very evening, impatient, it seems, of
remaining a night out of the guardianship of the domestic Lares. Having
this information from James, whose brow wore rather an anxious look on
the occasion, I dispatched a Highland chairman to the livery stable with
my Bucephalus, and slunk, with as little noise as might be, into my own
den, where I began to mumble certain half-gnawed and not half-digested
doctrines of our municipal code. I was not long seated, when my father's
visage was thrust, in a peering sort of way, through the half-opened
door; and withdrawn, on seeing my occupation, with a half-articulated
HUMPH! which seemed to convey a doubt of the seriousness of my
application. If it were so, I cannot condemn him; for recollection of
thee occupied me so entirely during an hour's reading, that although
Stair lay before me, and notwithstanding that I turned over three or
four pages, the sense of his lordship's clear and perspicuous style
so far escaped me, that I had the mortification to find my labour was
utterly in vain.

Ere I had brought up my lee-way, James appeared with his summons to our
frugal supper--radishes, cheese, and a bottle of the old ale-only two
plates though--and no chair set for Mr. Darsie, by the attentive James
Wilkinson. Said James, with his long face, lank hair, and very long
pig-tail in its leathern strap, was placed, as usual, at the back of
my father's chair, upright as a wooden sentinel at the door of a
puppet-show. 'You may go down, James,' said my father; and exit
Wilkinson.--What is to come next? thought I; for the weather is not
clear on the paternal brow.

My boots encountered his first glance of displeasure, and he asked me,
with a sneer, which way I had been riding. He expected me to answer,
'Nowhere,' and would then have been at me with his usual sarcasm,
touching the humour of walking in shoes at twenty shillings a pair. But
I answered with composure, that I had ridden out to dinner as far as
Noble House. He started (you know his way) as if I had said that I
had dined at Jericho; and as I did not choose to seem to observe his
surprise, but continued munching my radishes in tranquillity, he broke
forth in ire.

'To Noble House, sir! and what had you to do at Noble House, sir? Do
you remember you are studying law, sir?--that your Scots law trials are
coming on, sir?--that every moment of your time just now is worth hours
at another time?--and have you leisure to go to Noble House, sir?