The tremors of fear to which his rascally hero is
subjected lend the spice of alarm to what might have been but a
monotonous record of villainy. Smollett depicts skilfully the
imaginary terrors created by darkness and solitude. As the Count
travels through the forest:
"The darkness of the night, the silence and solitude of
the place, the indistinct images of the trees that
appeared on every side, stretching their extravagant
arms athwart the gloom, conspired, with the dejection
of spirits occasioned by his loss, to disturb his fancy
and raise strange phantoms in his imagination. Although
he was not naturally superstitious, his mind began to
be invaded with an awful horror that gradually
prevailed over all the consolations of reason and
philosophy; nor was his heart free from the terrors of
assassination. In order to dissipate these agreeable
reveries, he had recourse to the conversation of his
guide, by whom he was entertained with the history of
divers travellers who had been robbed and murdered by
ruffians, whose retreat was in the recesses of that
very wood."[27]
The sighing of the trees, thunder and sudden flashes of lightning
add to the horror of a journey, which resembles Mrs.
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