The satisfaction which he enjoyed from his accumulative prospects was not, however, without a mixture of that anxiety with which the cup of human prosperity, whether really full, or only foaming, is always embittered. The Laird, his father-in-law, in the deed of entail which he executed of the Plealands, had reserved to himself a power of revocation, in the event of his wife dying before him, in the first instance, and of Walter and George, the two younger sons of Grippy, either dying under age, or refusing to take the name of Hypel, in the second. This power, both under the circumstances, and in itself, was perfectly reasonable; and perhaps it was the more vexatious to the meditations of Claud, that it happened to be so. For he often said to his wife, as they sat of an evening by the fire-side in the dark, for as the leddy was no seamstress, and he had as little taste for literature, of course, they burned no candles when by themselves, and that was almost every night,--‘I marvel, Girzy, what could gar your father put that most unsafe claw in his entail. I would na be surprised if out o’ it were to come a mean of taking the property entirely frae us. For ye see, if your mither was dead, and, poor woman, she has lang been in a feckless way, there’s no doubt but your father would marry again,--and married again, there can be as little doubt that he would hae childer,--so what then would become o’ ours--’ To this the worthy leddy of Grippy would as feelingly reply,-- ‘I’m thinking, gudeman, that ye need na tak the anxieties sae muckle to heart; for, although my mither has been, past the memory o’ man, in a complaining condition, I ken nae odds o’ her this many a year; her ail’s like water to leather; it makes her life the tougher; and I would put mair confidence in the durability of her complaint than in my father’s health; so we need na fash ourselves wi’ controverting anent what may come o’ the death o’ either the t’ane or the t’ither.’ ‘But then,’ replied Claud, ‘ye forget the other claw about Watty and Geordie. Supposing, noo, that they were baith dead and gone, which, when we think o’ the frush green kail-custock-like nature of bairns, is no an impossibility in the hands of their Maker. Will it no be the most hardest thing that ever was seen in the world for Charlie no to inherit the breadth o’ the blade of a cabaudge o’ a’ his father’s matrimonial conquest? But even should it please the Lord to spare Watty, is’t no an afflicting thing, to see sic a braw property as the Plealands destined to a creature that I am sure his brother Geordie, if he lives to come to years o’ discretion, will no fail to tak the law o’ for a haverel?’