Let any one who is fond of sublime sensations take his hat and staff, and climb a high hill by a moonlight midnight. There is apart of that dust of earth, which gathers so sadly upon our spirit during our daily commune with this sordid world, cast off at every step. The very act of climbing has something ennobling in it, and the clearer air we breathe, the elevation to which we rise, all gives the mind a sensation of power and lightness, as if it had partly shaken off the load of clay that weighs it down to the ground. But still more, when with solitude--the deep solitude of night--we rise up high above the sleeping world, with the bright stars for our only companions, and the calm moon for our only light--when we look through the profound depth of space, and see it peopled by never-ending orbs--when we gaze round our extended horizon and see the power of God on every side,--then the immortal triumphs over the mortal, and we feel our better being strong within us. The cares, the sorrows, the anxieties of earth seem as dust in the balance weighed with mightier things; and the grandest earthly ambition that ever conquered worlds and wept for more, may feel itself humiliated to the dust in the presence of silence, and solitude, and space, and millions of eternal suns.

The cool night air playing round his brow calmed the feverish headache which anxiety and excitement had left upon Edward de Vaux; and as he walked forth from the park, and climbed the high hill towards Morley Down, with the stars looking at him from the clear heaven, and the moon glistening on every pebble of his path, it is wonderful how much his mind felt soothed and tranquilized, how small the cares of earth became in his sight. So much so, indeed, was this the case, that although, as he mounted the steep ascent, he heard distinctly two several shots fired, apparently, a great deal too near his aunt's preserves--a sound which, at any other time, might have roused his indignation in a very superabundant degree--he now only paused for a moment, and turned round to listen; and, hearing no more, walked on, regarding the destruction of some hares or pheasants as a matter of but small consequence. When he reached the common, the beauty of the moonlight scene, with its broad lights and shadows, and the solemn effect of silence, and solitude, and night, again made him halt in his advance, to gaze upwards into the depth, and feel the mightiness of the universe around him; and that, too, sunk all human cares so low by comparison, that he began to think he could bear any disclosure with calm tranquillity.

He then walked on rapidly, regretting, perhaps, a little, that he had not asked Manners the exact position of the gipsy encampment, as he had become warm in climbing the hill, and the wind that blew over the common felt chill, and made a slight shudder pass over him. The little mound, however, was his resource, as it had been that of his friend when engaged on a similar errand; and, walking on to the spot where it stood, he climbed the side, and cast his eyes over the wide and broken flat grounds below him. In the direction of the sand-pit, he almost immediately beheld a light; and the next instant a fine mellow voice singing showed him that the gipsies were not only there but awake, though he was too far off to catch any thing but a few detached notes of a merry air rising up from below. Turning his steps in that direction, he had proceeded about a quarter of the way from the mound to the encampment, when an old white horse, which had lain down after feeding, started up at his approach, and hobbled away with its clogged feet, as fast as it could, uttering, at the same time, one or two short neighs, as if perfectly aware that its masters were of that class which does not like to be interrupted without warning. The light of the fire, now rising up above the abrupt edge of the sand-pit, and showing the dark outline of the bank, with the few black bushes cutting sharp upon the glare, pointed out to De Vaux the exact spot where the gipsies were to be found, when suddenly a human figure was seen rising rapidly across the light; and a minute or two after the form of a stout youth planted itself directly in the way of the wanderer.

"Who do you want, and what?" demanded the young man, eyeing him from head to foot with a look of no particular satisfaction.

De Vaux, however, answered him at once in such a manner as to put a stop to any farther enquiries, saying, "I want to see a person called Pharold, who is with you here. Can you bring me to him?"

"No," replied the youth, "but I can bring him to you;" and he uttered a low, long whistle, succeeded by another, which was quickly followed by the appearance of Pharold himself, who, as he approached, took care to examine his visiter as accurately as the moonlight would permit. When he came near, without addressing De Vaux, or waiting to hear his errand, he turned to the young man, saying, "You may return, William;" and seeing a slight inclination to linger, he added, in a more authoritative tone, "Return!"

The youth obeyed; and then turning to his visiter, the gipsy said, "You are Captain de Vaux, I suppose--nay, I see you are."

"You are right," replied De Vaux; "though I am not aware that you ever saw me before; at least, I am certain that I never saw you."

"I saw you on the day before yesterday," replied the gipsy, "though it was but for a moment, and you did not see me. But it is not alone from that I know you. You are very like your father, as I remember him; but still more like your grandfather and your uncle, in the times when I can recall as happy a set of faces in Dimden Hall as ever shone in the palace or the cottage."

The gipsy sighed as he spoke, and De Vaux sighed too, for he had never seen such faces in his father's house; and there was also, in the picture thus presented, a sad sample of how happy things and scenes of joy can, in a few short years, pass away and be forgotten, which, linking itself by the chain of association to the present, carried on his mind to the time when he and his might be as those of whom the gipsy spoke, and all the happiness which he now so fondly anticipated with her he loved become a memory for some old remaining servant, or poor dependant, to sigh over in their age.

"Then I am to suppose," rejoined De Vaux, after pausing for a moment on thoughts which, perhaps, might be called gloomy--"then I am to suppose that I am speaking with the person signing himself Pharold; and I may also conclude," he added, "that he is the same whom I have heard of, as having been taken, when a boy, by my grandfather, in order to educate him with my father and uncle; but who could not bear the restraints of that kind of life, and at the end of two years fled back to his own race and his native pursuits."

"In less time, in less time than that," said the gipsy; "but I often went back, and was ever kindly met, and used to please myself by enacting one day the young gentleman at the hall, and the next the gipsy on the common. But after a time," he continued, carried away by his subject, "I strayed farther, and forgot what I might have been, to give myself more up to what I was to be--but there is no use of talking of such things now, it makes me sad! And so you have heard all that. Yet who would tell you? Your father never did, I am sure; and your aunt was then but a child of two or three years old; and your uncle--but you remember not him."

"No," replied De Vaux, "any knowledge of the facts that I do possess was derived, I believe, from the tales of an excellent old housekeeper, who died not many years ago, and who seemed to speak of Pharold with no small regard."

"And is she dead?" cried Pharold. "Poor good old Mrs. Dickinson--I knew not that she was dead--she was ever kind to me, good soul: and now she is dust and ashes! Well, well, the fairest, and the strongest, and the best, go down to the sand with the leaves of the tree!--but will the kindly affections, and the noble feelings, and the generous nature, die too and rot? Can you tell me that, young gentleman?--I think not."

"Nor I either," answered De Vaux. "God forbid that we should think so! But, as I said, it was from that good old person, as I now recollect, that I heard all I know of your former history."

De Vaux recurred to the subject of the old housekeeper purposely, for he was not at all sorry that--instead of having to meet the gipsy as an opponent, where every word was to be examined, and nothing admitted without proof--their conversation had taken such a turn as to draw forth the man's true character, and to show the deeper motives upon which he acted. Anxious, as he might naturally be, to ascertain whether there was any hidden passion which might tempt the other to deceive him, or to seek to injure either himself or those connected with him, De Vaux would fain have led the gipsy on to speak more fully of the past; but Pharold's mind, following always its own particular train, rested but for a moment longer upon the idea suggested, and then returned abruptly to the cause of their meeting.

"Since you know so much of me, Captain de Vaux," he said, "you must also know that I possess knowledge in regard to your family which few other persons now living do possess; and you must know, likewise, that I am not one to say to you a word that is false, or to seek to wrong you by even a thought. That you have given some credence to my letter I see by your having come here, and that you put some confidence in me I see by your having come alone, and at this hour. Both deserve that I should be as explicit with you as possible; and, therefore, before you quit me, I will leave not a doubt upon your mind in regard to the truth of what I affirm."

"By so doing," replied De Vaux, "you will at least entitle yourself to my gratitude and thanks, though I conceal not from you that it is difficult to feel grateful or to offer sincere thanks to one who, willingly or unwillingly, overturns our hopes and our happiness for ever."

"It is difficult!" replied the gipsy; "I know it is difficult; but yet you must believe me when I tell you that I feel deeply and bitterly every pang that I inflict on you; that but for a duty and a promise registered in my own heart and beyond the stars--but for your own ultimate happiness--I would not pour upon you now all that I must bid you bear. You must believe all this, Captain de Vaux, for it is true."

And De Vaux did believe it, in part, if not entirely; for there was a solemn earnestness about the man's manner, a sort of eager deprecation in his tone, that would have been very difficult to assume unfelt. Although his opinion of mankind in general, and of the gipsy race in particular, was not very high, still the barrier of distrust was not strong enough to shut out conviction when De Vaux heard the tones of real sincerity; and he spake truly when he replied, "I will believe that you do feel what you say, both because I have never, to my knowledge, injured you or yours, so that it would be gratuitous baseness to injure or afflict me; and because the little I have ever heard of your character in youth, as well as your tone and manner at present, convinces me that you are incapable of such a proceeding. Nevertheless, you must remember, that before I can yield belief to any part of a story which, in some way, must throw dark imputations upon my family, I am bound to exact proof, and must be permitted to question every assertion that is not supported by the fullest evidence."

"Proof and evidence you shall have," replied the gipsy; "and you shall not only be permitted to question any thing that seems doubtful, but to be angry and indignant till you are convinced. Only, for your own sake, command yourself as much as possible. Remember that you have to hear a tale that will give you great pain; and, in order to enable yourself to judge rationally of its truth, you must govern your passions, and, as far as may be, subdue your feelings. You must promise, too, Captain de Vaux, to forgive him who inflicts the truth upon you. Will you promise me," he asked, laying his hand solemnly on De Vaux's arm, "to forgive whatever pain I may inflict, when you shall be satisfied both that my tale is true, and that I have no motive of earthly interest in relating it?"

"Most certainly," replied De Vaux, "though you proved my illegitimacy ever so clearly. Of course I must forgive you, if disinterestedly you speak but the truth."

"Worse, worse, far worse than that have I to tell," replied the gipsy; "but I cannot tell it here. The wind blows cold, and I saw you shudder, but your blood will run colder still before my tale is done. Besides, my people have long hearing and cunning ways. They are too near; and I would not that any other ear than yours in the whole world should listen to the words I am going to speak. You have trusted yourself so far to-night that you will not fear to trust yourself alone with me still farther. Come, then, with me to the edge of the wood that you see lying there about half a mile off. There we can shelter ourselves from the wind beneath the part of the bank just where it looks down upon the road. You are nearer home there, too."

"I know I am," answered De Vaux, turning, and gazing somewhat fixedly upon him; "but do you know that the road which it does overhang is within a hundred yards of the spot where my uncle was murdered?"

"I know it well," replied the gipsy; "but you will never be murdered like him, Captain de Vaux."

"And why not?" said De Vaux, quickly. "What happened to him may happen to me."

"My story must explain my words," rejoined Pharold; "I am unarmed--you are armed. All my comrades are there behind us: I go farther from them, and lead you nearer to your home. Were I willing to injure you, here were the place."

"Lead on, lead on!" said De Vaux; "I will trust you, and follow you!"

"Without reply, the gipsy led the way across the common, with every step of which he seemed so well acquainted as to be able to shape his course amid all the breaks, and bushes, and irregularities of the ground, without ever giving a glance to the right or the left. He said not a word either, and De Vaux followed equally in silence, with his interest and anxiety still more excited than they had been even by his strange companion's letter. In less than a quarter of an hour they had crossed that part of the common which lay between the sand-pit and the edge of the wood, exactly at that point where the hill, of which Morley Down formed the table land, joined on to the general chain of hills, from which it appeared as a kind of offset or promontory, and which, as we have said, were generally covered with forest. The neck of the promontory here overhung the turn of the road and the river, at about a couple of hundred yards nearer to Morley House than the spot where De Vaux had told Manners, on their first arrival in the country, that his uncle had been murdered some years before; and the track that lay between the place where he now stood and the highway was a steep precipitous bank of two or three hundred feet in height, covered with loose stones, scattered bushes, and one or two larger trees, thrown forward beyond the mass of wood on the left. The moon was shining bright on the road and the river, and though she had passed her meridian, promised yet several hours of light.

"Come down this little path, sir," said the gipsy. "Under that bank, with those bushes round us, about thirty yards down, we can find shelter, and can see every thing around, so that there will be no fear of interruption."

De Vaux followed as he desired, and in a few minutes reached the spot to which he had pointed. There, upon a felled oak, which only remained to be rolled down the hill, he seated himself on a little piece of level ground, where some one had endeavoured ineffectually to establish a quarry, and whence he could behold the village near his aunt's dwelling and the top of Morley House itself, though the view up the valley on the other side was interrupted by the sweep of the woody hill. The gipsy stood beside him, and De Vaux anxiously besought him to produce at once the proofs of the very painful assertions which his letter had contained.

"I brought you not here without an object, Edward de Vaux," said the gipsy, still standing; "for here I can relate my tale better than anywhere else. Now, tell me what you remember of your early years, and what you have heard of your father's history--of his history and that of his family."

"I did not seek you," answered De Vaux, "to tell you what I myself know, but to learn from you facts with which I am unacquainted. You have made assertions, and you must either support them by proof, or let them fall to the ground."

"Well, well," said the gipsy, "be as cautious as you will! If you hesitate to tell the story you have heard, I will tell it for you, Captain de Vaux, as I know you have heard it, and stop me if I speak a word that is false. Your grandfather, the twelfth Lord Dewry, left two sons and one daughter, then nearly seventeen. His eldest son, who was about six-and-twenty, succeeded to his title; and his second son, Edward, your father, who was then at college, went soon after to London to study for the bar. They were both as handsome men as you could look upon; and of your father's life and conduct in the great capital, as I know nothing with much certainty, so shall I say but little--"

"But it appears to me," interrupted De Vaux, "that such is the very matter on which you are called to speak. I was born in London; and if you can tell me nothing certain of my father's conduct in London, you can tell me nothing to the purpose."

"Patience! patience, sir, I pray you!" replied the gipsy; "I can tell you much, though on your father's conduct in London I will spare you as far as may be. William Lord Dewry, your uncle, was one of those men such as the world seldom sees; full of fine and generous feelings, kind, forgiving, noble, with enthusiasm such as the cold call folly, and humanity such as the unfeeling term weakness, though the rectitude of his own conduct was as unbending as yonder oak, and his enthusiasm never led him to aught but what was just and good. For some years after he succeeded to the title, he remained unmarried, and it was generally supposed that he would continue to live as a single man. Those who knew him better, however, felt sure that if ever chance should throw in his way a woman who deserved his love, whose heart was full of such feelings as his own, and whose mind was stored with thoughts and wishes as high and noble as those which filled his own bosom, he would not only offer to join his fate to hers, but would love her as woman has seldom been loved on earth; that such a woman, so loved, would become the great object of his being and his life, and would concentrate on herself all those deep and ardent affections which from his boyhood he had shown that his heart possessed. He did at length, as you well know, find such a woman--full of all those qualities which were so bright in himself--beautiful, accomplished, and his equal in rank and fortune. He addressed himself at once to a heart that was free and unengaged; and the same fine properties that had won his love were sure to win her love for him. He was married, and was happy beyond all that he had ever dreamed. He was happy; nay, more, he was content! for the angel of his home was more than all he had expected, and he sought and wished for nothing more. Every feeling, every thought turned towards her; and though his kindness, his benevolence, his philanthropy, were doubled rather than diminished, yet no joy was any thing to the joy of his love. For a year and six months he was as happy as any human thing can be--happier, perhaps, than any human thing ever was before. I saw his happiness; and, oh! how it made my heart expand to behold it! But then suddenly came a change. His wife had given him a child--beautiful, I hear she is, as her mother and good as her father; but ere the opening of her infant mind could add anything to the happiness of her parents, or afford even a momentary consolation to her father when distress came, her mother was seized with sudden illness, and ere five days were over she was dead."

The gipsy paused, and seemed to sigh bitterly over the memories of the past; while De Vaux, whose interest in all that concerned his beloved Marian was hardly less than he felt for those things that affected himself, waited anxiously to hear more; for though the story was not unfamiliar to him, yet it was put in a new light, and told in a mild and feeling tone, that gave it a thousand times more force than ever. After a moment or two of silence the gipsy went on:--"What a change," he continued, "came upon him then! The world seemed all forgotten. He appeared as one struck with sudden blindness; and where he had beheld nothing but beauty around him before, he now beheld nothing but a blank. For hours and hours he would ride in solitude through the country, unaccompanied even by a servant. He would pass his friends when he met them as strangers, and when they spoke, would seem long ere he remembered them. He forgot all enjoyment and all occupation, and lived in the world as if it were not his proper place. Thus passed the days for near two months, when, at the end of that time, he one morning rode forth as usual alone; but he chanced--though it was seldom he mentioned whither he went--he chanced to say that he was going to the county town. He was known, too, to have a large sum of money on his person; and as he passed by the house of Mrs. Falkland, his sister, for it was at Dimden he always lived, he stopped for a few minutes."

"You seem to know the whole facts as minutely as if you had followed him," said De Vaux, when the gipsy paused for a moment.

"I do," said the gipsy; "and, if you will listen, you shall hear how. When he left Mrs. Falkland's, her husband, who was then living, and a noble, frank-hearted man, walked by his brother-in-law's horse as far as the village, but there he left him, and Lord Dewry rode on. He was seen by some boys who were playing in that field--can you see it? half a mile nearer than the village, with a red barn at the side. But none of the country people saw him after, and he never returned to the hall. His servants, who all loved him, were alarmed, and sent over to Mr. Falkland, and he despatched messengers to the county town, with orders to inquire at the villages on the road; but no Lord Dewry was to be heard of anywhere. The evening passed over in terror; night had come on, and the family of Morley House were retiring late to rest, when a messenger arrived from Mr. Arden the magistrate, to inform Mr. Falkland that a gipsy--do you remark--a gipsy had just been taken up upon the charge of beating a young peasant almost to death the day before, and now made a voluntary declaration that he had seen the Lord Dewry murdered at the elm-point, there down below, that very morning at ten o'clock. Mr. Falkland instantly got upon horseback, and rode over to see Mr. Arden; and it was agreed between them that the news should instantly be sent to the Honourable Edward de Vaux, your father, and that till he arrived nothing further should be asked of the gipsy, except if he knew where the body of Lord Dewry might in any likelihood be found. He said yes: it might be found at the sea; but that if they would search in the reeds by the bank, they would find the baron's hat, and that in some of the woods or meadows his horse would be met with. Search was instantly made, and some of his words proved true; for the hat, pierced through and through with a shot, was found bloody among the reeds, and his horse was discovered grazing in the meadows, four miles down, on the other side of the water. In the mean time, the courier rode night and day to London, and when he arrived, found the dead lord's brother at the playhouse. He was very much shocked at the news, and instantly came down hither with one Sir William Ryder, a good enough man, they said, at heart, but one who had been fond of play, and had lost a fine fortune by that foolish passion. When the new lord arrived, the gipsy was again brought up and placed before him. A great many questions were asked, and he told this story:--The young man he had beaten had foully ill-used a gipsy woman, and he, the gipsy, had punished him, scarcely as he deserved. He had left him for dead, however, on the ground; and thinking that if he were dead the offence might bring trouble on his people, if he went back to them, he hid himself in these woods, and on the morning of the murder was lying down yonder, in the sweep of trees there, just at the head of the point. He had been there all the morning, he said; and, as the country people generally take the short way over the hill, he had seen no one pass, till, about half-past nine o'clock, a man on horseback came and backed in his horse between the two old elm-trees that lie about five hundred yards farther up in the bite of the river. He lay very still there to see what would come of it; and in about half an hour he heard another horse's feet coming quickly up, and Lord Dewry turned the point. The gipsy said that he thought to have sprung out, and told him what he had seen; for his heart misgave him as to the purpose of the other horseman; but just at the moment the other came forth, and, riding quietly up, spoke with Lord Dewry calmly enough for some minutes. They then seemed to get into high dispute, and Lord Dewry pushed his horse on upon the road a little, while following, and speaking at his side, the other suddenly drew a pistol from his pocket, and fired right into the baron's head. At the same moment, as he was falling from the saddle, the horse, taking fright, plunged into the river, dragging him by the stirrup, and his hat fell into the rushes. The other horseman looked after him for a moment; but ere the swimming horse reached the opposite bank, he set spurs to his own beast, and was galloping away, when at the turn he was met by another. The gipsy could see them grasp each other's hands; but they stopped not a moment to speak: the second turned his horse with the first, and both galloped away like lightning. The gipsy plunged into the water, he said, to see if he could bring out the body, as soon as he saw that it had become disentangled from the stirrup; but it had sunk to rise no more; and when he was tired with swimming he returned to the woods.

"Mr. Arden, the magistrate, said it was a very improbable story; but asked the gipsy if he could recognise the man who had committed the murder. The gipsy replied that he could, if he saw him, and could swear to him whenever he was placed before him. Mr. Arden then said that it would be better, under all circumstances, to commit the gipsy at once for his other offences, when he would be always forthcoming to give evidence if required; but as it was proved that the young man he had beaten was hourly getting better, and acknowledged that he had deserved the treatment he had received, the kind magistrate had no other excuse to propose for committing the gipsy but that of his being a rogue and a vagabond. In this, however, he was overruled by Lord Dewry, the new Lord Dewry, after some private consultations with Sir William Ryder. His lordship said, with a kind look to the gipsy, that it would be cruel, he thought, to commit a man to prison for having given voluntary evidence where it was much needed; and besides, that he had reason to think very well of that gipsy, who had, in a degree, been brought up by his father. Mr. Arden, however, suggested that the gipsy himself might have been the murderer; and though Lord Dewry treated the idea with contempt, yet the sturdy magistrate kept him in custody, till, by the marks of the horse's feet, and many other things, it was proved that his story must be true. In the mean time Lord Dewry and Sir William Ryder were very kind to him, and took care that he should want for nothing while he was detained. At length he was liberated, and went to join his own people, promising to return whenever he should be called upon, which every one felt sure he would do, as he had been educated with the dead man, and loved him as a brother. I need not tell you that I was that gipsy!

"In the mean time," continued Pharold, "Mr. Edward de Vaux took the titles and entered into possession of the estates held by his late brother. The will of the last lord was found, and no one wondered that in it he never mentioned his brother's name; for it was known to all the world that they had had many a bitter dispute, and had long been, not as brothers should be. His daughter, Miss De Vaux, and the care of the splendid fortune which she inherited from her mother, were intrusted to his sister, Mrs. Falkland, to Mrs. Falkland's husband, and to a distant relation.

"All his servants and friends were remembered by the dead nobleman, and almost every one that he knew was named except his own brother. The world did wonder, then, that that brother, with a singular generosity, resigned in favour of his niece many things that he might have claimed as belonging to the male heir, and treated all questions between them, in regard to property, with unexampled liberality. When he had settled all things, and retained a number of his brother's domestics, he ordered the hall at Dewry to be put in order; not loving the part of the country where his brother had been murdered. Thither, then, he went, after he had arranged his affairs in London, bringing down with him a young gentleman of seven years' old, his only son, and supposed heir to all the property."

"And my mother!" cried De Vaux, raising his head from his hands, in which position he had been sitting while listening to the gipsy's story; for during its course he had been agitated by many a strange, but ill-defined, emotion. The story of his uncle's murder had always been one on which his mind had rested with awe and pain from his very childhood; but though he had heard it often told, both as a whole and in detached fragments, yet he had never listened to such minute details as were now given by an eye-witness of the horrible event, who seemed prepared to connect it, too, by some vague and unexplained link, with the painful assertions which had been made in regard to his own doubtful situation. The very expectation, or rather apprehension, of some horrible disclosure to follow at every word the gipsy uttered, had troubled and shaken him greatly; and the name of Sir William Ryder--a person who, it appeared, was then most intimate with his father, but who, it was clear, had since become the object of his most determined hatred--had added deeper feeling of mysterious dread to all those thoughts by which he was already perturbed. What could be the meaning of all this? whither would it lead? how was it to end? were the questions which continually pressed upon him as the gipsy proceeded; and it appeared even a relief, when Pharold's last words seemed to bring his ideas back from the new and dreadful topics on which they had been engaged, to the subject of his former doubts and suspicions.

"And my mother!" he cried, as the gipsy paused, "what of her?"

"Nothing, that I know," replied Pharold, apparently with some surprise; "nothing but that she was a Spanish lady, who married your father privately, after breaking her vows in a convent."

"Then they were married?" cried De Vaux, eagerly.

"Certainly!" answered the gipsy: "I never heard it doubted; though he kept her from all his family, and used her ill; which was one of the causes of his quarrels with his brother. But she was dead before he came down here to take possession of his brother's lands. But let me tell my tale."

De Vaux again leaned his head upon his hands; every thing once more becoming dark and misty around him. "Go on! go on!" he said; "go on, and keep me not in suspense, for Heaven's sake!"

"I have now told you," continued Pharold, "the story of your family as it went forth to the world, and as you most likely have heard it yourself. It is a goodly tale, and just such as could be desired under such circumstances! The picture is, indeed, a dark and painful one: but it has another side more dark and painful still; and ere you look at it, nerve your mind firmly, young gentleman; for if you be such as I believe you are, filled with honourable feelings and kindly affections, your very soul will writhe under all you have to hear."

De Vaux waved his hand for him to go on; and the gipsy continued:--"You have heard the world's version of the story; you must now hear the gipsy's. My early history you know; for a year and nine months I was brought up with your uncle and your father. Your uncle ever loved me--your father never: but he was too proud to seek to injure me; and when I left the false restraints of what you call society, to go back to my own race and my native freedom, he and I were friends, as far as we could be.

"Your uncle I often returned to see, though longer and longer became my absence, and greater and greater my contempt for gilded halls and mercenary slaves in laced jackets. I took a pleasure, however, a secret pleasure, in marking and learning all the doings of the man I loved best on earth; and sometimes, though my distaste to fine dwellings and insolent lackeys had grown into a diseased abhorrence that would not let me cross the lordly threshold of Dimden, yet often would I meet him in the park or in the walks, and hold a brief conversation with him in the free air. It was after an absence from this part of the country of near two years that I came back, and found that his heart had been withered by the death of her he loved. I was seeking for an opportunity of meeting him, when the offence was given to an unhappy woman of our tribe, which called for vengeance at my hand; and I was forced to conceal myself till I could learn what were the ultimate consequences of the punishment that I had inflicted. I hid myself, as I have told you, in that wood; and all the rest that I said before the magistrate is true: but I said not all the truth. I saw the horseman station himself between the elms; I saw Lord Dewry ride up, and they met; I heard the words they spoke; I saw him ride on, and I saw the other follow, though little did I dream his purpose; I saw him draw the pistol from his bosom; I saw it raised, and the shot fired that struck the good lord down--and the hand that fired it, young man--the hand that fired it was his brother's!"

"It is false!" cried De Vaux, starting up and half-drawing his sword; "it is as false as hell itself!"

"It is as true as yon stars in heaven!" replied the gipsy, calmly but sternly; and a long pause followed, while Pharold stood erect and tranquil before the son of him whom he had charged with so fearful a crime, and De Vaux gazed on him with a countenance in which the workings of all the manifold passions that such terrible tidings produced were fearfully visible. "Will you hear me out?" demanded the gipsy at length.

"I will," said De Vaux, casting himself down again upon the tree; "I will! but think not to escape me. You have made a dreadful charge; and as there is a God in heaven, you shall show me that it is true before I quit you!" and leaning his head again upon his hand, he kept his eyes fixed upon the gipsy, as if fearful that he should elude him, till he came to parts of the details that made his hearer again bury his face in his hands.

"I will!" continued Pharold; "I will show you that what I have uttered is true; for it was to that purpose that I brought you here. But be more calm, and let me tell you all the circumstances which might lead him to the terrible act that he committed."

"He committed it not!" murmured De Vaux; but the gipsy went on as if he had not heard him. "I have since heard all the facts," he proceeded, "from one who knew them too well; the only one, indeed, besides myself. Edward de Vaux, the younger of the two brothers, was a man of extravagant tastes and habits. He went early and often into other countries, and there he learned expensive vices and follies. I would not pain you; but he gamed deeply, and lived sumptuously, while your mother lived neglected, and fared but hardly. What he inherited from his father was but small; what he acquired was nothing; what he squandered came from the liberality of his brother; and often his demands were more than any liberality could supply. Lord Dewry remonstrated and entreated, but in vain; and much and nobly, have I heard, did he offer to do for him, if he would retire into the country, and treat your mother well. But she died, and that cause of dispute was removed by her death. All check, indeed, seemed now cast away by her husband. He gamed more deeply than ever; lost all; applied to his brother; was refused, and then staked what he did not possess. He lost. Sir William Ryder, his great friend, joined him in an engagement to pay the sum within a certain time; but shortly before the period arrived, Mr. De Vaux was not to be found by his friend. Sir William thought that he had evaded him in order to cast the whole debt upon his shoulders; and, learning the route he had taken, followed at full speed; traced him step by step, and overtook him--at the very moment he had murdered his brother. Horrified, but confused and bewildered, before he well comprehended what he was doing, Sir William became a participator in the crime, by promising to conceal all that he had seen; and setting spurs to their horses, they arrived in London by different by-roads, in so short a space of time that it seemed impossible they could have done the distance. Well knowing that he must soon be sent for, the heir of the dead man took care to show himself in every place where his presence in London would be marked and remembered, in case of necessity; and he was found, as I have said, at the play-house. What sort of hell was in his heart, as he sat and saw mockeries and pageants, I know not."

"But your story halts, sir," said De Vaux, sternly; "how could he know at what exact spot his brother would be found at that precise time? How could he--"

"By that letter!" said the gipsy, placing abruptly an old but well-preserved paper in his hands, on which the regular post marks were easily discernible.

"But I cannot read it by this faint light," said De Vaux, attempting to make out the contents, after gazing at the address; "what is its purport?"

"I will tell you," replied the gipsy, striking a light with a flint and touchwood that he carried; "I will tell you; though you shall soon be able to satisfy yourself. It is your uncle's letter to your father, telling him that he has not sufficient money at his banker's to meet his fresh demand; but that, if he will be at the inn at the county town of ----, at noon of the eighteenth of May--the very day of the murder--he will give him the sum of five thousand pounds, which is all he can collect without burdening himself for other people's faults, in a manner that he does not choose to do. There!" he continued, lighting a few dry sticks; "there is light enough to read!"

De Vaux read the letter. It was such exactly as the gipsy described: it was written in a hand which he remembered from other papers he had seen to be that of his uncle; it was dated four days before his death, signed with his name, sealed with his arms, directed to his brother, and by the post marks had evidently been received. Conviction was forcing itself painfully upon his mind, but drowning men will catch at straws; and he hoped yet to find some flaw in the horrible history he heard, and to be enabled to give it the lie to his own heart. He returned the letter; and folding his arms upon his breast, bade the gipsy go on; while, with a knitted brow and quivering lip, he continued gazing upon vacancy, suffering his mind to roam wildly through a thousand painful thoughts and memories, but without letting one word escape his ear.

"By this letter," continued the gipsy, "did he know exactly when his brother would set out for the town of ----; and he knew his habits, too, well enough to arrange the rest of his plan. But crime is always agitated; and it is thus that even the coolest and most determined ever leave some trace behind by which murder may be detected. Your uncle came not so soon as he had expected, and he took the letter from his pocket to be sure that he himself had not overstepped the hour. Just as he was reading, the horse's feet which bore Lord Dewry sounded, and he hastily thrust back the paper, as he thought, into his pocket; but it fell, and I saw it, and forgot it not afterward. When the deed was done, he paused for a moment gazing upon the swimming horse, and the sinking form of his brother, as it detached itself from the stirrup, and without even a struggle the waters closed over his head; and I am as sure as there is a heaven above us, that at that instant the murderer would have given lands and lordships--nay, life itself--to have recalled the irrevocable act that he had done. He could gaze at it no longer; but striking his spurs into his horse like a madman, he turned back the way he came. Just at the turn of the wood he was met by Sir William Ryder; what he said I know not, but he grasped his hand for a moment, and then galloped away, followed by the other. Ere he had gone far his coolness had returned; for before he came down here all his plans had been arranged, and his conduct decided. He had questioned the messenger, too, and had heard the evidence that I had given; and though I had declared that I could swear to the person, he felt sure, from my not swearing to him, that I either did not really know him, or had determined to conceal my knowledge. At all events, he had no resource but to front the matter; and he did so boldly. When I was brought into the justice room, I could see that he turned a little pale, and at the same time he put up his finger to his lip, in a way that I might take for a signal or not as I pleased. I repeated all I had said before, nay, I went further, and described exactly the appearance of the murderer, but such descriptions are always loose; and no one asked me whether any of those present was the man--"

"Would you have said yes if they had?" interrupted De Vaux.

"I do not well know what I might have done," replied the gipsy, "but I think not. What use would it have been to me to destroy the son of one who had loved and cherished me? He had committed an awful crime, it is true--but I was not the avenger. Besides, I knew that vengeance, in its intensity tenfold more terrible than aught that man could inflict, was in his heart already,--that there was a serpent eating it up,--that the mighty, the almighty Avenger of all crimes was there in his terrors, and that every hour of his after-existence would be constant judgment and continual death. No, no! on my life, I did not so much hate as pity him. At night, after I had been removed from the justice room, I heard the door of the chamber, in which they had confined me, open, and Sir William Ryder came in with a light. He was a fine-hearted man, though he had been misled; and although the real murderer had shown himself but little shaken, yet through the whole of my examination he, Sir William Ryder, had been agitated, as I could see, to his very soul. Both he and the other, however, whether to make me a friend or what matters little, had done all they could to soften the hardness of old Squire Arden, as he was called; but Sir William now came to me to see what I did know, and how far they could trust me. It was a difficult task; and had he gone about it as cunningly as some would have done, he might have failed with me. But he was too much moved for that. He spoke kindly to me, however, and told me that Lord Dewry was very much interested for me, and would take care of me, and I told him at once to bid Lord Dewry take care of himself, for his was the case of danger, and not mine. So then he said that he saw I knew more than I had spoken, and that Lord Dewry was grateful to me. 'Call him not by a title that is not his,' I answered; 'for I know that the patent of their nobility bears, that if any of the family, judged according to law, be found guilty of a felony, he and his children are to be considered dead, their line extinct, and the next heir to claim as if they were not.' He answered that that mattered not, for that his friend had not been found guilty of any felony, nor ever would; and that he had only to say, if I would quit the kingdom, till he gave me leave to return, he would secure me the sum of one thousand pounds directly, and a pension for my life. I said I would think of it, and tell him when I was at liberty; and I was very soon after set free. Sir William Ryder did not fail to find me out, however; and it was agreed between us that I should go; and that he should meet me at the sea-port where I embarked, and there give me the money.

"It took a time, however, to move the tribe to the port, and some were unwilling to go without knowing the reason. So we divided, some going with me, some betaking themselves to their own way. I saw Sir William Ryder often, and when I wrote to him to tell him that we were near a sea-port in Wales, he came down directly, and visited the encampment. He told me that he, too, was about to set out for America, and intended to spend the rest of his life in the colonies. 'I will try,' he said, 'by devoting the remainder of my days to doing good, and walking uprightly with all men, to efface from my memory the traces of many follies and of one great crime, in which I have not been a sharer, indeed, but which I have aided to conceal.' The second day, however, that he came out to us, his horse took fright at a monkey, which some of our people had among the tents, and threw him violently. He broke his collar-bone and several of his ribs, and being carried into a hut, we all nursed him tenderly. I found him better than I thought, and learned to love him; and under our care he got well sooner than if all the doctors in the world had seen him. While he was recovering it was that I learned how all had happened; and he tried to persuade himself and to make me believe that the murder had been committed in a moment of passion, and not by design, or that his friend was distracted with anxiety and distress at the moment that he committed it. When he left us for America I went away to Ireland. I have since seen many other lands, and have lived for some years in Scotland, but I never returned to this country of England till about three weeks ago."

The gipsy paused, and De Vaux remained as he had placed himself, with his head bent down almost to his knees, and his eyes buried in his extended hands. He continued silent long, bowed down by a sense of misery, and humiliation, and despair. What would he have given at that moment to have all his former apprehensions confirmed, if the present terrible doubts could have been thereby swept away!--doubts, indeed, they could scarcely now be called, for the gipsy's story was too consistent in every part, was too much combined with facts within his own knowledge, was too clear an explanation of many parts of his father's conduct--his gloom, his reserve, his irritation, his agitation at the very name of Sir William Ryder--for him to entertain any thing but one of those faint, lingering, insane hopes, which death itself is the only thing that can extinguish. But, for the moment, the thought of whether there were still a doubt had merged itself in the more agonizing ideas of what must be his fate if the story were true. His own father! How could he ever behold him again? How was he to act towards him? What was he to do? Then came the idea of Marian in all her beauty, in all her gentleness, in all her generous love; and he felt that she could never be his; that the blood of her father placed between them an obstacle that could never be removed; that no time, no change, no effort could ever cast down that dreadful barrier; that at the very moment when his passionate love had been raised by her noble conduct almost to adoration was the moment at which he must sacrifice her for ever! And how must he sacrifice her? How must he act towards her? He could not, he dared not explain, by even a single word, the cause of that sacrifice; he could not tell her what had happened; he could not even have the blessing of weeping with her over their blighted hopes. Whichever way he turned, it was all horror and destruction; and the brain of the unhappy young man seemed to reel with the agony he suffered. He spoke not; he could hardly be said to think; it was all one frightful dream of misery and despair. He felt that his fate, as far as happiness was concerned, was sealed for ever; and yet a thousand whirling and inconsistent visions rushed upon his brain regarding his future conduct. How--how was he to act? What--what was he to do? At one moment he thought of going instantly to his father's presence, of telling him he knew all, and of ending his own life before him, to cast off the intolerable burden of thought and sensation; but then he remembered all that his father had already suffered; called to mind the deep and gloomy pondering--the solitary meditations, and the never-smiling lip--the bursts of wild and impatient passion, the hollow cheek, the sunken eye, and all the indications of a heart torn and mangled by remorse; and that idea vanished in filial sorrow. At another time he thought of burying himself deep in the wilds of America, of joining some Indian tribe, and hiding his name and its disgrace in scenes to which Europeans never penetrated; but then again the idea of Marian, and of never, never seeing her more, overcame him with fresh anguish. He knew not where to turn his eyes for guide or direction; he knew not how to act; he knew not whither to go: every place was hopeless--every view presented but despair; and, after a long and terrible silence, one deep and bitter groan found its way to his lips.

The gipsy's heart was moved for him; and, after gazing upon him for several minutes, he said, "I grieve from my very heart to pain you thus; but yet, young man, be comforted: there is a balm for all things."

The very words of comfort, however, proceeding from the same tongue that had destroyed all his happiness for ever, roused De Vaux almost to phrensy; and, starting up, he exclaimed, "Either what you have told me is false, or you must know that there is no comfort for me on earth! What balm do you mean?"

"The balm of time," replied the gipsy, unmoved, "which, as I know by the experience of many sorrows, can take the venom from the most cankered wound!"

De Vaux glared at him for a moment as if he would have struck him to the earth, and then--for there are some loads of misery which are too vast for the human mind to comprehend or to believe at first--and then replied, "I believe you have been deceiving me, and wo be unto you if you have! Have you any other proof," he cried, striving eagerly to catch at a doubt; "have you any other proof? If so, produce it quickly!"

"I am not deceiving you, young gentleman," answered the gipsy; "and I can forgive both your anger and your unbelief."

"But the proof! the proof!" cried De Vaux; "have you any other proof?"

"I have," answered Pharold, "and I will produce it, though the letter I have shown you is proof enough. I grieve for you, sir, but you must not injure me."

"The letter you may have stolen," replied De Vaux, fiercely, "or found it years afterward. What other proof have you? Give me some other proof, and I will believe you."

"You believe me already at your heart," answered the gipsy; "but the other proof is this:--I have said that the murderer gazed for a moment after his victim, and that I saw that he gazed in deep and terrible remorse. Know you how I saw that it was so? Thus: The moment that the shot was fired, and that his brother was falling, his hand let the pistol drop from his grasp, and he sat on his horse motionless as a statue, as if the deed he had done had turned him into stone; nor did he move hand or limb till he turned and galloped away as if the fiends of hell were pursuing him. The pistol was not lost any more than the letter; and happy for him was it that they both fell into the hands of one who concealed them carefully; for had they been found by any other, your father might have ended his days upon a scaffold more than twenty years ago. You ask for more proof. Look there! that is the weapon, and you know the arms of a younger brother of your race too well to doubt me longer."

De Vaux took the pistol which the gipsy produced. It was curiously inlaid with silver, and the arms of his family embossed upon the stock. He had once seen one, and only one, precisely similar in the hands of his father, when he came upon him by accident in his private study. His father had put it away in haste into a chest that contained it; and, with a pale cheek and quivering lip, had reproved his son for breaking in upon his privacy. De Vaux now saw the fellow-weapon of the one he had then beheld: the last faint gleam of hope left his heart for ever; and striking his hand upon his bosom, and groaning in the bitterness of his heart, he cast himself frantically down upon the cold ground.