entail which he had executed; but the shame of that transaction had by this time sunk so deep, that he often wished and tried to consider the deed as having no existence.

Mean while, Mrs Milrookit had become the mother of a son; the only occurrence which, for some time, had given Claud any unalloyed satisfaction. But it also was soon converted into a new source of vexation and of punishment; for Leddy Grippy, ever dotingly fond of Walter, determined, from the first hour in which she heard of the birth of Walkinshaw Milrookit, as the child was called, to match him with her favourite's Betty; and the mere possibility of such an event taking place filled her husband with anxiety and fear, the expressions of which, and the peevish and bitter accents that he used in checking her loquacity on the subject, only served to make her wonderment at his prejudices the more and more tormenting.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

In the mean time, Charles and Isabella had enjoyed a large share of domestic felicity, rendered the more endearingly exquisite by their parental anxiety; for it had pleased Heaven at once to bless and burden their narrow circumstances with two beautiful children, James and Mary. Their income arising from the share which the old man had assigned of the business had, during the first two or three years subsequent to their marriage, proved sufficient for the supply of their restricted wants; but their expenses began gradually to increase, and about the end of the third year Charles found that they had incurred several small debts above their means of payment. These, in the course of the fourth, rose to such a sum, that, being naturally of an apprehensive mind, he grew uneasy at the amount, and came to the resolution to borrow two hundred pounds to discharge them. This, he imagined, there could be no difficulty in procuring; for, believing that he was the heir of entail to the main part of the estate which his father had so entirely redeemed,

he conceived that he might raise the money on his reversionary prospects, and, with this view, he called one morning on Mr Keelevin to request his agency in the business.

"I'm grieved, man," said the honest lawyer, "to hear that ye're in such straits; but hadna ye better speak to your father? It might bring on you his displeasure if he heard ye were borrowing money to be paid at his death. It's a thing nae frien', far less a father, would like done by himsel'."

"In truth,” replied Charles, "I am quite sensible of that; but what can I do? for my father, ever since my brother Watty's marriage, has been so cold and reserved about his affairs to me, that every thing like confidence seems as if it were perished from between us."

Mr Keelevin, during this speech, raised his left arm on the elbow from the table at which he was sitting, and rested his chin on his hand. There was nothing in the habitual calm of his countenance which indicated what was passing in his heart, but his eyes once or twice glimmered with a vivid expression of pity.

"Mr Walkinshaw," said he, "if you dinna like to apply to your father yoursel', couldna some friend mediate for you? Let me speak to him.”

"It's friendly of you, Mr Keelevin, to offer to do that; but really, to speak plainly, I would far rather borrow the money from a stranger, than lay myself open to any remarks. Indeed, for myself, I don't much care; but ye ken my father's narrow ideas about household charges; and maybe he might take it on him to make remarks to my wife that I wouldna like to hear o'." "But, Mr Charles, you know that money canna be borrowed without security."

"I am aware of that; and it's on that accouut I want your assistance. I should think that my chance of surviving my father is worth something."

"But the whole estate is strictly entailed, Mr Charles,” replied the lawyer, with compassionate regard.

"The income, however, is all clear, Mr Keelevin."

"I dinna misdoubt that, Mr Charles, but the entail-do you ken how it runs?"

"No; but I imagine much in the usual manner."

"No, Mr Charles," said the honest writer, raising his head, and letting his hand fall on the table, with a mournful emphasis; “No, Mr Charles, it doesna run in the usual manner; and I hope ye'll no put ony reliance on't. It wasna right o' your father to let you live in ignorance so long. Maybe it has been this to-look that has led you into the debts ye want to pay." The manner in which this was said affected the unfortunate first-born more than the meaning; but he replied—

“No doubt, Mr Keelevin, I may have been less scrupulous in my expenses than I would have been, had I not counted on the chance of my birthright.

"Mr Charles, I'm sorry for you; but I wouldna do a frien's part by you, were I to keep you ony langer in the dark. Your father, Mr Charles, is an honest man; but there's a bee in his bonnet, as we a' ken, anent his pedigree. I needna tell you how he has warslet to get back the inheritance o' his forefathers; but I am wae to say, that in a pursuit so meritorious, he has committed ae great fault. Really, Mr Charles, I havena hardly the heart to tell you."

"What is it?" said Charles with emotion and apprehension. "He has made a deed," said Mr Keelevin, "whereby he has cut you off frae the succession, in order that Walter, your brother, might be in a condition to make an exchange of the Plealands for the twa mailings that were wanting to make up wi' the Grippy property, a restoration of the auld estate of Kittlestonheugh; and I doubt it's o' a nature in consequence, that, even were he willing, canna be easily altered.”

To this heart-withering communication Charles made no answer. He stood for several minutes astonished; and then giving Mr Keelevin a wild look, shuddered, and quitted the office.

Instead of returning home, he rushed with rapid and unequal steps down the Gallowgate, and, turning to the left hand in reaching the end of the street, never halted till he had gained the dark firs which overhang the cathedral and skirt the Molendinar Burn, which at the time was swelled with rains, and pouring its troubled torrent almost as violently as the tide of feelings

that struggled in his bosom. Unconscious of what he did, and borne along by the whirlwind of his own thoughts, he darted down the steep, and for a moment hung on the rocks at the bottom as if he meditated some frantic leap. Recoiling and trembling with the recollections of his family, he then threw himself on the ground, and for some time shut his eyes as if he wished to believe that he was agitated only by a dream.

The scene and the day were in unison with the tempest which shook his frame and shivered his mind. The sky was darkly overcast. The clouds were rolling in black and lowering masses, through which an occasional gleam of sunshine flickered for a moment on the towers and pinnacles of the cathedral, and glimmered in its rapid transit on the monuments and graves in the churchyard. A gloomy shadow succeeded; and then a white and ghastly light hovered along the ruins of the bishop's castle, and darted with a strong and steady ray on a gibbet which stood on the rising ground beyond. The gusty wind howled like a death-dog among the firs, which waved their dark boughs like hearse plumes over him, and the voice of the raging waters encouraged his despair.

He felt as if he had been betrayed into a situation which compelled him to surrender all the honourable intents of his life, and that he must spend the comfortless remainder of his days in a conflict with poverty, a prey to all its temptations, expedients, and crimes. At one moment he clenched his grasp, and gnashed his teeth, and smote his forehead, abandoning himself to the wild and headlong energies and instincts of a rage that was almost revenge; at another, the image of Isabella, so gentle and so defenceless, rose in a burst of tenderness and sorrow, and subdued him with inexpressible grief. But the thought of his children in the heedless days of their innocence, condemned to beggary by a fraud against nature, again scattered these subsiding feelings like the blast that brushes the waves of the ocean into spindrift.

This vehemence of feeling could not last long without producing some visible effect. When the storm had in some degree spent itself, he left the wild and solitary spot where he had given himself so entirely up to his passion, and returned towards his

home; but his limbs trembled, his knees faltered, and a cold shivering vibrated through his whole frame. An intense pain was kindled in his forehead; every object reeled and shuddered to him as he passed; and, before he reached the house, he was so unwell that he immediately retired to bed. In the course of the afternoon he became delirious, and a rapid and raging fever terrified his ill-fated wife.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

MR KEELEVIN, when Charles had left him, sat for some time with his cheek resting on his hand, reflecting on what had passed; and in the afternoon he ordered his horse, and rode over to Grippy, where he found the laird sitting sullenly by himself in the easy-chair by the fireside, with a white nightcap on his head, and grey worsted stockings drawn over his knees.

"I'm wae, Mr Walkinshaw," said the honest lawyer as he entered the room, "to see you in sic an ailing condition. What's the matter wi' you, and how lang hae ye been sae indisposed?"

Claud had not observed his entrance; for, supposing the noise in opening the door had been made by the leddy in her manifold household cares, or by some one of the servants, he never moved his head, but kept his eyes ruminatingly fixed on a peeling of soot that was ominously fluttering on one of the ribs of the grate, betokening, according to the most credible oracles of Scottish superstition, the arrival of a stranger, or the occurrence of some remarkable event; but, on hearing the voice of his legal friend, he turned briskly round.

"Sit ye doun, Mr Keelevin, sit ye doun forenent me. What's brought you here the day? Man, this is sore weather for ane at your time o' life to come so far afield," was the salutation with which he received him.

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Ay," replied Mr Keelevin, "baith you and me, Grippy, are beginning to be the waur o' the wear; but I didna expeck