Next morning, I bethought me, I, too, had business at L-; so Imounted my horse, and set forth on the expedition soon afterbreakfast. It was a dull, drizzly day; but that was no matter: itwas all the more suitable to my frame of mind. It was likely to bea lonely journey; for it was no market-day, and the road Itraversed was little frequented at any other time; but that suitedme all the better too.

As I trotted along, however, chewing the cud of - bitter fancies, Iheard another horse at no great distance behind me; but I neverconjectured who the rider might be, or troubled my head about him,till, on slackening my pace to ascend a gentle acclivity, orrather, suffering my horse to slacken his pace into a lazy walk -for, rapt in my own reflections, I was letting it jog on asleisurely as it thought proper - I lost ground, and my fellow-traveller overtook me. He accosted me by name, for it was nostranger - it was Mr. Lawrence! Instinctively the fingers of mywhip-hand tingled, and grasped their charge with convulsive energy;but I restrained the impulse, and answering his salutation with anod, attempted to push on; but he pushed on beside me, and began totalk about the weather and the crops. I gave the briefest possibleanswers to his queries and observations, and fell back. He fellback too, and asked if my horse was lame. I replied with a look,at which he placidly smiled.

I was as much astonished as exasperated at this singularpertinacity and imperturbable assurance on his part. I had thoughtthe circumstances of our last meeting would have left such animpression on his mind as to render him cold and distant everafter: instead of that, he appeared not only to have forgotten allformer offences, but to be impenetrable to all presentincivilities. Formerly, the slightest hint, or mere fanciedcoldness in tone or glance, had sufficed to repulse him: now,positive rudeness could not drive him away. Had he heard of mydisappointment; and was he come to witness the result, and triumphin my despair? I grasped my whip with more determined energy thanbefore - but still forbore to raise it, and rode on in silence,waiting for some more tangible cause of offence, before I openedthe floodgates of my soul and poured out the dammed-up fury thatwas foaming and swelling within.

'Markham,' said he, in his usual quiet tone, 'why do you quarrelwith your friends, because you have been disappointed in onequarter? You have found your hopes defeated; but how am I to blamefor it? I warned you beforehand, you know, but you would not - '

He said no more; for, impelled by some fiend at my elbow, I hadseized my whip by the small end, and - swift and sudden as a flashof lightning - brought the other down upon his head. It was notwithout a feeling of savage satisfaction that I beheld the instant,deadly pallor that overspread his face, and the few red drops thattrickled down his forehead, while he reeled a moment in his saddle,and then fell backward to the ground. The pony, surprised to be sostrangely relieved of its burden, started and capered, and kicked alittle, and then made use of its freedom to go and crop the grassof the hedge-bank: while its master lay as still and silent as acorpse. Had I killed him? - an icy hand seemed to grasp my heartand check its pulsation, as I bent over him, gazing with breathlessintensity upon the ghastly, upturned face. But no; he moved hiseyelids and uttered a slight groan. I breathed again - he was onlystunned by the fall. It served him right - it would teach himbetter manners in future. Should I help him to his horse? No.For any other combination of offences I would; but his were toounpardonable. He might mount it himself, if he liked - in a while:already he was beginning to stir and look about him - and there itwas for him, quietly browsing on the road-side.

So with a muttered execration I left the fellow to his fate, andclapping spurs to my own horse, galloped away, excited by acombination of feelings it would not be easy to analyse; andperhaps, if I did so, the result would not be very creditable to mydisposition; for I am not sure that a species of exultation in whatI had done was not one principal concomitant.

Shortly, however, the effervescence began to abate, and not manyminutes elapsed before I had turned and gone back to look after thefate of my victim. It was no generous impulse - no kind relentingsthat led me to this - nor even the fear of what might be theconsequences to myself, if I finished my assault upon the squire byleaving him thus neglected, and exposed to further injury; it was,simply, the voice of conscience; and I took great credit to myselffor attending so promptly to its dictates - and judging the meritof the deed by the sacrifice it cost, I was not far wrong.

Mr. Lawrence and his pony had both altered their positions in somedegree. The pony had wandered eight or ten yards further away; andhe had managed, somehow, to remove himself from the middle of theroad: I found him seated in a recumbent position on the bank, -looking very white and sickly still, and holding his cambrichandkerchief (now more red than white) to his head. It must havebeen a powerful blow; but half the credit - or the blame of it(which you please) must be attributed to the whip, which wasgarnished with a massive horse's head of plated metal. The grass,being sodden with rain, afforded the young gentleman a ratherinhospitable couch; his clothes were considerably bemired; and hishat was rolling in the mud on the other side of the road. But histhoughts seemed chiefly bent upon his pony, on which he waswistfully gazing - half in helpless anxiety, and half in hopelessabandonment to his fate.

I dismounted, however, and having fastened my own animal to thenearest tree, first picked up his hat, intending to clap it on hishead; but either he considered his head unfit for a hat, or thehat, in its present condition, unfit for his head; for shrinkingaway the one, he took the other from my hand, and scornfully castit aside.

'It's good enough for you,' I muttered.

My next good office was to catch his pony and bring it to him,which was soon accomplished; for the beast was quiet enough in themain, and only winced and flirted a trifle till I got hold of thebridle - but then, I must see him in the saddle.

'Here, you fellow - scoundrel - dog - give me your hand, and I'llhelp you to mount.'

No; he turned from me in disgust. I attempted to take him by thearm. He shrank away as if there had been contamination in mytouch.

'What, you won't! Well! you may sit there till doomsday, for whatI care. But I suppose you don't want to lose all the blood in yourbody - I'll just condescend to bind that up for you.'

'Let me alone, if you please.'

'Humph; with all my heart. You may go to the d-l, if you choose -and say I sent you.'

But before I abandoned him to his fate I flung his pony's bridleover a stake in the hedge, and threw him my handkerchief, as hisown was now saturated with blood. He took it and cast it back tome in abhorrence and contempt, with all the strength he couldmuster. It wanted but this to fill the measure of his offences.With execrations not loud but deep I left him to live or die as hecould, well satisfied that I had done my duty in attempting to savehim - but forgetting how I had erred in bringing him into such acondition, and how insultingly my after-services had been offered -and sullenly prepared to meet the consequences if he should chooseto say I had attempted to murder him - which I thought notunlikely, as it seemed probable he was actuated by such spitefulmotives in so perseveringly refusing my assistance.

Having remounted my horse, I just looked back to see how he wasgetting on, before I rode away. He had risen from the ground, andgrasping his pony's mane, was attempting to resume his seat in thesaddle; but scarcely had he put his foot in the stirrup, when asickness or dizziness seemed to overpower him: he leant forward amoment, with his head drooped on the animal's back, and then madeone more effort, which proving ineffectual, he sank back on thebank, where I left him, reposing his head on the oozy turf, and toall appearance, as calmly reclining as if he had been taking hisrest on his sofa at home.

I ought to have helped him in spite of himself - to have bound upthe wound he was unable to staunch, and insisted upon getting himon his horse and seeing him safe home; but, besides my bitterindignation against himself, there was the question what to say tohis servants - and what to my own family. Either I should have toacknowledge the deed, which would set me down as a madman, unless Iacknowledged the motive too - and that seemed impossible - or Imust get up a lie, which seemed equally out of the question -especially as Mr. Lawrence would probably reveal the whole truth,and thereby bring me to tenfold disgrace - unless I were villainenough, presuming on the absence of witnesses, to persist in my ownversion of the case, and make him out a still greater scoundrelthan he was. No; he had only received a cut above the temple, andperhaps a few bruises from the fall, or the hoofs of his own pony:that could not kill him if he lay there half the day; and, if hecould not help himself, surely some one would be coming by: itwould be impossible that a whole day should pass and no onetraverse the road but ourselves. As for what he might choose tosay hereafter, I would take my chance about it: if he told lies, Iwould contradict him; if he told the truth, I would bear it as bestI could. I was not obliged to enter into explanations further thanI thought proper. Perhaps he might choose to be silent on thesubject, for fear of raising inquiries as to the cause of thequarrel, and drawing the public attention to his connection withMrs. Graham, which, whether for her sake or his own, he seemed sovery desirous to conceal.

Thus reasoning, I trotted away to the town, where I duly transactedmy business, and performed various little commissions for my motherand Rose, with very laudable exactitude, considering the differentcircumstances of the case. In returning home, I was troubled withsundry misgivings about the unfortunate Lawrence. The question,What if I should find him lying still on the damp earth, fairlydying of cold and exhaustion - or already stark and chill? thrustitself most unpleasantly upon my mind, and the appallingpossibility pictured itself with painful vividness to myimagination as I approached the spot where I had left him. But no,thank heaven, both man and horse were gone, and nothing was left towitness against me but two objects - unpleasant enough inthemselves to be sure, and presenting a very ugly, not to saymurderous appearance - in one place, the hat saturated with rainand coated with mud, indented and broken above the brim by thatvillainous whip-handle; in another, the crimson handkerchief,soaking in a deeply tinctured pool of water - for much rain hadfallen in the interim.

Bad news flies fast: it was hardly four o'clock when I got home,but my mother gravely accosted me with - 'Oh, Gilbert! - Such anaccident! Rose has been shopping in the village, and she's heardthat Mr. Lawrence has been thrown from his horse and brought homedying!'

This shocked me a trifle, as you may suppose; but I was comfortedto hear that he had frightfully fractured his skull and broken aleg; for, assured of the falsehood of this, I trusted the rest ofthe story was equally exaggerated; and when I heard my mother andsister so feelingly deploring his condition, I had considerabledifficulty in preventing myself from telling them the real extentof the injuries, as far as I knew them.

'You must go and see him to-morrow,' said my mother.

'Or to-day,' suggested Rose: 'there's plenty of time; and you canhave the pony, as your horse is tired. Won't you, Gilbert - assoon as you've had something to eat?'

'No, no - how can we tell that it isn't all a false report? It'shighly im-'

'Oh, I'm sure it isn't; for the village is all alive about it; andI saw two people that had seen others that had seen the man thatfound him. That sounds far-fetched; but it isn't so when you thinkof it.'

'Well, but Lawrence is a good rider; it is not likely he would fallfrom his horse at all; and if he did, it is highly improbable hewould break his bones in that way. It must be a gross exaggerationat least.'

'No; but the horse kicked him - or something.'

'What, his quiet little pony?'

'How do you know it was that?'

'He seldom rides any other.'

'At any rate,' said my mother, 'you will call to-morrow. Whetherit be true or false, exaggerated or otherwise, we shall like toknow how he is.'

'Fergus may go.'

'Why not you?'

'He has more time. I am busy just now.'

'Oh! but, Gilbert, how can you be so composed about it? You won'tmind business for an hour or two in a case of this sort, when yourfriend is at the point of death.'

'He is not, I tell you.'

'For anything you know, he may be: you can't tell till you haveseen him. At all events, he must have met with some terribleaccident, and you ought to see him: he'll take it very unkind ifyou don't.'

'Confound it! I can't. He and I have not been on good terms oflate.'

'Oh, my dear boy! Surely, surely you are not so unforgiving as tocarry your little differences to such a length as - '

'Little differences, indeed!' I muttered.

'Well, but only remember the occasion. Think how - '

'Well, well, don't bother me now - I'll see about it,' I replied.

And my seeing about it was to send Fergus next morning, with mymother's compliments, to make the requisite inquiries; for, ofcourse, my going was out of the question - or sending a messageeither. He brought back intelligence that the young squire waslaid up with the complicated evils of a broken head and certaincontusions (occasioned by a fall - of which he did not troublehimself to relate the particulars - and the subsequent misconductof his horse), and a severe cold, the consequence of lying on thewet ground in the rain; but there were no broken bones, and noimmediate prospects of dissolution.

It was evident, then, that for Mrs. Graham's sake it was not hisintention to criminate me.