privy council, cannot but be construed into
an aggravated riot, in which the dignity both of the civil and
ecclesiastical authorities stands committed. A heavy fine might be
imposed; an order for committing him to Edinburgh or Blackness Castle
seems not improper; even a charge of treason might be laid on many of
these words and expressions, though God forbid I should prosecute the
matter to that extent. No, I will not; I will not touch his life, even
if it should be in my power; and yet, if he lives till a change of
times, what follows? Restitution--perhaps revenge. I know Athole
promised his interest to old Ravenswood, and here is his son already
bandying and making a faction by his own contemptible influence. What
a ready tool he would be for the use of those who are watching the
downfall of our administration!"

While these thoughts were agitating the mind of the wily statesman, and
while he was persuading himself that his own interest and safety, as
well as those of his friends and party, depended on using the present
advantage to the uttermost against young Ravenswood, the Lord Keeper
sate down to his desk, and proceeded to draw up, for the information of
the privy council, an account of the disorderly proceedings which,
in contempt of his warrant, had taken place at the funeral of Lord
Ravenswood. The names of most of the parties concerned, as well as the
fact itself, would, he was well aware, sound odiously in the ears of his
colleagues in administration, and most likely instigate them to make an
example of young Ravenswood, at least, in terrorem.

It was a point of delicacy, however, to select such expressions as might
infer the young man's culpability, without seeming directly to urge
it, which, on the part of Sir William Ashton, his father's ancient
antagonist, could not but appear odious and invidious. While he was in
the act of composition, labouring to find words which might indicate
Edgar Ravenswood to be the cause of the uproar, without specifically
making such a charge, Sir William, in a pause of his task, chanced, in
looking upward, to see the crest of the family for whose heir he was
whetting the arrows and disposing the toils of the law carved upon one
of the corbeilles from which the vaulted roof of the apartment sprung.
It was a black bull's head, with the legend, "I bide my time"; and
the occasion upon which it was adopted mingled itself singularly and
impressively with the subject of his present