stirred by the motion and whisperings of their genius. And every creature
that flows upon the tide of the Universal Life of Things, feels upon the
ruffled surface, the mighty and solemn change, which is at work within
its depths.

And now Aram had nearly threaded the valley, and his own abode became
visible on the opening plain, when the stranger emerged from the trees to
the right, and suddenly stood before the Student. "I tarried for you
here, Aram," said he, "instead of seeking you at home, at the time you
fixed; for there are certain private reasons which make it prudent I
should keep as much as possible among the owls, and it was therefore
safer, if not more pleasant, to lie here amidst the fern, than to make
myself merry in the village yonder."

"And what," said Aram, "again brings you hither? Did you not say, when
you visited me some months since, that you were about to settle in a
different part of the country, with a relation?"

"And so I intended; but Fate, as you would say, or the Devil, as I
should, ordered it otherwise. I had not long left you, when I fell in
with some old friends, bold spirits and true; the brave outlaws of the
road and the field. Shall I have any shame in confessing that I preferred
their society, a society not unfamiliar to me, to the dull and solitary
life that I might have led in tending my old bed-ridden relation in
Wales, who after all, may live these twenty years, and at the end can
scarce leave me enough for a week's ill luck at the hazard-table? In a
word, I joined my gallant friends, and entrusted myself to their
guidance. Since then, we have cruised around the country, regaled
ourselves cheerily, frightened the timid, silenced the fractious, and by
the help of your fate, or my devil, have found ourselves by accident,