ave thought
and believed, I say, that this would have justified me sufficiently in
the eyes of the most respectable and the greater part of the people for
taking such precautions as are calculated to prevent and impede a
repetition of outrage.'

'Really, sir,' said Charles, 'I must remind you of what I have often said
before, that I am positive the discharge of the piece was accidental.'

'Sir, it was not accidental,' said his father, angrily; 'but you will be
wiser than your elders.'

'Really, sir,' replied Hazlewood, 'in what so intimately concerns
myself---'

'Sir, it does not concern you but in a very secondary degree; that is, it
does not concern you, as a giddy young fellow who takes pleasure in
contradicting his father; but it concerns the country, sir, and the
county, sir, and the public, sir, and the kingdom of Scotland, in so far
as the interest of the Hazlewood family, sir, is committed and interested
and put in peril, in, by, and through you, sir. And the fellow is in safe
custody, and Mr. Glossin thinks---'

'Mr. Glossin, sir?'

'Yes, sir, the gentleman who has purchased Ellangowan; you know who I
mean, I suppose?'

'Yes, sir,' answered the young man; 'but I should hardly have expected to
hear you quote such authority. Why, this fellow--all the world knows him
to be sordid, mean, tricking, and I suspect him to be worse. And you
yourself, my dear sir, when did you call such a person a gentleman in
your life before?'

'Why, Charles, I did not mean gentleman in the precise sense and meaning,
and restricted and proper use, to which, no doubt, the phrase ought
legitimately to be confined; but I meant to use it relatively, as marking
something of that state to which he has elevated and raised himself; as
designing, in short, a decent and wealthy and estimable sort of a
person.'

'Allow me to ask, sir,' said Charles, 'if it was by this man's orders
that the guard was drawn from Portanferry?'

'Sir,' replied the Baronet, 'I do apprehend that Mr. Glossin would not
presume to give orders, or even an opinion, unless asked, in a matter in
which Hazlewood House and the house of Hazlewood--meaning by the one this
mansion-house of my family, and by the other, typically, metaphorically,
and parabolically, the family itself,--I say, then, where the house of
Hazlewood, or Hazlewood House, was so immediately concerned.'

'I presume, however, sir,' said the son, 'this Glossin approved of the
proposal?'

'Sir,'