EUGENE ARAM

 By Edward Bulwer-Lytton

 BOOK III. 

 CHAPTER I. 

 FRAUD AND VIOLENCE ENTER EVEN GRASSDALE. --PETER'S NEWS. --THE LOVERS' WALK. --THE REAPPEARANCE. 

 AUF. --"Whence comest thou--what wouldst thou?" --Coriolanus. 

One evening Aram and Madeline were passing through the village in theiraccustomed walk, when Peter Dealtry sallied forth from The Spotted Dog, and hurried up to the lovers with a countenance full of importance, and alittle ruffled by fear. 

"Oh, Sir, Sir, --(Miss, your servant!)--have you heard the news? Twohouses at Checkington, (a small town some miles distant from Grassdale, )were forcibly entered last night, --robbed, your honour, robbed. SquireTibson was tied to his bed, his bureau rifled, himself shockinglyconfused on the head; and the maidservant Sally--her sister lived withme, a very good girl she was, --was locked up in the--the--the--I begpardon, Miss--was locked up in the cupboard. As to the other house, theycarried off all the plate. There were no less than four men, all masked, your honour, and armed with pistols. What if they should come here! sucha thing was never heard of before in these parts. But, Sir, --but, Miss, --do not be afraid, do not ye now, for I may say with the Psalmist, 'But wicked men shall drink the dregs Which they in wrath shall wring, For I will lift my voice, and make Them flee while I do sing!'"

"You could not find a more effectual method of putting them to flight, Peter, " said Madeline smiling; "but go and talk to my uncle. I know wehave a whole magazine of blunderbusses and guns at home: they may beuseful now. But you are well provided in case of attack. Have you not theCorporal's famous cat Jacobina, --surely a match for fifty robbers?"

"Ay, Miss, on the principle of set a thief to catch a thief, perhaps shemay; but really it is no jesting matter. Them ere robbers flourish like agreen bay tree, for a space at least, and it is 'nation bad sport for uspoor lambs till they be cut down and withered like grass. But your house, Mr. Aram, is very lonesome like; it is out of reach of all yourneighbours. Hadn't you better, Sir, take up your lodgings at the Squire'sfor the present?"

Madeline pressed Aram's arm, and looked up fearfully in his face. "Why, my good friend, " said he to Dealtry, "robbers will have little to gain inmy house, unless they are given to learned pursuits. It would besomething new, Peter, to see a gang of housebreakers making off with atelescope, or a pair of globes, or a great folio covered with dust. "

"Ay, your honour, but they may be the more savage for beingdisappointed. "

"Well, well, Peter, we will see, " replied Aram impatiently; "meanwhile wemay meet you again at the hall. Good evening for the present. "

"Do, dearest Eugene, do, for Heaven's sake, " said Madeline, with tears inher eyes, as they, now turning from Dealtry, directed their steps towardsthe quiet valley, at the end of which the Student's house was situated, and which was now more than ever Madeline's favourite walk, "do, dearestEugene, come up to the Manor-house till these wretches are apprehended. Consider how open your house is to attack; and surely there can be nonecessity to remain in it now. "

Aram's calm brow darkened for a moment. "What! dearest, " said he, "canyou be affected by the foolish fears of yon dotard? How do we know asyet, whether this improbable story have any foundation in truth. At allevents, it is evidently exaggerated. Perhaps an invasion of the poultry-yard, in which some hungry fox was the real offender, may be the trueorigin of this terrible tale. Nay, love, nay, do not look thusreproachfully; it will be time enough for us when we have sifted thegrounds of alarm to take our precautions; meanwhile, do not blame me ifin your presence I cannot admit fear. Oh Madeline, dear, dear Madeline, could you know, could you dream, how different life has become to mesince I knew you! Formerly, I will frankly own to you, that dark andboding apprehensions were wont to lie heavy at my heart; the cloud wasmore familiar to me than the sunshine. But now I have grown a child, andcan see around me nothing but hope; my life was winter--your love hasbreathed it into spring. "

"And yet, Eugene--yet--" "Yet what, my Madeline?"

"There are still moments when I have no power over your thoughts; momentswhen you break away from me; when you mutter to yourself feelings inwhich I have no share, and which seem to steal the consciousness fromyour eye and the colour from your lip. "

"Ah, indeed!" said Aram quickly; "what! you watch me so closely?"

"Can you wonder that I do?" said Madeline, with an earnest tenderness inher voice. 

"You must not then, you must not, " returned her lover, almost fiercely;"I cannot bear too nice and sudden a scrutiny; consider how long I haveclung to a stern and solitary independence of thought, which allows nowatch, and forbids account of itself to any one. Leave it to time andyour love to win their inevitable way. Ask not too much from me now. Andmark, mark, I pray you, whenever, in spite of myself, these moods yourefer to darken over me, heed not, listen not--Leave me! solitude istheir only cure! promise me this, love--promise. "

"It is a harsh request, Eugene, and I do not think I will grant you socomplete a monopoly of thought;" answered Madeline, playfully, yet halfin earnest. 

"Madeline, " said Aram, with a deep solemnity of manner, "I ask a requeston which my very love for you depends. From the depths of my soul, Iimplore you to grant it; yea, to the very letter. "

"Why, why, this is--"began Madeline, when encountering the full, thedark, the inscrutable gaze of her strange lover, she broke off in asudden fear, which she could not analyse; and only added in a low andsubdued voice, "I promise to obey you. "

As if a weight were lifted from his heart, Aram now brightened at onceinto himself in his happiest mood. He poured forth a torrent of gratefulconfidence, of buoyant love, that soon swept from the remembrance of theblushing and enchanted Madeline, the momentary fear, the suddenchillness, which his look had involuntarily stricken into her mind. Andas they now wound along the most lonely part of that wild valley, his armtwined round her waist, and his low but silver voice pouring magic intothe very air she breathed--she felt perhaps a more entire and unruffledsentiment of present, and a more credulous persuasion of future, happiness, than she had ever experienced before. And Aram himself dweltwith a more lively and detailed fulness, than he was wont, on theprospects they were to share, and the security and peace which retirementwould instill into their mode of life. 

"Is it not, " said he, with a lofty triumph that we shall look from ourretreat upon the shifting passions, and the hollow loves of the distantworld? We can have no petty object, no vain allurement to distract theunity of our affection: we must be all in all to each other; for whatelse can there be to engross our thoughts, and occupy our feelings here?

"If, my beautiful love, you have selected one whom the world might deem astrange choice for youth and loveliness like yours; you have, at least, selected one who can have no idol but yourself. The poets tell you, andrightly, that solitude is the fit sphere for love; but how few are thelovers whom solitude does not fatigue! they rush into retirement, withsouls unprepared for its stern joys and its unvarying tranquillity: theyweary of each other, because the solitude itself to which they fled, palls upon and oppresses them. But to me, the freedom which low mindscall obscurity, is the aliment of life; I do not enter the temples ofNature as the stranger, but the priest: nothing can ever tire me of thelone and august altars, on which I sacrificed my youth: and now, whatNature, what Wisdom once were to me--no, no, more, immeasurably more thanthese, you are! Oh, Madeline! methinks there is nothing under Heaven likethe feeling which puts us apart from all that agitates, and fevers, anddegrades the herd of men; which grants us to control the tenour of ourfuture life, because it annihilates our dependence upon others, and, while the rest of earth are hurried on, blind and unconscious, by thehand of Fate, leaves us the sole lords of our destiny; and able, from thePast, which we have governed, to become the Prophets of our Future!"

At this moment Madeline uttered a faint shriek, and clung trembling toAram's arm. Amazed, and roused from his enthusiasm, he looked up, and onseeing the cause of her alarm, seemed himself transfixed, as by a suddenterror, to the earth. 

But a few paces distant, standing amidst the long and rank fern that grewon either side of their path, quite motionless, and looking on the pairwith a sarcastic smile, stood the ominous stranger, whom the secondchapter of our first volume introduced to the reader. 

For one instant Aram seemed utterly appalled and overcome; his cheek grewthe colour of death; and Madeline felt his heart beat with a loud, afearful force beneath the breast to which she clung. But his was not thenature any earthly dread could long abash. He whispered to Madeline tocome on; and slowly, and with his usual firm but gliding step, continuedhis way. 

"Good evening, Eugene Aram, " said the stranger; and as he spoke, hetouched his hat slightly to Madeline. 

"I thank you, " replied the Student, in a calm voice; "do you want aughtwith me?"

"Humph!--yes, if it so please you?"

"Pardon me, dear Madeline, " said Aram softly, and disengaging himselffrom her, "but for one moment. "

He advanced to the stranger, and Madeline could not but note that, asAram accosted him, his brow fell, and his manner seemed violent andagitated; but she could not hear the words of either; nor did theconference last above a minute. The stranger bowed, and turning away, soon vanished among the shrubs. Aram regained the side of his mistress. 

"Who, " cried she eagerly, "is that fearful man? What is his business?What his name?"

"He is a man whom I knew well some fourteen years ago, " replied Aramcoldly, and with ease; "I did not then lead quite so lonely a life, andwe were thrown much together. Since that time, he has been in unfortunatecircumstances--rejoined the army--he was in early life a soldier, and hadbeen disbanded--entered into business, and failed; in short, he haspartaken of those vicissitudes inseparable from the life of one driven toseek the world. When he travelled this road some months ago, heaccidentally heard of my residence in the neighbourhood, and naturallysought me. Poor as I am, I was of some assistance to him. His routebrings him hither again, and he again seeks me: I suppose too that I mustagain aid him. "

"And is that indeed all, " said Madeline, breathing more freely; "well, poor man, if he be your friend, he must be inoffensive--I have done himwrong. And does he want money? I have some to give him--here Eugene!" Andthe simple-hearted girl put her purse into Aram's hand. 

"No, dearest, " said he, shrinking back; "no, we shall not require yourcontribution; I can easily spare him enough for the present. But let usturn back, it grows chill. "

"And why did he leave us, Eugene?"

"Because I desired him to visit me at home an hour hence. "

"An hour! then you will not sup with us to-night?"

"No, not this night, dearest. "

The conversation now ceased; Madeline in vain endeavoured to renew it. Aram, though without relapsing into any of his absorbed reveries, answered her only in monosyllables. They arrived at the Manor-house, andAram at the garden gate took leave of her for the night, and hastenedbackward towards his home. Madeline, after watching his form through thedeepening shadows until it disappeared, entered the house with a listlessstep; a nameless and thrilling presentiment crept to her heart; and shecould have sate down and wept, though without a cause. 

 CHAPTER II. 

 THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN ARAM AND THE STRANGER. 

 The spirits I have raised abandon me, The spells which I have studied baffle me. --Manfred. 

Meanwhile Aram strode rapidly through the village, and not till he hadregained the solitary valley did he relax his step. 

The evening had already deepened into night. Along the sere andmelancholy wood, the autumnal winds crept, with a lowly, but gatheringmoan. Where the water held its course, a damp and ghostly mist cloggedthe air, but the skies were calm, and chequered only by a few clouds, that swept in long, white, spectral streaks, over the solemn stars. Nowand then, the bat wheeled swiftly round, almost touching the figure ofthe Student, as he walked musingly onward. And the owl [Note: Thatspecies called the short-eared owl. ] that before the month waned manydays, would be seen no more in that region, came heavily from the trees, like a guilty thought that deserts its shade. It was one of those nights, half dim, half glorious, which mark the early decline of the year. Natureseemed restless and instinct with change; there were those signs in theatmosphere which leave the most experienced in doubt, whether the morningmay rise in storm or sunshine. And in this particular period, the skieyinfluences seem to tincture the animal life with their own mysterious andwayward spirit of change. The birds desert their summer haunts; anunaccountable inquietude pervades the brute creation; even men in thisunsettled season have considered themselves, more (than at others)stirred by the motion and whisperings of their genius. And every creaturethat flows upon the tide of the Universal Life of Things, feels upon theruffled surface, the mighty and solemn change, which is at work withinits depths. 

And now Aram had nearly threaded the valley, and his own abode becamevisible on the opening plain, when the stranger emerged from the trees tothe right, and suddenly stood before the Student. "I tarried for youhere, Aram, " said he, "instead of seeking you at home, at the time youfixed; for there are certain private reasons which make it prudent Ishould keep as much as possible among the owls, and it was thereforesafer, if not more pleasant, to lie here amidst the fern, than to makemyself merry in the village yonder. "

"And what, " said Aram, "again brings you hither? Did you not say, whenyou visited me some months since, that you were about to settle in adifferent part of the country, with a relation?"

"And so I intended; but Fate, as you would say, or the Devil, as Ishould, ordered it otherwise. I had not long left you, when I fell inwith some old friends, bold spirits and true; the brave outlaws of theroad and the field. Shall I have any shame in confessing that I preferredtheir society, a society not unfamiliar to me, to the dull and solitarylife that I might have led in tending my old bed-ridden relation inWales, who after all, may live these twenty years, and at the end canscarce leave me enough for a week's ill luck at the hazard-table? In aword, I joined my gallant friends, and entrusted myself to theirguidance. Since then, we have cruised around the country, regaledourselves cheerily, frightened the timid, silenced the fractious, and bythe help of your fate, or my devil, have found ourselves by accident, brought to exhibit our valour in this very district, honoured by thedwelling-place of my learned friend, Eugene Aram. "

"Trifle not with me, Houseman, " said Aram sternly; "I scarcely yetunderstand you. Do you mean to imply, that yourself, and the lawlessassociates you say you have joined, are lying out now for plunder inthese parts?"

"You say it: perhaps you heard of our exploits last night, some fourmiles hence?"

"Ha! was that villainy yours?"

"Villainy!" repeated Houseman, in a tone of sullen offence. "Come, MasterAram, these words must not pass between you and me, friends of such date, and on such a footing. "

"Talk not of the past, " replied Aram with a livid lip, "and call notthose whom Destiny once, in despite of Nature, drove down her dark tidein a momentary companionship, by the name of friends. Friends we are not;but while we live, there is a tie between us stronger than that offriendship. "

"You speak truth and wisdom, " said Houseman, sneeringly; "for my part, Icare not what you call us, friends or foes. "

"Foes, foes!" exclaimed Aram abruptly, "not that. Has life no medium inits ties?--pooh--pooh! not foes; we may not be foes to each other. "

"It were foolish, at least at present, " said Houseman carelessly. 

"Look you, Houseman, " continued Aram drawing his comrade from the pathinto a wilder part of the scene, and, as he spoke, his words were couchedin a more low and inward voice than heretofore. "Look you, I cannot liveand have my life darkened thus by your presence. Is not the world wideenough for us both? Why haunt each other? what have you to gain from me?Can the thoughts that my sight recalls to you be brighter, or morepeaceful, than those which start upon me, when I gaze on you? Does not aghastly air, a charnel breath, hover about us both? Why perversely incura torture it is so easy to avoid? Leave me--leave these scenes. All earthspreads before you--choose your pursuits, and your resting placeelsewhere, but grudge me not this little spot. "

"I have no wish to disturb you, Eugene Aram, but I must live; and inorder to live I must obey my companions; if I deserted them, it would beto starve. They will not linger long in this district; a week, it may be;a fortnight, at most; then, like the Indian animal, they will strip theleaves, and desert the tree. In a word, after we have swept the country, we are gone. "

"Houseman, Houseman!" said Aram passionately, and frowning till his browsalmost hid his eyes, but that part of the orb which they did not hide, seemed as living fire; "I now implore, but I can threaten--beware!--silence, I say;" (and he stamped his foot violently on the ground, as hesaw Houseman about to interrupt him;) "listen to me throughout--Speak notto me of tarrying here--speak not of days, of weeks--every hour of whichwould sound upon my ear like a death-knell. Dream not of a sojourn inthese tranquil shades, upon an errand of dread and violence--the minionsof the law aroused against you, girt with the chances of apprehension anda shameful death--" "And a full confession of my past sins, " interruptedHouseman, laughing wildly. 

"Fiend! devil!" cried Aram, grasping his comrade by the throat, andshaking him with a vehemence that Houseman, though a man of greatstrength and sinew, impotently attempted to resist. 

"Breathe but another word of such import; dare to menace me with thevengeance of such a thing as thou, and, by the God above us, I will laythee dead at my feet!"

"Release my throat, or you will commit murder, " gasped Houseman withdifficulty, and growing already black in the face. 

Aram suddenly relinquished his gripe, and walked away with a hurriedstep, muttering to himself. He then returned to the side of Houseman, whose flesh still quivered either with rage or fear, and, his own self-possession completely restored, stood gazing upon him with folded arms, and his usual deep and passionless composure of countenance; andHouseman, if he could not boldly confront, did not altogether shrinkfrom, his eye. So there and thus they stood, at a little distance fromeach other, both silent, and yet with something unutterably fearful intheir silence. 

"Houseman, " said Aram at length, in a calm, yet a hollow voice, "it maybe that I was wrong; but there lives no man on earth, save you, who couldthus stir my blood, --nor you with ease. And know, when you menace me, that it is not your menace that subdues or shakes my spirit; but thatwhich robs my veins of their even tenor is that you should deem yourmenace could have such power, or that you, --that any man, --shouldarrogate to himself the thought that he could, by the prospect ofwhatsoever danger, humble the soul and curb the will of Eugene Aram. Andnow I am calm; say what you will, I cannot be vexed again. "

"I have done, " replied Houseman coldly; "I have nothing to say;farewell!" and he moved away among the trees. 

"Stay, " cried Aram in some agitation; "stay; we must not part thus. Lookyou, Houseman, you say you would starve should you leave your presentassociates. That may not be; quit them this night, --this moment: leavethe neighbourhood, and the little in my power is at your will. "

"As to that, " said Houseman drily, "what is in your power is, I fear me, so little as not to counterbalance the advantages I should lose inquitting my companions. I expect to net some three hundreds before Ileave these parts. "

"Some three hundreds!" repeated Aram recoiling; "that were indeed beyondme. I told you when we last met that it is only by an annual payment Idraw the little wealth I have. "

"I remember it. I do not ask you for money, Eugene Aram; these hands canmaintain me, " replied Houseman, smiling grimly. "I told you at once thesum I expected to receive somewhere, in order to prove that you need notvex your benevolent heart to afford me relief. I knew well the sum Inamed was out of your power, unless indeed it be part of the marriageportion you are about to receive with your bride. Fie, Aram! what, secrets from your old friend! You see I pick up the news of the placewithout your confidence. "

Again Aram's face worked, and his lip quivered; but he conquered hispassion with a surprising self-command, and answered mildly, "I do notknow, Houseman, whether I shall receive any marriage portion whatsoever:If I do, I am willing to make some arrangement by which I could engageyou to molest me no more. But it yet wants several days to my marriage;quit the neighbourhood now, and a month hence let us meet again. Whateverat that time may be my resources, you shall frankly know them. "

"It cannot be, " said Houseman; "I quit not these districts without acertain sum, not in hope, but possession. But why interfere with me? Iseek not my hoards in your coffer. Why so anxious that I should notbreathe the same air as yourself?"

"It matters not, " replied Aram, with a deep and ghastly voice; "but whenyou are near me, I feel as if I were with the dead; it is a spectre thatI would exorcise in ridding me of your presence. Yet this is not what Inow speak of. You are engaged, according to your own lips, in lawless andmidnight schemes, in which you may, (and the tide of chances runs towardsthat bourne, ) be seized by the hand of Justice. "

"Ho, " said Houseman, sullenly, "and was it not for saying that you fearedthis, and its probable consequences, that you well-nigh stifled me, butnow?--so truth may be said one moment with impunity, and the next atperil of life! These are the subtleties of you wise schoolmen, I suppose. Your Aristotles, and your Zenos, your Platos, and your Epicurus's, teachyou notable distinctions, truly!"

"Peace!" said Aram; "are we at all times ourselves? Are the passionsnever our masters? You maddened me into anger; behold, I am now calm: thesubjects discussed between myself and you, are of life and death; let usapproach them with our senses collected and prepared. What, Houseman, areyou bent upon your own destruction, as well as mine, that you perseverein courses which must end in a death of shame?"

"What else can I do? I will not work, and I cannot live like you in alone wilderness on a crust of bread. Nor is my name like yours, mouthedby the praise of honest men: my character is marked; those who once knewme, shun now. I have no resource for society, (for I cannot face myselfalone, ) but in the fellowship of men like myself, whom the world hasthrust from its pale. I have no resource for bread, save in the pursuitsthat are branded by justice, and accompanied with snares and danger. Whatwould you have me do?"

"Is it not better, " said Aram, "to enjoy peace and safety upon a smallbut certain pittance, than to live thus from hand to mouth? vibratingfrom wealth to famine, and the rope around your neck, sleeping and awake?Seek your relation; in that quarter, you yourself said your character wasnot branded: live with him, and know the quiet of easy days, and Ipromise you, that if aught be in my power to make your lot more suitableto your wants, so long as you lead the life of honest men, it shall befreely yours. Is not this better, Houseman, than a short and sleeplesscareer of dread?"

"Aram, " answered Houseman, "are you, in truth, calm enough to hear mespeak? I warn you, that if again you forget yourself, and lay hands onme--" "Threaten not, threaten not, " interrupted Aram, "but proceed; allwithin me is now still and cold as ice. Proceed without fear of scruple. "

"Be it so; we do not love one another: you have affected contempt for me--and I--I--no matter--I am not a stone or stick, that I should not feel. You have scorned me--you have outraged me--you have not assumed towardsme even the decent hypocrisies of prudence--yet now you would ask of me, the conduct, the sympathy, the forbearance, the concession of friendship. You wish that I should quit these scenes, where, to my judgment, acertain advantage waits me, solely that I may lighten your breast of itsselfish fears. You dread the dangers that await me on your own account. And in my apprehension, you forebode your own doom. You ask me, nay, notask, you would command, you would awe me to sacrifice my will and wishes, in order to soothe your anxieties, and strengthen your own safety. Markme! Eugene Aram, I have been treated as a tool, and I will not begoverned as a friend. I will not stir from the vicinity of your home, till my designs be fulfilled, --I enjoy, I hug myself in your torments. Iexult in the terror with which you will hear of each new enterprise, eachnew daring, each new triumph of myself and my gallant comrades. And now Iam avenged for the affront you put upon me. "

Though Aram trembled, with suppressed passions, from limb to limb, hisvoice was still calm, and his lip even wore a smile as he answered, --"Iwas prepared for this, Houseman, you utter nothing that surprises orappalls me. You hate me; it is natural; men united as we are, rarely lookon each other with a friendly or a pitying eye. But Houseman; I knowyou!--you are a man of vehement passions, but interest with you is yetstronger than passion. If not, our conference is over. Go--and do yourworst. "

"You are right, most learned scholar; I can fetter the tiger within, inhis deadliest rage, by a golden chain. "

"Well, then, Houseman, it is not your interest to betray me--mydestruction is your own. "

"I grant it; but if I am apprehended, and to be hung for robbery?"

"It will be no longer an object to you, to care for my safety. Assuredly, I comprehend this. But my interest induces me to wish that you be removedfrom the peril of apprehension, and your interest replies, that if youcan obtain equal advantages in security, you would forego advantagesaccompanied by peril. Say what we will, wander as we will, it is to thispoint that we must return at last. "

"Nothing can be clearer; and were you a rich man, Eugene Aram, or couldyou obtain your bride's dowry (no doubt a respectable sum) in advance, the arrangement might at once be settled. "

Aram gasped for breath, and as usual with him in emotion, made severalstrides forward, muttering rapidly, and indistinctly to himself, and thenreturned. 

"Even were this possible, it would be but a short reprieve; I could nottrust you; the sum would be spent, and I again in the state to which youhave compelled me now; but without the means again to relieve myself. No, no! if the blow must fall, be it so one day as another. "

"As you will, " said Houseman; 'but--' Just at that moment, a long shrillwhistle sounded below, as from the water. Houseman paused abruptly--"Thatsignal is from my comrades; I must away. Hark, again! Farewell, Aram. "

"Farewell, if it must be so, " said Aram, in a tone of dogged sullenness;"but to-morrow, should you know of any means by which I could feelsecure, beyond the security of your own word, from your futuremolestation, I might--yet how?"

"To-morrow, " said Houseman, "I cannot answer for myself; it is not alwaysthat I can leave my comrades; a natural jealousy makes them suspicious ofthe absence of their friends. Yet hold; the night after to-morrow, theSabbath night, most virtuous Aram, I can meet you--but not here--somemiles hence. You know the foot of the Devil's Crag, by the waterfall; itis a spot quiet and shaded enough in all conscience for our interview;and I will tell you a secret I would trust to no other man--(hark, again!)--it is close by our present lurking-place. Meet me there!--itwould, indeed, be pleasanter to hold our conference under shelter--butjust at present, I would rather not trust myself beneath any honest man'sroof in this neighbourhood. Adieu! on Sunday night, one hour before mid-night. "

The robber, for such then he was, waved his hand, and hurried away in thedirection from which the signal seemed to come. 

Aram gazed after him, but with vacant eyes; and remained for severalminutes rooted to the spot, as if the very life had left him. 

"The Sabbath night!" said he, at length, moving slowly on; "and I mustspin forth my existence in trouble and fear till then--till then! whatremedy can I then invent? It is clear that I can have no dependance onhis word, if won; and I have not even aught wherewith to buy it. Butcourage, courage, my heart; and work thou, my busy brain! Ye have neverfailed me yet!"

 CHAPTER III. 

 FRESH ALARM IN THE VILLAGE. --LESTER'S VISIT TO ARAM. --A TRAIT OF DELICATE KINDNESS IN THE STUDENT. --MADELINE. --HER PRONENESS TO CONFIDE. --THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN LESTER AND ARAM. --THE PERSONS BY WHOM IT IS INTERRUPTED. 

 Not my own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love controul. --Shakspeare: Sonnets. 

 Commend me to their love, and I am proud, say, That my occasions have found time to use them Toward a supply of money; let the request Be fifty talents. --Timon Of Athens. 

The next morning the whole village was alive and bustling with terror andconsternation. Another, and a yet more daring robbery, had been committedin the neighbourhood, and the police of the county town had beensummoned, and were now busy in search of the offenders. Aram had beenearly disturbed by the officious anxiety of some of his neighbours; andit wanted yet some hours of noon, when Lester himself came to seek andconsult with the Student. 

Aram was alone in his large and gloomy chamber, surrounded, as usual, by his books, but not as usual engaged in their contents. With his faceleaning on his hand, and his eyes gazing on a dull fire, that creptheavily upward through the damp fuel, he sate by his hearth, listless, but wrapt in thought. 

"Well, my friend, " said Lester, displacing the books from one of thechairs, and drawing the seat near the Student's--"you have ere this heardthe news, and indeed in a county so quiet as ours, these outrages appearthe more fearful, from their being so unlooked for. We must set a guardin the village, Aram, and you must leave this defenceless hermitage andcome down to us; not for your own sake, --but consider you will be anadditional safeguard to Madeline. You will lock up the house, dismissyour poor old governante to her friends in the village, and walk backwith me at once to the hall. "

Aram turned uneasily in his chair. 

"I feel your kindness, " said he after a pause, "but I cannot accept it--Madeline, " he stopped short at that name, and added in an altered voice;"no, I will be one of the watch, Lester; I will look to her--to your--safety; but I cannot sleep under another roof. I am superstitious, Lester--superstitious. I have made a vow, a foolish one perhaps, but I dare notbreak it. And my vow binds me, save on indispensable and urgentnecessity, not to pass a night any where but in my own home. "

"But there is necessity. "

"My conscience says not, " said Aram smiling: "peace, my good friend, wecannot conquer men's foibles, or wrestle with men's scruples. "

Lester in vain attempted to shake Aram's resolution on this head; hefound him immoveable, and gave up the effort in despair. 

"Well, " said he, "at all events we have set up a watch, and can spare youa couple of defenders. They shall reconnoitre in the neighbourhood ofyour house, if you persevere in your determination, and this will servein some slight measure to satisfy poor Madeline. "

"Be it so, " replied Aram; "and dear Madeline herself, is she so alarmed?"

And now in spite of all the more wearing and haggard thoughts that preyedupon his breast, and the dangers by which he conceived himself beset, theStudent's face, as he listened with eager attention to every word thatLester uttered concerning his niece, testified how alive he yet was tothe least incident that related to Madeline, and how easily her innocentand peaceful remembrance could allure him from himself. 

"This room, " said Lester, looking round, "will be, I conclude, afterMadeline's own heart; but will you always suffer her here? students donot sometimes like even the gentlest interruption. "

"I have not forgotten that Madeline's comfort requires some more cheerfulretreat than this, " said Aram, with a melancholy expression ofcountenance. "Follow me, Lester; I meant this for a little surprise toher. But Heaven only knows if I shall ever show it to herself?"

"Why? what doubt of that can even your boding temper discover?"

"We are as the wanderers in the desert, " answered Aram, "who are taughtwisely to distrust their own senses: that which they gaze upon as thewaters of existence, is often but a faithless vapour that would lure themto destruction. "

In thus speaking he had traversed the room, and, opening a door, showed asmall chamber with which it communicated, and which Aram had fitted upwith evident, and not ungraceful care. Every article of furniture thatMadeline might most fancy, he had sent for from the neighbouring town. And some of the lighter and more attractive books that he possessed, wereranged around on shelves, above which were vases, intended for flowers;the window opened upon a little plot that had been lately broken up intoa small garden, and was already intersected with walks, and rich withshrubs. 

There was something in this chamber that so entirely contrasted the oneit adjoined, something so light, and cheerful, and even gay in itsdecoration and its tout ensemble, that Lester uttered an exclamation ofdelight and surprise. And indeed it did appear to him touching, that thisaustere scholar, so wrapt in thought, and so inattentive to the commonforms of life, should have manifested this tender and delicateconsideration. In another it would have been nothing, but in Aram, it wasa trait, that brought involuntary tears to the eyes of the good Lester. Aram observed them: he walked hastily away to the window, and sighedheavily; this did not escape his friend's notice, and after commenting onthe attractions of the little room--Lester said: "You seem oppressed inspirits, Eugene: can any thing have chanced to disturb you, beyond, atleast, these alarms which are enough to agitate the nerves of thehardiest of us?"

"No, " said Aram; "I had no sleep last night, and my health is easilyaffected, and with my health my mind; but let us go to Madeline; thesight of her will revive me. "

They then strolled down to the Manor-house, and met by the way a band ofthe younger heroes of the village, who had volunteered to act as apatrole, and who were now marshalled by Peter Dealtry, in a fit of heroicenthusiasm. 

Although it was broad daylight, and, consequently, there was little causeof immediate alarm, the worthy publican carried on his shoulder a musketon full cock; and each moment he kept peeping about, as if not only everybush, but every blade of grass contained an ambuscade, ready to spring upthe instant he was off his guard. By his side the redoubted Jacobina, whohad transferred to her new master, the attachment she had originallypossessed for the Corporal, trotted peeringly along, her tailperpendicularly cocked, and her ears moving to and fro, with a mostincomparable air of vigilant sagacity. The cautious Peter every now andthen checked her ardour, as she was about to quicken her step, andenliven the march by the gambols better adapted to serener times. 

"Soho, Jacobina, soho! gently, girl, gently; thou little knowest thedangers that may beset thee. Come up, my good fellows, come to theSpotted Dog; I will tap a barrel on purpose for you; and we will settlethe plan of defence for the night. Jacobina, come in, I say, come in, --

 "'Lest, like a lion, they thee tear, And rend in pieces small; While there is none to succour thee, And rid thee out of thrall. '

What ho, there! Oh! I beg your honour's pardon! Your servant, Mr. Aram. "

"What, patroling already?" said the squire; "your men will be tiredbefore they are wanted; reserve their ardour for the night. "

"Oh, your Honour, I have only been beating up for recruits; and we aregoing to consult a bit at home. Ah! what a pity the Corporal isn't here:he would have been a tower of strength unto the righteous. Buthowsomever, I do my best to supply his place--Jacobina, child, be still:I can't say as I knows the musket-sarvice, your honour; but I fancy's ashow, like Joe Roarjug, the Methodist, we can do it extemporaneous-like ata pinch. "

"A bold heart, Peter, is the best preparation, " said the squire. 

"And, " quoth Peter quickly, "what saith the worshipful Mister Sternhold, in the 45th psalm, 5th verse, --

'Go forth with godly speed, in meekness, truth, and might, And thy right hand shall thee instruct in works of dreadful might. '"

Peter quoted these verses, especially the last, with a truculent frown, and a brandishing of the musket, that surprisingly encouraged the heartsof his little armament; and with a general murmur of enthusiasm, thewarlike band marched off to The Spotted Dog. 

Lester and his companion found Madeline and Ellinor standing at thewindow of the hall; and Madeline's light step was the first that sprangforward to welcome their return: even the face of the Student brightened, when he saw the kindling eye, the parted lip, the buoyant form, fromwhich the pure and innocent gladness she felt on seeing him broke forth. 

There was a remarkable trustingness, if I may so speak, in Madeline'sdisposition. Thoughtful and grave as she was, by nature, she was yet everinclined to the more sanguine colourings of life; she never turned to thefuture with fear--a placid sentiment of Hope slept at her heart--she wasone who surrendered herself with a fond and implicit faith to theguidance of all she loved; and to the chances of life. It was a sweetindolence of the mind, which made one of her most beautiful traits ofcharacter; there is something so unselfish in tempers reluctant todespond. You see that such persons are not occupied with their ownexistence; they are not fretting the calm of the present life, with theegotisms of care, and conjecture, and calculation: if they learn anxiety, it is for another; but in the heart of that other, how entire is theirtrust!

It was this disposition in Madeline which perpetually charmed, and yetperpetually wrung, the soul of her wild lover; and as she now delightedlyhung upon his arm, uttering her joy at seeing him safe, and presentlyforgetting that there ever had been cause for alarm, his heart was filledwith the most gloomy sense of horror and desolation. "What, " thought he, "if this poor, unconscious girl could dream that at this moment I amgirded with peril, from which I see no ultimate escape? Delay it as Iwill, it seems as if the blow must come at last. What, if she could thinkhow fearful is my interest in these outrages, that in all probability, iftheir authors are detected, there is one who will drag me into theirruin; that I am given over, bound and blinded, into the hands of another;and that other, a man steeled to mercy, and withheld from my destructionby a thread--a thread that a blow on himself would snap. Great God!wherever I turn, I see despair! And she--she clings to me; and beholdingme, thinks the whole earth is filled with hope!"

While these thoughts darkened his mind, Madeline drew him onward into themore sequestered walks of the garden, to show him some flowers she hadtransplanted. And when an hour afterwards he returned to the hall, sosoothing had been the influence of her looks and words upon Aram, that ifhe had not forgotten the situation in which he stood, he had at leastcalmed himself to regard with a steady eye the chances of escape. 

The meal of the day passed as cheerfully as usual, and when Aram and hishost were left over their abstemious potations, the former proposed awalk before the evening deepened. Lester readily consented, and theysauntered into the fields. The Squire soon perceived that something wason Aram's mind, of which he felt evident embarrassment in riddinghimself: at length the Student said rather abruptly: "My dear friend, Iam but a bad beggar, and therefore let me get over my request asexpeditiously as possible. You said to me once that you intendedbestowing some dowry upon Madeline; a dowry I would and could willinglydispense with; but should you of that sum be now able to spare me someportion as a loan, --should you have some three hundred pounds with whichyou could accommodate me. --" "Say no more, Eugene, say no more, "interrupted the Squire, --"you can have double that amount. Yourpreparations for your approaching marriage, I ought to have foreseen, must have occasioned you some inconvenience; you can have six hundredpounds from me to-morrow. "

Aram's eyes brightened. "It is too much, too much, my generous friend, "said he; "the half suffices--but, but, a debt of old standing presses meurgently, and to-morrow, or rather Monday morning, is the time fixed forpayment. "

"Consider it arranged, " said Lester, putting his hand on Aram's arm, andthen leaning on it gently, he added, "And now that we are on thissubject, let me tell you what I intended as a gift to you, and my dearMadeline; it is but small, but my estates are rigidly entailed on Walter, and of poor value in themselves, and it is half the savings of manyyears. "

The Squire then named a sum, which, however small it may seem to ourreader, was not considered a despicable portion for the daughter of asmall country squire at that day, and was in reality, a generoussacrifice for one whose whole income was scarcely, at the most, sevenhundred a year. The sum mentioned doubled that now to be lent, and whichwas of course a part of it; an equal portion was reserved for Ellinor. 

"And to tell you the truth, " said the Squire, "you must give me somelittle time for the remainder--for not thinking some months ago it wouldbe so soon wanted, I laid out eighteen hundred pounds, in the purchase ofWinclose Farm, six of which, (the remainder of your share, ) I can pay offat the end of the year; the other twelve, Ellinor's portion, will remaina mortgage on the farm itself. And between us, " added the Squire, "I dohope that I need be in no hurry respecting her, dear girl. When Walterreturns, I trust matters may be arranged, in a manner, and through achannel, that would gratify the most cherished wish of my heart. I amconvinced that Ellinor is exactly suited to him; and, unless he shouldlose his senses for some one else in the course of his travels, I trustthat he will not be long returned before he will make the same discovery. I think of writing to him very shortly after your marriage, and makinghim promise, at all events, to revisit us at Christmas. Ah! Eugene, weshall be a happy party, then, I trust. And be assured, that we shall beatup your quarters, and put your hospitality, and Madeline's housewifery tothe test. "

Therewith the good Squire ran on for some minutes in the warmth of hisheart, dilating on the fireside prospects before them, and rallying theStudent on those secluded habits, which he promised him he should nolonger indulge with impunity. 

"But it is growing dark, " said he, awakening from the theme which hadcarried him away, "and by this time Peter and our patrole will be at thehall. I told them to look up in the evening, in order to appoint theirseveral duties and stations--let us turn back. Indeed, Aram, I can assureyou, that I, for my own part, have some strong reasons to takeprecautions against any attack; for besides the old family plate, (thoughthat's not much, ) I have, --you know the bureau in the parlour to the leftof the hall--well, I have in that bureau three hundred guineas, which Ihave not as yet been able to take to safe hands at--, and which, by theway, will be your's to-morrow. So, you see, it would be no lightmisfortune to me to be robbed. "

"Hist!" said Aram, stopping short, "I think I heard steps on the otherside of the hedge. "

The Squire listened, but heard nothing; the senses of his companion were, however, remarkably acute, more especially that of hearing. 

"There is certainly some one; nay, I catch the steps of two persons, "whispered he to Lester. "Let us come round the hedge by the gap below. "

They both quickened their pace, and gaining the other side of the hedge, did indeed perceive two men in carters' frocks, strolling on towards thevillage. 

"They are strangers too, " said the Squire suspiciously, "not Grassdalemen. Humph! could they have overheard us, think you?"

"If men whose business it is to overhear their neighbours--yes; but notif they be honest men, " answered Aram, in one of those shrewd remarkswhich he often uttered, and which seemed almost incompatible with thetenor of the quiet and abstruse pursuits that he had adopted, and thatgenerally deaden the mind to worldly wisdom. 

They had now approached the strangers, who, however, appeared mere rusticclowns, and who pulled off their hats with the wonted obeisance of theirtribe. 

"Hollo, my men, " said the Squire, assuming his magisterial air, for themildest Squire in Christendom can play the Bashaw, when he remembers heis a Justice of the Peace. "Hollo! what are you doing here this time ofday? you are not after any good, I fear. "

"We ax pardon, your honour, " said the elder clown, in the peculiar accentof the country, "but we be come from Gladsmuir; and be going to work atSquire Nixon's at Mow-hall, on Monday; so as I has a brother living onthe green afore the Squire's, we be a-going to sleep there to-night andspend the Sunday, your honour. "

"Humph! humph! What's your name?"

"Joe Wood, your honour, and this here chap is, Will Hutchings. "

"Well, well, go along with you, " said the Squire: "And mind what you areabout. I should not be surprised if you snare one of Squire Nixon's haresby the way. "

"Oh, well and indeed, your honour. "--"Go along, go along, " said theSquire, and away went the men. 

"They seem honest bumpkins enough, " observed Lester. 

"It would have pleased me better, " said Aram, "had the speaker of the twoparticularized less; and you observed that he seemed eager not to let hiscompanion speak; that is a little suspicious. "

"Shall I call them back?" asked the Squire. 

"Why it is scarcely worth while, " said Aram; "perhaps I over refine. Andnow I look again at them, they seem really what they affect to be. No, itis useless to molest the poor wretches any more. There is something, Lester, humbling to human pride in a rustic's life. It grates against theheart to think of the tone in which we unconsciously permit ourselves toaddress him. We see in him humanity in its simple state; it is a sadthought to feel that we despise it; that all we respect in our species iswhat has been created by art; the gaudy dress, the glittering equipage, or even the cultivated intellect; the mere and naked material of Nature, we eye with indifference or trample on with disdain. Poor child of toil, from the grey dawn to the setting sun, one long task!--no idea elicited--no thought awakened beyond those that suffice to make him the machine ofothers--the serf of the hard soil! And then too, mark how we scowl uponhis scanty holidays, how we hedge in his mirth with laws, and turn hishilarity into crime! We make the whole of the gay world, wherein we walkand take our pleasure, to him a place of snares and perils. If he leavehis labour for an instant, in that instant how many temptations spring upto him! And yet we have no mercy for his errors; the gaol--the transport-ship--the gallows; those are our sole lecture-books, and our onlymethods of expostulation--ah, fie on the disparities of the world! Theycripple the heart, they blind the sense, they concentrate the thousandlinks between man and man, into the two basest of earthly ties--servility, and pride. Methinks the devils laugh out when they hear ustell the boor that his soul is as glorious and eternal as our own; andyet when in the grinding drudgery of his life, not a spark of that soulcan be called forth; when it sleeps, walled around in its lumpish clay, from the cradle to the grave, without a dream to stir the deadness of itstorpor. "

"And yet, Aram, " said Lester, "the Lords of science have their ills. Exalt the soul as you will, you cannot raise it above pain. Better, perhaps, to let it sleep, when in waking it looks only upon a world oftrial. "

"You say well, you say well, " said Aram smiting his heart, "and Isuffered a foolish sentiment to carry me beyond the sober boundaries ofour daily sense. "

 CHAPTER IV. 

 MILITARY PREPARATIONS. --THE COMMANDER AND HIS MAN. --ARAM IS PERSUADED TO PASS THE NIGHT AT THE MANOR-HOUSE. 

 Falstaff. --"Bid my Lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. . . I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads. " --Henry IV. 

They had scarcely reached the Manor-house, before the rain, which theclouds had portended throughout the whole day, began to descend intorrents, and to use the strong expression of the Roman poet--the nightrushed down, black and sudden, over the face of the earth. 

The new watch were not by any means the hardy and experienced soldiery, by whom rain and darkness are unheeded. They looked with great dismayupon the character of the night in which their campaign was to commence. The valorous Peter, who had sustained his own courage by repeatedapplications to a little bottle, which he never failed to carry about himin all the more bustling and enterprising occasions of life, endeavoured, but with partial success, to maintain the ardour of his band. Seated inthe servants' hall of the Manor-house, in a large arm-chair, Jacobina onhis knee, and his trusty musket, which, to the great terror of thewomankind, had never been uncocked throughout the day, still grasped inhis right hand, while the stock was grounded on the floor; he indulged inmartial harangues, plentifully interlarded with plagiarisms from theworshipful translations of Messrs. Sternhold and Hopkins, and psalmodicversions of a more doubtful authorship. And when at the hour of ten, which was the appointed time, he led his warlike force, which consistedof six rustics, armed with sticks of incredible thickness, three guns, one pistol, a broadsword, and a pitchfork, (a weapon likely to be moreeffectively used than all the rest put together;) when at the hour of tenhe led them up to the room above, where they were to be passed in reviewbefore the critical eye of the Squire, with Jacobina leading the on-guard, you could not fancy a prettier picture for a hero in a little way, than mine host of the Spotted Dog. 

His hat was fastened tight on his brows by a blue pocket-handkerchief; hewore a spencer of a light brown drugget, a world too loose, above aleather jerkin; his breeches of corduroy, were met all of a sudden halfway up the thigh, by a detachment of Hessians, formerly in the service ofthe Corporal, and bought some time since by Peter Dealtry to wear whenemployed in shooting snipes for the Squire, to whom he occasionallyperformed the office of game-keeper; suspended round his wrist by a bitof black ribbon, was his constable's baton; he shouldered his musketgallantly, and he carried his person as erect as if the least deflexionfrom its perpendicularity were to cost him his life. One may judge of therevolution that had taken place in the village, when so peaceable a manas Peter Dealtry was thus metamorphosed into a commander-in-chief. Therest of the regiment hung sheepishly back; each trying to get as near tothe door, and as far from the ladies, as possible. But Peter having madeup his mind, that a hero should only look straight forward, did notcondescend to turn round, to perceive the irregularity of his line. Secure in his own existence, he stood truculently forth, facing theSquire, and prepared to receive his plaudits. 

Madeline and Aram sat apart at one corner of the hearth, and Ellinorleaned over the chair of the former; the mirth that she struggled tosuppress from being audible, mantling over her arch face and laughingeyes; while the Squire, taking the pipe from his mouth, turned round onhis easy chair, and nodded complacently to the little corps, and thegreat commander. 

"We are all ready now, your honour, " said Peter, in a voice that did notseem to belong to his body, so big did it sound, "all hot, all eager. "

"Why you yourself are a host, Peter, " said Ellinor with affected gravity;"your sight alone would frighten an army of robbers: who could havethought you could assume so military an air? The Corporal himself wasnever so upright!"

"I have practised my present attitude all the day, Miss, " said Peter, proudly, "and I believe I may now say as Mr. Sternhold says or sings, inthe twenty-sixth Psalm, verse twelfth. 

 'My foot is stayed for all assays, It standeth well and right, Wherefore to God--will I give praise In all the people's sight!'

Jacobina, behave yourself, child. I don't think, your honour, that wemiss the Corporal so much as I fancied at first, for we all does verywell without him. "

"Indeed you are a most worthy substitute, Peter; and now, Nell, justreach me my hat and cloak; I will set you at your posts: you will have anugly night of it. "

"Very indeed, your honour, " cried all the army, speaking for the firsttime. 

"Silence--order--discipline, " said Peter gruffly. "March!"

But instead of marching across the hall, the recruits huddled up oneafter the other, like a flock of geese, whom Jacobina might be supposedto have set in motion, and each scraping to the ladies, as they shuffled, sneaked, bundled, and bustled out at the door. 

"We are well guarded now, Madeline, " said Ellinor; "I fancy we may go tosleep as safely as if there were not a housebreaker in the world. "

"Why, " said Madeline, "let us trust they will be more efficient than theyseem, though I cannot persuade myself that we shall really need them. Onemight almost as well conceive a tiger in our arbour, as a robber inGrassdale. But dear, dear Eugene, do not--do not leave us this night;Walter's room is ready for you, and if it were only to walk across thatvalley in such weather, it would be cruel to leave us. Let me beseechyou; come, you cannot, you dare not refuse me such a favour. "

Aram pleaded his vow, but it was overruled; Madeline proved herself amost exquisite casuist in setting it aside. One by one his objectionswere broken down; and how, as he gazed into those eyes, could he keep anyresolution, that Madeline wished him to break! The power she possessedover him seemed exactly in proportion to his impregnability to every oneelse. The surface on which the diamond cuts its easy way, will yield tono more ignoble instrument; it is easy to shatter it, but by only onesubstance can it be impressed. And in this instance Aram had but onesecret and strong cause to prevent his yielding to Madeline's wishes;--ifhe remained at the house this night, how could he well avoid a similarcompliance the next? And on the next was his interview with Houseman. This reason was not, however, strong enough to enable him to resistMadeline's soft entreaties; he trusted to the time to furnish him withexcuses, and when Lester returned, Madeline with a triumphant airinformed him that Aram had consented to be their guest for the night. "

"Your influence is indeed greater than mine, " said Lester, wringing hishat as the delicate fingers of Ellinor loosened his cloak; "yet one canscarcely think our friend sacrifices much in concession, after provingthe weather without. I should pity our poor patrole most exceedingly, ifI were not thoroughly assured that within two hours every one of themwill have quietly slunk home; and even Peter himself, when he hasexhausted his bottle, will be the first to set the example. However, Ihave stationed two of the men near our house, and the rest at equaldistances along the village. "

"Do you really think they will go home, Sir?" said Ellinor, in a littlealarm; "why they would be worse than I thought them, if they were drivento bed by the rain. I knew they could not stand a pistol, but a shower, however hard, I did imagine would scarcely quench their valour. "

"Never mind, girl, " said Lester, gaily chucking her under the chin, "weare quite strong enough now to resist them. You see Madeline has grown asbrave as a lioness--Come, girls, come, let's have supper, and stir up thefire. And, Nell, where are my slippers?"

And thus on the little family scene, the cheerful wood fire flickeringagainst the polished wainscot; the supper table arranged, the Squiredrawing his oak chair towards it, Ellinor mixing his negus; and Aram andMadeline, though three times summoned to the table, and having threetimes answered to the summons, still lingering apart by the hearth--letus drop the curtain. 

We have only, ere we close our chapter, to observe, that when Lesterconducted Aram to his chamber he placed in his hands an order payable atthe county town, for three hundred pounds. "The rest, " he said in awhisper, "is below, where I mentioned; and there in my secret drawer ithad better rest till the morning. "

The good Squire then, putting his finger to his lip, hurried away, toavoid the thanks, which, indeed, however he might feel them, Aram was nodexterous adept in expressing. 

 CHAPTER V. 

 THE SISTERS ALONE. --THE GOSSIP OF LOVE. --AN ALARM --AND AN EVENT. 

 Juliet. --My true love is grown to such excess, I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth. --Romeo and Juliet. 

 Eros. --Oh, a man in arms; His weapon drawn, too! --The False One. 

It was a custom with the two sisters, when they repaired to their chamberfor the night, to sit conversing, sometimes even for hours, before theyfinally retired to bed. This indeed was the usual time for their littleconfidences, and their mutual dilations over those hopes and plans forthe future, which always occupy the larger share of the thoughts andconversation of the young. I do not know any thing in the world morelovely than such conferences between two beings who have no secrets torelate but what arise, all fresh, from the springs of a guiltless heart, --those pure and beautiful mysteries of an unsullied nature which warm usto hear; and we think with a sort of wonder when we feel how aridexperience has made ourselves, that so much of the dew and sparkle ofexistence still linger in the nooks and valleys, which are as yet virginof the sun and of mankind. 

The sisters this night were more than commonly indifferent to sleep. Madeline sate by the small but bright hearth of the chamber, in her nightdress, and Ellinor, who was much prouder of her sister's beauty than herown, was employed in knotting up the long and lustrous hair which fell inrich luxuriance over Madeline's throat and shoulders. 

"There certainly never was such beautiful hair!" said Ellinor admiringly;"and, let me see, --yes, --on Thursday fortnight I may be dressing it, perhaps, for the last time--heigho!"

"Don't flatter yourself that you are so near the end of your troublesomeduties, " said Madeline, with her pretty smile, which had been muchbrighter and more frequent of late than it was formerly wont to be, sothat Lester had remarked "That Madeline really appeared to have becomethe lighter and gayer of the two. "

"You will often come to stay with us for weeks together, at least till--till you have a double right to be mistress here. Ah! my poor hair, --youneed not pull it so hard. "

"Be quiet, then, " said Ellinor, half laughing, and wholly blushing. 

"Trust me, I have not been in love myself without learning its signs; andI venture to prophesy that within six months you will come to consult mewhether or not, --for there is a great deal to be said on both sides ofthe question, --you can make up your mind to sacrifice your own wishes, and marry Walter Lester. Ah!--gently, gently. Nell--" "Promise to bequiet. "

"I will--I will; but you began it. "

As Ellinor now finished her task, and kissed her sister's forehead, shesighed deeply. 

"Happy Walter!" said Madeline. 

"I was not sighing for Walter, but for you. "

"For me?--impossible! I cannot imagine any part of my future life thatcan cost you a sigh. Ah! that I were more worthy of my happiness. "

"Well, then, " said Ellinor, "I sighed for myself;--I sighed to think weshould so soon be parted, and that the continuance of your society wouldthen depend not on our mutual love, but the will of another. "

"What, Ellinor, and can you suppose that Eugene, --my Eugene, --would notwelcome you as warmly as myself? Ah! you misjudge him; I know you havenot yet perceived how tender a heart lies beneath all that melancholy andreserve. "

"I feel, indeed, " said Ellinor warmly, "as if it were impossible that onewhom you love should not be all that is good and noble; yet if thisreserve of his should increase, as is at least possible, with increasingyears; if our society should become again, as it once was, distasteful tohim, should I not lose you, Madeline?"

"But his reserve cannot increase: do you not perceive how much it issoftened already? Ah! be assured that I will charm it away. "

"But what is the cause of the melancholy that even now, at times, evidently preys upon him?--has he never revealed it to you?"

"It is merely the early and long habit of solitude and study, Ellinor, "replied Madeline; "and shall I own to you I would scarcely wish thataway; his tenderness itself seems linked with his melancholy. It is likea sad but gentle music, that brings tears into our eyes, but which wewould not change for gayer airs for the world. "

"Well, I must own, " said Ellinor, reluctantly, "that I no longer wonderat your infatuation; I can no longer chide you as I once did; there is, assuredly, something in his voice, his look, which irresistibly sinksinto the heart. And there are moments when, what with his eyes andforehead, his countenance seems more beautiful, more impressive, than anyI ever beheld. Perhaps, too, for you, it is better, that your lovershould be no longer in the first flush of youth. Your nature seems torequire something to venerate, as well as to love. And I have everobserved at prayers, that you seem more especially rapt and carriedbeyond yourself, in those passages which call peculiarly for worship andadoration. "

"Yes, dearest, " said Madeline fervently, "I own that Eugene is of allbeings, not only of all whom I ever knew, but of whom I ever dreamed, orimagined, the one that I am most fitted to love and to appreciate. Hiswisdom, but more than that, the lofty tenor of his mind, calls forth allthat is highest and best in my own nature. I feel exalted when I listento him;--and yet, how gentle, with all that nobleness! And to think thathe should descend to love me, and so to love me. It is as if a star wereto leave its sphere!"

"Hark! one o'clock, " said Ellinor, as the deep voice of the clock toldthe first hour of morning. "Heavens! how much louder the winds rave. Andhow the heavy sleet drives against the window! Our poor watch without!but you may be sure my uncle was right, and they are safe at home by thistime; nor is it likely, I should think, that even robbers would be abroadin such weather!"

"I have heard, " said Madeline, "that robbers generally choose these dark, stormy nights for their designs, but I confess I don't feel much alarm, and he is in the house. Draw nearer to the fire, Ellinor; is it notpleasant to see how serenely it burns, while the storm howls without! itis like my Eugene's soul, luminous, and lone, amidst the roar anddarkness of this unquiet world!"

"There spoke himself, " said Ellinor smiling to perceive how invariablywomen, who love, imitate the tone of the beloved one. And Madeline feltit, and smiled too. 

"Hist!" said Ellinor abruptly, "did you not hear a low, grating noisebelow? Ah! the winds now prevent your catching the sound; but hush, hush!--now the wind pauses, --there it is again!"

"Yes, I hear it, " said Madeline, turning pale, "it seems in the littleparlour; a continued, harsh, but very low, noise. Good heavens! it seemsat the window below. "

"It is like a file, " whispered Ellinor: "perhaps--" "You are right, " saidMadeline, suddenly rising, "it is a file, and at the bars my father hadfixed against the window yesterday. Let us go down, and alarm the house. "

"No, no; for God's sake, don't be so rash, " cried Ellinor, losing allpresence of mind: "hark! the sound ceases, there is a louder noise below, --and steps. Let us lock the door. "

But Madeline was of that fine and high order of spirit which rises inproportion to danger, and calming her sister as well as she could, tillshe found her attempts wholly ineffectual, she seized the light with asteady hand, opened the door, and Ellinor still clinging to her, passedthe landing-place, and hastened to her father's room; he slept at theopposite corner of the staircase. Aram's chamber was at the extreme endof the house. Before she reached the door of Lester's apartment, thenoise below grew loud and distinct--a scuffle--voices--curses--and now--the sound of a pistol!--in a moment more the whole house was stirring. Lester in his night robe, his broadsword in his hand, and his long greyhair floating behind, was the first to appear; the servants, old andyoung, male and female, now came thronging simultaneously round; and in ageneral body, Lester several paces at their head, his daughters followingnext to him, they rushed to the apartment whence the noise, now suddenlystilled, had proceeded. 

The window was opened, evidently by force; an instrument like a wedge wasfixed in the bureau containing Lester's money, and seemed to have beenleft there, as if the person using it had been disturbed before thedesign for which it was introduced had been accomplished, and, (the onlyevidence of life, ) Aram stood, dressed, in the centre of the room, apistol in his left hand, a sword in his right; a bludgeon severed in twolay at his feet, and on the floor within two yards of him, towards thewindow, drops of blood yet warm, showed that the pistol had not beendischarged in vain. 

"And is it you, my brave friend, that I have to thank for our safety?"cried Lester in great emotion. 

"You, Eugene!" repeated Madeline, sinking on his breast. 

"But thanks hereafter, " continued Lester; "let us now to the pursuit, --perhaps the villain may have perished beneath your bullet?"

"Ha!" muttered Aram, who had hitherto seemed unconscious of all aroundhim; so fixed had been his eye, so colourless his cheek, so motionlesshis posture. "Ha! say you so?--think you I have slain him?--no, it cannotbe--the ball did not slay, I saw him stagger; but he rallied--not so onewho receives a mortal wound!--ha! ha!--there is blood, you say, that istrue; but what then!--it is not the first wound that kills, you muststrike again--pooh, pooh, what is a little blood!"

While he was thus muttering, Lester and the more active of the servantshad already sallied through the window, but the night was so intenselydark that they could not penetrate a step beyond them. Lester returned, therefore, in a few moments; and met Aram's dark eye fixed upon him withan unutterable expression of anxiety. 

"You have found no one, " said he, "no dying man?--Ha!--well--well--well!they must both have escaped; the night must favour them. "

"Do you fancy the villain was severely wounded?"

"Not so--I trust not so; he seemed able to--But stop--oh God!--stop!--your foot is dabbling in blood--blood shed by me, --off! off!"

Lester moved aside with a quick abhorrence, as he saw that his feet wereindeed smearing the blood over the polished and slippery surface of theoak boards, and in moving he stumbled against a dark lantern in which thelight still burnt, and which the robbers in their flight had left. 

"Yes, " said Aram observing it. "It was by that--their own light that Isaw them--saw their faces--and--and--(bursting into a loud, wild laugh)they were both strangers!"

"Ah, I thought so, I knew so, " said Lester plucking the instrument fromthe bureau. "I knew they could be no Grassdale men. What, did you fancy, they could be? But--bless me, Madeline--what ho! help!--Aram, she hasfainted at your feet. "

And it was indeed true and remarkable, that so utter had been theabsorption of Aram's mind, that he had been insensible not only to theentrance of Madeline, but even that she had thrown herself on his breast. And she, overcome by her feelings, had slid to the ground from thatmomentary resting-place, in a swoon which Lester, in the general tumultand confusion, was now the first to perceive. 

At this exclamation, at the sound of Madeline's name, the blood rushedback from Aram's heart, where it had gathered, icy and curdling; and, awakened thoroughly and at once to himself, he knelt down, and weavinghis arms around her, supported her head on his breast, and called uponher with the most passionate and moving exclamations. 

But when the faint bloom retinged her cheek, and her lips stirred, heprinted a long kiss on that cheek--on those lips, and surrendered hispost to Ellinor; who, blushingly gathering the robe over the beautifulbreast from which it had been slightly drawn; now entreated all, save thewomen of the house, to withdraw till her sister was restored. 

Lester, eager to hear what his guest could relate, therefore took Aram tohis own apartment, where the particulars were briefly told. 

Suspecting, which indeed was the chief reason that excused him to himselfin yielding to Madeline's request, that the men Lester and himself hadencountered in their evening walk, might be other than they seemed, andthat they might have well overheard Lester's communication, as to the sumin his house, and the place where it was stored; he had not undressedhimself, but kept the door of his room open to listen if any thingstirred. The keen sense of hearing, which we have before remarked him topossess, enabled him to catch the sound of the file at the bars, evenbefore Ellinor, notwithstanding the distance of his own chamber from theplace, and seizing the sword which had been left in his room, (the pistolwas his own) he had descended to the room below. 

"What!" said Lester, "and without a light?"

"The darkness is familiar to me, " said Aram. "I could walk by the edge ofa precipice in the darkest night without one false step, if I had butonce passed it before. I did not gain the room, however, till the windowhad been forced; and by the light of a dark lantern which one of themheld, I perceived two men standing by the bureau--the rest you canimagine; my victory was easy, for the bludgeon, with which one of themaimed at me, gave way at once to the edge of your good sword, and mypistol delivered me of the other. --There ends the history. "

Lester overwhelmed him with thanks and praises, but Aram, glad to escapethem, hurried away to see after Madeline, whom he now met on the landing-place, leaning on Ellinor's arm and still pale. 

She gave him her hand, which he for one moment pressed passionately tohis lips, but dropped, the next, with an altered and chilled air. Andhastily observing he would not now detain her from a rest which she mustso much require, he turned away and descended the stairs. Some of theservants were grouped around the place of encounter; he entered the room, and again started at the sight of the blood. 

"Bring water, " said he fiercely: "will you let the stagnant gore ooze androt into the boards, to startle the eye, and still the heart with itsfilthy, and unutterable stain--water, I say! water!"

They hurried to obey him, and Lester coming into the room to see thewindow reclosed by the help of boards found the Student bending over theservants as they performed their reluctant task, and rating them with araised and harsh voice for the hastiness with which he accused them ofseeking to slur it over. 

 CHAPTER VI. 

 ARAM ALONE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. --HIS SOLILOQUY AND PROJECT. -- SCENE BETWEEN HIMSELF AND MADELINE. 

 Luce non grata fruor; Trepidante semper corde, non mortis metu Sed-- --Seneca: Octavia, act i. 

The two men servants of the house remained up the rest of the night; butit was not till the morning had progressed far beyond the usual time ofrising in the fresh shades of Grassdale, that Madeline and Ellinor becamevisible; even Lester left his bed an hour later than his wont; andknocking at Aram's door, found the Student was already abroad, while itwas evident that his bed had not been pressed during the whole of thenight. Lester descended into the garden, and was there met by PeterDealtry, and a detachment of the band; who, as common sense and Lesterhad predicted, were indeed, at a very early period of the watch, drivento their respective homes. They were now seriously concerned for theirunmanliness, which they passed off as well as they could upon theirconviction "that nobody at Grassdale could ever really be robbed;" andpromised with sincere contrition, that they would be most excellentguards for the future. Peter was, in sooth, singularly chop-fallen; andcould only defend himself by an incoherent mutter, from which the Squireturned somewhat impatiently, when he heard, louder than the rest, thewords "seventy-seventh psalm, seventeenth verse, "The clouds that were both thick and black, Did rain full plenteously. "

Leaving the Squire to the edification of the pious host, let us followthe steps of Aram, who at the early dawn had quitted his sleeplesschamber, and, though the clouds at that time still poured down in a dulland heavy sleet, wandered away, whither he neither knew, nor heeded. Hewas now hurrying, with unabated speed, though with no purposed bourne orobject, over the chain of mountains that backed the green and lovelyvalleys, among which his home was cast. 

"Yes!" said he, at last halting abruptly, with a desperate resolutionstamped on his countenance, "yes! I will so determine. If, after thisinterview, I feel that I cannot command and bind Houseman's perpetualsecrecy, I will surrender Madeline at once. She has loved me generouslyand trustingly. I will not link her life with one that may be calledhence in any hour, and to so dread an account. Neither shall the greyhairs of Lester be brought with the sorrow of my shame, to a dishonouredand untimely grave. And after the outrage of last night, the daringoutrage, how can I calculate on the safety of a day? though Houseman wasnot present, though I can scarce believe that he knew or at least abettedthe attack; yet they were assuredly of his gang: had one been seized, theclue might have traced to his detection--and he detected, what should Ihave to dread! No, Madeline! no; not while this sword hangs over me, willI subject thee to share the horror of my fate!"

This resolution, which was certainly generous, and yet no more thanhonest, Aram had no sooner arrived at, than he dismissed, at once, by oneof those efforts which powerful minds can command, all the weak andvacillating thoughts that might interfere with the sternness of hisdetermination. He seemed to breathe more freely, and the haggard wannessof his brow, relaxed at least from the workings that, but the momentbefore, distorted its wonted serenity, with a maniac wildness. 

He pursued his desultory way now with a calmer step. 

"What a night!" said he, again breaking into the low murmur in which hewas accustomed to hold commune with himself. "Had Houseman been one ofthe ruffians! a shot might have freed me, and without a crime, for ever!And till the light flashed on their brows, I thought the smaller man borehis aspect. Ha, out, tempting thought! out on thee!" he cried aloud, andstamping with his foot, then recalled by his own vehemence, he cast ajealous and hurried glance round him, though at that moment his step wason the very height of the mountains, where not even the solitaryshepherd, save in search of some more daring straggler of the flock, everbrushed the dew from the cragged, yet fragrant soil. "Yet, " he said, in alower voice, and again sinking into the sombre depths of his reverie, "itis a tempting, a wondrously tempting thought. And it struck athwart me, like a flash of lightning when this hand was at his throat--a tighterstrain, another moment, and Eugene Aram had not had an enemy, a witnessagainst him left in the world. Ha! are the dead no foes then? Are thedead no witnesses?" Here he relapsed into utter silence, but his gesturescontinued wild, and his eyes wandered round, with a bloodshot and unquietglare. "Enough, " at length he said calmly; and with the manner of one'who has rolled a stone from his heart;' [Note: Eastern saying. ] "enough!I will not so sully myself; unless all other hope of self-preservation beextinct. And why despond? the plan I have thought of seems well-laid, wise, consummate at all points. Let me consider--forfeited the moment heenters England--not given till he has left it--paid periodically, and ofsuch extent as to supply his wants, preserve him from crime, and forbidthe possibility of extorting more: all this sounds well; and if notfeasible at last, why farewell Madeline, and I myself leave this land forever. Come what will to me--death in its vilest shape--let not the strokefall on that breast. And if it be, " he continued, his face lighting up, "if it be, as it may yet, that I can chain this hell-hound, why, eventhen, the instant that Madeline is mine, I will fly these scenes; I willseek a yet obscurer and remoter corner of earth: I will choose anothername--Fool! why did I not so before? But matters it? What is writ iswrit. Who can struggle with the invisible and giant hand, that launchedthe world itself into motion; and at whose predecree we hold the darkboon of life and death?"

It was not till evening that Aram, utterly worn out and exhausted, foundhimself in the neighbourhood of Lester's house. The sun had only brokenforth at its setting; and it now glittered from its western pyre over thedripping hedges, and spread a brief, but magic glow along the richlandscape around; the changing woods clad in the thousand dies of Autumn;the scattered and peaceful cottages, with their long wreaths of smokecurling upward, and the grey and venerable walls of the Manor-house, withthe Church hard by, and the delicate spire, which, mixing itself withheaven, is at once the most touching and solemn emblem of the Faith towhich it is devoted. It was a sabbath eve; and from the spot on whichAram stood, he might discern many a rustic train trooping slowly up thegreen village lane towards the Church; and the deep bell which summonedto the last service of the day now swung its voice far over the sunlitand tranquil scene. 

But it was not the setting sun, nor the autumnal landscape, nor the voiceof the holy bell that now arrested the step of Aram. At a little distancebefore him, leaning over a gate, and seemingly waiting till the ceasingof the bell should announce the time to enter the sacred mansion, hebeheld the figure of Madeline Lester. Her head, at the moment, wasaverted from him, as if she were looking after Ellinor and her uncle, whowere in the churchyard among a little group of their homely neighbours;and he was half in doubt whether to shun her presence, when she suddenlyturned round, and seeing him, uttered an exclamation of joy. It was nowtoo late for avoidance; and calling to his aid that mastery over hisfeatures, which, in ordinary times, few more eminently possessed, heapproached his beautiful mistress with a smile as serene, if not asglowing, as her own. But she had already opened the gate, and boundingforward, met him half way. 

"Ah, truant, truant, " said she, the whole day absent, without inquiry orfarewell! After this, when shall I believe that thou really lovest me?

"But, " continued Madeline, gazing on his countenance, which bore witness, in its present languor, to the fierce emotions which had lately ragedwithin, "but, heavens! dearest, how pale you look; you are fatigued; giveme your hand, Eugene, --it is parched and dry. Come into the house;--youmust need rest and refreshment. "

"I am better here, my Madeline, --the air and the sun revive me: let usrest by the stile yonder. But you were going to Church? and the bell hasceased. "

"I could attend, I fear, little to the prayers now, " said Madeline, "unless you feel well enough and will come to Church with me. "

"To Church!" said Aram, with a half shudder, "no; my thoughts are in nomood for prayer. "

"Then you shall give your thoughts to me and I, in return, will pray foryou before I rest. "

And so saying, Madeline, with her usual innocent frankness of manner, wound her arm in his, and they walked onward towards the stile Aram hadpointed out. It was a little rustic stile, with chesnut-trees hangingover it on either side. It stands to this day, and I have pleased myselfwith finding Walter Lester's initials, and Madeline's also, with the dateof the year, carved in half-worn letters on the wood, probably by thehand of the former. 

They now rested at this spot. All around them was still and solitary; thegroups of peasants had entered the Church, and nothing of life, save thecattle grazing in the distant fields, or the thrush starting from the wetbushes, was visible. The winds were lulled to rest, and, though somewhatof the chill of autumn floated on the air, it only bore a balm to theharassed brow and fevered veins of the Student; and Madeline!--she feltnothing but his presence. It was exactly what we picture to ourselves ofa sabbath eve, unutterably serene and soft, and borrowing from the verymelancholy of the declining year an impressive, yet a mild solemnity. 

There are seasons, often in the most dark or turbulent periods of ourlife, when, why we know not, we are suddenly called from ourselves, bythe remembrances of early childhood: something touches the electricchain, and, lo! a host of shadowy and sweet recollections steal upon us. The wheel rests, the oar is suspended, we are snatched from the labourand travail of present life; we are born again, and live anew. As thesecret page in which the characters once written seem for ever effaced, but which, if breathed upon, gives them again into view; so the memorycan revive the images invisible for years: but while we gaze, the breathrecedes from the surface, and all one moment so vivid, with the nextmoment has become once more a blank!

"It is singular, " said Aram, "but often as I have paused at this spot, and gazed upon this landscape, a likeness to the scenes of my childishlife, which it now seems to me to present, never occurred to me before. Yes, yonder, in that cottage, with the sycamores in front, and theorchard extending behind, till its boundary, as we now stand, seems lostamong the woodland, I could fancy that I looked upon my father's home. The clump of trees that lies yonder to the right could cheat me readilyto the belief that I saw the little grove in which, enamoured with thefirst passion of study, I was wont to pore over the thrice-read bookthrough the long summer days;--a boy, --a thoughtful boy; yet, oh! howhappy! What worlds appeared then to me, to open in every page! howexhaustless I thought the treasures and the hopes of life! and beautifulon the mountain tops seemed to me the steps of Knowledge! I did not dreamof all that the musing and lonely passion that I nursed was to entailupon me. There, in the clefts of the valley, or the ridges of the hill, or the fragrant course of the stream, I began already to win its historyfrom the herb or flower; I saw nothing, that I did not long to unravelits secrets; all that the earth nourished ministered to one desire:--andwhat of low or sordid did there mingle with that desire? The pettyavarice, the mean ambition, the debasing love, even the heat, the anger, the fickleness, the caprice of other men, did they allure or bow down mynature from its steep and solitary eyrie? I lived but to feed my mind;wisdom was my thirst, my dream, my aliment, my sole fount and sustenanceof life. And have I not sown the whirlwind and reaped the wind? The gloryof my youth is gone, my veins are chilled, my frame is bowed, my heart isgnawed with cares, my nerves are unstrung as a loosened bow: and what, after all, is my gain? Oh, God! what is my gain?"

"Eugene, dear, dear Eugene!" murmured Madeline soothingly, and wrestlingwith her tears, "is not your gain great? is it no triumph that you stand, while yet young, almost alone in the world, for success in all that youhave attempted?"

"And what, " exclaimed Aram, breaking in upon her, "what is this worldwhich we ransack, but a stupendous charnel-house? Every thing that wedeem most lovely, ask its origin?--Decay! When we rifle nature, andcollect wisdom, are we not like the hags of old, culling simples from therank grave, and extracting sorceries from the rotting bones of the dead?Every thing around us is fathered by corruption, battened by corruption, and into corruption returns at last. Corruption is at once the womb andgrave of Nature, and the very beauty on which we gaze and hang, --thecloud, and the tree, and the swarming waters, --all are one vast panoramaof death! But it did not always seem to me thus; and even now I speakwith a heated pulse and a dizzy brain. Come, Madeline, let us change thetheme. "

And dismissing at once from his language, and perhaps, as he proceeded, also from his mind, all of its former gloom, except such as might shade, but not embitter, the natural tenderness of remembrance, Aram nowrelated, with that vividness of diction, which, though we feel we canvery inadequately convey its effect, characterised his conversation, andgave something of poetic interest to all he uttered; those reminiscenceswhich belong to childhood, and which all of us take delight to hear fromthe lips of any one we love. 

It was while on this theme that the lights which the deepening twilighthad now made necessary, became visible in the Church, streaming afarthrough its large oriel window, and brightening the dark firs thatovershadowed the graves around: and just at that moment the organ, (agift from a rich rector, and the boast of the neighbouring country, )stole upon the silence with its swelling and solemn note. There wassomething in the strain of this sudden music that was so kindred with theholy repose of the scene, and which chimed so exactly to the chord thatnow vibrated in Aram's mind, that it struck upon him at once with anirresistible power. He paused abruptly "as if an angel spoke!" that soundso peculiarly adapted to express sacred and unearthly emotion none whohave ever mourned or sinned can hear, at an unlooked for moment, withouta certain sentiment, that either subdues, or elevates, or awes. But he, --he was a boy once more!--he was again in the village church of his nativeplace: his father, with his silver hair, stood again beside him! therewas his mother, pointing to him the holy verse; there the half arch, halfreverent face of his little sister, (she died young!)--there the upwardeye and hushed countenance of the preacher who had first raised his mindto knowledge, and supplied its food, --all, all lived, moved, breathed, again before him, --all, as when he was young and guiltless, and at peace;hope and the future one word!

He bowed his head lower and lower; the hardness and hypocrisies of pride, the sense of danger and of horror, that, in agitating, still supported, the mind of this resolute and scheming man, at once forsook him. Madelinefelt his tears drop fast and burning on her hand, and the next moment, overcome by the relief it afforded to a heart preyed upon by fiery anddread secrets, which it could not reveal, and a frame exhausted by thelong and extreme tension of all its powers, he laid his head upon thatfaithful bosom, and wept aloud. 

 CHAPTER VII. 

 ARAM'S SECRET EXPEDITION. --A SCENE WORTHY THE ACTORS. --ARAM'S ADDRESS AND POWERS OF PERSUASION OR HYPOCRISY. --THEIR RESULT. --A FEARFUL NIGHT. --ARAM'S SOLITARY RIDE HOMEWARD. --WHOM HE MEETS BY THE WAY, AND WHAT HE SEES. 

 Macbeth. Now o'er the one half world Nature seems dead. 

 Donalbain. Our separated fortune Shall keep us both the safer. 

 Old Man. Hours dreadful and things strange. --Macbeth. 

"And you must really go to _____ to pay your importunate creditor thisvery evening. Sunday is a bad day for such matters; but as you pay him byan order, it does not much signify; and I can well understand yourimpatience to feel discharged of the debt. But it is already late; and ifit must be so, you had better start. "

"True, " said Aram to the above remark of Lester's, as the two stoodtogether without the door; "but do you feel quite secure and guardedagainst any renewed attack?"

"Why, unless they bring a regiment, yes! I have put a body of our patroleon a service where they can scarce be inefficient, viz. I have stationedthem in the house, instead of without; and I shall myself bear themcompany through the greater part of the night: to-morrow I shall removeall that I possess of value to--(the county town) including those unluckyguineas, which you will not ease me of. "

"The order you have kindly given me will amply satisfy my purpose, "answered Aram: "And so, there has been no clue to these robberiesdiscovered throughout the day?"

"None: to-morrow, the magistrates are to meet at--, and concert measures:it is absolutely impossible, but that we should detect the villains in afew days, viz. If they remain in these parts. I hope to heaven you willnot meet them this evening. "

"I shall go well armed, " answered Aram, "and the horse you lend me isfleet and strong. And now farewell for the present; I shall probably notreturn to Grassdale this night, or if I do, it will be at so late anhour, that I shall seek my own domicile without disturbing you. "

"No, no; you had better remain in the town, and not return till morning, "said the Squire; "and now let us come to the stables. "

To obviate all chance of suspicion as to the real place of hisdestination, Aram deliberately rode to the town he had mentioned, as theone in which his pretended creditor expected him. He put up at an inn, walked forth as if to visit some one in the town, returned, remounted, and by a circuitous route, came into the neighbourhood of the place inwhich he was to meet Houseman: then turning into a long and dense chainof wood, he fastened his horse to a tree, and looking to the priming ofhis pistols, which he carried under his riding-cloak, proceeded to thespot on foot. 

The night was still, and not wholly dark; for the clouds lay scatteredthough dense, and suffered many stars to gleam through the heavy air; themoon herself was abroad, but on her decline, and looked forth with a manand saddened aspect, as she travelled from cloud to cloud. It has beenthe necessary course of our narrative, to pourtray Aram, more often thanto give an exact notion of his character we could have altogether wished, in his weaker moments; but whenever he stood in the actual presence ofdanger, his whole soul was in arms to cope with it worthily: courage, sagacity, even cunning, all awakened to the encounter; and the mind whichhis life had so austerely cultivated repaid him in the urgent season, with its acute address, and unswerving hardihood. The Devil's Crag, as itwas popularly called, was a spot consecrated by many a wild tradition, which would not, perhaps, be wholly out of character with the dark threadof this tale, were we in accordance with certain of our brethren, whoseem to think a novel like a bundle of wood, the more faggots it containsthe greater its value, allowed by the rapidity of our narrative to relatethem. 

The same stream which lent so soft an attraction to the valleys ofGrassdale, here assumed a different character; broad, black, and rushing, it whirled along a course, overhung by shagged and abrupt banks. On theopposite side to that by which Aram now pursued his path, an almostperpendicular mountain was covered with gigantic pine and fir, that mighthave reminded a German wanderer of the darkest recesses of the Hartz; andseemed, indeed, no unworthy haunt for the weird huntsman, or the forestfiend. Over this wood the moon now shimmered, with the pale and feeblelight we have already described; and only threw into a more sombre shadethe motionless and gloomy foliage. Of all the offspring of the forest, the Fir bears, perhaps, the most saddening and desolate aspect. Its longbranches, without absolute leaf or blossom; its dead, dark, eternal hue, which the winter seems to wither not, nor the spring to revive, have, Iknow not what of a mystic and unnatural life. Around all woodland, thereis that horror umbrarum which becomes more remarkably solemn and awingamidst the silence and depth of night: but this is yet more especiallythe characteristic of that sullen evergreen. Perhaps, too, this effect isincreased by the sterile and dreary soil, on which, when in groves, it isgenerally found; and its very hardiness, the very pertinacity with whichit draws its strange unfluctuating life, from the sternest wastes andmost reluctant strata, enhance, unconsciously, the unwelcome effect it iscalculated to create upon the mind. At this place, too, the waters thatdashed beneath gave yet additional wildness to the rank verdure of thewood, and contributed, by their rushing darkness partially broken by thestars, and the hoarse roar of their chafed course, a yet more grim andsavage sublimity to the scene. 

Winding a narrow path, (for the whole country was as familiar as a gardento his footstep) that led through the tall wet herbage, almost along theperilous brink of the stream, Aram was now aware, by the increased anddeafening sound of the waters, that the appointed spot was nearly gained;and presently the glimmering and imperfect light of the skies, revealedthe dim shape of a gigantic rock, that rose abruptly from the middle ofthe stream; and which, rude, barren, vast, as it really was, seemed now, by the uncertainty of night, like some monstrous and deformed creature ofthe waters, suddenly emerging from their vexed and dreary depths. Thiswas the far-famed Crag, which had borrowed from tradition its evil andominous name. And now, the stream, bending round with a broad and suddenswoop, showed at a little distance, ghostly and indistinct through thedarkness, the mighty Waterfall, whose roar had been his guide. Only inone streak a-down the giant cataract, the stars were reflected; and thislong train of broken light glittered preternaturally forth through therugged crags and the sombre verdure, that wrapped either side of thewaterfall in utter and rayless gloom. 

Nothing could exceed the forlorn and terrific grandeur of the spot; theroar of the waters supplied to the ear what the night forbade to the eye. Incessant and eternal they thundered down into the gulf; and thenshooting over that fearful basin, and forming another, but a mimic fall, dashed on, till they were opposed by the sullen and abrupt crag below;and besieging its base with a renewed roar, sent their foamy and angryspray half way up the hoar ascent. 

At this stern and dreary spot, well suited for such conferences as Aramand Houseman alone could hold; and which, whatever was the originalsecret that linked the two men thus strangely, seemed of necessity topartake of a desperate and lawless character, with danger for its maintopic, and death itself for its colouring, Aram now paused, and with aneye accustomed to the darkness, looked around for his companion. 

He did not wait long: from the profound shadow that girded the spaceimmediately around the fall, Houseman now emerged and joined the Student. The stunning noise of the cataract in the place where they met, forbadeany attempt to converse; and they walked on by the course of the stream, to gain a spot less in reach of the deafening shout of the mountain giantas he rushed with his banded waters, upon the valley like a foe. 

It was noticeable that as they proceeded, Aram walked on with anunsuspicious and careless demeanour; but Houseman pointing out the waywith his hand, not leading it, kept a little behind Aram, and watched hismotions with a vigilant and wary eye. The Student, who had diverged fromthe path at Houseman's direction, now paused at a place where the mattedbushes seemed to forbid any farther progress; and said, for the firsttime breaking the silence, "We cannot proceed; shall this be the place ofour conference?"

"No, " said Houseman, "we had better pierce the bushes. I know the way, but will not lead it. "

"And wherefore?"

"The mark of your gripe is still on my throat, " replied Houseman, significantly; "you know as well as I, that it is not always safe to havea friend lagging behind. "

"Let us rest here, then, " said Aram, calmly, the darkness veiling anyalteration of his countenance, which his comrade's suspicion might havecreated. 

"Yet it were much better, " said Houseman, doubtingly, "could we gain thecave below. "

"The cave!" said Aram, starting, as if the word had a sound of fear. 

"Ay, ay: but not St. Robert's, " said Houseman; and the grin of his teethwas visible through the dullness of the shade. "But come, give me yourhand, and I will venture to conduct you through the thicket:--that isyour left hand, " observed Houseman with a sharp and angry suspicion inhis tone; "give me the right. "

"As you will, " said Aram in a subdued, yet meaning voice, that seemed tocome from his heart; and thrilled, for an instant, to the bones of himwho heard it; "as you will; but for fourteen years I have not given thisright hand, in pledge of fellowship, to living man; you alone deserve thecourtesy--there!"

Houseman hesitated, before he took the hand now extended to him. 

"Pshaw!" said he, as if indignant at himself, "what! scruples at ashadow! Come, " (grasping the hand) "that's well--so, so; now we are inthe thicket--tread firm--this way--hold, " continued Houseman, under hisbreath, as suspicion anew seemed to cross him; "hold! we can see eachother's face not even dimly now: but in this hand, my right is free, Ihave a knife that has done good service ere this; and if I feel cause tosuspect that you meditate to play me false, I bury it in your heart; doyou heed me?"

"Fool!" said Aram, scornfully, "I should dread you dead yet more thanliving. "

Houseman made no answer; but continued to grope on through the path inthe thicket, which he evidently knew well; though even in daylight, sothick were the trees, and so artfully had their boughs been left to coverthe track, no path could have been discovered by one unacquainted withthe clue. 

They had now walked on for some minutes, and of late their steps had beenthreading a rugged, and somewhat precipitous descent: all this while, thepulse of the hand Houseman held, beat with as steadfast and calm a throb, as in the most quiet mood of learned meditation; although Aram could notbut be conscious that a mere accident, a slip of the foot, anentanglement in the briars, might awaken the irritable fears of hisruffian comrade, and bring the knife to his breast. But this was not thatform of death that could shake the nerves of Aram; nor, though arming hiswhole soul to ward off one danger, was he well sensible of another, thatmight have seemed equally near and probable, to a less collected andenergetic nature. Houseman now halted, again put aside the boughs, proceeded a few steps, and by a certain dampness and oppression in theair, Aram rightly conjectured himself in the cavern Houseman had spokenof. 

"We are landed now, " said Houseman, "but wait, I will strike a light; Ido not love darkness, even with another sort of companion than the one Ihave now the honour to entertain!"

In a few moments a light was produced, and placed aloft on a crag in thecavern; but the ray it gave was feeble and dull, and left all beyond theimmediate spot in which they stood, in a darkness little less Cimmerianthan before. 

"'Fore Gad, it is cold, " said Houseman shivering, "but I have taken care, you see, to provide for a friend's comfort;" so saying, he approached abundle of dry sticks and leaves, piled at one corner of the cave, appliedthe light to the fuel, and presently, the fire rose crackling, breakinginto a thousand sparks, and freeing itself gradually from the clouds ofsmoke in which it was enveloped. It now mounted into a ruddy and cheeringflame, and the warm glow played picturesquely upon the grey sides of thecavern, which was of a rugged shape, and small dimensions, and cast itsreddening light over the forms of the two men. 

Houseman stood close to the flame, spreading his hands over it, and asort of grim complacency stealing along features singularly ill-favoured, and sinister in their expression, as he felt the animal luxury of thewarmth. 

Across his middle was a broad leathern belt, containing a brace of largehorse pistols, and the knife, or rather dagger, with which he had menacedAram, an instrument sharpened on both sides, and nearly a foot in length. Altogether, what with his muscular breadth of figure, his hard and ruggedfeatures, his weapons, and a certain reckless, bravo air whichindescribably marked his attitude and bearing, it was not well possibleto imagine a fitter habitant for that grim cave, or one from whom men ofpeace, like Eugene Aram, might have seemed to derive more reasonablecause of alarm. 

The Scholar stood at a little distance, waiting till his companion wasentirely prepared for the conference, and his pale and lofty features, hushed in their usual deep, but at such a moment, almost preternaturalrepose. He stood leaning with folded arms against the rude wall; thelight reflected upon his dark garments, with the graceful riding-cloak ofthe day half falling from his shoulder, and revealing also the pistols inhis belt, and the sword, which, though commonly worn at that time, by allpretending to superiority above the lower and trading orders, Aramusually waived as a distinction, but now carried as a defence. Andnothing could be more striking, than the contrast between the ruffianform of his companion, and the delicate and chiselled beauty of theStudent's features, with their air of mournful intelligence and serenecommand, and the slender, though nervous symmetry of his frame. 

"Houseman, " said Aram, now advancing, as his comrade turned his face fromthe flame, towards him; "before we enter on the main subject of ourproposed commune--tell me, were you engaged on the attempt last nightupon Lester's house?"

"By the Fiend, no!" answered Houseman, nor did I learn it till thismorning; it was unpremeditated till within a few hours of the time, bythe two fools who alone planned it. The fact is, that myself and thegreater part of our little band, were engaged some miles off, in thewestern part of the county. Two--our general--spies, had been, of theirown accord, into your neighbourhood, to reconnoitre. They marked Lester'shouse during the day, and gathered, (as I can say by experience it waseasy to do) from unsuspected inquiry in the village, for they wore aclown's dress, several particulars which induced them to think itcontained what might repay the trouble of breaking into it. And walkingalong the fields, they overheard the good master of the house tell one ofhis neighbours of a large sum at home; nay, even describe the place whereit was kept: that determined them;--they feared, (as the old man indeedobserved, ) that the sum might be removed the next day; they had noted thehouse sufficiently to profit by the description given: they resolved, then, of themselves, for it was too late to reckon on our assistance, tobreak into the room in which the money was kept--though from the arousedvigilance of the frightened hamlet and the force within the house, theyresolved to attempt no farther booty. They reckoned on the violence ofthe storm, and the darkness of the night to prevent their being heard orseen; they were mistaken--the house was alarmed, they were no sooner inthe luckless room, than--"Well, I know the rest; was the one woundeddangerously hurt?"

"Oh, he will recover, he will recover; our men are no chickens. But I ownI thought it natural that you might suspect me of sharing in the attack;and though, as I have said before, I do not love you, I have no wish toembroil matters so far as an outrage on the house of your father-in-law, might be reasonably expected to do:--at all events, while the gate to anamicable compromise between us is still open. "

"I am satisfied on this head, " said Aram, "and I can now treat with youin a spirit of less distrustful precaution than before. I tell you, Houseman, that the terms are no longer at your control; you must leavethis part of the country, and that forthwith, or you inevitably perish. The whole population is alarmed, and the most vigilant of the LondonPolice have been already sent for. Life is sweet to you, as to us all, and I cannot imagine you so mad, as to incur not the risk, but thecertainty, of losing it. You can no longer therefore, hold the threat ofyour presence over my head. Besides, were you able to do so, I at leasthave the power, which you seem to have forgotten, of freeing myself fromit. Am I chained to yonder valleys? have I not the facility of quittingthem at any moment I will? of seeking a hiding-place, which might baffle, not only your vigilance to discover me, but that of the Law? True, myapproaching marriage puts some clog upon my wing, but you know that I, ofall men, am not likely to be the slave of passion. And what ties arestrong enough to arrest the steps of him who flies from a fearful death?Am I using sophistry here, Houseman? Have I not reason on my side?"

"What you say is true enough, " said Houseman reluctantly; "I do notgainsay it. But I know you have not sought me, in this spot, and at thishour, for the purpose of denying my claims: the desire of compromisealone can have brought you hither. "

"You speak well, " said Aram, preserving the admirable coolness of hismanner; and continuing the deep and sagacious hypocrisy by which hesought to baffle the dogged covetousness and keen sense of interest withwhich he had to contend. "It is not easy for either of us to deceive theother. We are men, whose perceptions a life of danger, has sharpened uponall points; I speak to you frankly, for disguise is unavailing. Though Ican fly from your reach--though I can desert my present home and myintended bride, I would fain think I have free and secure choice topreserve that exact path and scene of life which I have chalked out formyself: I would fain be rid of all apprehension from you. There are twoways only by which this security can be won: the first is through yourdeath;--nay, start not, nor put your hand on your pistol; you have notnow cause to fear me. Had I chosen that method of escape, I could haveeffected it long since: When, months ago, you slept under my roof--ay, slept--what should have hindered me from stabbing you during the slumber?Two nights since, when my blood was up, and the fury upon me, what shouldhave prevented me tightening the grasp that you so resent, and laying youbreathless at my feet? Nay, now, though you keep your eye fixed on mymotions, and your hand upon your weapon, you would be no match for adesperate and resolved man, who might as well perish in conflict withyou, as by the protracted accomplishment of your threats. Your ball mightfail--(even now I see your hand trembles)--mine, if I so will it, iscertain death. No, Houseman, it would be as vain for your eye to scan thedark pool into whose breast you cataract casts its waters, as for yourintellect to pierce the depths of my mind and motives. Your murder, though in self-defence, would lay a weight upon my soul, which would sinkit for ever: I should see, in your death, new chances of detection spreadthemselves before me: the terrors of the dead are not to be bought orawed into silence; I should pass from one peril into another; and thelaw's dread vengeance might fall upon me, through the last peril, evenyet more surely than through the first. Be composed, then, on this point!From my hand, unless you urge it madly upon yourself, you are whollysafe. Let us turn to my second method of attaining security. It lies, notin your momentary cessation from persecutions; not in your absence fromthis spot alone; you must quit the country--you must never return to it--your home must be cast, and your very grave dug in a foreign soil. Areyou prepared for this? If not, I can say no more; and I again cast myselfpassive into the arms of Fate. "

"You ask, " said Houseman, whose fears were allayed by Aram's address, though, at the same time, his dissolute and desperate nature was subduedand tamed in spite of himself, by the very composure of the loftier mindwith which it was brought in contact: "You ask, " said he, "no triflingfavour of a man--to desert his country for ever; but I am no dreamer, tolove one spot better than another. I should, perhaps, prefer a foreignclime, as the safer and the freer from old recollections, if I could livein it as a man who loves the relish of life should do. Show me theadvantages I am to gain by exile, and farewell to the pale cliffs ofEngland for ever!"

"Your demand is just, " answered Aram; "listen, then. I am willing to coinall my poor wealth, save alone the barest pittance wherewith to sustainlife; nay, more, I am prepared also to melt down the whole of my possibleexpectations from others, into the form of an annuity to yourself. Butmark, it will be taken out of my hands, so that you can have no powerover me to alter the conditions with which it will be saddled. It will beso vested that it shall commence the moment you touch a foreign clime;and wholly and for ever cease the moment you set foot on any part ofEnglish ground; or, mark also, at the moment of my death. I shall thenknow that no farther hope from me can induce you to risk this income;for, as I should have spent my all in attaining it, you cannot evenmeditate the design of extorting more. I shall know that you will notmenace my life; for my death would be the destruction of your fortunes. We shall live thus separate and secure from each other; you will haveonly cause to hope for my safety; and I shall have no reason to shudderat yours. Through one channel alone could I then fear; namely, that indying, you should enjoy the fruitless vengeance of criminating me. Butthis chance I must patiently endure: you, if older, are more robust andhardy than myself--your life will probably be longer than mine; and, evenwere it otherwise, why should we destroy one another? At my death-bed Iwill solemnly swear to respect your secret; why not on your part, I saynot swear, but resolve, to respect mine? We cannot love one another; butwhy hate with a gratuitous and demon vengeance? No, Houseman, howevercircumstances may have darkened or steeled your heart, it is touched withhumanity yet--you will have owed to me the bread of a secure and easyexistence--you will feel that I have stripped myself, even to penury, topurchase the comforts I cheerfully resign to you--you will remember that, instead of the sacrifices enjoined by this alternative, I might havesought only to counteract your threats, by attempting a life that youstrove to make a snare and torture to my own. You will remember this; andyou will not grudge me the austere and gloomy solitude in which I seek toforget, or the one solace with which I, perhaps vainly, endeavour tocheer my passage to a quiet grave. No, Houseman, no; dislike, hate, menace me as you will, I still feel I shall have no cause to dread themere wantonness of your revenge. "

These words, aided by a tone of voice, and an expression of countenancethat gave them perhaps their chief effect, took even the hardened natureof Houseman by surprise; he was affected by an emotion which he could nothave believed it possible the man who till then had galled him by thehumbling sense of inferiority, could have created. He extended his handto Aram. 

"By--, " he exclaimed, with an oath which we spare the reader, "you areright! you have made me as helpless in your hands, as an infant. I acceptyour offer--if I were to refuse it, I should be driven to the samecourses I now pursue. But look you; I know not what may be the amount ofthe annuity you can raise. I shall not, however, require more than willsatisfy wants, which, if not so scanty as your own, are not at least veryextravagant or very refined. As for the rest, if there be any surplus, inGod's name keep it for yourself, and rest assured that, so far as I amconcerned, you shall be molested no more. "

"No, Houseman, " said Aram, with a half smile, "you shall have all I firstmentioned; that is, all beyond what nature craves, honourably and fully. Man's best resolutions are weak: if you knew I possessed aught to spare, a fancied want, a momentary extravagance might tempt you to demand it. Let us put ourselves beyond the possible reach of temptation. But do notflatter youself by the hope that the income will be magnificent. My ownannuity is but trifling, and the half of the dowry I expect from myfuture father-in-law, is all that I can at present obtain. The whole ofthat dowry is insignificant as a sum. But if this does not suffice foryou, I must beg or borrow elsewhere. "

"This, after all, is a pleasanter way of settling business, " saidHouseman, "than by threats and anger. And now I will tell you exactly thesum on which, if I could receive it yearly, I could live without lookingbeyond the pale of the Law for more--on which I could cheerfully renounceEngland, and commence 'the honest man. ' But then, hark you, I must havehalf settled on my little daughter. "

"What! have you a child?" said Aram eagerly, and well pleased to find anadditional security for his own safety. 

"Ay, a little girl, my only one, in her eighth year; she lives with hergrandmother, for she is motherless, and that girl must not be left quitepenniless should I be summoned hence before my time. Some twelve yearshence--as poor Jane promises to be pretty--she may be married off myhands, but her childhood must not be left to the chances of beggary orshame. "

"Doubtless not, doubtless not. Who shall say now that we ever outlivefeeling?" said Aram, "Half the annuity shall be settled upon her, shouldshe survive you; but on the same conditions, ceasing when I die, or theinstant of your return to England. And now, name the sum that you deemsufficing. "

"Why, " said Houseman, counting on his fingers, and muttering "twenty--fifty--wine and the creature cheap abroad--humph! a hundred for living, and half as much for pleasure. Come, Aram, one hundred and fifty guineasper annum, English money, will do for a foreign life--you see I am easilysatisfied. "

"Be it so, " said Aram, "I will engage by one means or another to procureit. For this purpose I shall set out for London to-morrow; I will notlose a moment in seeing the necessary settlement made as we havespecified. But meanwhile, you must engage to leave this neighbourhood, and if possible, cause your comrades to do the same, although you willnot hesitate, for the sake of your own safety, immediately to separatefrom them. "

"Now that we are on good terms, " replied Houseman, "I will not scruple tooblige you in these particulars. My comrades intend to quit the countrybefore to-morrow; nay, half are already gone; by daybreak I myself willbe some miles hence, and separated from each of them. Let us meet inLondon after the business is completed, and there conclude our lastinterview on earth. "

"What will be your address?"

"In Lambeth there is a narrow alley that leads to the water-side, calledPeveril Lane. The last house to the right, towards the river, is my usuallodging; a safe resting-place at all times, and for all men. "

"There then will I seek you. And now, Houseman, fare-you-well! As youremember your word to me, may life flow smooth for your child. "

"Eugene Aram, " said Houseman, "there is about you something against whichthe fiercer devil within me would rise in vain. I have read that thetiger can be awed by the human eye, and you compell me into submission bya spell equally unaccountable. You are a singular man, and it seems to mea riddle, how we could ever have been thus connected; or how--but we willnot rip up the past, it is an ugly sight, and the fire is just out. Thosestories do not do for the dark. But to return;--were it only for the sakeof my child, you might depend upon me now; better too an arrangement ofthis sort, than if I had a larger sum in hand which I might be tempted tofling away, and in looking for more, run my neck into a halter, and leavepoor Jane upon charity. But come, it is almost dark again, and no doubtyou wish to be stirring: stay, I will lead you back, and put you on theright track, lest you stumble on my friends. "

"Is this cavern one of their haunts?" said Aram. 

"Sometimes: but they sleep the other side of the Devil's Crag to-night. Nothing like a change of quarters for longevity--eh?"

"And they easily spare you. "

"Yes, if it be only on rare occasions, and on the plea of familybusiness. Now then, your hand, as before. Jesu! how it rains--lightningtoo--I could look with less fear on a naked sword, than those red, forked, blinding flashes--Hark! thunder. "

The night had now, indeed, suddenly changed its aspect; the raindescended in torrents, even more impetuously than on the former night, while the thunder burst over their very heads, as they wound upwardthrough the brake. With every instant, the lightning broke from the rivenchasm of the blackness that seemed suspended as in a solid substanceabove, brightened the whole heaven into one livid and terrific flame, andshowed to the two men the faces of each other, rendered deathlike andghastly by the glare. Houseman was evidently affected by the fear thatsometimes seizes even the sturdiest criminals, when exposed to those morefearful phenomena of the Heavens, which seem to humble into nothing thepower and the wrath of man. His teeth chattered, and he muttered brokenwords about the peril of wandering near trees when the lightning was ofthat forked character, accelerating his pace at every sentence, andsometimes interrupting himself with an ejaculation, half oath, halfprayer, or a congratulation that the rain at least diminished the danger. They soon cleared the thicket, and a few minutes brought them once moreto the banks of the stream, and the increased roar of the cataract. Noearthly scene perhaps could surpass the appalling sublimity of that whichthey beheld;--every instant the lightning, which became more and morefrequent, converting the black waters into billows of living fire, orwreathing itself in lurid spires around the huge crag that now rose insight; and again, as the thunder rolled onward, darting its vain furyupon the rushing cataract, and the tortured breast of the gulf that ravedbelow low. And the sounds that filled the air were even more fraught withterror and menace than the scene;--the waving, the groans, the crash ofthe pines on the hill, the impetuous force of the rain upon the whirlingriver, and the everlasting roar of the cataract, answered anon by the yetmore aweful voice that burst above it from the clouds. 

They halted while yet sufficiently distant from the cataract to be heardby each other. "My path, " said Aram, as the lightning now paused upon thescene, and seemed literally to wrap in a lurid shroud the dark figure ofthe Student, as he stood, with his hand calmly raised, and his cheekpale, but dauntless and composed; "My path now lies yonder: in a week weshall meet again. "

"By the fiend, " said Houseman, shuddering, "I would not, for a fullhundred, ride alone through the moor you will pass. There stands a gibbetby the road, on which a parricide was hanged in chains. Pray Heaven thisnight be no omen of the success of our present compact!"

"A steady heart, Houseman, " answered Aram, striking into the separatepath, "is its own omen. "

The Student soon gained the spot in which he had left his horse; theanimal had not attempted to break the bridle, but stood trembling fromlimb to limb, and testified by a quick short neigh the satisfaction withwhich it hailed the approach of its master, and found itself no longeralone. 

Aram remounted, and hastened once more into the main road. He scarcelyfelt the rain, though the fierce wind drove it right against his path; hescarcely marked the lightning, though at times it seemed to dart itsarrows on his very form; his heart was absorbed in the success of hisschemes. 

"Let the storm without howl on, " thought he, "that within hath a respiteat last. Amidst the winds and rains I can breathe more freely than I havedone on the smoothest summer day. By the charm of a deeper mind and asubtler tongue, I have then conquered this desperate foe; I have silencedthis inveterate spy: and, Heaven be praised, he too has human ties; andby those ties I hold him! Now, then, I hasten to London--I arrange thisannuity--see that the law tightens every cord of the compact; and whenall is done, and this dangerous man fairly departed on his exile, Ireturn to Madeline, and devote to her a life no longer the vassal ofaccident and the hour: but I have been taught caution. Secure as my ownprudence may have made me from farther apprehension of Houseman, I willyet place myself wholly beyond his power: I will still consummate myformer purpose, adopt a new name, and seek a new retreat; Madeline maynot know the real cause; but this brain is not barren of excuse. Ah!" asdrawing his cloak closer round him, he felt the purse hid within hisbreast which contained the order he had obtained from Lester; "Ah! thiswill now add its quota to purchase, not a momentary relief, but thestipend of perpetual silence. I have passed through the ordeal easierthan I had hoped for. Had the devil at his heart been more difficult tolay, so necessary is his absence, that I must have purchased it at anycost. Courage, Eugene Aram! thy mind, for which thou hast lived, and forwhich thou hast hazarded thy soul--if soul and mind be distinct from eachother--thy mind can support thee yet through every peril: not till thouart stricken into idiotcy, shalt thou behold thyself defenceless. Howcheerfully, " muttered he, after a momentary pause, "how cheerfully, forsafety, and to breathe with a quiet heart, the air of Madeline'spresence, shall I rid myself of all save enough to defy want. And wantcan never now come to me, as of old. He who knows the sources of everyscience from which wealth is wrought holds even wealth at his will. "

Breaking at every interval into these soliloquies, Aram continued tobreast the storm until he had won half his journey, and had come upon along and bleak moor, which was the entrance to that beautiful line ofcountry in which the valleys around Grassdale are embosomed: faster andfaster came the rain; and though the thunder-clouds were now behind, theyyet followed loweringly, in their black array, the path of the lonelyhorseman. 

But now he heard the sound of hoofs making towards him; he drew his horseon one side of the road, and at that instant a broad flash of lightningillumining the space around, he beheld four horsemen speeding along at arapid gallop; they were armed, and conversing loudly--their oaths wereheard jarringly and distinctly amidst all the more solemn and terrificsounds of the night. They came on, sweeping by the Student, whose handwas on his pistol, for he recognised in one of the riders the man who hadescaped unwounded from Lester's house. He and his comrades wereevidently, then, Houseman's desperate associates; and they too, thoughthey were borne too rapidly by Aram to be able to rein in their horses onthe spot, had seen the solitary traveller, and already wheeled round, andcalled upon him to halt!

The lightning was again gone, and the darkness snatched the robbers andtheir intended victim from the sight of each other. But Aram had not losta moment; fast fled his horse across the moor, and when, with the nextflash, he looked back, he saw the ruffians, unwilling even for booty toencounter the horrors of the night, had followed him but a few paces, andagain turned round; still he dashed on, and had now nearly passed themoor; the thunder rolled fainter and fainter from behind, and thelightning only broke forth at prolonged intervals, when suddenly, after apause of unusual duration, it brought the whole scene into a light, ifless intolerable, even more livid than before. The horse, that hadhitherto sped on without start or stumble, now recoiled in abruptaffright; and the horseman, looking up at the cause, beheld the Gibbet ofwhich Houseman had spoken immediately fronting his path, with its ghastlytenant waving to and fro, as the winds rattled through the parched andarid bones; and the inexpressible grin of the skull fixed, as in mockery, upon his countenance.