But if ye will have siller, ye maun have siller--but, I warrant, it goes just where the rest gaed." "No, by twenty devils!" exclaimed Mowbray, "to fail this time is impossible--Jack Wolverine was too strong for Etherington at any thing he could name; and I can beat Wolverine from the Land's-End to Johnnie Groat's--but there must be something to go upon--the blunt must be had, Mick." "Very likely--nae doubt--that is always provided it _can_ be had," answered the legal adviser.
"That's your business, my old cock," said Mowbray.

"This youngster will be here perhaps to-morrow, with money in both pockets--he takes up his rents as he comes down, Mick--think of that, my old friend." "Weel for them that have rents to take up," said Meiklewham; "ours are lying rather ower low to be lifted at present .-- But are you sure this Earl is a man to mell with ?--are you sure ye can win of him, and that if you do, he can pay his losings, Mr.Mowbray ?--because I have kend mony are come for wool, and gang hame shorn; and though ye are a clever young gentleman, and I am bound to suppose ye ken as much about life as most folk, and all that; yet some gate or other ye have aye come off at the losing hand, as ye have ower much reason to ken this day--howbeit"---- "O, the devil take your gossip, my dear Mick! If you can give no help, spare drowning me with your pother .-- Why, man, I was a fresh hand--had my apprentice-fees to pay--and these are no trifles, Mick .-- But what of that ?--I am free of the company now, and can trade on my own bottom." "Aweel, aweel, I wish it may be sae," said Meiklewham.
"It will be so, and it shall be so, my trusty friend," replied Mowbray, cheerily, "so you will but help me to the stock to trade with." "The stock ?--what d'ye ca' the stock?
I ken nae stock that ye have left." "But _you_ have plenty, my old boy--Come, sell out a few of your three per cents; I will pay difference--interest--exchange--every thing." "Ay, ay--every thing or naething," answered Meiklewham; "but as you are sae very pressing, I hae been thinking--Whan is the siller wanted ?" "This instant--this day--to-morrow at farthest!" exclaimed the proposed borrower.
"Wh--ew!" whistled the lawyer, with a long prolongation of the note; "the thing is impossible." "It must be, Mick, for all that," answered Mr.Mowbray, who knew by experience that _impossible_, when uttered by his accommodating friend in this tone, meant only, when interpreted, extremely difficult, and very expensive.
"Then it must be by Miss Clara selling her stock, now that ye speak of stock," said Meiklewham; "I wonder ye didna think of this before." "I wish you had been dumb rather than that you had mentioned it now," said Mowbray, starting, as if stung by an adder--"What, Clara's pittance!--the trifle my aunt left her for her own fanciful expenses--her own little private store, that she puts to so many good purposes--Poor Clara, that has so little!--And why not rather your own, Master Meiklewham, who call yourself the friend and servant of our family ?" "Ay, St.Ronan's," answered Meiklewham, "that is a' very true--but service is nae inheritance; and as for friendship, it begins at hame, as wise folk have said lang before our time.

And for that matter, I think they that are nearest sib should take maist risk.

You are nearer and dearer to your sister, St.Ronan's, than you are to poor Saunders Meiklewham, that hasna sae muckle gentle blood as would supper up an hungry flea." "I will not do this," said St.Ronan's, walking up and down with much agitation; for, selfish as he was, he loved his sister, and loved her the more on account of those peculiarities which rendered his protection indispensable to her comfortable existence--"I will not," he said, "pillage her, come on't what will.

I will rather go a volunteer to the continent, and die like a gentleman." He continued to pace the room in a moody silence, which began to disturb his companion, who had not been hitherto accustomed to see his patron take matters so deeply.