Whatever was the motive which induced Claud, on the preceding evening, to determine on sending for Mr. Keelevin, it would appear that it did not long maintain its influence; for, before going to bed, he countermanded the order. Indeed, his whole behaviour that night indicated a strange and unwonted degree of indecision. It was evident that he meditated some intention, which he hesitated to carry into effect; and the conflict banished sleep from his pillow. When the messenger from Glasgow arrived, he was already dressed, and, as none of the servants were stirring, he opened the door himself. The news certainly gave him pleasure, but they also produced some change in the secret workings of his mind, of no auspicious augury to the fulfilment of the parental intention which he had probably formed; but which he was as probably reluctant to realize, as it could not be carried into effect without material detriment to that one single dominant object to which his whole life, efforts, and errors, had been devoted. At least from the moment he received the agreeable intelligence that Charles was better, his agitation ceased, and he resumed his seat in the elbow-chair, by the parlour fire-side, as composedly as if nothing had occurred, in any degree, to trouble the apparently even tenor of his daily unsocial and solitary reflections. In this situation he fell asleep, from which he was roused by another messenger with still more interesting intelligence to him than even the convalescence, as it was supposed, of his favourite son.
Mrs. George Walkinshaw had, for some time, given a large promise, in her appearance, of adding to the heirs of Kittlestonheugh; but, by her residence in Glasgow, and holding little intercourse with the Grippy family (owing to her own situation, and to her dislike of the members, especially after Walter had been brought back with his child), the Laird and Leddy were less acquainted with her maternal progress than might have been expected, particularly when the anxiety of the old man, with respect to male issue, is considered. Such things, however, are of common occurrence in all families; and it so happened, that, during the course of this interesting night, Mrs. George had been delivered; and that her husband, as in duty bound, in the morning dispatched a maid-servant to inform his father and mother of the joyous event.
The messenger, Jenny Purdie, had several years before been in the servitude of the Laird’s house, from which she translated herself to that of George. Being something forward, at the same time sly and adroit, and having heard how much her old master had been disappointed that Walter’s daughter was not a son, she made no scruple of employing a little address in communicating her news. Accordingly, when the Laird, disturbed in his slumber by her entrance, roused himself, and turned round to see who it was that had come into the room, she presented herself, as she had walked from the royal city muffled up in a dingy red cloak, her dark-blue and white striped petticoat, sorely scanty, and her glowing purple legs, and well spread shoeless feet, bearing liberal proof of the speed with which she had spattered and splashed along the road.
‘I wis you meikle joy, Laird! I hae brought you blithesmeat,’ was her salutation.
‘What is’t, Jenny?’ said the old man.
‘I’ll let you guess that, unless ye promise to gi’e me half-a-crown,’ was her reply.
‘T’ou canna think I would ware less on sic errand as t’ou’s come on. Is’t a laddie?’
‘It’s far better, Laird!’ said Jenny triumphantly.
‘Is’t twins?’ exclaimed the Laird, sympathizing with her exultation.
‘A half-crown, a half-crown, Laird,’ was, however, all the satisfaction he received. ‘Down wi’ the dust.’