so much of our
family matters as you yourself know. At our next meeting I will complete
the task of disclosure, and I trust I shall restore one Redgauntlet more
to the bosom of our ancient family. Let Latimer, as he calls himself,
have a horse to himself; he must for some time retain his disguise.--My
horse--my horse!'

In two minutes they heard him ride off from the door of the barn,
followed at speed by two of the armed men of his party.

The commands of Cristal Nixon, in the meanwhile, put all the remainder
of the party in motion, but the laird himself was long out of sight ere
they were in readiness to resume their journey. When at length they set
out, Darsie was accommodated with a horse and side-saddle, instead of
being obliged to resume his place on the pillion behind the detestable
Nixon. He was obliged, however, to retain his riding-skirt, and to
reassume his mask. Yet, notwithstanding this disagreeable circumstance,
and although he observed that they gave him the heaviest and slowest
horse of the party, and that, as a further precaution against escape, he
was closely watched on every side, yet riding in company with the pretty
Lilias was an advantage which overbalanced these inconveniences.

It is true that this society, to which that very morning he would
have looked forward as a glimpse of heaven, had, now that it was
thus unexpectedly indulged, something much less rapturous than he had
expected.

It was in vain that, in order to avail himself of a situation so
favourable for indulging his romantic disposition, he endeavoured to
coax back, if I may so express myself, that delightful dream of ardent
and tender passion; he felt only such a confusion of ideas at the
difference between the being whom he had imagined, and her with whom he
was now in contact, that it seemed to him like the effect of witchcraft.
What most surprised him was, that this sudden flame should have died
away so rapidly, notwithstanding that the maiden's personal beauty was
even greater than he had expected--her demeanour, unless it should be
deemed over kind towards himself, as graceful and becoming as he could
have fancied if, even in his gayest dreams. It were judging hardly
of him to suppose that the mere belief of his having attracted
her affections more easily than he expected was the cause of his
ungratefully undervaluing a prize too lightly won, or that his transient
passion played around his heart with the hitting radiance of