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 subject was mentioned to her, she declared the most decided determination not to trouble the tide of his fortune by any interposition of hers which had been full of disappointments and sorrows. From whatever sentiment this feeling arose, it was undoubtedly dictated by magnanimity; for it implied a sense of sacrifice on her part; nevertheless, it was arranged, that, although Walkinshaw should set out at the time originally fixed, Mrs. Eadie, accompanied by Ellen Frazer, should follow him to Glengael as soon after as possible.

To the lovers this was no doubt delightful; but, when the Laird of Kittlestonheugh heard of it in Glasgow, it disturbed him exceedingly. The departure of Ellen Frazer from Camrachle to Glengael, where his nephew was for a time to fix his head-quarters, was an occurrence that he had not contemplated, and still less, if any degree can exist in an absolute negative, that the minister’s insane wife should accompany her.

A circumstance, however, occurred at the time, which tended materially to diminish his anxieties: A number of gentlemen belonging to the royal city had projected a sea excursion in Allan M’Lean’s pilot-boat, and one of the party proposed to Kittlestonheugh that he should be of their party—for they were all friends, and sympathized, of course, with the most heartfelt commiseration, for the loss he had sustained in his wife, who had been nearly twenty years almost as much dead as alive, and particularly in the grief he suffered by the injudicious marriage of his daughter. George, with his habitual suavity, accepted the invitation; and on the selfsame day that our friend and personal acquaintance Walkinshaw set off in the coach from the classical and manufacturing town (as we believe Gibbon the historian yclyped the royal city) for the soi-disant intellectual metropolis and modern Athens of Edinburgh, his uncle embarked at the stair of the west quay of Greenock.

What stores were laid in by those Glasgow Argonautics—what baskets of limes, what hampers of wine and rum, and loaves of sugar, and cheese and bacon hams, with a modicum of biscuit,—we must leave for some more circumstantial historian to describe. Sufficient for us, and for all acquainted with the munificent consideration of the Glottiani for themselves, is the fact, that seven of the primest magnates of the royal city embarked together to enjoy the sea air, and the appetite consequent thereon, in one of the best sailing and best navigated schooners at that time on the west of Scotland. Whether any of them, in the course of the voyage, suffered the affliction of sea-sickness, we have never heard; but from our own opinion, believing the thing probable, we shall not enter into any controversy on the subject. There was, to be sure, some rumour shortly after, that, off Ailsa, they did suffer from one kind of malady or another; but whether from eating of that delicious encourager of appetite, solan goose—the most savoury product of the rocky pyramid—or from a stomachique inability to withstand the tossings of the sea, we have never received any satisfactory explanation. Be this, however, as it may, no jovial, free-hearted, good kind of men, ever enjoyed themselves better than the party aboard the pilot boat.

They traversed the picturesque Kyles of Bute—coasted the shores of Cantyre—touched at the beautiful port of Campbelton—doubled the cliffy promontory—passed Gigha—left Isla on the left—navigated the sound of Jura—prudently kept along the romantic coast of Lorn and Appin—sailed through the sound of Mull—drank whisky at Rum—and, afraid of the beds and bowls of the hospitable Skye, cast anchor in Garelock. What more they did, and where they farther navigated the iron shores and tusky rocks of the headlands, that grin in unsatiated hunger upon the waves and restless waters of the Minch, we shall not here pause to describe. Let it be enough that they were courageously resolved to double Cape Wrath, and to enjoy the midnight twilights, and the smuggled gin of Kirkwall;—the aurora borealis of the hyperborean region, with the fresh ling of Tamy Tomson’s cobble boat at Hoy, and the silvery glimpses of Ursa Major; together with the tasty whilks and lampets that Widow Calder o’ the Foul Anchor at Stromness, assured her customers in all her English—were pickled to a concupiscable state of excellence. Our immediate duty is to follow the steps of the Laird’s nephew; and without entering upon any unnecessary details,—our readers, we trust, have remarked, that we entertain a most commendable abhorrence of all circumstantiality,—we shall allow Allan M’Lean and his passengers to go where it pleased themselves, while we return to Camrachle; not that we have much more to say respecting what passed there, than that Walkinshaw, as had been previously arranged, set out alone for Glengael Castle, in Inverness-shire; the parting from his mother and sister being considerably alleviated by the reflection, that Ellen Frazer, in attendance on Mrs. Eadie, was soon to follow him. Why this should have given him any particular pleasure, we cannot understand; but, as the young man, to speak prosaically, was in love, possibly there are some juvenile persons capable of entering into his feelings. Not, however, knowing, of our own knowledge, what is meant by the phrase—we must just thus simply advert to the fact; expressing, at the same time, a most philosophical curiosity to be informed what it means, and why it is that young gentlemen and ladies, in their teens, should be more liable to the calamity than personages of greater erudition in the practices of the world.