Chapter 2

O what an easie thing is to descry The gentle blood, however it be wrapt In sade misfortunes foule deformity And wretched sorrowes which have often hapt! For,--howsoever it may grow mis-shapt Like this wyld man being undisciplyned That to all virtue it may seeme unapt,-- Yet it will show some sparkles of gentle mynd And at the last breake forth in his owne proper kynd. _Faerie Queene_--B. vi. C, 5.

All the men were now dismissed by their leader except one--who was directed to place wine and refreshments on the table: this was done. "And now, Valentine," said the leader, "you may return home: for I think you have a scolding wife; and by the way, if she wishes to have a certificate of your good behaviour and fidelity to her during your absence from home, get me a pencil and I will write one."

"Ah! Captain Nicholas," said the man, "you're still the same man; always ready for a joke, let danger be as near as it will."

"Danger! what danger?"

"Why, to say the truth, I don't above half like the old woman from Anglesea."

"What, Gillie Godber?"

"Yes: she talks strangely at times; and, as sure as your name's mentioned, she puts on a d--d Judas face; and talks--God! I hardly know what she talks; but it's my belief she means you no good."

"Hm!--Well, so I have sometimes thought myself. Yet I know not. At times she's as kind as if she were my own mother. And at all events I can't do without her, so long as I have business at Walladmor Castle. Her son, you know, lives there: and, but for her, I should often be at a loss for means of communicating with him."

"And has Gillie been at Walladmor to-day?"

"Yes: pretty early this morning."

"Then take my word for it--its she that has blabbed to Sir Morgan about the funeral. And I'd be glad to think _that_ were the worst: for I heard it whispered once or twice to-day that Sir Morgan had got notice of your return. Black Will saw an express of Sir Morgan's riding off to Carnarvon: and, by one that left Machynleth at noon I heard that Alderman Gravesend was stirring with all his bull-dogs."

"Well,--I think they'll hardly catch me this night. And, as the moon will soon be rising, I would advise you to make the best of your way to Aberkilvie. Pleasant moonlight to you; and give my compliments to your wife."

"Ah! Captain,--I wish there were no moonlight to-night: for my heart misgives me, unless you take better care, some cross luck will fall out. However, I'll not go to Aberkilvie: I'll stay in the neighbourhood: and, if I hear a shot, I'll come down with one or two more."

The man retired: and Nicholas for a few minutes appeared to be sunk in reverie: but soon recovering himself he addressed Bertram with an air of gaiety:

"Well, my young friend, and how do you like the world in Wales? You have taken my advice I find, and have come to see Ap Gauvon."

"It was you then that were my guide to Machynleth? I was beginning to suspect as much. Who it was that sent me the note this morning, I need not ask: for my eyes assure me that you were the person who presided on that occasion, both as commander and as chief mourner."

"And I hope you disapproved my behaviour in neither part."

"To do you justice, you behaved incomparably well in both. In the latter part, however,--well as you acquitted yourself,--you must excuse me if I doubt your sincerity."

"You surprise me," said Nicholas smiling: "what doubt the sincerity of my grief for the death of Captain le Harnois?"

"My doubts go even a little further. I doubt whether the body of Captain le Harnois at all accompanied the procession. But what, in the name of God then, could bring so large a train of mourners together?--Will you say upon your word that you have deposited the body in any burying-place?"

Nicholas laughed immoderately. "Your discernment is wonderful. As to the body, I can assure you that it has not only been deposited in a burying-place at Utragan,---but immediately afterwards dispersed as holy reliques all over the country: and no saint's reliques in Christendom will meet with more honour and attention. As to what brought the crowd together,--if you come to that, my young friend, what brought you thither? I have some plans which make it prudent for me to renew an old connexion with a body of stout friends at sea and on shore. Most of the others, I suppose, came for liquor. And you, if I do not affront you by that suggestion, were naturally desirous of seeing how the land lay before you commenced operations. For the oldest fox is at fault in a strange country."

"You still persist, I see, in looking upon me as an adventurer: is it your opinion that every body else would pass the same harsh judgment on me?"

"Ay, if not a harsher: but do you know, Mr. Bertram, that at first sight, I knew your profession by your face, and what your destiny is in this life."

"And which of my unhappy features is it that bears this unpleasant witness against me?"

"Unhappy you may truly call them," said the other, smiling bitterly--"unhappy indeed; for they are the same as my own. I rest a little upon omens and prefigurations; and am superstitious; as those must ever be who have lived upon the sea, and have risked their all upon the faith of its unsteady waves. It will mortify you (my young friend) to confess, (but it is true) that much as storm, sun, passion, and hardships, may have tanned and disfeatured my face, nevertheless it is still like thy gentle woman's face, with its fair complexion and its overshadowing locks; and when I look back upon that inanimate portrait which once an idle artist painted of me, in my 16th year, I remember that it was one and the same with thine. Kindred features should imply kindred dispositions and minds. The first time that I observed you closely, on that evening when you came on shore from Jackson's brig, sunk in reverie and thinking no doubt, if indeed you thought of me at all, that I was asleep; then did I behold in your eye my own; read in your forehead all the storms that too surely have tossed and rocked the little boat of your uneasy life; saw your plans, so wide and spacious--your little peace--your doubts about the end which you were pursuing--your bold resolves--bold, and with not much hope."

"Oh stranger, but thou knowest the art, far above thy education, of reading the souls of others."

A smile passed over his countenance whilst he replied: "Education! oh yes, I too have had some education: oh! doubtless education is a fine thing, not to run in amongst gentlemen of refinement like a wild beast, and shock the good pious lambs with coarse manners or ferocious expressions. Oh yes, education is of astonishing value: a man of the wildest pursuits, and the nature of a ruffian, may shroud himself in this, as a wolf in sheep's clothing--and be well received by all those accomplished creatures whom fortune brought into this world, not in smoky huts, but in rich men's rooms decked with tapestry. I too have stolen a little morsel of education amongst a troop of players; and if my coarse habits will sometimes look out, why that's no fault of mine, but of those worthy paupers that thought proper to steal me in my infancy. There are hours, Bertram, in which I have longings, longings keen as those of women with child--longings for conversations with men of higher faculties--men that I could understand--men that could answer me--aye, and that _would_ answer me, and not turn away from the poor vagabond with disdain."

"And you have chosen me for such a comrade?"

"As you please: that rests with yourself. But, Bertram, at any rate, I rejoice to find amongst my equals one that does not--as others do of the plebeian rout--live the sport of the passing moment,--one that risks his life, yet in risking it knows what life is--that has eyes to see--thoughts to think,--feelings but such a dissembling hypocrite as you" (and here he smiled) "will laugh when he hears a ruffian talk of feelings."

"Your wish is, then, to find some well-educated comrade, who, when your conscience is troublesome, may present your crimes under their happiest aspect--may take the sting out of your offences, and give to the wicked deed the colouring of a noble one?"

Nicholas knit his brows, and said with a quick and stern voice:

"What I have done I shall never deny: neither here nor there above--if any above or below there be. I want nobody to call my deeds by pretty names, neither before they are executed nor after. What I want is a friend; one to whom I could confide my secret thoughts without kneeling as before a priest--or confessing as to a judge: one that will rush with me like a hurricane into life, till we are both in our graves; or one that refusing to do this, and standing himself upright, would yet allow the poor guilty outcast to attach himself to his support, and sometimes to repose his weary head upon a human heart."

Bertram stared at him; which the other observed, and said smilingly:

"You wonder at my pathos: but you must recollect that I told you I had once been amongst players."

"Speak frankly--what is it you wish of me?"

"This I wish: will you either run joint hazard with me--and try your fortunes in this country;--or will you take your own course, but now and then permit me, when my heart is crazed by passion, by solitude, and unparticipated anguish,--to lighten it by your society?"

"Once for all I declare to you, with respect to your first proposal, that I will enter into no unlawful connexions."

"Be it so: that word is enough. You refuse to become an adventurer like myself? I ask not for your reasons; your will in such a case is law enough. But then can you, in the other sense, be my friend?"

"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 spacious 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 God?"

"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 assemble 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 passed: 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 (God 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 appetite 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--passionate 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 attitude 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 assailants.

"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 pronounced the prisoner to be that Nicholas of whom they were in search.