nt the oppressor ere I left my
native land, and upbraid him with his tyranny and its consequences.
I would have stated my wrongs so that they would have shaken his soul
within him."

"Yes," answered Bucklaw, "and he would have collared you, and cried
'help,' and then you would have shaken the soul OUT of him, I suppose.
Your very look and manner would have frightened the old man to death."

"Consider the provocation," answered Ravenswood--"consider the ruin and
death procured and caused by his hard-hearted cruelty--an ancient house
destroyed, an affectionate father murdered! Why, in our old Scottish
days, he that sat quiet under such wrongs would have been held neither
fit to back a friend nor face a foe."

"Well, Master, I am glad to see that the devil deals as cunningly with
other folk as he deals with me; for whenever I am about to commit any
folly, he persuades me it is the most necessary, gallant, gentlemanlike
thing on earth, and I am up to saddlegirths in the bog before I see that
the ground is soft. And you, Master, might have turned out a murd----a
homicide, just out of pure respect for your father's memory."

"There is more sense in your language, Bucklaw," replied the Master,
"than might have been expected from your conduct. It is too true, our
vices steal upon us in forms outwardly as fair as those of the demons
whom the superstitious represent as intriguing with the human race, and
are not discovered in their native hideousness until we have clasped
them in our arms."

"But we may throw them from us, though," said Bucklaw, "and that is
what I shall think of doing one of these days--that is, when old Lady
Girnington dies."

"Did you ever hear the expression of the English divine?" said
Ravenswood--"'Hell is paved with good intentions,'--as much as to say,
they are more often formed than executed."

"Well," replied Bucklaw, "but I will begin this blessed night, and have
determined not to drink above one quart of wine, unless your claret be
of extraordinary quality."

"You will find little to tempt you at Wolf's Crag," said the Master. "I
know not that I can promise you more than the shelter of my roof; all,
and more than all, our stock of wine and provisions was exhausted at the
late occasion."

"Long may it be ere provision is needed for the like purpose," answered
Bucklaw; "but you should not drink up the last flask at a dirge; there
is ill luck in that."

"There is ill luck, I think, in whatev