of the ascetic philosopher—­a character to which he had not the slightest claim of resemblance, and the very affectation of which, whenever he became aroused or irritated, was completely forgotten.  Without referring—­as Munro would have done, and, indeed, as he subsequently did—­to the precise events which had already just taken place and were still in progress about him, and which made all parties equally obnoxious with himself to human punishment, and for an offence far more criminal in its dye than that which the youth laid to his charge—­he could not avoid the momentary apprehension, which—­succeeding with the quickness of thought the intelligent and conscious glance of Colleton—­immediately came over him.  His eye, seldom distinguished by such a habit, quailed before it; and the deep malignity and festering hatred of his soul toward the youth, which it so unaccountably entertained before, underwent, by this mortification of his pride, a due degree of exaggeration.

Ralph, though wise beyond his years, and one who, in a thought borrowed in part from Ovid, we may say, could rather compute them by events than ordinary time, wanted yet considerably in that wholesome, though rather dowdyish virtue, which men call prudence.  He acted on the present occasion precisely as he might have done in the college campus, with all the benefits of a fair field and a plentiful crowd of backers.  Without duly reflecting whether an accusation of the kind he preferred, at such a time, to such men, and against one of their own accomplices, would avail much, if anything, toward the punishment of the criminal—­not to speak of his own risk, necessarily an almost certain consequence from such an implied determination not to be particeps criminis with any of them, he approached, and boldly denounced Rivers as a murderous villain; and urgently called upon those around him to aid in his arrest.

But he was unheard—­he had no auditors; nor did this fact result from any unwillingness on their part to hear and listen to the charge against one so detested as the accused.  They could see and hear but of one subject—­they could comprehend no other.  The events of such fresh and recent occurrence were in all minds and before all eyes; and few, besides Forrester, either heard to understand, or listened for a moment to the recital.

Nor did the latter and now unhappy personage appear to give it much more consideration than the rest.  Hurried on by the force of associating circumstances, and by promptings not of himself or his, he had been an active performer in the terrible drama we have already witnessed, and the catastrophe of which he could now only, and in vain, deplore.  Leaning with vacant stare and lacklustre vision against the neighboring rock, he seemed indifferent to, and perhaps ignorant of, the occurrences taking place around him.  He had interfered when the youth and Rivers were in contact, but so soon after the event narrated, that time for reflection had not then been allowed.  The dreadful process of thinking himself into an examination of his own deeds was going on; and remorse, with its severe but salutary stings, was doing, without restraint, her rigorous duties.