Mr. Lindsay

“ Lindsay won't make no opposition to your going, for any difference it'll make to him."
Mr. Lindsay, thus appealed to, stammered, and blushed up to his eyes, and stammered again; but finally managed to say, with more or less distinctness, [Pg 13] that of course whatever was agreeable to Mrs. and Miss Mellen was agreeable to him, and that he begged not to be considered in any way in the formation of their plans.
"That's just what I was thinking!" said his hostess. "A man don't want no botheration of plans. So that's settled, Rose Ellen." ”

“ Lindsay. "I wish you would contrive to put a stop to it. You can do it better than any one else; she is very fond of you."
That was not a good argument. Mr. Lindsay was silent; his thoughts went back to the conversation held that evening in Ellen's room, and to certain other things; and perhaps he was thinking that if religion had much to do with making her what she was, it was a tree that bore good fruits.
"I think," said Lady Keith, "that is one reason why she takes so little to the young people she sees. ”

“ Lindsay had divined what his daughter had been doing; but he thought it was now quite time that she should come forward and play her part as hostess.
‘You go first, Alec,’ she said, taking up the cream-jug which she had brought as her excuse for her visit to the dairy.
‘And I tell you, sir, that till we have the ballot we can have no security against persecution,’ Mr. Lindsay was exclaiming, as they entered the sitting-room. ‘A man cannot vote now according to his conscience unless he is prepared to risk being driven from his home, to lose his very livelihood. ”

“ What a good thing it was that she had not committed [Pg 89] herself definitely to Semple! But Alec—would he ever come back to her? She remembered only too well the look in his face when he met her outside Mr. Lindsay’s bedroom door with the will in her hand.
Yet, if he were the victim of a plot, and if she were to deliver him from the snare in which he had been taken, surely gratitude would make him turn to her then! And she would be a good wife to him; faithful, and true, and loving. How happy they might be! And the girl’s eyes softened as the idea crossed her mind. ”

“ Meanwhile Beattie had left the house, and Alec had summoned Marks and Mrs. Jackson, the cook, to their master’s room.
The will was duly signed and witnessed, Dr. Mackenzie looking on with a grave face; and when all the formalities had been gone through, Mr. Lindsay put the document in its envelope, sealed it carefully with his own hand, and gave it to Alec.
‘Give it to Mr. Hatchett, my lad,’ he said. ‘He should have been here to-day himsel’—but it doesn’t matter. Tell him to lock it up in his safe till—till it’s wanted. ”

“ Alec waited till they came up, and then he said:
‘I have borrowed Mr. Fraser’s light skiff; suppose we all go for a row? You can row one skiff and I the other,’ he added, turning to Semple.
‘Oh, delightful!’ cried Laura. ‘It is just the evening for a row. You will come, Miss Lindsay, won’t you?’
‘I have no objections,’ said Margaret, quite indifferently.
Laura turned and ran into the house for wraps, while a rather awkward silence fell upon the rest of the party. ”

“ Hatchett and to Alec himself.
Mr. Corker’s keen black eyes were turned full upon the speaker; and as he concluded [Pg 48] a benevolent grin overspread the old barrister’s sallow features.
‘Very neat—very pretty—very pretty indeed,’ he said. ‘This Mr. Lindsay must be a young man of ability. It was not expected, I suppose, that the Scotch minister should be present at the reading of the will?’
‘I should think not,’ said Mr. Beattie, with a smile. ”

“ Beattie was congratulating himself already on his success, when the news that Mr. Lindsay specially desired that his nephew should prepare his will fell on him like a thunderbolt. Should he abandon the scheme? Abandon a hundred thousand pounds! It was not to be thought of. Was there any other method of carrying out the fraud? Beattie could think of none. On the spur of the moment he told Alec Lindsay not to send the draft to be settled by counsel, and not to send it to the law-stationers, hoping that some change in the old man’s plans might yet enable him to carry out his scheme. ”

“ Fortunately the facts are few and simple. The prisoner is a grand-nephew of the late Mr. James Lindsay, who, as some of you may know, was a very wealthy man. Some time before his death, Mr. Lindsay conceived the idea of bequeathing by his will a large sum of money, no less than half a million sterling, to the religious body of which he was a member, the Free Church of Scotland. He talked over that intention with an old friend of his, the Reverend Dr. Mackenzie, of Glasgow ”

“ When Cameron had disappeared with MacGowan, Blake carried off his friends, after giving Alec a hearty invitation to Highgate, and after expressing a hope to Mr. Lindsay that they would see him and Miss Lindsay there once more before they left town. But the old man was anxious to get back to his farm; London had no attractions for him ”

“ Hatchett, who had brought the will in the pocket of his overcoat, made a formal search among James Lindsay’s papers for another testament. He was still busy in the library when Miss Lindsay and Laura entered the dining-room.
Miss Mowbray walked slowly, with downcast eyes. She knew that her mourning dress was very becoming to her, and she secretly determined to be often in mourning, or half-mourning, at least, in the future. Dr. Mackenzie met the two ladies, and conducted Laura to a seat; while Mr. Carnegie, an old acquaintance of Miss Lindsay’s, came forward and led her to a chair. ”

“ Alec flushed up, opened his lips, and closed them again without speaking. He could not tell his father that the insinuation conveyed by his words was untrue.
‘Ah, Alec!’ pursued the old man, in a softer tone, ‘think what an opportunity you are throwing away! An opportunity that will never come again. What life could be higher or nobler than that spent in saving souls?’ To this Alec made no reply. ‘What are all the honours and wealth of the world compared to being the instrument of saving one soul?’ asked Mr. Lindsay. ”

“ Mackenzie despatched a note in Mr. Lindsay’s name to Messrs. Hatchett, Small, and Hatchett, asking that one of the firm should call upon him as soon as possible, and take his instructions for the making of his will. This note was delivered in the afternoon, and was in due course passed on to Mr. Beattie, with the words pencilled across it, ‘Please attend to this at once.’ Mr. Hatchett and Mr. Small were both too important men to attend in person and take instructions for a will, and the junior partner happened to be in America. ”

“ Hatchett, Mr. Small, or Mr. Beattie—and that’s no sayin’ muckle—I’m just where I was fifteen years ago, a clerk, wi’ thirty-five shillin’s a week.’
Alec murmured something by way of sympathy, and the other went on:
‘Paid monthly, Mr. Lindsay, paid monthly. And it’s sometimes very inconvenient to wait till the first o’ the month for the sma’ monthly steepend.’
Alec murmured something still more indistinct.
‘And the cashier here has a heart like the nether mill-stone. Precious little o’ the milk o’ human kindness in his carcass. ”

“ And Alec looked as if he meant to have his way, whether it pleased Mr. William Beattie or not.
Beattie was half inclined to laugh in the other’s face, and yet he was impressed in spite of himself. In one moment he had mentally run over the circumstances again. It was one of his maxims never to make an enemy if he could help it. Was it worth while making an enemy of young Lindsay? True, he saw no way in which Lindsay could injure him—things were rather the other way. But he might be a rich and influential man some day. ”

“ I am only coming on a pretty long visit to him, and as you say you know the family, I would feel glad to hear what you think of them.”
“Misther Lindsay, or rather Misther Charles, and you will have a fine time of it, sir. There's delightful fishin' here, and the best of shootin' and huntin' in harvest and winter—that is, if you stop so long.”
“What kind of a man is Mr. Lindsay?”
“A fine, clever (*Portly, large, comely) man, sir; six feet in his stockin' soles, and made in proportion.”
“But I want to know nothing about his figure; is the man reputed good or bad?” ”

“ Mackenzie.’
‘Are you going to London, father?’ asked the girl, after a pause.
‘Ay; I suppose so. In the morning.’
‘You will let me go with you?’
‘Nonsense, girl. Of what use could you be?’
‘Not much, perhaps; but we would be company for each other. Oh, father! I can’t stay here by myself!’
And the old man yielded a somewhat grudging consent.
Late on the following afternoon they arrived in London. Blake had obtained [Pg 65] from his uncle permission to invite them both to Highgate in the first instance, an invitation which Mr. Lindsay was very unwilling to accept. ”

“ Lindsay’s house was already for her a thing of the past. What the future had in store for her she had no means of guessing. A cousin of her mother’s, who had married a Mr. Crosby, had offered her a home, and she had accepted the offer. Of Mr. Crosby she only knew that he was a coal merchant, and that he lived at Richmond Villa, Brighton. He might be a poor man, or he might be well-to-do; though from the fact that Mrs. Crosby had accepted Laura’s proposal to pay her sixty pounds a year for her board and lodging, it might be supposed that the Crosbys were not rich. ”

“ In the evening, however, there was a promise of a little break in the monotony of life at the farm. A message was brought to Alec enjoining him to be at ‘The Lang Loch’ by half-past nine next morning, and take part in a curling-match between the Muirburn parish and the players of the neighbouring parish of Auchinbyres.
‘You can’t possibly go, Alec,’ said the laird, when the message was delivered; ‘Mr. Cameron won’t care to hang about here alone all day.’
Mr. Lindsay was secretly proud of his son’s reputation as a curler ”

“ Did you ever see a perfectly beautiful woman, Sophy? I doubt it. I never did till I saw Margaret Lindsay. I was so astonished to see a lady at the Castle Farm that I positively stared at the girl for a moment, but she came forward and shook hands with the utmost self-possession.
‘I’m afraid you have had a cold drive, Mr. Blake,’ she said; and though she spoke in a very decidedly Scotch accent, the words did not sound so harshly from her lips as they had done when spoken by her father. For the first time I thought that the Doric might have an agreeable sound. ”

“ The young Irishman, with all the ardor and frankness of his race, heartily congratulated his client on having so successfully run away with an heiress; for that was the light in which he viewed the affair. He made no pretense of being busy, but announced himself ready to attend Mr. Lindsay at once. They crossed over together to the City Hall, and went to the Registrar’s office, where McLoughlin read the recorded will, while David Lindsay stood by. ”

“ If the boy is wrong, no school can make him right. Given the right boy in the hands of competent, conscientious men, and the form of the school makes little difference. So thought Mr. Lindsay as he said good-by to his strapping son at Seaton station; and he boarded the train with a clear conscience.
12 CHAPTER II
ACQUAINTANCES Lindsay was registered as a middler. Being weak in Latin and Greek, and strong in French and German, he found himself spread over three classes, pushed ahead in modern languages, and degraded among the juniors in classics. ”

“ The old man is dying, is he? Then you can look over the draft yourself, you know.’ And Mr. Hatchett began speaking about another matter, to which the managing clerk was forced to give his attention.
When the interview was over, Beattie went to his own room, and throwing on the table the letters and papers which he carried, he sat down and leant his head upon his hand. Then he took up a pen and began idly drawing lines from one blot to another on his writing-pad. Did Alec Lindsay know of this whim of his uncle’s? ”

“ It was, however, very cold work for bystanders, and Cameron, as he saw that his companion was shivering in spite of her winter clothing, proposed to Alec that Margaret and himself should set out at once for the farm, leaving Mr. Lindsay to overtake them when he returned. To this arrangement Alec of course assented, and Margaret and Cameron set off together.
Most young men would have been glad to be in Cameron’s place; but the Highlander felt very ill at ease. ”

“ Of motor cars, which gave him a lift, he says: “I still maintain that the auto is a carnal institution, to be shunned by the truly spiritual, but there are times when I, for one, get tired of being spiritual.” His story of the “Five Little Children Eating Mush” (that was one night in Colorado, and he recited to them while they ate supper) has more beauty and tenderness and jolly tears than all the expensive sob stuff theatrical managers ever dreamed of. Mr. Lindsay doesn’t need to write verse to be a poet. ”

“ The mountains, standing like giants ‘to sentinel enchanted land,’ rose almost from the water’s edge. A few cottages stood clustering together at the mouth of a defile which gave access to Loch Lomond on the east. One or two large houses (of which ‘Glendhu,’ Mr. James Lindsay’s seaside residence, was one) stood at intervals along the shore.
Alec’s first care after landing was to provide himself with a lodging, as (much to his satisfaction) he was not required to live in Mr. Fraser’s house; and he was fortunate enough to find the accommodation he wanted in a cottage close to the seashore. ”