Chapter 10 - Page 2

as the present,
and I will engage my credit that it can. But then, in order to secure
the lender, he must come in the shoes of the creditor to whom he
advances payment."

"Come in his shoes!" replied the earl; "why, what have boots or shoes
to do with this matter, my good friend?"

"It is a law phrase, my lord. My experience has made me pick up a few
of them," said Heriot.

"Ay, and of better things along with them, Master George," replied
Lord Huntinglen; "but what means it?"

"Simply this," resumed the citizen; "that the lender of this money
will transact with the holder of the mortgage, or wadset, over the
estate of Glenvarloch, and obtain from him such a conveyance to his
right as shall leave the lands pledged for the debt, in case the
warrant upon the Scottish Exchequer should prove unproductive. 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. I will send one of my serving-men for him, and the mutual
deeds may be executed in your lordship's presence; for, as things
stand, there should be no delay." His lordship readily assented; and,
as they now landed upon