little known in Scotland, and the extension of them to that country was one of the most valuable advantages which it gained by the Union.  But this was a blessing which the Lord Keeper, who had lived under another system, could not have the means of foreseeing.  In the loss of his political consequence, he anticipated the loss of his lawsuit.  Meanwhile, every report which reached him served to render the success of the Marquis’s intrigues the more probable, and the Lord Keeper began to think it indispensable that he should look round for some kind of protection against the coming storm.  The timidity of his temper induced him to adopt measures of compromise and conciliation.  The affair of the wild bull, properly managed, might, he thought, be made to facilitate a personal communication and reconciliation betwixt the Master and himself.  He would then learn, if possible, what his own ideas were of the extent of his rights, and the means of enforcing them; and perhaps matters might be brought to a compromise, where one party was wealthy and the other so very poor.  A reconciliation with Ravenswood was likely to give him an opportunity to play his own game with the Marquis of A——.  “And besides,” said he to himself, “it will be an act of generosity to raise up the heir of this distressed family; and if he is to be warmly and effectually befriended by the new government, who knows but my virtue may prove its own reward?”

Thus thought Sir William Ashton, covering with no unusual self-delusion his interested views with a hue of virtue; and having attained this point, his fancy strayed still farther.  He began to bethink himself, “That if Ravenswood was to have a distinguished place of power and trust, and if such a union would sopite the heavier part of his unadjusted claims, there might be worse matches for his daughter Lucy:  the Master might be reponed against the attainder.  Lord Ravenswood was an ancient title, and the alliance would, in some measure, legitimate his own possession of the greater part of the Master’s spoils, and make the surrender of the rest a subject of less bitter regret.”

With these mingled and multifarious plans occupying his head, the Lord Keeper availed himself of my Lord Bittlebrains’s repeated invitation to his residence, and thus came within a very few miles of Wolf’s Crag.  Here he found the lord of the mansion absent, but was courteously received by the lady, who expected her husband’s immediate return.  She expressed her particular delight at seeing Miss Ashton, and appointed the hounds to be taken out for the Lord Keeper’s special amusement.  He readily entered into the proposal, as giving him an opportunity to reconnoitre Wolf’s Crag, and perhaps to make some acquaintance with the owner, if he should be tempted from his desolate mansion by the chase.  Lockhard had his orders to endeavour on his part to make some acquaintance with the inmates of the castle, and we have seen how he played his part.