Meanwhile, the disease which had laid Charles prostrate was proceeding
with a terrific and devastating fury. Before his mother reached the
house, he had lost all sense of himself and situation, and his mind was
a chaos of the wildest and most extravagant fantasies. Occasionally,
however, he would sink into a momentary calm, when a feeble gleam of
reason would appear amidst his ravings, like the transient glimmer of
a passing light from the shore on the black waves of the stormy ocean,
when the cry has arisen at midnight of a vessel on the rocks, and her
crew in jeopardy. But these breathing-pauses of the fever’s rage were,
perhaps, more dreadful than its violence, for they were accompanied
with a return of the moral anguish which had brought on his malady;
and as often as his eye caught the meek, but desponding countenance of
Isabella, as she sat by his bedside, he would make a convulsive effort
to raise himself, and instantly relapse into the tempestuous raptures
of the delirium. In this state he passed the night.
Towards morning symptoms of a change began to show themselves,--the
turbulence of his thoughts subsided,--his breathing became more
regular; and both Isabella and his mother were persuaded that he was
considerably better. Under this impression, the old lady, at day-break,
dispatched a messenger to inform his father of the favourable change,
who, in the interval, had passed a night, in a state not more calm and
far less enviable, than that of his distracted son.
Whatever was the motive which induced Claud, on the preceding evening,
to determine on sending for Mr. Keelevin, it would appear that it
did not long maintain its influence; for, before going to bed, he
countermanded the order. Indeed, his whole behaviour that night
indicated a strange and unwonted degree of indecision. It was evident
that he meditated some intention, which he hesitated to carry into
effect; and the conflict banished sleep from his pillow. When the
messenger from Glasgow arrived, he was already dressed, and, as none
of the servants were stirring, he opened the door himself. The news
certainly gave him pleasure, but they also produced some change in the
secret workings of his mind, of no auspicious augury to the fulfilment
of the parental intention which he had probably formed; but which he
was as probably reluctant to realize, as it could not be carried into
effect without material detriment to that one single dominant object
to which his whole life, efforts, and errors, had been devoted. At
least from the moment he received the agreeable intelligence that
Charles was better, his agitation ceased, and he resumed his seat in
the elbow-chair, by the parlour fire-side, as composedly as if nothing
had occurred, in any degree, to trouble the apparently even tenor of
his daily unsocial and solitary reflections. In this situation he fell
asleep, from which he was roused by another messenger with still more
interesting intelligence to him than even the convalescence, as it was
supposed, of his favourite son.
Mrs. George Walkinshaw had, for some time, given a large promise, in
her appearance, of adding to the heirs of Kittlestonheugh; but, by her
residence in Glasgow, and holding little intercourse with the Grippy
family (owing to her own situation, and to her dislike of the members,
especially after Walter had been brought back with his child), the
Laird and Leddy were less acquainted with her maternal progress than
might have been expected, particularly when the anxiety of the old man,
with respect to male issue, is considered. Such things, however, are
of common occurrence in all families; and it so happened, that, during
the course of this interesting night, Mrs. George had been delivered;
and that her husband, as in duty bound, in the morning dispatched a
maid-servant to inform his father and mother of the joyous event.
The messenger, Jenny Purdie, had several years before been in the
servitude of the Laird’s house, from which she translated herself to
that of George. Being something forward, at the same time sly and
adroit, and having heard how much her old master had been disappointed
that Walter’s daughter was not a son, she made no scruple of employing
a little address in communicating her news. Accordingly, when the
Laird, disturbed in his slumber by her entrance, roused himself,
and turned round to see who it was that had come into the room, she
presented herself, as she had walked from the royal city muffled up in
a dingy red cloak, her dark-blue and white striped petticoat, sorely
scanty, and her glowing purple legs, and well spread shoeless feet,
bearing liberal proof of the speed with which she had spattered and
splashed along the road.
‘I wis you meikle joy, Laird! I hae brought you blithesmeat,’ was her
salutation.
‘What is’t, Jenny?’ said the old man.
‘I’ll let you guess that, unless ye promise to gi’e me half-a-crown,’
was her reply.
‘T’ou canna think I would ware less on sic errand as t’ou’s come on.
Is’t a laddie?’
‘It’s far better, Laird!’ said Jenny triumphantly.
‘Is’t twins?’ exclaimed the Laird, sympathizing with her exultation.
‘A half-crown, a half-crown, Laird,’ was, however, all the satisfaction
he received. ‘Down wi’ the dust.’
‘An t’ou’s sae on thy peremptors, I fancy I maun comply. There, take
it, and welcome,’ said he, pulling the money from under the flap of his
waistcoat pocket; while Jenny, stretching her arm, as she hoisted it
from under the cloak, eagerly bent forward and took the silver out of
his hand, instantaneously affecting the greatest gravity of face.
‘Laird,’ said she, ‘ye mauna be angry wi’ me, but I did na like just to
dumb-foun’er you a’ at ance wi’ the news; my mistress, it’s very true,
has been brought to bed, but it’s no as ye expekit.’
‘Then it’s but a dochter?’ replied the Laird discontentedly.
‘No, Sir, it’s no a dochter.--It’s twa dochters, Sir!’ exclaimed Jenny,
scarcely able to repress her risibility, while she endeavoured to
assume an accent of condolence.
Claud sank back in his chair, and, drooping his head, gave a deep sigh.
‘But,’ rejoined the adroit Jenny, ‘it’s a gude earnest of a braw
family, so keep up your heart, Laird, aiblins the neist birds may be a’
cocks; there ne’er was a goose without a gander.’
‘Gae but the house, and fash na me wi’ thy clishmaclavers. I say gae
but the house,’ cried the Laird, in a tone so deep and strong, that
Jenny’s disposition to gossip was most effectually daunted, and she
immediately retired.
For some time after she had left the room, Claud continued sitting
in the same posture with which he had uttered the command, leaning
slightly forward, and holding the arms of the easy-chair graspingly
by both his hands, as if in the act of raising himself. Gradually,
however, he relaxed his hold, and subsided slowly and heavily into
the position in which he usually fell asleep. Shutting his eyes,
he remained in that state for a considerable time, exhibiting no
external indication of the rush of mortified feelings, which, like a
subterranean stream of some acrid mineral, struggled through all the
abysses of his bosom.
This last stroke--the birth of twin daughters--seemed to perfect the
signs and omens of that displeasure with which he had for some time
thought the disinheritance of his first-born was regarded; and there
was undoubtedly something sublime in the fortitude with which he
endured the gnawings of remorse.--It may be impossible to consider the
course of his sordid ambition without indignation; but the strength
of character which enabled him to contend at once with his paternal
partiality, and stand firm in his injustice before what he awfully
deemed the frowns and the menaces of Heaven, forms a spectacle of moral
bravery that cannot be contemplated without emotions of wonder mingled
with dread.