‘What gars t’ee think, Watty,’ rejoined his father, ‘that I would hurt the wean?’
‘’Cause I hae heard you wish that the Lord would tak the brat to himsel.’
‘An I did, Watty, it was nae ill wis.’
‘So I ken, or else the minister lies,’ replied Walter; ‘but I would na like, for a’ that, to hae her sent till him; and noo, as they say ye’re ta’en up wi’ Charlie’s bairns, I jealouse ye hae some end o’ your ain for rooketty-cooing wi’ my wee Betty Bodle. I canna understand this new-kythed kindness,—so, gin ye like, father, we’ll just be fair gude e’en and fair gude day, as we were wont.’
This sank deeper into the wounded heart of his father than even the distrust of the orphans; but the old man made no answer. Walter, however, observed him muttering something to himself, as he leant his head back, with his eyes shut, against the shoulder of the easy chair in which he was sitting; and rising softly with the child in his arms, walked cautiously behind the chair, and bent forward to listen. But the words were spoken so inwardly and thickly, that nothing could be overheard. While in this position, the little girl playfully stretched out her hand and seized her grandfather by the ear. Startled from his prayer or his reverie, Claud, yielding to the first impulse of the moment, turned angrily round at being so disturbed, and, under the influence of his old contemptuous regard for Watty, struck him a severe blow on the face,—but almost in the same instant, ashamed of his rashness, he shudderingly exclaimed, throbbing with remorse and vexation,—
‘Forgi’e me, Watty, for I know not what I do;’ and he added, in a wild ejaculation, ‘Lord! Lord! O lighter, lighter lay the hand o’ thy anger upon me! The reed is broken—O, if it may stand wi’ thy pleasure, let it not thus be trampled in the mire! But why should I supplicate for any favour?—Lord of justice and of judgement, let thy will be done!’
Walter was scarcely more confounded by the blow than by these impassioned exclamations; and hastily quitting the room, ran, with the child in his arms, to his mother, who happened at the time, as was her wont, to be in the kitchen on household cares intent, crying,—
‘Mother! mother! my father’s gane by himsel; he’s aff at the head; he’s daft; and ta’en to the praising o’ the Lord at this time o’ day.’
But, excepting this trivial incident, nothing, as we have already stated, occurred between the interview with Leddy Plealands and the funeral to indicate, in any degree, the fierce combustion of distracted thoughts which was raging within the unfathomable caverns of the penitent’s bosom—all without, save but for this little effusion, was calm and stable. His external appearance was as we have sometimes seen Mount Etna in the sullenness of a wintry day, when the chaos and fires of its abyss uttered no sound, and an occasional gasp of vapour was heavily breathed along the grey and gloomy sky. Everything was still and seemingly steadfast. The woods were silent in all their leaves; the convents wore an awful aspect of unsocial solemnity; and the ruins and remains of former ages appeared as if permitted to moulder in unmolested decay. The very sea, as it rolled in a noiseless swell towards the black promontories of lava, suggested strange imageries of universal death, as if it had been the pall of the former world heavily moved by the wind. But that dark and ominous tranquillity boded neither permanence nor safety—the traveller and the inhabitant alike felt it as a syncope in nature, and dreaded an eruption or a hurricane.