The Master of Ravenswood, having thus expressed himself, began to move homeward, with the manner of one who has taken leave of his company.  But the stranger was not so to be shaken off.  He turned his horse at the same time, and rode in the same direction, so near to the Master that, without outriding him, which the formal civility of the time, and the respect due to the stranger’s age and recent civility, would have rendered improper, he could not easily escape from his company.

The stranger did not long remain silent.  “This, then,” he said, “is the ancient Castle of Wolf’s Crag, often mentioned in the Scottish records,” looking to the old tower, then darkening under the influence of a stormy cloud, that formed its background; for at the distance of a short mile, the chase, having been circuitous, had brought the hunters nearly back to the point which they had attained when Ravenswood and Bucklaw had set forward to join them.

Ravenswood answered this observation with a cold and distant assent.  “It was, as I have heard,” continued the stranger, unabashed by his coldness, “one of the most early possessions of the honourable family of Ravenswood.”

“Their earliest possession,” answered the Master, “and probably their latest.”

“I—­I—­I should hope not, sir,” answered the stranger, clearing his voice with more than one cough, and making an effort to overcome a certain degree of hesitation; “Scotland knows what she owes to this ancient family, and remembers their frequent and honourable achievements.  I have little doubt that, were it properly represented to her Majesty that so ancient and noble a family were subjected to dilapidation—­I mean to decay—­means might be found, ad re-aedificandum antiquam domum——­”

“I will save you the trouble, sir, of discussing this point farther,” interrupted the Master, haughtily.  “I am the heir of that unfortunate house—­I am the Master of Ravenswood.  And you, sir, who seem to be a gentleman of fashion and education, must be sensible that the next mortification after being unhappy is the being loaded with undesired commiseration.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the elder horseman; “I did not know—­I am sensible I ought not to have mentioned—­nothing could be farther from my thoughts than to suppose——­”

“There are no apologies necessary, sir,” answered Ravenswood, “for here, I suppose, our roads separate, and I assure you that we part in perfect equanimity on my side.”

As speaking these words, he directed his horse’s head towards a narrow causeway, the ancient approach to Wolf’s Crag, of which it might be truly said, in the words of the Bard of Hope, that

     Frequented by few was the grass-cover’d road,
     Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode,
     To his hills that encircle the sea.

But, ere he could disengage himself from his companion, the young lady we have already mentioned came up to join the stranger, followed by her servants.