S NEAR, AS YOU LENT
YOUR EE TO THE WEIRD THAT WAS FAR. HAVE A CARRIAGE THIS NIGHT BY TEN
O'CLOCK AT THE END OF THE CROOKED DYKES AT PORTANFERRY, AND LET IT BRING
THE FOLK TO WOODBOURNE THAT SHALL ASK THEM, IF THEY BE THERE IN GOD'S
NAME."--Stay, here follows some poetry--

"DARK SHALL BE LIGHT,
AND WRONG DONE TO RIGHT,
WHEN BERTRAM'S RIGHT AND BERTRAM'S MIGHT
SHALL MEET ON ELLANGOWAN'S HEIGHT."

A most mystic epistle truly, and closes in a vein of poetry worthy of the
Cumaean sibyl. And what have you done?'

'Why,' said Mannering, rather reluctantly, 'I was loth to risk any
opportunity of throwing light on this business. The woman is perhaps
crazed, and these effusions may arise only from visions of her
imagination; but you were of opinion that she knew more of that strange
story than she ever told.'

'And so,' said Pleydell, 'you sent a carriage to the place named?'

'You will laugh at me if I own I did,' replied the Colonel.

'Who, I?' replied the Advocate. 'No, truly, I think it was the wisest
thing you could do.'

'Yes,' answered Mannering, well pleased to have escaped the ridicule he
apprehended; 'you know the worst is paying the chaise-hire. I sent a
post-chaise and four from Kippletringan, with instructions corresponding
to the letter; the horses will have a long and cold station on the
outpost to-night if our intelligence be false.'

'Ay, but I think it will prove otherwise,' said the Lawyer. 'This woman
has played a part till she believes it; or, if she be a thorough-paced
impostor, without a single grain of self-delusion to qualify her knavery,
still she may think herself bound to act in character; this I know, that
I could get nothing out of her by the common modes of interrogation, and
the wisest thing we can do is to give her an opportunity of making the
discovery her own way. And now have you more to say, or shall we go to
the ladies?'

'Why, my mind is uncommonly agitated,' answered the Colonel, 'and--but I
really have no more to say; only I shall count the minutes till the
carriage returns; but you cannot be expected to be so anxious.'

'Why, no; use is all in all,' said the more experienced lawyer; 'I am
much interested certainly, but I think I shall be able to survive the
interval, if the ladies will afford us some music.'

'And with the assistance of the wild ducks, by and by?' suggested
Mannering.

'True, Colonel; a lawyer's anxiety about the fate of the most inter