 to some canker'd feud,
 Or fling her o'er, like Jonah, to the fishes,
 To appease the sea at highest.
                                                                      Anonymous.
 
The Lord Keeper opened his discourse with an appearance of unconcern, marking,
however, very carefully, the effect of his communication upon young Ravenswood.
    »You are aware,« he said, »my young friend, that suspicion is the natural
vice of our unsettled times, and exposes the best and wisest of us to the
imposition of artful rascals. If I had been disposed to listen to such the other
day, or even if I had been the wily politician which you have been taught to
believe me, you, Master of Ravenswood, instead of being at freedom, and with
full liberty to solicit and act against me as you please, in defence of what you
suppose to be your rights, would have been in the Castle of Edinburgh, or some
other state prison; or, if you had escaped that destiny, it must have been by
flight to a foreign country, and at the risk of a sentence of fugitation.«
    »My Lord Keeper,« said the Master, »I think you would not jest on such a
subject - yet it seems impossible you can be in earnest.«
    »Innocence,« said the Lord Keeper, »is also confident, and sometimes, though
very excusably, presumptuously so.«
    »I do not understand,« said Ravenswood, »how a consciousness of innocence
can be, in any case, accounted presumptuous.«
    »Imprudent, at least, it may be called,« said Sir William Ashton, »since it
is apt to lead us into the mistake of supposing that sufficiently evident to
others, of which, in fact, we are only conscious ourselves. I have known a
rogue, for this very reason, make a better defence than an innocent man could
have done in the same circumstances of suspicion. Having no consciousness of
innocence to support him, such a fellow applies himself to all the advantages
which the law will afford him, and sometimes (if his counsel be men of talent)
succeeds in compelling his judges to receive him as innocent. I remember the
celebrated case of Sir Coolie Condiddle, of Condiddle, who was tried for theft
under trust, of which all the world knew him guilty, and yet was not only
acquitted, but lived to sit in judgment on honester folk.«
    »Allow me to beg you will return to the point,« said the Master; »you seemed
to say that I had suffered under some suspicion.«
