The Entail

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 interesting circumstances, 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 the misfortune 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.

CHAPTER XXXV

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 the sunken 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 for the 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, and said, —

‘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 persuasive manner, —

‘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 come ben 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 me compos mentis for 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 any longer 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.

CHAPTER XXXVI

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 to the ‘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 he said, —

‘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 might be 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 sunk so 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.

CHAPTER XXXVII

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 that he 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 he replied, —

‘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 and unequal 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.