Sir Bingo, thus encouraged, planted himself with a look of defiance exactly between Tyrrel and the door; upon which the retreating guest, bestowing on him most emphatically the epithet Fool, seized him by the collar, and flung him out of his way with some violence. "I am to be found at the Old Town of St. Ronan's by whomsoever has any concern with me."--Without waiting the issue of this aggression farther than to utter these words, Tyrrel left the hotel. He stopped in the court-yard, however, with the air of one uncertain whither he intended to go, and who was desirous to ask some question, which seemed to die upon his tongue. At length his eye fell upon a groom, who stood not far from the door of the inn, holding in his hand a handsome pony, with a side-saddle. "Whose"----said Tyrrel--but the rest of the question he seemed unable to utter. The man, however, replied, as if he had heard the whole interrogation.--"Miss Mowbray's, sir, of St. Ronan's--she leaves directly--and so I am walking the pony--a clever thing, sir, for a lady." "She returns to Shaws-Castle by the Buck-stane road?" "I suppose so, sir," said the groom. "It is the nighest, and Miss Clara cares little for rough roads. Zounds! She can spank it over wet and dry." Tyrrel turned away from the man, and hastily left the hotel--not, however, by the road which led to the Aultoun, but by a footpath among the natural copsewood, which, following the course of the brook, intersected the usual horse-road to Shaws-Castle, the seat of Mr. Mowbray, at a romantic spot called the Buck-stane.