liam Ashton had sometimes treated as a
bugbear, was proved beyond the possibility of further doubt.

The alarm of the Lord Keeper became very serious; since the Claim of
Right, the power of appealing from the decisions of the civil court to
the Estates of Parliament, which had formerly been held incompetent, had
in many instances been claimed, and in some allowed, and he had no small
reason to apprehend the issue, if the English House of Lords should be
disposed to act upon an appeal from the Master of Ravenswood "for remeid
in law." It would resolve into an equitable claim, and be decided,
perhaps, upon the broad principles of justice, which were not quite so
favourable to the Lord Keeper as those of strict law. Besides, judging,
though most inaccurately, from courts which he had himself known in the
unhappy times preceding the Scottish Union, the Keeper might have too
much right to think that, in the House to which his lawsuits were to be
transferred, the old maxim might prevail which was too well recognised
in Scotland in former times: "Show me the man, and I'll show you the
law." The high and unbiased character of English judicial proceedings
was then 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