orm or sunshine. And in this
particular period, the skiey influences seem to tincture the animal life
with their own mysterious and wayward spirit of change. The birds desert
their summer haunts; an unaccountable inquietude pervades the brute
creation; even men in this unsettled season have considered themselves,
more (than at others) stirred by the motion and whisperings of their
genius. And every creature that flows upon the tide of the Universal
Life of Things, feels upon the ruffled surface, the mighty and solemn
change, which is at work within its depths.

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

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

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

"Trifle not with me, Houseman," said Aram sternly; "I scarcely yet
understand you. Do you mean to imply, that yourself, and the lawless
associates you say you have joined, are lying out now for plunder in
these