nd prejudice; and Mr. Panscope, the chemical, botanical,
geological, astronomical, critical philosopher, who had run through the
whole circle of the sciences and understood them all equally well.

Mr. Milestone was impatient to take a walk round the grounds, that he
might examine how far the system of clumping and levelling could be
carried advantageously into effect; and several of the party supporting
the proposition, with Squire Headlong and Mr. Milestone leading the van,
they commenced their perambulation.

_III.--The Tower and the Skull_

The result of Mr. Milestone's eloquence was that he and the squire set
out again, immediately after breakfast next morning, to examine the
capabilities of the scenery. The object that most attracted Mr.
Milestone's admiration was a ruined tower on a projecting point of rock,
almost totally overgrown with ivy. This ivy, Mr. Milestone observed,
required trimming and clearing in various parts; a little pointing and
polishing was necessary for the dilapidated walls; and the whole effect
would be materially increased by a plantation of spruce fir, the present
rugged and broken ascent being first converted into a beautiful slope,
which might be easily effected by blowing up a part of the rock with
gunpowder, laying on a quantity of fine mould, and covering the whole
with an elegant stratum of turf.

Squire Headlong caught with avidity at this suggestion, and as he had
always a store of gunpowder in the house, he insisted on commencing
operations immediately. Accordingly, he bounded back to the house and
speedily returned, accompanied by the little butler and half a dozen
servants and labourers with pickaxes and gunpowder, a hanging stove, and
a poker, together with a basket of cold meat and two or three bottles of
Madeira.

Mr. Milestone superintended the proceedings. The rock was excavated, the
powder introduced, the apertures strongly blockaded with fragments of
stone; a long train was laid to a spot sufficiently remote from the
possibility of harm, and the squire seized the poker, and applied the
end of it to the train.

At this critical moment Mr. Cranium and Mr. Panscope appeared at the top
of the tower, which, unseeing and unseen, they had ascended on the
opposite side to that where the squire and Mr. Milestone were conducting
their operations. Their sudden appearance a little dismayed the squire,
who, however, comforted himself with the reflection that the tower was
pe