CHAPTER XI.

A man may see how this world goes with no eyes.-Look with thine ears: See how yon justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark in thine ear-Change places; and, handydandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?

King Lear.

AMONG those who took the most lively interest in endeavouring to discover the person by whom young Charles Hazlewood had been way-laid and wounded, was Gilbert Glossin, Esquire, late writer in

now Laird of Ellangowan, and one of the worshipful commission of justices of the peace for the county of. His motives for exertion upon this occasion were manifold; but we presume that our readers, from what they already know of this gentleman, will acquit him of being actua

ted by any zealous or intemperate love of abstract justice.

The truth was, that this respectable personage felt himself less at ease than he had expected, when his machinations put him into possession of his benefactor's estate. His reflections within doors, where so much occurred to remind him of former times, were not always the self-congratulations of successful stratagem. And when he looked abroad, he could not but be sensible that he was excluded from the society of the gentry of the country, to whose rank he conceived he had raised himself. He was not admitted to their clubs, and at meetings of a public nature found himself thwarted and looked upon with coldness and contempt. Both principle and prejudice co-operated in creating this dis like; for the gentlemen of the country despised him for the lowness of his birth, while they hated him for the means by which he had raised his fortune. With the common people his reputation stood

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still worse. They would neither yield him the territorial appellation of Ellangowan, nor the usual compliment of Mr Glossin; -with them he was bare Glossin, and so incredibly was his vanity interested by this trifling circumstance, that he was known to give half-a-crown to a beggar, because he had thrice called him Ellangowan, in beseeching him for a penny. He therefore felt acutely the general want of respect, and particularly when he contrasted his own character and reception in society with that of Mr Mac-Morlan, who, in far inferior worldly circumstances, was beloved and respected both by rich and poor, and was slowly, but securely, laying the foundation of a moderate fortune, with the general good-will and esteem of all who knew him.

Glossin, while he repined internally at what he would fain have called the prejudices and prepossessions of the country, was too wise to make any open complaint. He was sensible his elevation was too re

cent to be immediately forgiven, and the means by which he had attained it too odious to be soon forgotten. But time, thought he, diminishes wender and palliates misconduct. With the dexterity, therefore, of one who had made his fortune by studying the weak points of human nature, he determined to lie by for opportunities to make himself useful even to those who most disliked him; confiding that his own abilities, the disposition of country gentlemen to fall into quarrels when a lawyer's advice becomes precious, and a thousand other contingencies, of which, with patience and address, he doubted not to be able to avail himself, would soon place him in a more important and respectable light to his neighbours.

The attack upon Colonel Mannering's house, followed by the accident of Hazlewood's wound, appeared to Glossin a proper opportunity to impress upon the country at large the service which could be rendered by an active magistrate, (for

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he had been in the commission for some time) well acquainted with the law, and no less so with the haunts and habits of the illicit traders. He had acquired the latter kind of experience by a former close alliance with some of the most desperate smugglers, in consequence of which he had occasionally acted, sometimes as partner, sometimes as legal adviser, with these persons. But the connection had been dropped many years; nor, considering how short the race of eminent characters of this description, and the frequent circumstances which occur to make them retire from particular scenes of action, had he the least reason to think that his present researches could possibly compromise any old friend who might possess means of retaliation. The having been concerned in these practices abstractedly, was a circumstance which, according to his opinion, ought in no respect to interfere with his now using his experience in behalf of the public, or rather to further