upon the first sound of my voice, set up a loud shout of joyful
recognition, and, without uttering a syllable, ran up stairs towards a
parlour on the second floor, from the windows of which the light
proceeded. Justly conceiving that he went to announce my return to the
anxious Owen, I followed him upon the foot. Owen was not alone, there was
another in the apartment--it was my father.

The first impulse was to preserve the dignity of his usual
equanimity,--"Francis, I am glad to see you." The next was to embrace me
tenderly,--"My dear--dear son!"--Owen secured one of my hands, and
wetted it with his tears, while he joined in gratulating my return.
These are scenes which address themselves to the eye and to the heart
rather than to the ear--My old eye-lids still moisten at the
recollection of our meeting; but your kind and affectionate feelings
can well imagine what I should find it impossible to describe.

When the tumult of our joy was over, I learnt that my father had arrived
from Holland shortly after Owen had set off for Scotland. Determined and
rapid in all his movements, he only stopped to provide the means of
discharging the obligations incumbent on his house. By his extensive
resources, with funds enlarged, and credit fortified, by eminent success
in his continental speculation, he easily accomplished what perhaps his
absence alone rendered difficult, and set out for Scotland to exact
justice from Rashleigh Osbaldistone, as well as to put order to his
affairs in that country. My father's arrival in full credit, and with the
ample means of supporting his engagements honourably, as well as
benefiting his correspondents in future, was a stunning blow to MacVittie
and Company, who had conceived his star set for ever. Highly incensed at
the usage his confidential clerk and agent had received at their hands,
Mr. Osbaldistone refused every tender of apology and accommodation; and
having settled the balance of their account, announced to them that, with
all its numerous contingent advantages, that leaf of their ledger was
closed for ever.

While he enjoyed this triumph over false friends, he was not a little
alarmed on my account. Owen, good man, had not supposed it possible that
a journey of fifty or sixty miles, which may be made with so much ease
and safety in any direction from London, could be attended with any
particular danger. But he caught alarm, by sympathy, from my father, to
whom the country, and the la