I was not much pleased with the dictatorial tone of this remark. “It is impossible,” said I, “especially as the horse is not my own, and seems considerably lamer than at first; but let me not detain you.” “Well!” cried Tyrrell, in a raised and angry voice, which pleased me still less than his former remark; “but how am I to find my way, if I leave you?” “Keep straight on,” said I, “for a mile farther, then a sign-post will direct you to the left; after a short time, you will have a steep hill to descend, at the bottom of which is a large pool, and a singularly shaped tree; then keep straight on, till you pass a house belonging to Mr. Dawson--” “Come, come, Pelham, make haste!” exclaimed Tyrrell, impatiently, as the rain began now to descend fast and heavy. “When you have passed that house,” I resumed coolly, rather enjoying his petulance, “you must bear to the right for six miles, and you will be at Chester Park in less than an hour.” Tyrrell made no reply, but put spurs to his horse. The pattering rain and the angry heavens soon drowned the last echoes of the receding hoofclang. For myself, I looked in vain for a tree; not even a shrub was to be found; the fields lay bare on either side, with no other partition but a dead hedge, and a deep dyke. “Patientia fit melius,” thought I, as Horace said, and Vincent would say; and in order to divert my thoughts from my situation, I turned them towards my diplomatic success with Lord Chester. Presently, for I think scarcely five minutes had elapsed since Tyrrell’s departure, a horseman passed me at a sharp pace; the moon was hid by the dense cloud, and the night, though not wholly dark, was dim and obscured, so that I could only catch the outline of the flitting figure. A thrill of fear crept over me, when I saw that it was enveloped in a horseman’s cloak. I soon rallied--“There are more cloaks in the world than one,” said I to myself; “besides, even if it be Tyrrell’s dodger, as he calls him, the baronet is better mounted than any highwayman since the days of Du Val; and is, moreover, strong enough and cunning enough to take admirable care of himself.” With this reflection I dismissed the occurrence from my thoughts, and once more returned to self-congratulations upon my own incomparable genius. “I shall now,” I thought, “have well earned my seat in parliament; Dawton will indisputably be, if not the prime, the principal minister in rank and influence. He cannot fail to promote me for his own sake, as well as mine; and when I have once fairly got my legs in St. Stephen’s, I shall soon have my hands in office: ‘power,’ says some one, ‘is a snake that when it once finds a hole into which it can introduce its head, soon manages to wriggle in the rest of its body.’” With such meditations I endeavoured to beguile the time and cheat myself into forgetfulness of the lameness of my horse, and the dripping wetness of his rider. At last the storm began sullenly to subside: one impetuous torrent, ten-fold