Page:Guy Mannering Vol 2.djvu/176

166 being actuated by any zealous or intemperate love of abstract justice.

The truth was, that this respectable gentleman 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 dislike; 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