ER XXVIII.

THE WISDOM OF THE WISE.

Change, meantime, was in progress elsewhere, and as well upon the
foot as high on the side of Glashgar--change which seemed all
important to those who felt the grind of the glacier as it slipped.
Thomas Galbraith, of Glashruach, Esquire, whom no more than any
other could negation save, was not enfranchised from folly, or
lifted above belief in a lie, by his hatred to what he called
superstition: he had long fallen into what will ultimately prove the
most degrading superstition of all--the worship of Mammon, and was
rapidly sinking from deep to lower deep. First of all, this was the
superstition of placing hope and trust in that which, from age to
age, and on the testimony of all sorts of persons who have tried it,
has been proved to fail utterly; next, such was the folly of the man
whose wisdom was indignant with the harmless imagination of simple
people for daring flutter its wings upon his land, that he risked
what he loved best in the world, even better than Mammon, the
approbation of fellow worshippers, by investing in Welsh gold mines.

The property of Glashruach was a good one, but not nearly so large
as it had been, and he was anxious to restore it to its former
dimensions. The rents were low, and it could but tardily widen its
own borders, while of money he had little and no will to mortgage.
To increase his money, that he might increase his property, he took
to speculation, but had never had much success until that same year,
when he disposed of certain shares at a large profit--nothing
troubled by the conviction that the man who bought them--in
ignorance of many a fact which the laird knew--must in all
probability be ruined by them. He counted this success, and it gave
him confidence to speculate further. In the mean time, with what he
had thus secured, he reannexed to the property a small farm which
had been for some time in the market, but whose sale he had managed
to delay. The purchase gave him particular pleasure, because the
farm not only marched with his home-grounds, but filled up a great
notch in the map of the property between Glashruach and the Mains,
with which also it marched. It was good land, and he let it at
once, on his own terms, to Mr. Duff.

In the spring, affairs looked rather bad for him, and in the month
of May, he considered himself compelled to go to London: he had a
faith in his own business-faculty quite as foolish as any
superstitio