CHAPTER X.
MEDIATION.
-- ------So, begone! We will not now be troubled with reply; We offer fair, take it advisedly.
_King Henry IV.

Part I._ It had been the purpose of Tyrrel, by rising and breakfasting early, to avoid again meeting Mr.Touchwood, having upon his hands a matter in which that officious gentleman's interference was likely to prove troublesome.

His character, he was aware, had been assailed at the Spa in the most public manner, and in the most public manner he was resolved to demand redress, conscious that whatever other important concerns had brought him to Scotland, must necessarily be postponed to the vindication of his honour.

He was determined, for this purpose, to go down to the rooms when the company was assembled at the breakfast hour, and had just taken his hat to set out, when he was interrupted by Mrs.
Dods, who, announcing "a gentleman that was speering for him," ushered into the chamber a very fashionable young man in a military surtout, covered with silk lace and fur, and wearing a foraging-cap; a dress now too familiar to be distinguished, but which at that time was used only by geniuses of a superior order.

The stranger was neither handsome nor plain, but had in his appearance a good deal of pretension, and the cool easy superiority which belongs to high breeding.