The morning air, as he issued from Glasgow, was cold and raw. Heavy blobs of water, the uncongenial distillations of the midnight fogs, hung so dully on the hoary hedges, that even Poesy would be guilty of downright extravagance, were she, on any occasion, to call such gross uncrystalline knobs of physic glass by any epithet implying dew. The road was not miry, but gluey, and reluctant, and wearisome to the tread. The smoke from the farm-houses rolled listlessly down the thatch, and lazily spread itself into a dingy azure haze, that lingered and lowered among the stacks of the farm-yards. The cows, instead of proceeding, with their ordinary sedate common sense, to the pastures, stood on the loans, looking east and west, and lowing to one another--no doubt concerning the state of the weather. The birds chirped peevishly, as they hopped from bough to bough. The ducks walked in silence to their accustomed pools. The hens, creatures at all times of a sober temperament, condoled in actual sadness together under sheds and bushes; and chanticleer himself wore a paler crest than usual, and was so low in spirits, that he only once had heart enough to wind his bugle-horn. Nature was sullen--and the herd-boy drew his blanket-mantle closer round him, and snarlingly struck the calf as he grudgingly drove the herd afield. On the ground, at the door of the toll-bar house, lay a gill-stoup on its side, and near it, on a plate, an empty glass and a bit of bread, which showed that some earlier traveller had, in despite of the statute, but in consideration of the damp and unwholesome morning, obtained a dram from the gudewife’s ain bottle. In consequence of these sympathetic circumstances, before Walkinshaw reached Camrachle, his heart was almost as heavy as his limbs were tired. His mother, when she saw him pass the parlour window, as he approached the door, was surprised at his appearance, and suffered something like a shock of fear when she perceived the dulness of his eye and the dejection of his features. ‘What has brought you here?’ was her first exclamation; ‘and what has happened?’ But, instead of replying, he walked in, and seated himself at the fireside, complaining of his cold and uncomfortable walk, and the heaviness of the road. His sister was preparing breakfast, and happening not to be in the room, his mother repeated her anxious inquiries with an accent of more earnest solicitude. ‘I fear,’ said Walkinshaw, ‘that I am only come to distress you;’ and he then briefly recapitulated what had passed between himself and his uncle respecting Robina. But a sentiment of tenderness for his mother’s anxieties, blended with a wish to save her from the disagreeable sensation with which he knew his determination to quit Glasgow would affect her, made him suppress the communication that he had come expressly to make.