The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

A Strange Revenge. 455
mistake on my part might fill a thousand graves. And
now. if you will excuse me for these irrelevant preliminaries,
I will ask after your health, and if you will be good
enough to take a chair."
" I am afraid I'll have to go ; in fact, my presence, you
see, will interrupt your studies," remarked Richard, with
some confusion, taking the Professor's extended hand. He
had expected to be shewn into the drawing-room, and to
feel Miss Somerton's warm finger clasp his own, instead of
the clammy hand of her father.
" Not a bit of it, sir, not a bit of it. When one is left
alone (here Richard's face fell), and a hard spell of study
has been got over satisfactorily, it is a friend, indeed, who
steps in, should he only have the gossip of the countryside
to communicate. I don't suppose you, a laird's son, dabble
in the mysteries of science ?"
" Quite right yon are in that supposition ;
I leave such
matters, so far as our family is concerned, to David. He's
decidedly a clever fellow, and all that."
"A student, I 'oelieve— I think I heard you mention
it ?—with a view to medicine."
" Yes— you see, we can't both live decently well off the
property, and its never been done in the family. Younger
sons have always kicked about on their own hook."
" Ah, yes ; they make their way in the world. Well, I
myself had that experience—that experience. Nothing
like it, if the silver spoon is not there. H'm. As they say
in America, I've made a little bit of a pile, too—a little bit
of a pile.'"
"
"
Doctoring ?
" Well, yes, as a specialist in a general sort of way, if
you'll excuse the apparent anomaly."
" Now you've dropped the thing, I suppose."
" Not quite," said the Professor, elevating his eyebrows,
and waving a hand in the direction of the paraphernalia on
the table, " a thorough student can never give up science-
t is an enchanted cave, so to speak, which, once entered.