'I should like to come into a nice little pot of money—a fortune, if you will—but not with a girl tacked to it,' he said, on one occasion, to throw Allan 'off the scent,' as he thought. 'I am neither domestic nor ambitious. A few thousands would do.'
'And make you content?'
'Content! I should feel as happy as more than once I have been at Monaco, when I have seen the croupier's rake pushing a jolly pile of gold across the trente-et-quarante table towards me, by Jove.'
It did not occur to him that by little speeches like this and anecdotes about his own acumen in the betting ring, he let a little light in upon the general tenor of his past and present life, and, all unconscious that Sir Paget and others listened with slightly elevated eyebrows, he would produce a sealskin cigar-case of portentous dimensions, draw therefrom a great Rio Hondo cigar, and after carefully manipulating it, begin to smoke it with intense satisfaction.
Hawke Holcroft, like Mr. Micawber, was always waiting for something to 'turn up' in the way of good for himself, and now thought he had found that something in Olive Raymond—an heiress free, he deemed, to choose for herself—free to be wooed and won; and on a day when she proposed a riding-party to visit Macbeth's Castle of Dunsinane he very nearly had the hardihood to learn his fate—in the words of Montrose's song, to put it 'to the touch, to win or lose it all.'
Drives, riding-parties, and rambles to visit artistic bits of scenery and the rural [** Transcriber's note: line missing from source book?] lions the neighbourhood afforded every opportunity to those who wished to cultivate each other's society at Dundargue, and the expedition proposed by Olive to visit the ruins of the usurper's castle, proved the occasion of Mr. Hawke Holcroft's attempt to advance his own interests.
Whatever Lady Aberfeldie's views were, her husband had never been called upon to fulfil the duties of a vigilant guardian or parent, and to study the difference between 'detrimentals' and married parties, so he left the guidance of the whole affair in the hands of Allan, and remained closeted with his solicitor.
By judicious manoeuvring, Holcroft contrived to pair-off with Olive, while Allan thus became the escort of Ruby Logan, and Eveline, of course, fell to Sir Paget, who soon found the truth of the vulgar adage about two being company, &c., on their being joined by Stratherroch.
It was a clear and brilliant day early in October, when the blue sky was flecked by fleecy clouds, and the far-stretching scenery of the fertile Carse, overlooked by the long chain of heights, named the Sidlaw Hills, lay steeped in sunshine.
The parks of Dundargue, with their broad acres of velvet-like turf, their stately oaks and towering beeches, among the gnarled branches of which legions of gleds were cawing to each other, and brown squirrels were gliding to and fro; their hedges of ancient thorn, and others where the hawthorn berries showed red and the wild roses were blooming—the parks, we say, were left behind, with all their groups of deer, and the party, certainly a merry and a well-mounted one, accompanied by the stag-hounds Shiuloch and Bran, careering joyously on either hand, followed by a couple of splendidly-horsed grooms, cantered along the highway, and ere long broke, or fell, into that slow and ambling pace which is suited for conversing with ease. And Holcroft, who was well versed in all horsey details, and had a very appreciative eye, could see that his fair companion's tout ensemble, her riding costume, her hat, veil, and gauntlets were all perfect, from the coils of brown glossy hair to the little foot that rested firmly in its tiny stirrup of burnished steel; and that foot was indeed a model—arched, small, and always full of character in its elasticity of tread; and, more than all, intoxicated by the ambient air, the sunshine, her own high spirits, and the pleasure of being mounted on her own favourite pad, Olive Raymond was looking her brightest and her best.