[ WP ] Introduce us to Chekovs gun , but do n't use it

Henry Bolingbroke, the seventh Earl Bolingbroke, sat in his favorite overstuffed brown leather wing chair in his oak paneled study, gazing pensively at the dueling sabres crossed behind the family's heraldic device over the mantelpiece. 
 
 His ancestor, Harold Bolingbroke, third cousin to the famous Tudor Monarch, had them commissioned to celebrate his elevation to Earl. They were simple yet beautiful weapons, with an ornate basket hilts as the only pretense to decoration. *Savage weapons for a savage time, * mused the Earl as he sipped his brandy, waiting. 
 
 A manservant broke the Earl's reverie by knocking three times, then entering. 
 
 `` My Lord, Earl Bolingbroke, a Mr Ewan McGregor has come to call upon you.'' 
 
 `` Ah, yes, do send him up.'' 
 
 `` Shall I bring refreshments for you both, my Lord? The cellars have a new cognac, arrived just this morning...'' 
 
 The Earl paused for only a moment, a quick flash of rage at the thought of providing such an unpleasant Scottish upstart from *his* own private stock. 
 
 `` No, we shall be quite fine, thank you. Send the iron monger up.'' 
 
 `` Very good sir, I shall escort the gentleman now,'' a gentle nebulae in his choice of words. The Earl well knew how important this meeting could be. 
 
 Henry resumed his posture, one knee resting upon the other, facing a slowly dying fire and contemplating how he would approach the coming meeting. His family was old and proud, but in this less civilized, more'modern' age, had fallen to harder times. Not that he wanted for anything, no. But the rents were n't what they used to be, and his own fool of a father wasted much of the family's material wealth on ridiculous schemes in the East Indies. 
 
 With the decrease in the family's financial power came a corresponding fall from political strength. The Earl blamed his father for that as well. *Foolish dolt, * he thought, uncharitably. The Fifth Earl Bolingbroke was named Lord Admiral of the Eastern Seas, a Life Peer of the Admiralty, and a member of Good King George III's Privy Council. The Sixth Earl Bolingbroke, by contrast, was named a coward and a drunk by the Prince Regent before a full Parliament. 
 
 And now, this son of a Scott wainwright had the *presumption* to *buy* his family's land out from under him. Well, that Scott had another thing coming. Maybe his father would have sold, would have jumped at the chance to fritter away what greater men had built, but *he, * well. *He* took after his grandfather. *He* still had the temerity to do what needed to be done, to put such encroachments back in their place. 
 
 The Earl gave a start as three knocks pulled him out of his pensive state once more. The sturdy mahogany door opened to again reveal his manservant. 
 
 `` My Lord, Earl Bolingbroke, I present Mr Ewan McGregor of Strathclyde.'' A slight, spare young man, dressed in a fashionable black suit with a white silk cravat entered the Earl's study with purposeful stride. 
 
 `` Ah, yes.'' Said the Earl without rising. `` Mr McGregor, do come and sit down. Thank you, that will be all Mr Grey.'' 
 
 McGregor sat in the proffered chair, a twin to the Earl's own. The Earl continued to stare at the dying flames, studying the Scotsman obliquely through his peripheral vision. The young man had long black hair, pulled back in a short que at the base of his neck and tied with a black ribbon. His youthful face was beginning to show lines and creases about the forehead and corners of the eyes. *A man taken to thinking, * the Earl mused. 
 
 McGregor sat hunched forward on the edge of his seat, as though eager to jump at the Earl, to seize his lapels and shake the Bolingbroke lands from the older man. 
 
 The Earl let the silence mount, staring as the last flames gutters out. Finally, the Scotsman spoke. 
 
 `` Sir, I trust that you --'' 
 
 `` Lord or Earl,'' Bolingbroke interrupted. 
 
 `` I beg your pardon?'' 
 
 `` You may refer to me as either Lord or Earl. I am some degree above a mere'sir,' and if you wish to discuss business in this country, you should do well to remember your superiors' titles.'' 
 
 `` Ach. Weel then,'' McGregor began again in his heavy brogue. `` I trust you've received my letter? What have you thought of my proposal?'' 
 
 `` I misslike it.'' The Earl replied simply, looking now above the fireplace. `` I will not sell a speck of my dirt.'' 
 
 `` No?'' McGregor asked, `` what say you to a lease, then?'' 
 
 `` A lease?'' 
 
 `` Aye, a lease. You've some of the richest coal deposits my prospectors have seen. I do not require to own the land, I'll simply rent them from you and use then as I will.'' 
 
 `` Rents, hmm?'' The Earl smiled for the first time in a decade. `` Me McGregor, I think you and I have a deal.'' 
 
 

