Page:Guy Mannering Vol 3.djvu/172

162, sir, or the inhabitants, sir, or to the furniture and paintings, sir."

"I am acting to the best of my judgement and information, Sir Robert, and I must pray of you to believe so, and to pardon me accordingly. I beg you to observe it is no time for ceremony—it is already very late."

But Sir Robert, without deigning to listen to his apologies, immediately employed himself in arming and arraying his domestics. Charles Hazlewood longed to accompany the military, which was about to depart for Portanferry, and which was now drawn up and mounted by direction and under guidance of Mr Mac-Morlan, as the civil magistrate. But it would have given pain and offence to his father to have left him at a moment when he conceived himself beset with enemies. Young Hazlewood therefore gazed from a window with suppressed regret and displeasure, until he heard the officer give the word of command—"From the right to the front, by