‘Na! as sure’s death, Mr. Walkinshaw,’ exclaimed the honest writer, with a warmth and simplicity rather obsolete among his professional brethren now-a-days, however much they may have been distinguished for those qualities in the innocent golden age; ‘Na! as sure’s death, Mr. Walkinshaw, this is mair than I hae the conscience to do; the lads are parties to the transaction, by their reversionary interest, and it is but right and proper they should know what they are about.’
‘Mr. Keelevin,’ cried the Laird, peevishly, ‘ye’re surely growing doited. It would be an unco-like thing if witnesses to our wills and testaments had a right to ken what we bequeathe. Please God, neither Charlie nor Watty sall be ony the wiser o’ this day’s purpose, as lang as the breath’s in my body.’
‘Weel, Mr. Walkinshaw,’ replied the lawyer, ‘ye’ll tak your own way o’t, I see that; but, as ye led me to believe, I hope an’ trust it’s in your power to make up to Charles the consequences of this very extraordinary entail; and I hope ye’ll lose no time till ye hae done sae.’
‘Mr. Keelevin, ye’ll read the papers,’ was the brief and abrupt answer which Claud made to this admonition; and the papers were accordingly brought in and read.
During the reading, Claud was frequently afflicted by the discordant cheerfulness of Charles’s voice in the outer room, joking with the clerks at the expense of his fortunate brother; but the task of aforesaids and hereafters being finished, he called them in, with a sharp and peevish accent, and signed the deeds in their presence. Charles took the pen from his father, and also at once signed as witness, while Mr. Keelevin looked the living image of amazement; but, when the pen was presented to Watty, he refused to take it.
‘What am I to get by this?’ said the natural, mindful of his mother’s advice. ‘I would like to ken that. Nobody writes papers without payment.’
‘T’ou’s a born idiot,’ said the father; ‘wilt t’ou no do as t’ou’s bidden?’
‘I’ll do ony other thing ye like, but I’ll no sign that drum-head paper, without an advantage: ye would na get Mr. Keelevin to do the like o’t without payment; and what for should ye get me? Have na I come in a’ the gait frae the Grippy to do this; and am I no to get a black bawbee for my pains?’
The Laird masked the vexation with which this idiot speech of his destined heir troubled his self-possession, while Charles sat down in one of the chairs, convulsed with laughter. Claud was not, however, to be deterred from his purpose by the absurdity of his son: on the contrary, he was afraid to make the extent of the fool’s folly too evident, lest it might afterwards be rendered instrumental to set aside the entail. He called in one of the clerks from the outer-chamber, and requested him to attest his signature. Walter loudly complained of being so treated; and said, that he expected a guinea, at the very least, for the trouble he had been put to; for so he interpreted the advantage to which his mother had alluded.
‘Weel, weel,’ said his father, ‘ha’d thy tongue, and t’ou sall get a guinea; but first sign this other paper,’ presenting to him the second deed; by which, as possessor of the Plealands’ estate, he entailed it in the same manner, and to the same line of succession, as he had himself destined the Grippy. The assurance of the guinea was effectual; Walter signed the deed, which was witnessed by Charles and the clerk; and the disinheritance was thus made complete.
CHAPTER XXIII
On leaving the office of Mr. Keelevin, Charles invited his father and brother to go home with him; but the old man abruptly turned away. Walter, however, appeared inclined to accept the invitation, and was moving off with Charles, when their father looked back, and chidingly commanded him to come along.
At any other time, this little incident would have been unnoticed by Charles, who, believing the old man had made some liberal provision for him or for his wife, was struck with the harsh contrast of such behaviour to the paternal affection by which he thought him actuated; and he paused, in consequence, thoughtfully looking after him as he walked towards the Cross, followed by Walter.
Grippy had not proceeded above twenty or thirty paces when he stopped, and turning round, called to his son, who immediately obeyed the summons.
‘Charlie,’ said he, ‘I hope t’ou’ll let nae daffing nor ploys about this marriage o’ thine tak up thy attention frae the shop; for business maun be minded; and I’m thinking t’ou had as weel be making up a bit balance-sheet, that I may see how the counts stand between us.’
This touched an irksome recollection, and recalled to mind the observation which his father had made on the occasion of Fatherlans’ ruin, with respect to the hazards of taking into partnership a man with the prospect of a family.
‘I hope,’ was his reply, ‘that it is not your intention, sir, to close accounts with me?’
‘No, Charlie, no,’ was his answer. – ‘I’ll maybe mak things better for thee – t’ou’ll no be out o’ the need o’t. But atween hands mak up the balance-sheet, and come doun on Saturday wi’ thy wife to Grippy, and we’ll hae some discourse anent it.’
With these words, the old man and Walter again went on towards the Cross, leaving Charles standing perplexed, and unable to divine the source and motives of his father’s behaviour. It seemed altogether so unaccountable, that for a moment he thought of going back to Mr. Keelevin to ask him concerning the settlements; but a sense of propriety restrained him, and he thought it alike indelicate and dishonourable to pry into an affair which was so evidently concealed from him. But this restraint, and these considerations, did not in any degree tend to allay the anxiety which the mysteriousness of his father’s conduct had so keenly excited; so that, when he returned home to Isabella, he appeared absent and thoughtful, which she attributed to some disappointment in his expectations, – an idea the more natural to her, as she had, from the visit on Sunday, been haunted with an apprehension that there was something unsound in the reconciliation.
Upon being questioned as to the cause of his altered spirits, Charles could give no feasible reason for the change. He described what had passed, he mentioned what his father had said, and he communicated the invitation, in all which there was nothing that the mind could lay hold of, nor aught to justify his strange and indescribable apprehension, if that feeling might be called an apprehension, to which his imagination could attach no danger, nor conjure up any thing to be feared. On the contrary, so far from having reason to suspect that evil was meditated against him, he had received a positive assurance that his circumstances would probably receive an immediate improvement; but for all that, there had been, in the reserve of the old man’s manner, and in the vagueness of his promises, a something which sounded hollowly to his hope, and deprived him of confidence in the anticipations he had cherished.
While Isabella and he were sitting together conversing on the subject, the old Leddy Plealands came in, anxious to hear what had been done, having previously been informed of the intended settlements, but not of their nature and objects. In her character, as we have already intimated, there was a considerable vein, if not of romantic sentiment, unquestionably of morbid sensibility. She disliked her son-in-law from the first moment in which she saw him; and this dislike had made her so averse to his company, that, although their connexion was now nearly of four-and-twenty years’ standing, she had still but a very imperfect notion of his character. She regarded him as one of the most sordid of men, without being aware that avarice with him was but an agent in the pursuit of that ancestral phantom which he worshipped as the chief, almost the only, good in life; and, therefore, could neither imagine any possible ground for supposing, that, after being reconciled, he could intend his first-born any injury, nor sympathize with the anxieties which her young friends freely confessed both felt, while she could not but deplore the unsatisfactory state of their immediate situation.
In the meantime, Walter and his father were walking homeward. The old man held no communion with his son; but now and then he rebuked him for halloing at birds in the hedges, or chasing butterflies, a sport so unbecoming his years.
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