CHAPTER VII - ENTER MEPHISTOPHELES



TWO days later a gig from Crossmichael deposited Frank Innes at the
doors of Hermiston. Once in a way, during the past winter, Archie, in
some acute phase of boredom, had written him a letter. It had contained
something in the nature of an invitation or a reference to an invitation
- precisely what, neither of them now remembered. When Innes had
received it, there had been nothing further from his mind than to bury
himself in the moors with Archie; but not even the most acute political
heads are guided through the steps of life with unerring directness.
That would require a gift of prophecy which has been denied to man. For
instance, who could have imagined that, not a month after he had
received the letter, and turned it into mockery, and put off answering
it, and in the end lost it, misfortunes of a gloomy cast should begin to
thicken over Frank's career? His case may be briefly stated. His
father, a small Morayshire laird with a large family, became
recalcitrant and cut off the supplies; he had fitted himself out with
the beginnings of quite a good law library, which, upon some sudden
losses on the turf, he had been obliged to sell before they were paid
for; and his bookseller, hearing some rumour of the event, took out a
warrant for his arrest. Innes had early word of it, and was able to
take precautions. In this immediate welter of his affairs, with an
unpleasant charge hanging over him, he had judged it the part of
prudence to be off instantly, had written a fervid letter to his father
at Inverauld, and put himself in the coach for Crossmichael. Any port
in a storm! He was manfully turning his back on the Parliament House
and its gay babble, on porter and oysters, the race-course and the ring;
and manfully prepared, until these clouds should have blown by, to share