Chapter the Ninth.
Kneel with me--swear it--'tis not in words I trust,
Save when they're fenced with an appeal to Heaven.
OLD PLAY
After passing the night in that sound sleep for which agitation and
fatigue had prepared him, Roland was awakened by the fresh morning
air, and by the beams of the rising sun. His first feeling was that of
surprise; for, instead of looking forth from a turret window on the
Lake of Avenel, which was the prospect his former apartment afforded,
an unlatticed aperture gave him the view of the demolished garden of
the banished anchorite. He sat up on his couch of leaves, and arranged
in his memory, not without wonder, the singular events of the
preceding day, which appeared the more surprising the more he
considered them. He had lost the protectress of his youth, and, in the
same day, he had recovered the guide and guardian of his childhood.
The former deprivation he felt ought to be matter of unceasing regret,
and it seemed as if the latter could hardly be the subject of unmixed
self-congratulation. He remembered this person, who had stood to him
in the relation of a mother, as equally affectionate in her attention,
and absolute in her authority. A singular mixture of love and fear
attended upon his early remembrances as they were connected with her;
and the fear that she might desire to resume the same absolute control
over his motions--a fear which her conduct of yesterday did not tend
much to dissipate--weighed heavily against the joy of this second
meeting.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132