Mr. Cassiliscame to the manse in answer to Katie’s invitation and the business of Huntley. He was young and did not particularly commend himself to the liking of the young master of Norlaw; but as he pleased all the other people very tolerably well, there were, perhaps, various reasons for the less friendly sentiment of Huntley. He was, however, a brisk man of business, and not sufficiently over-burdened with occupation to prevent him entering heartily into the concerns of the half-ruined family.
All this time Patrick Livingstone had been quietly busy, collecting and arranging all his father’s memoranda which seemed to throw any light upon their circumstances; among these were many hurried, and only half intelligible notes of transactions with the former Huntley of Melmar, from which it very shortly appeared that Norlaw’s debts had all been contracted to his old kinsman, and had only come into possession of “the present Melmar,” when he took possession of the house and property, as heir-at-law, on the old man’s death. They had suspected this before, for it seemed very unlikely that one man should borrow of another, whose claims were so entirely antagonistic to his own—but these were their only real evidence—for Norlaw had been so irregular and unsystematic that it was impossible to tell what money might or might not have passed through his hands.
The lawyer took all these scratchy memorandums out of Patrick’s hands, and examined them carefully in presence of the lads. They were in the east room, in the midst of a pile of old papers from which these had been selected. Patie had not completed his task—he was going over his father’s letters, to see whether they threw any light on these forgotten transactions. It was no small task; for Norlaw, like most other men of trifling habits and unimportant correspondence, kept every thing that everybody wrote to him, and even scrawls of his own letters. Some of these scrawls were curious enough—among them were one or two anxious and elaborate epistles to people abroad, whom his search for his lost love had brought him into contact with; some, dating still further back, were intimationsof the birth of his children, and other family events of importance to his wife’s relations. They were all composed with considerable care, and in somewhat pompous diction; they threw wonderful light upon the weaknesses and vanities of this departed life, and indifferent people might have laughed at them—but Huntley and Patie blushed instead of laughing, or folded the scrawls away hurriedly with tears in their eyes. To them these memorials were still pathetic, tender, full of a touching appeal to their affection, too sacred to meet the common eye.
Presently, however, Patie caught a glimpse of a handwriting still more scratchy than his father’s—the trembling characters of old age. It was a letter from old Melmar, the most important they had yet lighted upon—and ran thus:—
“Dear Patrick,“Touching the matter that was under discussion betwixt us the last time I saw you, I have just this to say, namely, that I hold your receipts and acknowledgments for money in the interests of your wife and family, and not in my own. I know well what would happen if you knew yourself free to incur more responsibility; so, mind you, though you’ll get them all at my death, and most likely Melmar to the boot, I’ll take care, as long as I’m to the fore, to keep my hand over you for your good. You can let the Mistress see this if you please, and I’ll wager a bodle she agrees with me. I can not give you them back—but unless you behave all the worse, they’ll never leave my hands until they return to your own.“H. Huntley.”
“Dear Patrick,
“Touching the matter that was under discussion betwixt us the last time I saw you, I have just this to say, namely, that I hold your receipts and acknowledgments for money in the interests of your wife and family, and not in my own. I know well what would happen if you knew yourself free to incur more responsibility; so, mind you, though you’ll get them all at my death, and most likely Melmar to the boot, I’ll take care, as long as I’m to the fore, to keep my hand over you for your good. You can let the Mistress see this if you please, and I’ll wager a bodle she agrees with me. I can not give you them back—but unless you behave all the worse, they’ll never leave my hands until they return to your own.
“H. Huntley.”
“Eh! what’s that?” said Mr. Cassilis, looking up from his little lot of papers, as he saw the two brothers pass this letter between them.
They were half reluctant to show it; and when Huntley at last handed it across the table it was with a proud apology.
“My father was generous and liberal to the extreme. I suppose he was not what people call prudent; few understood him,” said Huntley.
The lawyer took the paper with a half perceptible smile. He knew already what other people said of Norlaw.
However, he added old Melmar’s letter with care to his own heap of scribbled memoranda.
“It’s not very much good,” he said, “but it shows intention. Unquestionably, neither the giver nor the receiver had any thought of payment for these loans. I had better see the present man to-morrow. What with the will and these he ought to come to reason.”
“Me’mar?” cried Huntley—“no, I can have no appeal made to him on our behalf. Do you know how he persecuted my father?”
“I’m not much of an appealing man,” said Cassilis, “but I had better see him. Don’t be afraid—I’ll not compromise you. You did not know much of the matter yourself, I understand, till recently. Be charitable—suppose he were as ignorant as you?”
“Stop!” cried Patie, “never mind personal feelings—is that all the value of the will?—to bring him to reason?”
“Not if I find Mary Huntley,” said the young lawyer.
IfIfind. The young men exchanged glances—not quite sure that they were pleased with this transference of their interests.
“If she’s to be found alive—or if she’s dead, and we can prove it, every thing, of course, becomes as clear as daylight,” said the minister’s nephew, “and many a man would tell you that in these days either the one thing or the other is certain; but I’ve had some experience. I know there have been cases in which every effort was baffled; and failing either, I don’t see at this moment what’s to be done. You expect me to say, go to law, of course, but who’s to pay the piper? Law’s a very expensive luxury. Wait till you’re rich, and then come down upon him—that is to say, if this search fails.”
“But it is at least worth while to make the search,” said Huntley, hastily, “and if it is so, it is too soon to treat with Melmar. Friendship is out of the question. Let us deal with him honestly. I can not accept a favor from a man one day and commence a lawsuit against him the next; it is not possible.”
“In the meantime,” said Cassilis, coolly sweeping all his papers up into a pocket-book, “you’ve committed your affairs into my hands, and I mean to do my best for my client, begging your pardon, whether my client perceivesmy tactics or no. Don’t be offended. I’ll claim these said acknowledgments as your right, and not as a favor. I want to see what kind of an animal this is that we’re to fight; and to let you see what I mean, I may as well say that I’ve heard all the history of the last few weeks, and that I understand your feelings; but feelings, Livingstone, recollect, as your brother says, have little to do with the law.”
Huntley could make very little further opposition; but he did not respond by any means to his new agent’s friendliness; he received it even with a littlehauteurand surliness, like a ridiculous young hero, finding out condescension and superiority, and sundry other of those agreeable figments of the jealous imagination, in the natural frankness of the young lawyer. If he had been fifty, or had known nothing of the manse, possibly Mr. Charles Cassilis, W. S., would have made a more favorable impression upon Huntley Livingstone.
“DoI look like a fool?”
The speaker was Huntley of Melmar, seated at that moment in his large leathern easy-chair at his own study-table; this was a long dim room, lined with dusty-looking bookcases, and lighted faintly by one window, from which nothing could be seen but a funereal yew-tree, which kept the room in perpetual shade. The whole apartment had a stifled, unventilated look, as if fresh air never entered it, as sunshine certainly never did; even in winter no fire could be coaxed into a blaze in Melmar’s study—every thing was dusty, choked, and breathless, partaking in the general want of order visible through the house, with private additions of cheerlessness peculiarly its own.
And there could not well be a greater contrast than the two people in this room; Cassilis was young, good-looking, rather careless in manner, shrewd and quick, as became his profession, but by no means formal, as might have become it. He was not the solemn bearer of a legal challenge—a messenger of heroical enmity or hereditary dislike; he wasonly a morning visitor in a morning coat, quite as ready to talk of the last change of ministry or the ensuing election as of the immediate business which brought him here. Melmar sat watching him like an old cat, stealthy and absorbed. Inhisday business was managed in a different manner; and the old Aberdeen attorney watched with a chuckle of professional contempt and private satisfaction the informal proceedings of his younger brother and adversary. Mr. Huntley thought himself much too “deep” for the fathoming of this careless neophyte, while his visitor, on the other hand, found equal satisfaction in setting down the Laird of Melmar as one of the old school.
“Not exactly,” said Cassilis, “but it’s odd how often a fool and a man of sense are convertible terms. A man does a thing from a generous motive, and that’s ridiculous, eh, Mr. Huntley? absurd to men of the world like you and me, who don’t recognize the principle; but mind you, theremightbe circumstances whichmightinduce the most sagacious of us, out of pure self-regard and prudence, to do the very same thing as the blockhead did out of generosity; the result would be the same, you know, in both cases—and who is to judge whether it is done by a wise man or a fool?”
“Aye, man, you’re ironical, are you?” said Melmar, “very good practice, but it does not do with me—I’m too old for inuendoes; come, to the point. You’ve got a foolish case by the hand, though, of course, as an older man and member of the profession, I think it perfectly right of you not to seem conscious of that—perfectlyproper. I highly approve of your demeanor in a professional point of view, my young friend.”
“Which is very kind of you,” said Cassilis, laughing; “I think it all the more so because I can’t agree with you. Do you know, I hear everywhere about the country that there could not be a greater difference than between young Livingstone and his father?—quite a different man, I understand.”
“Eh? and what’s that to me?” asked Melmar, sharply.
“Well, you know, between ourselves as professional men,” said Cassilis, laughing and speaking with the most delightful frankness, “if this Norlaw had been a man of spirit and energy, like his son, or indeed worth his salt, aspeople say, you know just as well as I do—possibly far better, for I bow to your experience—that you could not have had a chance of reigning here as you have done for so many years.”
“What the deevil do you mean, sir?” cried Melmar, growing red and half rising from his chair; “is this language to hold to me, in my own house?”
“Nay, I was only appealing to your professional knowledge,” said the young man, carelessly. “When you speak to me of the profession, of course I necessarily conclude that you are, at least, as well-informed as I am—and this is clear to anybody with half an eye. Mind you, I don’t mean to say that young Livingstone’s claim is weaker than his father’s—you know it is not. I feel indeed that the whole matter is immensely simplified by having a professional man like yourself to deal with—for I don’t presume to suppose that I am telling you any thing that you don’t know already; but possibly—I can’t tell—the young man may not feel it for his interest to push his claims at this moment. It’s formyinterest that he should, of course, for it will be a capital case—but we can both wait; however, under the circumstances, I am perfectly justified in asking you to consider whether the little restitution I suggested to you would be the act of a fool or of a wise man.”
Melmar had been gazing with a kind of hazy, speechless wrath at the speaker, who passed so jauntily and lightly over this subject, and took his own perfect acquaintance with its right and wrong, for granted, with so much coolness. When Cassilis came to this pause, however, no explosion followed. The florid face grew redder with a bursting fiery fullness, in which even the grizzled red fringes of hair sympathized—but, in spite of himself, Melmar was afraid. His “young friend,” whom he had patronized and despised, seemed somehow to have got him completely in his power—seemed to see into the very thoughts of the old worldling, who thought himself so much wiser than his adversary. He made a pause of consideration, and felt much the reverse of comfortable. The unconcerned air of his visitor, which had relieved him at first, seemed somehow to give greater weight to his words now. If these downright blows were given in play, what should the serious strokes of the same hand be? and Melmar knew very well that the strength of his opponent’s case lay in plain right and justice, while his was only to be held by art and stratagem. While he pondered, a sudden thought struck him—he rose, went to the window, glanced out there for a moment—then to the door, opened it and glanced along the long passage to make sure there were no listeners—then he returned to his chair, and bent towards the young lawyer, who had been watching all his proceedings with a half amused curiosity.
“To make an end of all this,” said Melmar, with a very good imitation of impatience, “and because they are relatives of the old family, and friends, and all the rest of it—and to prove that I’m sorry for what took place at Norlaw’s funeral—I’ll tell you what I’ll consent to do—”
“Well?” said Cassilis, quietly.
“I’ll consent,” continued Melmar, “because I’m not a man to have a will, or a bill, or any thing of the sort stuck into my face every moment of my life—I’ll consent to give up all Norlaw’s papers, every one of them, as a matter of favor, on condition that this document, that you’ve all made so much work about, shall be placed in my hands. After which I’ll be able to look after my kinswoman’s interests in the proper way—for, as for the fiction about those Livingstones, who have no more claim to Melmar than you have,that’squite beneath any notice from me. But on that condition, and to be done with the business, I’ll consent to give up all my claims against Norlaw; and a more liberal offer never was made.”
The young man looked steadily, and with a smile, into the old man’s face—indeed, Mr. Cassilis went a step further, and did what is sometimes extremely impertinent, and always embarrassing. He looked into Melmar’s eyes with a keen, yet laughing gaze, which his companion could by no means bear, and which made the florid face once more fiery red with a troubled and apprehensive rage.
“Would you advise me to accept this offer as one professional man might advise another?” said Cassilis, quietly, with his smile. That smile, and that look, and that question, silenced Melmar a thousand times more effectually than a vehement refusal of his proposition. This man was sometimes bold, but he was never brave. He saw himself found out in the laughing eyes of his young antagonist. He thought he had committed himself and exposed his weakpoint—somehow he seemed to stand self-betrayed and unvailed before this stranger, whose gaze was intolerable, and whose question he should have liked to answer with a curse, proper man as he was, if he had dared. But he did not dare, though the self-restraining effort brought the perspiration to his forehead. He scattered some papers on the table with an irrestrainable movement, a little safety-valve for his secret fury.
“Do as you please, you’ll get no better,” he said, hoarsely, gathering them up again, and turning his face from his young adversary, who did not now seem quite an opponent to be despised.
“I tell you frankly,” said Mr. Cassilis, with that engaging candor of his, “that it’s very much for my interest that young Livingstone should carry on his suit at once. It’s for my interest, in short, to protract the whole business to my utmost ability; and a highly attractive case I have no doubt we should make of it—especially, Mr. Huntley,especiallypermit me to say, after the proposal you have just made. However, we understand all that, both you and I, and I must ask you again to consider what I said at first; here is this old man’s letter, proving his intentions pretty distinctly; on our part we will not pay a penny under less than compulsion. I leave it entirely in your own hands—what will you do?”
Patricia Huntley was all alone in the drawing-room. She knew when Mr. Cassilis entered; she knew he had been shut up with papa for a very considerable time. She did not know any thing of the questions which were being put in the study, or how hard they were to answer. Though she read poetry-books, this poor little creature had very little to occupy her, save her bad health and her limited imagination—a visitor was an event to Patricia—especially when the visitor was young, rather handsome, and newly come from Edinburgh. She thought she might as well take an accidental stroll into the garden, and see what the gentlemen were about in the study. Accordingly, with her poetry-book in her hand, Patricia stole behind the yew-tree just at this particular moment and crisis of the conversation. She could see them both through the dim window, papa tumbling about his papers, and looking very stormy, Mr. Cassilis, smiling and genial as he always was. Perhaps theyounger face of the two, being much the pleasanter, was, spite of filial veneration, the most attractive to Patricia. She thought Mr. Cassilis, who had been so long a time in the study, must surely have some very pleasant news to tell—but at the same time, with sincere and disinterested concern, felt that he must be dreadfully bored by so long an interview with papa. With a generous impulse she approached the window, and knocked on the glass playfully with her fingers.
“Papa, when do you mean to come to luncheon?” cried Patricia.
Melmar started up, opened the window, cried “Get away, you little fool!—who wanted you?” and shook his fist at her menacingly. Poor Patricia sprang back in terror, and lost her breath immediately. She did not know, and perhaps if she had known, would not have appreciated, the great relief which this little ebullition was to Melmar. He went back quite refreshed to finish his fight; but his poor little daughter, who did not understand it, first fell a-crying, and then, drying her eyes, proceeded to revenge herself. She sought out Joanna immediately, and informed that heroine of something extraordinary and mysterious going on in the study—and of the unaccountable and inexcusable affront to herself, “before Mr. Cassilis!” which Patricia could not forgive. Luncheon was ordered immediately, half an hour before its time, and Joanna herself went off to the study like a gale of wind, to order papa into the dining-room. But the scene had changed by this time in Melmar’s private apartment. Mr. Cassilis was writing when Joanna entered, while her father stood by him holding some papers, and looking, stealthily watchful, over the young man’s shoulder, so like an old brindled big cat in the most feline concentration of vigilance, that Joanna’s irreverent imagination was tickled with the resemblance.
“Eh, papa,” cried the girl, with a sudden laugh, “I would not like to be a mouse in your way!—but Mr. Cassilis is too big for a mouse,” added Joanna; “come to luncheon, it’s ready—but I don’t believe Patricia will ever speak to you again—what are these?”
“No business of yours, you gipsy!” said Melmar, as she pulled at his papers.
“Eh, but it is—I can see Norlaw’s name!” cried Joanna;“Mr. Cassilis, tell Mrs. Livingstone that we know—and that I think shame of papa!—and if it was not that I could not help it, I never, never, would have spoken to him again! What areyougetting all these papers for? If it’s to hurt the boys you shanna take them out of Melmar! You sha’n’t, whatever he may say!”
“Softly—Mr. Huntley of Melmar will hurt the Livingstones no more,” said Cassilis.
Meanwhile Melmar read the young lawyer’s receipt for these precious bits of paper with no very pleasant face. It was a great deal too carefully worded to be of any ulterior service. Even the pettifogging ingenuity of the “old school” did not see at present any capabilities in it.
Onthe afternoon of the same day the young lawyer dropped in quietly, with a smile on his lace, to Norlaw.
Huntley was busy in the out-buildings of the farm. He was taking an inventory of all their stock and belongings, and making such an estimate as he could, which was a very correct one on the whole, of the value of this primitive property. Every thing about the house was going on very much as usual. The Mistress was seated at the end window of the dining-room, in a position which not only commanded the kitchen door and all its comings and goings, but was likewise a good post of observation for the farm-yard in which Huntley was. The stillness and heat of summer brooded over the old castle walls, and even over the farm-yard, where the very poultry drowsed in their afternoon siesta. The apples were growing ruddy on the Norlaw trees, and the slope of the hill brightened in russet gold towards the harvest. An Irish “shearer,” with his sickle over his shoulder, waited at a humble distance, till the young master was ready to hear his application for work; the weather was unusually favorable and the season early. In another week or ten days everybody prophesied the harvest would begin.
Huntley Livingstone, however, was not thinking of the harvest. His mind was busy with thoughts of the wild bush far away, the savage young colonies then but little advanced in their progress, and the long years of solitary labor which lay before him. He was not by any means in high spirits. Melmar had faded out of his fancy like a dream. He thought he perceived just what degree of probability there was in that vision of fortune, and turning his back upon it, he set his face towards the sober, homely, real future which must begin by the serious and solitary toil of so many years.
So that Huntley was by no means delighted to be interrupted in the midst of his task by the salutation of the young lawyer. He turned round immediately and put down his memorandum-book, but not with much cordiality. Cassilis was smiling—he always smiled; on the whole, this rather aggravated Huntley.
“I’ve got something for you,” said the lawyer, holding up the same pocket-book into which he had put Norlaw’s memoranda. He spoke with real glee and triumph. Independent altogether of the interests of the family, he felt he had made quite a professional success, and enjoyed it accordingly.
“What?” said Huntley—he was half unwilling to perceive that this was some advantage gained over the enemy. He had made up his mind in a different direction, and did not want to be moved back again by any new shift of fortune. But when the pocket-book was opened and its contents disclosed—when Huntley saw before him, safe and certain, those old yellow bonds and obligations signed with his father’s name, the young man was startled—and the first idea of his unfriendliness was, that they had been purchased by some concession.
“You have given up our interests in the more important matter!” cried Huntley; “I warn you I will not adopt any such bargain; better ruin now than any sacrifice either of right or of honor.”
“For what do you take me, Mr. Livingstone?” said the other, coldly; but as he was too good-natured and much too triumphant to keep malice, he continued, after a moment, in his usual tone:—“Don’t be foolish; take these affairs and burn them—they’re better out of harm’s way; and go in, gather the family together, and hold a council of war. Now I’ve seen the man and understand the question,I’m ready to fight it out. We can but take our chance.Youhave every thing in your favor—he nothing but blood and possession. You are not ruined, Livingstone, you have enough to begin with—I am inclined to change my advice; if I were you, I should wait no longer, but put it to the touch. The chances are ten to one in your favor.”
“This is quite different from your former opinion,” said Huntley, in amazement.
“Not opinion, say advice,” said Cassilis, who was now somewhat excited; “I believed, begging your pardon, Livingstone, that you were likely to need for your own immediate uses every penny you could scrape together; I thought your father had seriously injured your cause by taking no steps in the matter, and that the other side might think themselves justified in saying that he knew this will either to be unfairly got or invalid. But my visit to Melmar has dispelled these doubts. I think the course is quite clear if you choose to try.”
This sudden suggestion took away Huntley’s breath; the color mounted in his cheek in spite of himself—it was impossible to think of such a prospect unmoved—for Melmar, with its moderate rank and easy fortune, was very much more agreeable to think of than the bush and all its peradventures of hardship and solitude. He listened with only a half-attention while Cassilis explained to him how Mr. Huntley had been induced to relinquish these valuable scraps of paper. The whole sum represented by them was not very considerable, but it made all the difference between bare, absolute stripped poverty, and the enough which would satisfy everybody’s demands, and leave a little over for themselves. There were still heavy mortgages upon the little property of Norlaw, but when Huntley took his father’s canceled bonds in his hand, he knew there was no longer cause to apprehend a forced and ruinous sale of all their stock and crop and little possessions. He heard the lawyer speak of Melmar’s fears, his proposal about the will—his gradual and growing apprehensions; but all that appeared visible to Huntley was the fact of their changed circumstances, and the new position in which the family stood. His companion perceived after a while that the young man was absorbed in his own thoughts, and paid no attention to what he said, and Cassilis wisely left him, once more biddinghim hold a council of war. When he was alone, Huntley put aside his memorandum-book, drew his cap over his eyes, and set off on a rapid walk to the top of the hill. He scarcely drew breath till he had reached the summit of that fertile slope from whence he could just see in the distance the gray towers of Melrose and the silvery gleam of Tweed shining in the hazy golden sunshine beyond the purple Eildons. The broad country shone before him in all its tints of color and glow of summer light, wide, great, and silent as the life upon whose brink he stood—and at his feet lay Norlaw, with its humble homestead and its ruined castle, where sat this lad’s mother, who was a widow. He stood there perfectly silent, full of thought, turning over half unconsciously in his mind the words of his adviser.
“He either fears his fate too much,Or his deserts are small,Who dares not put it to the touch,To gain or lose it all.”
“He either fears his fate too much,Or his deserts are small,Who dares not put it to the touch,To gain or lose it all.”
“He either fears his fate too much,Or his deserts are small,Who dares not put it to the touch,To gain or lose it all.”
Somehow these lines floated in upon Huntley’s mind as he stood gazing upon the summer landscape. To win Melmar with all its wealth and influence, or to lose what remained of Norlaw, with all the associations and hereditary bonds that belonged to that home of his race—should he put it to the touch? A conflict, not less stormy that it was entirely unexpressed, rose within the young, ambitious, eager mind, gazing over those fields and hills. A certain personification and individuality came to the struggling powers within him. On either side stood a woman, one a pale, unknown shadow, hovering upon the chances of his triumph, ready to take the prize, when it was won, out of his hands—the other his own well-beloved, home-dwelling mother, whose comfort and certain habitation it was in Huntley’s power at once to secure. Should he put it to the touch? should he risk all that he might win all?—and the tempters that assailed Huntley suddenly vailed over to his eyes all that sunny home landscape, and spread before him the savage solitudes of the far country, the flocks and the herds which should be his sole companions—the hut in the strange woods; oh beautiful home valleys, glorious hills, dear gleams of water-springs! oh, love hiding sweet among the trees, whispering ere it comes!—oh tender friends andbonds of youth!—shall he put it to the touch? The council of war held its debate among the dust and din of battle, though the summer sunshine shone all the time in an undisturbed and peaceful glory upon the slope of Norlaw.
“Doyou thinkIcould bear the thought—me!” cried the Mistress energetically; “have ye kent me all your days, Huntley Livingstone, and do ye dare to think your mother would baulk your fortune for ease to hersel’? is it like me? would any mortal even me with the like, but your ainsel’?”
The Mistress stood by herself in the middle of the room, with her hand on the table—her eyes shone with a mortified and grieved fire through unshed tears—her heightened color—her frame, which seemed to vibrate with a visible pang—the pain of unappreciated love, which looked like anger in her face—showed how little congenial to her mind was Huntley’s self-abnegation. There was no sacrifice in the world which she herself could not and would not have made for her children; but to feel herself the person for whom a sacrifice was needed, a hindrance to her son’s prospects, a person to be provided for, struck with intense and bitter mortification the high spirit of the Mistress. She could not be content with this subordinate and passive position. Poverty, labor, want itself, would have come easier to her proud, tender motherhood, than thus to feel herself a bar upon the prospects of her boy.
When Huntley looked into his mother’s face, he thanked God silently within himself, that he had held his council of war upon the hill-side, and not in the Norlaw dining-parlor. It was the first time in his life that the young man had made an arbitrary personal decision, taking counsel with none; he had been naturally somewhat doubtful in his statement of it, being unused to such independent action—but now he rejoiced that he had made his conclusion alone. He came to his mother with tenderness, which perhaps if it touched her secretly, made her displeasure only the greater so far as appearancewent—for the mother of this house, who was not born of a dependent nature, was still too young and vigorous in her own person, and too little accustomed to think of her sons as men, to be able to receive with patience the new idea that their relative positions were so far changed, and that it was now her children’s part to provide for her, instead of hers to provide for them.
“Mother, suppose we were to fail—which is as likely as success,” said Huntley, “and I had to go away—after all, should you like me to leave no home to think of—no home to return to?—is that not reason enough to make you content with Norlaw?”
“Hold your peace!” cried the Mistress—“hame! do you mean to tell me that I couldna make a cothouse in Kirkbride, or a lodging in a town look like hame to my own bairns, if Providence ordained it sae, and their hearts were the same? What’s four walls here or there?—till you’ve firesides of your ain, your mother’s your hame wherever she may be. Am I a weak auld wife to be maintained at the ingleside with my son’s toil—or to have comfort, or fortune, or hope sacrificed to me? Eh, laddie, Guid forgive ye!—me that would shear in the harvest field, or guide the kye, or do any day’s work in this mortal world, with a cheerful heart, if it was needful, for the sake of you!”
“Ay, mother,” cried Cosmo, suddenly springing up from the table where he had been sitting stooping over a book in his usual attitude, without any apparent notice of the conversation. “Ay, mother,” cried the boy, “you could break your heart, and wear out your life for us, because it’s in your nature—but you’re too proud to think that it’s our nature as well, and that all you would do for your sons, your sons have a right to do for you!”
The boy’s pale face shone, and his eyes sparkled; his slender, tall, overgrown boyish figure, his long arms stretching out of the narrow sleeves of his jacket, his long slender hands, and long hair, the entire and extreme youthfulness of his whole appearance, so distinct from the fuller strength and manhood of his brothers, and animated by the touch of a delicate spirit, less sober and more fervid than theirs, struck strangely and suddenly upon the two who had hitherto held this discussion alone. An instantaneous change came over the Mistress’s face; the fire in her eyes meltedinto a tender effusion of love and sorrow, the yearning of the mother who was a widow. Those tears, which her proud temper and independent spirit had drawn into her eyes, fell with a softness which their original cause was quite incapable of. She could not keep to her first emotions; she could not restrain the expansion of her heart toward the boy who was still only a boy, and his father’s son.
“My bairn!” cried the Mistress, with a short sob. He was the youngest, the tenderest, the most like him who was gone—and Cosmo’s words had an unspeakable pathos in their enthusiasm—the heroism of a child!
After this the mother dropped into her chair, altogether softened, while Huntley spoke to her low and earnestly.
“Melmar is nothing to me,” said her eldest son, in the half-whispered forcible words which Cosmo did not hear, but in which his mother recognized the distinct resolution of a nature as firm as her own; “nothing at least except a chance of wealth and fortune—only a chance which can wait; but Norlaw is every thing—house, family, ancestors, every thing that makes me proud of my name. Norlaw and the Livingstones must never be disconnected while we can prevent it—and, mother, for Cosmo’s sake!”
“Eh, Huntley, God forgive me if I set more weight upon him than I should set!” said the Mistress, with tears; “no’ to your detriment, my own son; but look at the bairn! is he nothisvery image that’s gane?”
Not a single shadow of envy or displeasure crossed Huntley’s face; he stood looking at his young brother with a love almost as tender as their mother’s, with besides an unconscious swell of manhood and power in his own frame. He was the eldest brother, the head of the house, and the purest saint on earth could not have condemned the generous pride which rose in Huntley’s breast. It was not a weak effusion of sentimental self-sacrifice—his own hopes, his own heart, his own life, were strong with an individual identity in the young man’s nature. But the tender son of this house for the first time had made his own authoritative and masterly decision. To set aside his ambition and let it wait—to postpone fortune to labor—to do the first duty of a man on his own sole and unadvised responsibility—to provide for those of his own house, and set them above the anxieties of poverty. He was proud, when he thought of it, to feel thestrength in his own arm, the vigor of his own step—but the pride was such as almost an angel might have shared.
When Huntley left the room, the Mistress called Cosmo to her side. She had resumed her seat by the corner window, and they could see him going out, disappearing behind the old castle walls, in the glory of the autumn sunset.
“Do you see him, Cosmo?” said the Mistress, with renewed tears, which this time were of mingled pride and tenderness; “I resisted, but I never wronged his thoughts. Do ye see your brother? Yonder he is, a young lad, proud, and bold, and masterful—he’s no’ like you—he has it in his heart to seek power, and riches, and honors, and to take pleasure in them—and he’s that daring that the chance of a battle would be more pleasant to Huntley than any thing in this world that was secure. Yet—do you hear me, laddie? he’s put them all aside, every ane, for the sake of this hame and name, and for you and me!”
And the color rose high upon the Mistress’s cheek in a flush of triumph; the necessity and blessing of women came upon her in a sudden flood—she could not be heroic herself, though she might covet the glory—but with a higher, tenderer, more delicious pride, she could rejoice and triumph in the courage of her boy. Her voice rose even in those restrained and moderate words of common speech as if in a song; there was an indescribable something in her tone which reminded one involuntarily of the old songs of Scripture, the old triumphant Hebrew parallelisms of Miriam and Deborah. She grasped Cosmo’s shoulder with an emphatic pressure, and pointed with the other hand to the retiring figure of Huntley, passing slowly and with a thoughtful step by the wall of the old castle. Cosmo leaned out beside her, catching a flush upon his delicate cheek from hers, but gazing upon the scene with a different eye. Insensibly the poetic glance of the boy left his brother, to dwell upon the other features of this picture before him. Those stern old walls with their windowless sockets, through which once the sunshine shone and the summer breezes entered to former generations of their name—that sweet evening glory of sunshine, pouring aslant in a lingering tender flood upon the world and the day, which it seemed sad to leave—that sunshine which never grew old—insensibly his own romance stole back into Cosmo’s mind. He forgot, with the inadvertenceof his years, that it was not a romance agreeable to his mother, or that, even if it had been, she was not of a temper to bear the intrusion of other subjects when her mind was so fully occupied with concerns of her own.
“Mother, Huntley is right,” cried Cosmo; “Melmar can not be his ifsheis alive—it would not become him to seekittill he has sought her—and as Huntley can not seek her, for her sake and for my father’s,Iwill, though it should take the half of my life!”
Once more the Mistress’s face changed; a glance of fiery impatience flashed from her eyes, her cheek grew violently red, the tears dried as if by a spell, and she put Cosmo away hastily with the same arm which had held him.
“Get away to your plays, bairn—dinna trouble me!” cried the Mistress, with a harsh contempt, which was as strong as it was unjust; “to think I should open my heart to you that thinks of nothing but your romances and story books! Go! I’ve different things to think of—dinna trouble me!”
And she rose with a murmur of indignation and anger, and went hurriedly, with a flushed cheek, to seek her usual work, and take refuge in occupation. If the lost heiress had been her dearest friend, she would still have resented urgently the introduction of an intruder into her sudden burst of mother-pride. As it was, it overturned temper and patience entirely. She brushed past Cosmo with a hasty contempt, which humiliated and mortified the boy beyond expression. He did not attempt to justify himself—perhaps a kindred spark of resentment, and the bitterness with which youth appreciates injustice, helped to silence him—but when his mother resumed her seat and worked on hurriedly in a disdainful and angry silence, Cosmo withdrew out of the room and out of the house with a swelling heart. Too proud to betray how much he was wounded, he stole round behind the farm offices to his favorite perch among the ruins, where the lad brooded in mournful mood, sinking into the despairing despondency of his years and temperament, feeling himself misunderstood and unappreciated, and meditating a hundred melancholy heroisms. Mary of Melmar, so far, seemed as little propitious to Norlaw’s son as she had once been to Norlaw.
“Gowherever you like, bairns, or travel straight on, if you please—I canna see a step before me, for my part—it’s you and no’ me that must take the lead,” said the Mistress, with a heavy sigh. These words were said as the little party, Huntley, Patrick and herself, were left standing by a little pile of luggage, in the dusk of a harvest evening, in front of the coach office on the Edinburgh pavement. They were on their way to Liverpool, from which place Huntley was to sail in an emigrant ship for Port Philip. Princes Street was full of the open-air and street-loving crowd which gives to that splendid promenade, on summer nights, so much of a continental aspect. The dusk of the twilight fell softly in the valley which lay behind, the lights in the high houses on the other side hung softly midway in the air, the voices of the passengers, and sounds of the city, though doubtless many of these were sad enough, mingled in the soft-shadowed air to a harmonious hum of pleasant sound, which echoed with a mocking gayety into the heavy heart of the mother who was about to part with her boys. She was bewildered for the moment with her journey, with the unknown place and unusual animation around her, and it was only very slowly and by degrees that her mind regained its usual self-possession. She stood gazing blankly round her, while the boys made arrangements about their superfluous packages, which were to be left at the coach office, and finally came up to her, carrying between them the little trunk which contained the necessaries for their journey. Cabs were not in those days, and the Mistress would have been horrified into perfect self-possession by the preposterous idea of “a noddy.” When they were thus far ready, she turned with them briskly enough, leading the way without any uncertainty, for, in spite of her exclamation, it had been already arranged where they were to go, and the Mistress had been at school in Edinburgh in her young days, and was by no means unacquainted with the town. They went along in this order—Mrs. Livingstone carrying a considerable bag on her own arm, and the youngmen with a trunk between them—across the North Bridge towards the old town, that scene of magic to every stranger; the valley, the hill, the dim gray turrets of Holyrood, the soft darkness of the night full of sounds, lying beneath them—the rugged outline, picturesque and noble, of the lofty old street before—the lights shining here and there like fairy stars in irregular specks among the high windows, and everywhere the half-seen, unrecognizable throng of wayfarers, and the world of subdued sound on every side made but small impression upon the absorbed minds of the little party. They knew it all before, and their thoughts were otherwise occupied; yet involuntarily that noble landscape, which no one could look upon with absolute indifference, soothed them all, in spite of themselves. Their destination was the High Street, where, in one of the more respectable closes, and at the top of an interminable ascent of stairs, there lived a native of Kirkbride, who was in the habit of letting lodgings to students, and with whom they were to find accommodation for the night. Mrs. Purdie gave to the Mistress a little room boasting a “concealed bed,” that is to say, a recess shut in by folding-doors, and just large enough to contain a bedstead, and to the lads a bed-closet, with a borrowed light, both of which inventions specially belong to the economy of flats and great subdivided houses, and are the most unfavorable features in the same. But the window of Mrs. Livingstone’s room, where they had tea, looked abroad over that great panorama, bounded by the gleam of the Firth, and the low green line of the Fife hills, which makes it worth while to ascend stairs and watch at lofty windows in Edinburgh. The yellow harvest moon had risen ere they had finished the simple meal, which none of them had any heart for, and Huntley drew his mother to the window to bid her look at the wonderful broad moonlight lying white upon the long line of street below, and thrusting out all the monuments of the little hill into bold and striking relief against the luminous sky. The Mistress turned away from the window, with big tears in her eyes.
“Eh, Huntley, laddie, what do I care? if it was the grandest view that ever was, do you think I could see it?” cried his mother, “when I ken that I’ll never see the light of the moon mair without weary thoughts and yearning towhere my bairns are, hundreds and thousands of miles away from me!”
“But, mother, only till we come home,” said Huntley, with his arm round his mother, speaking low in her ear.
The Mistress only turned towards the dim little table, with its dim candles, hurriedly wiping the tears from her eyes. This was endurable—but the night and the calm, and the glory of the heavens and the earth, were too much for the mother. If she had remained there looking out, it almost seemed to her as if she must have wept her very heart dry.
The next morning they set out once more upon their journey—another day’s travel by the canal to Glasgow. The canal was not to be despised in those days; it was cheaper, and it was not a great deal slower than the coach; and if the errand had been happier, the mode of traveling, in that lovely harvest weather, with its gradual glide and noiseless progress, was by no means an unpleasant one. Glasgow itself, a strange, unknown, smoky Babel, where, after Huntley was gone, the Mistress was to part with her second son, bewildered her mind completely with its first aspect; she could make nothing of it as they pursued their way from the canal to the river, through a maze of perplexing and noisy streets, where she felt assured hundreds of people might lose themselves, never to be found again. And, with a feeling half of awe and half of disgust, Mrs. Livingstone contemplated the place, so unlike the only other large town she knew, where Patie was to pass the next half dozen years of his life. Instinctively she caught closer hold of him, forgetting Huntley for the moment—Huntley’s dangers would be those of nature, the sea and the wilderness—but temptation! ill-doing! The Mistress grasped her son’s sleeve with tenacious fingers, and looked into his face with half an entreaty, half a defiance.
“If I should ever see the like of that in a bairn of mine!” she cried aloud, as they passed a corner where stood some of those precocious men, haggard and aged beyond double their years, whom it is the misfortune of a great town sometimes to produce. The idea struck her with an impatient dread which overcame even her half-apprehensive curiosity about the voyage they were going to undertake; and she had scarcely overcome this sudden alarm, when they embarkedin the snorting steamer which was to convey them to Liverpool. Standing on the deck, surrounded by the pile of boxes which formed Huntley’s equipment, and looking with startled and disapproving eyes upon the arriving passengers, and the crowded sheds of the Broomielaw, the Mistress saw the same moon rising above the masts, and housetops, and smoke of Glasgow, without any thing like the same feelings which had moved her on the previous night. Her mind was excited, her active spirit stirred, her very nerves, steady as they were, influenced a little by the entirely new anticipation of the voyage; a night at sea!—it seemed almost as great looking forward to it as Huntley’s journey, though that was to the other end of the world.
And so they glided down the beautiful Clyde, the breeze freshening about them, as hills began to rise black in the moonlight, and little towns to glimmer on the water’s edge. The mother and the sons walked about the deck together, talking earnestly, and when the vessel rose upon the bigger waves, as they stole out to sea, and every thing but the water and the sky, and the moonlight, gradually sank out of sight, the Mistress, with a little thrill of danger and adventure at her heart, forgot for the moment how, presently, she should return alone by the same road, and almost could suppose that she was setting out with Huntley. The fancy restored her to herself: she was not much of an advice giver. Her very cautions and counsels, perhaps, were arbitrary and slightly impatient, like her nature; but she was their true mother, heart and soul; and the lads did not forget for long years after what the Mistress said as she paced about the deck between them, with a firm, yet sometimes uncertain foot, as the midnight glided into morning, and the river disappeared in the bigger waters of the sea.
Thevoyage, as it happened, was a very favorable one—even the Mistress’s inland terrors were scarcely aroused by the swell of that summer sea; and Huntley himself, though his ideas expanded to a much longer journey, unconsciouslytook it as a good omen that his first night at sea should be so calm and fair. They came into the great seaport late on another summer evening. It was not nearly so extensive then as it is now, but still the masts were in forests, the ships in navies; and their inexperienced eyes, unenlightened by the hasty and darkling glimpse of the Clyde, and knowing nothing greater or busier than the Forth, with its great bosom diversified by an island and a sail, the one scarcely more plentiful than the other, opened wide with amazement at the fleet of vessels in the Mersey. Insensibly to herself, the Mistress drew a certain comfort from the fact, as the Glasgow steamer went gliding up the river, in the late summer sunset. Ships were moored in the deep calm and shadow of the banks; ships were coming and going in the midwaters of the river, and lines of spars and masts, indistinguishable and without number, fringed the whole water edge, from which the smoke of the town, reddened by a last ray of sunshine, rose inland, out of sight, in a great overhanging cloud. The sight of such a throng brought a momentary comfort to the heart of Huntley’s mother. The very sea, it almost seemed, could not be so lonely, when all these big wayfarers, and thousands more, were tracking its waters day by day.
“Mony a mother’s son is there,” she said to herself softly, as she stood gazing about her—and even the community of hardship had a solace in it. As the steamboat puffed and snorted to its destination, a big ship, crowded with pensive faces, bare of sails, and tugged along by a little steamer, came lumbering silently along through the peaceful evening light, going out to sea. Two or three voices round announced it “an emigrant ship,” and the Mistress gazed into it and after it, clasping her son’s arm with a thrill at her heart. Evening; the sweet daylight fading into a charmed and tender twilight—the sky growing pale with very calm; the houses and churches and piles of buildings beginning to stand out black against the colorless, mysterious light which casts no shadows; the water gleaming in long, still ripples, as pale as the sky—every thing softening and darkening into natural rest—yet, through all, the great ship departing silently, with her throng of travelers, beginning to unfold the sails of her wayfaring, beginning to vibrate to the quickening wave, as she neared the sea.
“God go with them!” said the Mistress, with a sob out of her full heart. “Oh, Huntley, laddie! mony a mother’s son is there!”
The landing, when they came to it; the rush of porters and vagabonds from the pier; the half light, in which it seemed doubly necessary to the Mistress, roused into prompt and vigorous self-defense, to keep the most vigilant watch on the luggage—and the confusion with which both mother and sons contemplated the screaming, shouting crowd who surrounded them with offers of service, and bawled to them from the shore, made altogether a very serious business of the arrival. The Mistress never knew how she came through that ordeal; the “English tongue,” which had a decidedly Irish brogue in that scene, and under these circumstances, deafened the rural Scottish woman. The crowd of spectators, and the foray upon everybody’s luggage made by some scores of ragged fellows, whom her uncharitable imagination set down as robbers or madmen, filled her with indignation and a strong propensity to resistance; and it was not till she found herself safely deposited in an odd little sitting-room of a little inn, close to the docks, with all her packages safe and undiminished, that a measure of calmness returned to the ruffled bosom of Mrs. Livingstone. Then, after they had rested and refreshed themselves, Huntley and Patrick went out with natural curiosity to see the new scene and the new country—for the whole party fully considered that it was “England,” not Liverpool, in which they now found themselves—and the Mistress was left alone. She sat in the little parlor under the unfamiliar gas-light, looking round with forlorn eyes upon the room. There was a little model of a ship upon the mantel-piece in front of the little mirror, and another upon a small side-table under the barometer; other odd little ornaments, such as sailors bring home, shells and curious boxes, and little painted glass cups of Dutch art, gave a very nautical aspect to the shabby apartment, which, further, bore traces of having recently been smoked in, which disgusted the Mistress. Then all the noises of a noisy and not very well-behaved quarter seemed to rise up to her window, mingled with a jar of music from a big blazing drinking-place, almost next door—and the private tumult of the inn itself, voices and footsteps, shutting of doors and ringing of bells, still further oppressed the solitary stranger.
“Mercy on me! is that what they ca’ speaking English?” cried the Mistress to herself, disturbed, lonely, sick at heart, and almost offended with her sons for leaving her. She put her hands to her ears with a gesture of disdain; the unfamiliar accent was quite an aggravation and insult to her solitude—and then her thoughts settled down upon the circumstances which brought her here. But a day or two more, and she might never see Huntley again.
Meanwhile the boys were straying through the mean, noisy streets, blazing with light, which only showed their squalor the more, where a whole disreputable population seemed to be exerting all its arts for the fascination of the sailors, who were the patrons and support of all this quarter. It was quite a new phase of life to the lads, fresh from their rural solitudes, and all the proprieties of a respectable Scottish family—but the novelty beguiled them on, though it disgusted them. They went wandering about, curious, astonished, revolted, till they found themselves among dark mazes of warehouses from which it was not easy to find their way back. When they did get back it was late, though the noise remained undiminished, and the Mistress’s temper was not improved, if truth must be told, by her solitude. She had been trying to look out from the window, where opposite there was nothing but the high brick walls of the docks, and beneath, upon the lighted pavement, only such scenes as horrified the soul of the Mistress within her.
“It’s a marvel to me what pleasure even thoughtless laddies could find wandering about a place like that,” said the Mistress; “England, quotha! I thought mysel’ there must be something worth seeing in a place that folk make such a wark about; but instead of that, it’s waur than the Cowgate; pity me! and sharp tongues that gang through my head like a bell!”
“But Liverpool is not England,” said Huntley, coming to a slow perception of that fact, and laughing at himself as he said it.
“And maybe this is not Liverpool,” said Patie, with still greater enlightenment.
“Hold your peace, bairns,” cried the Mistress, peremptorily; “what can you ken, twa laddies that have no more insight into life than babes unborn—how can the like of you tell? Do I no’ see sin outbye there with a painted face, andsounds of fiddling and laughing, and light enough to burn up the haill town? Eh, bairns, if ever ye touch such dirt with but the ends of your fingers, the mother that bore ye will think shame of ye—burning shame! It sounds like pleasure—do ye hear?—but it’s no pleasure, it’s destruction!—and I canna tell, for my ain part, how a decent woman can daur to close her e’en, kenning what evil’s nigh. But I’m no’ meaning that for you,” added the Mistress, changing her tone; “the like of you young things need sleep and rest, and though I canna tell where we’re to get the things we want in a miserable place like this, we’ll have to be stirring early the morn.”
“And we’ll find a better place,” said Huntley; “don’t be afraid, mother—but for that and all the rest that we have to do and to bear, you must try to rest yourself.”
“Aye, laddie,” said the Mistress, hurriedly wiping her eyes, “but I canna get my thoughts out of that ship that’s on the sea this nicht! and maybe mony a lone woman sitting still with nae sons to come in to her—and whiles I canna but mind what’s coming to mysel’.”
“I am only twenty, mother, and Patie but eighteen,” said Huntley; “would you like us to remain as we are, knowing nothing of life, as you say? or are you afraid to trust your sons in the battle, like other men?”
“Na! no’ me!” cried the Mistress; “you’re baith right, and I approve in my mind—but only just this, bairns;—I’m your mother—and yon ship is sailing in the dark before my very e’en, as plain as if I saw her now!”
And whether it was thinking of that ship, or of the sons of other mothers who were errant in her, or of her own boy, so soon to join their journey, the Mistress heard the last sound that disturbed the house that night, and the earliest in the morning. Her eyes were dry and sore when she got up to see the daylight aspect of the unknown and unlovely world around her; and the lads were still fast asleep in their privilege of youth, while their mother stood once more wistfully looking out upon the high black wall of the dock, and the masts appearing over it. She could not see the river, or any thing more gracious than this seaman-tempting street. There was nothing either within or without to divert her from her own thoughts; and as she watched the early sunshine brighten upon a scene so different from that ofher own hills and streams, these thoughts were forlorn enough.
During the day, the little party went out to make some last purchases for Huntley. The young man was to carry with him, in the securest form which they could think of, a little fortune of a hundred pounds, on which he was to make his start in the world, nothing doubting to find in it a nucleus of wealth; and the Mistress, spite of the natural economy of her ideas, and her long habit of frugality, was extravagant and lavish in her anxiety to get every thing for Huntley that he could or might require. When they came into the region of shops, she began to drop behind, anxiously studying the windows, tempted by many a possible convenience, which, if she had acted on her first impulse and purchased each incontinently, would have made Huntley’s outfit an unbelievable accumulation of peddlery.
As it was, his mother’s care and inexperience freighted the young man with a considerable burden of elaborate conveniences—cumbrous machines of various forms, warranted invaluable for the voyage or for the bush, which Huntley lugged about with many a year after, and tried to use for his mother’s sake. When they got back to their inn, the Mistress had suffered herself to be convinced that the noisy street outside the docks was not Liverpool, much less England. But the “English tongue,” which “rang through her head like a knife,” to vary the image—the mean brick houses at which the triumphant Scotchwoman pointed her finger with unspeakable contempt, the narrow streets, and noise and dust of the great commercial town, filled her patriotic spirit with a disdainful complacency.
“Weel, laddies,” said Mrs. Livingstone, when they reached the inn, very tired, that night; and the Mistress spoke with the natural satisfaction of a traveled person; “I have aye heard a great wark made about England—but I’m very sure, now that we’ve been in it, and seen for ourselves, none of us desires to gang any further. Bits of brick houses that you can mostly see through!—streets that neighbors could shake hands across!—and for my part, ilka time I hear them speak, I think they’re flyting. Eh, bairns, such sharp tongues! I wouldna gie Melrose though it’s wee-er and hasna sae mony shops, for twenty of this place—and as for Edinburgh—!”
But the contrast was unspeakable, and took away the Mistress’s breath.
Theywere detained for some days waiting the sailing of the ship, which already the little party had gone over, the Mistress with awe and solemnity, the brothers with eager interest and excitement, more than once. The bark Flora, Captain Gardner master, bound for Port Philip—through those days and nights of suspense, when they hoped and feared every morning to hear that this was the last day, this name might have been heard even among the dreams of Huntley’s mother. Yet this procrastination of the parting was not good even for her. She said her farewell a hundred times in the bitterness of imagination before the real moment came, and as they all went down every morning early to one of the piers, opposite to which in the river the Flora lay, and made a mournful, anxious promenade up and down, gazing at the anchored ship, with her bare cordage, the emigrant encampments on her big deck, and the fresh vegetables strung in her bows, noting with sharp and solicitous eyes any signs of preparation there, the pain of parting was indefinitely repeated, though always with a pang of joy at the end—another day. However, even emigrant ships have to make up their minds some time. At last came the last night, when they all sat together, looking into each other’s faces, knowing that, after to-morrow, they might never meet again. The Mistress had not a great deal to say on that last night; what she did say was of no one continuous tone. She could not make sermons to her boys—it might be that there was abruptness and impatience even in her motherly warnings. The grief of this farewell did not change her character, though it pierced to her heart.
“Try and get a decent house to live in—dinna be about inns or such like places,” said the Mistress; “I ken by mysel’, just the time we’ve been here, Huntley—and if it’s unsettling to the like of me, what should it be to a young lad?—but dinna be owre great friends either with them that put you up—I’m no fond of friendship out of folks’ ain degree, though I ken weel that nobody that’s kind to my bairn will find an ungrateful thought in me; but mind aye what ye are, and wha ye are, and a’ that’s looked for at your hands.”
“A poor emigrant, mother,” said Huntley, with rather a tremulous smile.
“Hold your peace, laddie, dinna be unthankful,” said the Mistress; “a lad with a good house and lands at hame, and a hundred pound clear in his pocket, no’ to say how mony conveniences and handy things in his boxes, and a’ the comforts that ye can carry. Dinna sin your mercies, Huntley, before me.”
“It would not become me,” said Huntley, “for I might have had few comforts but for you, mother, that thought of every thing; as every thing I have, if I needed reminding, would make me think of home and you.”
“Whisht, whisht, bairn!” said the Mistress, with a broken voice and a sob, two big tears falling out of her eyes upon her trembling hands, which she wiped off hurriedly, almost with a gesture of shame; “and ye’ll no’ forget your duty, Huntley,” she added with agitated haste; “mind what the minister said; if there be nae kirk, as there might not be, seeing it’s a savage place, never let the Sabbath day slip out of your hand, as if there was na difference. Kirks and ministers are a comfort, whiles—but, Huntley, mind God’s aye nigh at hand. I bid ye baith mind that—I’m no’ what I should be—I canna say a’ that’s in my heart—but, oh, laddies, mind if you should never hear another word out of your mother’s lips! They speak about ships and letters that make far-away friends nigh each other, but, bairns, the Lord Himsel’ is the nighest link between you and me—as He’s the only link between us a’ and him that’s gane.”
There was a long pause after this burst out of the desolate heart of Norlaw’s widow and Huntley’s mother; a pause in which words would have been vain, even if any one of them could have found any words to say, and in which the fatherless sons, and the mother who was a widow, turned their faces from each other, shedding those hurried, irrestrainable tears, which they dared not indulge. It was the Mistress who found composure first, but she did not prolong the emotion of the little party by continuing the same strain. Like herself, she had no sooner found her voice, than, shy of revealing the depths of her heart, even to her children, she resumed on a totally different theme.
“If ye gang up into the country, Huntley, dinna bide aye among the beasts,” said the Mistress, abruptly; “mind,it’s no’ that I put very much faith in this lad Cassilis, but still, whatever’s possible shouldna be forgotten. You might be Melmar, with a great estate, before mony years were past, and, at any rate, you’re master of your ain land, and have as good a name to bear as ever came ofthathouse. It’s my hope to see you back at the head of your household, a man respected—so dinna you sink into a solitary, Huntley, or dwell your lane ower lang. I’ve nothing to say against the making of siller—folk canna live without it in this world—but a fortune’s no equal to a man—and if ye canna make the ane without partly sacrificing the other, come hame.”
“I will, mother,” said Huntley, seriously.
“And there’s just one thing mair,” added the Mistress, not without a look of uneasiness, “be aye particular about the kind of folk you make friends o’—and specially—weel, weel, you’re both young lads. I canna keep ye bairns—you’ll soon be thinking of the like of that yoursel’. I’m no fond of strangers, Huntley Livingstone, I dinna understand their ways; dinna bring me a daughter of that land to vex me as the fremd women vexed Rebecca. No’ that I’m meaning to put bondage on you—na—I wouldna have it said I was jealous of my sons—but you’re young, and young lads are easily beguiled; wait till you come hame.”
“I give you my word for that, mother!” cried Huntley, eagerly, the blood rushing over his face, as he grasped the Mistress’s hand with a quite unnecessary degree of fervor.
Perhaps his mother found him rather more in earnest than the vague nature of her advice seemed to justify. She looked at him with a startled glance of suspicion and dawning displeasure.
“Ay, laddie!” cried the Mistress; “ane would think you had made up your mind!” and she turned her eyes upon the glow and brightening of Huntley’s face, with a little spark of impatience. But at that moment the clock below stairs began to strike twelve; it startled them all as they sat listening—and gradually, as stroke followed stroke with that inevitable regularity, the heart of Huntley’s mother sank within her. She took the hand, which she had been half angry to find grasping hers in confirmation of his earnestness, tenderly between her own—she stroked the strong young fingers with that hand of hers, somewhatlarge, somewhat wrinkled, without an ornament upon it save its worn wedding-ring, the slow, fond, loving touch of which brought hot tears to Huntley’s eyes. The Mistress did not look up, because her own face was moved with a grief and tenderness unspeakable and beyond the reach of words—she could not say any thing—she could only sit silent, keeping down the sob in her throat, the water that gathered in her eyes, fondly holding her son’s hand, caressing it with an indescribable pathetic gesture, more touching than the wildest passionate embrace.
Then they all stood up together to say good-night.
“Laddies, it’s no more night!—it’s morning, and Huntley sails this day,” said the Mistress; “oh, my bairns!—and I canna speak; dinna say a word to me!—but gang and lie down and take your rest, and the Lord send sleep to us a’ and make us ready for what’s to come.”
It was with this good-night, and no more, that they parted, but the sleep and rest for which she had prayed did not come to the mother. She was up by daybreak, once more looking over the last box which Huntley was to take with him on board, to see if any thing could be added to its stores.
She stole into her sons’ room to look at them in their sleep, but would not suffer any one to wake them, though the lads slept long, worn out by excitement and emotion. Then the Mistress put on her bonnet, and went out by herself to try if she could not get something for their breakfast, more delicate and dainty than usual, and, when she returned, arranged the table with her own hands, pausing often to wipe away, not tears, but a sad moisture with which her eyes were always full. But she was perfectly composed, and went about all these homely offices of love with a smile more touching than grief. The emergency had come at last, and the Mistress was not a woman to break down or lose the comfort of this last day. Time enough to break her heart when Huntley was gone.
And the inevitable hours went on, as hours do before one of those life-partings—slow, yet with a flow and current in their gradual progress, which seemed to carry them forward more forcibly than the quickest tide of pleasure. And at last it was time to embark. They went down to the river together, saying very little; then on the river, in a boat, to reach the ship.
It was a glorious harvest-day, warm, sunny, overflowing with happiness and light. The opposite bank of the river had never looked so green, the villages by its side had never detached themselves so brightly from the fields behind and the sands before. The very water swelling under their boat rippled past with a heave and swell of enjoyment, palpitating under the sunshine; and the commonest boatman and hardest-laboring sailor on these rejoicing waters looked like a man whose life was holiday. People on the pier, ignorant bystanders, smiled even upon this little party as their boat floated off into the midway of the sun-bright stream, as if it was a party of pleasure. Instinctively the Mistress put down her thick, black vail, worked with big, unearthly flowers, which made so many blots upon the sunshine, and said to Huntley, from behind its shelter:—
“What a pleasure it was to see such a day for the beginning of his voyage!”
They all repeated the same thing over mechanically at different times, and that was almost the whole substance of what they said until they reached the ship.
And presently, the same little boat glided back again over the same gleaming, golden waters, with Patie, very pale and very red by turns, in one end of it, and the Mistress, with her black vail over her face, sitting all alone on one side, with her hands rigidly clasped in her lap, and her head turned towards the ship. When the Flora began to move from her place, this silent figure gave a convulsive start and a cry, and so Huntley was gone.