In the interim, while his character thus displayed and contradicted
itself in private life, his fame was rapidly rising in public estimation.
Unlike many of his brethren, the brilliant lawyer had exceeded
expectation, and shone even yet more conspicuously in the less
adventitiously aided duties of the judge. Envy itself--and Brandon's
political virulence had, despite his personal affability, made him many
foes--was driven into acknowledging the profundity of his legal
knowledge, and in admiring the manner in which the peculiar functions of
his novel dignity were discharged. No juvenile lawyer browbeat, no
hackneyed casuist puzzled, him; even his attention never wandered from
the dullest case subjected to his tribunal. A painter, desirous of
stamping on his canvas the portrait of an upright judge, could scarcely
have found a finer realization for his beau-ideal than the austere,
collected, keen, yet majestic countenance of Sir William Brandon, such as
it seemed in the trappings of office and from the seat of justice.

The newspapers were not slow in recording the singular capture of the
notorious Lovett. The boldness with which he had planned and executed
the rescue of his comrades, joined to the suspense in which his wound for
some time kept the public, as to his escape from one death by the postern
gate of another, caused a very considerable ferment and excitation in the
popular mind; and, to feed the impulse, the journalists were little
slothful in retailing every anecdote, true or false, which they could
collect touching the past adventures of the daring highwayman. Many a
good story then came to light, which partook as much of the comic as the
tragic,--for not a single one of the robber's adventures was noted for
cruelty or bloodshed; many of them betokened rather an hilarious and
jovial spirit of mirthful enterprise. It seemed as if he had thought the
highway a capital arena for jokes, and only robbed for the sake of