‘Caen Lodge, Highgate, N.,
‘July 10, 187-.
‘My dear Lindsay,
‘You will be surprised to hear that you may see me the day after this reaches you. I want to see how your beautiful river scenery looks in this glorious summer weather. If it is not convenient for me to stay at the farm, I can easily find quarters elsewhere.
‘Ever yours,
‘Hubert Blake.’
As Alec foresaw, when he read this note, Blake found existence at the Castle Farm with the sole companionship of Mr. Lindsay to be quite impracticable; and next day he arrived at Arrochar and took up his quarters in the little inn at the head of the pier.
CHAPTER XII.
‘YOU MUST GIVE ME AN ANSWER.’
Margaret Lindsay, not the scenery of the Nethan, was the real attraction which drew Hubert Blake to the north. He was not in love with her; certainly, at least, he felt for her nothing of the rapturous passion which Alec felt for Laura Mowbray. But he admired her immensely. He undertook the long journey from London that he might feast his eyes on her beauty once more; and when he found that she was at Arrochar he straightway betook himself thither.
Blake was by this time a man nearer forty than thirty years of age, who was still without an aim in life. He had an income which rendered it unnecessary for him to devote himself to the ordinary aim of an Englishman—the making of money; and to set himself to charm sovereigns which he did not need out of the pockets of his fellow-creatures into his own, for the mere love of gold or of luxury, was an idea which he would have despised as heartily as Alec Lindsay himself would have done. Blake had also great contempt for the brassy self-importance and self-conceit which is the most useful of all attributes for one who means to get on in the world. He looked at men struggling for political or social distinction, as he might have gazed at a crowd of lunatics fighting for a tinsel crown. ‘And after all,’ he would say to himself, ‘if I am idle, my idleness hurts no one but myself. At least, I do not trample down my fellow-men on my journey through life.’