l matched," said Oldbuck, looking after them as they
started--"a mad horse and a wild boy, the two most unruly creatures in
Christendom! and all to get half an hour sooner to a place where nobody
wants him; for I doubt Sir Arthur's griefs are beyond the cure of our
light horseman. It must be the villany of Dousterswivel, for whom Sir
Arthur has done so much; for I cannot help observing, that, with some
natures, Tacitus's maxim holdeth good: Beneficia eo usque laeta sunt
dum videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium
redditur,--from which a wise man might take a caution, not to oblige any
man beyond the degree in which he may expect to be requited, lest he
should make his debtor a bankrupt in gratitude."

Murmuring to himself such scraps of cynical philosophy, our Antiquary
paced the sands towards Knockwinnock; but it is necessary we should
outstrip him, for the purpose of explaining the reasons of his being so
anxiously summoned thither.

CHAPTER TWENTIETH.

So, while the Goose, of whom the fable told,
Incumbent, brooded o'er her eggs of gold,
With hand outstretched, impatient to destroy,
Stole on her secret nest the cruel Boy,
Whose gripe rapacious changed her splendid dream,
--For wings vain fluttering, and for dying scream.
The Loves of the Sea-weeds.

From the time that Sir Arthur Wardour had become possessor of the
treasure found in Misticot's grave, he had been in a state of mind more
resembling ecstasy than sober sense. Indeed, at one time his daughter
had become seriously apprehensive for his intellect; for, as he had
no doubt that he had the secret of possessing himself of wealth to an
unbounded extent, his language and carriage were those of a man who
had acquired the philosopher's stone. He talked of buying contiguous
estates, that would have led him from one side of the island to the
other, as if he were determined to brook no neighbour save the sea. He
corresponded with an architect of eminence, upon a plan of renovating
the castle of his forefathers on a style of extended magnificence that
might have rivalled that of Windsor, and laying out the grounds on
a suitable scale. Troops of liveried menials were already, in fancy,
marshalled in his halls, and--for what may not unbounded wealth authorize
its possessor to aspire to?--the coronet of a marquis, perhaps of