This sudden suggestion took away Huntley’s breath; the color mounted in his cheek in spite of himself--it was impossible to think of such a prospect unmoved--for Melmar, with its moderate rank and easy fortune, was very much more agreeable to think of than the bush and all its peradventures of hardship and solitude. He listened with only a half-attention while Cassilis explained to him how Mr. Huntley had been induced to relinquish these valuable scraps of paper. The whole sum represented by them was not very considerable, but it made all the difference between bare, absolute stripped poverty, and the enough which would satisfy everybody’s demands, and leave a little over for themselves. There were still heavy mortgages upon the little property of Norlaw, but when Huntley took his father’s canceled bonds in his hand, he knew there was no longer cause to apprehend a forced and ruinous sale of all their stock and crop and little possessions. He heard the lawyer speak of Melmar’s fears, his proposal about the will--his gradual and growing apprehensions; but all that appeared visible to Huntley was the fact of their changed circumstances, and the new position in which the family stood. His companion perceived after a while that the young man was absorbed in his own thoughts, and paid no attention to what he said, and Cassilis wisely left him, once more bidding him hold a council of war. When he was alone, Huntley put aside his memorandum-book, drew his cap over his eyes, and set off on a rapid walk to the top of the hill. He scarcely drew breath till he had reached the summit of that fertile slope from whence he could just see in the distance the gray towers of Melrose and the silvery gleam of Tweed shining in the hazy golden sunshine beyond the purple Eildons. The broad country shone before him in all its tints of color and glow of summer light, wide, great, and silent as the life upon whose brink he stood--and at his feet lay Norlaw, with its humble homestead and its ruined castle, where sat this lad’s mother, who was a widow. He stood there perfectly silent, full of thought, turning over half unconsciously in his mind the words of his adviser. “He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all.”