Read Ebook: Walladmor Vol. 2 (of 2) Freely Translated into German from the English of Sir Walter Scott. And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. by Alexis Willibald Scott Walter Dubious Author De Quincey Thomas Translator

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urned aside therefore from the Bangor road to the Ferry. There he jumped into a six-oared boat, and made for Beaumaris. Faithfully he did his duty: as you will suppose when I tell you that the castle clock had struck ten when he mounted, and a little after one we that stood on the summits of Arthur's chair--the high peak to the northward--heard a sullen report in the direction of Carnarvon: we all knew that this must be a signal to us from the Falcon--giving notice of her approach. She was now standing through the Menai strait. Twenty minutes after this a second gun was fired; and the prodigious roar of echoes, which it awoke in the mountains, proclaimed that she had passed Carnarvon. At two the flashes of her guns became visible, and showed that she had uncovered the point of Llandovery. At a quarter past two there was light enough to make her out distinctly; she carried a press of sail; and a few minutes after that we discovered the smuggler in the offing, about three miles to leeward of the Falcon.

"The same high gale which had carried the Falcon so rapidly through the Menai, had baffled the smuggler in her attempt to go to the northward; for that was obviously her intention; and she still continued to tack in that direction. We expected that, as soon as she descried the Falcon, she would wear and run: but, greatly to our surprize, she took no notice of her--but continued standing on her tack in the evident design of running to the outside of the isle of Anglesea.

"The Falcon, seeing her purpose, fired a shot to bring her to. This the smuggler paid no sort of regard to: and we all began to suspect some mistake: as the light increased, and we could use our glasses with effect, we found too certainly that there was. The smuggler was painted so as to resemble the Viper; and Sir Morgan had taken her for that vessel on the night before: but we now suspected that she was her partner, the Rattlesnake--a ship of much greater force with a piratical crew from the South Seas, and strengthened by some of the picked hands from the Viper. She had come round expressly on this service from the West coast of Ireland, where she had been hovering for some time back. The officer, who commanded the Falcon, had no doubt found his mistake before we did: but it seemed that, both for the honor of his flag and on account of the affecting occasion, he resolved to fight her under any odds. The wind moderated at this time: but he kept on his course, and neared her fast.

"At three o'clock the Falcon ranged up within pistol shot. At this moment the Rattlesnake showed her colors--black, striped with horizontal crimson bars, the well-known flag of a rover that had of late years fixed his nest in the Gallapagos, and thence infested the South Seas. Not a shot had yet been exchanged: and just before the action commenced we could distinguish Griffiths making her way across the decks from the cabin to the cock-pit. Oh! what a moment of suspense for us!--Oh! for some arm from heaven to strengthen the righteous cause! Some angel to intercept the oppressor's triumph; or some darkness to hide it from the oppressed!

"But why should I dwell upon these hideous remembrances? Let a few words tell the issue: the Rattlesnake was greatly superior to her antagonist in number of men, and those picked men, three parts of them English and Irish: consequently there was no chance of boarding with success. She had also the advantage in number of guns, but much more advantage in weight of metal. Hence, and from the fatal effect of one broadside upon the rudder and rigging of the Falcon--within half an hour from the commencement of the action, and just as the sun rose--the Rattlesnake beheld her enemy lying unmanageable on the water, and unable to bring a gun to bear. In this condition the Falcon would have lain at the pirate's mercy, but for the appearance of two sail which now hove in sight from the southward: the wind had shifted two or three points and was freshening; the Rattlesnake crowded sail; was out of sight before the strangers came up; and the end of that scene was, that our brave champion was towed into Carnarvon--crippled, helpless, dismantled, all but a wreck, and with the third part of her crew slaughtered.

"But from this scene Sir Morgan was now summoned hastily away to another which, too ruefully he augured, must await him. A second lesson he was now to have upon the sanctity of human affections. For I will maintain, Mr. Bertram,--that however the poor may, upon matters of taste, delicacy, or refinement, seem coarser in their feelings, and less sensitive than the rich ,--yet in all that regards the primary affections I will maintain, I say, that the distinctions of rich and poor--high and low--are lighter than dew or the dust which is in the balance. The ties, which cement the great elementary relations of human life, are equally strong in every rank; alike sacred in the eyes of God; and in the lowest as in the highest, the anguish of their dissolution as perfect. Now did Sir Morgan learn what that anguish was: the next half hour taught him to estimate the torments of a final parting from the being in whom the whole heart's love lies treasured.--Lady Walladmor had passed the night in convulsions, falling out of one fit into another with intervals of only a few moments. Towards sun-rise the intervals grew longer, but she was evidently sinking fast; she was sensible; and, as she recovered the use of speech, she asked for Sir Morgan.

"I entered the room with Sir Morgan: lady Walladmor was sitting on a sopha propped up by cushions and surrounded by her women. All of us staid in the room; for some could not be spared; and the presence of strangers is distressing only when they are neutral spectators and not participators in the emotion witnessed--as we were in the very deepest degree, and by an interest which far transcended the possibility of any vulgar interest of curiosity.--There is no doubt that lady Walladmor had recollected some circumstance in the application made to her on behalf of Winifred Griffiths--not understood or suspected at that time--but suddenly interpreted to her by the event of the preceding night and too sadly interpreting that event. This was plain: for she asked no information from us: she saw by our countenances that we had none to give her which could shed a comfort on her dying moments: and even to turn her thoughts that way was too terrific a trial for her exhausted nature. She moved her head mournfully with a world of sad meaning: twice she raised and dropped her hand, as if in supplication or internal prayer: a third time she raised it, and the hand fell into that of Sir Morgan's: her lips moved; and at last she said--and the solemnity of her utterance for a moment checked our tears--'That for her sake, and as he hoped for comfort to visit him in his afflictions, she made it her last request that, if ever' 'if ever any poor suffering human creature, sinking under trials too great for human fortitude, should lay down the burthen of wretchedness at his feet, he would not close his heart or turn away his ear from the petition.' Saying this, she hid her face in Sir Morgan's arms; strong convulsions again came on: and, before the morning dew was exhaled, she was once more at peace;

'And Nature rested from her work in death.'

"But did Sir Morgan," asked Bertram, "never recover any traces of the pirates or his lost children?"

"There again his unhappy fate denied him the last medicine to his grief. Next to the joy of recapturing his children, would have been the consolation of knowing that they had perished. But, though that was probable, it could never finally be ascertained. The express, sent on to Liverpool, found a frigate of 36 guns--the Nemesis--lying in Hoylake. The Nemesis slipped her cables, and went after the enemy. Her hope was to intercept him before he reached the Isle of Man: but the Rattlesnake was an excellent sailer, and had the lead. However on the second evening, off the Cumberland coast, between Ravenglass and Whitehaven, the Nemesis got a sight of her about two leagues ahead. A chace of two hours more would have put her into the possession of the frigate: but within that time came on the great storm of June 13th, which strewed the whole channel with wrecks. The Nemesis was herself obliged to run into Maryport: and, as nothing more was ever heard of the Rattlesnake, it was presumed that she had foundered in that memorable storm which was fatal to so many ships better acquainted with those seas. This was a point which Sir Morgan would have given a king's ransom to establish. But unfortunately it was never put beyond doubt: there was still a possibility that she might have executed her intention of going north about. There was once a rumor afloat that she had got into the Baltic: you may be sure that every means, which Sir Morgan's vast wealth and influence could command, was put in motion to trace her in that region: but all to no purpose: and perhaps Sir Morgan would have been satisfied that the rumor had no foundation, but for the hints and ambiguous expressions dropped at times by Gillie Godber."

"You remind me seasonably," said Bertram, "of a question which I had nearly overlooked: why was not this fiendish woman apprehended, and brought to trial?"

"But at least she might have been threatened with trial?"

"I know what you would say, Mr. Bertram: yesterday you saw her walking freely about the castle. True. But, for the purposes I have already explained, it is necessary to give her free access to the castle; and she comes so seldom that she is now a privileged person with licence to range where she will. Nay, Sir Morgan would court her hither with gifts--and rain bounties upon her, if she would accept them. This desire of having her before his eyes, Mr. Bertram, is a fantastic and wayward expression of misery--one of those tricks of sorrow--most apt to haunt the noblest minds. Some have worn about their persons the symbols, the instruments, or the mementos of their guilt: and in Mrs. Godber Sir Morgan sees a living memorial of what he now deems his crime and of its punishment; a record of his own unpitying heart--and of the bitter judgment that recalled him to more merciful thoughts.

"Yes, Sir Morgan is right; his own sad recollections tell him that he is; and often have I heard him say--That, from that memorable moment when, looking back as he ascended the great stair-case, he beheld in the centre of his hall the unhappy mother prostrate and writhing upon the ground--read the pangs that were in her face--and the curse that was in her eye, from that moment he turned away like one already reached by her vengeance; and never again had thought--moved--talked-- slept--or dreamed--as they think--move--talk--sleep and dream that have the blessedness of an untroubled conscience, and against whom no record is filed in the courts of heaven on which are written the tears of the afflicted or the crimes of the despairing."

At this moment the bugle of the cavalry called the attention of Mr. Williams and Bertram: they were mounting in some hurry, and leaving the castle upon private intelligence just received by Sir Charles Davenant. All that could be learned of the occasion which summoned them on duty was--that some attack, supposed to be headed by Captain Nicholas, was this evening meditated on a depot of horses designed for remounting one troop of the dragoons: this depot had been recently formed in the neighbourhood of Walladmor for the purpose of receiving horses purchased at different fairs on the borders. But with what design could Captain Nicholas attack it? No doubt to mount a party from some one or more of the various smuggling vessels on the coast. "But with what further end?" asked Bertram: "or why, being under so serious a charge--and a high reward offered for his apprehension, does he still linger in this neighbourhood?"

"I imagine," said Mr. Williams, "that the ordinary motives on which men are careful of their lives are wanting to Captain Nicholas, and have been for some time: and just at this moment his old feelings of jealousy, or rather of anxiety and irritation, are perhaps revived by the presence of Sir Charles Davenant.--You are aware probably that Sir Charles was formerly a suitor of Miss Walladmor's, and rejected only through the firmness of that lady; for his pretensions had the countenance and support of all her friends. Apart from Sir Charles's great expectations, which entitled him to look as high, he was encouraged by some members of the family, not so much on his own account as with a view of extinguishing the hopes of Captain Nicholas; of whose long devotion to Miss Walladmor I presume that you must by this time have heard."

"Some little I have heard," replied Bertram; "and some little I have collected from my own observations and the benefit of accident. Under what circumstances however this attachment commenced, or of its history, I know absolutely nothing. I do not even know who Captain Nicholas is: nor can I form any reasonable conjecture in what way or upon what pretensions a person, connected with smugglers and people of that class, could ever be led to aspire to the favor of the heiress of Walladmor."

"But how came he first connected with smugglers; and what introduced him to the notice of Miss Walladmor?"

"All, that I know of his history, is this: About eight years ago, when he was little more than fifteen years old, he first appeared on this coast in character of son, or more properly adopted son, of Captain Donneraile who commanded a large Dutch vessel of suspicious character, which had long resorted to these seas. She gave herself out for a regular merchantman, but was pretty well understood to be a smuggler as opportunities offered. Edward Nicholas, as I have said, passed for the Captain's son: and in that character, as well as for his personal qualities, was much looked up to by the crew. Such indeed was the hardihood and romantic spirit of enterprise with which he conducted the difficult affairs sometimes confided to him--that Captain Donneraile, who was old and indolent, gradually allowed the command of the ship to devolve on him; and at the age of sixteen he was much more the commander of the vessel than the nominal captain. This habit of early command over a large and warlike crew, tempered by good nature and great generosity of disposition, gave to his manners a tincture of dignity much beyond his situation. These manners and this disposition, united with his fine person and countenance, conciliated the kind feelings of all about him; and he was a great favorite with the ship's company as well as with the country people on shore. Many of his boyish exploits are current at this day amongst them,--and his affrays with the revenue officers, or hair-breadth escapes from them, are still narrated with interest. In all these however he seemed rather to be amusing himself, than like one who considered them as his regular occupation. In the same spirit he attached himself for a time to a company of strolling players. And that this was the just construction of his temper and purposes--is evident from the sequel. When he was about eighteen, old Captain Donneraile died, and left a considerable legacy together with the ship of which he was sole owner to Edward Nicholas. This ship, and such of the crew as would follow him to those climates, he carried to South America,--and entered into the patriotic service of one of the new republics in that quarter of the world. There he rose to considerable distinction, and at one time commanded a frigate. Afterwards, under some adverse circumstances attending the naval administration, he transferred himself to the land service; and served with high reputation first as a partizan officer in the guerrilla warfare, afterwards in the regular cavalry. Some change of circumstances made it advisable to restore the naval force; and with the view of manning a small flotilla with a proportion of picked British seamen, he returned to the old haunts of his youth in this country--hoping to find it still the rendezvous of smugglers. This happened just four years and a half ago; and then it was that his connexion commenced with Miss Walladmor--a connexion which has since determined the whole course of his life.

"Miss Walladmor was at that time not more than sixteen years old: she was exquisitely beautiful; and, though prematurely womanly in the developement of her person, had yet an expression of almost childlike innocence in her style of countenance which made it peculiarly charming. Edward Nicholas first saw her in the woods of Tre Mawr from a situation where he was himself unseen; and so powerfully was he fascinated that from that hour he abandoned all his schemes in South America. Morning, noon, and night, he spent in devising some means of introducing himself to her notice: but love, where it is deep and pure, is also timid--delicate--and reverential. Captain Nicholas, moreover, was aware of Miss Walladmor's rank and expectations: these, on many accounts, as they tended to misinterpret his motives, made him shy of intruding himself upon her notice. But at length chance did for him what he could never have done for himself. In the woods of Tre Mawr ridings are cut in all directions, and for many miles: these, being on the Walladmor domain and so near to the park, are considered part of the grounds; and Miss Walladmor was accustomed to ride here almost daily without attendants. This was soon discovered by Captain Nicholas, and he lay concealed here whole days together with the mere hope of seeing her for a moment. On one of these occasions her horse stumbled over the root of a tree, and on recovering himself ran away: he was rapidly carrying her into a situation of extreme peril amongst the precipices of Ap Gauvon, when Captain Nicholas, who was lurking about on his usual errand, and saw the whole from a distance, stept out from a thicket as the horse approached--crossed him--seized the rein--and saved her. This was the best possible introduction: and all the rest followed naturally. Miss Walladmor had every excuse: she was a mere child, and quite inexperienced: Captain Nicholas--who had from his youth been placed in stations of command, and had just come from a service in which as an Englishman he had been greatly respected and admitted to intimacy with the staff of the patriot army,--was distinguished by a remarkable dignity of manners and deportment: the style of his sentiments, naturally lofty, was now exalted by love: and finally he had in all probability saved Miss Walladmor's life. These were strong appeals to a young heart: doubtless it did not weaken them that the noble expression of his countenance was then embellished by the graces of early youth , and yet unsaddened by internal suffering--which has since given him the look of a person older than he really is. Above all perhaps there pleaded for him in Miss Walladmor's heart--that which must always plead powerfully with a woman of virtuous sensibilities--the display which every look, word, and gesture, made of his profound and passionate devotion. 'Never' indeed --

"He hallowed the very air she breathed; doated on the very hem of her garments; worshipped the very ground she trod on. This child, this innocent child , guided the wild ungovernable creature as absolutely and as easily as a mother guides her infant: and, if Captain Nicholas had always been under such guidance, no tongue would ever have had any cause to make free with his name: there is no such a safeguard in this world to a young man under the temptations which life presents as deep love for a virtuous woman. The misery is--that for every thousand such women there is hardly one man capable of such a love. No: men in this respect are brutal creatures.

"But to return to Miss Walladmor: you will not wonder that, under the circumstances I have mentioned, she did not discontinue her rides in the woods of Tre Mawr: child as she was, her own heart told her that, from a man animated by love so tender and profound, she could no more have any thing to fear than she could from any third person whilst under his protection. Hence she did not refuse to meet him: and, for more than a year and a half, they carried on a clandestine correspondence. Clandestine I call it with regard to the mode in which it was conducted, and with regard to Sir Morgan Walladmor: for else it was known to all the country beside. How it was that nobody spoke of it to Sir Morgan, I cannot say: you will wonder that I did not. The truth is--that, when it came to my knowledge, it was too late to interfere without misery to both parties, and ruin to one. The chief objections to the connexion were of course the want of adequate rank and prospects on the part of Captain Nicholas, and the uncertainty of his birth. These, in any common case, were no doubt sufficient objections: still, as Captain Nicholas had raised himself at so very early an age to the rank of a gentleman, I did not see that they were insuperable: or, however valid against such an attachment in its first origin, were less entitled to attention when it had reached its present stage.

"Miss Walladmor was nearly eighteen, when Sir Morgan came to know of the affair. He was grieved, and seemed to view it as one of the judgments upon himself, but did not express any displeasure. Just about that time Sir Charles Davenant was introduced to Miss Walladmor in the character of suitor. From the first she declined his addresses with a firmness that should naturally have at once discouraged a man of his discernment. But he had encouragement from other quarters:--Sir Morgan gave him no encouragement; but others amongst Miss Walladmor's relatives did. Edward Nicholas was too noble to harbour so mean a passion as jealousy: still he trembled for the effect of a long persecution upon so gentle a nature as Miss Walladmor's: but in this he was wrong: for, though the gentlest of creatures, she is one of the firmest in any point which she conceives essential to her honor. And this he now found unhappily in a case too nearly affecting himself.

"All at once many stories of outrages, scandalous and even bloody acts, were revived against the company of smugglers with whom Captain Nicholas had passed his youth: and with these stories the name of Edward Nicholas, as the name of their leader, was studiously coupled. Both Miss Walladmor and her lover being generally favourites amongst the country people about Walladmor, it was a matter of some wonder to me whence such stories, which were clearly devised for their persecution, could arise; and at length I traced them to Gillie Godber. However they got into some circulation; and, now that the rank of Miss Walladmor and the universal interest in the romantic part of the story had drawn the attention of the county and the whole local gentry upon the character of Edward Nicholas, they could not but affect his pretensions very disadvantageously with all Miss Walladmor's connexions. With the sincerity of real love, Captain Nicholas had not concealed from Miss Walladmor the circumstances of his early education amongst smugglers and sea-rovers: but these she justly regarded as the palliations of any youthful levities he might have committed, and as his great misfortune, and not as any part of his offences. Neither had he concealed the obscurity of his birth; so that, with regard to that, she had nothing to learn. The worst part of the charges, as it soon came out, were easily repelled by the mere dates of the transactions to which they referred: of all the cruel and bloody part every man, who knew his nature, acquitted him; for, howsoever he may choose to talk ferociously since he has become desperate, he has nothing cruel in his disposition. But, when these were disposed of, there still remained many wild infractions of law which left a taint behind, such as ought not to attach to the name of him who was a candidate for Miss Walladmor's hand. If Miss Walladmor in the tenderness of her affection steadily refused to believe these stories, others did not. Something was due to her family; and to Sir Morgan, the head of it, more especially, from the unlimited confidence he had reposed in her discretion. However it were palliated by his extreme youth and the connexions upon which his misfortunes had thrown him, still some part of what had been alleged against Captain Nicholas appeared to be true: for even, with such an interest at stake, the nobility of his mind would not stoop to the meanness of falsehood. Miss Walladmor was greatly shocked; suffered much in mind and in health; and discovered in her countenance the agitations to which she was now a prey. She knew, she could not but know, that she was consigning him to despair: her woman's heart relented again and again in behalf of the man who had loved her so long and so fervently: but at length she told him calmly and yet firmly that it was necessary they should part. Whatever she could do by tenderness of manner to mitigate the bitterness of this parting--she did; her affections, there was no need to tell him, were wholly his: and she assured him that, if he would in any way efface the stains upon his name, her heart should remember only his misfortunes.

"But in what way was he to do this? He was a friendless man for any views of advancement in England; any thing he might do in South America, would avail him little at home: and thus, being without hope, he became frantic--and began to tamper with criminal enterprizes.

"What follows is still more painful; nor am I accurately acquainted with the particulars. Political disturbances at that time prevailed in various parts of the country; amongst others, in this. These he fomented; and, according to the charges against him, committed some overt acts of treason. The best excuse for him, over and above that general excuse which applies to all that he has done since his parting with Miss Walladmor, namely, his state of utter distraction of mind,--the best excuse for him, I say, in all his political conduct, is this; that, having lived so much of his life in foreign and convulsed states of society, where every body was engaged in active hostilities to some party or other that was--had been--or pretended to be the government, he had not been trained to look with much horror on a charge which he has heard so much tossed about as that of treason: in fact he thinks of it with more levity than you can imagine. I may add that, having seen so little comparatively of England, he is really under the greatest delusions as to our true political state--and does sincerely believe in the existence of oppressions which are altogether imaginary. This must be borne in mind in speaking of what remains. After the disturbances were quelled in this neighbourhood, he escaped; went to South America; served again in various quarters of that agitated continent; but was still pursued by his old distraction of mind in regard to Miss Walladmor; came back; connected himself, it is said, with some of those who were parties to the Cato-street conspiracy: I know not how, or with what result. He talks of himself as though he had shared in all their designs: but he often talks worse of himself than he deserves; and government have certainly abandoned the Cato-street charges against him: though, if he were taken, he would still be tried on those which arise out of his transactions in this county."

"But with what purpose," said Bertram, "can he linger in this neighbourhood, where his haunts and his person are so well known--that it is impossible he can long escape apprehension?"

At this moment a sound swelled upon the wind: Bertram and Mr. Williams were looking down from the battlements upon the park: and in a few seconds a herd of deer rushed past with the noise of thunder; and shortly after the heavy gallop of two bodies of horse, one in pursuit of the other, advanced in the direction of the castle. It was bright moonlight. About two hundred yards from the walls, some smart skirmishing took place: random discharges of pistols and carbines succeeded at intervals; the broad swords of the cavalry, and the cutlasses of sailors, could be distinguished gleaming in the moonlight: and it became evident that the party under Captain Nicholas had fallen in with Sir Charles Davenant somewhere in the neighbourhood, and were now retreating before him. The smugglers, it was pretty clear, had been taken at great disadvantage; for they were in extreme disorder when they first appeared--being wholly unfitted by the state of their equipments and horses for meeting a body of dragoons so superbly mounted and appointed. Their horses, though of the hardy mountain breed, wanted weight and bulk to oppose any sort of resistance to the momentum of the heavy dragoon horses--and were utterly untrained to any combined movement. It was obviously on this consideration that Edward Nicholas, whose voice was now heard continually giving words of command, had drawn his party to this point where the broken ground neutralized in a great measure the advantages of the dragoons. He was now upon ground every inch of which he knew; in which respect he had greatly the advantage of Sir Charles Davenant; and he availed himself of it so as to draw off his own party, and to distress the cavalry. From the point at which they had just been skirmishing, a long range of rocky and sylvan scenery commenced which traversed the park for miles; and upon this Captain Nicholas now began to wheel in tolerably good order, showing at times a bold front to his enemy. This movement drew them away from the castle: but the character of the retreat continued to be apparent for some time. At intervals the two parties were entangled in rocks and bushy coverts. On ground of this character, the dragoons were much distressed by their horses falling, and were thus checked and crippled in their movements; whilst the sure-footed mountaineers of the smugglers advanced with freedom. Suddenly the whole body, pursuers and pursued, would be swallowed up by a gloomy grove of pines; suddenly again all emerged with gleaming arms upon little island spots of lawny areas, where the moonlight fell bright and free. Whenever a favourable interspace of this character occurred, the dragoons endeavoured to form and use the advantage it presented for effecting a charge. But the address of Edward Nicholas, who was an excellent cavalry officer, and far more experienced in this kind of guerrilla warfare than his antagonist,--together with the short intervals during which the ground continued favourable for charges, and his minute knowledge of its local details,--uniformly defeated the efforts of the dragoons, and protected the retreat of his own party until they were gradually lost in the distance and the shades of those great sylvan recesses, which ran up far into the hilly tract upon which their movement had been continually directed.

Late in the evening the dragoons returned to the castle: they had suffered a good deal on the difficult ground to which they had allowed themselves to be attracted by Captain Nicholas; fifteen being reported as wounded severely, and several horses shot. They had however defeated the object of Captain Nicholas, which was to possess himself of the horses in the dep?t; with what ultimate view, they were still left to conjecture.

That this was simply some final effort of desperation, it was easy to judge from what followed. A little before midnight on this same evening Captain Nicholas appeared at the castle-gate, and surrendered himself prisoner to the soldiers on guard; at the same time desiring one of them to carry a note to Sir Morgan Walladmor. In this note he requested an interview with Sir Morgan for a few moments, which was immediately granted: Captain Nicholas was conducted to the library; and the guard, who attended him, directed to wait on the outside.

Edward Nicholas began by adverting rapidly to his own former connexion with Miss Walladmor. This had been broken up: he blamed nobody for that: it was but one part of the general misfortune which had clouded his life. Now however, on returning to Merionethshire after a long absence, and with the constant prospect of being soon consigned to a prison, he had been particularly anxious for an opportunity of meeting and speaking to Miss Walladmor: he had accordingly written to her repeatedly, but had received no answer. This silence on the part of Miss Walladmor, so little in harmony with her general goodness, happening to coincide with the visit of Sir Charles Davenant to Walladmor, had raised suspicions in his mind that it was to some influence of his that he must ascribe the continued neglect of his applications to Miss Walladmor. He feared that Sir Charles was renewing his pretensions to Miss Walladmor's hand. Hence he had taken his resolution, as he would frankly avow, to force his way into the castle--and supplicate Miss Walladmor to grant him an opportunity of speaking to her in private before it was too late for him to hope it. Such a plan obliged him, as his first step, to attack the dragoons. To do this with effect he wanted horses; and he had therefore arranged a plan for possessing himself of the horses at the dep?t: in what way this plan had become known to Sir Charles Davenant, he could not guess. Having however been thus prematurely discovered, it was now finally defeated. Hence, as a man now careless of life, and without hope, he wished to surrender himself to government on the charges of high treason alleged against him. He had abundant means of escape, or of indefinitely delaying this surrender: but to what purpose? To stay here was of necessity to fall into the hands of government. To escape was to be self-banished from the neighbourhood of Miss Walladmor, and all chance of ever seeing her; without which fe had long ceased to be of any value to him.--He concluded by assuring Sir Morgan that to confine him in any other place than Walladmor Castle would be to expose him to certain rescue; and at the same time to cause needless bloodshed, if it was attempted to strengthen any of the weak prisons in the neighbourhood by a guard of soldiers.

Sir Morgan Walladmor could not but accept his surrender, as it was thus deliberately tendered. And, until the pleasure of government were known, he ordered the rooms of the Falcon Tower to be prepared with every accommodation for Captain Nicholas.--At the same time Sir Morgan's countenance testified the pity and concern which he felt for the prisoner: for to a man of his discerning sensibility it was evident that it was the last infirmity of love, and the mere craziness of a doating heart, that had driven him to surrender himself. If in no other way he could reach Miss Walladmor's neighbourhood, it seemed that he was determined to reach it in the character of prisoner. To every door that he passed on his road to the Falcon Tower he looked with a wild keenness of eye, in the hope that he might obtain some glimpse of her. And, fantastic as such comfort seemed, the unhappy prisoner felt a deep joy even in his solitary prison on feeling that for the first time in his life he was passing the night under the same roof with Miss Walladmor.

At length the time is arrived when Edward Nicholas is to be tried for his life on the charge of high treason. Within a fortnight after his surrender, a Special Commission was sent down to try him; and the trial is to take place at the county town of Dolgelly. At an early hour, Bertram, who had slept in Dolgelly, presented himself at the door of the court-house: early as it was, however, he found the entrance already thronged by a crowd unusually numerous for so unpopulous a neighbourhood. Amongst them were many women, grieving by anticipation that the

"Dulberry, I say," replied the other angrily: "Samuel Dulberry, late twist manufacturer in Manchester."

Though Mr. Dulberry could not perhaps wholly approve of the captain's rather authoritative tone, nor of the captain's figures of speech, which, to a man who had read Blackstone, seemed a little too much to confound the distinctions of 'things' and 'persons'--yet, as he saw the benefits of such an arrangement, he made no objection, but submitted to act in the humble relation of screw to a screw-driver--or, to keep to the captain's image, submitted to be "driven home" as a nail by the great hammer of Captain le Harnois.

At this moment a general buz announced the commencement of some profounder interest: a trampling of horses outside announced the arrival of Captain Nicholas with his escort from Walladmor. Bertram closed his eyes from the shock which he anticipated at the sight of the prisoner; and, when he next opened them, the court was set, the prisoner was placed at the bar, and his arraignment opened in the customary form for levying war against our sovereign lord the king.

All present were interested more or less by the striking appearance and serene deportment of the prisoner. His face appeared to Bertram somewhat more faded and care-worn than when he had last seen him: but on the whole it bore the marks of fine animal health and spirits, struggling severely with some internal suffering of mind.

The trial proceeded in the usual manner, but with unusual rapidity, as the prisoner challenged none of the jury, nor called any witnesses. The crown lawyers painted the prisoner's guilt in the most alarming colours; insisting much on his extraordinary talents both military and civil as a leader in popular tumults. The witnesses deposed with tolerable consistency to his having tampered with them for purposes connected with some design upon Harlech castle. The capture of one outwork of Harlech was established. And at length the prisoner was called on for his defence.

With his usual self-possession, and with an air of extreme good humour except when he had occasion to speak of the counsel who opened the case, Captain Nicholas spoke as follows:

"My lord, and gentlemen of the jury,--I should be sorry to treat with levity any charge which I see that you treat with solemnity. The charge of treason is here, I find, a very grave one: though elsewhere I have known it as common and as trivial as assault and battery. However, be that as it may, I trust there can be no offence in my noticing without much gravity the attempt of the learned gentleman who opened the case for the crown to aggravate the matter against me by representing that I had engaged in an enterprize which had shaken the king of England on his throne.

"But I am slipping back into that style by which I was sorry to perceive that I gave offence before. I must apologize by charging it upon the example set me by the learned counsel, who should better understand the proper style for a court of justice than I can be supposed to do. I was endeavouring to show that I am not properly a subject of his Britannic majesty's; or, if I am, it is more than either he or I can be sure of. To this I shall add two remarks: first, that I was bred up among pirates--and not trained to any respect for the institutions or law of civil societies: a circumstance which I would wish to have its weight--not, gentlemen, in your verdict, but in the judgments which charitable men shall hereafter pronounce upon my character. Secondly, whereas the learned gentleman in the silk gown insinuated that I was familiar with murderers, and that I looked with indifference upon shedding human blood--this insinuation, gentlemen of the jury, I am sure you will not regard; for nothing has appeared this day in evidence to support any charge of that kind--which, as a soldier of an honourable republic, I repel with indignation. Except in battle, or in self-defence, I have never shed any human blood. And, if I did not fear to be misinterpreted in one quarter where I would blush to speak of any thing I had done as pretending to the value of a service--I might produce cases even in this country where I have saved the lives of others at some hazard to my own. But I forbear; and leave this to be of service to my memory rather than to my cause in this court.

"With that view it is that I have made these two last statements: I press them upon your attention by no means as a prisoner at the bar, but as a man who is not insensible, both on his own account and for their sakes who have honoured him with some portion of their regard, to the opinion which may be hereafter formed of his character. The first is a consideration which certainly will have its weight with all the candid: the second is at least as valid as the insinuation to which it applies: it is the only sort of defence which it is possible for me to make to a calumny so general and uncircumstantial.

"Well, Sir Morgan Walladmor! so, then, Edward Nicholas is gone to his trial?"

"He is; God send him a good deliverance!"

"So, so?" said she laughing, "times are changed at Walladmor. A good deliverance, eh? What, good deliverance to a smuggler?"

"Yes, Mrs. Godber,--even to a smuggler who happens to need it; but Captain Nicholas is not a smuggler."

"No, but he is worse: he has been a captain of smugglers, and he is a traitor."

"Whether he is a traitor, we do not yet know, Mrs. Godber. As a leader of smugglers he has at least the excuse of his unfortunate situation and his youth."

"Those were no excuses, Sir Morgan, twenty-four years ago."

"Woe is me, Mrs. Godber, that they were not!"

"She did indeed!" and Sir Morgan groaned with the remembrance.

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