The Master of Ravenswood coloured highly, but was silent; and
the Lord Keeper, though not greatly approving the sudden heightening
of his auditor's complexion, commenced the history of a bond for twenty
thousand merks, advanced by his father to the father of Allan Lord
Ravenswood, and was proceeding to detail the executorial proceedings
by which this large sum had been rendered a debitum fundi, when he was
interrupted by the Master.
"It is not in this place," he said, "that I can hear Sir William
Ashton's explanation of the matters in question between us. It is not
here, where my father died of a broken heart, that I can with decency
or temper investigate the cause of his distress. I might remember that I
was a son, and forget the duties of a host. A time, however, there must
come, when these things shall be discussed, in a place and in a presence
where both of us will have equal freedom to speak and to hear."
"Any time," the Lord Keeper said, "any place, was alike to those who
sought nothing but justice. Yet it would seem he was, in fairness,
entitled to some premonition respecting the grounds upon which the
Master proposed to impugn the whole train of legal proceedings, which
had been so well and ripely advised in the only courts competent.
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