 resolved to occupy her
apartment to-night, that I may judge how hard the couch is that love can
soften.«
    »Your lordship may choose what penance you please,« said Ravenswood; »but I
assure you, I should expect my old servant to hang himself, or throw himself
from the battlements, should your lordship visit him so unexpectedly - I do
assure you, we are totally and literally unprovided.«
    But his declaration only brought from his noble patron an assurance of his
own total indifference as to every species of accommodation, and his
determination to see the Tower of Wolf's Crag. His ancestor, he said, had been
feasted there, when he went forward with the then Lord Ravenswood to the fatal
battle of Flodden, in which they both fell. Thus hard pressed, the Master
offered to ride forward to get matters put in such preparation as time and
circumstances admitted; but the Marquis protested his kinsman must afford him
his company, and would only consent that an avant-courier should carry to the
destined seneschal, Caleb Balderston, the unexpected news of this invasion.
    The Master of Ravenswood soon after accompanied the Marquis in his carriage,
as the latter had proposed; and when they became better acquainted in the
progress of the journey, his noble relation explained, the very liberal views
which he entertained for his relation's preferment, in case of the success of
his own political schemes. They related to a secret and highly important
commission beyond sea, which could only be intrusted to a person of rank, and
talent, and perfect confidence, and which, as it required great trust and
reliance on the envoy employed, could not but prove both honourable and
advantageous to him. We need not enter into the nature and purpose of this
commission farther than to acquaint our readers that the charge was in prospect
highly acceptable to the Master of Ravenswood, who hailed with pleasure the hope
of emerging from his present state of indigence and inaction, into independence
and honourable exertion. While he listened thus eagerly to the details with
which the Marquis now thought it necessary to intrust him, the messenger who had
been despatched to the tower of Wolf's Crag, returned with Caleb Balderston's
humble duty, and an assurance that »a' should be in seemly order, sic as the
hurry of time permitted, to receive their lordships as it behoved.«
    Ravenswood was too well accustomed to his seneschal's mode of acting and
speaking, to hope much from this confident assurance. He knew that Caleb acted
upon the principle of the Spanish generals, in the campaign of
