As they drove home, Chatterton said sententiously:
"We all make mistakes at times, Hilton; and that was most excellent punch. For instance, when one comes to know him, Maxwell is what might be termed a very good fellow. Hard up like the rest of them, of course; land and buildings, as everybody knows, burdened to the hilt, but—I suppose it was born in him—he bears the stamp, and his son wears it too. You and I are different, you know, though travel has done a good deal for you. I have handled a good many men in my time, and I like that fellow's looks. He would be a very bad kind to tackle when the devil that smiles through his black eyes wakes up; and I think he'd stand by the man who played him fair through the damnedest kind of luck."
Dane, who fully endorsed this opinion, was afterward to discover that Thomas Chatterton was no bad judge of his fellow-men.
"They are neither of the type one associates with this part of the country," he commented.
"No," said Chatterton. "They were, I understand, always an adventurous family, and some of them who took part in the wars there in the old days intermarried with the Spaniards then holding the Low Countries. A strain of that kind takes a long time to work out, you know."
Chatterton's fishing was not without results, for in spite of, or perhaps because of, their different character and experience, it was the commencement of a friendship between himself and Maxwell of Culmeny. The iron-master had hewn his own way to fortune, and, being troubled by no petty diffidence, was, if anything, overfond of recounting has earlier struggles. The wild blood of the old moss-troopers still pulsed in the veins of the Maxwells, and the impoverished gentleman, who listened with interest, sighed as he remembered the sordid monotony of his own career, during which he had, by dint of painful economy, somewhat lightened the burden with which his inheritance had been saddled by the recklessness of his forbears.
Carsluith Maxwell took even more kindly to his new acquaintances; and there sprang up between himself and Dane a comradeship which was to stand a bitter test, while, as summer merged into autumn, he would sometimes wonder at himself. He said nothing about his African venture, and spent much time considering old rent books and the cost of moss-land reclamation schemes. The rest he spent shooting with Dane, or lounging at The Larches, if possible in Lilian Chatterton's vicinity; but, although he could rouse himself to temporary brilliancy, Maxwell was usually oversilent in feminine society, and Dane felt no jealousy. The latter rested content in the meantime with the knowledge that Lilian found a mild pleasure in his company; and only Mrs. Chatterton felt any misgivings respecting future possibilities. Being a wise woman, she kept her suspicions to herself until they became certainties, when one day Miss Margaret Maxwell, perhaps not wholly by accident, gave her a significant hint.
"I hear that your brother has undertaken an extensive drainage scheme," said the elder lady.
"We are hopeful that he will settle down at last," responded Margaret Maxwell. "My father's health is failing, and he has long desired his son's company; but Carsluith was always ambitious, and used to say he would never vegetate in poverty at Culmeny. Of late, however, we have been pleased to see that he is taking an almost suspicious interest in the improvement of the estate, and is now investing the money he made in Mexico in the reclamation of Langside Moss. As Carsluith seldom does anything without a reason, his sudden change of program puzzles us."
Mrs. Chatterton fancied she could supply the reason, but she made no comment. Lilian, she decided, had a right to choose for herself, and might make a worse selection than a Maxwell of Culmeny.