omewhere at the foot of that mountain.
For some time his aged companion kept up her speed: but, on reaching a
part of the moor which was intersected with turf pits, she was
compelled to suit her pace to the intricacy of the ground; though even
here she selected her path from the labyrinth before her with a
promptitude and decision which showed that she was well acquainted with
the ground she was traversing. On emerging again into smoother roads,
she resumed at intervals her rapid motions: and again, on some sudden
caprice as it seemed, would slink into a stealthy pace--and walk on
tiptoe, as if in the act of listening or surprising some one before
her. Once only she spoke, upon Bertram's asking if the abbey were a
safe place for a stranger: "Oh aye," she replied, "Edward Nicholas is a
lamb when he's not provoked: but his hand is red with blood for all
that."

No question after this roused her attention. Now and then she sang;
sometimes she crooned a word or two to herself; and more often she sank
into thoughtful silence: until at length, after advancing in this way
for about a mile and a half,--suddenly Bertram missed her; and looking
round he saw the outline of a figure stealing away in the dusk and
muttering some indistinct sounds of complaint. He felt considerable
perplexity at being thus suddenly abandoned by his guide: but from this
he was relieved by now distinguishing a group of towers and turrets
close to him--which at first had escaped his eye from the dark
background of mountainous barrier with which they seemed to blend: and
going a few steps nearer, he perceived a light issuing from the window
of a vault. To this window, for the purpose of reconnoitring the
inmates of so lonely an abode, he now pushed his way with some
difficulty through heaps of ruins and of tangled thorns. The upper edge
of the window-frame however being on a level with the ground, he could
perceive little more than a small part of a stone floor which lay at a
great depth below him; and on this, by the strong light of a blazing
fire, he saw the moving shadows of human figures as they passed and
repassed: and at intervals he heard the rolling of casks and barrels.
Determined to examine a little further, he stretched himself along the
steep declivity of earth which sloped down to the lower edge of the
window. In this posture he gained a complete view of the vault, which
to his astonishment he now discovered to be a subterraneous church of
v