en years, as if he was to
survive the century. He still breathed rage and retribution against the
Chevalier, and actually seemed to regard the lady's choice as a
particular infraction of personal claims. He had pursued the fugitives
day and night, until the pursuit threw him into a kind of fever. While
under this paroxysm he had met the enamoured pair, but it was on their
way from that forge on the Border where so many heavy chains have been
manufactured. Useless as challenging was now, he challenged the husband.
The parties met, and my father received a bullet in his body, while he
had the satisfaction of lodging one in his antagonist's knee-pan. The
Chevalier was doomed to waltz no more. But his bullet was fatal.

As I looked round the wretched chamber in which this bold, arrogant, and
busy spirit was evidently about to breathe its last, Pope's lines on the
most splendid _roue_ of his day involuntarily and painfully shot across
my recollection:--

"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,
The walls of plaster, and the floor of dung;
The George and Garter dangling from the bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies; alas, how changed from him
The glass of fashion!"

I say no more of those scenes; a few days, only enough to collect the
branches of the family round the bed, terminated every thing. Grief,
they say, cannot exist where there is no love, but I was not inclined,
just then, to draw subtle distinctions. I was grieved; and paid the last
duties, without blame to myself, or, I hope, irreverence in the sight of
others. The funeral was stately, and all was over.

Matters now took a new shape at the castle. My brother returned, to find
himself its possessor. His journey had been equally unproductive with my
unfortunate father's. By dint of bribing the postilions, he had even
overpassed the fugitives on the Dover road. But, as he stopped to dine
in Canterbury, where he had prepared a posse of constables for their
reception, he had, unluckily, been accosted by an old London
acquaintance, who had accidentally fixed his quarters there for a day or
two, "seeking whom he might devour." The dinner was followed by a
carouse, the carouse by a "quiet game," or games, which lasted till the
next day; and when my brother rose, with the glow of a superb sunset
giving him the first intimation that he was among the living, he made
the discovery that he was stripped of th