relents. As Bertram went rocking over the waves numbed in body and exhausted in spirits, all about him hideous gloom, and the fitful flashes of lightning serving but to light up the great world of terrors,-his inner voice was not so silenced but that he felt a pang of sorrow at the thought of having destroyed the partner of his misfortunes. A few minutes however had scarcely passed before he heard a groaning near him. Happily at this instant a flash of lightning illuminated the surrounding tract of water; and he descried his antagonist still fighting with the waves: he was holding by a spartoo weak to support his weight, but capable of assisting him in swimming. His powers were apparently failing him, as he looked up to his more fortunate enemy: He stretched out his hand to him, and said: All "Stranger! show me this pity. is over with me; or in a moment will be: should you have a happier fate, take from my pocket-book this letter-and convey it to the lady. Oh! if thou hast ever loved, I beseech thee to do this: tell her that I never ceased to think of her-that I thought of her only when I was at the point of death and, whatsoever I may have been to man, that to her I have been most faithful. With frantic efforts he strove to unclasp his pocket-book: but could not succeed. Bertram was deeply touched by the pallid and ghastly countenance of the man (in whose features however there was a wild and licentious expression which could not be mistaken); and he said to him: "Friend below, if I should have better luck, I will endeavour to execute your commission. Meantime I can swim; and I have now rested myself. Give me your hand. You may come aloft, and I will take a turn in the waters until I am tired. In this way, by taking turn about, possibly both of us may be saved." "What!" cried the other" are you crazy? Or are there really men upon this earth such as books describe ?" Bertram convinces him that he is in earnest by assisting him to mount the barrel, and descends himself into the waves; after which the scene proceeds thus: Meanwhile the storm continued, and the natural darkness of night was now blended with the darkness of tempest. After some minutes, the man, who was at present in possession of the barrel, began thus: "You fool, below there, are you still alive?" "Yes: but I am faint, and would wish to catch hold of the barrel again." "Catch away then :-Do you know any thing of the sea hereabouts?" "No: it was the first time in my life that I was ever on shipboard." The other laughed. "You don't know it?" "Well! now I do: and I can tell you this: there's no manner of use in our plaguing ourselves, and spending the last strength we have in keeping ourselves afloat. I know this same sea as well as I know my own country: and I know that no deliverance is possible. There is not a spot of shore that we can reach-not a point of rock big enough for a sea-mew; and the only question for us is-whether we shall enter the fishes' maw alive or dead." "It is still possible," said the other"that some human brother may come to our assistance." The other laughed again and said→→ "Human brother, eh? Methinks, my friend, you should be rather young in this world of ours-and have no great acquaintance with master man: I know the animal: and you may take my word for it, that, on such a night as this, no soul will venture out to sea. What man of sense would hazard his life-for a couple of ragamuffins like you and me? and suppose he would, who knows but that it might be worse to fall into the hands of some men of sense than into the tender mercies of the sea? But I know a trick worth two of that." "Tell it then." "Let us leave fooling: This cask, on which I sit, to my knowledge contains rum; or arrack; which is as good. We can easily knock a hole in it; then make ourselves happy and bouzy-fling our arms about each other like brothers, and go down together to the bottom: after that, I think we shall neither trouble nor be troubled, for we shall hardly come up again, if we toddle down groggy.' "Shocking! why that's suicide!" "Well! is your conscience so delicate and scrupulous? However as you please: for any thing I care, and as you like it better, some dog of a fish may do for us what we might as well have done for ourselves. But now come aloft, my darling, come aloft. I'll take my turn at swimming-as long as the state of things will allow it; and wait for you below." They changed situations.-But even upon the barrel, Bertram began to feel his powers sinking. He clung as firmly as he could. But the storm grew more and more terrific : and many times he grew faint in his wild descents from the summit of some mounting wave into the yawning chasm below: Nature is benign even in the midst of her terrors and, when horrors have been accumulated till man can bear no more, then his sufferings are relieved for a time by insensibility. On awaking it is true that the horrors will return; but the heart has gained fresh strength to support them. So it fared with Bertram, who continued to grow fainter and fainter; until at length in the midst of silent prayer he finally lost all consciousness. dogs, peremptorily orders him to go back: which he does: and, for a hero, somewhat too tamely. She again alarms him, when lying apparently asleep, by attempting to strip his shirt sleeve above his elbow When Bertram next awakens, the scene is changed: the sea is no longer raving in his ears: the wind is silent: nothing is heard but the gentle flap--for a purpose which the reader first ping of a pine tree fire: Bertram's understands when he comes to the senses begin to clear: he looks up, end of the novel. In the end howand by the fitful gleams of the fire ever Bertram is put on board a smughe sees the rafters of a rude hut like gling brig commanded by a sort of a Highland shealing; and at length Dirk Hatteraick (who does not howbecomes aware that he is lying in a ever support his brief part with much bed. The smoke, which disperses spirit), and soon after is put ashore at intervals, discovers to him an old in some part of Wales. But where? woman-of striking person and coun- Aye, where indeed? With all retenance-sitting near the fire. This spect for our German friend, we must person is styled Gillie Godber, and take the liberty of laughing a little at plays so conspicuous a part in the his theories on the subject of Wales novel, that we may as well at this and the Bristol Channel. Welsh point furnish the reader with the key hydrography and Welsh geography, to all that she does. About twenty- are not his fort. No Vincent will four years ago a son of hers, a strip- ever investigate Mr. Bertram's Periling of seventeen, had been connected plus of the Bristol Channel: no with a gang of smugglers; some of Strabo (to borrow a pun from Dean fence, in which he had participated, Swift, which he is very welcome to made him liable to capital punish- have back again) will ever track our ment: and, in spite of his mother's stray beau through the principality. agony of intercession, he had actually To him, who would determine the suffered on the gallows chiefly latitude and longitude of the place at through the agency of Sir Morgan which he is now put ashore, be it Walladmor: a circumstance in this known that the following are the congentleman's history, which is calcu- ditions of the problem. It is a place lated to give a false impression of his in character; for he is really a kindhearted man to all sorts of people except smugglers and the readers of Walladmor; the first of whom he is apt to hang when he can, and the last he takes every opportunity of boring. To this unhappy event succeeds a pitiable effect on the poor mother's mind: she is possessed by a frenzy of grief, and an immitigable appetite for revenge; to which indeed she dedicates her life; and Sir Morgan has long suspected that in one instance she had very soon met with an opportunity of gratifying her vindictive appetite, and had not let it slip. Be that as it might-under this terrific conflict of passion the poor woman's wits had unsettled; and she is frequently quite out of her mind. In her cottage Bertram, whilst supposed to be asleep, is witness to a dreadful spectacle; misinterpreting it, he is alarıned for his own safety; and the next morning about sun-rise makes his escape: but Mrs. Gillie Godber, soon after appearing behind him with a couple of bull South Wales; on the Bristol Channel; not very far from Manchester (which is stated to be on the bor ders of Wales); near Bath and the Isle of Anglesea; and within an easy morning's ride of Snowdon and Bristol.-Well, we know all these places; even Manchester and her portico; and very pleasant places they all are (though some of them rather smoky), and very pleasant it is to us to see so many old friends brought acquainted with each other. However, all these things are trifles: and our German friend is welcome to laugh in his turn at our geography of the Hartz forest (which by the way he does at p. 174, vol. ii.); for we dare to say that it is to the full as absurd as his map of Wales. On leaving the boat, he asks the road to M*** the nearest town; and, just as it falls dark, sets off on a mountain-road which "appeared dangerous in more respects than one" in quest of a lodging for the night; "which according to the usages of this country it was not likely that he would find it easy to obtain, both-be cause he was on foot and because he carried his own portmanteau." The darkness deepens as he quits the seashore to enter the gorge of a mountain ravine through which the road lies; and he is disposed to despair; when suddenly he fancies that he hears a voice behind him, and he is soon after joined by a suspiciouslooking person wrapped up in a cloak, and carrying a bludgeon. What crime lay hid in this man's appearance, that he should be considered SO "unfreundlich' (unpromising) an object before he had spoken a word, we do not learn: except indeed the great crime of poverty, which Bertram contrives to make out in the darkness; that excepted, and the bludgeon, he is pretty much on a level with Bertram himself. However some grounds of suspicion do certainly arise from his conversation, which wears a very Gad's-hill air. " "Heard you? yes; I heard you well enough but who in his senses goes shouting at night-time up and down a bye-road on a smuggler's coast, as if he meant to waken all the dogs and men in the country." "Who? why any man that has a good conscience: what difference can the night make?" “Aye, that has. But take my word for it, friend, a man that comes ashore from Jackson's brig may as well go quietly along and say as little as possible about his conscience. In this country they don't mind much what a man says: many a gay fellow to my knowledge has continued to give the very best character of himself all the way up the ladder of the new drop, and yet after all has been nonsuited by Jack Ketch when he got to the top of it for wanting so little a matter as another witness or so to back his own evidence." "Well, but, I suppose, something must be proved against a man,-some overt act against the laws, before he can be suspected in any country: till that is done, the presumption is that he is a respectable man : and every judge will act on that presump tion." "Aye, in books perhaps: but when a running-fire of cross examinations opens from under some great wig, and one's blood gets up, and one does n't well remember all that one has said before,-I know not how it is, but things are apt to take a different turn." "Well, my rule is to steer wide of alltemptation to do ill; and then a man will carry his ship through in any waters." "Will he? Why, may be so; and may be not. There are such things as sunk them: constables for instance, justices of rocks and it's not so easy to steer wide of peace, lawyers, juries." "But how came you to know that I was put on shore from Jackson's brig?" "Why, to tell you a secret, it was I that lay at the bottom of the boat, whilst your learned self were writing notes in a pocket-book.-But hush! what's that?". He stopped suddenly; looked cautiously round; and then went on : "It was nothing, I believe. We may go on; but we must talk lower in these cursed times every stone has ears. Here we must cross the brook, and double the rock on the left." Whilst Bertram went on, he loitered a few steps behind, and then cried out-" Do you see any body?" On receiving an answer in the negative, he advanced; turned the corner, and then began again : "You are going to M *** and you want a guide to show you the road and to carry your portmanteau: Now I'll do both on cheap terms; for all I ask in return is this that, up to the inn-door, if we meet any body that asks unpleasant questions, you will just be so good as to let me pass for your servant whom you have brought from abroad. What say you? Is it a bargain?" "My good friend, according to the most flattering account I have yet received of your morals (which is your own), they are rather of a loose description; and with all possible respect for your virtue that the case allows, you will admit yourself that I should be running some little risk in confiding my portmanteau to your care: for I know not who you are; and, before I could look round, you might be off with my whole property; in which case I should certainly be on a sunk rock.' Some little risk, you must candidly allow ?" "No," said the stranger-" No, not at all: I'll convince you of it in a moment. Now just look at me (there's a little starlight just now). Don't you think I'm rather a stouter man than yourself?" "Oh! doubtless." "And perhaps this bludgeon would be no especial disadvantage to me in a contest with an unarmed man ?" "I must acknowledge it would not." "Nor this particular knife ? according to your view of my 'morals,' as you call them, I suppose it would not be very difficult for me to cut your throat with it, and then pitch you into one of these dark mountain ravines-where some six weeks hence a mouldering corpse of a stranger might chance to be found, that nobody would trouble his head about ?-Are my arguments forcible? satisfactory, eh?" Undoubtedly. I must grant that there is considerable force in your way of arguing the case. But permit me to ask, what particular consideration moves you to conduct me and my portmanteau without hire to M ***? It seems too disinterested a proposal, to awaken no suspicion." Not so disinterested as you may fancy. Suppose now I happen to have left a few debts behind me in this country:or suppose I were an alien with no passport:-or suppose any other little supposes you like: only keep them to yourself, and talk as low if you please as convenient." "Well, be it so here's the portmanteau: take care you don't drop this little letter-case." Bertram's alarms are not altogether dissipated; for he considered that "Even by his own account the man wore rather a suspicious character; and what made it most so in the eyes of Bertram was the varying style of his dialect. He seemed to have engrafted the humorous phraseology of nautical life, which he wished to pass for his natural style, upon the original stock of a provincial dialect and yet at times, when he was betrayed into any emotion or was expressing anger at social institutions, a more elevated diction and finer choice of expressions showed that somewhere or other the man must have enjoyed an intercourse with company of a higher class. In one or other part it was clear that he was a dissembler, and wearing a masque that could not argue any good purposes. Spite of all which however, and in the midst of his distrust, some feeling of kinder interest in the man arose in Bertram's mind—whether it were from com passion as towards one who seemed to have been unfortunate, or from some more obscure feeling that he could not explain to himself." Whatever might be Bertram's opinion of his guide, the latter had or affected to have no better of him; and in this parting colloquy they "reciprocate on this subject very frankly and very merrily: "The road now wound over a rising ground; and the stranger pointed out some lights on the left which gleamed out from the universal darkness. "Yonder is M***, if that is to be our destination. But, if the gentleman's journey lies further, I could show him another way which fetches a compass about the town." "It is late already and very cold: for what reason then should I avoid M ***?” “Oh, every man has his own thoughts and reasons: and very advisable it is that he should keep as many of them as possible to himself. Let no man ask another his name, his rank, whither he is bound, on what errand, and so forth. And, if he does, let no man answer him. For under all these little matters may chance to lurk some ugly construction in a court of justice when a man is obliged to give evidence against a poor devil that at any rate has done him no harm." "Aye," said Bertram, "and there are other reasons which should make the traveller cautious of answering such questions: for consider-how is he to know in what dark lane he may chance to meet the curious stranger on his next day's journey? man with no more baggage than myself, Though to be sure you'll say that, for a such caution is superfluous The stranger laughed heartily, and said: "True, too true, as the gentleman observes and indeed the gentleman seems to understand how such matters are conducted very well. However, after all, I would strongly recommend it to the gentleman to avoid the town of M ***.” "But why so? Is it a nest of thieves?" "Oh! lord bless us! no: quite the other way rather too honest, and strict, you understand." "Well, and for what reason then avoid making the acquaintance of so very virtuous a town?" "Why, for that reason. It's unreasonably virtuous. In particular there is a certain magistrate in the neighbourhood, who hangs his 12 men per annum: and why? For no other cause on God's earth than because their blood is hotter than his own. He has his bloodhounds for tracking them, and his spies for trepanning; and all the old women say that he can read in the stars, and in coffee grounds, where contraband goods come ashore." "Why, my pleasant friend, what is it you take me for ?" The stranger turned round, pressed his companion's hand; but, not finding the pressure returned, he laughed and said in a significant tone: "Take him for? I take the gentleman to be as respectable and honourable a gentleman as any that frequents the highway by night. You are come from abroad: at school you had read flattering accounts of this famous kingdom of England and its inhabitants; and, desiring to see all this fine vision realized, you did not let the distance frighten you. And to a young man I take it that is some little credit." "Well, Sir, well ? " "Before you left home, your purse had been emptied at some watering place, we'll say by gamblers, sharpers, black legs, &c.; but no matter how: there are many ways of emptying a purse; and you are now come over to our rich old England to devise means for filling it again, All right, He, that loses his money at one sort of game, must try to draw it back by some other." "So then you do really take me to be an adventurer-a fortune-hunter?" "Oh, Sir, God forbid I should take a man for any thing that it is not agreeable to him to be taken for; or should call him by any name which he thinks uncivil, But the last name, I think, is civil enough: for I suppose every man is a fortune-hunter in this world. Some there are now that hunt their fortunes through quiet paths where there is little risk and much profit: others again" (and here he lost his tranquil tone, and his self-possession)" others hunt a little profit through much danger, choosing rather to be in eternal strife and to put their hopes daily to hazard than to creep and crawl and sneak and grovel: and at last perhaps they venture into a chase where there is no profit at all-or where the best upshot will be that some dozen of hollow, smiling, fawning scoundrels, who sin according to act of parliament, and therefore are within the protection of par. liament, may be He paused suddenly, and made a fierce gesture which supplied the ellipsis to his companion: but the latter had little wish to pursue such a theme, and he diverted the conversation into a different channel. * Different indeed! For he proceeds to explain that in fact he has not come to Wales upon any swindling ideas, but simply in search of the picturesque, and the enormous ruins of Bangor Abbey," and all that sort of thing :-Not loaded dice, but crayons and Indian ink-not pistols, but pencils-are his pocket companions. Not "Gad's-hill" stations, but Mr. Pennant's stations, are the stations for him. The stranger, who is highly diverted, prepares to quiz Mr. Bertram unmercifullyand (to borrow a phrase from the streets of London) to " go it" in fine style. Mr. Bertram, on his part, sees no joke, but surrenders himself "Undoubtedly I shall," said Bertram ; And he proceeds to astound Mr. Bertram with a flaming description of ap Gauvon "in the eastern ravines of Snowdon ;" and the chapter winds up in this way. "I protest," said Bertram, "you make my head giddy with your description." "Aye, but don't be giddy just yet: for we are now going over a narrow path; and there's a precipice below. Here, give me your hand. So !-Now turn to the right: now two steps up: and now take my arm; for it's so dark under these walls that you'll be apt to stumble." Both advanced in this way for some hundred paces, when suddenly the guide stopped, and said: Here we are at last: and my term of 'service' is out. This is the Walladmor Arms; and it is the best inn in the town; for there is no other." If any courteous reader has ever in the bloom of youth made a pedestrian tour among the northern or western mountains of our island, he will understand what was in Bertram's mind at this moment a vision of luxurious refreshment and rest after a hard day's fatigue, disturbed by anxions doubts about the nature of his reception. In this state he laid his hand upon the latch; and perhaps the light of the door. lamp, which at this moment fell upon his features, explained to his guide what was passing in his mind; for he drew him back for one moment, and said "One word of advice before we part: even the servant' may presume to coun. sel his master' as he is quitting his service. The landlord within is not one of 6 This little anachronism often recurs in the novel; whether intentionally as an anachronism (and for the same purpose of fun as leads him to cite mottoes to his chapters from "Old Play,") we know not. However, many a German tourist in North Wales, we doubt not, will in future be found peering about for the ruins of Bangor. Bangor Abbey was not, as the author imagines, at the Bangor in Caernarvonshire which we all know-but at another Bangor in Flintshire; flourished during the Saxon heptarchy; and was a ruin before that was a ruin. This we happen to recollect; having written a tragedy in our 13h year on a certain Ethelfrid-a Cæsar Borgia sort of person-who cut the throats of the abbot and all his monks.-Reviewer. |