The interview
between aram and the stranger.
The spirits I have
raised abandon me,
The spells which I have studied
baffle me.
—Manfred.
Meanwhile Aram strode rapidly through the village,
and not till he had regained the solitary valley did
he relax his step.
The evening had already deepened into night.
Along the sere and melancholy wood, the autumnal winds
crept, with a lowly, but gathering moan. Where
the water held its course, a damp and ghostly mist
clogged the air, but the skies were calm, and chequered
only by a few clouds, that swept in long, white, spectral
streaks, over the solemn stars. Now and then,
the bat wheeled swiftly round, almost touching the
figure of the Student, as he walked musingly onward.
And the owl [Note: That species called the short-eared
owl.] that before the month waned many days, would
be seen no more in that region, came heavily from the
trees, like a guilty thought that deserts its shade.
It was one of those nights, half dim, half glorious,
which mark the early decline of the year. Nature
seemed restless and instinct with change; there were
those signs in the atmosphere which leave the most
experienced in doubt, whether the morning may rise
in storm or sunshine. And in this particular period,
the skiey influences seem to tincture the animal life
with their own mysterious and wayward spirit of change.
The birds desert their summer haunts; an unaccountable
inquietude pervades the brute creation; even men in
this unsettled season have considered themselves,
more (than at others) stirred by the motion and whisperings
of their genius. And every creature that flows
upon the tide of the Universal Life of Things, feels
upon the ruffled surface, the mighty and solemn change,
which is at work within its depths.
And now Aram had nearly threaded the valley, and his
own abode became visible on the opening plain, when
the stranger emerged from the trees to the right,
and suddenly stood before the Student. “I
tarried for you here, Aram,” said he, “instead
of seeking you at home, at the time you fixed; for
there are certain private reasons which make it prudent
I should keep as much as possible among the owls,
and it was therefore safer, if not more pleasant,
to lie here amidst the fern, than to make myself merry
in the village yonder.”
“And what,” said Aram, “again brings
you hither? Did you not say, when you visited
me some months since, that you were about to settle
in a different part of the country, with a relation?”
