“He did not convert you into a writ-server, I hope. I don’t think it would be legal.”
“There you are, joking again! Hamish, he has the writ, but he does not wish to serve it. You are to keep out of his way, he says, and he will not seek to put himself in yours. My father was kind to him in days gone by, and he remembers it now.”
“He’s a regular trump! I’ll send him half-a-crown in a parcel,” exclaimed Hamish.
“I wish you would hear me out. He says a ten-pound note, perhaps a five-pound note, on account, would induce ‘his people’—suppose you understand the phrase—to stay proceedings, and to give you time. He strongly advises it to be done. That’s all.”
Not only all Arthur had to say upon the point, but all he had time to say. At that moment, the barouche of Lady Augusta Yorke drove up to the door, and they both went out to it. Lady Augusta, her daughter Fanny, and Constance Channing were in it. She was on her way to attend a missionary meeting at the Guildhall, and had called for Roland, that he might escort her into the room.
“Roland is not to be found, Lady Augusta,” said Hamish, raising his hat with one of his sunny smiles. “He darted off, it is impossible to say where, thereby making me a prisoner. My brother had to attend the cathedral, and there was no one to keep office.”
“Then I think I must make a prisoner of you in turn, Mr. Hamish Channing,” graciously said Lady Augusta. “Will you accompany us?”
Hamish shook his head. “I wish I could; but I have already wasted more time than I ought to have done.”
“It will not cost you five minutes more,” urged Lady Augusta. “You shall only just take us into the hall; I will release you then, if you must be released. Three ladies never can go in alone—fancy how we should be stared at!”
Constance bent her pretty face forward. “Do, Hamish, if you can!”