So things went on, without any other variety than an occasional visit from Mr. Menteith or Dr. Hamilton, for seven years, during which the minister’s pupil had acquired every possible learning that his teacher could give, and was fast becoming less a scholar than an equal companion and friend—­so familiar and dear, that Mr. Cardross, like all who knew him, had long since almost forgotten that the earl was—­what he was.  It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should sit there in his little chair, doing nothing; absolutely passive to all physical things; but interested in every thing and every body, and, whether at the Manse or the Castle, as completely one of the circle as if he took the most active part therein.  Consulted by one, appealed to by another, joked by a third—­he was ever ready with a joke—­it was only when strangers happened to see him, and were startled by the sight, that his own immediate friends recognized how different he was from other people.

It was one day when he was about nineteen that Helen, coming in to see him with a message from her father, who wanted to speak to him about some parish matters, found Lord Cairnforth deeply meditating over a letter.  He slipped it aside, however, and it was not until the whole parish question had been discussed and settled, as somehow he and Helen very often did settle the whole affairs of the parish between them, that he brought it out again, fidgeting it out of his pocket with his poor fingers, which seemed a little more helpless than usual.

“Helen, I wish you would read that, and tell me what you think about it”?

It was a letter somewhat painful to read, with the earl sitting by and watching her, but Helen had long learned never to shrink from these sort of things.  He felt them far less if every body else faced them as boldly as he had himself always done.

The letter was from Dr. Hamilton, written after his return from a three days’ visit at Cairnforth Castle.  It explained, after a long apologetic preamble, the burden of which was that the earl was now old enough and thoughtful enough to be the best person to speak to on such a difficult subject, that there had been a certain skillful mechanician lately in Edinburg who declared he would invent some support by which Lord Cairnforth could be made, not indeed to walk—­that was impossible—­ but to be by many degrees more active than now.  But it would be necessary for him to go to London, and there submit to a great amount of trouble and inconvenience—­possibly some pain.

“I tell you this last, my dear lord,” continued the good doctor, “because I ought not to deceive you; and because, so far as I have seen, you are a courageous boy—­nay, almost a man—­or will be soon.  I must forewarn you also that the experiment, is only an experiment—­ that it may fail; but even in that case you would be only where you were before—­no better, no worse, except for the temporary annoyance and suffering.”