Then,
as occasion may require, the lurking armies emerge from their
fortresses and the forests, and march forth, to defend, perhaps, the
entrance of some grand pass, where, planting themselves on the heights,
they assail their astonished enemies, who wind along the glen below,
with fragments of the shattered cliff, and pour death and defeat upon
them. The ancient forts, and watch-towers, overlooking the grand passes
of the Pyrenees, are carefully preserved; but some of those in inferior
stations have been suffered to fall into decay, and are now frequently
converted into the more peaceful habitation of the hunter, or the
shepherd, who, after a day of toil, retires hither, and, with his
faithful dogs, forgets, near a cheerful blaze, the labour of the chace,
or the anxiety of collecting his wandering flocks, while he is
sheltered from the nightly storm.”

“But are they always thus peacefully inhabited?” said the Lady Blanche. “No,” replied the Count, “they are sometimes the asylum of French and
Spanish smugglers, who cross the mountains with contraband goods from
their respective countries, and the latter are particularly numerous,
against whom strong parties of the king’s troops are sometimes sent. But the desperate resolution of these adventurers, who, knowing, that,
if they are taken, they must expiate the breach of the law by the most
cruel death, travel in large parties, well armed, often daunts the
courage of the soldiers. The smugglers, who seek only safety, never
engage, when they can possibly avoid it; the military, also, who know,
that in these encounters, danger is certain, and glory almost
unattainable, are equally reluctant to fight; an engagement, therefore,
very seldom happens, but, when it does, it never concludes till after
the most desperate and bloody conflict. You are inattentive, Blanche,”
added the Count: “I have wearied you with a dull subject; but see,
yonder, in the moonlight, is the edifice we have been in search of, and
we are fortunate to be so near it, before the storm bursts.”

Blanche, looking up, perceived, that they were at the foot of the
cliff, on whose summit the building stood, but no light now issued from
it; the barking of the dog too had, for some time, ceased, and the
guides began to doubt, whether this was really the object of their
search. From the distance, at which they surveyed it, shown imperfectly
by a cloudy moon, it appeared to be of more extent than a single
watch-tower; but the difficulty was how to ascend the height, whose
abrupt declivities seemed to afford no kind of pathway. While the guides carried forward the torch to examine the cliff, the
Count, remaining with Blanche and St. Foix at its foot, under the
shadow of the woods, endeavoured again to beguile the time by
conversation, but again anxiety abstracted the mind of Blanche; and he
then consulted, apart with St. Foix, whether it would be advisable,
should a path be found, to venture to an edifice, which might possibly
harbour banditti. They considered, that their own party was not small,
and that several of them were well armed; and, after enumerating the
dangers, to be incurred by passing the night in the open wild, exposed,
perhaps, to the effects of a thunder-storm, there remained not a doubt,
that they ought to endeavour to obtain admittance to the edifice above,
at any hazard respecting the inhabitants it might harbour; but the
darkness, and the dead silence, that surrounded it, appeared to
contradict the probability of its being inhabited at all. A shout from the guides aroused their attention, after which, in a few
minutes, one of the Count’s servants returned with intelligence, that a
path was found, and they immediately hastened to join the guides, when
they all ascended a little winding way cut in the rock among thickets
of dwarf wood, and, after much toil and some danger, reached the
summit, where several ruined towers, surrounded by a massy wall, rose
to their view, partially illumined by the moonlight. The space around
the building was silent, and apparently forsaken, but the Count was
cautious; “Step softly,” said he, in a low voice, “while we reconnoitre
the edifice.”

Having proceeded silently along for some paces, they stopped at a gate,
whose portals were terrible even in ruins, and, after a moment’s
hesitation, passed on to the court of entrance, but paused again at the
head of a terrace, which, branching from it, ran along the brow of a
precipice. Over this, rose the main body of the edifice, which was now
seen to be, not a watch-tower, but one of those ancient fortresses,
that, from age and neglect, had fallen to decay. Many parts of it,
however, appeared to be still entire; it was built of grey stone, in
the heavy Saxon-gothic style, with enormous round towers, buttresses of
proportionable strength, and the arch of the large gate, which seemed
to open into the hall of the fabric, was round, as was that of a window
above. The air of solemnity, which must so strongly have characterised
the pile even in the days of its early strength, was now considerably
heightened by its shattered battlements and half-demolished walls, and
by the huge masses of ruin, scattered in its wide area, now silent and
grass grown. In this court of entrance stood the gigantic remains of an
oak, that seemed to have flourished and decayed with the building,
which it still appeared frowningly to protect by the few remaining
branches, leafless and moss-grown, that crowned its trunk, and whose
wide extent told how enormous the tree had been in a former age. This
fortress was evidently once of great strength, and, from its situation
on a point of rock, impending over a deep glen, had been of great power
to annoy, as well as to resist; the Count, therefore, as he stood
surveying it, was somewhat surprised, that it had been suffered,
ancient as it was, to sink into ruins, and its present lonely and
deserted air excited in his breast emotions of melancholy awe. While he
indulged, for a moment, these emotions, he thought he heard a sound of
remote voices steal upon the stillness, from within the building, the
front of which he again surveyed with scrutinizing eyes, but yet no
light was visible. He now determined to walk round the fort, to that
remote part of it, whence he thought the voices had arisen, that he
might examine whether any light could be discerned there, before he
ventured to knock at the gate; for this purpose, he entered upon the
terrace, where the remains of cannon were yet apparent in the thick
walls, but he had not proceeded many paces, when his steps were
suddenly arrested by the loud barking of a dog within, and which he
fancied to be the same, whose voice had been the means of bringing the
travellers thither.