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 the
exclusion 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 father in 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 he said,--
‘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.