India 2001 books

The fortunes of the heir of Ravenswood were
too low to brave the farther hostility which they imagined these open
expressions of resentment must necessarily provoke. Their apprehensions,
however, proved groundless, at least in the immediate consequences of
this affair.
The mourners returned to the tower, there, according to a custom but
recently abolished in Scotland, to carouse deep healths to the memory of
the deceased, to make the house of sorrow ring with sounds of joviality
and debauch, and to diminish, by the expense of a large and profuse
entertainment, the limited revenues of the heir of him whose funeral
they thus strangely honoured. It was the custom, however, and on the
present occasion it was fully observed. The tables swam in wine,
the populace feasted in the courtyard, the yeomen in the kitchen and
buttery; and two years' rent of Ravenswood's remaining property hardly
defrayed the charge of the funeral revel. The wine did its office on all
but the Master of Ravenswood, a title which he still retained, though
forfeiture had attached to that of his father.


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