-"who sometimes, good gentleman, gave a glance at a book when the State affairs of Alsatia left him as much leisure." Nigel embraced the proposal, and his unwearied Iris scuttled away on this second embassy. She returned in a short time with a tattered quarto volume under her arm, and a pottle of sack m her hand; for the Duke, judging that mere reading was dry work, had sent the wine by way of sauce to help it down, not forgetting to add the price to the morning's score, which he had already run up against the stranger in the Sanctuary. Nigel seized on the book, and did not refuse the wine, thinking that a glass or two, as it really proved to be of good quality, would be no bad interlude to his studies. He dismissed with thanks and assurance of reward, the poor old drudge who had been so zealous in his service; trimmed his fire and candles, and placed the easiest of the old arm chairs in a convenient posture betwixt the fire and the table at which he had dined, and which now supported the measure of sack and the lights; and thus accompanying his studies with such luxurious appliances as were in his power, he began to examine the only volume with which the ducal library of Alsatia had been able to supply him. The contents, though of a kind generally interesting, were not well calculated to dispel the gloom by which he was surrounded. The book was entitled "God's Revenge against Murther;" not, as the bihomaniacal reader may easily conjecture, the work which Reynolds published under that imposing name, but one of a much earlier date, printed and sold by old Wolfe; and which, could a copy now be found, would sell for much more than its weight in gold.* Nigel had soon enough of the doleful tales which the book contains, and attempted one or two other modes of killing the evening. He looked out at window, but the night was rainy, with gusts of wind; he tried to coax the fire, but the fagots were green, and smoked without burning; and as he was naturally temperate, he felt his blood somewhat heated by the canary sack which he had already drank, and had no farther inclination to that pastime. He next attempted to compose a memorial addressed to the King, in which he set forth his case and his grievances; but, speedily stung with the idea that his supplication would be treated with scorn, he flung the scroll into the fire, and, in a sort of desperation, resumed the book which he had laid aside. Nigel became more interested in the volume at the second than at the first attempt which he made to peruse it. The narratives, strange and shocking as they were to human feeling, possessed yet the interest of sorcery or of fascination, which rivets the attention by its awakening horrors. Much was told of the strange and horrible acts of blood by which men, setting nature and humanity alike at defiance, had, for the thirst of revenge, the lust of gold, or the cravings of irregular ambition, broken into the tabernacle of life. Yet more surprising, and mysterious tales were recounted of the mode in which such deeds of blood had come to be discovered and revenged. Animals, irrational animals, had told the secret, and birds of the air had carried the matter. The elements had seemed to betray the deed which had polluted them-earth had ceased to support the murderer's steps, fire to warm his frozen limbs, water to refresh his parched lips, air to relieve his gasping lungs. All, in short, bore evidence to the homicide's guilt. In other circumstances, the criminal's own awakened conscience pursued and brought him to justice; and in some narratives the grave was said to have yawned, that the ghost of the sufferer might call for revenge. It was now wearing late in the night, and the book was still in Nigel's hands, when the tapestry which hung behind him flapped against the wall, and the wind produced by its motion waved the flame of *Only three copies are known to exist; one in the library at Kennaquhair, and two-one foxed and cropped, the other tall and in good condition-both in the possession of an eminent member of the Roxburghe Club.-Note by CAPTAIN CLUTTER BUCK. the candles by which he was reading. Nigel started and turned round, in that excited and irritated state of mind which arose from the nature of his studies, especially at a period when a certain degree of superstition was inculcated as a point of religious faith. It was not without emotion that he saw the bloodless countenance, meagre form, and ghastly aspect of old Trapbois, once more in the very act of extending his withered hand towards the table which supported his arms. Convinced by this untimely apparition that something evil was meditated towards him, Nigel sprung up, seized his sword, drew it, and placing it at the old man's breast, demanded of him what he did in his apartment at so untimely an hour. Trapbois showed neither fear nor surprise, and only answered by some imperfect expressions, intimating he would part with his life rather than with his property; and Lord Glenvarloch, strangely embarrassed, knew not what to think of the intruder's motives, and still less how to get rid of him. As he again tried the means of intimidation, he was surprised by a second apparition from behind the tapestry, in the person of the daughter of Trapbois, bearing a lamp in her hand. She also seemed to possess her father's insensibility to danger, for, coming close to Nigel, she pushed aside impetuously his naked sword, and even attempted to take it out of his hand. "For shame," she said, "your sword on a man of eighty years and more!-this the honour of a Scottish gentleman!-give it to me to make a spindle of!" "Stand back," said Nigel; "I mean your father no injury-but I will know what has caused him to prowl this whole day, and even at this late hour of night, around my arms.' Your arms!" repeated she; "alas! young man, the whole arms in the Tower of London are of little value to him, in comparison of this miserable piece of gold which I left this morning on the table of a young spendthrift, too careless to put what belonged to him into his own purse." So saying, she showed the piece of gold, which, still remaining on the table, where she left it, had been the bait that attracted old Trapbois so frequently to the spot; and which, even in the silence of the night, had so dwelt on his imagination, that he had made use of a private passage long disused, to enter his guest's apartment, in order to possess himself of the treasure during his slumbers. He now exclaimed, at the highest tones of his cracked and feeble voice "It is mine-it is mine!-he gave it to me for a consideration-I will die ere I part with my property!" I "It is indeed his own, mistress," said Nigel, "and do entreat you to restore it to the person on whom I have bestowed it, and let me have my apartment in quiet." "I will account with you for it, then," said the maiden, reluctantly giving to her father the morsel of Manimon, on which he darted as if his bony fingers had been the talons of a hawk seizing its prey; and then making a contented muttering and mumbling like an old dog after he has been fed, and just when he is wheeling himself thrice round for the purpose of lying down, he followed his daughter behind the tapestry, through a little sliding-door, which was perceived when the hangings were drawn apart. "This shall be properly fastened to-morrow," said the daughter to Nigel, speaking in such a tone that her father, deaf, and engrossed by his acquisition, could not hear her; “to-night I will continue to watch him closely.-I wish you good repose.' These few words, pronounced in a tone of more civility than she had yet made use of towards her lodger, contained a wish which was not to be accomplished, although her guest, presently after her departure, retired to bed. There was a slight fever in Nigel's blood, occasioned by the various events of the evening, which put him, as the phrase is, beside his rest. Perplexing and painful thoughts rolled on his mind like a troubled stream, and the more he laboured to lull himself to slumber, the farther he seemed from attaining his object. He tried all the resources, common in such ca THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL. ses; kept counting from one to a thousand, until his | started up, and exclaiming "There may be life yet!" Suddenly, however, amid this monotony, came a mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended Fear not," she cried, "fear not; they are base sound which startled him at once. It was a female myself against them without assistance or protection. cowards, to whom courage is as much unknown as shriek. He sat up in his bed to listen, then remem--Oh! my poor father! protection comes too late for bered he was in Alsatia, where brawls of every sort this cold and stiff corpse.-He is dead-dead!" were current among the unruly inhabitants. But another scream, and another, and another, succeeded so dead body of the old miser; but it was evident, even close, that he was certain, though the noise was re- from the feeling of the inactive weight and rigid joints, While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the mote and sounded stifled, it must be in the same house that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for with himself. Nigel jumped up hastily, put on a part of his clothes, ceased, with more presence of mind than a daughter seized his sword and pistols, and ran to the door of could at the time have been supposed capable of exerta wound, but saw none. The daughter of the dehis chamber. Here he plainly heard the screams re-ing, discovered the instrument of his murder-a sort doubled, and, as he thought, the sounds came from of scarf, which had been drawn so tight round his the usurer's apartment. All access to the gallery was throat, as to stifle his cries for assistance in the first effectually excluded by the intermediate door, which instance, and afterwards to extinguish life. the brave young lord shook with eager, but vain impatience. But the secret passage occurred suddenly to his recollection. He hastened back to his room, and succeeded with some difficulty in lighting a candle, powerfully agitated by hearing the cries repeated, yet still more afraid lest they should sink into silence. He rushed along the narrow and winding entrance, guided by the noise, which now burst more wildly on his ear; and, while he descended a narrow staircase which terminated the passage, he heard the stifled voices of men, encouraging, as it seemed, each other. "D-n her, strike her down-silence her-beat her brains out!"-while the voice of his hostess, though now almost exhausted, was repeating the cry of "murder," and "help." At the bottom of the staircase was a small door, which gave way before Nigel as he precipitated himself upon the scene of action, a cock-desisting from her fruitless attempts to recall the ed pistol in one hand, a candle in the other, and his spirit which had been effectually dislodged, for the "It is in vain-it is in vain," said the daughter, naked sword under his arm. Two ruffians had, with great difficulty, overpower-ers; "It is in vain-he is murdered-I always knew ed, or, rather, were on the point of overpowering, the it would be thus; and now I witness it!" neck had been twisted by the violence of the murderdaughter of Trapbois, whose resistance appeared to have been most desperate, for the floor was covered with fragments of her clothes, and handfuls of her hair. It appeared that her life was about to be the price of her defence, for one villain had drawn a long clasp-knife, when they were surprised by the entrance of Nigel, who, as they turned towards him, shot the fellow with the knife dead on the spot, and when the other advanced to him, hurled the candlestick at his head, and then attacked him with his sword. It was dark, save some pale moonlight from the window; thoughts of my own heart are not enough to distract and the ruffian, after firing a pistol without effect, and me, and with such a sight as this before me? I say, "Be silent," she said, "be silent. Think you, the fighting a traverse or two with his sword, lost heart, be silent," she said again, and in a yet sterner tone made for the window, leaped over it, and escaped." Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered Nigel fired his remaining pistol after him at a venture, corpse lying on her knees?" and then called for light. CHAPTER XXV. TA Death finds us 'mid our playthings-snatches us, In yonder world, where all is judged of truly.-Old Play. IT was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion-but the latter was predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In the next moment she energy of her grief, felt not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged both Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the his pistols-the robber might return-he had probably other assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed, as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition. "You are right," she said, somewhat contemptuously, "and have ventured already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself, since that is your purpose-leave me to my fate." Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel standing like a statue by the body of her father, which THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL. the sorrow at least that man shall ever have noting whatever. The daughter was first examined, and "I would," said Nigel, "but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the villains may return, and". "True, most true," answered Martha, "he may return; and, though I care little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of importance-defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid." Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in a moment he heard the housedoor clank behind her. For an instant he thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois, he concluded that she knew it better than he incurred little danger in passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the watch as she recommended. It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes, to remain in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour, suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat, and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence, though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him, Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed, of bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to inquire into the crime and its circumstances. It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees, disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while their brains were still stupified by the liquor which they had drunk, they seemed like men walking in their sleep. Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL. "Umph, umph-the stranger gentleman!" said | with the tacit hope that he should never again see or [CHAP. XXV. Hildebrod to Nigel, whom he drew a little apart. hear of them. He then returned to the kitchen, in "I fancy the captain has made the stranger gentle- which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still man's fortune when he was making a bold dash clenched, her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like for his own. I can tell your honour-I must not say those of a person in a trance. Much moved by her lordship that I think my having chanced to give situation, and with the prospect which lay before her, the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every I recommended to you to-day, has put him on this means in his power, and at length apparently sucrough game. The better for you-you will get the ceeded in dispelling her stupor, and attracting her atcash without the father-in-law.-You will keep con- tention. He then explained to her that he was in the ditions I trust?" future destination was uncertain, but that he desired act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours-that his protection by apprizing any friend of her situation, or anxiously to know whether he could contribute to her otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. well," she said, "but he ought to know that the mi"He might mean And again the unhappy woman gave way to a paroxysm of sorrow, mingling her tears with sobbing, when at its utmost height. At length, she gradually wailing, and all the abandonment of female grief, recovered the austerity of her natural composure, and maintained it as if by a forcible exertion of resolution, repelling, as she spoke, the repeated returns of the hysterical affection, by such an effort as that by which epileptic patients are known to suspend the recurrence of their fits. Yet her mind, however resolved, nerves, but that she was agitated by strong fits of could not so absolutely overcome the affection of her her whole frame in a manner frightful to witness. trembling, which, for a minute or two at a time, shook Nigel forgot his own situation, and, indeed, every thing else, in the interest inspired by the unhappy woman before him-an interest which affected a proud spirit the more deeply, that she herself, with corresas little as possible either to the humanity or the pity pondent highness of mind, seemed determined to owe of others. "Well," replied Nigel, "I will be ready to go at five; do thou come hither to carry my baggage." "Ay, ay, master," replied the fellow, and left the house, mixing himself with the disorderly attendants "but-but-Nature will have power over the frail be"I am not wont to be in this way," she said,of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring. That po-ings it has made. Over you, sir, I have some right; tentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind for, without you I had not survived this awful night. him, and, pointing to the female who sat by the ex- I wish your aid had been either earlier or later-but piring fire with her limbs outstretched, like one whom you have saved my life, and you are bound to assist the hand of Death had already arrested, he whisper- in making it endurable to me?" ed, "Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your bow-string for you before you can draw it.' Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, "If you will show me how it is possible," answered Nigel. D me with you," said the unhappy woman, "My own way, and I must not deviate from it, leads me, in all probability, to a dungeon. I might, indeed, | aid her; and, having pusned aside the heavy bedtransport you from hence with me, if you could after-stead, they saw the brass plate which Martha had wards bestow yourself with any friend." described. She pressed the spring, and, at once, the plate starting up, showed the keyhole, and a large iron ring used in lifting the trap-door, which, when raised, displayed the strong-box, or small chest, she had mentioned, and which proved indeed so very weighty, that it might perhaps have been scarcely possible for Nigel, though a very strong man, to have Nigel, with such help as his companion was able to afford, assumed his load, and made a shift to carry it into the next apartment, where lay the miserable owner, insensible to sounds and circumstances, which, if any thing could have broken his long last slumber, would certainly have done so. "Friend!" she exclaimed-"I have no friend-they have long since discarded us. A spectre arising from the dead were more welcome than I should be at the doors of those who have disclaimed us; and, if they were willing to restore their friendship to me now, would despise it, because they withdrew it from hím -from him"-(here she underwent strong but sup-raised it without assistance. pressed agitation, and then added firmly)- from him Having replaced every thing as they had found it, who lies yonder. I have no friend." Here she paused; and then suddenly, as if recollecting herself, added, "I have no friend, but I have that will purchase many-I have that which will purchase both friends and avengers. It is well thought of; I must not eave it for a prey to cheats and ruffians.-Stranger, you must return to yonder room. Pass through it boldly to his-that is, to the sleeping apartment; push the bedstead aside; beneath each of the posts is a brass plate, as if to support the weight, but it is that upon the left, nearest to the wall, which must serve your turn-press the corner of the plate, and it will spring up and show a keyhole, which this key will open. You will then lift a concealed trap-door, and in a cavity of the floor you will discover a small chest. Bring it hither; it shall accompany our journey, and it will be hard if the contents cannot purchase me a place of refuge." His unfortunate daughter went up to his body, and had even the courage to remove the sheet which had been decently disposed over it. She put her hand on the heart, but there was no throb-held a feather to the lips, but there was no motion-then kissed with deep reverence the starting veins of the pale forehead, and then the emaciated hand. "I would you could hear me," she said,-"Father! I would you could hear me swear, that, if I now save what you most valued on earth, it is only to assist me in obtaining vengeance for your death!" She replaced the covering, and, without a tear, a "But the door communicating with the kitchen has sigh, or an additional word of any kind, renewed her been locked by these people," said Nigel. efforts, until they conveyed the strong-box betwixt "True, I had forgot; they had their reasons for them into Lord Glenvarloch's sleeping apartment. that, doubtless," answered she. "But the secret pass-"It must pass," she said, "as part of your baggage. age from your apartment is open, and you may go I will be in readiness so soon as the waterman calls." that way. She retired; and Lord Glenvarloch, who saw the Lord Glenvarloch took the key, and, as he lighted hour of their departure approach, tore down a part of a lamp to show him the way, she read in his counte- the old hanging to make a covering, which he corded nance some unwillingness to the task imposed. upon the trunk, lest the peculiarity of its shape, and "You fear?" she said-" there is no cause; the the care with which it was banded and counterbandmurderer and his victim are both at rest. Take cou-ed with bars of steel, might afford suspicions respectrage, I will go with you myself you cannot know the trick of the spring, and the chest will be too heavy for you." ing the treasure which it contained. Having taken this measure of precaution, he changed the rascally disguise, which he had assumed on entering Whitefriars, into a suit becoming his quality, and then, unable to sleep, though exhausted with the events of the night, he threw himself on his bed to await the sum CHAPTER XXVI. "No fear, no fear," answered Lord Glenvarloch, ashamed of the construction she put upon a momentary hesitation, arising from a dislike to look upon what is horrible, often connected with those high-mons of the waterman. wrought minds which are the last to fear what is merely dangerous-"I will do your errand as you desire; but for you, you must not-cannot go yonder." "I can-I will," she said. "I am composed. You shall see that I am so.' "She took from the table a piece of unfinished sewing-work, and, with steadiness and composure, passed a silken thread into the eve of a fine needle.-"Could I have done that," she said, with a smile yet more ghastly than her previous look of fixed despair, "had not my heart and hand been both steady?" She then led the way rapidly up stairs to Nigel's chamber, and proceeded through the secret passage with the same haste, as if she had feared her resolution might have failed her ere her purpose was executed. At the bottom of the stairs she paused a moment, before entering the fatal apartment, then hurried through with a rapid step to the sleeping chamber beyond, followed closely by Lord Glenvarloch, whose reluctance to approach the scene of butchery was altogether lost in the anxiety which he felt on account of the survivor of the tragedy. Her first action was to pull aside the curtains of her father's bed. The bed-clothes were thrown aside in confusion, doubtless in the action of his starting from sleep to oppose the entrance of the villains into the next apartment. The hard mattress scarcely showed the slight pressure where the emaciated body of the old miser had been deposited. His daughter sank beside the bed, clasped her hands, and prayed to Heaven, in a short and affecting manner, for support in her affliction, and for vengeance on the villains who had made her fatherless. A low-muttered and still more brief petition recommended to Heaven the soul of the sufferer, and invoked pardon for his sins, in virtue of the great Christian atonement. This duty of piety performed, she signed to Nigel to Give us good voyage, gentle stream-we stun not Come, come, master, let us get afloat," said one of them, in a rough impressive whisper, "time and tide wait for no man." "They shall not wait for me," said Lord Glenvarloch; "but I have some things to carry with me.' 66 Ay, ay-no man will take a pair of oars now, Jack, unless he means to load the wherry like a six-horse wagon. When they don't want to shift the whole kitt, they take a sculler, and be d-d to them.-Come, come, where be your rattle-traps?" One of the men was soon sufficiently loaded, in his own estimation at least, with Lord Glenvarloch's mail and its accompaniments, with which burden he began to trudge towards the Temple Stairs. His comrade, who seemed the principal, began to handle the trunk which contained the miser's treasure, but pitched it down again in an instant, declaring, with a great oath, that it was as reasonable to expect a man to carry Paul's on his back. The daughter of Trapbois, who had by this time joined them, muffled up in a long dark hood and mantle, exclaimed to Lord Glenvarloch-"Let them leave it if they will-let |