Even this slight manoeuvre was embarrassing to Sir Everard, who felt it as a reproach to his indecision.
He looked at the attorney with some desire to issue his fiat, when the sun, emerging from behind a cloud, poured at once its chequered light through the stained window of the gloomy cabinet in which they were seated.

The Baronet's eye, as he raised it to the splendour, fell right upon the central scutcheon, inpressed with the same device which his ancestor was said to have borne in the field of Hastings,--three ermines passant, argent, in a field azure, with its appropriate motto, Sans tache.

'May our name rather perish,' exclaimed Sir Everard, 'than that ancient and loyal symbol should be blended with the dishonoured insignia of a traitorous Roundhead!' All this was the effect of the glimpse of a sunbeam, just sufficient to light Lawyer Clippurse to mend his pen.

The pen was mended in vain.

The attorney was dismissed, with directions to hold himself in readiness on the first summons.
The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse at the Hall occasioned much speculation in that portion of the world to which Waverley-Honour formed the centre.