He knew what all accounted the principal point, that her
parents and friends, namely, were decidedly in his favour, and that
there existed most powerful reasons for their predilection.
In truth, the conduct of the Marquis of A----, since Ravenswood's
departure, had been such as almost to bar the possibility of his
kinsman's union with Lucy Ashton. The Marquis was Ravenswood's sincere
but misjudging friend; or rather, like many friends and patrons,
he consulted what he considered to be his relation's true interest,
although he knew that in doing so he run counter to his inclinations.
The Marquis drove on, therefore, with the plentitude of ministerial
authority, an appeal to the British House of Peers against those
judgments of the courts of law by which Sir William became possessed of
Ravenswood's hereditary property. As this measure, enforced with all the
authority of power, was new in Scottish judicial proceedings, though now
so frequently resorted to, it was exclaimed against by the lawyers
on the opposite side of politics, as an interference with the civil
judicature of the country, equally new, arbitrary, and tyrannical.
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