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A pleasant breeze stirred the leafy branches which shaded the ramparts, and he stood a moment beside one of the small steep-roofed watch-towers, and resting his burden on the breast-high wall, gazed across the hazy landscape to the mountains, beyond which lay Chatillon and his home.
When we revert to the awful convulsions of the physical world, and the important revolutions of human society, of which the regions it flows through have been successively the theatre when we meditate on the vast changes, the fearful struggles, the tragic incidents and mournful catastrophes, which they have witnessed from the earliest ages to the very times in which we have ourselves lived and marked the issue of events "the battles, sieges, fortunes" that have passed before its green tumultuous current, or within ken of its mountain watch-towers the shouts of nations that have resounded, and the fates of empires that have been decided, on its shores when we think of the slaughtered myriads whose bones have bleached on the neighbouring plains, filled up the trenches of its rock-built strong-holds, or found their place of sepulture beneath its wave when, at each survey we take of the wide and diversified scene, the forms of centuries seem to be embodied with the objects around us, and the record of the past becomes vividly associated with the impression of present realities it is then that we are irresistibly led to compare the greatness of nature with the littleness of man; it is then that we are forcibly struck with the power and goodness of the Author of both; and that the deepest humility unites itself in a grateful mind, with the highest admiration, at the sight of "these His lowest works."
Just then, when all seemed lost, we heard a shout which sounded like music to our ears. A company of mounted Rangers were galloping out from the city. They had seen our peril from one of the watch-towers, and had hurried to our rescue." "How fortunate!" said Imogen, drawing a long breath. "Well, go on do go on."
The sea, with the islands of Gorgona, Capraja, and Elba, was before us; old battlemented watch-towers stretched along the coast, backed by the marble-crested Apennines glistening in the sun, picturesque from their diversified outlines, and not a human dwelling was in sight.
'Numerous watch-towers have been erected among the Pyrenees, said the Count, anxious only to call Blanche's attention from the subject of her fears; 'and the method, by which they give intelligence of the approach of the enemy, is, you know, by fires, kindled on the summits of these edifices.
A noble cluster of summits, an offshoot of the Apennines, rises behind the city, crowned with temples and towers. Within their bosky declivities, from which tall cypress-trees shoot up, lie embowered villas and little watch-towers, with their glittering vanes. At the foot of the hill is spread out the noble city, with its leaning towers and its tall minaret-looking steeples.
She often paused to examine the gothic magnificence of Udolpho, its proud irregularity, its lofty towers and battlements, its high-arched casements, and its slender watch-towers, perched upon the corners of turrets. Then she would lean on the wall of the terrace, and, shuddering, measure with her eye the precipice below, till the dark summits of the woods arrested it.
She knows them well, those peaks of sparkling selenite, those watch-towers of the desert land: she knows them well. Her heart is with her eyes. We stand watching her, all of us. She is the object of common solicitude. She it is who keeps between all hearts and the light. The father looks sadly on; the mother looks sadly on; Zoe looks sadly on; Saint Vrain, too. No! that is a different expression.
Stephen had now armed himself with his own, left for safety behind the barrier while he signalled in the tower; and together the two men had hot work in the quadrangle. Here and there an escalader escaped the fire from the watch-towers, and hung half over the wall, but dropped alive into the courtyard, only to be bayoneted by the Frenchman.
On inquiring the purpose of these singular structures, they were informed that they were intended as watch-towers; and that, during the season, when the crops were approaching to ripeness, videttes were stationed upon these towers, both by night and by day, to keep a lookout for the bears, and frighten them off whenever these plunderers made their appearance within the boundaries of the fields!
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