present; I shall probably
not return to Grassdale this night, or if I do, it will be at so late an
hour, that I shall seek my own domicile without disturbing you."

"No, no; you had better remain in the town, and not return till
morning," said the Squire; "and now let us come to the stables."

To obviate all chance of suspicion as to the real place of his
destination, Aram deliberately rode to the town he had mentioned, as the
one in which his pretended creditor expected him. He put up at an inn,
walked forth as if to visit some one in the town, returned, remounted,
and by a circuitous route, came into the neighbourhood of the place in
which he was to meet Houseman: then turning into a long and dense chain
of wood, he fastened his horse to a tree, and looking to the priming of
his pistols, which he carried under his riding-cloak, proceeded to the
spot on foot.

The night was still, and not wholly dark; for the clouds lay scattered
though dense, and suffered many stars to gleam through the heavy air;
the moon herself was abroad, but on her decline, and looked forth with
a man and saddened aspect, as she travelled from cloud to cloud. It has
been the necessary course of our narrative, to pourtray Aram, more often
than to give an exact notion of his character we could have altogether
wished, in his weaker moments; but whenever he stood in the actual
presence of danger, his whole soul was in arms to cope with it worthily:
courage, sagacity, even cunning, all awakened to the encounter; and the
mind which his life had so austerely cultivated repaid him in the urgent
season, with its acute address, and unswerving hardihood. The Devil's
Crag, as it was popularly called, was a spot consecrated by many a wild
tradition, which would not, perhaps, be wholly out of character with
the dark thread of this tale, were we in accordance with certain of
our brethren, who seem to think a novel like a bundle of wood, the more
faggots it contains the greater its value, allowed by the rapidity of
our narrative to relate them.

The same stream which lent so soft an attraction to the valleys of
Grassdale, here assumed a different character; broad, black, and
rushing, it whirled along a course, overhung by shagged and abrupt
banks. On the opposite side to that by which Aram now pursued his path,
an almost perpendicular mountain was covered with gigantic pine and fir,
that might have reminded a German wanderer of the darkest recesses of
the H