Chapter 16 - Page 2

forget the duties of a host. A time, however, there must
come, when these things shall be discussed, in a place and in a presence
where both of us will have equal freedom to speak and to hear."

"Any time," the Lord Keeper said, "any place, was alike to those who
sought nothing but justice. Yet it would seem he was, in fairness,
entitled to some premonition respecting the grounds upon which the
Master proposed to impugn the whole train of legal proceedings, which
had been so well and ripely advised in the only courts competent."

"Sir William Ashton," answered the Master, with warmth, "the lands which
you now occupy were granted to my remote ancestor for services done with
his sword against the English invaders. How they have glided from us by
a train of proceedings that seem to be neither sale, nor mortgage, nor
adjudication for debt, but a nondescript and entangled mixture of all
these rights; how annual rent has been accumulated upon principal, and
no nook or coign of legal advantage left unoccupied, until our interest
in our hereditary property seems to have melted away like an icicle in
thaw--all this you understand better than I do. I am willing, however,
to suppose, from the frankness of your conduct towards me, that I may in
a great measure have mistaken your personal character, and that things
may have appeared right and fitting to you, a skilful and practised
lawyer, which to my ignorant understanding seem very little short of
injustice and gross oppression."

"And you, my dear Master," answered Sir William--"you, permit me to say,
have been equally misrepresented to me. I was taught to believe you
a fierce, imperious, hot-headed youth, ready, at the slightest
provocation, to throw your sword into the scales of justice, and to
appeal to those rude and forcible measures from which civil polity has
long protected the people of Scotland. Then, since we were mutually
mistaken in each other, why should not the young nobleman be willing
to listen to the old lawyer, while, at least, he explains the points of
difference betwixt them?"

"No, my lord," answered Ravenswood; "it is in the House of British
Peers, whose honour must be equal to their rank--it is in the court of
last resort that we must parley together. The belted lords of Britain,
her ancient peers, must decide, if it is their will that a house,
not the least noble of their members, shall be stripped of their
possessions, the reward of the patriotism of generations, as the pawn of
a wretched mechanic becomes forfeit to the usurer the instant the hour
of redemption has passed away. If they yield to the grasping severity of
the creditor, and to the gnawing usury