PAUL CLIFFORD, Volume 3.

By Edward Bulwer-Lytton



CHAPTER XII.

Up rouse ye then,
My merry, merry men!
--JOANNA BAILLIE.

When the moon rose that night, there was one spot upon which she palely
broke, about ten miles distant from Warlock, which the forewarned
traveller would not have been eager to pass, but which might not have
afforded a bad study to such artists as have caught from the savage
painter of the Apennines a love for the wild and the adventurous. Dark
trees, scattered far and wide over a broken but verdant sward, made the
background; the moon shimmered through the boughs as she came slowly
forth from her pavilion of cloud, and poured a broader beam on two
figures just advanced beyond the trees. More plainly brought into light
by her rays than his companion, here a horseman, clad in a short cloak
that barely covered the crupper of his steed, was looking to the priming
of a large pistol which he had just taken from his holster. A slouched
hat and a mask of black crape conspired with the action to throw a
natural suspicion on the intentions of the rider. His horse, a beautiful
dark gray, stood quite motionless, with arched neck, and its short ears
quickly moving to and fro, demonstrative of that sagacious and
anticipative attention which characterizes the noblest of all tamed
animals; you would not have perceived the impatience of the steed, but