I am as trusty as a
Trojan for that; and you know I cannot do that for
every one which I would for an old friend like Dick
Middlemas.''
Dick promised secrecy, and it was agreed that
the two friends should not even leave the burgh in
company, but that the Captain should set off first,
and his recruit should join him at Edinburgh,
where his enlistment might be attested; and then
they were to travel together to town, and arrange
matters for their Indian voyage.
Notwithstanding the definitive arrangement
which was thus made for his departure, Middlemas
thought from time to time with anxiety and regret
about quitting Menie Grey, after the engagement
which had passed between them. The resolution
was taken, however; the blow was necessarily to
be struck; and her ungrateful lover, long since determined
against the life of domestic happiness,
which he might have enjoyed had his views been
better regulated, was now occupied with the means,
not indeed of breaking off with her entirely, but
of postponing all thoughts of their union until the
success of his expedition to India.
He might have spared himself all anxiety on this
last subject. The wealth of that India to which he
was bound would not have bribed Menie Gray to
have left her father's roof against her father's commands;
still less when, deprived of his two assistants,
he must be reduced to the necessity of continued
exertion in his declining life, and therefore
might have accounted himself altogether deserted,
had his daughter departed from him at the same
time.
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