It is curious to mark how trifling a thing will sometimes connect, arrange, and render clear as day to the mind all that has before been vague, imperfect, and indistinct.  It is like the touch of lightning on an electric chain, link after link starts up till we see the illumined whole.  We have said Nigel had never heard the particulars of the tradition; but he looked on that misshapen plank, and in an instant a tale of blood and terror weaved itself in his mind; in that room the deed, whatever it was, had been done, and from that plank the sanguine evidence of murder had been with difficulty erased.  A cold shuddering passed over him, and he turned instinctively away, and strode hastily to examine the frame which had attracted him.  It did contain a picture—­we should rather say a portrait—­for it comprised but one figure, the half-length of a youthful warrior, clad in steel, save the beautifully-formed head, which was covered only by his own luxuriant raven curls.  In a better light it could not have been placed, particularly in the evening; the rays, condensed and softened, seemed to gather up their power into one focus, and throw such an almost supernatural glow on the half face, give such an extraordinary appearance of life to the whole figure, that a casual visitant to that chamber might well fancy it was no picture but reality on which he gazed.  But no such emotion was at work in the bosom of Nigel Bruce, though his first glance upon that face occasioned an almost convulsive start, and then a gaze of such intense, such almost fearful interest, that he stood as if fascinated by some overpowering spell.  His features, worked with internal emotions, flushed and paled alternately.  It was no weak-minded terror which bound him there, no mood in which a step or sound could chill and startle, for so wrapt was he in his own strange dreams that he heard not a slow and measured step approach him; he did not even start when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and the melodious voice of the seer caused him to turn slowly around.

“The warnings thou hast heard have no power on thee, young lord,” he said, slightly smiling, “or I should not see thee here at this hour alone.  Yet thou wert strangely wrapt.”

“Knowest thou aught of him, good father?” answered Nigel, in a voice that to his own ears sounded hoarse and unnatural, and turning his glance once again to the portrait.  “My thoughts are busy with that face and yon tale-telling plank; there are wild, feverish, incongruous dreams within me, and I would have them solved.  Thou of all others art best fitted to the task, for amid the records of the past, where thou hast loved to linger, thou hast surely found the tradition of this tower.  I shame not to confess there is in my heart a deep yearning to learn the truth.  Wherefore, when thy harp and song have so pleasantly whiled the evening hours, did not this tale find voice, good father?”

“Alas! my son, ’tis too fraught with horror, too sad for gentle ears.  A few stern, rugged words will best repeat it.  I love not to linger on the theme; listen then now, and it shall be told thee.”