Although Claud had accomplished the great object of all his strivings, and although, from the Divethill, where the little castle of his forefathers once stood, he could contemplate the whole extent of the Kittlestonheugh estate, restored, as he said, to the Walkinshaws, and by his exertions, there was still a craving void in his bosom that yearned to be satisfied. He felt as if the circumstance of Watty having a legal interest in the property, arising from the excambio for the Plealands, made the conquest less certainly his own than it might have been, and this lessened the enjoyment of the self-gratulation with which he contemplated the really proud eminence to which he had attained.
But keener feelings and harsher recollections were also mingled with that regret; and a sentiment of sorrow, in strong affinity with remorse, embittered his meditations, when he thought of the precipitancy with which he had executed the irrevocable entail, to theexclusion of Charles; to whom, prior to that unjust transaction, he had been more attached than to any other human being. It is true that, when he adopted that novel resolution, he had, at the same time, appeased his conscience with intentions to indemnify his unfortunate first-born; but in this, he was not aware of the mysteries of the heart, nor that there was a latent spring in his breast, as vigorous and elastic in its energy, as the source of that indefatigable perseverance by which he had accomplished so much.
The constant animadversions of his wife, respecting his partiality for Charles and undisguised contempt for Watty, had the effect of first awakening the powers of that dormant engine. They galled the sense of his own injustice, and kept the memory of it so continually before him, that, in the mere wish not to give her cause to vex him for his partiality, he estranged himself from Charles in such a manner, that it was soon obvious and severely felt. Conscious that he had done him wrong,—aware that the wrong would probably soon be discovered,—and conscious, too, that this behaviour was calculated to beget suspicion, he began to dislike to see Charles, and alternately to feel, in every necessary interview, as if he was no longer treated by him with the same respect as formerly. Still, however, there was so much of the leaven of original virtue in the composition of his paternal affection, and in the general frame of his character, that this disagreeable feeling never took the decided nature of enmity. He did not hate because he had injured,—he was only apprehensive of being upbraided for having betrayed hopes which he well knew his particular affection must have necessarily inspired.
Perhaps, had he not, immediately after Walter’s marriage, been occupied with the legal arrangement consequent to an accepted proposal from Milrookit of Dirdumwhamle, to make Miss Meg his third wife, this apprehension might have hardened into animosity, and been exasperated to aversion; but the cares and affairs of that business came, as it were, in aid of the fatherin his nature, and while they seemingly served to excuse his gradually abridged intercourse with Charles and Isabella, they prevented such an incurable induration of his heart from taking place towards them, as the feelings at work within him had an undoubted tendency to produce. We shall not, therefore, dwell on the innumerable little incidents arising out of his estrangement, by which the happiness of that ill-fated pair was deprived of so much of its best essence,—contentment,—and their lives, with the endearing promise of a family, embittered by anxieties of which it would be as difficult to describe the importance, as to give each of them an appropriate name.
In the meantime, the marriage of Miss Meg was consummated, and we have every disposition to detail the rites and the revels, but they were all managed in a spirit so much more moderate than Walter’s wedding, that the feast would seem made up but of the cold bake-meats of the former banquet. Indeed, Mr. Milrookit, the bridegroom, being, as Leddy Grippy called him, a waster of wives, having had two before, and who knows how many more he may have contemplated to have, it would not have been reasonable to expect that he should allow such a free-handed junketing as took place on that occasion. Besides this, the dowry with Grippy’s daughter was not quite so liberal as he had expected; for when the old man was stipulating for her jointure, he gave him a gentle hint not to expect too much.
‘Two hundred pounds a-year, Mr. Milrookit,’ said Grippy, ‘is a bare eneugh sufficiency for my dochter; but I’ll no be overly extortionate, sin it’s no in my power, even noo, to gie you meikle in hand, and I would na lead you to expek any great deal hereafter, for ye ken it has cost me a world o’ pains and ettling to gather the needful to redeem the Kittlestonheugh, the whilk maun ay gang in the male line; but failing my three sons and their heirs, the entail gangs to the heirs-general o’ Meg, so that ye hae a’ to look in that airt; that, ye maun alloo, is worth something. Howsever,I dinna objek to the two hundred pounds; but I would like an ye could throw a bit fifty til’t, just as a cast o’ the hand to mak lucky measure.’
‘I would na begrudge that, Grippy,’ replied the gausey widower of Dirdumwhamle; ‘but ye ken I hae a sma’ family: the first Mrs. Milrookit brought me sax sons, and the second had four, wi’ five dochters. It’s true that the bairns o’ the last clecking are to be provided for by their mother’s uncle, the auld General wi’ the gout at Lon’on; but my first family are dependent on mysel’, for, like your Charlie, I made a calf-love marriage, and my father was na sae kind as ye hae been to him, for he put a’ past me that he could, and had he no deet amang hands in one o’ his scrieds wi’ the Lairds o’ Kilpatrick, I’m sure I canna think what would hae come o’ me and my first wife. So you see, Grippy’—
‘I wis, Dirdumwhamle,’ interrupted the old man, ‘that ye would either ca’ me by name or Kittlestonheugh, for the Grippy’s but a pendicle o’ the family property; and though, by reason o’ the castle being ta’en down when my grandfather took a wadset on’t frae the public, we are obligated to live here in this house that was on the land when I made a conquest o’t again, yet a’ gangs noo by the ancient name o’ Kittlestonheugh, and a dochter of the Walkinshaws o’ the same is a match for the best laird in the shire, though she had na ither tocher than her snood and cockernony.’
‘Weel, Kittlestonheugh,’ replied Dirdumwhamle, ‘I’ll e’en mak it better than the twa hunder and fifty—I’ll make it whole three hunder, if ye’ll get a paction o’ consent and conneevance wi’ your auld son Charles, to pay to Miss Meg, or to the offspring o’ my marriage wi’ her, a yearly soom during his liferent in the property, you yoursel’ undertaking in your lifetime to be as good. I’m sure that’s baith fair and a very great liberality on my side.’
Claud received this proposal with a convulsive gurgle of the heart’s blood. It seemed to him, that,on every occasion, the wrong which he had done Charles was to be brought in the most offensive form before him, and he sat for the space of two or three minutes without making any reply; at last hesaid,—
‘Mr. Milrookit, I ne’er rue’t any thing in my life but the consequence of twa-three het words that ance passed between me and my gudefather Plealands anent our properties; and I hae lived to repent my obduracy. For this cause I’ll say nae mair about an augmentation of the proposed jointure, but just get my dochter to put up wi’ the two hundred pounds, hoping that hereafter, an ye can mak it better, she’ll be none the waur of her father’s confidence in you on this occasion.’
Thus was Miss Meg disposed of, and thus did the act of injustice which was done to one child operate, through the mazy feelings of the father’s conscious spirit, to deter him, even in the midst of such sordid bargaining, not only from venturing to insist on his own terms, but even from entertaining a proposal which had for its object a much more liberal provision for his daughter than he had any reason, under all the circumstances, to expect.
Soon after the marriage of Miss Meg, George, the third son, and youngest of the family, was placed in the counting-house of one of the most eminent West Indian merchants at that period in Glasgow. This incident was in no other respect important in the history of the Lairds of Grippy, than as serving to open a career to George, that would lead him into a higher class of acquaintance than his elder brothers: for it was about this time that the general merchants of the royal city began to arrogate to themselves that aristocratic superiority over the shopkeepers, which they have since established into an oligarchy as proud and sacred,in what respects the reciprocities of society, as the famous Seignories of Venice and of Genoa.
In the character, however, of George, there was nothing ostensibly haughty, or rather his pride had not shown itself in any strong colour, when he first entered on his mercantile career. Like his father, he was firm and persevering; but he wanted something of the old man’s shrewdness; and there was more of avarice in his hopes of wealth than in the sordidness of his father, for they were not elevated by any such ambitious sentiment as that which prompted Claud to strive with such constancy for the recovery of his paternal inheritance. In fact, the young merchant, notwithstanding the superiority of his education and other advantages, we may safely venture to assert, was a more vulgar character than the old pedlar. But his peculiarities did not manifest themselves till long after the period of which we are now speaking.
In the meantime, every thing proceeded with the family much in the same manner as with most others. Claud and his wife had daily altercations about their household affairs. Charles and Isabella narrowed themselves into a small sphere, of which his grandmother, the venerable Lady Plealands, now above fourscore, was their principal associate, and their mutual affection was strengthened by the birth of a son. Walter and Betty Bodle resided at the Divethill; and they, too, had the prospect of adding, as a Malthusian would say, to the mass of suffering mankind. The philosophical Kilmarkeckle continued his abstruse researches as successfully as ever into the affinities between snuff and the natures of beasts and birds, while the Laird of Dirdumwhamle and his Leddy struggled on in the yoke together, as well as a father and step-mother, amidst fifteen children, the progeny of two prior marriages, could reasonably be expected to do, where neither party was particularly gifted with delicacy or forbearance. In a word, they all moved along with the rest of the world during the first twelve months, after the execution of the deed of entail,without experiencing any other particular change in their relative situations than those to which we have alluded.
But the epoch was now drawing near, when Mrs. Walter Walkinshaw was required to prepare herself for becoming a mother, and her husband was no less interested than herself in the event. He did nothing for several months, from morning to night, but inquire how she felt herself, and contrive, in his affectionate simplicity, a thousand insufferable annoyances to one of her disposition, for the purpose of affording her ease and pleasure; all of which were either answered by a laugh, or a slap, as the humour of the moment dictated. Sometimes, when she, regardless of her maternal state, would, in walking to Grippy or Kilmarkeckle, take short cuts across the fields, and over ditches, and through hedges, he would anxiously follow her at a distance, and when he saw her in any difficulty to pass, he would run kindly to her assistance. More than once, at her jocular suggestion, he has lain down in the dry ditches to allow her to step across on his back. Never had wife a more loving or obedient husband. She was allowed in every thing, not only to please herself, but to make him do whatever she pleased; and yet, with all her whims and caprice, she proved so true and so worthy a wife, that he grew every day more and more uxorious.
Nor was his mother less satisfied with Betty Bodle. They enjoyed together the most intimate communion of minds on all topics of household economy; but it was somewhat surprising, that, notwithstanding the care and pains which the old leddy took to instruct her daughter-in-law in all the mysteries of the churn and cheeseset, Mrs. Walter’s butter was seldom fit for market, and the hucksters of the royal city never gave her near so good a price for her cheese as Leddy Grippy regularly received for hers, although, in the process of the making, they both followed the same recipes.
The conjugal felicities of Walter afforded, however, but little pleasure to his father. The obstreperoushumours of his daughter-in-law jarred with his sedate dispositions, and in her fun and freaks she so loudly showed her thorough knowledge of her husband’s defective intellects, that it for ever reminded him of the probable indignation with which the world would one day hear of the injustice he had done to Charles. The effect of this gradually led him to shun the society of his own family, and having neither from nature nor habit any inclination for general company, he became solitary and morose. He only visited Glasgow once a week, on Wednesday, and generally sat about an hour in the shop, in his old elbow-chair, in the corner; and, saving a few questions relative to the business, he abstained from conversing with his son. It would seem, however, that, under this sullen taciturnity, the love which he had once cherished for Charles still tugged at his heart; for, happening to come into the shop, on the morning after Isabella had made him a grandfather, by the birth of a boy, on being informed of that happy event, he shook his son warmly by the hand, and said, in a serious and impressivemanner,—
‘An it please God, Charlie, to gie thee ony mair childer, I redde thee, wi’ the counsel o’ a father, to mak na odds among them, but remember they are a’ alike thine, and that t’ou canna prefer ane aboon anither without sin;’—and he followed this admonition with a gift of twenty pounds to buy the infant a christening frock.
But from that day he never spoke to Charles of his family; on the contrary, he became dark and more obdurate in his manner to every one around him. His only enjoyment seemed to be a sort of doating delight in contemplating, from a rude bench which he had constructed on a rising ground behind the house of Grippy, the surrounding fields of his forefathers. There he would sit for hours together alone, bending forward with his chin resting on the ivory head of his staff, which he held between his knees by both hands, and with a quick and eager glance survey the scene for a moment, and then drop his eyelids and look only on the ground.
Whatever might be the general tenor of his reflections as he sat on that spot, they were evidently not always pleasant; for one afternoon, as he was sitting there, his wife, who came upon him suddenly and unperceived, to tell him a messenger was sent to Glasgow from Divethill for the midwife, was surprised to find him agitated and almost in tears.
‘Dear me, gudeman,’ said she, ‘what’s come o’er you, that ye’re sitting here hanging your gruntel like a sow playing on a trump? Hae na ye heard that Betty Bodle’s time’s come? I’m gaun ower to the crying, and if ye like ye may walk that length wi’ me. I hope, poor thing, she’ll hae an easy time o’t, and that we’ll hae blithes-meat before the sun gangs doun.’
‘Gang the gait thysel, Girzy Hypel,’ said Claud, raising his head, ‘and no fash me with thy clishmaclavers.’
‘Heh, gudeman! but ye hae been eating sourrocks instead o’ lang-kail. But e’en’s ye like, Meg dorts, as “Patie and Rodger” says, I can gang mysel;’ and with that, whisking pettishly round, she walked away.
Claud being thus disturbed in his meditations, looked after her as she moved along the footpath down the slope, and for the space of a minute or two, appeared inclined to follow her, but relapsing into some new train of thought, before she had reached the bottom, he had again resumed his common attitude, and replaced his chin on the ivory head of his staff.
There are times in life when every man feels as if his sympathies were extinct. This arises from various causes; sometimes from vicissitudes of fortune; sometimes from the sense of ingratitude, which, like the canker in the rose, destroys the germ of all kindness and charity; often from disappointments in affairs of the heart, which leave it incapable of ever again loving; but the most common cause is the consciousness of having committed wrong, when the feelings recoil inward, and, by some curious mystery in the nature of our selfishness, instead of prompting atonement, irritate us to repeat and to persevere in our injustice.
Into one of these temporary trances Claud had fallen when his wife left him; and he continued sitting, with his eyes riveted on the ground, insensible to all the actual state of life, contemplating the circumstances and condition of his children, as if he had no interest in their fate, nor could be affected by any thing in their fortunes.
In this fit of apathy and abstraction, he was roused by the sound of some one approaching; and on looking up, and turning his eyes towards the path which led from the house to the bench where he was then sitting, he saw Walter coming.
There was something unwonted in the appearance and gestures of Walter, which soon interested the old man. At one moment he rushed forward several steps, with a strange wildness of air. He would then stop and wring his hands, gaze upward as if he wondered at some extraordinary phenomenon in the sky; but seeing nothing, he dropped his hands, and, at his ordinary pace, came slowly up the hill.
When he arrived within a few paces of the bench, he halted and looked with such an open and innocent sadness that even the heart of his father, which so shortly before was as inert to humanity as case-hardened iron, throbbed with pity, and was melted to a degree of softness and compassion, almost entirely new to its sensibilities.
‘What’s the matter wi’ thee, Watty?’ said he, with unusual kindliness. The poor natural, however, made no reply,—but continued to gaze at him with the same inexpressible simplicity of grief.
‘Hast t’ou lost ony thing, Watty?’—‘I dinna ken,’ was the answer, followed by a burst of tears.
‘Surely something dreadfu’ has befallen the lad,’ said Claud to himself, alarmed at the astonishmentof sorrow with which his faculties seemed to be bound up.
‘Can t’ou no tell me what has happened, Watty?’
In about the space of half a minute, Walter moved his eyes slowly round, as if he saw and followed something which filled him with awe and dread. He then suddenly checked himself, and said, ‘It’s naething; she’s no there.’
‘Sit down beside me, Watty,’ exclaimed his father, alarmed; ‘sit down beside me, and compose thysel.’
Walter did as he was bidden, and stretching out his feet, hung forward in such a posture of extreme listlessness and helpless despondency, that all power of action appeared to be withdrawn.
Claud rose, and believing he was only under the influence of some of those silly passions to which he was occasionally subject, moved to go away, when he looked up, andsaid,—
‘Father, Betty Bodle’s dead!—My Betty Bodle’s dead!’
‘Dead!’ said Claud, thunderstruck.
‘Aye, father, she’s dead! My Betty Bodle’s dead!’
‘Dost t’ou ken what t’ou’s saying?’ But Walter, without attending to the question, repeated, with an accent of tenderness still more simple andtouching,—
‘My Betty Bodle’s dead! She’s awa up aboon the skies, yon’er, and left me a wee wee baby;’ in saying which, he again burst into tears, and rising hastily from the bench, ran wildly back towards the Divethill House, whither he was followed by the old man, where the disastrous intelligence was confirmed, that she had died in giving birth to a daughter.
Deep and secret as Claud kept his feelings from the eyes of the world, this was a misfortune which he was ill prepared to withstand. For although in the first shock he betrayed no emotion, it was soon evident that it had shattered some of the firmest intents and purposes of his mind. That he regretted the premature death of a beautiful young woman in such interestingcircumstances, was natural to him as a man; but he felt the event more as a personal disappointment, and thought it was accompanied with something so like retribution, that he inwardly trembled as if he had been chastised by some visible arm of Providence. For he could not disguise to himself that a female heir was a contingency he had not contemplated; that, by the catastrophe which had happened to the mother, the excambio of the Plealands for the Divethill would be rendered of no avail; and that, unless Walter married again, and had a son, the re-united Kittlestonheugh property must again be disjoined, as the Divethill would necessarily become the inheritance of the daughter.
The vexation of this was, however, alleviated, when he reflected on the pliancy of Walter’s character, and he comforted himself with the idea that, as soon as a reasonable sacrifice of time had been made to decorum, he would be able to induce the natural to marry again. Shall we venture to say, it also occurred in the cogitations of his sordid ambition, that, as the infant was prematurely born, and was feeble and infirm, he entertained some hope it might die, and not interfere with the entailed destination of the general estate? But if, in hazarding this harsh supposition, we do him any injustice, it is certain that he began to think there was something in the current of human affairs over which he could acquire no control, and that, although, in pursuing so steadily the single purpose of recovering his family inheritance, his endeavours had, till this period, proved eminently successful, he yet saw, with dismay, that, from the moment other interests came to be blended with those which he considered so peculiarly his own, other causes also came into operation, and turned, in spite of all his hedging and prudence, the whole issue of his labours awry. He perceived that human power was set at naught by the natural course of things, and nothing produced a more painful conviction of the wrong he had committed against his first-born, than the frustration of his wishes by themisfortune which had befallen Walter. His reflections were also embittered from another source; by his parsimony he foresaw that, in the course of a few years, he would have been able, from his own funds, to have redeemed the Divethill without having had recourse to the excambio; and that the whole of the Kittlestonheugh might thus have been his own conquest, and, as such, without violating any of the usages of society, he might have commenced the entail with Charles. In a word, the death of Walter’s wife and the birth of the daughter disturbed all his schemes, and rent from roof to foundation the castles which he had been so long and so arduously building. But it is necessary that we should return to poor Walter, on whom the loss of his beloved Betty Bodle acted with the incitement of a new impulse, and produced a change of character that rendered him a far less tractable instrument than his father expected to find.
The sorrow of Walter, after he had returned home, assumed the appearance of a calm and settled melancholy. He sat beside the corpse with his hands folded and his head drooping. He made no answer to any question; but as often as he heard the infant’s cry, he looked towards the bed, and said, with an accent of indescribable sadness, ‘My Betty Bodle!’
When the coffin arrived, his mother wished him to leave the room, apprehensive, from the profound grief in which he was plunged, that he might break out into some extravagance of passion, but he refused; and, when it was brought in, he assisted with singular tranquillity in the ceremonial of the coffining. But when the lid was lifted and placed over the body, and the carpenter was preparing to fasten it down for ever, he shuddered for a moment from head to foot; and, raising it with his left hand, he took a last look of the face, removing the veil with his right, and touching thesunken cheek as if he had hoped still to feel some ember of life; but it was cold and stiff.
‘She’s clay noo,’ said he.—‘There’s nane o’ my Betty Bodle here.’
And he turned away with a careless air, as if he had no further interest in the scene. From that moment his artless affections took another direction; he immediately quitted the death-room, and, going to the nursery where the infant lay asleep in the nurse’s lap, he contemplated it for some time, and then, with a cheerful and happy look and tone, said,—‘It’s a wee Betty Bodle; and it’s my Betty Bodle noo.’ And all his time and thoughts were thenceforth devoted to this darling object, in so much that, when the hour of the funeral was near, and he was requested to dress himself to perform the husband’s customary part in the solemnity, he refused, not only to quit the child, but to have any thing to do with the burial.
‘I canna understand,’ said he, ‘what for a’ this fykerie’s about a lump o’ yird? Sho’elt intil a hole, and no fash me.’
‘It’s your wife, my lad,’ replied his mother; ‘ye’ll surely never refuse to carry her head in a gudemanlike manner to the kirk-yard.’
‘Na, na, mother, Betty Bodle’s my wife, yon clod in the black kist is but her auld bodice; and when she flang’t off, she put on this bonny wee new cleiding o’ clay,’ said he, pointing to the baby.
The Leddy, after some further remonstrance, was disconcerted by the pertinacity with which he continued to adhere to his resolution, and went to beg her husband to interfere.
‘Ye’ll hae to gang ben, gudeman,’ said she, ‘and speak to Watty.—I wis the poor thing hasna gane by itsel wi’ a broken heart. He threeps that the body is no his wife’s, and ca’s it a hateral o’ clay and stones, and says we may fling’t, Gude guide us, ayont the midden for him.—We’ll just be affrontit if he’ll no carry the head.’
Claud, who had dressed himself in the morning forthe funeral, was sitting in the elbow-chair, on the right side of the chimney-place, with his cheek resting on his hand, and his eyelids dropped, but not entirely shut, and on being thus addressed, he instantly rose, and went to the nursery.
‘What’s t’ou doing there like a hussy-fellow?’ said he. ‘Rise and get on thy mournings, and behave wiselike, and leave the bairn to the women.’
‘It’s my bairn,’ replied Watty, ‘and ye hae naething, father, to do wi’t.—Will I no tak care o’ my ain baby—my bonny wee Betty Bodle?’
‘Do as I bid thee, or I’ll maybe gar thee fin’ the weight o’ my staff,’ cried the old man sharply, expecting immediate obedience to his commands, such as he always found, however positively Walter, on other occasions, at first refused; but in this instance he was disappointed; for the widower looked him steadily in the face, andsaid,—
‘I’m a father noo; it would be an awfu’ thing for a decent grey-headed man like you, father, to strike the head o’ a motherless family.’
Claud was so strangely affected by the look and accent with which this was expressed, that he stood for some time at a loss what to say, but soon recovering his self-possession, he replied, in a mild and persuasivemanner,—
‘The frien’s expek, Watty, that ye’ll attend the burial, and carry the head, as the use and wont is in every weel-doing family.’
‘It’s a thriftless custom, father, and what care I for burial-bread and services o’ wine? They cost siller, father, and I’ll no wrang Betty Bodle for ony sic outlay on her auld yirden garment. Ye may gang, for fashion’s cause, wi’ your weepers and your mourning strings, and lay the black kist i’ the kirk-yard hole, but I’ll no mudge the ba’ o’ my muckle tae in ony sic road.’
‘T’ou’s past remede, I fear,’ replied his father thoughtfully; ‘but, Watty, I hope in this t’ou’ll oblige thy mother and me, and put on thy new black claes;—t’ou kens they’re in a braw fasson,—and comeben and receive the guests in a douce and sober manner. The minister, I’m thinking, will soon be here, and t’ou should be in the way when he comes.’
‘No,’ said Watty, ‘no, do as ye like, and come wha may, it’s a’ ane to me: I’m positeeve.’
The old man, losing all self-command at this extraordinary opposition,exclaimed,—
‘There’s a judgment in this; and, if there’s power in the law o’ Scotland, I’ll gar thee rue sic dourness. Get up, I say, and put on thy mournings, or I’ll hae thee cognost, and sent to bedlam.’
‘I’m sure I look for nae mair at your hands, father,’ replied Walter simply; ‘for my mither has often telt me, when ye hae been sitting sour and sulky in the nook, that ye would na begrudge crowns and pounds to make mecompos mentisfor the benefit of Charlie.’
Every pulse in the veins of Claud stood still at this stroke, and he staggered, overwhelmed with shame, remorse, and indignation, into a seat.
‘Eh!’ said the Leddy, returning into the room at this juncture, ‘what’s come o’er you, gudeman? Pity me, will he no do your bidding?’
‘Girzy Hypel,’ was the hoarse and emphatic reply, ‘Girzy Hypel, t’ou’s the curse o’ my life; the folly in thee has altered to idiotical depravity in him, and the wrong I did against my ain nature in marrying thee, I maun noo, in my auld age, reap the fruits o’ in sorrow, and shame, and sin.’
‘Here’s composity for a burial!’ exclaimed the Leddy. ‘What’s the matter, Watty Walkinshaw?’
‘My father’s in a passion.’
Claud started from his seat, and, with fury in his eyes, and his hands clenched, rushed across the room towards the spot where Walter was sitting, watching the infant in the nurse’s lap. In the same moment, the affectionate natural also sprang forward, and placed himself in an attitude to protect the child. The fierce old man was confounded, and turning round hastily, quitted the room, wringing his hands, unable anylonger to master the conflicting feelings which warred so wildly in his bosom.
‘This is a pretty-like house o’ mourning,’ said the Leddy; ‘a father and a son fighting, and a dead body waiting to be ta’en to the kirk-yard. O Watty Walkinshaw! Watty Walkinshaw! many a sore heart ye hae gi’en your parents,—will ye ne’er divaul till ye hae brought our grey hairs wi’ sorrow to the grave? There’s your poor father flown demented, and a’ the comfort in his cup and mine gane like water spilt on the ground. Many a happy day we hae had, till this condumacity o’ thine grew to sic a head. But tak your ain way o’t. Do as ye like. Let strangers carry your wife to the kirk-yard, and see what ye’ll mak o’t.’
But notwithstanding all these, and many more equally persuasive and commanding arguments, Walter was not to be moved, and the funeral, in consequence, was obliged to be performed without him. Yet still, though thus tortured in his feelings, the stern old man inflexibly adhered to his purpose. The entail which he had executed was still with him held irrevocable; and, indeed, it had been so framed, that, unless he rendered himself insolvent, it could not be set aside.
For some time after the funeral of Mrs. Walter Walkinshaw, the affairs of the Grippy family ran in a straight and even current. The estrangement of the old man from his first-born suffered no describable increase, but Charles felt that it was increasing. The old Leddy, in the meanwhile, had a world of cares upon her hands in breaking up the establishment which had been formed for Walter at the house on the Divethill, and in removing him back with the infant and the nurse to Grippy. And scarcely had she accomplished these, when a letter from her daughter, Mrs. Milrookit, informed her that the preparations for an addition tothe ‘sma’ family’ of Dirdumwhamle were complete, and that she hoped her mother could be present on the occasion, which was expected to come to pass in the course of a few weeks from the date.
Nothing was more congenial to the mind and habits of the Leddy, than a business of this sort, or, indeed, any epochal domestic event, such as, in her own phraseology, was entitled to the epithet of a handling. But when she mentioned the subject to her husband, he objected,saying,—
‘It’s no possible, Girzy, for ye ken Mr. and Mrs. Givan are to be here next week with their dochter, Miss Peggy, and I would fain hae them to see an ony thing could be brought to a head between her and our Geordie. He’s noo o’ a time o’ life when I would like he were settled in the world, and amang a’ our frien’s there’s no a family I would be mair content to see him connected wi’ than the Givans, who are come o’ the best blood, and are, moreover, o’ great wealth and property.’
‘Weel, if e’er there was the like o’ you, gudeman,’ replied the Leddy, delighted with the news; ‘an ye were to set your mind on a purpose o’ marriage between a goose and a grumphie, I dinna think but ye would make it a’ come to pass. For wha would hae thought o’ this plot on the Givans, who, to be sure, are a most creditable family, and Miss Peggy, their dochter, is a vera genty creature, although it’s my notion she’s no o’ a capacity to do meikle in the way o’ throughgality. Howsever, she’s a bonny playock, and noo that the stipend ye alloo’t to Watty is at an end, by reason of that heavy loss which we all met wi’ in his wife, ye’ll can weel afford to help Geordie to keep her out in a station o’ life; for times, gudeman, are no noo as when you and me cam thegither. Then a bein house, and a snod but and ben, was a’ that was lookit for; but sin genteelity came into fashion, lads and lasses hae grown leddies and gentlemen, and a Glasgow wife saullying to the kirk wi’ her muff and her mantle, looks as puckered wi’ pride as my lord’s leddy.’
Claud, who knew well that his helpmate was able to continue her desultory consultations, as long as she could keep herself awake, here endeavoured to turn the speat of her clatter into a new channel, by observing, that hitherto they had not enjoyed any great degree of comfort in the marriages of their family.
‘Watty’s,’ said he, ‘ye see, has in a manner been waur than nane; for a’ we hae gotten by’t is that weakly lassie bairn; and the sumph himsel is sae ta’en up wi’t, that he’s a perfect obdooracy to every wis o’ mine, that he would tak another wife to raise a male-heir to the family.’
‘I’m sure,’ replied the Leddy, ‘it’s just a sport to hear you, gudeman, and your male-heirs. What for can ye no be content wi’ Charlie’s son?’
The countenance of Grippy was instantaneously clouded, but in a moment the gloom passed, and hesaid,—
‘Girzy Hypel, t’ou kens naething about it. Will na Watty’s dochter inherit the Divethill by right o’ her father, for the Plealands, and so rive the heart again out o’ the Kittlestonheugh, and mak a’ my ettling fruitless? Noo, what I wis is, that Geordie should tak a wife to himsel as soon as a possibility will alloo, and if he has a son, by course o’ nature, it might be wised in time to marry Watty’s dochter, and so keep the property frae ganging out o’ the family.’
‘Noo, gudeman, thole wi’ me, and no be angry,’ replied the Leddy; ‘for I canna but say it’s a thing past ordinar that ye never seem to refleck, that Charlie’s laddie might just as weel be wised to marry Watty’s dochter, as ony son that Geordie’s like to get; and over and moreover, the wean’s in the world already, gudeman, but a’ Geordie’s are as trouts in the water; so I redde you to consider weel what ye’re doing, and gut nae fish till ye catch them.’
During this speech, Claud’s face was again overcast; the harsh and agonizing discord of his bosom rudely jangled through all the depths of his conscience, and reminded him how futile his wishes and devices mightbe rendered either by the failure of issue, or the birth of daughters. Every thing seemed arranged by Providence, to keep the afflicting sense of the wrong he had done his first-born constantly galled. But it had not before occurred to him, that even a marriage between the son of Charles and Walter’s daughter could not remedy the fault he had committed. The heirs-male of George had a preference in the entail; and such a marriage would, in no degree, tend to prevent the Kittlestonheugh from being again disjoined. In one sentence, the ambitious old man was miserable; but rather than yet consent to retrace any step he had taken, he persevered in his original course, as if the fire in his heart could be subdued by adding fresh piles of the same fuel. The match which he had formed for George was accordingly brought to what he deemed a favourable issue; for George, possessing but little innate delicacy, and only eager to become rich, had no scruple in proposing himself, at his father’s suggestion, to Miss Peggy Givan; and the young lady being entirely under the control of her mother, who regarded a union with her relations, the Grippy family, as one of the most desirable, peaceably acquiesced in the arrangement.
Prior, however, to the marriage taking place, Mr. Givan, a shrewd and worldly man, conceiving, that, as George was a younger son, his elder brother married, and Walter’s daughter standing between him and the succession to the estate,—he stipulated that the bridegroom should be settled as a principal in business. A short delay in consequence occurred between the arrangement and the solemnization; but the difficulty was overcome, by the old man advancing nearly the whole of his ready money as a proportion of the capital which was required by the house that received George into partnership. Perhaps he might have been spared this sacrifice, for as such he felt it, could he have brought himself to divulge to Mr. Givan the nature of the entail which he had executed; but the shame of that transaction had by this time sunkso deep, that he often wished and tried to consider the deed as having no existence.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Milrookit had become the mother of a son; the only occurrence which, for some time, had given Claud any unalloyed satisfaction. But it also was soon converted into a new source of vexation and of punishment; for Leddy Grippy, ever dotingly fond of Walter, determined, from the first hour in which she heard of the birth of Walkinshaw Milrookit, as the child was called, to match him with her favourite’s Betty; and the mere possibility of such an event taking place filled her husband with anxiety and fear; the expressions of which, and the peevish and bitter accents that he used in checking her loquacity on the subject, only served to make her wonderment at his prejudices the more and more tormenting.
In the meantime, Charles and Isabella had enjoyed a large share of domestic felicity, rendered the more endearingly exquisite by their parental anxiety, for it had pleased Heaven at once to bless and burden their narrow circumstances with two beautiful children, James and Mary. Their income arising from the share which the old man had assigned of the business had, during the first two or three years subsequent to their marriage, proved sufficient for the supply of their restricted wants; but their expenses began gradually to increase, and about the end of the third year Charles found that they had incurred several small debts above their means of payment. These, in the course of the fourth, rose to such a sum, that, being naturally of an apprehensive mind, he grew uneasy at the amount, and came to the resolution to borrow two hundred pounds to discharge them. This, he imagined, there could be no difficulty in procuring; for, believing that he was the heir of entail to the main part of the estate which his father had so entirely redeemed, he conceived thathe might raise the money on his reversionary prospects, and, with this view, he called one morning on Mr. Keelevin to request his agency in the business.
‘I’m grieved, man,’ said the honest lawyer, ‘to hear that ye’re in such straits; but had na ye better speak to your father? It might bring on you his displeasure if he heard ye were borrowing money to be paid at his death. It’s a thing nae frien’, far less a father, would like done by himsel.’
‘In truth,’ replied Charles, ‘I am quite sensible of that; but what can I do? for my father, ever since my brother Watty’s marriage, has been so cold and reserved about his affairs to me, that every thing like confidence seems as if it were perished from between us.’
Mr. Keelevin, during this speech, raised his left arm on the elbow from the table at which he was sitting, and rested his chin on his hand. There was nothing in the habitual calm of his countenance which indicated what was passing in his heart, but his eyes once or twice glimmered with a vivid expression of pity.
‘Mr. Walkinshaw,’ said he, ‘if you dinna like to apply to your father yoursel, could na some friend mediate for you? Let me speak to him.’
‘It’s friendly of you, Mr. Keelevin, to offer to do that; but really, to speak plainly, I would far rather borrow the money from a stranger, than lay myself open to any remarks. Indeed, for myself, I don’t much care; but ye ken my father’s narrow ideas about household charges; and maybe he might take it on him to make remarks to my wife that I would na like to hear o’.’
‘But, Mr. Charles, you know that money canna be borrow’t without security.’
‘I am aware of that; and it’s on that account I want your assistance. I should think that my chance of surviving my father is worth something.’
‘But the whole estate is strictly entailed, Mr. Charles,’ replied the lawyer, with compassionate regard.
‘The income, however, is all clear, Mr. Keelevin.’
‘I dinna misdoubt that, Mr. Charles, but the entail—Do you ken how it runs?’
‘No; but I imagine much in the usual manner.’
‘No, Mr. Charles,’ said the honest writer, raising his head, and letting his hand fall on the table, with a mournful emphasis; ‘No, Mr. Charles, it does na run in the usual manner; and I hope ye’ll no put ony reliance on’t. It was na right o’ your father to let you live in ignorance so long. Maybe it has been this to-look that has led you into the debts ye want to pay.’
The manner in which this was said affected the unfortunate first-born more than the meaning; but hereplied,—
‘No doubt, Mr. Keelevin, I may have been less scrupulous in my expenses than I would have been, had I not counted on the chance of my birthright.’
‘Mr. Charles, I’m sorry for you; but I would na do a frien’s part by you, were I to keep you ony langer in the dark. Your father, Mr. Charles, is an honest man; but there’s a bee in his bonnet, as we a’ ken, anent his pedigree. I need na tell you how he has warslet to get back the inheritance o’ his forefathers; but I am wae to say, that in a pursuit so meritorious, he has committed ae great fault. Really, Mr. Charles, I have na hardly the heart to tell you.’
‘What is it?’ said Charles, with emotion and apprehension.
‘He has made a deed,’ said Mr. Keelevin, ‘whereby he has cut you off frae the succession, in order that Walter, your brother, might be in a condition to make an exchange of the Plealands for the twa mailings that were wanting to make up, wi’ the Grippy property, a restoration of the auld estate of Kittlestonheugh; and I doubt it’s o’ a nature in consequence, that, even were he willing, canna be easily altered.’
To this heart-withering communication Charles made no answer. He stood for several minutes astonished; and then giving Mr. Keelevin a wild look, shuddered and quitted the office.
Instead of returning home, he rushed with rapid andunequal steps down the Gallowgate, and, turning to the left hand in reaching the end of the street, never halted till he had gained the dark firs which overhang the cathedral and skirt the Molindinar Burn, which at the time was swelled with rains, and pouring its troubled torrent almost as violently as the tide of feelings that struggled in his bosom. Unconscious of what he did, and borne along by the whirlwind of his own thoughts, he darted down the steep, and for a moment hung on the rocks at the bottom as if he meditated some frantic leap. Recoiling and trembling with the recollections of his family, he then threw himself on the ground, and for some time shut his eyes as if he wished to believe that he was agitated only by a dream.
The scene and the day were in unison with the tempest which shook his frame and shivered his mind. The sky was darkly overcast. The clouds were rolling in black and lowering masses, through which an occasional gleam of sunshine flickered for a moment on the towers and pinnacles of the cathedral, and glimmered in its rapid transit on the monuments and graves in the church-yard. A gloomy shadow succeeded; and then a white and ghastly light hovered along the ruins of the bishop’s castle, and darted with a strong and steady ray on a gibbet which stood on the rising ground beyond. The gusty wind howled like a death-dog among the firs, which waved their dark boughs like hearse plumes over him, and the voice of the raging waters encouraged his despair.
He felt as if he had been betrayed into a situation which compelled him to surrender all the honourable intents of his life, and that he must spend the comfortless remainder of his days in a conflict with poverty, a prey to all its temptations, expedients, and crimes. At one moment, he clenched his grasp, and gnashed his teeth, and smote his forehead, abandoning himself to the wild and headlong energies and instincts of a rage that was almost revenge; at another, the image of Isabella, so gentle and so defenceless, rose in a burstof tenderness and sorrow, and subdued him with inexpressible grief. But the thought of his children in the heedless days of their innocence, condemned to beggary by a fraud against nature, again scattered these subsiding feelings like the blast that brushes the waves of the ocean into spindrift.
This vehemence of feeling could not last long without producing some visible effect. When the storm had in some degree spent itself, he left the wild and solitary spot where he had given himself so entirely up to his passion, and returned towards his home; but his limbs trembled, his knees faltered, and a cold shivering vibrated through his whole frame. An intense pain was kindled in his forehead; every object reeled and shuddered to him as he passed; and, before he reached the house, he was so unwell that he immediately retired to bed. In the course of the afternoon he became delirious, and a rapid and raging fever terrified his ill-fated wife.
Mr. Keelevin, when Charles had left him, sat for some time with his cheek resting on his hand, reflecting on what had passed; and in the afternoon, he ordered his horse, and rode over to Grippy, where he found the Laird sitting sullenly by himself in the easy-chair by the fire-side, with a white night-cap on his head, and grey worsted stockings drawn over his knees.
‘I’m wae, Mr. Walkinshaw,’ said the honest lawyer, as he entered the room, ‘to see you in sic an ailing condition; what’s the matter wi’ you, and how lang hae ye been sae indisposed?’
Claud had not observed his entrance; for, supposing the noise in opening the door had been made by the Leddy in her manifold household cares, or by some one of the servants, he never moved his head, but kept his eyes ruminatingly fixed on a peeling of soot that was ominously fluttering on one of the ribs of thegrate, betokening, according to the most credible oracles of Scottish superstition, the arrival of a stranger, or the occurrence of some remarkable event. But, on hearing the voice of his legal friend, he turned briskly round.
‘Sit ye doun, Mr. Keelevin, sit ye doun forenent me. What’s brought you here the day? Man, this is sore weather for ane at your time o’ life to come so far afield,’ was the salutation with which he received him.
‘Aye,’ replied Mr. Keelevin, ‘baith you and me, Grippy, are beginning to be the waur o’ the wear; but I didna expek to find you in sic a condition as this. I hope it’s no the gout or the rheumatism.’
Claud, who had the natural horror of death as strong as most country gentlemen of a certain age, if not of all ages, did not much relish either the observation or the inquiries. He, however, said, with affectedindifference,—
‘No! be thankit, it’s neither the t’ane nor the t’ither, but just a waff o’ cauld that I got twa nights ago;—a bit towt that’s no worth the talking o’.’
‘I’m extraordinar glad to hear’t; for, seeing you in sic a frail and feckless state, I was fear’t that ye were na in a way to converse on any concern o’ business. No that I hae muckle to say, but ye ken a’ sma’ things are a great fasherie to a weakly person, and I would na discompose you, Mr. Walkinshaw, unless you just felt yoursel in your right ordinar, for, at your time o’ life, ony disturbance’——
‘My time o’ life?’ interrupted the old man tartly. ‘Surely I’m no sae auld that ye need to be speaking o’ my time o’ life? But what’s your will, Mr. Keelevin, wi’ me?’
Whether all this sympathetic condolence, on the part of the lawyer, was said in sincerity, or with any ulterior view, we need not pause to discuss, for the abrupt question of the invalid brought it at once to a conclusion.
‘In truth, Laird,’ replied Mr. Keelevin, ‘I cannasay that I hae ony thing o’ a particular speciality to trouble you anent, for I came hither more in the way o’ friendship than o’ business,—having had this morning a visit frae your son Charles, a fine weel-doing young man as can be.’
‘He’s weel enough,’ said the old man gruffly, and the lawyercontinued,—
‘’Deed, Mr. Walkinshaw, he’s mair than weel enough. He’s by common, and it was with great concern I heard that you and him are no on sic a footing of cordiality as I had thought ye were.’
‘Has he been making a complaint o’ me?’ said Claud looking sharply, and with a grim and knotted brow as if he was, at the same time, apprehensive and indignant.
‘He has mair sense and discretion,’ replied Mr. Keelevin; ‘but he was speaking to me on a piece of business, and I was surprised he did na rather confer wi’ you; till, in course of conversation, it fell out, as it were unawares, that he did na like to speak to you anent it; the which dislike, I jealouse, could only proceed o’ some lack o’ confidence between you, mair than should ever be between a father and a well-behaved son like Mr. Charles.’
‘And what was’t?’ said Grippy drily.
‘I doubt that his income is scant to his want, Mr. Walkinshaw.’
‘He’s an extravagant fool; and ne’er had a hand to thraw a key in a lock;—when I began the world I had na’——
‘Surely,’ interrupted Mr. Keelevin, ‘ye could ne’er think the son o’ a man in your circumstances should hain and hamper as ye were necessitated to do in your younger years. But no to mak a hearing or an argument concerning the same—Mr. Charles requires a sma’ sum to get him free o’ a wee bit difficulty, for, ye ken, there are some folk, Mr. Walkinshaw, that a flea-bite molests like the lash o’ a whip.’
The old man made no answer to this; but sat for some time silent, drawing down his brows and twirlinghis thumbs. Mr. Keelevin waited in patience till he should digest the reply he so evidently meditated.
‘I hae ay thought Charlie honest, at least,’ said Grippy; ‘but I maun say that this fashes me, for if he’s in sic straits, there’s no telling what liberties he may be led to tak wi’ my property in the shop.’
Mr. Keelevin, who, in the first part of this reply, had bent eagerly forward, was so thunderstruck by the conclusion, that he threw himself back in his chair with his arms extended; but in a moment recovering from his consternation, he said, withfervour,—
‘Mr. Walkinshaw, I mind weel the reproof ye gave me when I remonstrated wi’ you against the injustice ye were doing the poor lad in the entail, but there’s no consideration on this earth will let me alloo you to gang on in a course of error and prejudice. Your son is an honest young man. I wish I could say his father kent his worth, or was worthy o’ him—and I’ll no see him wrangeously driven to the door, without taking his part, and letting the world ken wha’s to blame. I’ll no say ye hae defrauded him o’ his birthright, for the property was your ain—but if ye drive him forth the shop, and cast him wi’ his sma’ family on the scrimp mercy of mankind, I would be wanting to human nature in general, if I did na say it was most abominable, and that you yoursel, wi’ a’ your trumpery o’ Walkinshaws and Kittlestonheughs, ought to be scourged by the hands o’ the hangman. So do as ye like, Mr. Walkinshaw, ride to the deevil at the full gallop for aught I care, but ye’s no get out o’ this world without hearing the hue-and-cry that every Christian soul canna but raise after you.’
Claud was completely cowed both by the anger and menace of the honest lawyer, but still more by the upbraidings of his own startled conscience—and he said, in a humiliated tone, that almost provokedcontempt,—
‘Ye’re oure hasty, Mr. Keelevin. I did na mint a word about driving him forth the shop. Did he tell you how muckle his defect was?’
‘Twa miserable hundred pounds,’ replied Mr. Keelevin, somewhat subsiding into his wonted equanimity.
‘Twa hundred pound o’ debt!’ exclaimed Claud.
‘Aye,’ said Mr. Keelevin, ‘and I marvel it’s no mair, when I consider the stinting and the sterile father o’ him.’
‘If I had the siller, Mr. Keelevin,’ replied Claud, ‘to convince baith you and him that I’m no the niggar ye tak me for, I would gi’e you’t wi’ hearty gude will; but the advance I made to get Geordie into his partnership has for the present rookit me o’ a’ I had at command.’
‘No possible!’ exclaimed Mr. Keelevin, subdued from his indignation; adding, ‘and heavens preserve us, Mr. Walkinshaw, an ony thing were happening on a sudden to carry you aff, ye hae made na provision for Charlie nor your dochter.’
There was something in this observation which made the old man shrink up into himself, and vibrate from head to heel. In the course, however, of less than a minute, he regained his self-possession, andsaid,—
‘’Deed, your observe, Mr. Keelevin, is very just, and I ought to do something to provide for what may come to pass. I maun try and get Watty to concur wi’ me in some bit settlement that may lighten the disappointment to Charlie and Meg, should it please the Lord to tak me to himsel without a reasonable warning. Can sic a paper be made out?’
‘Oh, yes,’ replied the worthy lawyer, delighted with so successful an issue to his voluntary mission; ‘ye hae twa ways o’ doing the business; either by getting Watty to agree to an aliment, or by making a bond of provision to Charles and Mrs. Milrookit.’
Claud said he would prefer the former mode; observing, with respect to the latter, that he thought it would be a cheating o’ the law to take the other course.
‘As for cheating the law,’ said the lawyer, ‘ye need gie yoursel no uneasiness about it, provided ye do honestly by your ain bairns, and the rest o’ the community.’
And it was in consequence agreed, that, in the course of a day or two, Claud should take Walter to Glasgow, to execute a deed, by which, in the event of surviving his father, he would undertake to pay a certain annuity for the behoof of Charles’s family, and that of his sister, Mrs. Milrookit.
In furtherance of the arrangement agreed upon, as we have described in the foregoing chapter, as soon as Mr. Keelevin had retired, Claud summoned Walter into the parlour. It happened, that the Leddy, during the period of the lawyer’s visit, had been so engaged in another part of the house, that she was not aware of the conference, till, by chance, she saw him riding down the avenue. We need not, therefore, say that she experienced some degree of alarm, at the idea of a lawyer having been with her husband, unknown to her; and particularly, when, so immediately after his departure, her darling was requested to attend his father.
The mother and son entered the room together. Walter came from the nursery, where he had been dandling his child, and his appearance was not of the most prepossessing kind. From the death of his wife, in whose time, under her dictation, he was brushed up into something of a gentlemanly exterior, he had become gradually more and more slovenly. He only shaved on Saturday night, and buttoned his breeches knees on Sunday morning. Nor was the dress of Leddy Grippy at all out of keeping with that of her hopeful favourite. Her time-out-of-mind red quilted silk petticoat was broken into many holes;—her thrice dyed double tabinet gown, of bottle-green, with large ruffle cuffs, was in need of another dip; for, in her various culinary inspections, it had received many stains, and the superstructure of lawn and catgut, ornamented with ribbons, dyed blae in ink, surmountingher ill-toiletted toupee, had every appearance of having been smoked into yellow, beyond all power of blanching in the bleacher’s art.
‘And so, gudeman,’ said she, on entering the room, ‘ye hae had that auld sneck-drawer, Keelevin, wi’ you? I won’er what you and him can hae to say in sic a clandestine manner, that the door maun be ay steekit when ye’re thegither at your confabbles. Surely there’s nae honesty that a man can hae, whilk his wife ought na to come in for a share of.’
‘Sit down, Girzy Hypel, and haud thy tongue,’ was the peevish command which this speech provoked.
‘What for will I haud my tongue? a fool posture that would be, and no very commodious at this time; for ye see my fingers are coomy.’
‘Woman, t’ou’s past bearing!’ exclaimed her disconcerted husband.
‘An it’s nae shame to me, gudeman; for every body kens I’m a grannie.’
The Laird smote his right thigh, and shook his left hand, with vexation; presently, however, hesaid,—
‘Weel, weel; but sit ye down, and Watty, tak t’ou a chair beside her; for I want to consult you anent a paper that I’m mindit to hae drawn out for a satisfaction to you a’; for nane can tell when their time may come.’
‘Ye ne’er made a mair sensible observe, gudeman, in a’ your days,’ replied the Leddy, sitting down; ‘and it’s vera right to make your will and testament; for ye ken what a straemash happened in the Glengowlmahallaghan family, by reason o’ the Laird holographing his codicil; whilk, to be sure, was a dreadfu’ omission, as my cousin, his wife, fand in her widowhood; for a’ the moveables thereby gaed wi’ the heritage to his auld son by the first wife—even the vera silver pourie that I gied her mysel wi’ my own hands, in a gift at her marriage—a’ gaed to the heir.’
‘T’ou kens,’ said Claud, interrupting her oration, ‘that I hae provided thee wi’ the liferent o’ a house o’ fifteen pounds a-year, furniture, and a jointureof a hundred and twenty over and aboon the outcoming o’ thy father’s gathering. So t’ou canna expek, Girzy, that I would wrang our bairns wi’ ony mair overlay on thy account.’
‘Ye’re grown richer, gudeman, than when we came thegither,’ replied the Leddy; ‘and ne’er a man made siller without his wife’s leave. So it would be a most hard thing, after a’ my toiling and moiling, to make me nae better o’t than the stricts o’ the law in my marriage articles and my father’s will; whilk was a gratus amous, that made me nane behauden to you.—No, an ye mean to do justice, gudeman, I’ll get my thirds o’ the conquest ye hae gotten sin the time o’ our marriage; and I’ll be content wi’ nae less.’
‘Weel, weel, Girzy, we’ll no cast out about a settlement for thee.’
‘It would be a fearful thing to hear tell o’ an we did,’ replied the Leddy: ‘Living as we hae lived, a comfort to ane anither for thirty years, and bringing up sic a braw family, wi’ so meikle credit. No, gudeman, I hae mair confidence in you than to misdoot your love and kindness, noo that ye’re drawing so near your latter end as to be seriously thinking o’ making a will. But, for a’ that, I would like to ken what I’m to hae.’
‘Very right, Girzy; very right,’ said Claud; ‘but, before we can come to a clear understanding, me and Watty maun conform in a bit paper by oursels, just that there may be nae debate hereafter about his right to the excambio we made for the Plealands.’
‘I’ll no put hand to ony drumhead paper again,’ said Watty, ‘for fear it wrang my wee Betty Bodle.’
Although this was said in a vacant heedless manner, it yet disturbed the mind of his father exceedingly, for the strange obstinacy with which the natural had persisted in his refusal to attend the funeral of his wife, had shown that there was something deeper and more intractable in his character than any one had previously imagined. But opposition had only the effect of making Claud more pertinacious, while it induced him to change his mode of operation. Perceiving, or at leastbeing afraid that he might again call his obduracy into action, he accordingly shifted his ground, and, instead of his wonted method of treating Walter with commands and menaces, he dexterously availed himself of the Leddy’s auxiliary assistance.
‘Far be it, Watty, frae me, thy father,’ said he, ‘to think or wis wrang to thee or thine; but t’ou kens that in family settlements, where there’s a patch’t property like ours, we maun hae conjunk proceedings. Noo, as I’m fain to do something satisfactory to thy mother, t’ou’ll surely never objek to join me in the needfu’ instruments to gie effek to my intentions.’
‘I’ll do every thing to serve my mother,’ replied Walter, ‘but I’ll no sign ony papers.’
‘Surely, Watty Walkinshaw,’ exclaimed the old Leddy, surprised at this repetition of his refusal, ‘ye would na see me in want, and driven to a needcessity to gang frae door to door, wi’ a meal-pock round my neck, and an oaken rung in my hand?’
‘I would rather gie you my twa dollars, and the auld French half-a-crown, that I got long syne, on my birthday, frae grannie,’ said Watty.
‘Then what for will ye no let your father make a rightfu’ settlement?’ cried his mother.
‘I’m sure I dinna hinder him. He may mak fifty settlements for me; I’ll ne’er fin’ fau’t wi’ him.’
‘Then,’ said the Leddy, ‘ye canna objek to his reasonable request.’
‘I objek to no reasonable request; I only say, mother, that I’ll no sign ony paper whatsomever, wheresomever, howsomever, nor ever and ever—so ye need na try to fleetch me.’
‘Ye’re an outstrapolous ne’er-do-well,’ cried the Leddy, in a rage, knocking her neives smartly together, ‘to speak to thy mother in that way; t’ou sall sign the paper, an te life be in thy body.’
‘I’ll no wrang my ain bairn for father nor mother; I’ll gang to Jock Harrigals, the flesher, and pay him to hag aff my right hand, afore I put pen to law-paper again.’
‘This is a’ I get for my love and affection,’ exclaimed the Leddy, bursting into tears; while her husband, scarcely less agitated by the firmness with which his purpose was resisted, sat in a state of gloomy abstraction, seemingly unconscious of the altercation. ‘But,’ added Mrs. Walkinshaw, ‘I’m no in thy reverence, t’ou unnatural Absalom, to rebel sae against thy parents. I hae maybe a hoggar, and I ken whan I die, wha s’all get the gouden guts o’t—Wilt t’ou sign the paper?’
‘I’ll burn aff my right hand in the lowing fire, that I may ne’er be able to write the scrape o’ a pen;’ and with these emphatic words, said in a soft and simple manner, he rose from his seat, and was actually proceeding towards the fire-place, when a loud knocking at the door disturbed, and put an end to, the conversation. It was a messenger sent from old Lady Plealands, to inform her daughter of Charles’s malady, and to say that the doctor, who had been called in, was greatly alarmed at the rapid progress of the disease.