The greater part of the people went home satisfied; but not so
the Rev. Robert Wringhim. He did all that he could to inflame
both judges and populace against the young Cavaliers, especially
against the young Laird of Dalcastle, whom he represented as an
incendiary, set on by an unnatural parent to slander his mother,
and make away with a hapless and only brother; and, in truth,
that declaimer against all human merit had that sort of powerful,
homely, and bitter eloquence which seldom missed affecting his
hearers: the consequence at that time was that he made the
unfortunate affair between the two brothers appear in extremely
bad colours, and the populace retired to their homes impressed
with no very favourable opinion of either the Laird of Dalcastle
or his son George, neither of whom were there present to speak
for themselves.
As for Wringhim himself, he went home to his lodgings, filled
with gall and with spite against the young laird, whom he was
made to believe the aggressor, and that intentionally. But most of
all he was filled with indignation against the father, whom he
held in abhorrence at all times, and blamed solely for this
unmannerly attack made on his favourite ward, namesake, and
adopted son; and for the public imputation of a crime to his own
reverence in calling the lad his son, and thus charging him with a
sin against which he was well known to have levelled all the
arrows of church censure with unsparing might.
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