hey became better
acquainted in the progress of the journey, his noble relation explained
the very liberal views which he entertained for his relation's
preferment, in case of the success of his own political schemes. They
related to a secret and highly important commission beyond sea, which
could only be entrusted to a person of rank, talent, and perfect
confidence, and which, as it required great trust and reliance on the
envoy employed, could but not prove both honourable and advantageous to
him. We need not enter into the nature and purpose of this commission,
farther than to acquaint our readers that the charge was in prospect
highly acceptable to the Master of Ravenswood, who hailed with pleasure
the hope of emerging from his present state of indigence and inaction
into independence and honourable exertion.

While he listened thus eagerly to the details with which the Marquis
now thought it necessary to entrust him, the messenger who had been
despatched to the Tower of Wolf's Crag returned with Caleb Balderstone's
humble duty, and an assurance that "a' should be in seemly order, sic as
the hurry of time permitted, to receive their lordships as it behoved."

Ravenswood was too well accustomed to his seneschal's mode of acting and
speaking to hope much from this confident assurance. He knew that Caleb
acted upon the principle of the Spanish genrals, in the campaign
of ----, who, much to the perplexity of the Prince of Orange, their
commander-in-chief, used to report their troops as full in number,
and possessed of all necessary points of equipment, not considering it
consistent with their dignity, or the honour of Spain, to confess
any deficiency either in men or munition, until the want of both was
unavoidably discovered in the day of battle. Accordingly, Ravenswood
thought it necessary to give the Marquis some hint that the fair
assurance which they had just received from Caleb did not by any means
ensure them against a very indifferent reception.

"You do yourself injustice, Master," said the Marquis, "or you wish
to surprise me agreeably. From this window I see a great light in the
direction where, if I remember aright, Wolf's Crag lies; and, to judge
from the splendour which the old Tower sheds around it, the preparations
for our reception must be of no ordinary description. I remember your
father putting the same deception on me, when we went to the Tower for
a few days' hawking, about twenty years since, an