"Rash man! whence is it that you derive such boundless confidence in me?"

Nicholas stepped up to the young man nearer than before--looked him keenly but kindly in the eyes--as if seeking to revive some remembrance in him; then pressed his hand, and said--

"Have you forgotten then that poor wretch in the tumult of the waves, to whom, when he was in his agony, thou, Bertram, didst resign thy own security--and didst descend into the perilous and rocking waters?

Deeply, oh deeply, I am in thy debt; far more deeply I would be, when I ask for favours such as this."

"Is it possible? Are you he? But now I recollect your forehead was then hidden by streaming hair; convulsive spasms played about your lips; and your face was disguised by a long beard."

"I am he; and but for thee should now lie in the bowels of a shark, or spitted upon some rock at the bottom of the ocean. But come, my young friend, come into the open air: for in this vault I feel the air too close and confined."

Owls and other night birds which had found an asylum here, disturbed by the steps of the two nightly wanderers, now soared aloft to the highest turrets. At length after moving in silence for some minutes, both stepped out through the pointed arch of a narrow gate-way into the open air upon a lofty battlement. Nicholas seized Bertram's hand, with the action of one who would have checked him at some dangerous point;--and, making a gesture which expressed--"look before you!" he led him to the outer edge of the wall. At this moment the full moon in perfect glory burst from behind a towering pile of clouds, and illuminated a region such as the young man had hitherto scarcely known by description.

Dizzily he looked down upon what seemed a bottomless abyss at his feet.

The Abbey-wall, on which he stood, built with colossal art, was but the crest or surmounting of a steep and monstrous wall of rock, which rose out of depths in which his eye could find no point on which to settle.

On the other side of this immeasurable gulph lay in deep shadow--the main range of Snowdon; whose base was perhaps covered with thick forests, but whose summit and declivities displayed a dreary waste.

Dazzled by the grandeur of the spectacle, Bertram would have sought repose for his eye by turning round; but the new scene was, if not greater, still more striking. From his lofty station he overlooked the s.p.a.cious ruins of the entire monastery, as its highest points silvered over by moonlight shot up from amidst the illimitable night of ravines, chasms, and rocky peaks that form the dependencies of Snowdon. Add to these permanent features of the scene the impressive accident of the time--midnight, with an universal stillness in the air, and the whole became a fairy scene, in which the dazzled eye comprehended only the total impression, without the separate details or the connexions of its different points. So much however might be inferred from the walls which lay near with respect to those which gleamed in the distance--that the towers and buildings of the abbey had been for the most part built upon prominent peaks of rock. Those only, which were so founded, had resisted the hand of time: while the cross walls which connected them, wanting such a rocky basis, had all fallen in. Solemnly above all the chapels and turrets rose, brilliantly illuminated by the moon, the main tower. Upon a solitary crag, that started from the deeps, it stood with a boldness that seemed to proclaim defiance on the part of man to nature--and victorious efforts of his hands over all her opposition. Round about it every atom of the connecting masonry had mouldered away and sunk into heaps of rubbish below--so that all possibility of reaching the tower seemed to be cut off. But beyond this tower Gothic fretwork and imperfect windows rose from the surrounding crags; and in many places were seen pillars springing from two dissevered points of rock--rising higher and higher--and at last inclining towards each other in vast arches; but the central stones that should have locked the architraves of the mighty gates were wanting; and the columns stood to a fanciful eye like two lovers, whom nature and pure inclination have destined for each other, but whom some malicious mischance has separated for ever. Bertram shut his eyes, before the dazzling spectacle: when he opened them again, his guide said with a tranquil voice--in which however a tone of exultation might be distinguished,

"This is Griffith ap Gauvon, of which I lately spoke to you."

All words, as Bertram felt, would fail to express the strength of his emotions: language would but have violated the solemnity of the thoughts which riveted his gaze to the scene before him. He was silent therefore; and in a few moments his companion resumed:

"Here, Bertram, do I often stand on the giddy precipice; and I look down upon the dread tranquillity of the spectacle; and then often I feel as though I wanted no friend; as though nature, the mighty mother, were a sufficient friend that fulfilled all my wishes--a friend far better and wiser than any which the false world can offer. But, Bertram, come a little further!"

He led him, sideways, from that part of the building out of which they had issued by the little portal about 100 yards further. The wall, scarce three feet wide, stood here nearly insulated: and was on the one side bounded by the abyss just described, and on the other by what might have been an inner court--that lay however at least three stories deep below. Nothing but a cross-wall, which rose above the court towards a little tower, touched this main wall. At the extremity of this last, where it broke off abruptly, both stopped. Hardly forty steps removed from them, rose the great tower, which in past times doubtless had been connected with the point at which they stood, but was now divided by as deep a gulph as that which lay to the outside wall, "Further there is nothing," said his guide: "often have I come hither and meditated whether I should not make one step onwards, and in that way release myself from all anxiety about any future steps upon this earth."

"But the power and the grandeur of nature have arrested you and awed you?"

"Right. Look downwards into the abyss before us:--deep, deep below, trickles along, between pebbles and moss and rocky fragment, a little brook: now it is lit up by the moon;--and at this moment it seems to me as if something were stirring; and now something is surely leaping over:--but no--it was deception: often when I have stood here in meditation, and could not comprehend what checked me from taking one bold leap, a golden pillar of moonlight has met me gleaming upwards from the little brook below--(brook that I have haunted in happier days); and suddenly I have risen as if ashamed--and stolen away in silence."

"Nicholas, do you believe in G.o.d?"

"Will you know the truth? I have lately learnt to believe."

"By what happy chance?"

"Happy!" and his companion laughed bitterly. "Leagued with bold and desperate men, to rid the world of a knot of vipers, for months I had waited for the moment when they should a.s.semble together, in order to annihilate at one blow the entire brood. Daily we prayed, if you will call that praying, that this moment would arrive: but months after months pa.s.sed: we waited; and we despaired. At length on a day,--I remember it was at noon--in burst a friend upon us and cried out--'Triumph and glory! this night the King's ministers all meet at Lord Harrowby's.' At these words many stern conspirators fell on their knees; others folded their hands--hands (G.o.d knows!) but little used to such a folding: I could do neither; I stretched out my arms and cried aloud--There _is_ a Providence!"

"Dreadful!"

"Spare your horrors, and your morality. Providence, we know, has willed it otherwise: the honourable gentlemen, at whom we had levelled, flourish in prosperity and honour; and my friends moulder beneath the scaffold."

"Having this origin, I presume that your faith in a Providence is at present--"

"Unshaken: my dagger was meant for Lord Londonderry: and, although he has escaped my wrath, yet I know not how, but a curse seems to cling to my blade, that whomsoever I have once devoted to it with full determination of purpose, that man ---- ----"

Bertram shuddered, and said, "So then it was a conspirator from Cato-street that I delivered from death?"

"Well, push the conspirator over the wall, if you repent."

"But what carried you amongst such an atrocious band? What could you reap from the murder of the English ministers?--no merchant from Amsterdam stood with a full purse in the back ground."

"One step brings on another, and the rage of licentious mobs cannot be stopped until it has consumed itself. Upon the smoking ashes of the old palaces, between the overladen scaffold on one side and the charnel house on the other, blood from each side floating the slippery streets,--then is man's worth put to proof; then it is tried not by his prattling, which he calls eloquence--nor by his overloaded memory which he calls knowledge: then comes into play the arm, and then the head:"

"And what would you have gained as chief of a maddening populace?"

"What should I have gained? That sort of consideration I leave to the 'learned' and to 'ministers' and such people: my part is--to resolve and to execute as the crisis arises."

"So then it was mere appet.i.te for destruction that drove you on? For _that_ I should scarce have thought your misanthropy sufficient."

"Call it folly, call it frenzy, call it what you will--but something higher it was that stood in the back ground. A beautiful picture it was when I represented to myself all the great leaders, headless--and in that point on a level with the poor culprit that has just ascended the scaffold for stealing some half a pound of trash. This it was that allured me; and the pleasure of being myself the decapitator! Then worth should have borne the sway, and merit."

"Merit? What sort of merit?"

"You think a blood-hound has none,"--said Nicholas, with eyes that shot fire:--"but he can acquire it. Heaven and Earth! he that has such marrow--such blood in his veins--such a will--such an unconquerable will--he can begin a new life: he can be born again. Bertram, do not mock me when I tell you--pa.s.sionate love has crazed my wits. See, here is a handkerchief of hers! For _her_ sake do I curse my former life; for her sake, I would sink its memory into the depths of ocean! Oh that I _could_! that all the waters of the ocean could cleanse this hand!

that I could come up from the deep sea as pure though I were as helpless as an infant! Once upon a dreadful night--But stop! what was that? Did you hear no whispering from below? Once upon a dreadful night----: Steps go there! hush! hush!"

Bertram's companion here suddenly drew his cloak from his shoulders--rolled it up under his arm--caught his coat-skirts under both arms--and stood with head and body bent forwards, whilst his eyes seemed to search and traverse the dark piles of building from which they had issued; his att.i.tude was that of a stag, that, with pointed ears and with fore-feet rising for a bound, is looking to the thicket from which the noise issues that has startled him. Bertram too threw his eyes over the walls as far as he could to the lower part of the ruins; and remarked that, if any hostile attack were made, they should be without deliverance; they were shut in; and no egress remained except that which would be pre-occupied by their a.s.sailants.

"I believe I was mistaken," said Nicholas, drawing his breath again, just as Bertram fancied he saw a stirring of the shadow which lay within the gateway at the further end. He was on the point of communicating what he observed to the other, when suddenly a shot was fired. In that same instant Nicholas had thrown his cloak into the abyss; and without a word spoken ran straight, with an agility and speed that thunderstruck Bertram, to the archway; from which figures of armed men were now seen to issue apparently with the intention of intercepting the fugitive. Bertram now expected to see a struggle, as Nicholas was running right into the mouth of the danger. But in the midst of his quickest speed he checked--turned to the left about--leaped down with the instinctive agility of a chamois upon the wall below, which, bisecting the inner court, connected the main wall with the outer, and then ran along upon the narrow ridge of this inner wall, interrupted as it was by holes and loose stones. At every instant Bertram expected to see him fall and never rise again. But the danger to Nicholas came from another quarter. The pursuers, it would seem, had calculated on the intrepidity and agility of their man, and another group of men faced him on the opposite side. No choice appeared left to the fugitive--but to surrender, or to leap down. Suddenly he stood still, pulled out of his belt a brace of pistols--fired one in each hand upon the antagonists who stood near to him; and, whilst these shrank back in sudden surprise, though no one appeared wounded, with incredible dexterity and speed he sank from the eyes of Bertram--and disappeared. In a moment after Bertram thought he heard a dull sound as of a sullen plunge through briars and brambles into the rubbish below.

All was then still.----

"One has burst the net," exclaimed the men, "but there stands his comrade: and, if he prove the right one, no matter what becomes of the other." So saying, both parties neared cautiously to possess themselves of Bertram.

On _his_ part Bertram had no wish, as indeed (he was aware) no power, to escape them. Advancing therefore with a tranquil demeanour, he surrendered himself at once: and the next moment an Irishman of the party, being summoned to examine his features, held up a torch to his face and solemnly p.r.o.nounced the prisoner to be that Nicholas of whom they were in search.

CHAPTER XII.

_Prot._ 'Tis wonderful dark! I have lost my man; And dare not call for him, but I should have More followers than I would pay wages to.

What throes am I in--in this travel! These Be honourable adventures!

_Beaumont and Fletcher_: _Thierry and Theodor_.

"Come, let's away from this old monk's nest," said one of the constables, "for it looks uncanny."

"Aye, Sampson, and who knows but some of Nicholas's gang may be lurking behind the pillars?"

"Nay it's not altogether that I'm thinking of; but the old monks with their cowls; and Merlin; and G.o.d knows how many ghosts beside;--I could fancy that I saw some of them just now at the end of these long galleries. So let's away."

Others however objected that they were starved by their long watching in the cold, and stood in need of refreshments. It was determined therefore to make a halt. Two men staid by the prisoner, whilst the rest collected wood and soon succeeded in lighting a prodigious fire upon the s.p.a.cious area before the main entrance into the Abbey. Round this the party collected: a hamper of smuggled claret, which they had fortunately intercepted on its road from the abbey, was unpacked: wine and the genial warmth of the fire disposed all present except the prisoner to mirth and festivity; and not one soul but seemed to regard it as a point of conscience to reward their fatigue and celebrate their success by getting royally intoxicated.

"Why so downcast, my lad?" said one of the constables to Bertram; "in my youth I was as near to the gallows as you; and yet you see I am now virtuous; and a man of credit in the state."

"Aye, Sampson," said Kilmary, "unless you're much belied, you got your reprieve just as you were going to be turned off."

"And you, Kilmary, got yours something later: for I've often heard that you were cut down after hanging some five minutes or so. This was in Wicklow, gentlemen: and being in time of rebellion there was so much business that they were often obliged to employ dilettanti artists in hanging: and now and then there was not time to go through the work properly.--But, as I was saying, courage my young lad. Were I in your place, I would bless my stars that I had fallen into the company of honest men, and got rid of such rascally friends as yours, that run away at the pinch. You see by this that no dependance can be placed upon such villains, and that virtue only can be relied on. Oh! I could preach finely to you, my boy: but where's the use of it? If you're hanged, you'll not want it: and, if you're not hanged, you'll forget it."