The result of Mr. Eadie’s reflections was a proposition to Walkinshaw
to delay his journey for a day or two, until Mrs. Eadie could be
prepared to accompany him; but, when the subject was mentioned to
her, she declared the most decided determination not to trouble the
tide of his fortune by any interposition of hers which had been full
of disappointments and sorrows. From whatever sentiment this feeling
arose, it was undoubtedly dictated by magnanimity; for it implied a
sense of sacrifice on her part; nevertheless, it was arranged, that,
although Walkinshaw should set out at the time originally fixed, Mrs.
Eadie, accompanied by Ellen Frazer, should follow him to Glengael as
soon after as possible.
To the lovers this was no doubt delightful; but, when the Laird of
Kittlestonheugh heard of it in Glasgow, it disturbed him exceedingly.
The departure of Ellen Frazer from Camrachle to Glengael, where his
nephew was for a time to fix his head-quarters, was an occurrence that
he had not contemplated, and still less, if any degree can exist in an
absolute negative, that the minister’s insane wife should accompany her.
A circumstance, however, occurred at the time, which tended materially
to diminish his anxieties: A number of gentlemen belonging to the
royal city had projected a sea excursion in Allan M’Lean’s pilot-boat,
and one of the party proposed to Kittlestonheugh that he should be of
their party--for they were all friends, and sympathized, of course,
with the most heartfelt commiseration, for the loss he had sustained
in his wife, who had been nearly twenty years almost as much dead as
alive, and particularly in the grief he suffered by the injudicious
marriage of his daughter. George, with his habitual suavity, accepted
the invitation; and on the selfsame day that our friend and personal
acquaintance Walkinshaw set off in the coach from the classical and
manufacturing town (as we believe Gibbon the historian yclyped the
royal city) for the soi-disant intellectual metropolis and modern
Athens of Edinburgh, his uncle embarked at the stair of the west quay
of Greenock.
What stores were laid in by those Glasgow Argonautics--what baskets of
limes, what hampers of wine and rum, and loaves of sugar, and cheese
and bacon hams, with a modicum of biscuit,--we must leave for some
more circumstantial historian to describe. Sufficient for us, and for
all acquainted with the munificent consideration of the Glottiani for
themselves, is the fact, that seven of the primest magnates of the
royal city embarked together to enjoy the sea air, and the appetite
consequent thereon, in one of the best sailing and best navigated
schooners at that time on the west of Scotland. Whether any of them,
in the course of the voyage, suffered the affliction of sea-sickness,
we have never heard; but from our own opinion, believing the thing
probable, we shall not enter into any controversy on the subject.
There was, to be sure, some rumour shortly after, that, off Ailsa,
they did suffer from one kind of malady or another; but whether from
eating of that delicious encourager of appetite, solan goose--the most
savoury product of the rocky pyramid--or from a stomachique inability
to withstand the tossings of the sea, we have never received any
satisfactory explanation. Be this, however, as it may, no jovial,
free-hearted, good kind of men, ever enjoyed themselves better than the
party aboard the pilot boat.
They traversed the picturesque Kyles of Bute--coasted the shores of
Cantyre--touched at the beautiful port of Campbelton--doubled the
cliffy promontory--passed Gigha--left Isla on the left--navigated the
sound of Jura--prudently kept along the romantic coast of Lorn and
Appin--sailed through the sound of Mull--drank whisky at Rum--and,
afraid of the beds and bowls of the hospitable Skye, cast anchor in
Garelock. What more they did, and where they farther navigated the
iron shores and tusky rocks of the headlands, that grin in unsatiated
hunger upon the waves and restless waters of the Minch, we shall not
here pause to describe. Let it be enough that they were courageously
resolved to double Cape Wrath, and to enjoy the midnight twilights, and
the smuggled gin of Kirkwall;--the aurora borealis of the hyperborean
region, with the fresh ling of Tamy Tomson’s cobble boat at Hoy, and
the silvery glimpses of Ursa Major; together with the tasty whilks and
lampets that Widow Calder o’ the Foul Anchor at Stromness, assured
her customers in all her English--were pickled to a concupiscable
state of excellence. Our immediate duty is to follow the steps of the
Laird’s nephew; and without entering upon any unnecessary details,--our
readers, we trust, have remarked, that we entertain a most commendable
abhorrence of all circumstantiality,--we shall allow Allan M’Lean and
his passengers to go where it pleased themselves, while we return to
Camrachle; not that we have much more to say respecting what passed
there, than that Walkinshaw, as had been previously arranged, set out
alone for Glengael Castle, in Inverness-shire; the parting from his
mother and sister being considerably alleviated by the reflection,
that Ellen Frazer, in attendance on Mrs. Eadie, was soon to follow
him. Why this should have given him any particular pleasure, we cannot
understand; but, as the young man, to speak prosaically, was in love,
possibly there are some juvenile persons capable of entering into his
feelings. Not, however, knowing, of our own knowledge, what is meant by
the phrase--we must just thus simply advert to the fact; expressing,
at the same time, a most philosophical curiosity to be informed what
it means, and why it is that young gentlemen and ladies, in their
teens, should be more liable to the calamity than personages of greater
erudition in the practices of the world.