There is a mortgage
over your father's extensive estate, to the amount of 40,000 merks,
due ostensibly to Peregrine Peterson, the Conservator of Scottish
Privileges at Campvere."
"I know nothing of a mortgage," said the young lord; "but there is a
wadset for such a sum, which, if unredeemed, will occasion the
forfeiture of my whole paternal estate, for a sum not above a fourth
of its value--and it is for that very reason that I press the king's
government for a settlement of the debts due to my father, that I may
be able to redeem my land from this rapacious creditor."
"A wadset in Scotland," said Heriot, "is the same with a mortgage on
this side of the Tweed; but you are not acquainted with your real
creditor. The Conservator Peterson only lends his name to shroud no
less a man than the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, who hopes, under
cover of this debt, to gain possession of the estate himself, or
perhaps to gratify a yet more powerful third party. He will probably
suffer his creature Peterson to take possession, and when the odium of
the transaction shall be forgotten, the property and lordship of
Glenvarloch will be conveyed to the great man by his obsequious
instrument, under cover of a sale, or some similar device."
"Can this be possible?" said Lord Nigel; "the Chancellor wept when I
took leave of him--called me his cousin--even his son--furnished me
with letters, and, though I asked him for no pecuniary assistance,
excused himself unnecessarily for not pressing it on me, alleging the
expenses of his rank and his large family.
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