"I laughed at the idea of your making two hundred a year at copying deeds."
"I didn't say I should. You couldn't have been listening to me, Hamish--I wish, then, you'd not laugh so, as if you only made game of a fellow! What I said was, that I was putting my shoulder to the wheel in earnest, and had begun with copying, not to waste time. I have been thinking I'd try young Dick Yorke."
"Try him for what?"
"Why, to get me a post of some sort. I think he'll do it if he can. I'm sure it's not much I shall ask for--only a couple of hundreds a year, or so. And if Annabel secures a nice pupil or two, there'd be three hundred a year to start with. You'd not mind her teaching a little, would you, Hamish, while I was waiting for the skies to rain gold?"
"Not I. That would be for her own consideration."
"And when we shall have got the three hundred a year in secure prospect, you'll talk to Mrs. Channing of Helstonleigh for me, won't you?"
Hamish thought he might safely say Yes. The idea of Roland's "putting his shoulder to the wheel" sufficiently to earn two hundred pounds income, seemed to be amidst the world's improbabilities. He could not get over his laughing, and it vexed Roland.
"You think I can't work. You'll see. I'll go off to young Dick Yorke this very hour, and sound him. Nothing like taking time by the forelock. He is likely to be married, I hear."
"Who is?"
"Young Dick. They call him Vincent now, but before I went to Port Natal 'Dick' was good enough for him. My father never spoke of them but as old Dick and young Dick. Not that we had anything to do with the lot: they held themselves aloof from us. I never saw either of them but once, and that was when they came down to Helstonleigh to my father's funeral. He died in residence, you know, Hamish."