 patrimony. But to Lady Ashton's yet more
vindictive temper, the conduct of Ravenswood, or rather of his patron, appeared
to be an offence challenging the deepest and most mortal revenge. Even the quiet
and confiding temper of Lucy herself, swayed by the opinions expressed by all
around her, could not but consider the conduct of Ravenswood as precipitate, and
even unkind. »It was my father,« she repeated with a sigh, »who welcomed him to
this place, and encouraged, or at least allowed, the intimacy between us. Should
he not have remembered this, and requited it with at least some moderate degree
of procrastination in the assertion of his own alleged rights? I would have
forfeited for him double the value of these lands, which he pursues with an
ardour that shows he has forgotten how much I am implicated in the matter.«
    Lucy, however, could only murmur these things to herself, unwilling to
increase the prejudices against her lover entertained by all around her, who
exclaimed against the steps pursued on his account, as illegal, vexatious, and
tyrannical, resembling the worst measures in the worst times of the worst
Stuarts, and a degradation of Scotland, the decisions of whose learned judges
were thus subjected to the review of a court, composed, indeed, of men of the
highest rank, but who were not trained to the study of any municipal law, and
might be supposed specially to hold in contempt that of Scotland. As a natural
consequence of the alleged injustice meditated towards her father, every means
was resorted to, and every argument urged, to induce Miss Ashton to break off
her engagement with, Ravenswood, as being scandalous, shameful, and sinful,
formed with the mortal enemy of her family, and calculated to add bitterness to
the distress of her parents.
    Lucy's spirit, however, was high; and although unaided and alone, she could
have borne much - she could have endured the repinings of her father - his
murmurs against what he called the tyrannical usage of the ruling party - his
ceaseless charges of ingratitude against Ravenswood - his endless lectures on
the various means by which contracts may be voided and annulled - his quotations
from the civil, the municipal, and the canon law - and his prelections upon the
patria potestas.
    She might have borne also in patience, or repelled with scorn, the bitter
taunts and occasional violence of her brother, Colonel Douglas Ashton, and the
impertinent and intrusive interference of other friends and relations. But it
was beyond her power effectually to withstand or elude the constant and
unceasing persecution of Lady Ashton
