220 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
something of the same spirit of the wretches who made for- 
tunes off of the vice of poor George Moreland. When a new 
picture was to be wrung from their victim, they came to him 
with a pittance of ready gold in one hand and a brandy bottle 
in the other; and as the latter was always the more potent 
of the two, they made up the difference due in gold, in cheap 
and villainous brandy. 
Smith, like Moreland, was too lazy to work under the ordi- 
nary stimulus of money, for which he never could be made to 
care, and when they found out this “beautiful weakness,” as 
the mercenary knaves were in the habit of terming it, they 
never failed, when he was to speak on a doubtful case where 
there was much at stake, to have the old man informed of the 
day and hour, and thus drag him forth, well or ill—for go he 
would,—to act as a sort of spiritual brandy bottle upon his 
adopted son. They knew well that Smith would sooner lose his 
right arm than make a failure in a legal argument before his 
beloved and venerated patron. What is still more strange, 
neither Smith nor the old judge ever suspected this infamous 
game, although it was regularly practised upon them, until the 
death of the latter, and was well known to every one about 
the courts. 
The Judge lived just long enough to bless the son of his 
adoption and his pride, who had been elected to the Assembly 
of the Province the very year he came of lawful age. The 
good man then lay down in peace to die, for now he had seen 
the fruition of his hope. He left his property divided equally 
between his two daughters and the adopted son. He was soon 
followed by his faithful dame, and now the young orphan stood 
once more alone in the world. Not entirely alone, spiritually, 
either, for Mattie was still steadfast to her childish affection, 
and would listen to no suitors that came. To be sure, had she 
been disposed to coquetry, the indulgence would have been 
something difficult, for old Saunders became more and more 
miserly as he grew older, and more watchful of his daughter. 
