CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE WISDOM OF THE WISE.
Change, meantime, was in progress elsewhere, and as well upon the foot as high on the side of Glashgar--change which seemed all important to those who felt the grind of the glacier as it slipped.
Thomas Galbraith, of Glashruach, Esquire, whom no more than any other could negation save, was not enfranchised from folly, or lifted above belief in a lie, by his hatred to what he called superstition: he had long fallen into what will ultimately prove the most degrading superstition of all--the worship of Mammon, and was rapidly sinking from deep to lower deep.

First of all, this was the superstition of placing hope and trust in that which, from age to age, and on the testimony of all sorts of persons who have tried it, has been proved to fail utterly; next, such was the folly of the man whose wisdom was indignant with the harmless imagination of simple people for daring flutter its wings upon his land, that he risked what he loved best in the world, even better than Mammon, the approbation of fellow worshippers, by investing in Welsh gold mines.
The property of Glashruach was a good one, but not nearly so large as it had been, and he was anxious to restore it to its former dimensions.

The rents were low, and it could but tardily widen its own borders, while of money he had little and no will to mortgage.
To increase his money, that he might increase his property, he took to speculation, but had never had much success until that same year, when he disposed of certain shares at a large profit--nothing troubled by the conviction that the man who bought them--in ignorance of many a fact which the laird knew--must in all probability be ruined by them.

He counted this success, and it gave him confidence to speculate further.

In the mean time, with what he had thus secured, he reannexed to the property a small farm which had been for some time in the market, but whose sale he had managed to delay.