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.
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 burst of 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.