in my mind." "Did you ever hear of any body that was?" answered Oldbuck;--"what reason has an old battered powder-puff like you to be easy in your mind, more than all the rest of the world besides?" "It's no for mysell, sir; but it threatens an awfu' night; and Sir Arthur, and Miss Wardour, poor thing"-- "Why, man, they must have met the carriage at the head of the loaning, or thereabouts; they must be home long ago." "Na, sir; they didna gang the road by the turnpike to meet the carriage, they gaed by the sands." The word operated like electricity on Oldbuck. "The sands!" he exclaimed; "impossible!" "Ou, sir, that's what I said to the gardener; but he says he saw them turn down by the Mussel-craig. In troth, says I to him, an that be the case, Davie, I am misdoubting"-- "An almanac! an almanac!" said Oldbuck, starting up in great alarm--"not that bauble!" flinging away a little pocket almanac which his niece offered him.--"Great God! my poor dear Miss Isabella!--Fetch me instantly the Fairport Almanac."--It was brought, consulted, and added greatly to his agitation. "I'll go myself--call the gardener and ploughman--bid them bring ropes and ladders--bid them raise more help as they come along --keep the top of the cliffs, and halloo down to them--I'll go myself." "What is the matter?" inquired Miss Oldbuck and Miss M'Intyre. "The tide!--the tide!" answered the alarmed Antiquary. "Had not Jenny better--but no, I'll run myself," said the younger lady, partaking in all her uncle's terrors--"I'll run myself to Saunders Mucklebackit, and make him get out his boat." "Thank you, my dear, that's the wisest word that has been spoken yet --Run! run!--To go by the sands!" seizing his hat and cane; "was there ever such madness heard of!" CHAPTER SEVENTH. --Pleased awhile to view The watery waste, the prospect wild and new; The now receding waters gave them space, On either side, the growing shores to trace And then returning, they contract the scene, Till small and smaller grows the walk between. Crabbe. The information of Davie Dibble, which had spread such general alarm at Monkbarns, proved to be strictly correct. Sir Arthur and his daughter had set out, according to their first proposal, to return to Knockwinnock by the turnpike road; but when they reached the head of the loaning, as it was called, or great lane, which on one side made a sort of avenue to the house of Monkbarns, they discerned, a little way before them, Lovel, who seemed to linger on the way as if to give him an opportunity to join them. Miss Wardour immediately proposed to her father that they should take another direction; and, as the weather was fine, walk home by the sands, which, stretching below a picturesque ridge of rocks, afforded at almost all times a pleasanter passage between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns than the high-road. Sir Arthur acquiesced willingly. "It would be unpleasant," he said, "to be joined by that young fellow, whom Mr. Oldbuck had taken the freedom to introduce them to." And his old-fashioned politeness had none of the ease of the present day which permits you, if you have a mind, to _cut_ the person you have associated with for a week, the instant you feel or suppose yourself in a situation which makes it disagreeable to own him. Sir Arthur only stipulated, that a little ragged boy, for the guerdon of one penny sterling, should run to meet his coachman, and turn his equipage back to Knockwinnock. When this was arranged, and the emissary despatched, the knight and his daughter left the high-road, and following a wandering path among sandy hillocks, partly grown over with furze and the long grass called bent, soon attained the side of the ocean. The tide was by no means so far out as they had computed but this gave them no alarm;--there were seldom ten days in the year when it approached so near the cliffs as not to leave a dry passage. But, nevertheless, at periods of spring-tide, or even when the ordinary flood was accelerated by high winds, this road was altogether covered by the sea; and tradition had recorded several fatal accidents which had happened on such occasions. Still, such dangers were considered as remote and improbable; and rather served, with other legends, to amuse the hamlet fireside, than to prevent any one from going between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns by the sands. As Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour paced along, enjoying the pleasant footing afforded by the cool moist hard sand, Miss Wardour could not help observing that the last tide had risen considerably above the usual water-mark. Sir Arthur made the same observation, but without its occurring to either of them to be alarmed at the circumstance. The sun was now resting his huge disk upon the edge of the level ocean, and gilded the accumulation of towering clouds through which he had travelled the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, like misfortunes. . . . . . .