"
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, and 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 restored 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 an annulled; his quotations from the civil, municipal, and the
canon law; and his prelections upon the patria potestas.
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