for a quantity of the national stock, which was suddenly flung
into the market at a depreciated price when the rebellion broke out. I
was not idle myself, but obtained a commission, and levied, at my
father's expense, about two hundred men, with whom I joined General
Carpenter's army.

The rebellion, in the meantime, had extended itself to England. The
unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater had taken arms in the cause, along with
General Foster. My poor uncle, Sir Hildebrand, whose estate was reduced
to almost nothing by his own carelessness and the expense and debauchery
of his sons and household, was easily persuaded to join that unfortunate
standard. Before doing so, however, he exhibited a degree of precaution
of which no one could have suspected him--he made his will!

By this document he devised his estates at Osbaldistone Hall, and so
forth, to his sons successively, and their male heirs, until he came to
Rashleigh, whom, on account of the turn he had lately taken in politics,
he detested with all his might,--he cut him off with a shilling, and
settled the estate on me as his next heir. I had always been rather a
favourite of the old gentleman; but it is probable that, confident in the
number of gigantic youths who now armed around him, he considered the
destination as likely to remain a dead letter, which he inserted chiefly
to show his displeasure at Rashleigh's treachery, both public and
domestic. There was an article, by which he, bequeathed to the niece of
his late wife, Diana Vernon, now Lady Diana Vernon Beauchamp, some
diamonds belonging to her late aunt, and a great silver ewer, having the
arms of Vernon and Osbaldistone quarterly engraven upon it.

But Heaven had decreed a more speedy extinction of his numerous and
healthy lineage, than, most probably, he himself had reckoned on. In the
very first muster of the conspirators, at a place called Green-Rigg,
Thorncliff Osbaldistone quarrelled about precedence with a gentleman of
the Northumbrian border, to the full as fierce and intractable as
himself. In spite of all remonstrances, they gave their commander a
specimen of how far their discipline might be relied upon, by fighting it
out with their rapiers, and my kinsman was killed on the spot. His death
was a great loss to Sir Hildebrand, for, notwithstanding his infernal
temper, he had a grain or two of more sense than belonged to the rest of
the brotherhood, Rashleigh always excepted.

Perceval, the sot, d