Strathmore, by Ouida (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE VIGIL OF ST. JOHN. It was the Vigil of St. John in Prague. The stars were coming out one by one in the clear violet skies, that were still yellow in the west with the beams of a setting sun; and the dews of the evening were moist upon the thick foliage of the Lorenziberg and the vineyards of the Anlagen, encircling the city with their fresh green zone. The lights, already lit upon the bridges, were mirrored in the waters of the Moldau, or the Veltava, as it is called by its softer Czeschen name, that ran like a broad smooth silver band beneath their arches; and the glare from the western skies fell on the gilt crosses of the Teyn church, making them blaze and sparkle with fiery brilliance, while the mosque-like spires of a thousand towers stood out clear and delicate as fairy handiwork in the warm golden haze, as the measured chant of litanies, sung by gathered multitudes, rose and fell with slow sonorous rhythm on the hush of the comingnight. For many nights and days before, the hum of collecting people and the weary tramp of tired feet had been heard throughout the city, as devotees of every stock and province had flocked far and near, from wild Silesian forests, from remote Bavarian mountains, from Saxon hamlets buried in their pine-woods, and charcoal-burners' chalets in Moldavian wilds, and Czeschen homesteads nestled in their cherry orchards, to the great Festival of Holy Johannes of Nepomiik, at whose most sainted martyrdom, as Legend and Church record, five stars arose and glittered in the waters where the Saint sank, a thousand years ago, and gleamed in golden radiance, heaven-sent witnesses to innocence. At the Cathedral and in the Platz, before the stars and statue on the bridge, and around the bronze ring in St. Wenzel's Chapel, at every sm...