 means, fair or foul,
to learn the contents of the letter of which he was the bearer. But as this plot
had been foreseen, the messenger returned by a different and distant road, and
thus escaped the snare that was laid for him.
    After he had been in vain expected for some time, Mr. Dingwall had orders to
make especial inquiry among his clients of Wolf's Hope, whether such a domestic
belonging to the Marquis of A-- had actually arrived at the neighbouring castle.
This was easily ascertained; for Caleb had been in the village one morning by
five o'clock, to »borrow twa chappins of ale and a kipper« for the messenger's
refreshment, and the poor fellow had been ill for twenty-four hours at Luckie
Sma'trash's, in consequence of dining upon »saut saumon and sour drink.« So that
the existence of a correspondence betwixt the Marquis and his distressed
kinsman, which Sir William Ashton had sometimes treated as a bugbear, was proved
beyond the possibility of farther 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 in Scotland which was too well recognised in former
times, - »Show me the man, and I'll show you the law.« The high and unbiassed
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
