He stopped in the court-yard, however, with the air of one uncertain whither he intended to go, and who was desirous to ask some question, which seemed to die upon his tongue.

At length his eye fell upon a groom, who stood not far from the door of the inn, holding in his hand a handsome pony, with a side-saddle.
"Whose"-- --said Tyrrel--but the rest of the question he seemed unable to utter.
The man, however, replied, as if he had heard the whole interrogation.--"Miss Mowbray's, sir, of St.Ronan's--she leaves directly--and so I am walking the pony--a clever thing, sir, for a lady." "She returns to Shaws-Castle by the Buck-stane road ?" "I suppose so, sir," said the groom.

"It is the nighest, and Miss Clara cares little for rough roads.

Zounds! She can spank it over wet and dry." Tyrrel turned away from the man, and hastily left the hotel--not, however, by the road which led to the Aultoun, but by a footpath among the natural copsewood, which, following the course of the brook, intersected the usual horse-road to Shaws-Castle, the seat of Mr.
Mowbray, at a romantic spot called the Buck-stane.
In a small peninsula, formed by a winding of the brook, was situated, on a rising hillock, a large rough-hewn pillar of stone, said by tradition to commemorate the fall of a stag of unusual speed, size, and strength, whose flight, after having lasted through a whole summer's day, had there terminated in death, to the honour and glory of some ancient baron of St.Ronan's, and of his stanch hounds.

During the periodical cuttings of the copse, which the necessities of the family of St.Ronan's brought round more frequently than Ponty would have recommended, some oaks had been spared in the neighbourhood of this massive obelisk, old enough perhaps to have heard the whoop and halloo which followed the fall of the stag, and to have witnessed the raising of the rude monument by which that great event was commemorated.