Hooper and Girder, so that I returned to Osbaldistone Hall a good deal richer than I had set forth.

This recruit to my finances was not a matter of indifference to me, as I was necessarily involved in some expenses at Osbaldistone Hall; and I had seen, with some uneasy impatience, that the sum which my travelling expenses had left unexhausted at my arrival there was imperceptibly diminishing.

This source of anxiety was for the present removed.

On my arrival at the Hall I found that Sir Hildebrand and all his offspring had gone down to the little hamlet, called Trinlay-knowes, "to see," as Andrew Fairservice expressed it, "a wheen midden cocks pike ilk ither's barns out." "It is indeed a brutal amusement, Andrew; I suppose you have none such in Scotland ?" "Na, na," answered Andrew boldly; then shaded away his negative with, "unless it be on Fastern's-e'en, or the like o' that--But indeed it's no muckle matter what the folk do to the midden pootry, for they had siccan a skarting and scraping in the yard, that there's nae getting a bean or pea keepit for them .-- But I am wondering what it is that leaves that turret-door open;--now that Mr.Rashleigh's away, it canna be him, I trow." The turret-door to which he alluded opened to the garden at the bottom of a winding stair, leading down from Mr.Rashleigh's apartment.

This, as I have already mentioned, was situated in a sequestered part of the house, communicating with the library by a private entrance, and by another intricate and dark vaulted passage with the rest of the house.