“To what end or purpose? That he might have the freedom of losing the land again, if it were won back to him by the spending of other folks’ substance? George Foreman, it is not like your wisdom to think of such a thing. A penniless laird—a shadow, and no substance—with a false rank to keep up, and nothing coming in to keep it up withal? I will not hear of it! Gentlemen, I have made up my mind; out of yon hot unnatural air of artificial ill, the lad must come down to the cold blast of poverty, if he is ever to be anything but a silken fule, spending gear unjustly gotten, in an unlawful way. I say I will have no hand in giving back plenty and ease to Archie Sutherland, till he has righteously wrought and struggled for the same. Bring him back to my house, Robert Ferguson. He has lost the home and the lands of his fathers. Let him see them in the hands of an alien, and then let him gird his loins to a right warfare, and win them back again. With God’s blessing, and man’s labor, there is nought in this world impossible. I hope to live to see him win back his possessions, as I have seen him lose them. If he does not, he deserves them not.”
“Write to him so,” said Mr. Ferguson, eagerly. “It is the spur he needs. Let me have a letter, so hopeful and encouraging, to carry with me, Mrs. Catherine. Mere reproach would do evil, and not good. You are perfectly right. A struggle—a warfare—that is the true prescription. Write to Mr. Archibald yourself—it will have more effect than anything I can say.”
Mr. Foreman sighed, and felt almost inclined to withdraw his adherence from those reformers who aim at the abolition of entails. At length, and slowly, he signified his consent.
“Yes—yes: Mrs. Catherine is right. I believe it is the wisest way. But—”
Mr. Foreman paused again. A strange master in Strathoran—the kindly union of the country broken in upon by one who, if they judged rightly, had done grievous ill to Archibald Sutherland. A painful film came over the lawyer’s eyes. It seemed like treason to the trust reposed in him by “Old Strathoran” thus to suffer his son’s downfall.
“You are losing time,” said Mrs. Catherine. “Robert Ferguson, the day is wearing on. Ye will not be able to leave Portoran the night. Start with the first coach the morn’s morning. Do not tarry a moment. Mind how long the days will be to a spirit in despair; and come to me when you are returning from Portoran if there is time. I will write to the unhappy lad.”
Thus dismissed, both gentlemen took their leave, the factor receiving a parting adjuration to “take sufficient siller—be not scrimpit. Ye will have many charges in so long a journey; and, as I have said, Robert Ferguson, lay out a pound of your own siller upon this dyvour at your proper peril! I will visit your iniquity upon the head of your young advocate, if ye venture to do such a thing.—Mind!”
Mrs. Catherine seated herself at her library table as the factor and the lawyer rode away together, and began to write to Archibald Sutherland—a hurried letter, swiftly written. It ran thus:
“I have heard of your transgression and calamity, Archibald Sutherland, and write as I need not tell you, in sore grief. Nevertheless, I have neither time nor leisure to record my lamentations, nor do I think that tears from old e’en—the which are bitter in the shedding—are things to make merchandise of for the mending of young backsliders. At this moment, I have other matters in hand. I see by your letter to Mr. Ferguson (a better man than I fear you will ever be), that you are yourself cast down, and in grief, as it is meet you should be. See that it be for the sin, and not for the mere carnal consequences, and so there will be the better chance for a blessing on your repentance.
“And boy, rise up and come back to the country that brought you forth, out of that den of sin and iniquity. The house of your fathers is open to you no longer—the house of Sholto Douglas can never be shut upon Isabel Balfour’s son. Come back to me—you shall not be my heir, for the lands of my fathers must descend to none that cannot keep them firmly, and guide them well; but whatsoever is needful for you to begin your warfare, lies ready for your claiming. I say your warfare, Archie Sutherland, for I bid you not come home to dally through an idle life or waste more days.—Come home to fight for your possessions back again—come home to strive in every honorable and lawful way to win back the good land you have lost—come home, I say, Archie Sutherland, to redeem your inheritance by honest labor, and establish your house again, as it was established by the first Sutherland that set foot on Oranside. The road is clear before you. You have gotten all the siller wasted now that you can get to waste. I command you, as there is anything in this life you set a value on, to throw these evil things behind you, and gird yourself for a warfare—a warfare that will be neither light nor brief, but that will be—what your past life has not been—just and honorable, a work for a man, not a witless and sinful dalliance for a silly youth, a play for a fevered bairn.