"I'll see to him," said Lord Carrick. "If he is to get any help at all, it must be from me. Ye can write the note to him. It would be the worst day's work ye ever entered on if ye attempted to help him. It is nothing else but helping people, Roland, me boy, that has kept me down, and I'd not like to see you begin it. If Gerald can't get clear without assistance, I may come to the rescue later. But he'll have to try."
"Perhaps I might be got to allow him a hundred a year, or so, for himself later," added relenting Roland. "But I'll never have anything to do with his debts, or suffer him to look to me to pay them."
Could Gerald in his distant and gloomy abode, but have heard this, he had surely been ready to shoot the pair of speakers; and with more intentional malignity, too, than he had shot Sir Vincent.
But we began the chapter at Helstonleigh. For once in its monotonous life that faithful city had found something to arouse it from its jog-trot course; and people flew to their doors and windows to gaze after Sir Roland Yorke. It did not seem much less improbable that the time-honoured cathedral might some night disappear altogether, than that the once improvident schoolboy of not too good repute, the careless run-a-gate who had made a moonlight flitting, and left some fifty pounds' worth of debts behind him, should come back Sir Roland, like a hero of romance.
Fruition never answers to anticipations--as Roland found, now that his golden visions came to be realized. The romantic charm of the oft-pictured dream was wanting; the green freshness of sanguine boyhood no longer threw its halo on his heart; the vivid glow of imaginative hope had mellowed down to a sober tint. In manner, in gleeful frankness, Roland was nearly as impulsive and boyish as ever; but his mind had gained a good deal of experience, and reflection had come to him. The chances and changes of the world had worked their effect; and the deaths caused directly or indirectly by Gerald, sat heavily on his generous heart. Adam's curse lies on all things, and there can be no pleasure without pain.
Roland did not miss it. Enough of charm was left to him. Annabel was staying with her mother, and things seemed to have gone back again to the dear old days before Roland had known the world, or tasted of its cares. Roland went calling upon his acquaintance continually, distant and near, making himself at home everywhere. Ellen Channing, worn to a thread-paper with grief, was visiting her father in her maiden home. Nelly made its charm now. The young widow would probably take up her abode at Helstonleigh, in spite of Roland's strong advice that it should be near Sunny Mead.
"I told you I should be sure to get on and make my fortune sometime, Mr. Galloway."
The old proctor, whose health was failing hopelessly, returned a slighting answer. Roland, without ceremony as usual, had dashed into the office, and was sitting on a high desk with his legs dangling. The remark was given in return for some disparaging observation as to Roland's former doings.
"You made it! Ugh! A great deal of that."
"Oh--well--I've come into one, at any rate."