them with the captains of certain foreign vessels that beat about the coast, receiving a just proportion of the profits as a guerdon for my own labours."

"But perhaps, uncle," said Benjamin, "these outlawed workers may do by you, as did your first employers; they may cast you out when they no longer want your help, and so give you up to the queen's justice.

"They cannot, they dare not do it," exclaimed Levi; "I have learnt by experience, boy, the way of this world's iniquity -I have not pointed out to them where all the treasure lies, and besides this I prepare the ore in ingots for the market. They gain but little of it at a time, as all is done by stealth; therefore they work slowly-and as to betraying me to rulers, they are outlawed themselves. There is not one amongst them, should he venture within an English court, but would hold his life as forfeited. Still, I grant they are violent and dangerous, but not in the way you suspect.—They have no rule of life but their own wants and interests; and those they satisfy by any means. They have no law but that of the beasts which war together-the strongest overcome the weakest. And they have no conscience but that of passion-a quarrel, a stab, and a dead man, follow hard upon each other.'

"Then, Master Levi," said Benjamin, "it is surely full of danger that you should trust yourself amongst them. What could you do unarmed, if the strong man you now seek should turn upon you?"

"I trust them in nothing without due caution, Benjamin," replied his uncle; "and I am as Joshua was of old, something of a man of war. I know the use of the sword, the dagger, and of the black-powder that turns into flame on the slightest spark from the flint. Look at me, am I unprepared?" and he drew aside the garment that covered his breast as he spoke, where (though concealed from observation by the thick folds of his gown) it appeared he carried beneath it, well secured in a broad leathern belt, a short but stout dagger, with a formidable brace of pistols.

"I am not the man, Benjamin," continued Levi, "to shed man's blood without a cause; but I have a hand that will not flinch if necessity render it lawful. And if once these people give me cause to suspect them of treachery, I am not as the fool, that will suffer the viper to bite him twice; I would crush the reptile at once upon the head."

"I

"But the chief of these people, uncle," said the nephew, thought you told me before now, was not a miner, but a man

of more civil breeding, and of better knowledge than the rest. What is he?"

"What he is, the God of Abraham, who seeth the thoughts of man, can alone tell," replied Levi. "It is certain he is not a miner, for he knows nothing of the craft; and wherefore these men choose him for a leader, I can scarcely tell you; except it be that the children of the old Serpent would be led by Satan himself and none other. This man is of a more civil breeding, it is true, for he hath the learning of an elder in his own profane way; but for manners, I wot he is as rude as the rest; as rude as these mountain winds when they visit the wild rocks. He is bold, yet cunning; wary as the earthgrubbing fox, but cruel as the wolf that watches, when the mastiff sleeps, to rifle the fold-and for such properties, 'tis like enough, these men should have chosen him for a leader, since, though they are ferocious in themselves, they have scarce wit enough to guide the bark of their piracy without an able pilot at the helm.'

"By the terror of Pharaoh," said Benjamin, "I almost fear to meet this man when I hear you relate these things of him. In London I feared nothing but the stocks, the whip, and an empty stomach; but, some how or other, on this large and rocky and dreary place, I fear things I can't see, and can't think of, as the Nazarene clout-heads do the pixies and fairies that they say live in the hollows of the rocks, and dance at night on the moor. And when it is half-dark, I fancy every tall dusky rock, as it stands still, and seems to be growing taller and taller as I move on, to be a man. The dingy alleys of the Exchange, and the close little dark streets of Cheap, were a comfort compared to this; for there, though the signs that hang out over the shop-doors creek and groan at night like the old trees in Fitz-park, yet I knew what made the noise; but here I fear everything, even when I see nothing." 'Benjamin," said Levi," you are but as a fool; learn this, that wisdom is better than rubies, as Solomon saith; and that, to the foolish and weak-hearted man, all things are as vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes. What talk you of pixies, and simple Nazarene fairies? There is nought dances in the flood of the lesser light, but the motes in these foolish people's own eyes. Fear nothing, Benjamin, for fear becometh well the woman, who clingeth to her husband as the tendril to the vine; but in a man it is the reproof of shame, and the fool layeth open his fear. Fear nothing, but trust in the providence of God, for he careth for all his people; and of him even the young ravens, as saith Holy Writ, seek their food."

"That may be, uncle; but if you were to turn me out upon this dreary place, and I had nothing to eat but what the ravens might bring me, I fancy I should look long enough before I might hear them come flapping their wings and cawing through the air, with a piece of flesh in their claws to feed me. It is only a prophet in Israel, and a great one too, who can look to be fed by miracles.'

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Benjamin," said Levi, "you must learn to trust in Providence, and he will never desert you at your need. We must not be of doubtful mind. We must trace the finger of heaven in all things, as I said to my neighbour Manasses, when he was going to be hanged only for helping the officers of her Majesty's mint to make her own sweet face, in silver not so virgin as herself, without a warrant for so doing. Manasses,' says I, 'we must rejoice in the ways of heaven, and find all its paths pleasant and sweet.' But Manasses never heeded me, and only looked at the hangman, and said nothing would have been so sweet as to have hanged that fellow in his own stead."

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'Look, uncle Levi," cried Benjamin, “yonder stands Vixen Tor, the place of our destination."

"The red light streams upon it," said Levi; "it rises like the monument of Rachel in the plains of Bethlehem, mighty and alone."

The object which the travellers now approached was one of the most striking throughout the whole of the moor, being a vast granite rock, or rather rocks, since it consists of three contiguous lofty masses, above one hundred feet in height, that stand insulated on an extensive declivity, yet when viewed at a little distance, seem but as one solid body, vast, rugged, and of a form so peculiar, that it is not improbable this august work of nature's hand might have been selected as a rock-idol of the Druids, who once consecrated so many of the tors of Dartmoor to the ceremonies of their priesthood. Vixen Tor in its form has been aptly compared to the Sphinx,* and the abrupt heights, by which it is surrounded in various directions, to those "rocks amidst the flood of years," the pyramids of Egypt. The scene was at once wild and desolate, but full of grandeur.

This comparison was made by the Rev. E. A. Bray, in his MS; survey of the western limits of Dartmoor, in 1810, when in company with a friend, he managed to ascend to the very summit of Vixen Tor, through a natural fissure of the rock, and discovered on the top three basins cut in the solid granite. Mr. Burt, in his notes on Carrington's beautiful poem of Dartmoor, has lately made the same comparison.

In the foreground appeared a rugged mound thickly strewed with rough stones and heath, yet with no object of sufficient magnitude to interrupt the view of the dark tor, or to lessen its claim of solitary pre-eminence. But if viewed from the south-east, the abrupt fall of the land upon which it stands gives it a new character; and there Vixen Tor assumes the form of an ancient castle of stupendous construction, towering above the valley of the Walkham, that lies as it were sleeping in beauty far, far below its base; where the river winds its rapid course through this vale of enchantment, amidst woods that hang in rich profusion down to the very verge of its banks, strewed with rocks, over which the waters break in white foam as these masses interrupt their passage; and on the opposite side, the bold acclivities that form the boundary of the valley appear interspersed here and there with cottages, their blue smoke curling up, and relieving by contrast the deep green foliage of the woods, whilst they indicate, as do also the patches of cultivation in their little gardens, that this spot, on the skirts of the moor, shares neither its barren nor unsocial character.

From the direction, however, in which Levi and Benjamin advanced towards the tor, it appeared to them in that view we have first described, as a dark and solitary pile. In a moment its face seemed to change: for the clouds, that hung in a dense mass above, parted asunder; and a full flood of the morning light suddenly streamed upon the rock, and rendered it so brilliant as to shew every broken fissure of its surface, and the white lichen growing thick upon its sides.

Levi, whose mind was by no means insensible to the grandeur of nature, was impressed by the scene with a sense of awe and veneration; and the old man exclaimed, in the language of scripture, as he raised his hand and eyes towards heaven, "How fearful is this place! This is none other but the house of God! It is as the altar of unhewn stone that Jacob raised to the God of Israel."

"Uncle, uncle!" exclaimed Benjamin, and he drew near Levi with considerable perturbation as he spoke, "is not yonder figure the man we seek? I see his corslet glitter in the sun."

"Have you the bags ready for the silver?" said Levi, whose mind was instantly recalled from its images of grandeur and veneration by the slightest circumstance that referred to his worldly traffic, "Have you the bags? for we will not tarry long with yonder Goliah-Go on boy, to the tor."

"No, uncle Levi,” replied Benjamin, as he turned the ass upon which he now rode, after having remounted, so as to follow in the rear of Levi, "I will not go forward before you. To give place to the elder is a duty of our people; and that youth is foolish who forgets to honour age, as you have often told me yourself."

"You fear to go forward, Benjamin," said Levi. "It is fear that makes you remember it now. But I will warrant me you would not do as much if we were going to the May games of the Christian. You have the heart, Benjamin, of a little mouse, that fears the domestic cat though she be sleeping on the lap of the maidens. But come on, youth, and never fear, for yonder man will not hurt you. He comes to me in peace, even as doth the lion of the desert that bows down before his keeper."