‘In that case, I will at once go to Camrachle. The night is fine, and the moon’s up.’
‘Awa wi’ you, and show how weel ye hae come to years o’ discretion, by singing as ye gang,—
Scotsman ho! Scotsman lo!
Where shall this poor Scotsman go?
Send him east, send him west,
Send him to the craw’s nest.’
Notwithstanding the stern mood that Walkinshaw was in, this latter sally of his grandmother’s eccentric humour compelled him to laugh, and he said gaily, ‘But I shall be none the worse of a little supper before I set out. I hope you will not refuse me that?’
The old Lady, supposing that she had effectually brought him, as she said, round to himself, cheerfully acquiesced; but she was not a little disappointed, when, after some light and ludicrous conversation on general topics, he still so persisted either to remain in the house or to proceed to his mother’s, that she found herself obliged to order a bed to be prepared for him—at the same time she continued to express her confidence that he would be in a more docile humour next morning. ‘I hope,’ said she, ‘nevertheless, that the spirit of obedience will soople that stiff neck o’ thine, in the slumbers and watches of the night, or I ne’er would be consenting to countenance such outstrapulous rebellion.’
CHAPTER LXXI
Walkinshaw passed a night of ‘restless ecstasy’. Sometimes he reflected on the proposition with all the coolness that the Laird himself could have desired; but still and anon the centripetal movement of the thoughts and feelings which generated this prudence was suddenly arrested before they had gravitated into anything like resolution, and then he was thrown as wild and as wide from the object of his uncle’s solicitude as ever.
In the calmer, perhaps it may therefore be said, in the wiser course of his reflections, Robina appeared to him a shrewd and sensible girl, with a competent share of personal beauty, and many other excellent household qualities, to make her a commendable wife. With her he would at once enter on the enjoyment of opulence, and with it independence; and, moreover, and above all, have it in his power to restore his mother and sister to that state in society, to which, by birth and original expectations, they considered themselves as having some claim. This was a pleasing and a proud thought; and not to indulge it at the expense of a little sacrifice of personal feeling, seemed to him selfish and unmanly. But then he would remember with what high-toned bravery of determination he had boasted to his uncle of his pure and unalterable affections; how contemptuously he had spoken of pecuniary inducements, and in what terms, too, he had told Robina herself, that she had nothing to hope from him. It was, therefore, impossible that he could present himself to either with any expression of regret for what had passed, without appearing, in the eyes of both, as equally weak and unworthy. But the very thought of finding that he could think of entertaining the proposition at all, was more acute and mortifying than even this; and he despised himself when he considered how Ellen Frazer would look upon him, if she knew he had been so base as, for a moment, to calculate the sordid advantages of preferring his cousin.
But what was to be done? To return to the counting-house, after his resolute declaration; to embark again in that indoor and tame drudgery which he ever hated, and which was rendered as vile as slavery, by the disclosures which had taken place, could not be. He would be baser than were he to sell himself to his uncle’s purposes, could he yield to such a suggestion.