A more ominous conjunction to my own affairs, and those of my father, could scarce have been formed. I remembered Morris's false accusation against me, which he might be as easily induced to renew as he had been intimidated to withdraw; I recollected the inauspicious influence of MacVittie over my father's affairs, testified by the imprisonment of Owen;--and I now saw both these men combined with one, whose talent for mischief I deemed little inferior to those of the great author of all ill, and my abhorrence of whom almost amounted to dread. When they had passed me for some paces, I turned and followed them unobserved. At the end of the walk they separated, Morris and MacVittie leaving the gardens, and Rashleigh returning alone through the walks. I was now determined to confront him, and demand reparation for the injuries he had done my father, though in what form redress was likely to be rendered remained to be known. This, however, I trusted to chance; and flinging back the cloak in which I was muffled, I passed through a gap of the low hedge, and presented myself before Rashleigh, as, in a deep reverie, he paced down the avenue. Rashleigh was no man to be surprised or thrown off his guard by sudden occurrences. Yet he did not find me thus close to him, wearing undoubtedly in my face the marks of that indignation which was glowing in my bosom, without visibly starting at an apparition so sudden and menacing. "You are well met, sir," was my commencement; "I was about to take a long and doubtful journey in quest of you." "You know little of him you sought then," replied Rashleigh, with his usual undaunted composure. "I am easily found by my friends--still more easily by my foes;--your manner compels me to ask in which class I must rank Mr. Francis Osbaldistone?" "In that of your foes, sir," I answered--"in that of your mortal foes, unless you instantly do justice to your benefactor, my father, by accounting for his property." "And to whom, Mr. Osbaldistone," answered Rashleigh, "am I, a member of your father's commercial establishment, to be compelled to give any account of my proceedings in those concerns, which are in every respect identified with my own?--Surely not to a young gentleman whose exquisite taste for literature would render such discussions disgusting and unintelligible." "Your sneer, sir, is no answer; I will not part with you until I have full satisfaction concerning the fraud you meditate--you shall go with me before a magistrate." "Be it so," said Rashleigh, and made a step or two as if to accompany me; then pausing, proceeded--"Were I inclined to do so as you would have me, you should soon feel which of us had most reason to dread the presence of a magistrate. But I have no wish to accelerate your fate. Go, young man! amuse yourself in your world of poetical imaginations, and leave the business of life to those who understand and can conduct it."