CHAPTER XXVII. FORGERY. “Oh! cursed lust of gold! how for thy sake The fool throws up his interests in both worlds! First lost in this—then damned in that to come.”—_Blair._ In the meanwhile, the object of his solicitude, Clement Sutherland, sat in a private parlour of the Planters’ Hotel, in the village of C——, _afraid to return home_, with wild thoughts of flight darting through his oppressed, distracted head! A victim to the lust of gold, he had served the devil too well to be deserted of him at the last hour. And now he sat, with his prematurely whitened head bowed upon his cramped and shrivelled hands, bitterly trying to recall the wiles and review the crooked paths by which the fiend had led him. In youth, his besetting sin had been a reasonable wish of independence, and he called it thrift; and it seemed to justify every kind of parsimony and selfishness. In maturity it became a craving desire for wealth, and he named it prudent foresight, wise provision for the future, and it appeared to excuse every sort of exaction from health, life, and limb, of his labourers, or “uttermost farthing” from his debtors. In midlife it grew an absorbing passion, and he termed it parental devotion, and it seemed to palliate every species of injustice, cruelty, and dishonesty. In his age it reached its full development, as a monomania, which he no longer sought to sanctify by any holy name, when it led him into _crime_—into the crime of _forgery_! Some months before, a most promising opportunity offered of making a great speculation by the investment of a considerable sum of money. But how to raise this sum? He had neither cash nor credit; and all his estate in which he had retained more than a life interest, was mortgaged to nearly its full value. There was one means of raising the funds suggested to his mind, but his soul shrank from it. He could anticipate his ward’s majority by a few months, and borrow her signature only for a power of attorney and a deed of mortgage—that was all. And the money could be raised on her real estate, and the sum invested, and the profits secured. And then the mortgage could be released and destroyed before the (he hesitated to give the act its proper name, even in his thought) forgery could be discovered and exposed. So the tempter persuaded him. He had never trained his moral strength by resisting slight temptations; and now that the temptation was very great, he fell before it. Scarcely daring to think on what he was about to do, he left the neighbourhood of Cashmere for two weeks, and on his return, laid before his correspondent, the usurer at C——, a power of attorney and a deed of mortgage, seemingly duly signed, witnessed and attested. Upon these the requisite funds were borrowed, embarked in the speculation, and lost!