The Entail

By the time that imagination rather than reason had worked him into this decision, he arrived at Glasgow; and being resolved to carry his intention into immediate effect, instead of going to the house where he was boarded, at his uncle’s expense, he went to the Leddy’s, partly with the intention of remaining there, but chiefly to remonstrate with her for having spoken of his attachment to Ellen Frazer; having concluded, naturally enough, that it was from her his uncle had received the information.

On entering the parlour he found the old lady seated alone, in her elbow chair, at the fireside. A single slender candle stood at her elbow, on a small claw-foot table; and she was winding the yarn from a pirn, with a hand-reel, carefully counting the turns. Hearing the door open, she looked round, and seeing who it was, said, —

‘Is that thee, Jamie Walkinshaw? – six and thirty – where came ye frae – seven and thirty – at this time o’ night? – eight and thirty – sit ye down – nine and thirty – snuff the candle – forty.’

‘I’ll wait till ye’re done,’ said he, ‘as I wish to tell you something – for I have been out at Kittlestonheugh, where I had some words with my uncle.’

‘No possible! – nine and forty,’ – replied the Leddy; – ‘what hast been about? – fifty’ —

‘He seems to regard me as if I had neither a will nor feelings, neither a head nor a heart.’

‘I hope ye hae baith – five and fifty – but hae ye been condumacious? – seven and – plague tak the laddie, I’m out in my count, and I’ll hae to begin the cut again; so I may set by the reel. What were you saying, Jamie, anent an outcast wi’ your uncle?’

‘He has used me exceedingly ill – ripping up the obligations he has laid me under, and taunting me with my poverty.’

‘And is’t no true that ye’re obligated to him, and that, but for the uncly duty he has fulfilled towards you, ye would this night hae been a bare lad? – gude kens an ye would na hae been as scant o’ cleeding as a salmon in the river.’

‘It may be so, but when it is considered that he got the family estate by a quirk of law, he could scarcely have done less than he did for my unfortunate father’s family. But I could have forgiven all that, had he not, in a way insulting to my feelings, intimated that he expected I would break with Ellen Frazer, and offer myself to Robina.’

‘And sure am I, Jamie,’ replied the Leddy, ‘that it will be lang before you can do better.’

‘My mind, however, is made up,’ said he; ‘and to-morrow morning I shall go to Camrachle, and tell my mother that I have resolved to leave Glasgow. – I will never again set my foot in the counting-house.’

‘Got ye ony drink, Jamie, in the gait hame, that ye’re in sic a wud humour for dancing “Auld Sir Simon the King”, on the road to Camrachle? – Man, an I had as brisk a bee in the bonnet, I would set aff at ance, cracking my fingers at the moon and seven stars as I gaed louping alang. – But, to speak the words of soberness, I’m glad ye hae discretion enough to tak a night’s rest first.’

‘Do not think so lightly of my determination – It is fixed – and, from the moment I quitted Kittlestonheugh, I resolved to be no longer under any obligation to my uncle – He considers me as a mere passive instrument for his own ends.’

‘Hech, sirs! man, but ye hae a great share o’ sagacity,’ exclaimed the Leddy; ‘and because your uncle is fain that ye should marry his only dochter, and would, if ye did sae, leave you for dowry and tocher a braw estate and a bank o’ siller, ye think he has pookit you by the nose.’

‘No – not for that; but because he thinks so meanly of me, as to expect that, for mercenary considerations, I would bargain away both my feelings and my principles.’

‘Sure am I he would ne’er mint ony sic matter,’ replied the Leddy; ‘and if he wantit you to break wi’ yon galloping nymph o’ the Highland heather, and draw up wi’ that sweet primrose-creature, your cousin Beenie, wha is a lassie o’ sense and composity, and might be a match to majesty, it was a’ for your honour and exaltation.’

‘Don’t distress me any further with the subject,’ said he. ‘Will you have the goodness to let me stay here to-night? for, as I told you, there shall never now be any addition made to the obligations which have sunk me so low.’

‘’Deed, my lad, an ye gang on in that deleerit manner, I’ll no only gie you a bed, but send baith for a doctor and a gradawa, that your head may be shaved, and a’ proper remedies – outwardly and inwardly – gotten to bring you back to a right way o’ thinking. But to end a’ debates, ye’ll just pack up your ends and your awls and gang hame to Mrs. Spruil’s, for the tow’s to spin and the woo’s to card that ’ill be the sheets and blankets o’ your bed in this house the night – tak my word for’t.’

‘In that case, I will at once go to Camrachle. The night is fine, and the moon’s up.’

‘Awa wi’ you, and show how weel ye hae come to years o’ discretion, by singing as ye gang, —

Scotsman ho! Scotsman lo!Where shall this poor Scotsman go?Send him east, send him west,Send him to the craw’s nest.’

Notwithstanding the stern mood that Walkinshaw was in, this latter sally of his grandmother’s eccentric humour compelled him to laugh, and he said gaily, ‘But I shall be none the worse of a little supper before I set out. I hope you will not refuse me that?’

The old Lady, supposing that she had effectually brought him, as she said, round to himself, cheerfully acquiesced; but she was not a little disappointed, when, after some light and ludicrous conversation on general topics, he still so persisted either to remain in the house or to proceed to his mother’s, that she found herself obliged to order a bed to be prepared for him – at the same time she continued to express her confidence that he would be in a more docile humour next morning. ‘I hope,’ said she, ‘nevertheless, that the spirit of obedience will soople that stiff neck o’ thine, in the slumbers and watches of the night, or I ne’er would be consenting to countenance such outstrapulous rebellion.’

CHAPTER LXXI

Walkinshaw passed a night of ‘restless ecstasy’. Sometimes he reflected on the proposition with all the coolness that the Laird himself could have desired; but still and anon the centripetal movement of the thoughts and feelings which generated this prudence was suddenly arrested before they had gravitated into anything like resolution, and then he was thrown as wild and as wide from the object of his uncle’s solicitude as ever.

In the calmer, perhaps it may therefore be said, in the wiser course of his reflections, Robina appeared to him a shrewd and sensible girl, with a competent share of personal beauty, and many other excellent household qualities, to make her a commendable wife. With her he would at once enter on the enjoyment of opulence, and with it independence; and, moreover, and above all, have it in his power to restore his mother and sister to that state in society, to which, by birth and original expectations, they considered themselves as having some claim. This was a pleasing and a proud thought; and not to indulge it at the expense of a little sacrifice of personal feeling, seemed to him selfish and unmanly. But then he would remember with what high-toned bravery of determination he had boasted to his uncle of his pure and unalterable affections; how contemptuously he had spoken of pecuniary inducements, and in what terms, too, he had told Robina herself, that she had nothing to hope from him. It was, therefore, impossible that he could present himself to either with any expression of regret for what had passed, without appearing, in the eyes of both, as equally weak and unworthy. But the very thought of finding that he could think of entertaining the proposition at all, was more acute and mortifying than even this; and he despised himself when he considered how Ellen Frazer would look upon him, if she knew he had been so base as, for a moment, to calculate the sordid advantages of preferring his cousin.

But what was to be done? To return to the counting-house, after his resolute declaration; to embark again in that indoor and tame drudgery which he ever hated, and which was rendered as vile as slavery, by the disclosures which had taken place, could not be. He would be baser than were he to sell himself to his uncle’s purposes, could he yield to such a suggestion.

To leave Glasgow was his only alternative; but how? and where to go? and where to obtain the means? were stinging questions that he could not answer; and then what was he to gain? To marry Robina was to sacrifice Ellen Frazer; to quit the country entailed the same consequence. Besides all that, in so doing he would add to the sorrows and the disappointments of his gentle-hearted and affectionate mother, who had built renewed hopes on his success under the auspices of his uncle, and who looked eagerly forward to the time when he should be so established in business as to bring his sister before the world in circumstances befitting his father’s child; for the hereditary pride of family was mingled with his sensibility; and even the beautiful and sprightly Ellen Frazer herself, perhaps, owed something of her superiority over Robina to the Highland pedigrees and heroic traditions which Mrs. Eadie delighted to relate of her ancestors.

While tossing on these troubled and conflicting tides of the mind, he happened to recollect, that a merchant, a schoolfellow of his father, and who, when he occasionally met him, always inquired, with more than common interest, for his mother and sister, had at that time a vessel bound for New York, where he intended to establish a store, and was in want of a clerk; and it occurred to him, that, perhaps, through that means, he might accomplish his wishes. This notion was as oil to his agitation, and hope restored soon brought sleep and soothing dreams to his pillow; but his slumbers were not of long duration, for before sunrise he awoke; and, in order to avoid the garrulous remonstrances of the Leddy, he rose and went to Camrachle for the purpose, as he persuaded himself, to consult his mother; but, for all that we have been able to understand, it was in reality only to communicate his determination. But these sort of self-delusions are very common to youths under age.

The morning air, as he issued from Glasgow, was cold and raw. Heavy blobs of water, the uncongenial distillations of the midnight fogs, hung so dully on the hoary hedges, that even Poesy would be guilty of downright extravagance, were she, on any occasion, to call such gross uncrystalline knobs of physic glass by any epithet implying dew. The road was not miry, but gluey, and reluctant, and wearisome to the tread. The smoke from the farm-houses rolled listlessly down the thatch, and lazily spread itself into a dingy azure haze, that lingered and lowered among the stacks of the farm-yards. The cows, instead of proceeding, with their ordinary sedate common sense, to the pastures, stood on the loans, looking east and west, and lowing to one another – no doubt concerning the state of the weather. The birds chirped peevishly, as they hopped from bough to bough. The ducks walked in silence to their accustomed pools. The hens, creatures at all times of a sober temperament, condoled in actual sadness together under sheds and bushes; and chanticleer himself wore a paler crest than usual, and was so low in spirits, that he only once had heart enough to wind his bugle-horn. Nature was sullen – and the herd-boy drew his blanket-mantle closer round him, and snarlingly struck the calf as he grudgingly drove the herd afield. On the ground, at the door of the toll-bar house, lay a gill-stoup on its side, and near it, on a plate, an empty glass and a bit of bread, which showed that some earlier traveller had, in despite of the statute, but in consideration of the damp and unwholesome morning, obtained a dram from the gudewife’s ain bottle.

In consequence of these sympathetic circumstances, before Walkinshaw reached Camrachle, his heart was almost as heavy as his limbs were tired. His mother, when she saw him pass the parlour window, as he approached the door, was surprised at his appearance, and suffered something like a shock of fear when she perceived the dulness of his eye and the dejection of his features.

‘What has brought you here?’ was her first exclamation; ‘and what has happened?’

But, instead of replying, he walked in, and seated himself at the fireside, complaining of his cold and uncomfortable walk, and the heaviness of the road. His sister was preparing breakfast, and happening not to be in the room, his mother repeated her anxious inquiries with an accent of more earnest solicitude.

‘I fear,’ said Walkinshaw, ‘that I am only come to distress you;’ and he then briefly recapitulated what had passed between himself and his uncle respecting Robina. But a sentiment of tenderness for his mother’s anxieties, blended with a wish to save her from the disagreeable sensation with which he knew his determination to quit Glasgow would affect her, made him suppress the communication that he had come expressly to make.

Mrs. Walkinshaw had been too long accustomed to the occasional anticipations in which her brother-in-law had indulged on the subject, to be surprised at what had taken place on his part; and both from her own observations, and from the repugnance her son expressed, she had no doubt that his attachment to Ellen Frazer was the chief obstacle to the marriage. The considerations and reflections to which this conclusion naturally gave rise, held her for some time silent. The moment, however, that Walkinshaw, encouraged by the seeming slightness of her regret at his declamations against the match, proceeded to a fuller disclosure of his sentiments, and to intimate his resolution to go abroad, her maternal fears were startled, and she was plunged into the profoundest sorrow. But still during breakfast she said nothing – misfortune and disappointment had indeed so long subdued her gentle spirit into the most patient resignation, that, while her soul quivered in all its tenderest feelings, she seldom even sighed, but, with a pale cheek and a meek supplication, expressed only by a heavenward look of her mild and melancholy eyes, she seemed to say, ‘Alas! am I still doomed to suffer?’ That look was ever irresistible with her children: in their very childhood it brought them, with all their artless and innocent caresses, to her bosom; and, on this occasion, it so penetrated the very core of Walkinshaw’s heart, that he took her by the hand and burst into tears.

CHAPTER LXXII

We are no casuists, and therefore cannot undertake to determine whether Jenny did right or wrong in marrying Auld Robin Gray for the sake of her poor father and mother; especially as it has been ever held by the most approved moralists, that there are principles to be abided by, even at the expense of great and incontrovertible duties. But of this we are quite certain, that there are few trials to which the generous heart can be subjected more severe than a contest between its duties and its affections – between the claims which others have upon the conduct of the man for their advantage, and the desires that he has himself to seek his own gratification. In this predicament stood young Walkinshaw; and at the moment when he took his mother by the hand, the claims of filial duty were undoubtedly preferred to the wishes of love.

‘I am,’ said he, ‘at your disposal, mother – do with me as you think fit. – When I resented the mean opinion that my uncle seemed to hold of me, I forgot you – I thought only of myself. My first duties, I now feel, are due to the world, and the highest of them to my family. – But I wish that I had never known Ellen Frazer.’

‘In that wish, my dear boy, you teach me what I ought myself to do. – No, James, I can never desire nor expect that my children will sacrifice themselves for me – for I regard it as no less than immolation when the heart revolts at the tasks which the hand performs. But my life has long been one continued sorrow; and it is natural that I should shrink at the approach of another and a darker cloud. I will not, however, ask you to remain with your uncle, nor even oppose your resolution to go abroad. But be not precipitate – consider the grief, the anxieties, and the humiliations, that both your father and I have endured, and think, were you united to Ellen Frazer, supposing her father and friends would consent to so unequal a match, what would be her fate were you cut early off, as your father was? – It is the thought of that – of what I myself, with you and for you, have borne, which weighs so grievously at this moment on my spirits.’

‘Do you wish me to return to Glasgow?’ said Walkinshaw with an anxious and agitated voice.

‘Not unless you feel yourself that you can do so without humiliation – for bitter, James, as my cup has been, and ill able as I am to wrestle with the blast, I will never counsel child of mine to do that which may lessen him in his own opinion. Heaven knows that there are mortifications ready enough in the world to humble us – we do not need to make any for ourselves – no, unless you can meet your uncle with a frank face and a free heart, do not return.’

‘I am sure, then, that I never can,’ replied Walkinshaw. ‘I feel as if he had insulted my nature, by venturing to express what he seems to think of me; and a man can forgive almost any injury but a mean opinion of him.’

‘But if you do not go to him, perhaps you will not find it difficult to obtain a situation in another counting-house?’

‘If I am not to return to his, I would rather at once leave the place – I never liked it, and I shall now like it less than ever. In a word, my intention is to go, if possible, to America.’

‘Go where you will, my blessing and tears is all, my dear boy, that I can give you.’

‘Then you approve of my wish to go to America?’

‘I do not object to it, James – It is a difficult thing for a mother to say that she approves of her son exposing himself to any hazard.’

‘What would you have said, could I have obtained a commission in the army and a war raging?’

‘Just what I say now – nor should I have felt more sorrow in seeing you go to a campaign than I shall feel when you leave me to encounter the yet to you untried perils of the world. Indeed, I may say, I should almost feel less, for in the army, with all its hazard, there is a certain degree of assurance, that a young man, if he lives, will be fashioned into an honourable character.’

‘I wish that there was a war,’ said Walkinshaw with such sincere simplicity, that even his mother could scarcely refrain from smiling.

The conversation was, at this juncture, interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Eadie, who immediately perceived that something particular had occurred to disturb the tranquillity of her friend, and, for a moment, she looked at Walkinshaw with an austere and majestic eye. His mother observed the severity of her aspect, and thought it as well at once to mention what had happened.

Mrs. Eadie listened to the recital of his uncle’s proposal, and his resolution to go abroad, with a degree of juridical serenity, that lent almost as much solemnity to her appearance as it derived dignity from her august form; and, when Mrs. Walkinshaw concluded, she said, —

‘We have foreseen all this – and I am only surprised that now, when it has come to pass, it should affect you so much. I dreamt, last night, Mrs. Walkinshaw, that you were dead, and laid out in your winding-sheet. I thought I was sitting beside the corpse, and that, though I was sorrowful, I was, nevertheless, strangely pleased. In that moment, my cousin, Glengael, came into the room, and he had a large ancient book, with brazen clasps on it, under his arm. That book he gave to Ellen Frazer, whom I then saw was also in the room, and she undid the brazen clasps, and opening it, showed her father a particular passage, which he read aloud, and, when he paused, I saw you rise, and, throwing aside the winding-sheet, you appeared richly dressed, with a cheerful countenance, and on your hands were wedding-gloves. It was to tell you this auspicious dream that I came here this morning, and I have no doubt it betokens some happy change in your fortunes, to come by the agency of Glengael. Therefore, give yourself no uneasiness about this difference between James and his uncle; for, you may rest assured, it will terminate in some great good to your family; but there will be a death first, that’s certain.’

Although Walkinshaw was familiar with the occasional gleams of the sibilline pretensions of Mrs. Eadie, and always treated them with reverence, he could not resist from smiling at the earnestness with which she delivered her prediction, saying, ‘But I do not see in what way the dream has anything to do with my case.’

‘You do not see,’ replied the Leddy sternly, ‘nor do I see; but it does not, therefore, follow, that there is no sympathy between them. The wheels of the world work in darkness, James, and it requires the sight of the seer to discern what is coming round, though the auguries of their index are visible to all eyes. But,’ and she turned to Mrs. Walkinshaw, ‘it strikes me, that, in the present state of your circumstances, I might write to my cousin. The possession of Glengael gives him weight with Government, and, perhaps, his influence might be of use to your son.’

This afforded a ray of hope to Walkinshaw, of which he had never entertained the slightest notion, and it also, in some degree, lightened the spirits of his mother. They both expressed their sense of her kindness; and James said gaily, that he had no doubt the omens of her dream would soon be verified; but she replied solemnly, —

‘No! though Glengael may be able, by his interest, to serve you, the agency of death can alone fulfil the vision; but, for the present, let us say no more on that head. I will write to-day to Mr. Frazer, and inquire in what way he can best assist all our wishes.’

In the meantime, the Leddy had been informed by her maid of Walkinshaw’s early departure for Camrachle; and, in consequence, as soon as she had breakfasted, a messenger was dispatched to the counting-house, to request that the Laird might be sent to her when he came to town; but this was unnecessary, for he had scarcely passed a more tranquil night than his nephew; and, before her messenger came back, he was in the parlour with Robina, whom he had brought with him in the carriage to spend the day with one of her friends. Why the young lady should have chosen so unpleasant a day for her visit, particularly as it was a volunteer, and had been, as she said, only concerted with herself after the conversation of the preceding evening, we must allow the sagacity of the reader to discover; but she appeared flurried, and put out of countenance, when her grandmother told her, that she expected Dirdumwhamle and Mrs. Milrookit to dinner, and ‘I think,’ said she, ‘Beenie, that ye ought to bide wi’ me to meet them, for I expect Walky’ – so she styled Walkinshaw, their son; ‘and if ye’re no to get the ae cousin, I dinna see but ye might set your cap for the other.’

‘I trust and hope,’ exclaimed the Laird, ‘that she has more sense. Walkinshaw Milrookit has nothing.’

‘And what has Jamie Walkinshaw?’ said the Leddy. ‘’Deed, Geordie, though I canna but say ye’re baith pawky and auld farrant, it’s no to be controverted that ye hae gotten your father’s bee in the bonnet, anent ancestors and forbears, and nae gude can come out o’ ony sic havers. Beenie, my Leddy, ne’er fash your head wi’ your father’s dodrums; but, an ye can hook Walky’s heart wi’ the tail o’ your ee, ye’s no want my helping hand at the fishing.’

‘Mother,’ said George vehemently, ‘I am astonished that you can talk so lightly to the girl. I have my own reasons for being most decidedly averse to any such union. And though I do feel that James has used me ill, and that his headstrong conduct deserves my severest displeasure, I not only think it a duty to bring about a marriage between Robina and him, but will endeavour to act in it as such. Perhaps, had she been entirely free, I might have felt less interest in the business; but knowing, as I now do, that his coldness alone has prevented her from cherishing towards him a just and proper affection, I should be wanting in my obligations as a father, were I not to labour, by all expedient means, to promote the happiness of my child.’

During this speech the young lady appeared both out of countenance and inwardly amused, while her grandmother, placing her hands to her sides, looked at her with a queer and inquisitive eye, and said, —