"May I come in?" said Alick, knocking at the door. "I have something to
tell you."
"What, Alick! Not Mr. Williams come?"
"Nothing so good. In fact I doubt if you will think it good at all. I
have been consulting this same solicitor about the title-deeds; that
cheese you let fall, you know," he added, stroking her hand, and
speaking so gently that the very irony was rather pleasant.
"Oh, it is very bad."
"Now wouldn't you like to hear it was so bad that I should have to sell
out, and go to the diggings to make it up?"
"Now, Alick, if it were not for your sake, you know I should like--"
"I know you would; but you see, unfortunately, it was not a cheese at
all, only a wooden block that the fox ran away with. Lawyers don't put
people's title-deeds into such dangerous keeping, the true cheese is
safe locked up in a tin-box in Mr. Martin's chambers in London."
"Then what did I give Mauleverer?"
"A copy kept for reference down here." Rachel hid her face.
"There, I knew you would think it no good news, and it is just a
thunder-clap to me. All you wanted me for was to defend the mother and
make up to the charity, and now there's no use in me," he said in a
disconsolate tone.
"Oh, Alick, Alick, why am I so foolish?"
"Never mind; I took care Martin should not know it. Nobody is aware
of the little affair but our two selves; and I will take care the fox
learns the worth of his prize. Only now, Rachel, answer me, is there any
use left for me still?"
"You should not ask me such things, Alick, you know it all too well."
"Not so well that I don't want to hear it. But I had more to say. This
Martin is a man of very different calibre from old Cox, with a head and
heart in London charities and churches, and it had struck him as it
did you, that the Homestead had an easier bargain of it than that good
namesake of yours had ever contemplated. If it paid treble or quadruple
rent, the dear mother would never find it out, nor grow a geranium the
less."
"No, she would not! But after all, the lace apprenticeships are poor
work."
"So they are, but Martin says there would be very little difficulty in
getting a private bill to enable the trustees to apply the sum otherwise
for the benefit of the Avonmouth girls."
"Then if I had written to him, it would have been all right! Oh, my
perverseness!"
"And, Rachel, now that money has been once so intended; suppose it
kept its destination. About £500 would put up a tidy little industrial
school, and you might not object to have a scholarship or two for some
of our little --th Highlander lassies whose fathers won't make orphans
of them for the regular military charities. What, crying, Rachel! Don't
you like it?"