“Eh? what was that you were saying, Huntley?” said Dr. Logan. The story had to be gone over again. But, to Huntley’s surprise, his friend knew all about it, more about it indeed than he did himself, and shook his head when Huntley vehemently declared his conviction that he was the true heir of Melmar.
“I make no doubt,” said the minister, “that if she could be found, the will would stand—but I mind the writer laying it down very clear to me and Norlaw at the time that ye behoved to produce her alive or dead—that is, by evidence in the last case, no doubt—before your case could stand. It might be well worth a man’s while that had enough to keep him, and nothing else to do—but I would not advise you to put off your time seeking Mary Huntley. You’re the eldest son and the prop of your family. I would not advise it, Huntley, my man.”
“Nor do I mean it,” said Huntley, with a blush at his own wild fancies; “and if I had known that you knew it so well, I should not even have troubled you. No, doctor, I’ve written to your friend in Edinburgh—I want him to take all our affairs in hand, and save, if it is possible, Norlaw itself for my mother. What we’ll have to begin upon after, I can’t very well tell—but Cosmo is the only one of us too young to set out for himself. I will leave the other matter with Mr. Cassilis, and he can do what he thinks best.”
“Very wise, Huntley, very wise,” said the minister, whose mind was still fumbling after his idea; “and you’re thinking of going abroad yourself, they tell me?—I don’t doubt it’s a shock to your mother, but I would say it was the best thing you could do. Charlie Cassilis, no doubt, will be coming here. He’s aye very willing to come to the manse. I’ll make Katie write him a line to-day, to say we’ll expect him—and any thing I can do to further the business, you know you can rely upon—eh? what was that you said?”
“Nothing,” said Huntley, “except that there’s little time to lose, and I am interrupting you. Good-bye, Dr. Logan—I’ll see you again before I go away.”
“Before he goes away,” said the minister, with perplexity, half rising to follow Huntley, as he hurried from the room; “what does the callant mean?” But just then Dr. Logan’s eye returned to the knob of the bookcase, which no longer recalled that precious lost idea. “Poor human nature!” said the good man, with a sigh. He thought it rather selfish of Huntley to have disturbed his studies just at that particular moment—and it was the young man’s human nature over which he sighed.
Huntley, meanwhile, went back again to Norlaw in a greater tumult of mind than that which had brought him forth. But he no longer thought of Melmar as he had done in that sudden golden vision of fortune and conquest. His heart leaped within him like one on the verge of a new world. These three scenes through which he had passed:—bowed Jaacob’s odd philosophy and startling groundwork—“Trust in nothing that you have not conquered for yourself;” Katie’s quiet home-parlor, her blush and glance of kindness, which perhaps understood his unspoken and sudden fervor as well as he did himself; and, beyond these, the sober, calm every-day minister, giving only an outside and momentary attention to those matters in which this young life had all its hopes at stake, minding his sermon, and only kindly indifferent to Huntley, had brought the youth on a long way in the education of his life. He could not have put it all into words, or explained it to the satisfaction of the philosopher; yet the shock of reality and actual life which brought him back to himself in the little smithy of Kirkbride—the warm light of Katie’s eyes which had stirred, with something of personal and distinct identity, separate from family interests, and individual in the world, the young man’s heart and spirit—and not least, though very different, the composed friendliness of the minister, pre-occupied with his sermon, who had only a very spare amount of attention to bestow upon Huntley, and showed him that the world in general was not likely to be much absorbed by his interests, or startled by his hopes—were all very real, practical and permanent lessons. They sent him back to Norlaw an older man.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Mr. Cassilis came to the manse in answer to Katie’s invitation and the business of Huntley. He was young and did not particularly commend himself to the liking of the young master of Norlaw; but as he pleased all the other people very tolerably well, there were, perhaps, various reasons for the less friendly sentiment of Huntley. He was, however, a brisk man of business, and not sufficiently over-burdened with occupation to prevent him entering heartily into the concerns of the half-ruined family.
All this time Patrick Livingstone had been quietly busy, collecting and arranging all his father’s memoranda which seemed to throw any light upon their circumstances; among these were many hurried, and only half intelligible notes of transactions with the former Huntley of Melmar, from which it very shortly appeared that Norlaw’s debts had all been contracted to his old kinsman, and had only come into possession of “the present Melmar,” when he took possession of the house and property, as heir-at-law, on the old man’s death. They had suspected this before, for it seemed very unlikely that one man should borrow of another, whose claims were so entirely antagonistic to his own—but these were their only real evidence—for Norlaw had been so irregular and unsystematic that it was impossible to tell what money might or might not have passed through his hands.