ock would
be the same--Ay, ay, Monkbarns--we'll call it a fit of the gout without
the d--d pain."

But his eyes swelled with tears as he spoke, and his faltering accent
marked how much this assumed gaiety cost him. The Antiquary wrung his
hand, and, like the Indian Banians, who drive the real terms of an
important bargain by signs, while they are apparently talking of
indifferent matters, the hand of Sir Arthur, by its convulsive return of
the grasp, expressed his sense of gratitude to his friend, and the real
state of his internal agony.--They stepped slowly down the magnificent
staircase--every well-known object seeming to the unfortunate father and
daughter to assume a more prominent and distinct appearance than usual,
as if to press themselves on their notice for the last time.

At the first landing-place, Sir Arthur made an agonized pause; and as
he observed the Antiquary look at him anxiously, he said with assumed
dignity--"Yes, Mr. Oldbuck, the descendant of an ancient line--the
representative of Richard Redhand and Gamelyn de Guardover, may be
pardoned a sigh when he leaves the castle of his fathers thus poorly
escorted. When I was sent to the Tower with my late father, in the year
1745, it was upon a charge becoming our birth--upon an accusation of
high treason, Mr. Oldbuck;--we were escorted from Highgate by a troop of
life-guards, and committed upon a secretary of state's warrant; and
now, here I am, in my old age, dragged from my household by a miserable
creature like that" (pointing to the messenger), "and for a paltry
concern of pounds, shillings, and pence."

"At least," said Oldbuck, "you have now the company of a dutiful
daughter, and a sincere friend, if you will permit me to say so, and
that may be some consolation, even without the certainty that there can
be no hanging, drawing, or quartering, on the present occasion. But I
hear that choleric boy as loud as ever. I hope to God he has got into no
new broil!--it was an accursed chance that brought him here at all."

In fact, a sudden clamour, in which the loud voice and somewhat northern
accent of Hector was again preeminently distinguished, broke off this
conversation. The cause we must refer to the next CHAPTER.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.

Fortune, you say, flies from us--She but circles,
Like the fleet sea-bird round the fowler's skiff,--
Lost in the mist one moment, and the next
Brushin