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 obtained the plaudits of the world; and the first person on whom she resolved to levy her exactions of applause was naturally enough the mother of Walkinshaw.

As soon as Pitwinnoch had left the house, she persuaded Milrookit to send the carriage for Mrs. Charles, with injunctions to the coachman not to say a word of what had passed, as she intended herself to have the pleasure of communicating the glad tidings. This he very readily agreed to; for, notwithstanding the grudge which he felt at having been so simply mulcted of so large a sum, he really felt his mind relieved by the result of the discovery; perhaps, in complying, he had some sinister view towards the Leddy’s good-will—some distant vista of his thousand pounds.

Mrs. Charles was a good deal surprised at the message to come immediately to Kittlestonheugh; and her timid and gentle spirit, in consequence of learning from the coachman that the old lady was there, anticipated some disaster to her son. Her fears fluttered as she drove on alone. The broad dark shadows that had crossed the path of her past pilgrimage were remembered with melancholy forebodings, and the twilight of the evening having almost faded into night, she caught gloomy presentiments from the time, and sighed that there was no end to her sorrows.

The season was now advanced into September; and though the air was clear, the darkness of the road, the silence of the fields, and the occasional glimmers of the fire that the horses’ hoofs struck from the stones, awakened associations of doubt, anxiety, and danger; but the serene magnificence of the starry heavens inspired hope, and the all-encompassing sky seemed to her the universal wings of Providence, vigilant and protecting with innumerable millions of eyes.

Still the devotional enthusiasm of that fancy was but a transient glow on the habitual pale cast of her thoughts; and she saw before her, in the remainder of her mortal journey, only a continuance of the same road which she had long travelled—a narrow and a difficult track across a sterile waste, harsh with brambles, and bleak and lonely.

So is it often, under the eclipse of fortune, even with the bravest spirits; forgetting how suddenly before, in the darkest hour, the views of life have changed, they yield to the aspect of the moment, and breathe the mean and peevish complaints of faithlessness and despondency. Let it not, therefore, be imputed as an unworthy weakness, that a delicate and lowly widow, whose constant experience had been an unbroken succession of disappointments and humiliations, should, in such an hour, and shrinking with the sensibilities of a mother, wonder almost to sinning why she had been made to suffer such a constancy of griefs. But the midnight of her fate was now past, and the dawn was soon to open upon her with all its festal attributes of a bright and joyous morning—though our friend the Leddy was not so brisk in communicating the change as we could have wished.

She was sitting alone in the parlour when the carriage returned; and as the trembling mother was shown into the room, she received her with the most lugubrious face that her features could assume.

‘Come awa’, Bell Fatherlans,’ said she, ‘come away, and sit down. O this is a most uncertain world—nothing in it has stability;—the winds blow—the waters run—the grass grows—the snow falls—the day flieth away unto the uttermost parts of the sea, and the night hideth her head in the morning cloud, and perisheth for evermore. Many a lesson we get—many a warning to set our thoughts on things above; but we’re ay sinking, sinking, sinking, as the sparks fly upward.—Bell, Bell, we’re a’ like thorns crackling under a kail-pot.’

‘What has occurred?’ exclaimed Mrs. Charles; ‘I beg you’ll tell me at once.’

‘So I will, when I hae solaced you into a religious frame o’ mind to hear me wi’ a Christian composity o’ temper; for what I maun tell is, though I say’t mysel, a something.’

‘For goodness and mercy, I entreat you to proceed.—Where is Mr. Milrookit? where is Robina?’

‘Ye need na hope to see muckle o’ them the night,’ replied the Leddy. ‘Poor folk, they hae gotten their hands filled wi’ cares. O Bell, Bell—when I think o’t—it’s a judgement—it’s a judgement, Bell Fatherlans, aboon the capacity o’ man! Really, when I consider how I hae been directit—and a’ by my own skill, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding—it’s past a’ comprehension. What would my worthy father hae said had he lived to see the day that his dochter won sic a braw estate by her ain interlocutors?—and what would your gudefather hae said, when he was ay brag bragging o’ the conquest he had made o’ the Kittlestonheugh o’ his ancestors—the whilk took him a lifetime to do—had he seen me, just wi’ a single whisk o’ dexterity, a bit touch of the law, make the vera same conquest for your son Jamie Walkinshaw in less than twa hours?’

‘You astonish me! to what do you allude? I am amazed, and beginning to be confounded,’ said Mrs. Charles.

‘Indeed it is no wonder,’ replied the Leddy; ‘for wha would hae thought it, that I, an aged ’literate grandmother, would hae bamboozlet an Embrough Writer to the Signet on a nice point, and found out the ground of an action for damages against that tod o’ a bodie Pitwinnoch, for intromitting wi’ ane of the four pleas o’ the Crown? Had I kent what I ken now, uncle Watty might still hae been to the fore, and in the full possession of his seven lawful senses—for, woman as I am, I would hae been my own man o’ business, counsel, and executioner, in the concos mentos sederunt—whereby I was so ’frauded o’ my rightful hope and expectation. But Pitwinnoch will soon fin’ the weight o’ the lion’s paw that his doobileecity has roused in me.’

Mrs. Charles, who was much amused by the exultation with which the Leddy had recounted her exploits in the bed and board plea, perceiving that some new triumph equally improbable had occurred, felt her anxieties subside into curiosity; and being now tolerably mistress of her feelings, she again inquired what had happened.

‘I’ll tell you,’ said the Leddy; ‘and surely it’s right and proper you his mother should know, that, through my implementing, it has been discovered that your son is an heir-male according to law!’

‘No possible!’ exclaimed the delighted mother, the whole truth flashing at once on her mind.

‘Aye, that’s just as I might hae expectit—a prophet ne’er got honour in his own country; and so a’ the thank I’m to get for my pains is a no possible!’ said the Leddy offended, mistaking the meaning of the interjection. ‘But it is a true possible; and Milrookit has consentit to adjudicate the estate—so ye see how ye’re raised to pride and affluence by my instrumentality. Firstly, by the bed and board plea, I found a mean to revisidend your ’nuity; and secondly, I hae found the libel proven, that Beenie, being a dochter, is an heir-female, and is, by course of law, obligated to renounce the estate.’

‘This is most extraordinary news, indeed,’ rejoined Mrs. Charles, ‘after for so many years believing my poor children so destitute;’ and a flood of tears happily came to her relief.

‘But, Bell Fatherlans,’ resumed the Leddy, ‘I’ll tak you wi’ the tear in your ee, as both you and Jamie maun be sensible, that, but for my discerning, this great thing never could hae been brought to a come-to-pass. I hope ye’ll confabble thegither anent the loss I sustained by what happened to uncle Watty, and mak me a reasonable compensation out o’ the rents; the whilk are noo, as I am creditably informed, better than fifteen hundred pounds per anno Domini, that’s the legality for the year o’ our Lord;—a sma’ matter will be a great satisfaction.’

‘Indeed,’ said Mrs. Charles, ‘James owes you much; and your kindness in giving him the bill so generously, I know, has made a very deep impression on his heart.’

‘He was ay a blithe and kindly creature,’ exclaimed the Leddy, wiping her eye, as if a tear had actually shot into it—‘and may be it winna fare the waur wi’ him when I’m dead and gone. For I’ll let you into a secret—it’s my purpose to mak a last will and testament, and cut off Milrookit wi’ a shilling, for his horridable niggerality about the bed and board concern. Na, for that matter, as ye’ll can fen noo without ony ’nuity, but your ain son’s affection, I hae a great mind, and I’ll do’t too—that’s what I will—for fear I should be wheedled into an adversary by my dochter Meg for the Milrookits,—I’ll gie the thousand pound heritable bond to your Mary for a tocher; is not that most genteel of me? I doot few families hae had a grandmother for their ancestor like yours.’

Some further conversation to the same effect was continued, and the injustice which Milrookit had attempted seemed to Mrs. Charles considerably extenuated by the readiness with which he had acknowledged the rights of her son. For, notwithstanding all the Leddy’s triumphant oratory and legal phraseology, she had no difficulty in perceiving the true circumstances of the case.