these terrors, he now hastened his steps,
stopping at times to listen, and at times calling on his daughter in the
wildest accents. Without knowing whither he went, he soon lost himself
in the mazes of the wood, and wandered on for hours in a state bordering
upon distraction. Suspicion had so mastered his reason that he had
convinced himself the whole was a deliberate scheme,--that MacNaghten
had planned all beforehand. In his disordered fancies, he did not
scruple to accuse his daughter of complicity, and inveighed against her
falsehood and treachery in the bitterest words.

And what was Dan MacNaghten doing all this time? Anything, everything,
in short, but what he was accused of! In good truth, he had little time
for love-making, had such a project even entered his head, so divided
were his attentions between the care of the cattle and his task of
describing the different scenes through which they passed at speed,--the
prospect being like one of those modern inventions called dissolving
views,--no sooner presenting an object than superseding it by another.
In addition to all this, he had to reconcile Miss Polly to what seemed
a desertion of her father; so that, what with his "cares of coachman,
cicerone, and consoler," as he himself afterwards said, it was clean
beyond him to slip in even a word on his own part. It is no part of my
task to inquire how Polly enjoyed the excursion, or whether the dash of
recklessness, so unlike every incident of her daily life, did not repay
her for any discomfort of her father's absence: certain is it that when,
after about six miles traversed in less than half an hour, they returned
to the Castle, her first sense of apprehension was felt by not finding
her father to meet her. No sooner had MacNaghten conducted her to the
library than he set out himself in search of Fagan, having despatched
messengers in all directions on the same errand. Dan, it must be owned,
had far rather have remained to reassure Miss Polly, and convince her
that her father's absence would be but momentary; but he felt that it
was a point of duty with him to go--and go he did.

It chanced that, by dint of turning and winding, Fagan had at length
approached the Castle again, so that MacNaghten came up with him within
a few minutes after his search began. "Safe, and where?" were the only
words the old man could utter as he grasped the other's arm. Dan, who
attributed the agitation to but one cause, proceeded at on