‘It is I who ought to apologise,’ said the visitor. ‘Your mention of the name of Harris appeared to me to indicate a frivolity as to matters of the past which, I must confess, is apt to make me occasionally forget myself. Noblesse oblige, you know: we respect ourselves—in our progenitors.’
‘Unless he wants to prevent someone from marrying his great-grandmother, I wonder what he is doing with his Tales of a Grandfather here,’ thought Logan, but he only smiled, and said, ‘Assuredly—my own opinion. I wish I could respect my ancestor!’
‘The gentleman of whom I speak, the associate of your own distant progenitor, was the founder of our house, as far as mere titles are concerned. We were but squires of Northumbria, of ancient Celtic descent, before the time of Queen Elizabeth. My ancestor at that time—’
‘Oh bother his pedigree!’ thought Logan.
‘—was a young officer in the English garrison of Berwick, and he, I find, was your ancestor’s unknown correspondent. I am not skilled in reading old hands, and I am anxious to secure a trustworthy person—really trustworthy—to transcribe the manuscripts which contain these exciting details.’
Logan thought that the office of the Disentanglers was hardly the place to come to in search of an
historical copyist. However, he remembered Miss Willoughby, and said that he knew a lady of great skill and industry, of good family too, upon whom his client might entirely depend. ‘She is a Miss Willoughby,’ he added.
‘Not one of the Willoughbys of the Wicket, a most worthy, though unfortunate house, nearly allied, as I told you, to my own, about three hundred years ago?’ said the Earl.
‘Yes, she is a daughter of the last squire.’
‘Ruined in the modern race for wealth, like so many!’ exclaimed the peer, and he sat in silence, deeply moved; his lips formed a name familiar to Law Courts.