"Too true a picture, too true a picture," replied Miss Clifford, in a sorrowful tone; "I have seen it myself, Captain Hayward, and have been grieved to see it."
"Well, do not let us grieve, but act, my dear lady," said Ned Hayward; "let us consult together, and see what can be done, good Sir John must be saved at any cost."
"But what can I do, Captain Hayward?" she inquired. "Perhaps you do not know that the whole of my fortune is tied up by my father's will so strictly, that I can dispose of nothing till I have reached one-and-twenty years of age; and though I would willingly, most willingly, sacrifice any thing to relieve my uncle, I am as powerless in this business as a child."
"This is unfortunate, indeed," said Ned Hayward, in reply, "very unfortunate, I had hoped that you had command of your own property, or that you might be able to point out one, who would be able and willing to take this mortgage and relieve your uncle."
"I know of no one, no one on the earth," she answered; "my mother's is but a jointure; I am not of age for nine or ten months, and before that time it will be all over."
"The security is perfectly good," continued Ned Hayward in a musing tone, as if he had not heard her, "and I feel very sure that the property is worth a great deal more than this man has advanced, or any of his clients, as he calls them. Otherwise it would not have been done. We should easily find some one, I think, to take the mortgage, if we could but pay this cursed interest and stop the fore-closure--perhaps at a less per centage, too--that man is a rogue, I am sure, and we may very likely cut down a great many of the charges; for I feel very certain he has been purposely entangling good Sir John, till at length, when he thinks there is no possibility of escape, he pounces upon him to devour him."
"But what is to be done? what is to be done?" reiterated Miss Clifford.
"Well, it does not matter," said Captain Hayward, in the same thoughtful tone; "I'll tell you what we must do: I have a sum sixteen thousand pounds in the funds. Ten thousand, it seems, will be wanted for the most pressing matters--we will call it twelve thousand; for no man in your uncle's position reckons very closely what is needed, and his calculation is always below instead of above the mark. I will go up to town and sell out; that will put off matters for six weeks or two months; and, in the meantime, we must set all our wits to work for the purpose of finding some one who will take the mortgage at reasonable terms, and of putting your uncle's affairs altogether into order."
"Oh! how can I thank you, Captain Hayward?" said Mary Clifford, putting her hand upon his arm; "indeed, indeed, I am very grateful."
"Without the slightest occasion," replied Ned Hayward. "I wish to Heaven I had the means of taking the mortgage myself; but the fact is, my poor father--as good a man as ever lived--was too kind and too easy a one. He put me very early into what is called a crack-regiment, which in plain English means, I suppose, a regiment likely soon to be broken, or, at all events, likely to break those that enter it. I had my expensive habits, like the rest, and never fancied that I should not find five or six thousand a-year, when I returned from Gibraltar at my father's death. Instead of that, I found the unentailed property totally gone; the entailed property was mine, as I was the last of my race; but there were debts to the amount of forty thousand pounds; but if I did not pay them, who would? The men would have had to go without their money; so I sold the property, paid the debts, put the little that remained, between fifteen and sixteen thousand pounds, in the funds, and have lived within my income ever since. Thus, you see, I have not the means of taking the mortgage."