n. Four
hills hemmed in the valley. Here and there a gray slab of rock might be
discerned amongst the wood, and a mountain-ash figured conspicuously
upon a jutting crag immediately below them. Deep sunken in the ravine,
and concealed in part from view by the wild herbage and dwarf shrubs,
ran a range of precipitous rocks, severed, it would seem, by some
diluvial convulsion, from the opposite mountain side, as a corresponding
rift was there visible, in which the same dip of strata might be
observed, together with certain ribbed cavities, matching huge bolts of
rock which had once locked these stony walls together. Washing this
cliff, swept a clear stream, well known and well regarded, as it waxed
in width, by the honest brethren of the angle, who seldom, however,
tracked it to its rise amongst these hills. The stream found its way
into the valley through a chasm far to the left, and rushed thundering
down the mountain side in a boiling cascade. The valley was approached
in this direction from Rookwood by an unfrequented carriage-road, which
Luke had, from prudential reasons, avoided. All seemed consecrated to
silence--to solitude--to the hush of nature; yet this quiet scene was
the chosen retreat of lawless depredators, and had erstwhile been the
theatre of feudal oppression. We have said that no habitation was
visible; that no dwelling tenanted by man could be seen; but following
the spur of the furthest mountain hill, some traces of a stone wall
might be discovered; and upon a natural platform of rock stood a stern
square tower, which had once been the donjon of the castle, the lords of
which had called the four hills their own. A watch-tower then had
crowned each eminence, every vestige of which had, however, long since
disappeared. Sequestered in the vale stood the Priory before alluded
to--a Monastery of Gray Friars, of the Order of St. Francis--some of the
venerable walls of which were still remaining; and if they had not
reverted to the bat and the owl, as is wont to be the fate of such
sacred structures, their cloistered shrines were devoted to beings whose
natures partook, in some measure, of the instincts of those creatures of
the night--a people whose deeds were of darkness, and whose eyes shunned
the light. Here the gipsies had pitched their tent; and though the place
was often, in part, deserted by the vagrant horde, yet certain of the
tribe, who had grown into years--over whom Barbara Lovel held queenly
sway