“All true,” said Daly, laughing. “Nobody ever kept a hawk for a singing-bird; but he 's a bold villain to pounce upon another.” “I like not such appliances; they scarcely serve a good name, and they make a bad one worse.” “I'm quite of your mind, Molly,” said Daly, thoughtfully; “and if honest men were plenty, he would be but a fool who held any dealings with the knaves. But here comes the car to convey me to 'The Corvy.' I will make a hasty visit to Lady Eleanor, and be back with you by supper-time.” CHAPTER X. DALY'S FAREWELL. Neither of the ladies were at home when Bagenal Daly, followed by his servant Sandy, reached “The Corvy,” and sat down in the porch to await their return. Busied with his own reflections, which, to judge from the deep abstraction of his manner, seemed weighty and important, Daly never looked up from the ground, while Sandy leisurely walked round the building to note the changes made in his absence, and comment, in no flattering sense, on the art by which the builder had concealed so many traits of “The Corvy's” origin. “Ye 'd no ken she was a ship ava!” said he to himself, as he examined the walls over which the trellised creepers were trained, and the latticed windows festooned by the honeysuckle and the clematis, and gazed in sadness over the altered building. “She's no a bit like the auld Corvy!” “Of course she 's not!” said Daly, testily, for the remark had suddenly aroused him from his musings. “What the devil would you have? Are _you_ like the raw and ragged fellow I took from this bleak coast, and led over more than half the world?” “Troth, I am no the same man noo that I was sax-and-forty years agane, and sorry I am to say it.” “Sorry,--sorry! not to be half-starved and less than half-clad; hauling a net one day, and being dragged for yourself the next--sorry!” “Even sae, sore sorry. Eight-and-sixty may be aye sorry not to be twa-and-twenty. I ken nae rise in life can pay off that score. It 's na ower pleasant to think on, but I'm no the man I was then. No, nor, for that matter, yerself neither.” Daly was too long accustomed to the familiarity of Sandy's manner to feel offended at the remark, though he did not seem by any means to relish its application. Without making any reply, he arose and entered the hall. On every side were objects reminding him of the past, strange and sad commentary on the words of his servant. Sandy appeared to feel the force of such allies, and, as he stood near, watched the effect the various articles produced on his master's countenance. “A bonnie rifle she is,” said he, as if interpreting the admiring look Daly bestowed upon a richly ornamented gun. “Do you mind the day yer honor shot the corbie at the Tegern See?” “Where the Tyrol fellows set on us, on the road to Innspruck, and I brought down the bird to show them that they had to deal with a marksman as good at least as themselves.”