Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series, vol. 2 - 1819.djvu/38

28 to any future line of conduct, but with the certainty that he had alarmed his fears in a most sensible point, and laid a foundation for future and farther treaty.

When he rendered an account of his negociation to the Marquis, they both agreed that the Keeper ought not to be permitted to relapse into security, and that he should be plied with new subjects of alarm, especially during the absence of his lady. They were well aware that her proud, vindictive, and predominating spirit, would be likely to supply him with the courage in which he was deficient—that she was immovably attached to the party now in power, with whom she maintained a close correspondence and alliance, and that she hated, without fearing, the Ravenswood family, whose more ancient dignity threw discredit on the newly acquired grandeur of her husband, to such a degree that she would have periled the interest of her own house, to have the prospect of altogether crushing that of her enemy.