intellect, such as it is, hath a solid character: it Will but vacillate
to and fro like a pendulum which hath been put in motion, and then will
rest in its proper point of gravity. Our memory is, of all our powers of
mind, that which is peculiarly liable to be suspended. Deep intoxication
or sound sleep alike destroy it, and yet it returns when the drunkard
becomes sober or the sleeper is awakened. Terror sometimes produces the
same effect. I knew at Paris a criminal condemned to die by the halter,
who suffered the sentence accordingly, showing no particular degree of
timidity upon the scaffold, and behaving and expressing himself as men
in the same condition are wont to do. Accident did for him what a little
ingenious practice hath done for our amiable friend from whom we but
now parted. He was cut down and given to his friends before life was
extinct, and I had the good fortune to restore him. But, though he
recovered in other particulars, he remembered but little of his trial
and sentence. Of his confession on the morning of his execution--he!
he! he! (in his usual chuckling manner)--he remembered him not a word.
Neither of leaving the prison, nor of his passage to the Greve, where
he suffered, nor of the devout speeches with which he--he! he!
he!--edified--he! he! he!--so many good Christians, nor of ascending the
fatal tree, nor of taking the fatal leap, had my revenant the slightest
recollection.' But here we reach the point where we must separate;
for it were unfit, should we meet any of the watch, that we be found
together, and it were also prudent that we enter the city by different
gates. My profession forms an excuse for my going and coming at all
times. Your valiant pagehood will make such explanation as may seem
sufficing."

"I shall make my will a sufficient excuse if I am interrogated," said
the haughty young man. "Yet I will avoid interruption, if possible. The
moon is quite obscured, and the road as black as a wolf's mouth."

"Tut," said the physicianer, "let not your valour care for that: we
shall tread darker paths ere it be long."

Without inquiring into the meaning of these evil boding sentences, and
indeed hardly listening to them in the pride and recklessness of his
nature, the page of Ramorny parted from his ingenious and dangerous
companion, and each took his own way.

CHAPTER XXV.

The course of true love never did run smooth.

SHAKSPEARE.

The ominous anxiety of our ar