The night was still, and not wholly dark; for the clouds lay scattered
though dense, and suffered many stars to gleam through the heavy air; the
moon herself was abroad, but on her decline, and looked forth with a man
and saddened aspect, as she travelled from cloud to cloud. It has been
the necessary course of our narrative, to pourtray Aram, more often than
to give an exact notion of his character we could have altogether wished,
in his weaker moments; but whenever he stood in the actual presence of
danger, his whole soul was in arms to cope with it worthily: courage,
sagacity, even cunning, all awakened to the encounter; and the mind which
his life had so austerely cultivated repaid him in the urgent season,
with its acute address, and unswerving hardihood. The Devil's Crag, as it
was popularly called, was a spot consecrated by many a wild tradition,
which would not, perhaps, be wholly out of character with the dark thread
of this tale, were we in accordance with certain of our brethren, who
seem to think a novel like a bundle of wood, the more faggots it contains
the greater its value, allowed by the rapidity of our narrative to relate
them.

The same stream which lent so soft an attraction to the valleys of
Grassdale, here assumed a different character; broad, black, and rushing,
it whirled along a course, overhung by shagged and abrupt banks. On the
opposite side to that by which Aram now pursued his path, an almost
perpendicular mountain was covered with gigantic pine and fir, that might
have reminded a German wanderer of the darkest recesses of the Hartz; and
seemed, indeed, no unworthy haunt for the weird huntsman, or the forest
fiend. Over this wood the moon now shimmered, with the pale and feeble
light we have already described; and only threw into a more sombre shade
the motionless and gloomy foliage. Of all the offspring of the forest,
the Fir bears, perhaps, the most saddening and desolate aspect. Its long