Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/598

594 == FORTUNE'S WHEEL. – PART II. ==

CHAPTER IV. – A PLEASANT SURPRISE.
seems a pity that the novelist cannot introduce something like the chorus of the Greek play, or refer the reader to explanations in an appendix, for the succinct narration of those preliminary details which are indispensable to the understanding of his story. But sooner or later the reader must be troubled with them, and it is as well to trouble him soon and get it over. Born to a long pedigree and a broad inheritance of barren acres seriously embarrassed, David Moray, as a very young man, had been offered a chance of pushing his fortunes in the Tropics. It was a time when the oriental pagoda-trees bore richer fruit than now, or at least when there were far fewer Europeans to shake them. If there were grander prizes to be gained, there were greater dangers and hardships to be faced when the adventurer turned aside from the beaten tracks. Resolute, persevering, and prematurely self-reliant, young Moray was as much tempted by the hazards as by the prizes. His father, with the proverbial caution of the Scot, waited till his son had a certain experience. Then an additional mortgage on the Glenconan estates furnished him with a moderate capital. Perhaps the old gentleman might have been less freehanded had he known more of his son's disposition. David's daring speculations would have made his father shudder. The young adventurer had taken good introductions with him, and his pleasant ways made him powerful friends among members of the great English firms in the ports of China and the Malay Peninsula. He was always a welcome guest at their tables; he might apparently have lived in luxurious free quarters for the duration of his natural life. Those of the merchants who were sportsmen had him in special affection ; and nowhere are friendships more quickly cemented than in sporting-parties in the solitudes of the rice -swamps or the jungles. But Moray was the last man in the world to "sorn," as they say in Scotland – that is, to sponge upon friends. He was too full of energy, too set upon arriving at his ends, too home-sick, we may add – though the word scarcely expresses our meaning – to linger on the circuitous road that was to lead him back to Glenconan and a competency. Recreation in the way of wild sports came to him naturally; for the rest, he never relaxed when he could help it, save when there was nothing profitable to be done, or else to serve some definite purpose. Those pleasant evenings over the social board formed business as well as friendly connections. The chats at the bivouac by the forest-fire suggested many a topic of commercial interest. A partner of no firm in particular, Moray became the ally and agent of many besides the one that had trained him. The custom regulations of China were severe; the contraband trade was immensely lucrative; European opinion was sufficiently lax on the subject: and yet there were many gainful affairs that were too compromising to be lightly undertaken by the old established houses. Not a few of these transactions were put in Moray's way, when he had once given guarantees of his discretion and enterprise. No one cared