parliament, as a natural consequence, was
dissolved also.

Sir Thomas Kittlecourt, like other members in the same situation, posted
down to his county, and met but an indifferent reception. He was a
partizan of the old administration; and the friends of the new had
already set about an active canvass in behalf of John Featherhead, Esq.,
who kept the best hounds and hunters in the shire. Among others who
joined the standard of revolt was Gilbert Glossin, writer in--, agent for
the Laird of Ellangowan. This honest gentleman had either been refused
some favour by the old member, or, what is as probable, he had got all
that he had the most distant pretension to ask, and could only look to
the other side for fresh advancement. Mr. Glossin had a vote upon
Ellangowan's property; and he was now determined that his patron should
have one also, there being no doubt which side Mr. Bertram would embrace
in the contest. He easily persuaded Ellangowan that it would be
creditable to him to take the field at the head of as strong a party as
possible; and immediately went to work, making votes, as every Scotch
lawyer knows how, by splitting and subdividing the superiorities upon
this ancient and once powerful barony. These were so extensive that, by
dint of clipping and paring here, adding and eking there, and creating
over-lords upon all the estate which Bertram held of the crown, they
advanced at the day of contest at the head of ten as good men of
parchment as ever took the oath of trust and possession. This strong
reinforcement turned the dubious day of battle. The principal and his
agent divided the honour; the reward fell to the latter exclusively. Mr.
Gilbert Glossin was made clerk of the peace, and Godfrey Bertram had his
name inserted in a new commission of justices, issued immediately upon
the sitting of the parliament.

This had been the summit of Mr. Bertram's ambition; not that he liked
either the trouble or the responsibility of the office, but he thought it
was a dignity to which he was well entitled, and that it had been
withheld from him by malice prepense. But there is an old and true Scotch
proverb, 'Fools should not have chapping sticks'; that is, weapons of
offence. Mr. Bertram was no sooner possessed of the judicial authority
which he had so much longed for than he began to exercise it with more
severity than mercy, and totally belied all the opinions which had
hitherto been formed of his inert good-nature. We hav