ights of oblivion. Such, however,
was the importance of the documents he had so strangely intercepted,
that a messenger was immediately despatched to London with a packet
for the Privy Council.

The same morning, with the early dawn, the abbot and his secretary
were together in the cloisters. It was a fitting place and opportunity
either for intrigue or devotion, and many a masterstroke of church
policy has issued from those dim and sepulchral arches in "the Glen of
the deadly Nightshade."

"Craft is needful, yea laudable," said the abbot, "when we would cope
with worldly adversaries, unless we could work miracles for our
deliverance. But since in these degenerate ages of the church they
have, I fear me, ceased, we must e'en employ the means that Heaven has
put into our hands: and if I mistake not, this envoy of ours will be a
skilful craftsman for the purpose. Under that garb of silly speech
there's a cunning and a wary spirit. Thou didst note well his
ready-witted contrivance last night."

"Yea, and the skill too with which he compassed his expedients, and
the ingenuity that prevented the disclosure of his treachery, in
arresting the real messenger, and thus keeping them in the dark at the
castle yonder until we have had time to countervail their plots. Could
he be made to play his part according to our instructions, an agent
like him were worth having. Besides he knows every chink and cranny
about the castle, so that he could jump on them unawares."

"I am not much given to implicit credence in supernatural devices,"
said the abbot, "or visible manifestations of the arch-enemy; yet have
our chronicles not scrupled to give their testimony to the truth of
such appearances; and it is, moreover, plain, from the papers we have
read, that the conspirators themselves believe in the existence of
some supernatural presence amongst them, by which they are holpen."

He drew a billet from his bosom:--"I have kept this writing alone, as
thou knowest," continued the abbot, "for our guidance. Listen again to
the confessions of yonder rebellious and it may be credulous priest:--

"We are sure of success. The noble Margaret hath, by her wondrous art,
together with the exercise of prayer and fasting, fenced us about as
with a triple barrier, that no earthly might shall overcome. A power
attends us that will magnify our cause, and lay our foes prostrate.
'Tis a mystery even to us, but a being appears unexpectedly at times,
and b