n," said Miss Wardour, "and I will try to get
you sent to Tannonburgh."

"Mak haste then, my bonny leddy--mak haste, for the love o' goodness!"--
and he continued to exhort her to expedition until they reached the
Castle.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

Let those go see who will--I like it not--
For, say he was a slave to rank and pomp,
And all the nothings he is now divorced from
By the hard doom of stern necessity:
Yet it is sad to mark his altered brow,
Where Vanity adjusts her flimsy veil
O'er the deep wrinkles of repentant anguish.
Old Play.

When Miss Wardour arrived in the court of the Castle, she was apprized
by the first glance that the visit of the officers of the law had
already taken place. There was confusion, and gloom and sorrow, and
curiosity among the domestics, while the retainers of the law went from
place to place, making an inventory of the goods and chattels falling
under their warrant of distress, or poinding, as it is called in the
law of Scotland. Captain M'Intyre flew to her, as, struck dumb with
the melancholy conviction of her father's ruin, she paused upon the
threshold of the gateway.

"Dear Miss Wardour," he said, "do not make yourself uneasy; my uncle
is coming immediately, and I am sure he will find some way to clear the
house of these rascals."

"Alas! Captain M'Intyre, I fear it will be too late."

"No," answered Edie, impatiently--"could I but get to Tannonburgh. In the
name of Heaven, Captain, contrive some way to get me on, and ye'll do
this poor ruined family the best day's doing that has been done
them since Redhand's days--for as sure as e'er an auld saw came true,
Knockwinnock house and land will be lost and won this day."

"Why, what good can you do, old man?" said Hector.

But Robert, the domestic with whom Sir Arthur had been so much
displeased in the morning, as if he had been watching for an opportunity
to display his zeal, stepped hastily forward and said to his mistress,
"If you please, ma'am, this auld man, Ochiltree, is very skeely and
auld-farrant about mony things, as the diseases of cows and horse, and
sic like, and I am sure be disna want to be at Tannonburgh the day
for naething, since he insists on't this gate; and, if your leddyship
pleases, I'll drive him there in the taxed-cart in an hour's time. I wad