‘I do so,’ replied Alan, ‘and it is of importance to me to know, and to you to tell me if such is the case; for if you do not, you may be an accomplice to murder before the fact, and that under circumstances which may bring it near to murder under trust.’
‘Murder!—who spoke of murder?’ said the provost; no danger of that, Mr. Alan—only, if I were you—to speak my plain mind’—Here he approached his mouth to the ear of the young lawyer, and, after another acute pang of travail, was safely delivered of his advice in the following abrupt words:—‘Take a keek into Pate’s letter before ye deliver it.’
Fairford started, looked the provost hard in the face, and was silent; while Mr. Crosbie, with the self-approbation of one who has at length brought himself to the discharge of a great duty, at the expense of a considerable sacrifice, nodded and winked to Alan, as if enforcing his advice; and then swallowing a large glass of punch, concluded, with the sigh of a man released from a heavy burden, ‘I am a plain man, Mr. Fairford.’
‘A plain man?’ said Maxwell, who entered the room at that moment, with the letter in his hand,—‘Provost, I never heard you make use of the word but when you had some sly turn of your own to work out.’
The provost looked silly enough, and the Laird of Summertrees directed a keen and suspicious glance upon Alan Fairford, who sustained it with professional intrepidity.—There was a moment’s pause.
‘I was trying,’ said the provost, ‘to dissuade our young friend from his wildgoose expedition.’
‘And I,’ said Fairford, ‘am determined to go through with it. Trusting myself to you, Mr. Maxwell, I conceive that I rely, as I before said, on the word of a gentleman.’
‘I will warrant you,’ said Maxwell, ‘from all serious consequences—some inconveniences you must look to suffer.’
‘To these I shall be resigned,’ said Fairford, ‘and stand prepared to run my risk.’
‘Well then,’ said Summertrees, ‘you must go’—