bodily faculties, which sends the blood dancing in a cheerful current, little known to the dull monotony of common hours. Evelyn saw the moonlit glades disappear one after another, as he dashed on, careless of the many obstacles that opposed his speed; but the horse which he rode was forest bred—and it is strange with what fearless sagacity these animals thread their native paths.
At length Evelyn dropped the reins; and leaping to the ground, led his docile follower quietly along, that he might be cool previous to the coming pause. The narrow path suddenly opened upon a little glade, the smallest heath-blossom of which was visible in the flood of clear moonlight which rested upon it. It was the dell of Rufus's stone, around which some dozen dark figures were congregated; but an occasional laugh, and the sound of animated discourse, gave an almost unnatural cheerfulness to the place.
Conspiracies, like all other exercises of human ingenuity, are of very different kinds. The gloomy plots arranged in old Italian halls—the dungeon, sudden and silent as the grave, beneath their feet—the worm-eaten tapestries mouldering on the walls, and many a dark stain on the time-worn floor,—were formed by the Venetian noble in the
