an exception to this general expression of
benevolence. He scowled upon Alan, from beneath his large, shaggy, grey
eyebrows, just as if the young lawyer had been usurping his nephew's
honours, instead of covering his disgrace; and, from feelings which did
his lordship little honour, he privately hoped the young man would not
succeed in the cause which his kinsman had abandoned.

Even Lord Bladderskate, however, was, in spite of himself, pleased with
the judicious and modest tone in which Alan began his address to the
court, apologizing for his own presumption, and excusing it by the
sudden illness of his learned brother, for whom the labour of opening
a cause of some difficulty and importance had been much more worthily
designed. He spoke of himself as he really was, and of young Dumtoustie
as what he ought to have been, taking care not to dwell on either topic
a moment longer than was necessary. The old judge's looks became benign;
his family pride was propitiated, and, pleased equally with the modesty
and civility of the young man whom he had thought forward and officious,
he relaxed the scorn of his features into an expression of profound
attention; the highest compliment, and the greatest encouragement, which
a judge can render to the counsel addressing him.

Having succeeded in securing the favourable attention of the court,
the young lawyer, using the lights which his father's experience and
knowledge of business had afforded him, proceeded with an address and
clearness, unexpected from one of his years, to remove from the case
itself those complicated formalities with which it had been loaded, as a
surgeon strips from a wound the dressings which had been hastily wrapped
round it, in order to proceed to his cure SECUNDUM ARTEM. Developed of
the cumbrous and complicated technicalities of litigation, with which
the perverse obstinacy of the client, the inconsiderate haste or
ignorance of his agents, and the evasions of a subtle adversary, had
invested the process, the cause of Poor Peter Peebles, standing upon
its simple merits, was no bad subject for the declamation of a young
counsel, nor did our friend Alan fail to avail himself of its strong
points.

He exhibited his client as a simple-hearted, honest, well-meaning
man, who, during a copartnership of twelve years, had gradually become
impoverished, while his partner (his former clerk) having no funds but
his share of the same business, into which he had been