‘I cannot,’ replied the majestic Leddy, with solemnity—‘The mortal dwelling of my spirit is shattered, and lights and glimpses of hereafter are breaking in upon me. It has been ever so with all my mother’s race. The gift is an ancient inheritance of our blood; but it comes not to us till earthly things begin to lose their hold on our affections. The sense of it is to me an assurance that the bark of life has borne me to the river’s mouth. I shall now soon pass that headland, beyond which lies the open sea:—from the islands therein no one ever returns.’
Mr. Eadie sighed; and all present regarded her with compassion, for her benign countenance was strangely pale; her brilliant eyes shone with a supernatural lustre; and there was a wild and incommunicable air in her look, mysteriously in unison with the oracular enthusiasm of her melancholy.
At this juncture a letter was handed in. It was the answer from Glengael to Mrs. Eadie’s application respecting Walkinshaw; and it had the effect of changing the painful tenor of the conversation.
The contents were in the highest degree satisfactory. Mr. Frazer not only promised his influence, declaring that he considered himself as the agent of the family interests, but said, that he had no doubt of procuring at once the cadetcy, stating, at the same time, that the progress and complexion of the French Revolution rendered it probable that Government would find it expedient to augment the army; in which case, a commission for young Walkinshaw would be readily obtained; and he concluded with expressions of his sorrow at hearing his kinswoman had of late been so unwell, urging her to visit him at Glengael Castle, to which the family was on the point of removing for the summer, and where her native air might, perhaps, essentially contribute to her recovery.
‘Yes,’ said she, after having read the letter aloud, and congratulated Walkinshaw on the prospect which had opened.—‘Yes; I will visit Glengael. The spirits of my fathers hover in the silence of those mountains, and dwell in the loneliness of the heath. A voice within has long told me, that my home is there, and I have been an exile since I left it.’
‘My dear Gertrude,’ said Mr. Eadie,—‘you distress me exceedingly this morning. To hear you say so pains me to the heart. It seems to imply that you have not been happy with me.’
‘I was happy with you,’ was her impressive answer. ‘I was happy; but then I thought the hopes of my youth had perished.—The woeful discovery that rose like a ghost upon me withered my spirit; and the death of my children has since extinguished the love of life. Still, while the corporeal tenement remained in some degree entire, I felt not as I now feel; but the door is thrown open for my departure. I feel the airs of the world of spirits blowing in upon me; and as I look round to see if I have set my house in order, all the past of life appears in a thousand pictures; and the most vivid in the series are the sunny landscapes of my early years.’
Mr. Eadie saw that it was in vain to reason with his wife in such a mood; and the Walkinshaws sympathized with the tenderness that dictated his forbearance, while James turned the conversation, by proposing to his sister and Ellen, that they should walk into Glasgow next day, to pay their respects to the young couple.
Doubtless there was a little waggery at the bottom of this proposition; but there was also something of a graver feeling.—He was desirous to ascertain what effect the marriage of Robina had produced on his uncle with respect to himself, and also to communicate, through the medium of his grandmother, the favourable result of the application to Glengael, in the hope, that, if there was any sincerity in the professions of partiality with which he had been flattered, that his uncle would assist him in his outfit either for India or the army. Accordingly, the walk was arranged as he proposed; but the roads in the morning were so deep and sloughy, that the ladies did not accompany him; a disappointment which, however acute it might be to him, was hailed as a God-send by the Leddy, whose troubles and vexations of spirit had, from the wedding-day, continued to increase, and still no hope of alleviation appeared.