Since my departure, I have not learned that any thing has transpired to throw light upon this mysterious catastrophe.
Monsieur Peyrade died a few months after his son. By his will, he bequeathed me his manuscripts, which I may possibly some day publish. I did not, however, find among them the memoir relating to the inscriptions on the Venus.
P. S. My friend Monsieur de P---- has just written to me from Perpignan, informing me that the statue is no longer in existence. After the death of her husband, the first care of Madame Peyrade was to have it cast into a bell, under which new form it now serves the church of Ille. But, added Monsieur de P----, it seems as if bad luck continues to attend the possessors of this bronze. Since this bell has sounded at Ille, the vines have been twice frozen.
THE old dry leaf came circling down, On a windy autumn day, The leaf all sere, and glazed, and brown, On the bleak, bare hill to play; And the sky put on its dreariest frown, On that windy autumn day.
The heavy clouds went drifting by, As gray as gray could be, And not a speck of azure sky Could the worn-out wanderer see; That dark, stern man, low crouching by The gnarlèd old oak tree.
But drearer grew the inky sky, As daylight fled away, And the winds came out, and hurried by, As if they dared not stay; Howling afar, and shrieking nigh, Like spirits doomed, at play.
Then the old man shook his hoary head, As on his staff leaned he, For the sky above with blood seemed red, And the earth a bloody sea; And on him crimson drops were shed From the boughs of the old oak tree.
Then the old man laughed a horrid laugh, And shook his head again, And clenching fast his crooked staff, He turned him to the plain; And the hills rung back his hellish laugh, Mocking in wild disdain.
On, on he hurried, but still there rung That laugh back from the hill; While livid clouds above him hung, And forms, his blood to chill High o'er his head in mid-air swung, And all were laughing still!
The old man noted not his way, For his heart grew cold with fear; And language never breathed by day Was whispered in his ear: But he hurried on, for he dared not stay, Those awful words to hear!
He had trod that self-same path before, Ere evening, when he fled That mangled form bathed all in gore, And to the hill-side sped; And now at midnight met once more The murderer and the dead!