escape the fatality which induced the Lairds of Ellangowan to
interfere with politics, he had yet the prudence, ere he went out
with Lord Kenmore in 1715, to convey his estate to trustees, in
order to parry pains and penalties in case the Earl of Mar could
not put down the Protestant succession. But Scylla and Charybdis--
a word to the wise--he only saved his estate at expense of a
lawsuit, which again subdivided the family property. He was,
however, a man of resolution. He sold part of the lands, evacuated
the old cattle, where the family lived in their decadence as a
mouse (said an old farmer) lives under a firlot. Pulling down part
of these venerable ruins, he built with the stones a narrow house
of three stories high, with a front like a grenadier's cap, having
in the very centre a round window like the single eye of a
Cyclops, two windows on each side, and a door in the middle,
leading to a parlour and withdrawing-room full of all manner of
cross lights.

This was the New Place of Ellangowan, in which we left our hero,
better amused perhaps than our readers, and to this Lewis Bertram
retreated, full of projects for re-establishing the prosperity of
his family. He took some land into his own hand, rented some from
neighbouring proprietors, bought and sold Highland cattle and
Cheviot sheep, rode to fairs and trysts, fought hard bargains, and
held necessity at the staff's end as well as he might. But what he
gained in purse he lost in honour, for such agricultural and
commercial negotiations were very ill looked upon by his brother
lairds, who minded nothing but cock-fighting, hunting, coursing,
and horse-racing, with now and then the alternative of a desperate
duel. The occupations which he followed encroached, in their
opinion, upon the article of Ellangowan's gentry, and he found it