“I come to thee but on peaceful private conference,” replied Lachlan Dhu, with a respectful obeisance: “and I use this secrecy because it is for the interest of both of us, that what I have to treat of should reach no other ears but our own.”
“Proceed,” said Ballindalloch, “thou mayest speak safely here, for in this place we are beyond all earshot.”
“I need not tell thee, Ballindalloch,” continued Lachlan Dhu, “I need not tell thee, I say, that which is sufficiently notour to all, that mine uncle, old Tullochcarron’s patrimony, would have been mine as a fair succession, had he not married on purpose to disappoint me.”
“I know this much,” said Ballindalloch, not altogether dissatisfied to see something like discontent in what he naturally held to be the enemy’s camp. “Perhaps thou hast had but scrimp justice in this matter.”
“Justice!” exclaimed Lachlan Dhu, catching eagerly at his words. “Justice! I have been deeply wronged. Bred up and cockered by the old man for a time as his successor, as if it had been with the very intent of throwing me the more cruelly off, and rendering the blasting of my hopes the more bitter, from the very fairness of those blossoms which his pretended warmth of affection had fostered!”
“’Twas not well done in the old man,” said Ballindalloch; “but now, methinks, ’tis past all cure.”
“Nay,” said Lachlan Dhu sternly, “I hope there is yet ample room for remede.”
“As how, I pr’ythee?” said Ballindalloch.
“Mark me, and thou shalt quickly learn,” said Lachlan Dhu. “But first of all I must tell thee, that I now come to offer myself to thee as thy vassal on this simple condition, that thou wilt give me thine aid and countenance against all questioners to help me to keep what shall be mine own after I shall have fairly won it.”
“And how dost thou propose to win it?” demanded Ballindalloch, with a grave and serious air that seemed to argue a most attentive consideration of a proposal in itself so inviting to him.