APTER XXIV.

Butler. What are these, sir?

Yeoman. And of what nature, to what use?

Latroc. Imagine.
The Tragedy of Rollo.

Quickly. He's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went
to Arthur's bosom.
Henry V.

The stream of our narrative now conducts us back to William Brandon. The
law-promotions previously intended were completed; and to the surprise
of the public, the envied barrister, undergoing the degradation of
knighthood, had, at the time we return to him, just changed his toilsome
occupations for the serene dignity of the bench. Whatever regret this
wily and aspiring schemer might otherwise have felt at an elevation
considerably less distinguished than he might reasonably have
expected, was entirely removed by the hopes afforded to him of a speedy
translation to a more brilliant office: it was whispered among those
not unlikely to foresee such events, that the interest of the government
required his talents in the house of peers. Just at this moment, too,
the fell disease, whose ravages Brandon endeavoured, as jealously as
possible, to hide from the public, had appeared suddenly to yield to the
skill of a new physician; and by the administration of medicines which a
man less stern or resolute might have trembled to adopt (so powerful and
for the most part deadly was their nature), he passed from a state of
almost insufferable torture to an elysium of tranquillity and ease.
Perhaps, however, the medicines which altered also decayed his
constitution; and it was observable that in two cases where the
physician had attained a like success by the same means, the patients
had died suddenly, exactly at the time when their cure seemed to be
finally completed. However, Sir William Brandon appeared very little
anticipative of danger. His manner became more cheerful and even than
it had ever been before; there was a certain lightness in his gait, a
certain exhilaration in his voice and eye, which seemed the tokens of
one from whom a heavy burden had been suddenly raised, and who was no
longer prevented from the eagerness of hope by the engrossing claims of
a bodily pain. He had always been bland in society, but now his
courtesy breathed less of artifice,--it took a more hearty tone. Another
alteration was discernible in him, and that was precisely the reverse of
what might have been expected