The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish Story. Маргарет Олифант
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your friend in Edinburgh—I want him to take all our affairs in hand, and save, if it is possible, Norlaw itself for my mother. What we’ll have to begin upon after, I can’t very well tell—but Cosmo is the only one of us too young to set out for himself. I will leave the other matter with Mr. Cassilis, and he can do what he thinks best.”
“Very wise, Huntley, very wise,” said the minister, whose mind was still fumbling after his idea; “and you’re thinking of going abroad yourself, they tell me?—I don’t doubt it’s a shock to your mother, but I would say it was the best thing you could do. Charlie Cassilis, no doubt, will be coming here. He’s aye very willing to come to the manse. I’ll make Katie write him a line to-day, to say we’ll expect him—and any thing I can do to further the business, you know you can rely upon—eh? what was that you said?”
“Nothing,” said Huntley, “except that there’s little time to lose, and I am interrupting you. Good-bye, Dr. Logan—I’ll see you again before I go away.”
“Before he goes away,” said the minister, with perplexity, half rising to follow Huntley, as he hurried from the room; “what does the callant mean?” But just then Dr. Logan’s eye returned to the knob of the bookcase, which no longer recalled that precious lost idea. “Poor human nature!” said the good man, with a sigh. He thought it rather selfish of Huntley to have disturbed his studies just at that particular moment—and it was the young man’s human nature over which he sighed.
Huntley, meanwhile, went back again to Norlaw in a greater tumult of mind than that which had brought him forth. But he no longer thought of Melmar as he had done in that sudden golden vision of fortune and conquest. His heart leaped within him like one on the verge of a new world. These three scenes through which he had passed:—bowed Jaacob’s odd philosophy and startling groundwork—“Trust in nothing that you have not conquered for yourself;” Katie’s quiet home-parlor, her blush and glance of kindness, which perhaps understood his unspoken and sudden fervor as well as he did himself; and, beyond these, the sober, calm every-day minister, giving only an outside and momentary attention to those matters in which this young life had all its hopes at stake, minding his sermon, and only kindly indifferent to Huntley, had brought the youth on a long way in the education of his life. He could not have put it all into words, or explained it to the satisfaction of the philosopher; yet the shock of reality and actual life which brought him back to himself in the little smithy of Kirkbride—the warm light of Katie’s eyes which had stirred, with something of personal and distinct identity, separate from family interests, and individual in the world, the young man’s heart and spirit—and not least, though very different, the composed friendliness of the minister, pre-occupied with his sermon, who had only a very spare amount of attention to bestow upon Huntley, and showed him that the world in general was not likely to be much absorbed by his interests, or startled by his hopes—were all very real, practical and permanent lessons. They sent him back to Norlaw an older man.
CHAPTER XVIII
Mr. Cassilis came to the manse in answer to Katie’s invitation and the business of Huntley. He was young and did not particularly commend himself to the liking of the young master of Norlaw; but as he pleased all the other people very tolerably well, there were, perhaps, various reasons for the less friendly sentiment of Huntley. He was, however, a brisk man of business, and not sufficiently over-burdened with occupation to prevent him entering heartily into the concerns of the half-ruined family.
All this time Patrick Livingstone had been quietly busy, collecting and arranging all his father’s memoranda which seemed to throw any light upon their circumstances; among these were many hurried, and only half intelligible notes of transactions with the former Huntley of Melmar, from which it very shortly appeared that Norlaw’s debts had all been contracted to his old kinsman, and had only come into possession of “the present Melmar,” when he took possession of the house and property, as heir-at-law, on the old man’s death. They had suspected this before, for it seemed very unlikely that one man should borrow of another, whose claims were so entirely antagonistic to his own—but these were their only real evidence—for Norlaw had been so irregular and unsystematic that it was impossible to tell what money might or might not have passed through his hands.
The lawyer took all these scratchy memorandums out of Patrick’s hands, and examined them carefully in presence of the lads. They were in the east room, in the midst of a pile of old papers from which these had been selected. Patie had not completed his task—he was going over his father’s letters, to see whether they threw any light on these forgotten transactions. It was no small task; for Norlaw, like most other men of trifling habits and unimportant correspondence, kept every thing that everybody wrote to him, and even scrawls of his own letters. Some of these scrawls were curious enough—among them were one or two anxious and elaborate epistles to people abroad, whom his search for his lost love had brought him into contact with; some, dating still further back, were intimations of the birth of his children, and other family events of importance to his wife’s relations. They were all composed with considerable care, and in somewhat pompous diction; they threw wonderful light upon the weaknesses and vanities of this departed life, and indifferent people might have laughed at them—but Huntley and Patie blushed instead of laughing, or folded the scrawls away hurriedly with tears in their eyes. To them these memorials were still pathetic, tender, full of a touching appeal to their affection, too sacred to meet the common eye.
Presently, however, Patie caught a glimpse of a handwriting still more scratchy than his father’s—the trembling characters of old age. It was a letter from old Melmar, the most important they had yet lighted upon—and ran thus:—
“Dear Patrick,
“Touching the matter that was under discussion betwixt us the last time I saw you, I have just this to say, namely, that I hold your receipts and acknowledgments for money in the interests of your wife and family, and not in my own. I know well what would happen if you knew yourself free to incur more responsibility; so, mind you, though you’ll get them all at my death, and most likely Melmar to the boot, I’ll take care, as long as I’m to the fore, to keep my hand over you for your good. You can let the Mistress see this if you please, and I’ll wager a bodle she agrees with me. I can not give you them back—but unless you behave all the worse, they’ll never leave my hands until they return to your own.
“Eh! what’s that?” said Mr. Cassilis, looking up from his little lot of papers, as he saw the two brothers pass this letter between them.
They were half reluctant to show it; and when Huntley at last handed it across the table it was with a proud apology.
“My father was generous and liberal to the extreme. I suppose he was not what people call prudent; few understood him,” said Huntley.
The lawyer took the paper with a half perceptible smile. He knew already what other people said of Norlaw.
However, he added old Melmar’s letter with care to his own heap of scribbled memoranda.
“It’s not very much good,” he said, “but it shows intention. Unquestionably, neither the giver nor the receiver had any thought of payment for these loans. I had better see the present man to-morrow. What with the will and these he ought to come to reason.”
“Me’mar?” cried Huntley—“no, I can have no appeal made to him on our behalf. Do you know how he persecuted my father?”
“I’m not much of an appealing man,” said Cassilis, “but I had better see him. Don’t be afraid—I’ll not compromise you. You did not know much of the matter yourself, I understand, till recently. Be charitable—suppose he were as ignorant as you?”
“Stop!” cried Patie, “never mind personal feelings—is that all the value of the will?—to bring him to reason?”
“Not if I find Mary Huntley,” said the young lawyer.
If I find. The young men exchanged glances—not quite sure that they were pleased with this transference of their interests.
“If she’s to be found alive—or if she’s dead, and we can prove it, every thing, of course, becomes as clear as daylight,”