Chapter 23

Such was our fallen father's fate,
Yet better than mine own;
He shared his exile with his mate,
I'm banish'd forth alone.

WALLER

I WILL not attempt to describe the mixture of indignation and regret
with which Ravenswood left the seat which had belonged to his ancestors.
The terms in which Lady Ashton's billet was couched rendered it
impossible for him, without being deficient in that spirit of which he
perhaps had too much, to remain an instant longer within its walls.
The Marquis, who had his share in the affront, was, nevertheless, still
willing to make some efforts at conciliation. He therefore suffered his
kinsman to depart alone, making him promise, however, that he would wait
for him at the small inn called the Tod's Hole, situated, as our readers
may be pleased to recollect, half-way betwixt Ravenswood Castle and
Wolf's Crag, and about five Scottish miles distant from each. Here the
Marquis proposed to join the Master of Ravenswood, either that night or
the next morning. His own feelings would have induced him to have left
the castle directly, but he was loth to forfeit, without at least one
effort, the advantages which he had proposed from his visit to the Lord
Keeper; and the Master of Ravenswood was, even in the very heat of his
resentment, unwilling to foreclose any chance of reconciliation which
might arise out of the partiality which Sir William Ashton had shown
towards him, as well as the intercessory arguments of his noble kinsman.
He himself departed without a moment's delay, farther than was necessary
to make this arrangement.

At first he spurred his horse at a quick pace through an avenue of the
park, as if, by rapidity of motion, he could stupify the confusion of
feelings with which he was assailed. But as the road grew wilder and
more sequestered, and when the trees had hidden the turrets of the
castle, he gradually slackened his pace, as if to indulge the painful
reflections which he had in vain endeavoured to repress. The path in
which he found himself led him to the Mermaiden's Fountain, and to the
cottage of Alice; and the fatal influence which superstitious belief
attached to the former spot, as well as the admonitions which had
been in vain offered to him by the inhabitant of the latter, forced
themselves upon his memory. "Old saws speak truth," he said to himself,
"and the Mermaiden's Well has indeed witnessed the last act of rashness
of the heir of Ravenswood. Alice spoke well," he continued, "and I am
in the situation which she foretold; or rather, I am more deeply
dishonoured--not the dependant and ally of the destroyer of my father's
house, as the old sibyl presaged, but the degraded wretch who has
aspired to hold that