CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
-- The Lord Abbot had a soul Subtile and quick, and searching as the fire; By magic stairs he went as deep as hell, And if in devils' possession gold be kept, He brought some sure from thence--'tis hid in caves, Known, save to me, to none .-- The Wonder of a Kingdome.
Lovel almost mechanically followed the beggar, who led the way with a hasty and steady pace, through bush and bramble, avoiding the beaten path, and often turning to listen whether there were any sounds of pursuit behind them.

They sometimes descended into the very bed of the torrent, sometimes kept a narrow and precarious path, that the sheep (which, with the sluttish negligence towards property of that sort universal in Scotland, were allowed to stray in the copse) had made along the very verge of its overhanging banks.

From time to time Lovel had a glance of the path which he had traversed the day before in company with Sir Arthur, the Antiquary, and the young ladies.

Dejected, embarrassed, and occupied by a thousand inquietudes, as he then was, what would he now have given to regain the sense of innocence which alone can counter-balance a thousand evils! "Yet, then," such was his hasty and involuntary reflection, "even then, guiltless and valued by all around me, I thought myself unhappy.

What am I now, with this young man's blood upon my hands ?--the feeling of pride which urged me to the deed has now deserted me, as the actual fiend himself is said to do those whom he has tempted to guilt." Even his affection for Miss Wardour sunk for the time before the first pangs of remorse, and he thought he could have encountered every agony of slighted love to have had the conscious freedom from blood-guiltiness which he possessed in the morning.
These painful reflections were not interrupted by any conversation on the part of his guide, who threaded the thicket before him, now holding back the sprays to make his path easy, now exhorting him to make haste, now muttering to himself, after the custom of solitary and neglected old age, words which might have escaped Lovel's ear even had he listened to them, or which, apprehended and retained, were too isolated to convey any connected meaning,--a habit which may be often observed among people of the old man's age and calling.
At length, as Lovel, exhausted by his late indisposition, the harrowing feelings by which he was agitated, and the exertion necessary to keep up with his guide in a path so rugged, began to flag and fall behind, two or three very precarious steps placed him on the front of a precipice overhung with brushwood and copse.