‘On second thoughts, it may not be necessary for you to go—but I must. I am summoned by my kinsman; and it is not for me to question the propriety of what he asks, but only to obey. It is the cause of my father’s house.’
The minister smiled at her determination, and said, ‘I suppose there is nothing else for me but also to obey. I do not, however, recollect who this Frazer is—Was he out with your father in the Forty-five?’
‘No; but his father was,’ replied Mrs. Eadie, ‘and was likewise executed at Carlisle. He, himself, was bred to the bar, and is an advocate in Edinburgh.’ And, turning suddenly round to Mrs. Walkinshaw, she added solemnly, ‘There is something in this—There is some mysterious link between the fortunes of your family and mine. It has brought your brother-in-law here to-day, as if a new era were begun to you, and also this letter of auspicious omen to the blood of Glengael.’
Mr. Eadie laughingly remarked, ‘That he had not for a long time heard from her such a burst of Highland lore.’
But Mrs. Walkinshaw was so affected by the solemnity with which it had been expressed, that she inadvertently said, ‘I hope in Heaven it may be so.’
‘I am persuaded it is,’ rejoined Mrs. Eadie, still serious; and emphatically taking her by the hand, she said, ‘The minister dislikes what he calls my Highland freats, and believes they have their source in some dark remnants of pagan superstition; on that account, I abstain from speaking of many things that I see, the signs and forecoming shadows of events—nevertheless, my faith in them is none shaken, for the spirit has more faculties than the five senses, by which, among other things, the heart is taught to love or hate, it knows not wherefore—Mark, therefore, my words, and bear them in remembrance—for this day the fortunes of Glengael are mingled with those of your house.—The lights of both have been long set; but the time is coming, when they shall again shine in their brightness.’
‘I should be incredulous no more,’ replied the minister, ‘if you could persuade her brother-in-law, Mr. George Walkinshaw, to help Frazer with a loan towards the sum required for the purchase of Glengael.’
Perceiving, however, that he was treading too closely on a tender point, he turned the conversation, and nothing more particular occurred that evening. The interval between then and Monday was occupied by the two families in little preparations for their respective journeys; Mr. Eadie, notwithstanding the pecuniary inconvenience, having agreed to accompany his wife.
In the meantime, George, for some reason best known to himself, it would appear, had resolved to make the visit of so many connexions a festival; for, on the day after he had been at Camrachle, he wrote to his brother-in-law, the Laird of Dirdumwhamle, to join the party with Mrs. Milrookit, and to bring their son with them,—a circumstance which, when he mentioned it to his mother, only served to make her suspect that more was meant than met either the eye or ear in such extraordinary kindness; and the consequence was, that she secretly resolved to take the advice of Mr. Keelevin, as to how she ought to conduct herself; for, from the time of his warsle, as she called it, with Pitwinnoch for the aliment, he had regained her good opinion. She had also another motive for being desirous of conferring with him, no less than a laudable wish to have her will made, especially as the worthy lawyer, now far declined into the vale of years, had been for some time in ill health, and unable to give regular attendance to his clients at the office: ‘symptoms,’ as the Leddy said when she heard it ‘that he felt the cauld hand o’ Death muddling about the root o’ life, and a warning to a’ that wanted to profit by his skill, no to slumber and sleep like the foolish virgins, that aloo’t their cruises to burn out, and were wakened to desperation, when the shout got up that the bridegroom and the musickers were coming.’
But the worthy lawyer, when she called, was in no condition to attend any longer to worldly concerns,—a circumstance which she greatly deplored, as she mentioned it to her son George, who, however, was far from sympathizing with her anxiety; on the contrary, the news, perhaps, afforded him particular satisfaction. For he was desirous that the world should continue to believe his elder brother had been entirely disinherited, and Mr. Keelevin was the only person that he thought likely to set the heirs in that respect right.