I was unable, as the reader may easily conceive, to join in the Justice's jollity. My head swam with the shock I had received. "I never heard," I said, "that Miss Vernon's father was living."

"It was not our government's fault that he is," replied Inglewood," for the devil a man there is whose head would have brought more money. He was condemned to death for Fenwick's plot, and was thought to have had some hand in the Knights-bridge affair, in King William's time; and as he had married in Scotland, a relation of the house of Breadalbane, he possessed great influence with all their chiefs. There was a talk of his being demanded to be given up at the Peace of Ryswick, but he shammed ill, and his death was given publicly out in the French papers. But when he came back here on the old score, we old cavaliers knew him well,-that is to say, I knew him, not as being a cavalier myself, but no information being lodged against the poor gentleman, and my memory being shortened by frequent attacks of the gout, I could not have sworn to him, you know."

"Was he then not known at Osbaldistone Hall ?" I inquired.

"To none but his daughter, the old knight, and Rashleigh, who had got at that secret as he did at every one else, and held it like a twisted cord about poor Die's neck. I have seen her one hundred times she would have spit at him, if it had not been fear for her father, whose life would not have been worth five minutes purchase if he had been discovered to the government-But don't mistake me, Mr. Osbaldistone; I say the government is a good, a gracious, and a just government; and if it has hanged one-half of the rebels, poor things, all will acknowledge they would not have been touched had they staid peaceably at home."

Waiving the discussion of these political questions, I brought back Mr. Inglewood to his subject, and I found that Diana, having positively refused to marry any of the Osbaldistone family, and expressed her particular detestation of Rashleigh, he had from that time begun to cool

in zeal for the cause of the Pretender, to which, as the youngest of six brethren, and bold, artful, and able, he had hitherto looked forward as the means of making his fortune. Probably the compulsion with which he had been forced to render up the spoils which he had abstracted from my father's counting-house by the united authority of Sir Frederick Vernon, and the Scottish Chiefs, had determined his resolution to advance his progress by changing his opinions, and betraying his trust. Perhaps also, for few men were better judges where his interest was concerned, he considered their means and talents to be, as they afterwards proved, greatly inadequate to the important task of overthrowing an established government. Sir Frederick Vernon, or, as he was called among the Jacobites, his Excellency Viscount Beauchamp, had, with his daughter, some difficulty in escaping the consequences of Rashleigh's information. Here Mr. Inglewood's information was at fault; but he did not doubt, since we had not heard of Sir Frederick being in the hands of the government, he must be by this time abroad, where, agreeable to the cruel bond he had entered into with his brother-in-law, Diana, since she had declined to select a husband out of the Osbaldistone family, must be confined to a convent. The original cause of this singular agreement Mr. Inglewood could not perfectly explain; but he understood it was a family compact, entered into for the purpose of securing to Sir Frederick the rents of the remnant of his large estates, which had been vested in the Osbaldistone family by some legal manœuvre ; in short, a family compact, in which, like many of those undertaken at that time of day, the feelings of the principal parties interested were no more regarded than if they had been a part of the live-stock upon the lands.

I cannot tell, such is the waywardness of the human heart, whether this intelligence gave me joy or sorrow It seemed to me, that, in the knowledge that Miss Ver non was eternally divided from me, not by marriage with another, but by seclusion in a convent, in order to fulfil an absurd bargain of this kind, my regret for her loss was

aggravated rather than diminished. I became dull, lowspirited, absent, and unable to support the task of couversing with Justice Inglewood, who in his turn yawned, and proposed to retire early. I took leave of him over night, determining the next day before breakfast, to ride over to Osbaldistone Hall.

Mr. Inglewood acquiesced in my proposal. "It would be well," he said, "that I made my appearance there before I was known to be in the country, the more especially as Sir Rashleigh Osbaldistone was now, he understood, at Mr. Jobson's house, hatching some mischief doubtless. They were fit company," he added, "for each other, Sir Rashleigh having lost all right to mingle in the society of men of honour; but it was hardly possible two such dd rascals should collogue together without mischief to honest people."

He concluded, by earnestly recommending a toast and tankard, and an attack upon his venison pasty, before 1 set out in the morning, just to break the cold air on the wolds.

THERE are few more melancholy sensations than those with which we regard scenes of past pleasure, when altered and deserted. In my ride to Osbaldistone Hall, 1 past the same objects which I had seen in company with Miss Vernon on the day of our memorable ride from Inglewood-Place. Her spirit seemed to keep me company on the way; and, when I approached the spot where I had 18* VOL. II

first seen her, I almost listened for the cry of the hounds and the notes of the horn, and strained my eye on vacant space, as if to descry the fair huntress again descend like an apparition from the hill. But all was silent, and all was solitary. When I reached the Hall, the closed doors and windows, the grass-grown pavement, the courts, which were now so silent, presented a strong contrast to the gay and bustling scene I had so often seen them exhibit, when the merry hunters were going forth to their morning sport, or returning to the daily festival. The joyous bark of the fox-hounds as they were uncoupled, the cries of the huntsmen, the clang of the horses' hoofs, the loud laugh of the old knight at the head of his strong and numerous descendants, were all silenced now and forever.

While I gazed round the scene of solitude and emptiness, I was inexpressibly affected, even by recollecting those whom, when alive, I had no reason to regard with affection. But the thought that so many youths of goodly presence, warm with life, health, and confidence, were within so short a time cold in the grave, by various yet all violent and unexpected modes of death, afforded a picture of mortality at which the mind trembled. It was little consolation to me that I returned a proprietor to the halls, which I had left almost like a fugitive. My mind was not habituated to regard the scenes around as my property, and I felt myself an usurper, at least an intruding stranger, and could hardly divest myself of the idea, that some of the bulky forms of my deceased kinsmen, were, like the gigantic spectres of a romance, to appear in the gateway, and dispute my entrance.

While I was engaged in these sad thoughts, my follow er, Andrew, whose feelings were of a very different nature, exerted himself in thundering alternately on every door in the building, calling, at the same time, for admittance, in a tone so loud as to intimate, that he, at least, was fully sensible of his newly acquired importance, as squire of the body to the new lord-of-the-manor. At length, timidly and reluctantly, Anthony Syddall, my uncle's aged butler and major-domo, presented himself

at a lower window, well fenced with iron bars, and inquired our business.

Ye

"We are come to tak your charge aff your hand, my auld friend," said Andrew Fairservice σε ; ye may gie up your keys as sune as ye like-ilka dog has his day. I'll tak the plate and napery aff your hand. hae had your ain time o't Mr. Syddall; but ilka bean has its black, and ilka path has its puddle; and it will 'ust set you henceforth to sit at the board-end, as weel as it did Andrew lang syne."

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Checking with some difficulty the forwardness of my follower, I explained to Syddall the nature of my right, and the title I had to demand admittance into the Hall, as into my own property. The old man seemed much agitated and distressed, and testified manifest reluctance to give me entrance, although it was couched in a humble and submissive tone. I allowed for the agitation of natural feelings, which really did the old man honour; but continued peremptory in my demand of admittance, explaining to him that his refusal would oblige me to apply for Mr. Inglewood's warrant, and a constable.

"We are come from Mr. Justice Inglewood's this morning," said Andrew, to enforce the menace," and I saw Archie Rutledge, the constable, as I came up bythe country's no to be lawless as it has been, Mr. Syddall, letting rebels and papists gang on as they best listed."

The threat of the law sounded dreadful in the old man's ears, conscious as he was of the suspicion under which he himself lay, from his religion and his devotion to Sir Hildebrand and his sons. He undid, with fear and trembling, one of the postern entrances, which was secured with many a bolt and bar, and humbly hoped that I would excuse him for fidelity in the discharge of his duty. I reassured him, and told him I had the better opinion of him for his caution.

"Sae have not I," said Andrew; "Syddall is an auld sneck-drawer; he wadna be looking as white as a sheet, and his knees knocking thegither, unless it were for something mair than he's like to tell us."