In that old house every chamber had its story of some past occupant; for there the Lairds of Earlshaugh were born; there they brought home their brides, and there they had--unless they fell in battle--died and been borne forth by their own people to Leuchars Kirk, or to the Chapel of St. Bennet, of which no vestige now remains. Looking over the fair and sunlit scene before him, Roland Lindsay was thinking of all these things, while Maude drooped her pretty head on his shoulder, and said: 'It is so terrible to suppose that we may have lost all this through the folly--the weakness of papa.' 'In the hands of an artful Jezebel! But who is that person riding straight across the lawn, heedless of path or avenue?' 'Sharpe--Mr. Hawkey Sharpe,' replied Maude, starting with something like a shudder again--an emotion which Roland fortunately did not perceive; for with reference to this obnoxious person there was a secret between him and her which Maude, with all her love and affection, dared not confide to her fiery brother, lest it should bring about the very catastrophe which she dreaded so much. CHAPTER XIII. ROLAND'S VEXATION. 'In my father's house on sufferance only, it would seem!' was the half-aloud remark muttered through his teeth by Roland, when betimes next morning he was up while the dew was glittering on shrub and tree, to have a ramble, cigar in mouth, and feeling with bitterness in his heart that through the fault of another, rather than himself, he had been severely and unjustly dealt with. When Roland joined his regiment an elder brother now dead, Harry Lindsay of the Scots Guards, had been, like himself, somewhat extravagant--Harry particularly so amid the facilities afforded by London for spending freely and living fast--thus between certain bills which the later had compelled the old gentleman to accept, looking upon him, as he too often said, 'merely as the family banker,' but more especially by his betting, racing, and other proclivities peculiar to 'the Brigade,' he had so enraged the old Laird of Earlshaugh that, acted upon by the influence of his unwise 'second election,' the latter had executed a will--the obnoxious document so often referred to--completely in her favour, leaving her everything, with certain arrangements--a provision--for his surviving son Roland and his daughter Maude. A codicil, tending to reverse or revoke this, had evidently been in preparation, but was never fulfilled or signed. Thus far alone Roland had been made aware, but was still inclined to doubt the tenor of a document he had never seen, which he could not as yet see, and the copy of which, sent to him in Egypt, had been lost in the transmission as stated. Moreover, he was a soldier--nothing but a soldier in many ways, and, as he was wont to say to himself, 'an utter muff,' so far as business matters were concerned.