About twenty years after the death of Maudge, Claud returned to Glasgow
with five hundred pounds above the world, and settled himself as a
cloth-merchant, in a shop under the piazza of a house which occupied
part of the ground where the Exchange now stands. The resolution which
he had early formed to redeem the inheritance of his ancestors, and
which his old affectionate benefactress had perhaps inspired, as well
as cherished, was grown into a habit. His carefulness, his assiduity,
his parsimony, his very honesty, had no other object nor motive; it was
the actuating principle of his life. Some years after he had settled in
Glasgow, his savings and gathering enabled him to purchase the farm of
Grippy, a part of the patrimony of his family.
The feelings of the mariner returning home, when he again beholds
the rising hills of his native land, and the joys and fears of the
father’s bosom, when, after a long absence, he approaches the abode
of his children, are tame and calm, compared to the deep and greedy
satisfaction with which the persevering pedlar received the earth and
stone that gave him infeftment of that cold and sterile portion of his
forefathers’ estate. In the same moment he formed a resolution worthy
of the sentiment he then felt,--a sentiment which, in a less sordid
breast, might have almost partaken of the pride of virtue. He resolved
to marry, and beget children, and entail the property, that none of his
descendants might ever have it in their power to commit the imprudence
which had brought his grandfather to a morsel, and thrown himself on
the world. And the same night, after maturely considering the prospects
of all the heiresses within the probable scope of his ambition, he
resolved that his affections should be directed towards Miss Girzy
Hypel, the only daughter of Malachi Hypel, the Laird of Plealands.
They were in some degree related, and he had been led to think of
her from an incident which occurred on the day he made the purchase.
Her father was, at the time, in Glasgow, attending the Circuit; for,
as often as the judges visited the city, he had some dispute with a
neighbour or a tenant that required their interposition. Having heard
of what had taken place, he called on Claud to congratulate him on the
recovery of so much of his family inheritance.
‘I hear,’ said the Laird, on entering the shop, and proffering his
hand across the counter, ‘that ye hae gotten a sappy bargain o’ the
Grippy. It’s true some o’ the lands are but cauld; howsever, cousin,
ne’er fash your thumb, Glasgow’s on the thrive, and ye hae as many een
in your head, for an advantage, as ony body I ken. But now that ye hae
gotten a house, wha’s to be the leddy? I’m sure ye might do waur than
cast a sheep’s e’e in at our door; my dochter Girzy’s o’ your ain flesh
and blood; I dinna see ony moral impossibility in her becoming, as the
Psalmist says, “bone of thy bone.”’
Claud replied in his wonted couthy manner:
‘Nane o’ your jokes, Laird,--me even mysel to your dochter? Na, na,
Plealands, that canna be thought o’ nowadays. But, no to make a
ridicule of sic a solemn concern, it’s vera true that, had na my
grandfather, when he was grown doited, sent out a’ the Kittlestonheugh
in a cargo o’ playocks to the Darien, I might hae been in a state and
condition to look at Miss Girzy; but, ye ken, I hae a lang clue to wind
before I maun think o’ playing the ba’ wi’ Fortune, in ettling so far
aboun my reach.’
‘Snuffs o’ tobacco,’ exclaimed the Laird,--‘are nae ye sib to oursels?
and, if ye dinna fail by your ain blateness, our Girzy’s no surely past
speaking to. Just lay your leg, my man, o’er a side o’ horse flesh, and
come your ways, some Saturday, to speer her price.’
It was upon this delicate hint that Grippy was induced to think of
Miss Girzy Hypel; but finding that he was deemed a fit match for her,
and might get her when he would, he deferred the visit until he had
cast about among the other neighbouring lairds’ families for a better,
that is to say, a richer match. In this, whether he met with repulsive
receptions, or found no satisfactory answers to his inquiries, is not
quite certain; but, as we have said, in the same night on which he took
legal possession of his purchase, he resolved to visit Plealands; and
in order that the family might not be taken unawares, he sent a letter
next day by the Ayr carrier to apprise the Laird of his intention,
provided it was convenient to receive him for a night. To this letter,
by the return of Johnny Drizen, the carrier, on the week following,
he received such a cordial reply, that he was induced to send for
Cornelius Luke, the tailor, a douce and respectable man, and one of the
elders of the Tron Kirk.
‘Come your ways, Cornie,’ said the intending lover; ‘I want to speak to
you anent what’s doing about the new kirk on the Green Know.’
‘Doing, Mr. Walkinshaw!--it’s a doing that our bairns’ bairns will
ne’er hear the end o’--a rank and carnal innovation on the spirit
o’ the Kirk o’ Scotland,’ replied the elder--‘It’s to be after the
fashion o’ some prelatic Babel in Lon’on, and they hae christened it
already by the papistical name o’ St. Andrew--a sore thing that, Mr.
Walkinshaw; but the Lord has set his face against it, and the builders
thereof are smitten as wi’ a confusion o’ tongues, in the lack o’
siller to fulfil their idolatrous intents--Blessed be His name for
evermore! But was na Mr. Kilfuddy, wha preached for Mr. Anderson last
Sabbath, most sweet and delectable on the vanities of this life, in his
forenoon lecture? and did na ye think, when he spoke o’ that seventh
wonder o’ the world, the temple of Diana, and enlarged wi’ sic pith
and marrow on the idolaters in Ephesus, that he was looking o’er his
shouther at Lowrie Dinwiddie and Provost Aiton, who are no wrang’t
in being wytid wi’ the sin o’ this inordinate superstructure?--Mr.
Walkinshaw, am nae prophet, as ye will ken, but I can see that the
day’s no far aff, when ministers of the gospel in Glasgow will be seen
chambering and wantoning to the sound o’ the kist fu’ o’ whistles, wi’
the seven-headed beast routing its choruses at every o’ercome o’ the
spring.’
Which prediction was in our own day and generation to a great degree
fulfilled; at the time, however, it only served to move the pawkie
cloth-merchant to say,
‘Nae doubt, Cornie, the world’s like the tod’s whelp, ay the aulder
the waur; but I trust we’ll hear news in the land before the like o’
that comes to pass. Howsever, in the words of truth and holiness,
“sufficient for the day is the evil thereof;” and let us hope, that a
regenerating spirit may go forth to the ends o’ the earth, and that all
the sons of men will not be utterly cut up, root and branch.’
‘No: be thankit,’ said Cornelius, the tailor--‘even of those that shall
live in the latter days, a remnant will be saved.’
‘That’s a great comfort, Mr. Luke, to us a’,’ replied Claud;--‘but,
talking o’ remnants, I hae a bit blue o’ superfine; it has been lang on
hand, and the moths are beginning to meddle wi’t--I won’er if ye could
mak me a coat o’t?’
The remnant was then produced on the counter, and Cornelius, after
inspecting it carefully, declared, that, ‘with the help of a steek
or twa of darning, that would na be percep, it would do very well.’
The cloth was accordingly delivered to him, with strict injunctions
to have it ready by Friday, and with all the requisite et ceteras to
complete a coat, he left the shop greatly edified, as he told his wife,
by the godly salutations of Mr. Walkinshaw’s spirit; ‘wherein,’ as he
said, ‘there was a kithing of fruit meet for repentance; a foretaste
o’ things that pertain not to this life; a receiving o’ the erls of
righteousness and peace, which passeth all understanding, and endureth
for evermore.’
‘I’m blithe to hear’t,’ was the worthy woman’s answer, ‘for he’s an
even down Nabal--a perfect penure pig, that I ne’er could abide since
he would na lend poor old Mrs. Gorbals, the provost’s widow, that, they
say, set him up in the world, the sma’ soom o’ five pounds, to help
her wi’ the outfit o’ her oe, when he was gaun to Virginia, a clerk to
Bailie Cross.’