
interest to old Ravenswood, and here is his son already bandying and making a
faction by his own contemptible influence. What a ready tool he would be for the
use of those who are watching the downfal of our administration!«
    While these thoughts were agitating the mind of the wily statesman, and
while he was persuading himself that his own interest and safety, as well as
those of his friends and party, depended on using the present advantage to the
uttermost against young Ravenswood, the Lord Keeper sat down to his desk, and
proceeded to draw up, for the information of the Privy Council, an account of
the disorderly proceedings which, in contempt of his warrant, had taken place at
the funeral of Lord Ravenswood. The names of most of the parties concerned, as
well as the fact itself, would, he was well aware, sound odiously in the ears of
his colleagues in administration, and most likely instigate them to make an
example of young Ravenswood, at least, in terrorem.
    It was a point of delicacy, however, to select such expressions as might
infer the young man's culpability, without seeming directly to urge it, which,
on the part of Sir William Ashton, his father's ancient antagonist, could not
but appear odious and invidious. While he was in the act of composition,
labouring to find words which might indicate Edgar Ravenswood to be the cause of
the uproar, without specifically making such a charge, Sir William, in a pause
of his task, chanced, in looking upward, to see the crest of the family (for
whose heir he was whetting the arrows, and disposing the toils of the law),
carved upon one of the corbeilles from which the vaulted roof of the apartment
sprung. It was a black bull's head, with the legend, »I bide my time;« and the
occasion upon which it was adopted mingled itself singularly and impressively
with the subject of his present reflections.
    It was said by a constant tradition, that a Malisius de Ravenswood had, in
the thirteenth century, been deprived of his castles and lands by a powerful
usurper, who had for a while enjoyed his spoils in quiet. At length, on the eve
of a costly banquet, Ravenswood, who had watched his opportunity, introduced
himself into the castle with a small band of faithful retainers. The serving of
the expected feast was impatiently looked for by the guests, and clamorously
demanded by the temporary master of the castle. Ravenswood, who had assumed the
disguise of a sewer upon the occasion, answered, in a stern voice,
