We have already said that Woodward was a man of personal courage, and without fear of anything either living or dead, yet, notwithstanding all this, he felt a terror of Shawn-na-Middogue which he could not I overcome.  The escape—­the extraordinary escape of that celebrated young tory—­depressed and vexed him to the heart.  He was conscious, however, of his own villany and of his conduct to Grace Davoren, whom Shawn had loved, and, as Shakespeare says, “conscience makes cowards of us all.”  One thing, however, afforded him some consolation, which was that his disguise prevented him from from being known as the principal person engaged in the attempt to hunt down the outlaw.  He knew that after the solemn promise he had given Miss Riddle, any knowledge on her part of his participation in the pursuit of that generous but unfortunate young man would have so completely sunk him in her opinion, as an individual professing to be a man of honor, that she would have treated his proposals with contempt, and rejected him with disdain.  At all events, his chief object now was to lose no time in prosecuting his suit with her.  For this purpose he urged his mother to pay Lord Cockletown another visit, in order to make a formal proposal for the hand of his niece in his name, with a view of bringing the matter to an issue with as little delay as might be.  His brother, who had relapsed, was in a very precarious condition, but still slightly on the recovery, a circumstance which filled him with alarm.  He only went out at night occasionally, but still he went out, and, as before, did not return until about twelve, but much more frequently one, two, and sometimes three o’clock.  Nobody in the house could understand the mystery of these midnight excursions, and the servants of the family, who were well aware of them, began to look on him with a certain undefined terror as a man whose unaccountable movements were associated with something that was evil and supernatural.  They felt occasionally that the power of his eye was dreadful; and as it began to be whispered about that it was by its evil influence he had brought Alice Goodwin to the very verge of the grave for the purpose of getting at the property, which was to revert to him in case she should die without issue, there was not one of them who, on meeting him, either in or about the house, would run the risk of looking him in the face.  In fact, they experienced that kind of fear of him which a person might be supposed to feel in the case of a spirit; and this is not surprising when we consider the period in which they lived.

Be this as it may, his mother got up the old carriage once more and set out on her journey to Cockle Hall—­her head filled with many an iniquitous design, and her heart with fraud and deceit.  On reaching Cockle Hall she was ushered to the withdrawing-room, where she found his lordship in the self-same costume which we have already described.  Miss Eiddle was in her own room, so that she had the coast clear—­which was precisely what she wanted.