VIII
While I was thus walking about to excite my literary genius, a pretty young lady, who lived in the rooms below, astonished at the racket I was making, and perhaps thinking I was giving a ball, sent her husband to find out the cause of the disturbance. I was still giddy from the blow I had received, when the door opened a little, and an elderly man, with a melancholy face, put his head in and cast an inquiring glance round the room.
Having recovered his surprise at finding me alone, he said, with an angry air, “Sir, my wife has a bad headache, allow me to point out to you—”
I immediately interrupted him, and my speech reflected the loftiness of my thoughts.
“Worthy messenger of my beautiful neighbour,” said I, in the language of the bards, “Wherefore gleam your eyes beneath their shaggy brows, like two meteors in the dark forest of Cromba? Thy lovely companion is a ray of light, and I would rather undergo a thousand deaths than disturb her rest; but thy aspect, oh worthy messenger! thy aspect is as dark as the deepest grotto in the caverns of Camora, when the gathering thunderclouds obscure the face of night, and lie heavy on the silent fields of Morven.”
My neighbour, who had probably never read the poems of Ossian, most unfortunately mistook the enthusiastic strain which animated me for a fit of madness and appeared much embarrassed. As it was not my intention to offend him, I offered him a chair and begged him to be seated, but I beheld him retiring, quietly crossing himself, and saying in a low voice, “Mad, by Bacchus, quite mad!”