ictions, and was
now about to thrust forth his own hand to the soothsayer, when from
a cross road to the right came the sound of hoofs, and presently a
horseman at full trot pulled up beside them.

"Hark ye, old she Devil, or you, Sirs--is this the road to Knaresbro'?"

The Gipsy drew back, and gazed on the countenance of the rider, on which
the red glare of the pine-brand shone full.

"To Knaresbro', Richard, the dare-devil? Ay, and what does the ramping
bird want in the ould nest? Welcome back to Yorkshire, Richard, my ben
cove!"

"Ha!" said the rider, shading his eyes with his hand, as he returned
the gaze of the Gipsy--"is it you, Bess Airlie: your welcome is like
the owl's, and reads the wrong way. But I must not stop. This takes to
Knaresbro' then?"

"Straight as a dying man's curse to hell," replied the crone, in that
metaphorical style in which all her tribe love to speak, and of which
their proper language is indeed almost wholly composed.

The horseman answered not, but spurred on.

"Who is that?" asked Walter earnestly, as the old woman stretched her
tawny neck after the rider.

"An ould friend, Sir," replied the Egyptian, drily. "I have not seen
him these fourteen years; but it is not Bess Airlie who is apt to forgit
friend or foe. Well, Sir, shall I tell your honour's good luck?"--(Here
she turned to the Corporal, who sat erect on his saddle with his hand on
his holster)--"the colour of the lady's hair--and--"

"Hold your tongue, you limb of Satan!" interrupted the Corporal
fiercely, as if his whole tide of thought, so lately favourable to the
Soothsayer, had undergone a deadly reversion. "Please your honour, it's
getting late, we had better be jogging!"

"You are right," said Walter spurring his jaded horse, and nodding his
adieu to the Gipsy,--he was soon out of sight of the encampment.

"Sir," said the Corporal joining his master, "that is a man as I have
seed afore; I knowed his ugly face again in a crack--'tis the man what
came to Grassdale arter Mr. Aram, and we saw arterwards the night we
chanced on Sir Peter Thingumybob."

"Bunting," said Walter, in a low voice, "I too have been trying to recal
the face of that man, and I too am persuaded I have seen it before. A
fearful suspicion, amounting almost to conviction, creeps over me, that
the hour in which I last saw it was one when my life was in peril. In a
word, I do believe that I beheld that face bending over me on the night
when I la