The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy

It appeared by this will that the Leddy had, with the exception of a few inconsiderable legacies to the rest of her family, and a trifling memorial of her affection to our frien...

That abysm of legal dubieties, the office of Mr. Keelevin, the writer, consisted of two obscure apartments on the ground floor of M’Gregor’s Land, in M’Whinnie’s Close, in the G...

The first witness examined was Jenny Purdie, servant to Mr. George Walkinshaw. She had previously been several years in the service of his father, and is the same who, as our re...

We are no casuists, and therefore cannot undertake to determine whether Jenny did right or wrong in marrying Auld Robin Gray for the sake of her poor father and mother; especial...

During the remainder of the day, after Mr. Keelevin had left him, Claud continued to sit alone, and took no heed of any thing that occurred around him.--Dinner was placed on the...

There are few things more ludicrous, and at the same time more interesting, than the state of a young man in love, unless, perhaps, it be that of an old man in the same unfortun...

‘I have been desirous to see you, because I am anxious to make some family arrangements, to which, though I do not anticipate any objection on your part, as they will be highly...

Mrs. Charles Walkinshaw had been a good deal surprised by the abrupt manner in which Mrs. Eadie had intercepted her brother-in-law. Her son, not a little pleased of an opportuni...

In saying these words, she went hastily to the door to meet her mother, the appearance of whose countenance at the moment was not calculated to allay her maternal fears. Indeed,...

Long before Kittlestonheugh returned to Glasgow, the indissoluble knot was tied between his daughter and her cousin, Walkinshaw Milrookit. The Laird of Dirdumwhamle was secretly...

When Charles and Isabella were informed that his brother and Betty Bodle were to be bookit on Saturday, that is, their names recorded, for the publication of the banns, in the b...

Mr. Pitwinnoch was instructed to lay out the money at five per cent. interest to pay Mrs. Charles the annuity; and one of his clerks mentioned the circumstance to a companion in...

The party from Glengael, who had, as we have described, been obliged to take refuge from the wind in the lee of the rocks, stood contemplating the scene in silence. The sky was...

Bodle of Kilmarkeckle, like all the lairds of that time, was come of an ancient family, in some degree related to the universal stock of Adam, but how much more ancient, no hist...

Next day, when the Court again assembled, Walter was there, seated beside his agent, and dressed in his best. Every eye was directed towards him; and the simple expression of wo...

‘Indeed, Leddy,’ said the Laird of Dirdumwhamle, when she told him of the detection, as she called it, of Robina’s notion of his son--‘Blood ye ken’s thicker than water; and I h...

Grippy passed the interval between the visit and the day appointed for the execution of the deeds of entail with as much comfort of mind as Heaven commonly bestows on a man cons...

The news of the arrangement, when communicated to Doctor Denholm and George, at the funeral next day, produced on them very opposite effects. The minister, who was naturally of...

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 rod...

On the Saturday evening after the instructions had been given to prepare the new deed of entail, Grippy was thoughtful and silent, and his wife observing how much he was trouble...

The scene in the parlour of Grippy, after the inquiry, was of the most solemn and lugubrious description.--The Leddy sat in the great chair, at the fireside, in all the pomp of...

Leddy Grippy having been, as she herself observed, ‘cheated baith o’ bridal and infare by Charlie’s moonlight marriage,’ was resolved to have all made up to her, and every jovia...

The Leddy having so happily brought her second lawsuit to a victorious issue, and already menacing a third, did not feel that her triumph would be complete, until she had obtain...

The conversation which the Leddy, to do her justice, had, considering her peculiar humour and character, so adroitly managed with the bride’s father, did not tend to produce the...

The triumvirate and Leddy Grippy were disconcerted at the appearance of Mr. Keelevin--for, at that moment, the result of Mr. Threeper’s inquiries among the servants had put them...

Recalled to their senses by the interruption, both Milrookit and his lawyer saw that their interests and characters were too intimately linked in the consequences of the discove...

In the opinion of all the most judicious critics, the Iliad terminated with the death of Hector; but, as Homer has entertained us with the mourning of the Trojans, and the funer...

Between the interview described in the preceding chapter and the funeral, nothing remarkable appeared in the conduct of Claud. On the contrary, those habits of reserve and tacit...

‘Mr. Pitwinnoch,’ said the Leddy, on being shown into what she called ‘the bottomless pit o’ his consulting-room,’ where he wrote alone,--‘ye’ll be surprised to see me, and trot...

The Leddy was seated at her tea-table when young Walkinshaw arrived, and, as on all occasions when she had any intention in her head, she wore an aspect pregnant with importance...

The benevolent lawyer found the old man in his accustomed seat by the fireside. Walter was in the room with him, dressed for church, and dandling his child. At first Mr. Keelevi...

‘Noo, Beenie Walkinshaw,’ said she, ‘I maun put you to the straights o’ a question. Ye’ll no tell me, lassie, that ye hae na flung stoor in your father’s een, after the converse...

The conversations between the Leddy and her grandchildren were not of a kind to keep with her. On Monday morning she sent for her son, and, without explaining to him what had pa...

Mr. Donald Gunn, the worthy Dominie of Wick, who had agreed to act as a guide to Girnigo, was, soon after sunrise, at the door, summoning the party to make ready for the journey...

After the minister and George had left the house, the cares, we should say the enjoyments, of the Leddy were considerably increased, when she had leisure to reflect on the singu...

Mr. Walkinshaw had not left Camrachle many minutes when his nephew appeared. James had in fact returned from Glasgow, while his uncle was in the house, but, seeing the carriage...

‘Really,’ said the Leddy, after Walkinshaw had told her the news, and that only the wetness of the road had prevented his sister and Ellen from coming with him to town,--‘Really...

In furtherance of the arrangement agreed upon, as we have described in the foregoing chapter, as soon as Mr. Keelevin had retired, Claud summoned Walter into the parlour. It hap...

About twenty years after the death of Maudge, Claud returned to Glasgow with five hundred pounds above the world, and settled himself as a cloth-merchant, in a shop under the pi...

At the death of the Laird of Plealands, the Grippy family, as we have already stated, consisted of three sons and a daughter. Charles, the eldest, was, as his father intimated t...

‘Watty, come ben and sit down; I want to hae some solid converse wi’ thee. Dist t’ou hearken to what I’m saying?--Kilmarkeckle has just been wi’ me--Hear’st t’ou me?--deevil an...

Walkinshaw passed a night of ‘restless ecstasy’. Sometimes he reflected on the proposition with all the coolness that the Laird himself could have desired; but still and anon th...

Although Claud had accomplished the great object of all his strivings, and although, from the Divethill, where the little castle of his forefathers once stood, he could contempl...

‘I am come,’ said he, ‘partly to relieve my mind from the weight that oppresses it, arising from an occurrence to which I need not more particularly allude, and partly to vindic...

For several years after the birth of Walter, no event of any consequence happened in the affairs of Claud. He continued to persevere in the parsimonious system which had so far...

On leaving the office of Mr. Keelevin, Charles invited his father and brother to go home with him; but the old man abruptly turned away. Walter, however, appeared inclined to ac...

Next day Walkinshaw found himself constrained, by many motives, to go into Glasgow, in order to thank his uncle for the liberality of his offer, and, in accepting it, to ask par...

Claud Walkinshaw was the sole surviving male heir of the Walkinshaws of Kittlestonheugh. His grandfather, the last Laird of the line, deluded by the golden visions that allured...

During the journey of George and Pitwinnoch to Edinburgh, a Brief of Chancery had been quietly obtained, directing the Sheriff of the county to summon a jury, to examine into th...

Soon after the marriage of Miss Meg, George, the third son, and youngest of the family, was placed in the counting-house of one of the most eminent West Indian merchants at that...

Death, it is said, rarely enters a house without making himself familiar to the inmates. Walter’s daughter, a premature child, had from her birth been always infirm and delicate...

The agitation in which Walkinshaw was at the moment when he encountered Robina, prevented him from being surprised at meeting her, and also from suspecting the cause which had t...

The shock which the delicate frame of Mrs. Walkinshaw of Kittlestonheugh received on hearing of her daughter’s precipitate marriage, and the distress which it seemed to give her...

In the meantime, the fortunes of George, whom we now regard as the third Laird of Grippy, continued to flourish. The estate rose in value, and his mercantile circumstances impro...

On Monday Claud rose early, and, without waiting for breakfast, or heeding the remonstrances of his wife on the risk he ran in going afield fasting, walked to Glasgow, and went...

The sorrow of Walter, after he had returned home, assumed the appearance of a calm and settled melancholy. He sat beside the corpse with his hands folded and his head drooping....

In the meantime, Charles and Isabella had enjoyed a large share of domestic felicity, rendered the more endearingly exquisite by their parental anxiety, for it had pleased Heave...

Before their arrival the news of the loss of Mr. Walkinshaw had reached the city, and Dirdumwhamle and his son were as busy, as heirs and executors could well be, in taking poss...

On the same evening on which George and his family visited Mrs. Charles at Camrachle, and while she was sitting in the manse parlour, Mrs. Eadie received a letter by the post. I...

‘Girzy,’ said the Laird to his daughter, as they entered the dining-room, ‘gae to thy bed and bring a cod for Mr. Walkinshaw, for he’ll no can thole to sit down on our hard chai...

Leddy Grippy was one of those worthy gentlewomen who, without the slightest interest or feeling in any object or purpose with which they happen to be engaged, conceive themselve...

The young couple were a good deal surprised at the unexpected visit of their father and mother; for although they had been led to hope, from the success of the old lady’s missio...

As James approached his fourteenth year, his uncle, still with a view to a union with Robina, proposed, that, when Mr. Eadie thought his education sufficient for the mercantile...

In the meantime, Kittlestonheugh, as, according to the Scottish fashion, we should denominate Squire Walkinshaw, had proceeded to Camrachle, where he arrived at his sister-in-la...

‘Then you do sometimes attempt to interfere?’ said her father, somewhat surprised at the observation, and not suspecting that she had heard one word of what had passed, every sy...

The shipwreck of the third Laird had left an awful impression on the minds of all the Glengael party, who, immediately after that disaster, returned to the castle. To Mrs. Eadie...

When Charles parted from Isabella, he returned thoughtfully towards Grippy, which was situated on the south side of the Clyde, at the foot of the Cathkin hills. His road, after...

‘I hope and trust,’ said Leddy Grippy, as George returned from conducting the lawyer to the door, ‘that ye’ll hae mair compassion for your mother than to be sway’t by the crooke...

For some time after the funeral of Mrs. Walter Walkinshaw, the affairs of the Grippy family ran in a straight and even current. The estrangement of the old man from his first-bo...

In the summer of the year 1793, we have some reason to believe that the rugging and riving times of antiquity were so well over in the north of Scotland, that, not only might an...

Marriage feasts, we are creditably informed, as the Leddy would have said, are of greater antiquity than funerals; and those with which the weddings of Walkinshaw and his sister...

Meanwhile, the disease which had laid Charles prostrate was proceeding with a terrific and devastating fury. Before his mother reached the house, he had lost all sense of himsel...

When Claud first proposed the marriage to Kilmarkeckle, it was intended that the young couple should reside at Plealands; but an opportunity had occurred, in the meantime, for M...

When Claud was duly equipped by Cornelius Luke, in the best fashion of that period, for a bien cloth-merchant of the discreet age of forty-seven, a message was sent by his shop...

In the foregoing chapter we were led, by our regard for the simple affections and harmless character of the second Laird, to overstep a period of several years. We must now, in...

As soon as the nature of the settlement which Claud had made of his property was known, Leddy Plealands removed Mrs. Charles and the children to her own house, and earnestly ent...

The time between the visit to Glasgow and the departure of Walkinshaw for Glengael was the busiest period that had occurred in the annals of Camrachle from the placing of Mr. Ea...

We have often lamented that so many worthy people should be at the expense and trouble of making last wills and testaments, and yet never enjoy what passes at the reading of the...

After Kilmarkeckle had welcomed Grippy and Walter, he began to talk of the hippopotamus, by showing them the outlines of a figure which he intended to fill up with the snuff on...

In the meantime, the Glasgow party on board Allan M’Lean’s pilot-boat was enjoying their sail and sosherie. Enticed by the beauty of the sunny weather, which had preceded the ar...

From the circumstance of Milrookit and Robina staying with the Leddy at the time of their marriage, the porter at the inn, where Pilledge alighted on his arrival at Glasgow, sup...

On the day appointed, the different members of the Grippy family assembled at Kittlestonheugh. Mrs. Charles and her two children were the last that arrived; and during the drive...

When the Leddy returned from the Court to Grippy, Walter, who had in the meantime been somehow informed of the nature of the proceedings instituted against him, said to his moth...

Experience had taught Mrs. Walkinshaw, as it does most married ladies, that when a husband is in one of his moody fits, the best way of reconciling him to the cause of his vexat...

‘It was a happy thing for me, Mr. Pitwinnoch,’ said the Leddy, after being seated in his inner chamber--‘a happy thing, indeed, that I had a father, and sic a father as he was....

There are times in life when every man feels as if his sympathies were extinct. This arises from various causes; sometimes from vicissitudes of fortune; sometimes from the sense...

Immediately after the funeral Claud returned home to Grippy, where he continued during the remainder of the day secluded in his bed-chamber. Next morning, being Sunday, he was u...

As Mr. Eadie found he could not conveniently get away from his parish, and the health of his lady requiring that she should travel by easy stages, it was arranged, after Walkins...

Having accepted the invitation to come with the minister’s family to the wedding, we stopped and took tea at the manse with the Reverend Doctor and Mrs. Denholm,--the young ladi...

The Sabbath morning was calm and clear, and the whole face of Nature fresh and bright. Every thing was animated with glee; and the very flowers, as they looked up in the sunshin...

The Reverend Mr. Kilfuddy was a little, short, erect, sharp-looking, brisk-tempered personage, with a red nose, a white powdered wig, and a large cocked hat. His lady was an amp...

For some time after the decision of Walter’s fatuity, nothing important occurred in the history of the Grippy family. George pacified his own conscience, and gained the approbat...

In the meantime, as much friendliness and intercourse was maintained between the families of Grippy and Plealands as could reasonably be expected from the characters and disposi...

Charles, in due time, was sent to College, and while attending the classes, formed an intimate friendship with a youth of his own age, of the name of Colin Fatherlans, the only...

After taking a stroll round the brow of the hill, Provost Gorbals and his lady approached the spot where Maudge and Claud were sitting. As they drew near, the old woman rose, fo...

The fallacious symptoms in the progress of Charles’s malady, which had deceived his wife and mother, assumed, on the third day, the most alarming appearance. Mr. Keelevin, who,...

Never did Nature show herself better pleased on any festival than on Walter’s wedding-day. The sun shone out as if his very rays were as much made up of gladness as of light. Th...

In the course of the same summer in which we commenced those grammar-school acquirements, that, in after-life, have been so deservedly celebrated, our revered relative, the late...

On the morning after his marriage, Charles was anxious, doubtful, and diffident. His original intention was to go at once to his father, to state what he had done, and to persua...

The result of Mr. Eadie’s reflections was a proposition to Walkinshaw to delay his journey for a day or two, until Mrs. Eadie could be prepared to accompany him; but, when the s...

On examining the Laird’s papers after the funeral, Mr. Keelevin, the father of the celebrated town-clerk of Gudetoun, the lawyer present on the occasion, discovered, in reading...

Plealands House stood on the bleak brow of a hill. It was not of great antiquity, having been raised by the father of Malachi; but it occupied the site of an ancient fortalice,...