"She is lost to me already," thought I, as my eye wandered over the dim and indistinguishable intricacies of architecture offered by the moonlight view of Osbaldistone Hall--"She is lost to me already, ere I have left the place which she inhabits! What hope is there of my maintaining any correspondence with her, when leagues shall lie between ?" While I paused in a reverie of no very pleasing nature, the "iron tongue of time told three upon the drowsy ear of night," and reminded me of the necessity of keeping my appointment with a person of a less interesting description and appearance--Andrew Fairservice.
At the gate of the avenue I found a horseman stationed in the shadow of the wall, but it was not until I had coughed twice, and then called "Andrew," that the horticulturist replied, "I'se warrant it's Andrew." "Lead the way, then," said I, "and be silent if you can, till we are past the hamlet in the valley." Andrew led the way accordingly, and at a much brisker pace than I would have recommended .-- and so well did he obey my injunctions of keeping silence, that he would return no answer to my repeated inquiries into the cause of such unnecessary haste.

Extricating ourselves by short cuts, known to Andrew, from the numerous stony lanes and by-paths which intersected each other in the vicinity of the Hall, we reached the open heath and riding swiftly across it, took our course among the barren hills which divide England from Scotland on what are called the Middle Marches.

The way, or rather the broken track which we occupied, was a happy interchange of bog and shingles; nevertheless, Andrew relented nothing of his speed, but trotted manfully forward at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour.

I was both surprised and provoked at the fellow's obstinate persistence, for we made abrupt ascents and descents over ground of a very break-neck character, and traversed the edge of precipices, where a slip of the horse's feet would have consigned the rider to certain death.

The moon, at best, afforded a dubious and imperfect light; but in some places we were so much under the shade of the mountain as to be in total darkness, and then I could only trace Andrew by the clatter of his horse's feet, and the fire which they struck from the flints.