His new cousin looked at him with admiration—then with a sigh:
“What a thing money is,” he said; “ever so little of it. You can take a high hand with them, having something; but I, to whom Robert Campbell and Mr. MacKell have both lent money to set me going—”
Edgar held out his hand to his companion.
“When this is settled I shall be in the same position,” he said; “worse, for you have a profession, and I have none. You must teach me how I can best work for daily bread.”
“You are joking,” said the young doctor, with a smile.
Like the others, he could not believe that Edgar, once so rich, could ever be entirely poor; and that he should denude himself altogether of his living for the sake of the old mother, whom they were all quite ready to help—in reason, was an idea impossible to be comprehended, and which nobody believed for a moment. He said nothing in reply, and the two stood together before the door waiting for the other men of the party, who were looking over “the beasts” and farm implements, and calculating how much they would bring.
James Murray, the provision merchant, was the typical Scotchman of fiction and drama—a dry, yellow man, with keen grey eyes, surrounded by many puckers, scrubby sandy hair, and a constant regard for his own interest. The result had been but indifferent, for he was the poorest of the family, always in difficulties, and making the sparest of livings by means of tremendous combinations of skill and thought sufficient to have made the most fabulous fortune—only fortune had never come his way. He had been poking the cows in the ribs, and inspecting the joints of every plough and harrow as if his life depended upon them. As he came forward to join the others, he put down in the note-book which he held in his hand, the different sums which he supposed they would bring. Altogether, it was a piece of business which pleased him. If he had ever had any sentimental feeling towards his old home, that was over many a long year ago; and that his mother, when she could no longer manage the farm, should give it up, and be happy and thankful to find a corner at her daughter’s fireside, was to him the most natural thing in life. The only thing that disturbed him, was the impossibility of making her seek a composition with her creditors, and thus saving something “for an emergency.”
“James has aye an eye to what may come after,” Mr. Campbell said, with his peculiar humour, and a laugh which made Edgar long to pitch him into the loch; “he’s thinking of the succession. Not that I’m opposed to compounding with the creditors in such a case. She’s well-known for an honest woman that’s paid her way, and held up her head with the best, and we all respect her, and many of us would have no objection to make a bit small sacrifice. I’m one myself, and I can speak. But your mother is a woman that has always had a great deal of her own way.”
“More than was good for her,” said James Murray, shaking his head. “She’s as obstinate as an auld mule when she takes a notion. She’s been mistress and mair these forty year, and like a women, she’ll hear no reason. Twelve or fifteen shillings in the pound is a very fine composition, and touches no man’s credit, besides leaving an old wife something in her pocket to win respect.”
“And to leave behind her,” said Campbell, laughing and slapping his brother-in-law on the back.