Sometimes, when darkness had gathered over the
earth, she would stand--a boding and menacing apparition--upon the grave
itself, and chaunt, moaning to the moaning wind, fragments of obscure
Northern legends, whose hideous burden was ever of anguish and crime, of
torture in prison vaults, and death by the annihilating sword--mingling
with them the gloomy story of the massacre at Aquileia, and her fierce
vows of vengeance against the households of Rome. The forager, on his
late return past the farm-house to the camp, heard the harsh, droning
accents of her voice, and quickened his onward step. The venturesome
peasant from the country beyond, approaching under cover of the night to
look from afar on the Gothic camp, beheld her form, shadowy and
threatening, as he neared the garden, and fled affrighted from the
place. Neither stranger nor friend intruded on her dread solitude. The
foul presence of cruelty and crime violated undisturbed the scenes once
sacred to the interests of tenderness and love, once hallowed by the
sojourn of youth and beauty!
But now the farm-house garden is left solitary, the haunting spirit of
evil has departed from the grave, the footsteps of Goisvintha have
traced to their close the same paths from the suburbs over which the
young Goth once eagerly hastened on his night journey of love; and
already the walls of Rome rise--dark, near, and hateful--before her
eyes.
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