I fear,
in this uncertainty of public credit, that without some such counter
security, it will be very difficult to find so large a sum."
"Ho la!" said the Earl of Huntinglen, "halt there! a thought strikes
me.--What if the new creditor should admire the estate as a hunting-
field, as much as my Lord Grace of Buckingham seems to do, and should
wish to kill a buck there in the summer season? It seems to me, that
on your plan, Master George, our new friend will be as well entitled
to block Lord Glenvarloch out of his inheritance as the present holder
of the mortgage."
The citizen laughed. "I will engage," he said, "that the keenest
sportsman to whom I may apply on this occasion, shall not have a
thought beyond the Lord Mayor's Easter-Hunt, in Epping Forest. But
your lordship's caution is reasonable. The creditor must be bound to
allow Lord Glenvarloch sufficient time to redeem his estate by means
of the royal warrant, and must wave in his favour the right of instant
foreclosure, which may be, I should think, the more easily managed, as
the right of redemption must be exercised in his own name."
"But where shall we find a person in London fit to draw the necessary
writings?" said the earl. "If my old friend Sir John Skene of Halyards
had lived, we should have had his advice; but time presses, and--"
"I know," said Heriot, "an orphan lad, a scrivener, that dwells by
Temple Bar; he can draw deeds both after the English and Scottish
fashion, and I have trusted him often in matters of weight and of
importance.
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