Briefly, then, his Excellency Lalor Maitland, late Governor of the Province of the Meuse, now a law-abiding subject of King George, was duly elected and sent to Westminster to take his seat as representing the lieges. The excitement calmed down almost at once. The gold coach was seen no more. The preventive men and supervisors of excise were neither up nor down. Galloway felt vaguely defrauded. I think many of those who voted for Lalor imagined that the excisemen and coastguards would at once be recalled, and that henceforward cargoes from the Isle of Man and Rotterdam would be unloaded in broad daylight, instead of by the pale light of the moon, without a single question being asked on behalf of the revenue officers of King George.
After Lalor’s disappearance Louis Maitland was heavy and depressed for several days, staying long in his room and returning the shortest answers when spoken to. Suddenly one morning he declared his intention of going to Dumfries, and so on the following Wednesday my grandfather and he drove thither by the coach road while I followed behind on horseback. It was the purpose of Louis Maitland to have speech with the lawyers. So, knowing the temper in which he had been since his uncle’s departure, I let him go up alone, but afterwards had speech with the younger Mr. Smart on my own account.
He smiled when I mentioned Sir Louis and his mission.
“He wishes to go up to London to his cousin—he calls him his uncle, Mr. Lalor, your fine new Government member for the county!”
“I judged as much,” said I, “but I hope you have not given him any such permission.”
“He can take all the permission he wishes after he is twenty-one,” said Mr. Smart; “at present he has a good many years before him at Sympson’s Academy. There he may occupy himself in turning the old curate’s Three Patriarchs into Latin. As to his holidays, he can spend them with his sister or stay on in Edinburgh with the Doctor. But London is not a place for a young gentleman of such exalted notions of his own importance—‘You bury me at a farmhouse with a family of boors!’—was what he said. Now, that smells Mr. Lalor a mile off. But the lad is not much to blame, and I hope you will not let it go any farther.”
“Certainly not,” said I, “the boy was only quoting!”
I returned from this interview considerably relieved, but for some days Sir Louis was visibly cast down.
However, I said nothing to Irma, only advising her to devote herself a little more to her brother, at times when the exigencies of Duncan the Second would leave her time and opportunity.
“Why!” she said, with a quick gasp of astonishment, “I never forget Louis—but of course baby needs me sometimes. I can’t help that!”