it so as to muffle a part of the face. The imitating this
fashion, with the degree of shelter which I received from the hedge,
enabled me to meet my cousin, unobserved by him or the others, except
perhaps as a passing stranger. I was not a little startled at recognising
in his companions that very Morris on whose account I had been summoned
before Justice Inglewood, and Mr. MacVittie the merchant, from whose
starched and severe aspect I had recoiled on the preceding day.

A more ominous conjunction to my own affairs, and those of my father,
could scarce have been formed. I remembered Morris's false accusation
against me, which he might be as easily induced to renew as he had been
intimidated to withdraw; I recollected the inauspicious influence of
MacVittie over my father's affairs, testified by the imprisonment of
Owen;--and I now saw both these men combined with one, whose talent for
mischief I deemed little inferior to those of the great author of all
ill, and my abhorrence of whom almost amounted to dread.

When they had passed me for some paces, I turned and followed them
unobserved. At the end of the walk they separated, Morris and MacVittie
leaving the gardens, and Rashleigh returning alone through the walks. I
was now determined to confront him, and demand reparation for the
injuries he had done my father, though in what form redress was likely to
be rendered remained to be known. This, however, I trusted to chance; and
flinging back the cloak in which I was muffled, I passed through a gap of
the low hedge, and presented myself before Rashleigh, as, in a deep
reverie, he paced down the avenue.

Rashleigh was no man to be surprised or thrown off his guard by sudden
occurrences. Yet he did not find me thus close to him, wearing
undoubtedly in my face the marks of that indignation which was glowing in
my bosom, without visibly starting at an apparition so sudden and
menacing.

"You are well met, sir," was my commencement; "I was about to take a long
and doubtful journey in quest of you."

"You know little of him you sought then," replied Rashleigh, with his
usual undaunted composure. "I am easily found by my friends--still more
easily by my foes;--your manner compels me to ask in which class I must
rank Mr. Francis Osbaldistone?"

"In that of your foes, sir," I answered--"in that of your mortal foes,
unless you instantly do justice to your benefactor, my father, by
accounting for his property."

"And to wh