neglected, and accused 7 When Tl'nmn and thou shalt part for ever 1"