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. He made no answer to any question; but as often as he heard the infant’s cry, he looked towards the bed, and said, with an accent of indescribable sadness, ‘My Betty Bodle!’

When the coffin arrived, his mother wished him to leave the room, apprehensive, from the profound grief in which he was plunged, that he might break out into some extravagance of passion, but he refused; and, when it was brought in, he assisted with singular tranquillity in the ceremonial of the coffining. But when the lid was lifted and placed over the body, and the carpenter was preparing to fasten it down for ever, he shuddered for a moment from head to foot; and, raising it with his left hand, he took a last look of the face, removing the veil with his right, and touching the sunken cheek as if he had hoped still to feel some ember of life; but it was cold and stiff.

‘She’s clay noo,’ said he.—‘There’s nane o’ my Betty Bodle here.’

And he turned away with a careless air, as if he had no further interest in the scene. From that moment his artless affections took another direction; he immediately quitted the death-room, and, going to the nursery where the infant lay asleep in the nurse’s lap, he contemplated it for some time, and then, with a cheerful and happy look and tone, said,—‘It’s a wee Betty Bodle; and it’s my Betty Bodle noo.’ And all his time and thoughts were thenceforth devoted to this darling object, in so much that, when the hour of the funeral was near, and he was requested to dress himself to perform the husband’s customary part in the solemnity, he refused, not only to quit the child, but to have any thing to do with the burial.

‘I canna understand,’ said he, ‘what for a’ this fykerie’s about a lump o’ yird? Sho’elt intil a hole, and no fash me.’

‘It’s your wife, my lad,’ replied his mother; ‘ye’ll surely never refuse to carry her head in a gudemanlike manner to the kirk-yard.’

‘Na, na, mother, Betty Bodle’s my wife, yon clod in the black kist is but her auld bodice; and when she flang’t off, she put on this bonny wee new cleiding o’ clay,’ said he, pointing to the baby.

The Leddy, after some further remonstrance, was disconcerted by the pertinacity with which he continued to adhere to his resolution, and went to beg her husband to interfere.

‘Ye’ll hae to gang ben, gudeman,’ said she, ‘and speak to Watty.—I wis the poor thing hasna gane by itsel wi’ a broken heart. He threeps that the body is no his wife’s, and ca’s it a hateral o’ clay and stones, and says we may fling’t, Gude guide us, ayont the midden for him.—We’ll just be affrontit if he’ll no carry the head.’

Claud, who had dressed himself in the morning for the funeral, was sitting in the elbow-chair, on the right side of the chimney-place, with his cheek resting on his hand, and his eyelids dropped, but not entirely shut, and on being thus addressed, he instantly rose, and went to the nursery.

‘What’s t’ou doing there like a hussy-fellow?’ said he. ‘Rise and get on thy mournings, and behave wiselike, and leave the bairn to the women.’

‘It’s my bairn,’ replied Watty, ‘and ye hae naething, father, to do wi’t.—Will I no tak care o’ my ain baby—my bonny wee Betty Bodle?’

‘Do as I bid thee, or I’ll maybe gar thee fin’ the weight o’ my staff,’ cried the old man sharply, expecting immediate obedience to his commands, such as he always found, however positively Walter, on other occasions, at first refused; but in this instance he was disappointed; for the widower looked him steadily in the face, and said,—

‘I’m a father noo; it would be an awfu’ thing for a decent grey-headed man like you, father, to strike the head o’ a motherless family.’

Claud was so strangely affected by the look and accent with which this was expressed, that he stood for some time at a loss what to say, but soon recovering his self-possession, he replied, in a mild and persuasive manner,—

‘The frien’s expek, Watty, that ye’ll attend the burial, and carry the head, as the use and wont is in every weel-doing family.’

‘It’s a thriftless custom, father, and what care I for burial-bread and services o’ wine? They cost siller, father, and I’ll no wrang Betty Bodle for ony sic outlay on her auld yirden garment. Ye may gang, for fashion’s cause, wi’ your weepers and your mourning strings, and lay the black kist i’ the kirk-yard hole, but I’ll no mudge the ba’ o’ my muckle tae in ony sic road.’

‘T’ou’s past remede, I fear,’ replied his father thoughtfully; ‘but, Watty, I hope in this t’ou’ll oblige thy mother and me, and put on thy new black claes;—t’ou kens they’re in a braw fasson,—and come ben and receive the guests in a douce and sober manner. The minister, I’m thinking, will soon be here, and t’ou should be in the way when he comes.’

‘No,’ said Watty, ‘no, do as ye like, and come wha may, it’s a’ ane to me: I’m positeeve.’

The old man, losing all self-command at this extraordinary opposition, exclaimed,—

‘There’s a judgment in this; and, if there’s power in the law o’ Scotland, I’ll gar thee rue sic dourness. Get up, I say, and put on thy mournings, or I’ll hae thee cognost, and sent to bedlam.’

‘I’m sure I look for nae mair at your hands, father,’ replied Walter simply; ‘for my mither has often telt me, when ye hae been sitting sour and sulky in the nook, that ye would na begrudge crowns and pounds to make me compos mentis for the benefit of Charlie.’

Every pulse in the veins of Claud stood still at this stroke, and he staggered, overwhelmed with shame, remorse, and indignation, into a seat.

‘Eh!’ said the Leddy, returning into the room at this juncture, ‘what’s come o’er you, gudeman? Pity me, will he no do your bidding?’

‘Girzy Hypel,’ was the hoarse and emphatic reply, ‘Girzy Hypel, t’ou’s the curse o’ my life; the folly in thee has altered to idiotical depravity in him, and the wrong I did against my ain nature in marrying thee, I maun noo, in my auld age, reap the fruits o’ in sorrow, and shame, and sin.’

‘Here’s composity for a burial!’ exclaimed the Leddy. ‘What’s the matter, Watty Walkinshaw?’

‘My father’s in a passion.’

Claud started from his seat, and, with fury in his eyes, and his hands clenched, rushed across the room towards the spot where Walter was sitting, watching the infant in the nurse’s lap. In the same moment, the affectionate natural also sprang forward, and placed himself in an attitude to protect the child. The fierce old man was confounded, and turning round hastily, quitted the room, wringing his hands, unable any longer to master the conflicting feelings which warred so wildly in his bosom.

‘This is a pretty-like house o’ mourning,’ said the Leddy; ‘a father and a son fighting, and a dead body waiting to be ta’en to the kirk-yard. O Watty Walkinshaw! Watty Walkinshaw! many a sore heart ye hae gi’en your parents,—will ye ne’er divaul till ye hae brought our grey hairs wi’ sorrow to the grave? There’s your poor father flown demented, and a’ the comfort in his cup and mine gane like water spilt on the ground. Many a happy day we hae had, till this condumacity o’ thine grew to sic a head. But tak your ain way o’t. Do as ye like. Let strangers carry your wife to the kirk-yard, and see what ye’ll mak o’t.’

But notwithstanding all these, and many more equally persuasive and commanding arguments, Walter was not to be moved, and the funeral, in consequence, was obliged to be performed without him. Yet still, though thus tortured in his feelings, the stern old man inflexibly adhered to his purpose. The entail which he had executed was still with him held irrevocable; and, indeed, it had been so framed, that, unless he rendered himself insolvent, it could not be set aside.