Over the beautiful plains of this country the devastations of war
were frequently visible. Where the lands had not been suffered to lie
uncultivated, they were often tracked with the steps of the spoiler;
the vines were torn down from the branches that had supported them, the
olives trampled upon the ground, and even the groves of mulberry trees
had been hewn by the enemy to light fires that destroyed the hamlets and
villages of their owners. Emily turned her eyes with a sigh from
these painful vestiges of contention, to the Alps of the Grison, that
overlooked them to the north, whose awful solitudes seemed to offer to
persecuted man a secure asylum.
The travellers frequently distinguished troops of soldiers moving at
a distance; and they experienced, at the little inns on the road, the
scarcity of provision and other inconveniences, which are a part of
the consequence of intestine war; but they had never reason to be much
alarmed for their immediate safety, and they passed on to Milan with
little interruption of any kind, where they staid not to survey the
grandeur of the city, or even to view its vast cathedral, which was then
building. Beyond Milan, the country wore the aspect of a ruder devastation; and
though every thing seemed now quiet, the repose was like that of
death, spread over features, which retain the impression of the last
convulsions. It was not till they had passed the eastern limits of the Milanese, that
the travellers saw any troops since they had left Milan, when, as the
evening was drawing to a close, they descried what appeared to be an
army winding onward along the distant plains, whose spears and other
arms caught the last rays of the sun. As the column advanced through
a part of the road, contracted between two hillocks, some of the
commanders, on horseback, were distinguished on a small eminence,
pointing and making signals for the march; while several of the officers
were riding along the line directing its progress, according to the
signs communicated by those above; and others, separating from the
vanguard, which had emerged from the pass, were riding carelessly along
the plains at some distance to the right of the army.
As they drew nearer, Montoni, distinguishing the feathers that waved
in their caps, and the banners and liveries of the bands that followed
them, thought he knew this to be the small army commanded by the famous
captain Utaldo, with whom, as well as with some of the other chiefs, he
was personally acquainted. He, therefore, gave orders that the carriages
should draw up by the side of the road, to await their arrival, and
give them the pass. A faint strain of martial music now stole by, and,
gradually strengthening as the troops approached, Emily distinguished
the drums and trumpets, with the clash of cymbals and of arms, that were
struck by a small party, in time to the march.