can recognise their persons, flashed upon my mind the sure conviction
that the midmost of these three men was Rashleigh Osbaldistone. To
address him was my first impulse;--my second was, to watch him until he
was alone, or at least to reconnoitre his companions before confronting
him. The party was still at such distance, and engaged in such deep
discourse, that I had time to step unobserved to the other side of a
small hedge, which imperfectly screened the alley in which I was walking.
It was at this period the fashion of the young and gay to wear, in their
morning walks, a scarlet cloak, often laced and embroidered, above their
other dress, and it was the trick of the time for gallants occasionally
to dispose it so as to muffle a part of the face. The imitating this
fashion, with the degree of shelter which I received from the hedge,
enabled me to meet my cousin, unobserved by him or the others, except
perhaps as a passing stranger. I was not a little startled at recognising
in his companions that very Morris on whose account I had been summoned
before Justice Inglewood, and Mr. MacVittie the merchant, from whose
starched and severe aspect I had recoiled on the preceding day.

A more ominous conjunction to my own affairs, and those of my father,
could scarce have been formed. I remembered Morris's false accusation
against me, which he might be as easily induced to renew as he had been
intimidated to withdraw; I recollected the inauspicious influence of
MacVittie over my father's affairs, testified by the imprisonment of
Owen;--and I now saw both these men combined with one, whose talent for
mischief I deemed little inferior to those of the great author of all
ill, and my abhorrence of whom almost amounted to dread.

When they had passed me for some paces, I turned and followed them
unobserved. At the end of the walk they separated, Morris and MacVittie
leaving the gardens, and Rashleigh returning alone through the walks. I