Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series, vol. 1 - 1819.djvu/77

Rh the disguise of a sewer upon the occasion, answered, in a stern voice, "I bide my time;" and at the same moment a bull's head, the ancient symbol of death, was placed upon the table. The explosion of the conspiracy took place upon the signal, and the usurper and his followers were put to death. Perhaps there was something in this still known and often repeated story, which came immediately home to the breast and conscience of the Lord Keeper; for, putting from him the paper on which he had begun his report, and carefully locking the memoranda which he had prepared, into a cabinet which stood beside him, he proceeded to walk abroad, as if for the purpose of collecting his ideas, and reflecting farther on the consequences of the step which he was about to take, ere yet they became unavoidable.

In passing through a large Gothic antiroom, Sir William Ashton heard the sound of his daughter's lute. Music, when the performers are concealed, affects us with a