"I know why you do this," she said, "it is that you may clear the board of those who have neither art nor part in the evil. Then you will strike the more surely. I do not blame you, Mr. Ablethorpe, But for me, I will not go with my sisters, who have done nothing—known nothing. If the guilty are to suffer—and if the guilty are indeed my brother and my master—then I will stand in the dock by their side. No one shall ever say that Aphra Orrin went back on a friend, or refused her full share of responsibility. All the same, Mr. Ablethorpe—and you, Mr. De la Poer—I am grateful from my heart for what you are doing for my poor sisters. For me, I am neither mad nor irresponsible—only as the more notable sinner, in the greater need of your ghostly counsels!"
CHAPTER XXV
A LETTER FROM JOSEPH YARROW, SENIOR,
TO HIS SON JOSEPH YARROW, JUNIOR
Dear Joe—Yours of the 10th received and contents noted. You ask me to tell you in writing what happened when, like a fool, I allowed myself to be caught and imprisoned by the other fools at Deep Moat Grange, at that time the property of the late Mr. H. Stennis.
Nothing can be more generally useless than the practice of going back on old transactions, the gain of which has long gone to your banker, or the loss been written off. But as, on this occasion, you represent to me that a few notanda from me might aid your book to sell, I comply with your desire. Your proposition, kindly but speculative, that I should receive ten per cent. (10%) of the proceeds, is one to which I cannot accede. The venture is your own, and though I reply as a father, I desire to rest absolutely disinterested in the business. I have made my success in life, such as it is, by never touching anything of a doubtful or gambling nature. And I am creditably informed the publication of books of thrilling adventure such as you propose undoubtedly falls under the latter category.
But the facts, nevertheless, are at your service. All that I ask of you is that you should allow them to remain facts. I once lifted a page of your MS., which had been blown from your desk, and I grieve to say that it contained such twaddle about love, together with other intangible and inappreciable articles, that I came very near to discharging you on the spot. But I remembered the solid qualities and aptitudes you had shown (I give you so much credit, but I trust you do not strike me for a rise on the strength of it) on the occasion of my late disappearance.
Well, on Monday, the sixth of December, at 8.59 I received a letter bearing the Edinburgh postmark, stating that a certain Mr. Stephen Cairney, who has owed me over three hundred pounds for a number of years (£329, to be exact) would be selling a large parcel of cattle at Longtown Tryst. The writer of the note was Mr. H. Stennis, of Deep Moat Grange, and he informed me that he had successfully adopted a similar course at Falkirk some years ago. He had been able to give his lawyer due notice, and had "riested" the money in the hands of the auctioneer.
Now there is no reason why Hobby Stennis should go out of his way to put money into my pocket. On the contrary! If it had been the other way about I should have seen him farther first before I meddled. Still, the sum was a considerable one, and Mr. Dealer Stephen Cairney certainly a slippery customer, whom I might never be able to make anything off of again. It was just possible that old Hobby, as spiteful an old ruffian as lived, whether as poor weaver or as Golden Farmer, had his knife into Cairney for some old quarrel which most likely Cairney had himself forgotten.
At any rate, there was nothing against my riding to Longtown to see. Nothing against my trying, at least, to come by my own. Still it was with an angry and unsettled mind, but a firm determination not to be cheated if I could help it, that I rode off to Longtown on Dapple, the good and trusty mare I had bought as a bargain from the heirs and assigns of Mr. Henry Foster, sometime deceased.