“Did Mr. Menteith say that?” cried the earl, eagerly.

“He did, indeed; I heard him.”

“And did he seem to think that I should be able for it?”

“I can not tell,” answered truthful Helen.  “He said not a word one way or the other about your being capable of doing the work; he only said the work was to done.”

“Then I will try and do it.”

The earl said this quietly enough, but his eyes gleamed and his lips quivered.

Helen laid her hand upon his, much move.  “I said you were brave—­ always; still, you must think twice about it, for it will be a very responsible duty—­enough, Mr. Menteith told papa, to require a man’s whole energies for the next twenty years.”

“I wonder if I shall live so long.  Well, I am glad, Helen.  It will be something worth living for.”

Chapter 7

Malcolm’s saying that “if my lord taks a thing into his heid he’ll do’t, ye ken,” was as true now as when the earl was a little boy.

Mr. Mentieth hardly knew how the thing was accomplished—­indeed, he had rather opposed it, believing the mere physical impediments to his ward’s overlooking his own affairs were insurmountable; but Lord Cairnforth contrived in the course of a day or two to initiate himself very fairly in all the business attendant upon the “term;” to find out the exact extent and divisions of his property, and to whom it was feued.  And on term-day he proposed, though with an evident effort which touched the old lawyer deeply, to sit beside Mr. Menteith while the tenants were paying their rents, so as to become personally known to each of them.

Many of these, like Dougal Mac Dougal, were over come with surprise, nay, something more painful than surprise, at the sight of the small figure which was the last descendant of the noble Earls of Cairnforth, and with whom the stalwart father and the fair young mother looking down from the pictured walls, contrasted so piteously; but after the first shock was over they carried away only the remembrance of his sweet, grave face, and his intelligent and pertinent observations, indicating a shrewdness for which even Mr. Menteith was unprepared.  When he owned this, after business was done, the young earl smiled, evidently much gratified.

“Yes, I don’t think they can say of me that I’m ‘no a’ there!” Also he that evening confessed to Helen that he found “business” nearly as interesting as Greek and Latin, perhaps even more so, for there was something human in it, something which drew one closer to one’s fellow-creatures, and benefited other people besides one’s own self.  “I think,” he added, “I should rather enjoy being what is called ’a good man of business.’”

He pleaded so hard for farther instruction in all pertaining to his estate that Mr. Menteith consented to spare two whole weeks out of his busy Edinburg life, during which Lord Cairnforth and he were shut up together for a great part of every day, investigating matters connected with the property, and other things which hitherto in the young man’s education had been entirely neglected.