man at
least of reasonable station, but not good enough for the Campbells of
Auchenbreck; and the erring one was instantly discarded. Another married
an actor of the name of Adcock, whom (as I receive the tale) she had
seen acting in a barn; but the phrase should perhaps be regarded rather
as a measure of the family annoyance than a mirror of the facts. The
marriage was not in itself unhappy; Adcock was a gentleman by birth and
made a good husband; the family reasonably prospered, and one of the
daughters married no less a man than Clarkson Stanfield. But by the
father, and the two remaining Miss Campbells, people of fierce passions
and a truly Highland pride, the derogation was bitterly resented. For
long the sisters lived estranged; then, Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Adcock
were reconciled for a moment, only to quarrel the more fiercely; the
name of Mrs. Adcock was proscribed, nor did it again pass her sister's
lips, until the morning when she announced: "Mary Adcock is dead; I saw
her in her shroud last night." Second-sight was hereditary in the house;
and sure enough, as I have it reported, on that very night Mrs. Adcock
had passed away. Thus, of the four daughters, two had, according to the
idiotic notions of their friends, disgraced themselves in marriage; the
others supported the honour of the family with a better grace, and
married West Indian magnates of whom, I believe, the world has never
heard and would not care to hear: so strange a thing is this hereditary
pride. Of Mr. Jackson, beyond the fact that he was Fleeming's
grandfather, I know naught. His wife, as I have said, was a woman of
fierce passions; she would tie her house slaves to the bed and lash them
with her own hand; and her conduct to her wild and down-going sons was a
mixture of almost insane self-sacrifice and wholly insane violence of
temper. She had three sons and one daughter. Two of the sons went
utterly to ruin, and reduced their mother to poverty. The third went to
India, a slim, delicate lad, and passed so wholly from the knowledge of
his relatives that he was thought to be long dead. Years later, when his
sister was living in Genoa, a red-bearded man of great strength and
stature, tanned by years in India, and his hands covered with barbaric
gems, entered the room unannounced, as she was playing the piano, lifted
her from her seat, and kissed her. It was her brother, suddenly returned
out of a past that was never very clearly understood, with th