'Louis Philippe will do well enough, you'll find,' continued the baronet, understanding what was passing within his companion's breast. 'Let a young fellow sow his wild oats while he is young, and he'll be steady enough when he grows old.'
'But what if he never lives to get through the sowing?' thought the doctor to himself. 'What if that wild-oats operation is carried on in so violent a manner as to leave no strength in the soil for the produce of a more valuable crop?' It was of no use saying this however, so he allowed Scatcherd to continue.
'If I'd had a free fling when I was a youngster, I shouldn't have been so fond of the brandy bottle now. But any way, my son shall be my heir. I've had the gumption to make the money, but I haven't the gumption to spend it. My son, however, shall be able to ruffle it with the best of them. I'll go bail he shall hold his head higher than ever young Gresham will be able to hold his. They are much of the same age, as well I have cause to remember;—and so has her ladyship there.'
Now the fact was, that Sir Roger Scatcherd felt in his heart no special love for young Gresham; but with her ladyship it might almost be a question whether she did not love the youth whom she had nursed almost as well as that other one who was her own proper offspring.
'And will you not put any check on thoughtless expenditure? If you live ten or twenty years, as we hope you may, it will become unnecessary; but in making a will, a man should always remember he may go off suddenly.'
'Especially if he goes to bed with a brandy bottle under his head; eh, doctor? But, mind, that's a medical secret, you know; not a word of that out of the bedroom.'
Dr. Thorne could but sigh. What could he say on such a subject to such a man as this?
'Yes, I have put a check upon his expenditure. I will not let his daily bread depend on any man; I have therefore left him five hundred a year at his own disposal, from the day of my death. Let him make what ducks and drakes of that he can.'
'Five hundred a year certainly is not much,' said the doctor.
'No; nor do I want to keep him to that. Let him have whatever he wants if he sets about spending it properly. But the bulk of the property—this estate of Boxall Hill, and the Greshamsbury mortgage, and those other mortgages—I have tied up in this way: they shall be all his at twenty-five; and up to that age it shall be in your power to give him what he wants. If he shall die without children before he shall be five-and-twenty years of age, they are all to go to Mary's eldest child.'
Now Mary was Sir Roger's sister, the mother, therefore, of
