anxious journey. Nature, exhausted by the tumultuous agitations of the
day, was kinder to me than I expected, and I stink into a deep and
profound slumber, from which, however, I started as the old clock struck
two from a turret adjoining to my bedchamber. I instantly arose, struck a
light, wrote the letter I proposed to leave for my uncle, and leaving
behind me such articles of dress as were cumbrous in carriage, I
deposited the rest of my wardrobe in my valise, glided down stairs, and
gained the stable without impediment. Without being quite such a groom as
any of my cousins, I had learned at Osbaldistone Hall to dress and saddle
my own horse, and in a few minutes I was mounted and ready for my sally.

As I paced up the old avenue, on which the waning moon threw its light
with a pale and whitish tinge, I looked back with a deep and boding sigh
towards the walls which contained Diana Vernon, under the despondent
impression that we had probably parted to meet no more. It was
impossible, among the long and irregular lines of Gothic casements, which
now looked ghastly white in the moonlight, to distinguish that of the
apartment which she inhabited. "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