peasant and his wife.
Maddelina spoke little, but what she said was in a soft voice, and
with an air of modesty and complacency, that interested Emily, who
breakfasted at a separate table with Dorina, while Ugo and Bertrand
were taking a repast of Tuscany bacon and wine with their host, near
the cottage door; when they had finished which, Ugo, rising hastily,
enquired for his mule, and Emily learned that he was to return to
Udolpho, while Bertrand remained at the cottage; a circumstance, which,
though it did not surprise, distressed her.

When Ugo was departed, Emily proposed to walk in the neighbouring woods;
but, on being told, that she must not quit the cottage, without having
Bertrand for her attendant, she withdrew to her own room. There, as her
eyes settled on the towering Apennines, she recollected the terrific
scenery they had exhibited and the horrors she had suffered, on the
preceding night, particularly at the moment when Bertrand had betrayed
himself to be an assassin; and these remembrances awakened a train of
images, which, since they abstracted her from a consideration of her own
situation, she pursued for some time, and then arranged in the following
lines; pleased to have discovered any innocent means, by which she could
beguile an hour of misfortune.

THE PILGRIM*

Slow o'er the Apennine, with bleeding feet,
A patient Pilgrim wound his lonely way,
To deck the Lady of Loretto's seat
With all the little wealth his zeal could pay.
From mountain-tops cold died the evening ray,
And, stretch'd in twilight, slept the vale below;
And now the last, last purple streaks of day
Along the melancholy West fade slow.
High o'er his head, the restless pines complain,
As on their summit rolls the breeze of night;
Beneath, the hoarse stream chides the rocks in vain:
The Pilgrim pauses on the dizzy height.
Then to the vale his cautious step he prest,
For there a hermit's cross was dimly seen,
Cresting the rock, and there his limbs might rest,
Cheer'd in the good man's cave, by faggot's sheen,
On leafy beds, nor guile his sleep molest.
Unhappy Luke! he trusts a treacherous clue!
Behind the cliff the lurking robber stood;
No friendly moon his giant shadow threw
Athwart the road, to save the Pilgrim's blood;
On as he went a vesper-hymn he sang,
The hymn, that nightly sooth'd him to repose.
Fierce on his harmless prey the ruffian sprang!
The Pilgrim bleeds to death, his eye-lids close.