While the party thus pursued their way, each individual was too busily occupied by his thoughts to seek to open a conversation. Indeed, the young cavalier, however his thoughts might have been engaged, was more seriously unfitted for the amenities of discourse. In the excitement of the rescue, the pistol-wound he had received in his arm, at his first appearance on the scene of action, had not been heeded; but now that he had ceased to be physically employed, and was, to a certain extent, left to himself, its violent throbs became most painfully sensible. The hœmorrhage appeared to be slight; for his murrey-coloured jerkin, except round the hole where the ball had entered, was hardly soiled; yet he could feel the ball burning in the middle of his arm. He tied his scarf tightly over it, thinking that, by its pressure on the part affected, this would mitigate the dreadful throes by which it was every moment convulsed. But the angry wound throbbed as before, and the blood in his arm, from his shoulder downward, seemed to rage and boil, and, as it gurgled round the wound, to burn like liquid fire. In this manner he rode along for about two miles, continually hoping, at every successive wind in the apparently interminable lane, to come up with some farm-house, or peasant’s cottage, where he could procure a drink of water. But no prospect of relief presented itself, and he was about to avow his utter inability to proceed, when, looking round, he perceived that the road was approaching a gate, with a porter’s lodge just visible over the fence, which he recalled to mind as the entrance to Neville Grange. The carriage came to a halt the next moment; and the mounted servant, who had been riding on the inner side of the carriage, nearest to the gate, spurred forward a few paces, and rang the lodge-bell. The young cavalier felt a dizziness come over him at this juncture; and drawing his horse up, within a pace or two of the carriage, he staggered in his saddle, and fell back against the carriage-door. CHAPTER II. The estate called Neville Grange, the residence of Sir Edgar de Neville, embraced an extensive park, and a roomy and commodious mansion. This latter was evidently a recent erection, and had probably succeeded, since the accession of the present proprietor, to one of some antiquity. It was an unpretending structure, but was rendered important by its size, which, with its situation, marked it as the residence of a person of consequence. Its date was as clearly indicated by its material--the red brick then in use--as by its style, which was of that substantial yet stately caste called Elizabethan. It stood on the summit of a gentle acclivity, with its rear and sides, the least finished parts of the building, enclosed by umbrageous trees, and the front commanding a view of the whole extent of the park.