University of Virginia Library

THE GLOOM.

And a small door, curiously fixed amid the intricate
panelling, along the side of the lofty casement,
flew suddenly open, and the beams of the
rising moon flung a line of silvery light through
the aperture over the pavement of the cathedral.

The Neophyte advanced. One foot rested upon
the threshold.

Beyond was the world. Mountains sleeping
in the moonlight—shadowy vallies—streams of
silver. The azure sky and the silvery moon.—
The distant horizon where the outline of the
heavens was broken by uprising columns of ruined
temples—the foreground of the view, where
the foliage of a massive forest, floated with undulations,
like those of the ocean wave.

His foot was upon the threshold.

His face to the world, his back to the cathedral,
with its far-extending pavement its roof supported
by giant columns, its gleams of light, and its
masses of shadow.

“Farewell, place of glooms, scene of glories.—
Home of my heart—farewell. Bless me, father!”

And as he looked over his shoulders backward,
into the gloom of the cathedral, the hands of the
Abbot were laid upon his dark brown locks, while
his eyes were raised to heaven in prayer.

“Thou goest forth pure, my son, come thou back
unscathed! The God in Heaven grant it!”

A loud, wild laugh, broke on the air, directly
over the heads of the abbot and the neophyte.—
It awoke the solemn echoes, and rang along the
cathedral arches, like a sound from the Spirit.
Land.

“Ha! my son, what unreal mockery is that?
Hark! how it echoes along the cathedral aisles!”

“My father, that unearthly laugh thrills through
me, as though my blood were turned to ice. In
old legends I have read, that the echoes of this
solemn cathedral are aroused by laughter wild and
dread as this, but once in an hundred years. It
is a sound of fearful omen—the laugh of Despair,
bidding Hope farewell!”

And as the beams of the rising moon, floating
through the opened doorway, shone over the aged
form of the Abbot, robed in white, and for a moment
touched the deep black tunic of the neophyte
with gleams of silver, that wild, dread laugh
echoed along the cathedral aisles again and yet
again; the youth cast one look back into the
cloister, and then sprung over the threshold;
while behind was heard the sound of the closing
door, and around, startling the still air of night,
with its fearful discord, broke that sound of unreal
laughter, commingling with a hollow whisper that
had its origin in no mortal voice.

“Forth thou goest Youth—High in Heart—
Bold in Thought! Thou comest back—and a
crushed heart and a withered soul are thine—Ha
—Ha—Ha!”