minstrel," continued Shakspeare," do I not address him whom these valleys know by the name of Hubert Gray?"

"I answer to that hapless name," was the reply of Hubert Gray, "and to one too," he added, hastily approaching the bard, and grasping him convulsively by the hand, "for which you will, perchance, feel less compassion; to that," and he paused for a few seconds, "to that of Roland the freebooter!"

"It is then as I feared," cried Shakspeare, involuntarily shrinking from the side of his companion," and yet how can it be, how is it probable, that the robber Roland, whose skin was swarthier than the gipsy's hue, and whose locks were dark as the raven's wing, can thus be changed into a light-haired, fair-complexioned youth ?" ..

"Art, and the necessity for concealment," rejoined Hubert with a bitter smile," will readily account for this; and so effectual, indeed, has been the estrangement, that hitherto, under the common precaution of not suffering the leader of banditti to be seen in the broad glare of day-light, scarcely has the identity of

Roland and of Hubert Gray been once suspected. To you only, beyond the pale of my sworn brotherhood, have I now committed the secret, anxious to exculpate myself, if possible, to one whom I have been long taught to admire, and whose influence with those whom yet I most love may, when the fate of Hubert shall have been decided, no distant date, perhaps, best extenuate his follies and his crimes."

"Alas! alas! young man," exclaimed the astonished bard, "what could induce you thus to plunge into a course which at once deprives you of the countenance and support of all good men, and renders you, at the same time, amenable to the violated laws of your country?. Were there none whose good opinion you were desirous to maintain, none to whom duty, love, or friendship, should have bound you by ties alike hallowed and endeared?"

"I am a very wretch," replied the youth, deeply agitated as he spoke, "forsaken by those who gave me birth, disowned, cast off, left to be a burthen on the gray hairs of him who fostered my childhood, and, what is worst of all, contemned, despised without a cause, where

I had garnered up my every hope, by the very individuals on whom I had learned to build my little world of happiness! It was this, my friend, for allow me, though but for a moment, to call you by that name, it was this last stroke, that, laying desolate as by an instant shock, all that I had fondly cherished, drove me, reckless of what might follow, from the cottage of my youth, to become the companion, and at length the leader of the lawless beings with whom you lately found me. See you not my friend," he added, pointing to the western heavens," that scene of glory, yonder setting sun? What golden vales, what worlds of splendour seem to open round him; regions of everlasting bliss, abodes of love and virtue! Yes, bright as ye glow before me, ye mansions of the beautiful, there was a time when earth itself presented to my view visions of scarce less delight, when peace and hope dwelt with me, and she to whom my dreams of paradise were raised, the innocent, the lovely Helen, smiled on them till they kindled into life, till they seemed to burn with hues undying as your own! But now, degraded and abandoned, whither shall I turn?

Oh! that I could resume once more the innocence of my childhood! that I hung an infant on my mother's breast! or, that ceasing this instant to be, I could sink into the grave unconscious and forgotten!"

Against such a burst of agony and remorse, few could have stood unmoved, and we may easily imagine, therefore, that on Shakspeare, whose heart was ever open to all the finest feelings of humanity, the effect became, in a more than common degree, powerful and durable. There was, indeed, in the character of Hubert Gray, as it now developed itself, much that was calculated to call forth and gratify his closest scrutiny. It had, in fact, greatly interested him when first sketched in the light but glowing touches of Helen and of Simon Fraser; but of the identity of Roland and of Hubert Gray, he had then entertained not the smallest suspicion. Subsequent circumstances, however, and especially his conversations with Montchensey and Morley, had led to a momentary apprehension of the fact; but it had been almost as instantly dismissed, as too wild and romantic for credibility; nor could any thing, perhaps, but the

avowal he had just heard, have banished his incredulity, so great was the disparity, as well in manner as in appearance, between the two seeming individuals. He had now, however, the full truth before him, and if in Roland he had viewed with admiration the daring energy of the freebooter, the skill with which, young as he was, he had controlled the pitiless and indiscriminate plunder of his associates, and the singular courtesy of his demeanour, in Hubert he beheld with augmenting wonder and delight, with a mingled emotion, indeed, of the purest pity and esteem, the gentle and ingenuous child of sorrow and misfortune; one, who from his very peculiar and trying situation had become a victim to the delicacy and intensity of his feelings, and who was now, implicated as he felt himself to be with the lawless and proscribed, and deserted, as he thought, by all whom best he loved, a prey to unceasing self-upbraiding and despair.

There was also another circumstance which had its share in sustaining the very deep interest which Shakspeare felt for this unfortunate youth; for he beheld in his features, as they were now