petuous, or dull and
sluggish, as if to correspond with it; and Mowbray's gallant steed
seemed on this occasion to feel all the stings of his master's internal
ferment, although not again urged with the spur. The ostler stood
listening to the clash of the hoofs, succeeding each other in thick and
close gallop, until they died away in the distant woodland.

"If St. Ronan's reach home this night, with his neck unbroken," muttered
the fellow, "the devil must have it in keeping."

"Mercy on us!" said the traveller, "he rides like a Bedouin Arab! but in
the desert there are neither trees to cross the road, nor cleughs, nor
linns, nor floods, nor fords. Well, I must set to work myself, or this
gear will get worse than even I can mend.--Here you, ostler, let me have
your best pair of horses instantly to Shaws-Castle."

"To Shaws-Castle, sir?" said the man, with some surprise.

"Yes--do you not know such a place?"

"In troth, sir, sae few company go there, except on the great ball day,
that we have had time to forget the road to it--but St. Ronan's was
here even now, sir."

"Ay, what of that?--he has ridden on to get supper ready--so, turn out
without loss of time."

"At your pleasure, sir," said the fellow, and called to the postilion
accordingly.

CHAPTER XVI.

DEBATE.

_Sedet post equitem atra cura_----

Still though the headlong cavalier,
O'er rough and smooth, in wild career,
Seems racing with the wind;
His sad companion,--ghastly pale,
And darksome as a widow's veil,
CARE--keeps her seat behind.

HORACE.

Well was it that night for Mowbray, that he had always piqued himself on
his horses, and that the animal on which he was then mounted was as
sure-footed and sagacious as he was mettled and fiery. For those who
observed next day the print of the hoofs on the broken and rugged track
through which the creature had been driven at full speed by his furious
master, might easily see, that in more than a dozen of places the horse
and rider had been within a few inches of destruction. One bough of a
gnarled and stunted oak-tree, which stretched across the road, seemed in
particular to have opposed an almost fatal barrier to the horseman's
career. In striking his head against this impediment, the force of the
blow had been broken in some measure by a high-crowned hat, yet the
violence of the shock was sufficient to shiver the branch to pieces.
Fortunately, it was already