‘Surely something dreadfu’ has befallen the lad,’ said Claud to himself, alarmed at the astonishment of sorrow with which his faculties seemed to be bound up. ‘Can t’ou no tell me what has happened, Watty?’ In about the space of half a minute, Walter moved his eyes slowly round, as if he saw and followed something which filled him with awe and dread. He then suddenly checked himself, and said, ‘It’s naething; she’s no there.’ ‘Sit down beside me, Watty,’ exclaimed his father, alarmed; ‘sit down beside me, and compose thysel.’ Walter did as he was bidden, and stretching out his feet, hung forward in such a posture of extreme listlessness and helpless despondency, that all power of action appeared to be withdrawn. Claud rose, and believing he was only under the influence of some of those silly passions to which he was occasionally subject, moved to go away, when he looked up, and said,-- ‘Father, Betty Bodle’s dead!--My Betty Bodle’s dead!’ ‘Dead!’ said Claud, thunderstruck. ‘Aye, father, she’s dead! My Betty Bodle’s dead!’ ‘Dost t’ou ken what t’ou’s saying?’ But Walter, without attending to the question, repeated, with an accent of tenderness still more simple and touching,-- ‘My Betty Bodle’s dead! She’s awa up aboon the skies, yon’er, and left me a wee wee baby;’ in saying which, he again burst into tears, and rising hastily from the bench, ran wildly back towards the Divethill House, whither he was followed by the old man, where the disastrous intelligence was confirmed, that she had died in giving birth to a daughter. Deep and secret as Claud kept his feelings from the eyes of the world, this was a misfortune which he was ill prepared to withstand. For although in the first shock he betrayed no emotion, it was soon evident that it had shattered some of the firmest intents and purposes of his mind. That he regretted the premature death of a beautiful young woman in such interesting circumstances, was natural to him as a man; but he felt the event more as a personal disappointment, and thought it was accompanied with something so like retribution, that he inwardly trembled as if he had been chastised by some visible arm of Providence. For he could not disguise to himself that a female heir was a contingency he had not contemplated; that, by the catastrophe which had happened to the mother, the excambio of the Plealands for the Divethill would be rendered of no avail; and that, unless Walter married again, and had a son, the re-united Kittlestonheugh property must again be disjoined, as the Divethill would necessarily become the inheritance of the daughter.