ffected, the greatest possible interest in his
patron's success, and who watched every opportunity to enquire how his
schemes advanced, received at first such favourable accounts as made him
grin from ear to ear, rub his hands, and chuckle forth such bursts of
glee as only the success of triumphant roguery could have extorted from
him. Mowbray looked grave, however, and checked his mirth.

"There was something in it after all," he said, "that he could not
perfectly understand. Etherington, an used hand--d----d sharp--up to
every thing, and yet he lost his money like a baby."

"And what the matter how he loses it, so you win it like a man?" said
his legal friend and adviser.

"Why, hang it, I cannot tell," replied Mowbray--"were it not that I
think he has scarce the impudence to propose such a thing to succeed,
curse me but I should think he was coming the old soldier over me, and
keeping up his game.--But no--he can scarce have the impudence to think
of that.--I find, however, that he has done Wolverine--cleaned out poor
Tom--though Tom wrote to me the precise contrary, yet the truth has
since come out--Well, I shall avenge him, for I see his lordship is to
be had as well as other folk."

"Weel, Mr. Mowbray," said the lawyer, in a tone of affected sympathy,
"ye ken your own ways best--but the heavens will bless a moderate mind.
I would not like to see you ruin this poor lad, _funditus_, that is to
say, out and out. To lose some of the ready will do him no great harm,
and maybe give him a lesson he may be the better of as long as he
lives--but I wad not, as an honest man, wish you to go deeper--you
should spare the lad, Mr. Mowbray."

"Who spared _me_, Meiklewham?" said Mowbray, with a look and tone of
deep emphasis--"No, no--he must go through the mill--money and money's
worth.--His seat is called Oakendale--think of that, Mick--Oakendale!
Oh, name of thrice happy augury!--Speak not of mercy, Mick--the
squirrels of Oakendale must be dismounted, and learn to go a-foot.--What
mercy can the wandering lord of Troy expect among the Greeks?--The
Greeks!--I am a very Suliote--the bravest of Greeks.

'I think not of pity, I think not of fear,
He neither must know who would serve the Vizier.'

And necessity, Mick," he concluded, with a tone something altered,
"necessity is as unrelenting a leader as any Vizier or Pacha, whom
Scanderbeg ever fought with, or Byron has sung."

Meiklewham echoed his patron's ejacula