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I had just terminated the escape from the castle, when Mr Masterton's carriage drove up to the door. As soon as he had bowed to Lady de Clare, he said to me, "Japhet, here is a letter directed to you, to my care, from Ireland which I have brought for you." "It is from Kathleen McShane, sir," replied I, and requesting leave, I broke the seal. It contained another.
Nevertheless, he had gone to Lady Masterton's on purpose to meet her; and his manner on seeing her had asserted precisely the same intimate claim upon her, which, during the past six weeks, had alternately attracted and repelled her. Then Mr. Pearson had interrupted.
Once he had settled them there, he obtained, through Frank Masterton's valet, a puritanical knave called Gabriel Jones, complete information as to their plans, which he was thus able to thwart. At Penford-bourne Frank came under the spell of Lady Eleanor's beauty; all his duties were forgotten, and he lingered on by the side of the woman he loved.
At this elevation the snow had formed a crust, over which the single Chinaman a lithe young figure skimmed like a skater, while Masterton's horse crashed though it into unexpected depths. Again, the runner could deviate by a shorter cut, while the horseman was condemned to the one half obliterated trail.
I had acceded to Mr Masterton's suggestions, that I was no longer to appear under false colours, and had requested Harcourt, to whom I made known my real condition, that he would everywhere state the truth.
"Good God! is it possible?" thought I; "how strange that my own wild fancy should have settled upon him as my father!" I hurried away; threw myself into the hackney-coach, and desired the man to drive to Lincoln's Inn. I hastened up to Mr Masterton's rooms: he was fortunately at home, although he stood at the table with his hat and his great coat on, ready to go out.
Masterton could not speak to me when he arrived, but he gave me a wink and a smile, and I was satisfied. "Japhet," said my father, "you have no engagement to-morrow, I hope, because I shall call at Mr Masterton's on business, and wish you to accompany me." I replied, that "I should be most happy," and the conversation became general.
I could not deny that Mr Masterton's arguments had demolished the whole fabric which I had built up. "You are right, sir," replied I mournfully, "I wish I were dead." "Never speak in that way, Mr Newland, before me," replied the old lawyer in an angry tone, "without you wish to forfeit my good opinion." "I beg your pardon, sir; but I am most miserable.
It was well known that the affair described was a real one that the Willie who gave the entertainment was Mr William Nicol, a master in the High School of Edinburgh Rab, the poet himself and Allan, a certain Mr Masterton, likewise of the Edinburgh High School: three merry-hearted men, of remarkable talents and many other good properties, but who, unfortunately, were all of them too liable to the seductions of the 'barley-bree. That such was the scene, and such the actors, we had learned from Burns himself, who thus annotated the song in a musical collection: 'This air is Masterton's; the song mine.
But presently, to Masterton's great relief, the interminable level seemed to end, and between the whitened blasts he could see that the road was descending. Again the horses were urged forward, and at last he could feel that the vehicle began to add the momentum of its descent to its conflict with the storm.
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