"What could be so bad for the country?" ejaculated Pandal. "It does not
seem to me possible, in the nature of things, that you and your party
should ever go out!"

"And when we are once out, there will be plenty of wiseacres to say it is
out of the nature of things that we should ever come in again. Here we
are at the door."




CHAPTER V.

Randal passed a sleepless night; but, indeed, he was one of those persons
who neither need, nor are accustomed to, much sleep. However, towards
morning, when dreams are said to be prophetic, he fell into a most
delightful slumber, a slumber peopled by visions fitted to lure on,
through labyrinths of law, predestined chancellors, or wreck upon the
rocks of glory the inebriate souls of youthful ensigns; dreams from which
Rood Hall emerged crowned with the towers of Belvoir or Raby, and looking
over subject lands and manors wrested from the nefarious usurpation of
Thornhills and Hazeldeans; dreams in which Audley Egerton's gold and
power, rooms in Downing Street, and saloons in Grosvenor Square, had
passed away to the smiling dreamer, as the empire of Chaldaea passed to
Darius the Median. Why visions so belying the gloomy and anxious
thoughts that preceded them should visit the pillow of Randal Leslie,
surpasses my philosophy to conjecture. He yielded, however, passively to
their spell, and was startled to hear the clock strike eleven as he
descended the stairs to breakfast. He was vexed at the lateness of the
hour, for he had meant to have taken advantage of the unwonted softness