But Florian's heart sank within him at the contemplation of what might have been had he slept on—had the trumpet not been sounded, and the troops had ridden away, leaving him helpless in that solitude.
CHAPTER V.
THE LOADED DICE.
Shafto was located in a quiet hotel in St. Andrew Square, Edinburgh, whither he had come in hope to raise money to meet the difficulties in which he had become involved. When away from the splendid thraldom of Craigengowan—for thraldom he deemed it now—he was daily and nightly in the habit of imbibing more than he would have ventured to do there; thus he was becoming slow of speech, with the fishy eye and the fevered breath of the habitual tippler, even at his years, while in dress he adopted a style that was a curious combination of the dandy and the groom.
The many confiding tailors, jewellers, horse-copers, wine-merchants, and others whom he had honoured by his patronage were now getting beyond all bounds with their importunity and—as he thought—impertinent desire to have their bills settled; while, disgusted with him, Lord Fettercairn had been heard more than once to say, even to old Mr. Kippilaw:
'If Finella had been a boy I should not have cared so much about there being no other grandson of my own to ensure the succession and carry on the title.'
But the peer did not yet know the worst.
Occasional visits to Edinburgh, and still more those to London, were always involving Shafto in one or other disgraceful scrape; for, notwithstanding a most liberal allowance, he was often at his wits' end for money, and was over head and ears in gambling debts. Thus he was a bitter pill to the patriotic peer, his 'grandfather,' and he was on the verge, he feared, of dire disgrace, as a whole lot of post-obits might soon come to light—on the fortune he reckoned would come to him on Lord Fettercairn's death or his marriage with Finella; for with two such prospects the Jew money-lenders and other scoundrels who trade as such, in Pall Mall and elsewhere, under double names, had seen things in a 'rosy' light, and let him thus have 'no end of money.'
And now, as a means of recruiting his exchequer for a time, he bethought him of young Kippilaw, who had been left £30,000 unexpectedly by an uncle in Glasgow, and his first thought was to flatter and fleece the fellow if he could, though the spruce little W.S. was on the eve of his marriage with one of the many daughters of Lord Macowkay, the eminent senator of the College of Justice; so he invited that gentleman to a quiet little dinner at his hotel, 'Just to pick a bone—sharp eight.'
Little Kippilaw, who was always flattered by the society of a prospective peer, as something to talk about in the Parliament House, accepted with a radiant countenance; and, as he had rather a showy-looking friend who was passing through Edinburgh on his way to Drumshoddy Lodge, he asked permission to bring him.