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Calvin University 5

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The Professor says that he had read 'the work on its first publication through from beginning to end in one day', and about a fortnight afterwards devoured 'all the prime bits' again.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The conclusion of the whole matter, in Professor Wilson's opinion, was that Galt had now proved himself 'inferior only to two living writers of fictitious narratives--to him whom we need not name, and to Miss Edgeworth'.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

That Galt was inferior to Scott as a romanticist is what no one would deny.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

As a romanticist he should not be brought in comparison with Sir Walter at all; but as a painter of _genre_ he is not surpassed even by him whom 'Christopher North' would not name.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

That Miss Edgeworth was a romanticist of high rank does not appear: _

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Castle Rackrent_ and _

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The Absentee_ are unequalled, but as presentations of original, quaint, and absolutely living Irish character: Galt was not inferior to her, or a rival of her, for his realm and hers were far apart: in his presentation of certain types of Scottish character he is equally original, equally quaint, and equally true and vivid.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Scottish humour and Irish wit are singularly unlike; to compare them must be a barren labour; perhaps the same reader will never fully appreciate both; but to no critic who knows and loves Scots types of character will it be easy to confess that Galt had an inferior revelation to that of the inestimable Maria: the subject-matter was different, that was all.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

To try and pose them as rivals is the folly.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

In Galt is none of the rollicking pathos that is the miracle of _Castle Rackrent_:

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Scots pathos is as different from Irish as flamboyant Irish wit is different from Scottish pawkiness.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

But if the daft laird of Grippy be not pathetic then I know of no pathos outside the pathos that exposes itself naked to the public to obtain recognition.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

If the Leddy o' Grippy be not inimitably comic, then can there be no comedy short of screaming farce.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The reader is asked to remember that any comparison of Galt with Scott, or of Galt with Maria Edgeworth, was not initiated by the present writer, but by 'Christopher North'.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Sir Walter Scott himself gave the best proof possible of appreciation by reading _

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The Entail_ three times: and Byron had read it three times within a year of its appearance.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

To the Earl of Blessington he said that 'the portraiture of Leddy Grippy was perhaps the most complete and original that had been added to the female gallery since the days of Shakespeare'.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Were this an essay on _

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The Entail_

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

it would not suffice to quote the criticism of great writers upon the work: the essayist would need to justify his own admiration of it by quotation from the book itself.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

And this he has done at full length in (as Cousin Feenix said) another place.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

But in an Introduction there can be no occasion to detain the reader from making acquaintance on his own account with the Leddy and Watty, Claud, and the Milrookits.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

He will not, with the book in his hand, need to be told which scenes are inimitable.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

There are many which he will never be content to read but once: though I venture to think that he will not arrive at Lord Jeffrey's conclusion that the drowning of George Walkinshaw is the most powerful single sketch in the work.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Powerful all the same it is; and, since Lord Byron's dictum concerning the Leddy has given the hint, we may be the more readily forgiven for thinking that there is, in that grim passage, something Shakespearian about the little cabin-boy.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

JOHN AYSCOUGH.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

THE ENTAIL TO THE KING.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

_SIRE_, _

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

With the profoundest sense of your Majesty's gracious condescension, the Author of this work has now the honour to lay it, by permission, at your Majesty's feet._

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

_

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

It belongs to a series of sketches, in which he has attempted to describe characters and manners peculiar to the most ancient, and most loyal, portion of all your Majesty's dominions;--it embraces a great part of the last century, the most prosperous period in the annals of Scotland, and singularly glorious to the administration of your Majesty's Illustrious Family;--it has been written since the era of your Majesty's joyous Visit to the venerable home of your Royal Ancestors;--and it is presented as a humble memorial of the feelings with which the Author, in common with all his countrymen, did homage to the King at Holyrood._ _

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

He has the happiness to be, SIRE, Your Majesty's Most dutiful and most faithful_ SUBJECT AND SERVANT.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Edinburgh, 3d December 1822.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

THE ENTAIL CHAPTER I Claud Walkinshaw was the sole surviving male heir of the Walkinshaws of Kittlestonheugh.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

His grandfather, the last Laird of the line, deluded by the golden visions that allured so many of the Scottish gentry to embark their fortunes in the Darien Expedition, sent his only son, the father of Claud, in one of the ships fitted out at Cartsdyke, and with him an adventure in which he had staked more than the whole value of his estate.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

But, as it is not our intention to fatigue the reader with any very circumstantial account of the state of the Laird's family, we shall pass over, with all expedient brevity, the domestic history of Claud's childhood.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

He was scarcely a year old when his father sailed, and his mother died of a broken heart, on hearing that her husband, with many of his companions, had perished of disease and famine among the swamps of the Mosquito shore.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The Kittlestonheugh estate was soon after sold, and the Laird, with Claud, retired into Glasgow, where he rented the upper part of a back house, in Aird's Close, in the Drygate.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The only servant whom, in this altered state, he could afford to retain, or rather the only one that he could not get rid of, owing to her age and infirmities, was Maudge Dobbie, who, in her youth, was bairnswoman to his son.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

She had been upwards of forty years in the servitude of his house; and the situation she had filled to the father of Claud did not tend to diminish the kindliness with which she regarded the child, especially when, by the ruin of her master, there was none but herself to attend him.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The charms of Maudge had, even in her vernal years, been confined to her warm and affectionate feelings; and, at this period, she was twisted east and west, and hither and yont, and Time, in the shape of old age, hung so embracingly round her neck, that his weight had bent her into a hoop.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Yet, thus deformed and aged, she was not without qualities that might have endeared her to a more generous boy.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Her father had been schoolmaster in the village of Kittleston; and under his tuition, before she was sent, as the phrase then was, to seek her bread in the world, she had acquired a few of the elements of learning beyond those which, in that period, fell to the common lot of female domestics: and she was thus enabled, not only to teach the orphan reading and writing, but even to supply him with some knowledge of arithmetic, particularly addition and the multiplication table.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

She also possessed a rich stock of goblin lore and romantic stories, the recital of which had given the father of Claud the taste for adventure that induced him to embark in the ill-fated expedition.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

These, however, were not so congenial to the less sanguine temperament of the son, who early preferred the history of Whittington and his Cat to the achievements of Sir William Wallace; and 'Tak your auld cloak about you,' ever seemed to him a thousand times more sensible than 'Chevy Chace.'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

As for that doleful ditty, the 'Flowers of the Forest,' it was worse than the 'Babes in the Wood'; and 'Gil Morrice' more wearisome than 'Death and the Lady'.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The solitary old Laird had not been long settled in his sequestered and humble town-retreat, when a change became visible both in his appearance and manners.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

He had been formerly bustling, vigorous, hearty, and social; but from the first account of the death of his son, and the ruin of his fortune, he grew thoughtful and sedentary, and shunned the approach of strangers, and retired from the visits of his friends.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Sometimes he sat for whole days, without speaking, and without even noticing the kitten-like gambols of his grandson; at others he would fondle over the child, and caress him with more than a grandfather's affection; again, he would peevishly brush the boy away as he clasped his knees, and hurry out of the house with short and agitated steps.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

His respectable portliness disappeared; his clothes began to hang loosely upon him; his colour fled; his face withered; and his legs wasted into meagre shanks.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Before the end of the first twelve months, he was either unwilling or unable to move unassisted from the old arm chair, in which he sat from morning to night, with his grey head drooping over his breast; and one evening, when Maudge went to assist him to undress, she found he had been for some time dead.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

After the funeral, Maudge removed with the penniless orphan to a garret-room in the Saltmarket, where she endeavoured to earn for him and herself the humble aliment of meal and salt, by working stockings; her infirmities and figure having disqualified her from the more profitable industry of the spinning-wheel.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

In this condition she remained for some time, pinched with poverty, but still patient with her lot, and preserving, nevertheless, a neat and decent exterior.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

It was only in the calm of the summer Sabbath evenings that she indulged in the luxury of a view of the country; and her usual walk on those occasions, with Claud in her hand, was along the brow of Whitehill, which she perhaps preferred, because it afforded her a distant view of the scenes of her happier days; and while she pointed out to Claud the hills and lands of his forefathers, she exhorted him to make it his constant endeavour to redeem them, if possible, from their new possessors, regularly concluding her admonition with some sketch or portrait of the hereditary grandeur of his ancestors.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

One afternoon, while she was thus engaged, Provost Gorbals and his wife made their appearance.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The Provost was a man in flourishing circumstances, and he was then walking with his lady to choose a site for a country-house which they had long talked of building.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

They were a stately corpulent couple, well befitting the magisterial consequence of the husband.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Mrs. Gorbals was arrayed in a stiff and costly yellow brocade, magnificently embroidered with flowers, the least of which was peony; but the exuberance of her ruffle cuffs and flounces, the richness of her lace apron, with the vast head-dress of catgut and millinery, together with her blue satin mantle, trimmed with ermine, are items in the gorgeous paraphernalia of the Glasgow ladies of that time, to which the pencil of some abler limner can alone do justice.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The appearance of the Provost himself became his dignity, and corresponded with the affluent garniture of his lady: it was indeed such, that, even had he not worn the golden chains of his dignity, there would have been no difficulty in determining him to be some personage dressed with at least a little brief authority.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Over the magisterial vestments of black velvet, he wore a new scarlet cloak, although the day had been one of the sultriest in July; and, with a lofty consequential air, and an ample display of the corporeal acquisition which he had made at his own and other well furnished tables, he moved along, swinging at every step his tall golden-headed cane with the solemnity of a mandarin.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Claud was filled with wonder and awe at the sight of such splendid examples of Glasgow pomp and prosperity, but Maudge speedily rebuked his juvenile admiration.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

'They're no worth the looking at,' said she; 'had ye but seen the last Leddy Kittlestonheugh, your ain muckle respekit grandmother, and her twa sisters, in their hench-hoops, with their fans in their han's--the three in a row would hae soopit the whole breadth o' the Trongate--ye would hae seen something.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

They were nane o' your new-made leddies, but come o' a pedigree.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Foul would hae been the gait, and drooking the shower, that would hae gart them jook their heads intil the door o' ony sic thing as a Glasgow bailie--Na; Claudie, my lamb, thou maun lift thy een aboon the trash o' the town, and ay keep mind that the hills are standing yet that might hae been thy ain; and so may they yet be, an thou can but master the pride o' back and belly, and seek for something mair solid than the bravery o' sic a Solomon in all his glory as yon

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Provost Gorbals.--Heh, sirs, what a kyteful o' pride's yon'er!

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

and yet I would be nane surprised the morn to hear that the Nebuchadnezzar was a' gane to pigs and whistles, and driven out wi' the divors bill to the barren pastures of bankruptcy.' CHAPTER II After taking a stroll round the brow of the hill, Provost Gorbals and his lady approached the spot where Maudge and Claud were sitting.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

As they drew near, the old woman rose, for she recognized in Mrs. Gorbals one of the former visitors at Kittlestonheugh.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The figure of Maudge herself was so remarkable, that, seen once, it was seldom forgotten, and the worthy lady, almost at the same instant, said to the Provost,-- 'Eh! Megsty, gudeman, if I dinna think yon's auld Kittlestonheugh's crookit bairnswoman.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

I won'er what's come o' the Laird, poor bodie, sin' he was rookit by the Darien.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Eh!

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

what an alteration it was to Mrs. Walkinshaw, his gudedochter.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

She was a bonny bodie; but frae the time o' the sore news, she croynt awa, and her life gied out like the snuff o' a can'le.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Hey, Magdalene Dobbie, come hither to me, I'm wanting to speak to thee.'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Maudge, at this shrill obstreperous summons, leading Claud by the hand, went forward to the lady, who immediately said,-- 'Ist t'ou ay in Kittlestonheugh's service, and what's come o' him, sin' his lan' was roupit?'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Maudge replied respectfully, and with the tear in her eye, that the Laird was dead.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

'Dead!' exclaimed Mrs. Gorbals, 'that's very extraordinare.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

I doubt he was ill off at his latter end.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Whar did he die, poor man?'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

'We were obligated,' said Maudge, somewhat comforted by the compassionate accent of the lady, 'to come intil Glasgow, where he fell into a decay o' nature.'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

And she added, with a sigh that was almost a sob, ''Deed, it's vera true, he died in a sare straitened circumstance, and left this helpless laddie upon my hands.'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The Provost, who had in the meantime been still looking about in quest of a site for his intended mansion, on hearing this, turned round, and putting his hand in his pocket, said,-- 'An' is this Kittlestonheugh's oe?

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

I'm sure it's a vera pitiful thing o' you, lucky, to take compassion on the orphan; hae, my laddie, there's a saxpence.'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

'Saxpence, gudeman!' exclaimed the Provost's lady, 'ye'll ne'er even your han' wi' a saxpence to the like of Kittlestonheugh, for sae we're bound in nature to call him, landless though his lairdship now be; poor bairn, I'm wae for't.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Ye ken his mother was sib to mine by the father's side, and blood's thicker than water ony day.'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Generosity is in some degree one of the necessary qualifications of a Glasgow magistrate, and Provost Gorbals being as well endowed with it as any of his successors have been since, was not displeased with the benevolent warmth of his wife, especially when he understood that Claud was of their own kin.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

On the contrary, he said affectionately,-- 'Really it was vera thoughtless o' me, Liezy, my dear; but

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

ye ken I have na an instinct to make me acquaint wi' the particulars of folk, before hearing about them.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

I'm sure no living soul can have a greater compassion than mysel' for gentle blood come to needcessity.'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Mrs. Gorbals, however, instead of replying to this remark--indeed, what could she say, for experience had taught her that it was perfectly just--addressed herself again to Maudge.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

'And whar dost t'ou live?

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

and what hast t'ou to live upon?'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

'I hae but the mercy of Providence,' was the humble answer of honest Maudge, 'and a garret-room in John Sinclair's lan'.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

I ettle as weel as I can for a morsel, by working stockings; but Claud's a rumbling laddie, and needs mair than I hae to gi'e him: a young appetite's a growing evil in the poor's aught.'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

The Provost and his wife looked kindly at each other, and the latter added,-- 'Gudeman, ye maun do something for them.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

It'll no fare the waur wi' our basket and our store.'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

And Maudge was in consequence requested to bring Claud with her that evening to the Provost's House in the Bridgegate.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

'I think,' added Mrs. Gorbals, 'that our Hughoc's auld claes will just do for him; and Maudge, keep a good heart, we'll no let thee want.

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

I won'er t'ou did na think of making an application to us afore.'

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

'No,' replied the old woman, 'I could ne'er do that--I would hae been in an unco strait before I would hae begget on my own account; and how could I think o' disgracing the family?

The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

Any help that the Lord may dispose your hearts to gi'e, I'll accept wi' great thankfulness, but an almous is what I hope He'll ne'er put it upon me to seek; and though Claud be for the present a weight and burden, yet, an he's sparet, he'll be able belyve to do something for himsel'.'