ddle Dick the miller's bones for him."

"Do, my dear Thornie; horsewhip the rascal to purpose--via--fly away, and
about it;"--Thorncliff went off at the gallop--"or get horsewhipt
yourself, which will serve my purpose just as well.--I must teach them
all discipline and obedience to the word of command. I am raising a
regiment, you must know. Thornie shall be my sergeant-major, Dickon my
riding-master, and Wilfred, with his deep dub-a-dub tones, that speak but
three syllables at a time, my kettle-drummer."

"And Rashleigh?"

"Rashleigh shall be my scout-master." "And will you find no employment
for me, most lovely colonel?"

"You shall have the choice of being pay-master, or plunder-master, to the
corps. But see how the dogs puzzle about there. Come, Mr. Frank, the
scent's cold; they won't recover it there this while; follow me, I have a
view to show you."

And in fact, she cantered up to the top of a gentle hill, commanding an
extensive prospect. Casting her eyes around, to see that no one was near
us, she drew up her horse beneath a few birch-trees, which screened us
from the rest of the hunting-field--"Do you see yon peaked, brown, heathy
hill, having something like a whitish speck upon the side?"

"Terminating that long ridge of broken moorish uplands?--I see it
distinctly."

"That whitish speck is a rock called Hawkesmore-crag, and Hawkesmore-crag
is in Scotland."

"Indeed! I did not think we had been so near Scotland."

"It is so, I assure you, and your horse will carry you there in two
hours."

"I shall hardly give him the trouble; why, the distance must be eighteen
miles as the crow flies."

"You may have my mare, if you think her less blown--I say, that in two
hours you may be in Scotland."

"And I say, that I have so little desire to be there, that if my horse's
head were over the Border, I would not give his tail the trouble of
following. What should I do in Scotland?"

"Provide for your safety, if I must speak plainly. Do you understand me
now, Mr. Frank?"

"Not a whit; you are more and more oracular."

"Then, on my word, you either mistrust me most unjustly, and are a better
dissembler than Rashleigh Osbaldistone himself, or you know nothing of
what is imputed to you; and then no wonder you stare at me in that grave
manner, which I can scarce see without laughing."

"Upon my word of honour, Miss Vernon," said I, with an impatient feeling
of her childish disposition to mirth, "I have not