"'Tis an ill night," said the old woman, lifting up her wild face and elfin locks with a mysterious air--"'Tis an ill night for them as seeks, and for them as asks.--He's about--" "He--who?" "No matter!--you may be successful, young Sir, yet wish you had not been so. The moon thus, and the wind there--promise that you will get your desires, and find them crosses." The Corporal had listened very attentively to these predictions, and was now about to thrust forth his own hand to the soothsayer, when from a cross road to the right came the sound of hoofs, and presently a horseman at full trot pulled up beside them. "Hark ye, old she Devil, or you, Sirs--is this the road to Knaresbro'?" The Gipsy drew back, and gazed on the countenance of the rider, on which the red glare of the pine-brand shone full. "To Knaresbro', Richard, the dare-devil? Ay, and what does the ramping bird want in the ould nest? Welcome back to Yorkshire, Richard, my ben cove!" "Ha!" said the rider, shading his eyes with his hand, as he returned the gaze of the Gipsy--"is it you, Bess Airlie: your welcome is like the owl's, and reads the wrong way. But I must not stop. This takes to Knaresbro' then?" "Straight as a dying man's curse to hell," replied the crone, in that metaphorical style in which all her tribe love to speak, and of which their proper language is indeed almost wholly composed. The horseman answered not, but spurred on. "Who is that?" asked Walter earnestly, as the old woman stretched her tawny neck after the rider. "An ould friend, Sir," replied the Egyptian, drily. "I have not seen him these fourteen years; but it is not Bess Airlie who is apt to forgit friend or foe. Well, Sir, shall I tell your honour's good luck?"--(Here she turned to the Corporal, who sat erect on his saddle with his hand on his holster)--"the colour of the lady's hair--and--" "Hold your tongue, you limb of Satan!" interrupted the Corporal fiercely, as if his whole tide of thought, so lately favourable to the Soothsayer, had undergone a deadly reversion. "Please your honour, it's getting late, we had better be jogging!" "You are right," said Walter spurring his jaded horse, and nodding his adieu to the Gipsy,--he was soon out of sight of the encampment. "Sir," said the Corporal joining his master, "that is a man as I have seed afore; I knowed his ugly face again in a crack--'tis the man what came to Grassdale arter Mr. Aram, and we saw arterwards the night we chanced on Sir Peter Thingumybob."