The conjugal felicities of Walter afforded, however, but little pleasure to his father. The obstreperous humours of his daughter-in-law jarred with his sedate dispositions, and in her fun and freaks she so loudly showed her thorough knowledge of her husband’s defective intellects, that it for ever reminded him of the probable indignation with which the world would one day hear of the injustice he had done to Charles. The effect of this gradually led him to shun the society of his own family, and having neither from nature nor habit any inclination for general company, he became solitary and morose. He only visited Glasgow once a week, on Wednesday, and generally sat about an hour in the shop, in his old elbow-chair, in the corner; and, saving a few questions relative to the business, he abstained from conversing with his son. It would seem, however, that, under this sullen taciturnity, the love which he had once cherished for Charles still tugged at his heart; for, happening to come into the shop, on the morning after Isabella had made him a grandfather, by the birth of a boy, on being informed of that happy event, he shook his son warmly by the hand, and said, in a serious and impressive manner,-- ‘An it please God, Charlie, to gie thee ony mair childer, I redde thee, wi’ the counsel o’ a father, to mak na odds among them, but remember they are a’ alike thine, and that t’ou canna prefer ane aboon anither without sin;’--and he followed this admonition with a gift of twenty pounds to buy the infant a christening frock. But from that day he never spoke to Charles of his family; on the contrary, he became dark and more obdurate in his manner to every one around him. His only enjoyment seemed to be a sort of doating delight in contemplating, from a rude bench which he had constructed on a rising ground behind the house of Grippy, the surrounding fields of his forefathers. There he would sit for hours together alone, bending forward with his chin resting on the ivory head of his staff, which he held between his knees by both hands, and with a quick and eager glance survey the scene for a moment, and then drop his eyelids and look only on the ground. Whatever might be the general tenor of his reflections as he sat on that spot, they were evidently not always pleasant; for one afternoon, as he was sitting there, his wife, who came upon him suddenly and unperceived, to tell him a messenger was sent to Glasgow from Divethill for the midwife, was surprised to find him agitated and almost in tears. ‘Dear me, gudeman,’ said she, ‘what’s come o’er you, that ye’re sitting here hanging your gruntel like a sow playing on a trump? Hae na ye heard that Betty Bodle’s time’s come? I’m gaun ower to the crying, and if ye like ye may walk that length wi’ me. I hope, poor thing, she’ll hae an easy time o’t, and that we’ll hae blithes-meat before the sun gangs doun.’