At the first landing-place, Sir Arthur made an agonized pause; and as he observed the Antiquary look at him anxiously, he said with assumed dignity—“Yes, Mr. Oldbuck, the descendant of an ancient line—the representative of Richard Redhand and Gamelyn de Guardover, may be pardoned a sigh when he leaves the castle of his fathers thus poorly escorted. When I was sent to the Tower with my late father, in the year 1745, it was upon a charge becoming our birth—upon an accusation of high treason, Mr. Oldbuck;—we were escorted from Highgate by a troop of life-guards, and committed upon a secretary of state’s warrant; and now, here I am, in my old age, dragged from my household by a miserable creature like that” (pointing to the messenger), “and for a paltry concern of pounds, shillings, and pence.
