The Entail

‘Walter,’ said she, ‘I would not advise you to go near the house while the two lawyers are there, – for who knows what they may do to you? But go as fast as ye can to Glasgow, and tell Mr. Keelevin what has happened; and say that I have some reason to fear it’s a visit that bodes you no good, and therefore ye’ll stand in need of his advice and assistance.’

The natural, who had an instinctive horror of the law, made no reply, but, with a strong expression of terror in his countenance, immediately left her, and went straight to Glasgow.

CHAPTER LIII

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 the alleged fatuity of Walter; and the visit of the latter with Mr. Threeper, the advocate, to Grippy, was to meet George, for the purpose of determining with respect to the evidence that it might be requisite to adduce before the inquest. All this was conducted, as it was intended to appear, in a spirit of the greatest delicacy towards the unfortunate fatuus, consistent with the administration of public justice.

‘I can assure you,’ said our friend Gabriel to Mr. Threeper, as they walked towards the house – the advocate perusing the ground as he poked his way along with his cane, and occasionally taking snuff; ‘I can assure you, that nothing but the most imperious necessity could have induced Mr. George Walkinshaw to institute these proceedings; for he is a gentleman of the utmost respectability; and to my knowledge has been long and often urged in vain to get his brother cognost; but, until the idiot’s conduct became so intolerable, that his mother could no longer endure it, he was quite inexorable.’

‘Is Mr. George in affluent circumstances?’ said the advocate, dryly.

‘He is but a young man; the house, however, in which he is a partner is one of the most flourishing in Glasgow,’ was the answer.

‘He has, perhaps, a large family?’

‘O dear no; only one daughter; and his wife,’ said Gabriel, ‘is, I understand, not likely to have any more.’

‘She may, however, have sons, Pitwinnoch,’ rejoined the advocate, wittily – at the same time taking snuff. ‘But you say it is the mother that has chiefly incited Mr. Walkinshaw to this action.’

‘So he told me,’ replied the writer.

‘Her evidence will be most important; for it is not natural that a mother would urge a process of such a nature, without very strong grounds indeed, unless she has some immediate or distinct prospective interest in the result. Have you any idea that such is the case?’

‘I should think not,’ said Gabriel.

‘Do you imagine that such allowance as the Court might grant for the custody of the fatuus would have any influence with her?’ inquired Mr. Threeper, without raising his eyes from the road.

‘I have always understood,’ was the reply, ‘that she is in the possession, not only of a handsome jointure, but of a considerable provision, specially disponed to her by the will of old Plealands, her father.’

‘Ah! was she the daughter of old Plealands?’ said the advocate. ‘It was in a cause of his that I was first retained. He had the spirit of litigation in a very zealous degree.’

In this manner the two redressers of wrongs chattingly proceeded towards Grippy, by appointment, to meet George; and they arrived, as we have related in the foregoing chapter, a few minutes before he made his appearance.

In the meantime, Watty hastened with rapid steps, goaded by a mysterious apprehension of some impending danger, to the counting-house of Mr. Keelevin, whom he found at his desk.

‘Weel, Mr. Walter,’ said the honest writer, looking up from a deed he was perusing, somewhat surprised at seeing him – ‘What’s the best o’ your news the day, and what’s brought you frae Grippy?’

‘Mr. Keelevin,’ replied Walter, going towards him on tiptoe, and whispering audibly in his ear, ‘I’ll tell you something, Mr. Keelevin: – twa gleds o’ the law hae lighted yonder; and ye ken, by your ain ways, that the likes o’ them dinna flee afield for naething.’

‘No possible!’ exclaimed Mr. Keelevin; and the recollection of his interview with George and the Leddy flashing upon him at the moment, he at once divined the object of their visit; and added, ‘It’s most abominable; – but ken ye what they’re seeking, Mr. Walter?’

‘No,’ said he. ‘But Bell Fatherlans bade me come and tell you; for she thought I might need your counsel.’

‘She has acted a true friend’s part; and I’m glad ye’re come,’ replied the lawyer; ‘and for her and her bairns’ sake, I hope we’ll be able to defeat their plots and devices. But I would advise you, Mr. Walter, to keep out o’ harm’s way, and no gang in the gate o’ the gleds, as ye ca’ them.’

‘Hae ye ony ark or amrie, Mr. Keelevin, where a body might den himsel till they’re out o’ the gate and away?’ cried Walter timidly, and looking anxiously round the room.

‘Ye should na speak sic havers, Mr. Walter, but conduct yourself mair like a man,’ said his legal friend grievedly. ‘Indeed, Mr. Walter, as I hae some notion that they’re come to tak down your words – may be to spy your conduct, and mak nae gude report thereon to their superiors – tak my advice, and speak as little as possible.’

‘I’ll no say ae word – I’ll be a dumbie – I’ll sit as quiet as ony ane o’ the images afore Bailie Glasford’s house at the head o’ the Stockwell. King William himsel, on his bell-metal horse at the Cross, is a popular preacher, Mr. Keelevin, compared to what I’ll be.’

The simplicity and sincerity with which this was said moved the kind-hearted lawyer at once to smile and sigh.

‘There will, I hope, Mr. Walter,’ said he, ‘be no occasion to put any restraint like that upon yoursel; only it’s my advice to you as a friend, to enter into no conversation with any one you do not well know, and to dress in your best clothes, and shave yoursel, – and in a’ things demean and deport yoursel, like the laird o’ Kittlestonheugh, and the representative of an ancient and respected family.’

‘Oh, I can easily do that,’ replied the natural; ‘and I’ll tak my father’s ivory-headed cane, with the golden virl, and the silver e’e for a tassel, frae ahint the scrutoire, where it has ay stood since his death, and walk up and down the front of the house like a Glasgow magistrate.’

‘For the love o’ Heaven, Mr. Walter,’ exclaimed the lawyer, ‘do nae sic mad-like action! The like o’ that is a’ they want.’

‘In whatna other way, then,’ said Walter helplessly, ‘can I behave like a gentleman, or a laird o’ yird and stane, wi’ the retinue o’ an ancient pedigree like my father’s Walkinshaws o’ Kittlestonheugh?’

‘’Deed,’ said Mr. Keelevin compassionately, ‘I’m wae to say’t – but I doot, I doot, it’s past the compass o’ my power to advise you.’

‘I’m sure,’ exclaimed Walter despairingly, ‘that the Maker was ill aff for a turn when he took to the creating o’ lawyers. The deils are but prentice work compared to them. I dinna ken what to do, Mr. Keelevin – I wish that I was dead, but I’m no like to dee, as Jenny says in her wally-wae about her father’s cow and auld Robin Gray.’

‘Mr. Walter,’ said his friend, after a pause of several minutes, ‘go you to Mrs. Hypel, your grandmother, for the present, and I’ll out to Grippy, and sift the meaning o’ this visitation. When I have gathered what it means, we’ll hae the better notion in what way we ought to fight with the foe.’

‘I’ll smash them like a forehammer,’ exclaimed Walter, proudly. ‘I’ll stand ahint a dike, and gie them a belter wi’ stanes, till I hae na left the souls in their bodies – that’s what I will, – if ye approve o’t, Mr. Keelevin.’

‘Weel, weel, Mr. Walter,’ was the chagrined and grieved reply, ‘we’ll see to that when I return; but it’s a terrible thing to think o’ proving a man non compos mentis for the only sensible action he ever did in all his life. Nevertheless, I will not let myself despond; and I have only for the present to exhort you to get yoursel in an order and fitness to appear as ye ought to be; – for really, Mr. Walter, ye alloo yoursel to gang sae like a divor, that I dinna wonder ye hae been ta’en notice o’. So I counsel you to mak yoursel trig, and no to play ony antics.’

Walter assured him, that his advice would in every respect be followed; and, leaving the office, he went straight to the residence of his grandmother, while Mr. Keelevin, actuated at once by his humanity and professional duty, ordered his horse, and reached Grippy just as the advocate, Mr. Pitwinnoch, and George, were on the point of coming away, after waiting in vain for the return of Walter, whom Mr. Threeper was desirous of conversing with personally.

CHAPTER LIV

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 all in the most agreeable and unanimous opinion with respect to the undoubted certainty of poor Watty’s fatuity. – ‘We have just to walk over the course,’ the advocate was saying; when George, happening to glance his eye towards the window, beheld the benevolent lawyer coming up the avenue.

‘Good Heavens!’ said he, ‘what can that old pest, Keelevin, want here?’

‘Keelevin!’ exclaimed the Leddy, – ‘that’s a miracle to me. I think, gentlemen,’ she added, ‘ye had as weel gang away by the back door – for ye would na like, maybe, to be fashed wi’ his confabbles. He’s no a man, or I’m far mista’en, that kens muckle about the prejinketties o’ the law, though he got the poor daft creature harl’t through the difficulties o’ the plea wi’ my cousin Gilhaise, the Mauchlin maltster. I’m very sure, Mr. Threeper, he’s no an acquaintance ye would like to cultivate, for he has na the talons o’ an advocate versed in the devices o’ the courts, but is a quirkie bodie, capable o’ making law no law at a’, according to the best o’ my discernment, which, to be sure, in matters o’ locutories and decreets, is but that o’ a hamely household woman, so I would advise you to eschew his company at this present time.’

Mr. Threeper, however, saw further into the lady’s bosom than she suspected; and as it is never contrary, either to the interest of advocate or agent, to avoid having causes contested, especially when there is, as was in this case, substance enough to support a long and zealous litigation, that gentleman said, —

‘Then Mr. Keelevin is the agent who was employed in the former action?’

‘Just sae,’ resumed the Leddy, ‘and ye ken he could na, wi’ ony regard to himsel, be art and part on this occasion.’

‘Ah, but, madam,’ replied the advocate, earnestly, ‘he may be agent for the fatuus. It is, therefore, highly proper we should set out with a right understanding respecting that point; for, if the allegations are to be controverted, it is impossible to foresee what obstacles may be raised, although, in my opinion, from the evidence I have heard, there is no doubt that the fatuity of your son is a fact which cannot fail to be in the end substantiated. Don’t you think, Mr. Pitwinnoch, that we had as well see Mr. Keelevin?’

‘Certainly,’ said Gabriel. ‘And, indeed, considering that, by the brief to the Sheriff, the Laird is a party, perhaps even though Mr. Keelevin should not have been employed, it would be but fair, and look well towards the world, were he instructed to take up this case on behalf of the fatuus. What say you, Mr. Walkinshaw?’

George did not well know what to say, but he replied, that, for many reasons, he was desirous the whole affair should be managed as privately as possible. ‘If, however, the forms of the procedure require that an agent should act for Walter, I have no objection; at the same time, I do not think Mr. Keelevin the fittest person.’

‘Heavens and earth!’ exclaimed the Leddy, ‘here’s a respondenting and a hearing, and the Lord Ordinary and a’ the fifteen Lords frae Embro’ come to herry us out o’ house and hall. Gentlemen, an ye’ll tak my advice, who, in my worthy father’s time, had some inkling o’ what the cost o’ law pleas are, ye’ll hae naething to do wi’ either Keelevin, Gardevine, or ony other Vines in the shape o’ pro forma agents; but settle the business wi’ the Sheriff in a douce and discreet manner.’

Mr. Threeper, looking towards Mr. Pitwinnoch and George, rapped his ivory snuff-box, rimmed and garnished with gold, and smiling, took a pinch as Mr. Keelevin was shown into the room.

‘Mr. George,’ said Mr. Keelevin, sedately, after being seated; ‘I am not come here to ask needless questions, but as Man of Business for your brother, it will be necessary to serve me with the proper notices as to what you intend.’

Mr. Threeper again had recourse to his box, and Gabriel looked inquiringly at his client – who could with difficulty conceal his confusion, while the old lady, who had much more presence of mind, said, —

‘May I be sae bold, Mr. Keelevin, as to speer wha sent you here, at this time?’

‘I came at Mr. Walter’s own particular and personal request,’ was the reply; and he turned at the same time towards the advocate, and added, ‘That does not look very like fatuity.’

‘He never could hae done that o’ his own free will. I should na wonder if the interloper, Bell Fatherlans, sent him – but I’ll soon get to the bottom o’t,’ exclaimed the Leddy, and she immediately left the room in quest of Mrs. Charles, to inquire. During her absence, Mr. Keelevin resumed, —

‘It is not to be contested, Mr. Threeper,’ for he knew the person of the advocate, ‘that the Laird is a man o’ singularities and oddities – we a’ hae our foibles; but he got a gude education, and his schoolmaster bore testimony on a former occasion to his capacity; and if it can be shown that he does not manage his estate so advantageously as he might do, surely that can never be objected against him, when we every day see so many o’ the wisest o’ our lairds, and lords, and country gentry, falling to pigs and whistles, frae even-doun inattention or prodigality. I think it will be no easy thing to prove Mr. Walter incapable o’ managing his own affairs, with his mother’s assistance.’

‘Ah! Mr. Keelevin, with his mother’s assistance!’ exclaimed the acute Mr. Threeper. ‘It’s time that he were out of leading-strings, and able to take care of himself, without his mother’s assistance – if he’s ever likely to do so.’

At this crisis, the Leddy returned into the room flushed with anger. ‘It’s just as I jealoused,’ cried she; ‘it’s a’ the wark o’ my gude-dochter – it was her that sent him; black was the day she e’er came to stay here; many a sore heart in the watches o’ the night hae I had sin syne, for my poor weak misled lad; for if he were left to the freedom o’ his own will, he would na stand on stepping stanes, but, without scrupulosity, would send me, his mother, to crack sand, or mak my leaving where I could, after wastering a’ my jointure.’

This speech made a strong impression on the minds of all the lawyers present. Mr. Keelevin treasured it up, and said nothing. Our friend Gabriel glanced the tail of his eye at the advocate, who, without affecting to have noticed the interested motive which the Leddy had betrayed, said to Mr. Keelevin, —

‘The case, sir, cannot but go before a jury; for, although the fatuus be of a capacity to repeat any injunction which he may have received, and which is not inconsistent with a high degree of fatuity – it does not therefore follow that he is able to originate such motions or volitions of the mind as are requisite to constitute what may be denominated a legal modicum of understanding, the possession of which in Mr. Walter Walkinshaw is the object of the proposed inquiry to determine.’

‘Very well, gentlemen, since such is the case,’ replied Mr. Keelevin, rising, ‘as I have undertaken the cause, it is unnecessary for us to hold any further conversation on the subject. I shall be prepared to protect my client.’

With these words he left the room, in some hope that possibly they might induce George still to stay proceedings. But the cupidity of George’s own breast, the views and arguments of his counsel, and the animosity of his mother, all co-operated to weaken their effect; so that, in the course of as short a time as the forms of the judicature permitted, a jury was empannelled before the Sheriff, according to the tenor of the special brief of Chancery which had been procured for the purpose, and evidence as to the state of poor Watty’s understanding and capacity regularly examined; – some account of which we shall proceed to lay before our readers, premising that Mr. Threeper opened the business in a speech replete with eloquence and ingenuity, and all that metaphysical refinement for which the Scottish bar was then, as at present, so justly celebrated. Nothing, indeed, could be more subtile, or less applicable to the coarse and daily tear and wear of human concerns, than his definition of what constituted ‘the minimum of understanding, or of reason, or of mental faculty in general, which the law, in its wisdom, required to be enjoyed by every individual claiming to exercise the functions that belong to man, as a subject, a citizen, a husband, a father, a master, a servant, – in one word, to enable him to execute those different essential duties, which every gentleman of the jury so well knew, and so laudably, so respectably, and so meritoriously performed.’ – But we regret that our limits do not allow us to enter upon the subject; and the more so, as it could not fail to prove highly interesting to our fair readers, in whose opinion the eloquence of the Parliament House of Edinburgh, no doubt, possesses many charming touches of sentiment, and amiable pathetic graces.

CHAPTER LV

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 readers will perhaps recollect, contrived so femininely to seduce half-a-crown from the pocket of the old man, when she brought him the news of the birth of his son’s twin daughters.

‘What is your opinion of Mr. Walter Walkinshaw?’ inquired Mr. Threeper.

‘’Deed, sir,’ said Jenny, ‘I hae but a sma’ opinion o’ him – he’s a daft man, and has been sae a’ his days.’

‘But what do you mean by a daft man?’

‘I thought every body kent what a daft man is,’ replied Jenny; ‘he’s just silly, and tavert, and heedless, and o’ an inclination to swattle in the dirt like a grumphie.’

‘Well, but do you mean to say,’ interrupted the advocate, ‘that, to your knowledge, he has been daft all his days?’

‘I never kent him ony better.’

‘But you have not known him all his days – therefore, how can you say he has been daft all his days? – He might have been wise enough when you did not know him.’

‘I dinna think it,’ said Jenny; – ‘I dinna think it was ever in him to be wise – he’s no o’ a nature to be wise.’

‘What do you mean by a nature? – Explain yourself.’

‘I canna explain mysel ony better,’ was the answer; ‘only I ken that a cat’s no a dog, nor o’ a nature to be, – and so the Laird could ne’er be a man o’ sense.’

‘Very ingenious, indeed,’ said Mr. Threeper; ‘and I am sure the gentlemen of the jury must be satisfied that it is not possible to give a clearer – a more distinctive impression of the deficiency of Mr. Walkinshaw’s capacity, than has been given by this simple and innocent country girl. – But, Jenny, can you tell us of any instance of his daftness?’

‘I can tell you o’ naething but the sic-like about him.’

‘Cannot you remember any thing he said or did on any particular day?’

‘O aye, atweel I wat I can do that – on the vera day when I gaed hame, frae my service at the Grippy to Mr. George’s, the sheep were sheared, and Mr. Watty said they were made sae naked, it was a shame to see them, and took one o’ his mother’s flannen polonies, to mak a hap to Mall Loup-the-Dike, the auld ewe, for decency.’

Jenny was then cross-questioned by Mr. Queerie, the able and intelligent advocate employed for the defence by Mr. Keelevin; but her evidence was none shaken, nor did it appear that her master had in any way influenced her. Before she left the box, the Sheriff said jocularly, —

‘I’m sure, from your account, Jenny, that Mr. Walkinshaw’s no a man ye would like to marry?’

‘There’s no saying,’ replied Jenny, – ‘the Kittlestonheugh’s a braw estate; and mony a better born than me has been blithe to put up wi’ houses and lan’s, though wit and worth were baith wanting.’

The first witness thus came off with considerable eclat, and indeed gained the love and affections, it is said, of one of the jurors, an old bien carle, a bonnet-laird, to whom she was, in the course of a short time after, married.

The next witness was Mr. Mordecai Saxheere, preses and founder of that renowned focus of sosherie the Yarn Club, which held its periodical libations of the vintage of the colonies in the buxom Widow Sheid’s tavern, in Sour-Milk John’s Land, a stately pile that still lifts its lofty head in the Trongate. He was an elderly, trim, smooth, Quaker-faced gentleman, dressed in drab, with spacious buckram-lined skirts, that came round on his knees, giving to the general outline of his figure the appearance of a cone supported on legs in white worsted hose. He wore a highly powdered horse-hair wig, with a long queue; buckles at the knees and in his shoes, presenting, in the collective attributes of his dress and appearance, a respect-bespeaking epitome of competency, good-eating, honesty, and self-conceit. He was one of several gentlemen whom the long-forecasting George had carried with him to Grippy on those occasions when he was desirous to provide witnesses, to be available when the era should arrive that had now come to pass.

‘Well, Mr. Saxheere,’ said the Edinburgh advocate, ‘what have you to say with respect to the state of Mr. Walter Walkinshaw?’

‘Sir,’ replied the preses of the Yarn Club, giving that sort of congratulatory smack with which he was in the practice of swallowing and sending round the dram that crowned the substantials, and was herald to what were called the liquidities of the club, – ‘Sir,’ said Mordecai Saxheere, ‘I have been in no terms of intromission with Mr. Walkinshaw of Grippy, ’cept and except in the way of visitation; and on those occasions I always found him of a demeanour more sportive to others than congenial.’

‘You are a merchant, I believe, Mr. Saxheere,’ said Mr. Threeper; ‘you have your shop in the High Street, near the Cross. On the market day you keep a bottle of whisky and a glass on the counter, from which, as I understand, you are in the practice of giving your customers a dram – first preeing or smelling the liquor yourself, and then handing it to them. – Now, I would ask you, if Mr. Walkinshaw were to come to your shop on the market day, would you deal with him? – would you, on your oath, smell the glass, and then hand it across the counter, to be by him drunk off?’

The advocate intended this as a display of his intimate knowledge of the local habits and usages of Glasgow, though himself but an Edinburgh man, – in order to amaze the natives by his cleverness.

‘Sir,’ replied Mr. Saxheere, again repeating his habitual congratulatory smack, ‘much would rely on the purpose for which he came to custom. If he offered me yarn for sale, there could be no opponency on my side to give him the fair price of the day; but, if he wanted to buy, I might undergo some constipation of thought before compliance.’

‘The doubtful credit of any wiser person might produce the same astringency,’ said the advocate, slyly.

‘No doubt it would,’ replied the preses of the Yarn Club; ‘but the predicament of the Laird of Grippy would na be under that denominator, but because I would have a suspection of him in the way of judgement and sensibility.’

‘Then he is not a man that you would think it safe to trade with as a customer?’ said the Sheriff, desirous of putting an end to his prosing.

‘Just so, sir,’ replied Mordecai; ‘for, though it might be safe in the way of advantage, I could not think myself, in the way of character, free from an imputation, were I to intromit with him.’

It was not deemed expedient to cross-question this witness; and another was called, a celebrated Professor of Mathematics in the University, the founder and preses of a club, called the ‘Anderson Summer Saturday’s.’ The scientific attainments and abstract genius of this distinguished person were undisputed; but his simplicity of character and absence of mind were no less remarkable. The object that George probably had in view in taking him, as an occasional visitor, to see his brother, was, perhaps, to qualify the Professor to bear testimony to the arithmetical incapacity of Walter; and certainly the Professor had always found him sufficiently incapable to have warranted him to give the most decisive evidence on that head; but a circumstance had occurred at the last visit, which came out in the course of the investigation, by which it would appear the opinion of the learned mathematician was greatly shaken.