Marriage Part 26

CHAPTER XXV.

"Th' immortal line in sure succession reigns, The fortune of the family remains, And grandsires' grandsons the long list contains."

DRYDEN'S _Virgil._

"We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep."

_Tempest._

BUT Mary's back and Mary's complexion now ceased to be the first objects of interest at! Glenfern; for, to the inexpressible delight and amazement of the sisters, Mrs. Douglas, after due warning, became the mother of a son. How this event had been brought about without the intervention of Lady Maclaughlan was past the powers of Miss Grizzy's comprehension. To the last moment they had been sceptical, for Lady Maclaughlan had shook her head and humphed whenever the subject was mentioned. For several months they had therefore vibrated between their own sanguine hopes and their oracle's disheartening doubts; and even when the truth was manifest, a sort of vague tremor took possession of their mind, as to what Lady Maclaughlan would think of it.

"I declare I don't very well know how to announce this happy event to Lady Maclaughlan," said Miss Grizzy, as she sat in a ruminating posture, with her pen in her hand; "it will give her the greatest pleasure, I know that; she has such a regard for our family, she would go any lengths for us. At the same time, everybody must be sensible it is a delicate matter to tell a person of Lady Maclaughlan's skill they have been mistaken. I'm sure I don't know how she may take it: and yet she can't suppose it will make any difference in our sentiments for her. She must be sensible we have all the greatest respect for her opinion."

"The wisest people are sometimes mistaken," observed Miss Jacky.

"I'm sure, Jacky, that's very true," said Grizzy, brightening up at the brilliancy of this remark.

"And it's better she should have been mistaken than Mrs. Douglas,"

followed up Miss Nicky.

"I declare, Nicky, you are perfectly right; and I shall just say so at once to Lady Maclaughlan."

The epistle was forthwith commenced by the enlightened Grizelda. Miss Joan applied herself to the study of "The Whole Duty of Man," which she was, determined to make herself mistress of for the benefit of her grand-nephew; and Miss Nicholas fell to reckoning all who could, would, or should be at the christening, that she might calculate upon the quant.i.ty of _dreaming-bread_ that would be required. The younger ladies were busily engaged in divers and sundry disputes regarding the right to succession to a once-white lutestring negligee of their mother's, which three of them had laid their accounts with figuring in at the approaching celebration. The old gentleman was the only one in the family who took the least of the general happiness. He had got into a habit of being fretted about everything that happened, and he could not entirely divest himself of it even upon this occasion. His parsimonious turns, too, had considerably increased; and his only criterion of judging of anything was according to what it would bring.

"Sorra tak me if ane wadnae think, to hear ye, this was the first bairn that e'er was born! 'What'sa' the fraize aboot, ye gowks?" (to his daughters)--"a whingin get! that'll tak mail' oot o' fowk's pockets than e'er it'll pit into them! Mony a guid profitable beast's been brought into the warld and ne'er a word in in'ts heed."

All went on smoothly. Lady Maclaughlan testified no resentment. Miss Jacky had the "The Whole Duty of Man" at her finger-ends; and Miss Nicky was not more severe than could have been expected, considering, as she did, how the servants at Lochmarlie must be living at hack and manger.

It had been decided at Glenfern that the infant heir to its consequence could not with propriety be christened any where but at the seat of his forefathers. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas had good-humouredly yielded the point; and, as soon as she was able for the change, the whole family took up their residence for a season under the paternal roof.

Blissful visions floated around the pillows of the happy spinsters the night preceding the christening, which were duly detailed at the breakfast-table the following morning.

"I declare I don't know what to think of my dream," began Miss Grizzy.

"I dreamt that Lady Maclaughlan was upon her knees to you, brother, to get you to take an emetic; and just as she had mixed it up so nicely in some of our black-currant jelly, little Norman s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of your hand and ran away with it."

"You're eneugh to turn onybody's stamick wi'your nonsense," returned the Laird gruffly.

"And I," said Miss Jacky, "thought I saw you standing in your s.h.i.+rt, brother, as straight as a rash, and good Lady Girnachgowl buckling her collar upon you with her own hands."

"I wish ye wadna deive me wi' your havels!" still more indignantly, and turning his shoulder to the fair dreamer, as he continued to con over the newspaper.

"And I," cried Miss Nicky, eager to get her mystic tale disclosed, "I thought, brother, I saw you take and throw all the good dreaming-bread into the ash-hole."

"By my troth, an' ye deserve to be thrown after't!" exclaimed the exasperated Laird, as he quitted the room in high wrath, muttering to himself, "Hard case--canna get peace--eat my vittals--fules-- tawpiesclavers!" etc. etc.

"I declare I can't conceive why Glenfern should be so ill pleased at our dreams," said Miss Grizzy. "Everybody knows dreams are always contrary; and even were it otherwise, I'm sure I should think no shame to take an emetic, especially when Lady Maclaughlan was at the trouble of mixing it up so nicely."

"And we have all worn good Lady Girnachgowl's collar before now," said Miss Jacky.

"I think I had the worst of it, that had all my good dreaming-bread destroyed," added Mis Nicky.

"Nothing could be more natural than you dreams," said Mrs. Douglas, "considering how all these subjects have engrossed you for some time past. You, Aunt Grizzy, may remember how desirous you were of administering one of Lady Maclaughlan's powders to my little boy yesterday; and you, Aunt Jacky, made a point of trying Lady Girnachgowl's collar upon Mary, to convince her how pleasant it was; while you, Aunt Nicky, had experienced a great alarm in supposing your cake had been burned in the oven. And these being the most vivid impression you had received during the day, it was perfectly natural that they should have retained their influence during a portion of the night."

The interpretations were received with high disdain. One and all declared they never dreamed of anything that _had_ occurred; and therefore the visions of the night portended some extraordinary good fortune to the family in general, and to little Norman in particular.

"The best fortune I can wish for him, and all of us, for this day is, that he should remain quiet during the ceremony," said his mother, who was not so elated as Lady Macbeth at the predictions of the sisters.

The christening party mustered strong; and the rites of baptism were duly performed by the Rev. Duncan M'Drone. The little Christian had been kissed by every lady in company, and p.r.o.nounced by the matrons to be "a dainty little _doug!_" and by the misses to be "the sweetest lamb they had ever seen!" The cake and wine was in its progress round the company; when, upon its being tendered to the old gentleman, who was sitting silent in his arm-chair, he abruptly exclaimed, in a most discordant voice, "Hey! what's a' this wastery for?"--and ere an answer could be returned his jaw dropped, his eyes fixed, and the Laird of Glenfern ceased to breathe!

CHAPTER XXVI.

"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless. Hence it is that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."--_All's Well that ends Well_.

ALL attempts to reanimate the lifeless form proved unavailing; and the horror and consternation that reigned in the castle of Glenfern may be imagined, but cannot be described. There is perhaps no feeling of our nature so vague, so complicated, so mysterious, as that with which we look upon the cold remains of our fellow-mortals. The dignity with which death invests even the meanest of his victims inspires us with an awe no living thing can create. The monarch on his throne is less awful than the beggar in his shroud. The marble features--the powerless hand--the stiffened limbs--oh! who can contemplate these with feelings that can be defined? These are the mockery of all our hopes and fears, our fondest love our fellest hate. Can it be that we now shrink with horror from the touch of that hand which but yesterday was fondly clasped in our own? Is that tongue, whose accents even now dwell in our ear, forever chained in the silence of death? These black and heavy eyelids, are they for ever to seal up in darkness the eyes whose glance no earthly power could restrain? And the spirit which animated the clay, where is it now? Is it wrapt in bliss, or dissolved in woe? Does it witness our grief, and share our sorrows? Or is the mysterious tie that linked it with mortality forever broken? And the remembrance of earthly scenes, are they indeed to the enfranchised spirit as the morning dream, or the dew upon the early flower? Reflections such as these naturally arise in every breast. Their influence is felt, though their import cannot always be expressed. The principle is in all the same, however it may differ in its operations.

In the family a.s.sembled round the lifeless form that had so long been the centre of their domestic circle, grief showed itself under various forms. The calm and manly sorrow of the son; the saint-like feelings of his wife; the youthful agitation of Mary; the weak superst.i.tious wailings of the sisters; and the loud uncontrolled lamentations of the daughters; all betokened an intensity of suffering that arose from the same source, varied according to the different channels in which it flowed. Even the stern Lady Maclaughlan was subdued to something of kindred feeling; and though no tears dropped from her eyes, she sat by her friends, and sought, in her own way, to soften their affliction.

The a.s.sembled guests, who had not yet been able to take their departure, remained in the drawing-room in a sort of restless solemnity peculiar to seasons of collateral affliction, where all seek to highten the effect upon others, and s.h.i.+ft the lesson from themselves. Various were the surmises and peculations as to the cause of the awful transition that had just taken place.

"Glenfern was nae like a man that wad hae gaen aff in this gate," said one.

"I dinna ken," said another; "I've notic'd a chainge on Glenfern for a gey while noo."

"I agree wi' you, sir," said a third. "In my mind Glenfern's been droopin' very sair ever since the last tryst."

"At Glenfern's time o' life it's no surprisin'," remarked a fourth, who felt perfectly secure of being fifteen years his junior.

"Glenfern was na that auld neither," retorted a fifth, whose conscience smote him with being years his senior.

"But he had a deal o' vexation frae his faemily," said an elderly bachelor.

"Ye offen see a hale stoot man, like oor puit freend, gang like the snuff o' a cannel," coughed up a pthisicky gentleman.

"He was aye a tume, boss-looking man ever since I mind him," wheezed out a swollen asthmatic figure.

"An' he took nae care o' himsel'," said he Laird of Pettlecha.s.s. "His diet was nae what it should hae been at his time o' life. An' he was oot an' in, up an' doon, in a' wathers, wat an' dry."

"Glenfern's doings had naething to du wi' his death," said an ancient gentlewoman with solemnity. "They maun ken little wha ne'er heard the bod-word of the family." And she repeated in Gaelic words to the following effect:--

"When Loehdow shall turn to a lin, [1]

In Glenfern ye'll hear the din; When frae Benenck they shool the sna', O'er Glenfern the leaves will fa'; When foreign geer grows on Benenck tap, Then the fir tree will be Glenfern's hap."

[1] Cataract.

"An' noo, ma'am, will ye be sae gude as point oot the meanin' o' this freet," said an incredulous-looking member of the company; "for when I pa.s.sed Lochdow this mornin' I neither saw nor heard o' a lin; an' frae this window we can a' see Benenck wi' his white night-cap on; an' he wad hae little to do that wad try to shoal it aff."

"It's neither o' the still water nor the stay brae that the word was spoke," replied the dame, with a disdainful frown; "they tak' nae part in our doings: but kent ye nae that Lochdow himsel' had tined his sight in a cataract; an' is nae there dule an' din eneuch in Glenfern the day?