‘I have no wish to try,’ said he.  ’And yet there is one point I cannot understand:  I cannot understand that one of your blood and experience should serve the Corsican.  I cannot understand it:  it seems as though everything generous in you must rise against that—­ domination.’

‘And perhaps,’ I retorted, ’had your childhood passed among wolves, you would have been overjoyed yourself to see the Corsican Shepherd.’

‘Well, well,’ replied Mr. Romaine, ’it may be.  There are things that do not bear discussion.’

And with a wave of his hand he disappeared abruptly down a flight of steps and under the shadow of a ponderous arch.

CHAPTER V—­ST. IVES IS SHOWN A HOUSE

The lawyer was scarce gone before I remembered many omissions; and chief among these, that I had neglected to get Mr. Burchell Fenn’s address.  Here was an essential point neglected; and I ran to the head of the stairs to find myself already too late.  The lawyer was beyond my view; in the archway that led downward to the castle gate, only the red coat and the bright arms of a sentry glittered in the shadow; and I could but return to my place upon the ramparts.

I am not very sure that I was properly entitled to this corner.  But I was a high favourite; not an officer, and scarce a private, in the castle would have turned me back, except upon a thing of moment; and whenever I desired to be solitary, I was suffered to sit here behind my piece of cannon unmolested.  The cliff went down before me almost sheer, but mantled with a thicket of climbing trees; from farther down, an outwork raised its turret; and across the valley I had a view of that long terrace of Princes Street which serves as a promenade to the fashionable inhabitants of Edinburgh.  A singularity in a military prison, that it should command a view on the chief thoroughfare!

It is not necessary that I should trouble you with the train of my reflections, which turned upon the interview I had just concluded and the hopes that were now opening before me.  What is more essential, my eye (even while I thought) kept following the movement of the passengers on Princes Street, as they passed briskly to and fro—­met, greeted, and bowed to each other—­or entered and left the shops, which are in that quarter, and, for a town of the Britannic provinces, particularly fine.  My mind being busy upon other things, the course of my eye was the more random; and it chanced that I followed, for some time, the advance of a young gentleman with a red head and a white great-coat, for whom I cared nothing at the moment, and of whom it is probable I shall be gathered to my fathers without learning more.  He seemed to have a large acquaintance:  his hat was for ever in his hand; and I daresay I had already observed him exchanging compliments with half a dozen, when he drew up at last before a young man and a young lady whose tall persons and gallant carriage I thought I recognised.