ugh
of the old knight at the head of his strong and numerous descendants,
were all silenced now and for ever.

While I gazed round the scene of solitude and emptiness, I was
inexpressibly affected, even by recollecting those whom, when alive, I
had no reason to regard with affection. But the thought that so many
youths of goodly presence, warm with life, health, and confidence, were
within so short a time cold in the grave, by various, yet all violent and
unexpected modes of death, afforded a picture of mortality at which the
mind trembled. It was little consolation to me, that I returned a
proprietor to the halls which I had left almost like a fugitive. My mind
was not habituated to regard the scenes around as my property, and I felt
myself an usurper, at least an intruding stranger, and could hardly
divest myself of the idea, that some of the bulky forms of my deceased
kinsmen were, like the gigantic spectres of a romance, to appear in the
gateway, and dispute my entrance.

While I was engaged in these sad thoughts, my follower Andrew, whose
feelings were of a very different nature, exerted himself in thundering
alternately on every door in the building, calling, at the same time, for
admittance, in a tone so loud as to intimate, that _he,_ at least, was
fully sensible of his newly acquired importance, as squire of the body to
the new lord of the manor. At length, timidly and reluctantly, Anthony
Syddall, my uncle's aged butler and major-domo, presented himself at a
lower window, well fenced with iron bars, and inquired our business.

"We are come to tak your charge aff your hand, my auld friend," said
Andrew Fairservice; "ye may gie up your keys as sune as ye like--ilka dog
has his day. I'll tak the plate and napery aff your hand. Ye hae had your
ain time o't, Mr. Syddall; but ilka bean has its black, and ilka path has
its puddle; and it will just set you henceforth to sit at the board-end,
as weel as it did Andrew lang syne."

Checking with some difficulty the forwardness of my follower, I explained
to Syddall the nature of my right, and the title I had to demand
admittance into the Hall, as into my own property. The old man seemed
much agitated and distressed, and testified manifest reluctance to give
me entrance, although it was couched in a humble and submissive tone. I
allowed for the agitation of natural feelings, which really did the old
man honour; but continued peremptory in my demand of admittance,
expl