se
in their conversation.

"And who is Eleanor Mowbray?" asked Luke, breaking the silence.

"Your cousin. On the mother's side a Rookwood. 'Tis therefore I would
urge your union with her. There is a prophecy relating to your house,
which seems as though it would be fulfilled in your person and in hers:

When the stray Rook shall perch on the topmost bough,
There shall be clamor and screaming, I trow;
But of right, and of rule, of the ancient nest,
The Rook that with Rook mates shall hold him possest."

"I place no faith in such fantasies," replied Luke; "and yet the lines
bear strangely upon my present situation."

"Their application to yourself and Eleanor Mowbray is unquestionable,"
replied the sexton.

"It would seem so, indeed," rejoined Luke; and he again sank into
abstraction, from which the sexton did not care to arouse him.

The aspect of the country had materially changed since their descent of
the hill. In place of the richly-cultivated district which lay on the
other side, a broad brown tract of waste land spread out before them,
covered with scattered patches of gorse, stunted fern, and low
brushwood, presenting an unvaried surface of unbaked turf. The shallow
coat of sod was manifested by the stones that clattered under the
horse's hoofs as he rapidly traversed the arid soil, clearing with ease
to himself, though not without discomfort to the sexton, every gravelly
trench, natural chasm, or other inequality of ground that occurred in
his course. Clinging to his grandson with the tenacity of a bird of
prey, Peter for some time kept his station in security; but, unluckily,
at one dike rather wider than the rest, the horse, owing possibly to the
mismanagement, intentional or otherwise, of Luke, swerved; and the
sexton, dislodged from his "high estate," fell at the edge of the
trench, and rolled incontinently to the bottom.

Luke drew in the rein to inquire if any bones were broken; and Peter
presently upreared his dusty person from the abyss, and without
condescending to make any reply, yet muttering curses, "not loud, but
deep," accepted his grandson's proffered hand, and remounted.

While thus occupied, Luke fancied he heard a distant shout, and noting
whence the sound proceeded--the same quarter by which he had approached
the heath--he beheld a single horseman spurring in their direction at
the top of his speed; and to judge from the rate at which he advanced,
it was evident he wa