“Honesty has nothing to do with the getting back of what should never have been given away,” said the dying man to Hugo, who sat by his bedside after the clergyman had departed. “I have examined all the rights, charters, infeftments, retours, and what not, and held them up to the light, to see if I could detect what the lawyers call ‘erasures;’ but, though I never could see daylight through them, your quicker eyes may be more successful. There’s a clause in them, binding the heirs of Outfieldhaugh to lend the charters to us as the superiors. I forced a loan of the title-deeds upon that clause, and had a good fire in my library, which I looked at often, and then at the charter again, and then at the fire again; but—but—but——” And with these words on his tongue, old Hector Græme, who was called the honest laird of Eyrymount, expired. The recommendation of old Hector was not lost upon Hugo, who recollected, particularly, the hint about the library fire; but a slight legal education he had received in his youth taught him that, as the charters had been registered at Edinburgh, the library fire could not aid him in getting back Outfieldhaugh. After he became satisfied of this, but not before, he “disdained,” as he said, “to reacquire the property in the manner recommended by old Hector, who knew nothing about the act 1617; besides, how could he get the titles, without an obligation to redeliver them ’within a reasonable time and under a suitable penalty?’” He resolved upon another plan; but whether it was less dishonest than the speedy mode recommended by old Hector, and affected to be despised by him, may be safely left to the judgment of the world. This much may be said for Hector’s project—that he had the merit of philosophizing; for, though the qualities of phlogiston had already been pretty well ascertained, the effects of its application to the rights of another person’s property had not often been examined, except by the anti-philosophical fifteen who sit in the Parliament House of Edinburgh, and who foolishly allowed themselves to be led by musty acts of parliament and old precedents. The mode adopted by Hugo, again, was purely empirical, and, besides, suggested to him by a change having taken place in the proprietorship of Outfieldhaugh.