any
benefit from their successor."

"Far from it, my lord; I am grateful for the benefits which I decline,
and I wish I could pay you for offering them, better than what I am now
about to say." The Lord Keeper looked at her in some surprise, but said
not a word. "My lord," she continued, in an impressive and solemn tone,
"take care what you do; you are on the brink of a precipice."

"Indeed?" said the Lord Keeper, his mind reverting to the political
circumstances of the country. "Has anything come to your knowledge--any
plot or conspiracy?"

"No, my lord; those who traffic in such commodities do not call to their
councils the old, blind, and infirm. My warning is of another kind. You
have driven matters hard with the house of Ravenswood. Believe a true
tale: they are a fierce house, and there is danger in dealing with men
when they become desperate."

"Tush," answered the Keeper; "what has been between us has been the work
of the law, not my doing; and to the law they must look, if they would
impugn my proceedings."

"Ay, but they may think otherwise, and take the law into their own hand,
when they fail of other means of redress."

"What mean you?" said the Lord Keeper. "Young Ravenswood would not have
recourse to personal violence?"

"God forbid I should say so! I know nothing of the youth but what is
honourable and open. Honourable and open, said I? I should have added,
free, generous, noble. But he is still a Ravenswood, and may bide his
time. Remember the fate of Sir George Lockhart."

The Lord Keeper started as she called to his recollection a tragedy
so deep and so recent. The old woman proceeded: "Chiesley, who did the
deed, was a relative of Lord Ravenswood. In the hall of Ravenswood, in
my presence and in that of others, he avowed publicly his determination
to do the cruelty which he afterwards committed. I could not keep
silence, though to speak it ill became my station. 'You are devising a
dreadful crime,' I said, 'for which you must reckon before the judgment
seat.' Never shall I forget his look, as he replied, 'I must reckon then
for many things, and will reckon for this also.' Therefore I may well
say, beware of pressing a desperate man with the hand of authority.
There is blood of Chiesley in the veins of Ravenswood, and one drop of
it were enough to fire him in the circumstances in which he is placed. I
say, beware of him."

The old dame had, either intentionally or by accident, harped aright