The women were both terrified by the statement of Geordie. Reluctant to make any such admission, they struggled with the various emotions of indignation, pride, and fear, which took, by turns, possession of their bosoms. Lady Maitland fainted, and Louise was totally unable to render her assistance; for she lay in a hysterical state of excitement on the floor. Geordie locked the door, and kept his eyes fixed on the females. He yielded them no aid; but stood like a destroying angel, witnessing the effects of his desolation. Lady Maitland at last opened her eyes, and having collected her senses, resolved to comply with Geordie’s request. She said to him, that, provided nothing was asked beyond the questions, whether she bore the child on the day mentioned, and whether Jessie Maitland, whom she had secretly seen, was that child—she would answer them in the affirmative. This satisfied Geordie, and he departed.
On the day of the service of Ludovic Brodie, a brief was taken out in name of Jessie Warriston or Maitland, as heir female of taillie to the estate and title of Maitland of Castle Gower. Brodie and his agents had no notice of the brief until they came into court.
The briefs being read, Brodie’s propinquity was proved, and no person had any idea that the existence of a nearer heir could be established. But the door of the court opened, and Lady Maitland and Louise Grecourt stood before the inquest. They swore to the birth of the child on the day mentioned, and that Jessie Maitland, who was presented to them in court by Geordie Willison himself, was that child.
An objection was taken by Brodie’s agents, that the child was illegitimate, because it was born ten months, minus two days, after Sir Marmaduke went to the continent; but the judge overruled the objection, stating that it was the law of Scotland, that every child born within ten months of the husband’s departure, is a legal child.
Jessie Warriston was, therefore, served heir, according to the terms of her brief. She went in her own carriage, in which sat Geordie Willison, to take possession of her estates and titles. She was now Lady Jessie Maitland of Castle Gower, and was soon afterwards united to William Forbes, her old lover.
THE SNOW STORM OF 1825.
Our readers will recollect the dreadful snow storm that occurred in the year 1825. Indeed, it is impossible that any one, who was above the years of childhood at the time, can have forgot it, or can ever forget it. It was the most tremendous with which this country has been visited for a century. For nearly six weeks, and in some places for a much longer period, every road, excepting those in the immediate vicinity of large towns, was blocked up, and rendered impassable, by either horse or foot; and one consequence was, that scores of travellers, of all descriptions, were suddenly arrested in their several places of temporary sojournment on the road, and held in durance during the whole period of the storm, without the possibility of communicating with their friends, or, in the case of mercantile travellers, with their employers.
It was a weary time, on the whole, to those who were thus laid under embargo; but not without its pleasures either; for each house thus situated, having perhaps a dozen strangers in it, from and going to all parts of the kingdom, became a distinct and independent little community, from which its local exclusion from the busy world had shut out, also, for the time at any rate, much of its cares and troubles—a philosophic spirit soon prevailing, after the first day or two’s confinement, to make the most of what could not be helped.