‘I dinna like ye, Doctor Fell,The reason why I canna tell.’
‘I dinna like ye, Doctor Fell,The reason why I canna tell.’
‘I dinna like ye, Doctor Fell,The reason why I canna tell.’
I’ve no occasion not to like her. She is always very kind, a little too kind, to me—I am not fond of all that kissing—but it is perhaps just her way. I am not very fond of her, to tell the truth.”
“Nor am I, Susie; but she is maybe well enough if we were not prejudiced.”
“Oh yes, she is well enough,—she is more than that; and papa thinks there is nobody like her,” she added, with a laugh.
“Ah! your papa has an opinion on the subject?”
“And why not? He has a great eye for the ladies. Did you not know that? I think I like her the less because he makes so much of her. There was that party she had for the marriage, I never hear the end of it. It was all so nice, and so little trouble, and no fuss, and no expense, and so forth. How can he tell it was no expense?—all the things were sent out from Edinburgh!” said Susie, offended in her pride of housekeeping; “and as for the sandwiches and things, I have seen the very same in Edinburgh parties, and not so very new either. I could make them perfectly myself!”
“My dear, that is the way of men,” said Mrs Ogilvy; “a bit of bread-and-butter in a strange place they will take for a ferlie: whereas it’s only a piece for the bairns at home.”
“Oh, papa is not so bad as that,” said Susie; “and I’m very silly to mind. Now, just you lean back in your big chair and be quiet a little; and I will go ben to Janet and bring you a little new-made tea.”
“I like to see you do it, Susie. I like to take it from your hand. It is not for the tea——”
“No, it is not for the tea,” said the girl; and, though she was not fond of kissing, as she said, she touched Mrs Ogilvy’s old soft cheek tenderly with her fresh lips, and went away briskly on her errand with a tear in her eye. Perhaps it is something of a misnomerto call Susie Logan a girl. I fear she must have been thirty or a little more; but she had never left her home, and though she was full of experience, she retained all the freshness and openness of youth. Her hazel eyes were limpid and mildly bright; her features good if not remarkable; her colour fresh as a summer morning. Nowhere could she go without carrying a sense of youth and life with her; and here in this still existence at the Hewan among the old people she was doubly young, the representative of all that was wanting to make that house bright. She alone could make the mistress yield to this momentary indulgence, and permit herself to look tired and to rest. And for her Janet joyfully boiled the kettle over again, though she had just been congratulating herself on having finished for the day.
Susan went back and administered the tea, that cordial which is half for the body and half for the mind, but which swallowed amid a crowd of visitors fulfils neither purpose: and then she seated herself by Mrs Ogilvy’s side. “How good it is to feel they’re all gone away and we are just left to our two selves!”
“Have you anything particular to say to me, Susie?”
“Oh no, nothing particular; everything is just in its ordinary: the little ones are sometimes rather a handful, and if papa would get them a governess I would be thankful. They mean no harm, the littlethings; but the weather is warm and the day is long, and they are not fond of their lessons—neither am I,” said Susie, with a laugh, “if the truth were told.”
“And you are finding them a little too much for you—that is what your father was saying——”
“I find them too much for me! did papa say that?” cried Susie, alarmed; “that was never, never in my head. I may grumble a little, half in fun; but too much for me, Mrs Ogilvy! me that was born to it, the eldest daughter! such a thing was never, never in my mind——”
“I told him so, my dear, but he would not believe me; he just maintained it to my face that it was too much for you, and your health was beginning to fail.”
“What would he mean by that?” said Susie, sitting up very upright on her chair. A shadow came over her brightness. “Oh, I hope he has not got any new idea in his head,” she cried.
“Maybe he will be thinking of a governess for the little ones, Susie.”
“It might be that,” she acknowledged in subdued tones. “And then,” she added, with again a sudden laugh, “I heardthatwoman—no, no, I never meant to speak of her so—I heard Mrs Ainslie saying to him it would be a good thing. I would rather not have the easement than get it through her hands.”
“Oh fie! Susie, fie! she would have no ill motive: you must not take such things into your head.”
“It is she that makes me feel as if it were too much,” cried Susie, “coming in at all hours following me about the house. I get so tired of her that I am tired of everything. I could just dance at the sight of her: she puts me out of my senses; and always pitying me that want none of her pity! It must be kindness, I suppose,” said Susie, grudgingly; “but then I wish she would not be so kind.” After this there was a pause. The talk came to an end all at once. Mrs Ainslie and her doings dropped out of it as if she had gone behind a veil; and Susie looked in her old friend’s face, with the tenderest of inquiring looks, a question that needed not to be spoken.
“No word still, no word?” she rather looked than said.
“Never a word: not one, not one!” the elder woman replied.
Susie put her head down on Mrs Ogilvy’s knee, and her cheek upon her friend’s hand, and then gave way to a sudden outburst of silent tears, sobbing a little, like a child. Mrs Ogilvy shed no tear. She patted the bowed head softly with her hand, as if she had been consoling a child. “The time’s very long,” she said,—“very long, and never a word.”
After a while Susie raised her head. “I must, perhaps, not be very well after all,” she said, with an attempt at a smile; “or why should I cry like that?It is just that I could not help thinking and minding. It was about this time of the year——”
“The fifteenth of this month,” Mrs Ogilvy said; “to-morrow, and then it’ll be fifteen years.”
They sat for a little together saying nothing; and then Susie exclaimed, as if she could not contain herself, “But he’ll come back—I’m just as sure Robbie will come back! He will give you no warning; he was never one for writing. You will just hear his step on the road, and he will be here.”
“That is what I think myself,” Mrs Ogilvy said.
And while they were sitting together silent, there suddenly came into the silence the click of the gate and the sound of a step. And they both started, for a moment almost believing that he had come.
Thecontinued disappointment, which was no disappointment but only the fall of a fancy, a bubble of fond imagination in which there was no reality at all—happened once more, while these two ladies sat together and listened. And then the shadow of a man crossed the open window—a little man—who, not knowing he was seen, paused to wipe his bald head and recover his breath before he rang the bell at the open door. The house was all open, fearing nothing, the sunshine and atmosphere penetrating everywhere.
“It is Mr Somerville, my man of business. It will only be something about siller,” Mrs Ogilvy said in a low tone.
“I will go away, then,” said Susie. She paused a little, holding her old friend’s hands. “And if it’s any comfort,” she said, “when you’re sitting alone and thinking, to mind that there is one not far away that is thinking too—and believing——”
“It is a comfort, Susie—God bless you for it, my dear——”
“Well, then, there are two of us,” she said, with a smile beaming out of the tearfulness of her face, “and it will be easier when this weary month is past.”
Susie, in her fresh summer dress, with her sweet colour and her pleasant smile, met, as she went out, the old gentleman coming in. She did not know him, but gave him a little bow as she passed, with rural politeness and the kindness of nature. Susie was not accustomed to pass any fellow-creature without a salutation. She knew every soul in the parish, and every soul in the parish knew her. She could not cross any one’s path without dropping, as it were, a flower of human kindness by the way, except, of course, when she was in Edinburgh or any other large and conventional place, where she only thought her goodwill to all whom she met. The visitor, coming from that great capital and used to the reticences of town life, was delighted with this little civility. He seized his hat, pulling it once more off his bald head, and went into the Hewan uncovered, as if he had been going into the presence of the Queen. It gave him a little courage for his mission, which, to tell the truth, was not a very cheerful mission, nor one which he had undertaken with any alacrity. It was not that Mrs Ogilvy’s income had sustained any diminution, or that he had a tale of failing dividends and bad investmentsto tell. What she had was invested in the soundest securities. It did not perhaps bring her in as much as would now be thought necessary; but it was as safe as the Bank of England, and the Bank of Scotland, and the British Linen Company, all rolled into one. Her income scarcely varied a pound year by year. There was very little for her man of business to do but to receive the modest dividends and send her the money as she required it. She would have nothing to do with banks and cheque-books. She liked always to have a little money in the house—but there was little necessity for frequent meetings between her and the manager of her affairs. He would sometimes come in on rare occasions when he had taken a long walk into the country: but Mr Somerville was not so young as he once had been, and took long walks no more. Therefore she looked at him not with anxiety but with a little curiosity when he sat down beside her. She was far too polite to put, even into a look, the question, What may you be wanting? but it caused a little embarrassment between them for the first moment. She, however, was more at ease than he was—for she expected nothing more than some question or advice about money, and he knew that what he had to say was something of a much more troublous kind. This made him prolong a little the questions about health and the remarks on the weather which form the inevitable preliminaries of conversation with such old-fashionedfolk. When they had complimented each other on the beautiful season, and the young crops looking so well, and new vegetables so good and plentiful, there came a little pause again. Mrs Ogilvy was leaning back a little in her chair, very peaceful, fearing no blow, when the old gentleman, after clearing his throat a great many times, began—
“You will remember, Mrs Ogilvy—it is a thing you would be little likely to forget—a commission that you charged me with, in confidence—it is now a number of years ago——”
She raised herself suddenly in her chair, and drew a long breath. The expression of her countenance changed in a moment. She said nothing, nor was it necessary: her look, the changed pose of her person leaning towards him, her two hands clasped together on the arm of her chair, were enough.
“You must not expect too much, my dear lady—it is perhaps nothing at all, perhaps another person altogether; but at least, for the first time, it appears to me that it is something in the shape of a clue. I have been very cautious, according to your directions, but all the same I have made many inquiries: and none of them have ever come to anything.”
“I know, I know.”
“This, if there’s anything in it, is no credit of mine, it is pure accident.” Mr Somerville paused here to feel in his pockets for something. He triedhis breast-pocket, and his tail-pockets, and all the other mysterious places in which things can be hidden away. “I must have left it in my overcoat,” he said. “One moment, if you permit, and I’ll get it before I say more.”
Mrs Ogilvy made no movement, while she sat there and waited. She closed her eyes, and there came from the depths of her bosom a low sigh, which was something like the breath of patience concentrated and condensed. She was perfectly still when he went back again, full of apologies: after having made a great rustling and searching of pockets in the outer hall, he came back with a newspaper in his hand.
“We have a good deal of business with America,” he said. “I can scarcely tell you how it began. One of our clients had a son that went out, and got on very well in business, and one thing followed another; what with remittances home, and expenses out, and money for the starting of farms, and so forth,—and then being laid open to the temptation of American investments, which, as a rule, pay very well, and all our poor customers just give us no peace till we put their money on them. This makes it very necessary for us to know the state of the American stock market, and how this and that is going. You will not maybe quite understand, but so it is.”
“I understand,” Mrs Ogilvy said.
“And this one, you see, was sent to us a day or two ago with this object. It’s from one of the towns in what’s called the wild West, just a ramshackle sort of a place, half built, and not a comfortable house in it. But they’ve got a newspaper, such as it is. And really valuable to us for the last week or two, showing the working of a great scheme.”
Would the man never be done? He laid the newspaper across his knee, and pointed his words with little gestures made over it. A glance would have been enough to show her what it was. But no, let patience have its perfect work. By moments she closed her eyes not to see him, and spoke not a word.
“Well, you see, the business of overlooking these American investments comes upon me; and I get a great many of their papers to glance at—trashy things, full of personal gossip, the most outrageous nonsense. I don’t often look beyond the share lists. But this morning, when I first came into the office, this thing was lying on my table. I had glanced at it, and taken what was of use in it yesterday. It’s just a wonder how it got there again. I gave another glance at it by pure chance, if you’ll believe me, as I slipped on my office-coat. And my eye was caught by a name. Well, it wasonly analias, among a lot of others; but I’ve been told that away there in these wild places you can never tell which may be a man’s real name—as like as not the fifth or sixthaliasin a long line.”
He looked up at her by chance, and it seemed to him as if his client had fainted. Her face was drawn and perfectly white, the eyes half closed.
“Bless me!” he cried, starting up; “it’s been more than she could bear. What can I do?—some water, or maybe ring the bell.”
He was about to do this when she caught him with one hand, and with the other pointed to the paper. Something like “Let me hear it,” came from her half-closed lips.
“That I will! that I will!” he cried. It was a relief that she could speak and see. He took up the paper, and was—how long—a year? of finding the place.
“It’s just this,” he said; “it’s an account of a broil in which some of those wild fellows got killed: and among the lot of them that was present, there was one, an Englishman they say—but that’s nothing, for they call us all Englishmen abroad. Our fathers would never have stood it; but what can you do? it’s handiest when all’s said—an Englishman that had been about a ranch, and had been a miner, and had been a coach-driver, and I don’t know all what; but this is his name, ‘Jim Smith,aliasHorse-breaking Jim,aliasJames Jones,aliasBobthe Devil,alias,’”here he held up his finger to arrest her attention, “‘Robert Ogilvy. It is suspected that the last may be his real name.’”
Mrs Ogilvy was incapable of speech. She signed for the paper, raising herself a little in her chair.
“That is just all there is: you would not understand the story. I’ve just carefully read it to you. Well, madam, if you will have it.” The old gentleman was much disturbed. He let her take the paper because he could not resist it, and then he went of his own accord and rang the bell. “Will ye bring a little wine, or even a drop of brandy?” he said, going to meet Janet at the door, “if your mistress ever takes it. She has had a bit shock, and she’s not very well.”
She had got the paper in her hands. The touch of that real thing brought her back more or less to herself. She sat up and held it to the light, and read it every word. There was more of it than Mr Somerville had read. It was an account of a tumult at which murder had been done—no accident, but cold-blooded murder, and the names given were of men more or less involved. The last of these, perhaps, therefore, the least guilty, was this man of many names, Robert Ogilvy—oh, to see it there in such a record! The bonnie name, all breathing of youth and cheerful life, with the face of the fresh boy looking at her throughit!—Robbie, her Robbie,aliasJim,aliasBob,alias—— She clasped her hands together with the paper between them, and “O Lord God!” she said, in tones wrung out of her very heart.
“Just swallow this, swallow this, my dear lady; it will give you strength. She has had a bit shock. She will be better, better directly. Just do everything you can for her, like a good woman. I was perhaps rash. But she’ll soon come to herself.”
“I am myself, Mr Somerville, I am not needing any of your brandy. I cannot bide the smell of it. Janet, take it way. I have got some news that I will tell you after. Mr Somerville, I will have to take time to think of it. I cannot get it into my mind all at once.”
“No, no,” he said, soothingly, “it was not to be expected. I was too rash. I should have broken it to you more gently: a wee drop of wine, if you will not have the brandy?—though good spirit is always the best.”
“I want nothing,” she said; “just give me a moment to think.” And then out of that bitterness of death there came a low cry—“Oh, his bonnie name, his bonnie name!”
“Ay,” said the old gentleman, full of sympathy, “that is just what I thought—my old friend’s name, douce honest man! that never did anything to be ashamed of in all his days.”
The blood came back to her face with a rush.
“And how can you tell,” she said, “whether there’s anything to be ashamed of there? You said yourself it was a wild place. They cannot be on their p’s and q’s as we are, choosing their company. I am a decent woman myself, and have been, as you say, all my days; but who could tell what kind of folk I might have got among had I been there?”
She rose up and began to walk about the room in sudden excitement. “He would interfere to help the weak one,” she said. “If there was a weak side, he would be upon that; he would be helping somebody. Him—murder a man! You were his father’s friend, I know; but did you ever see Robbie Ogilvy, my son?—and, if not, man! how daur you speak, and speak of shame and my laddie together, to me?”
Mr Somerville was so taken by surprise that he could not find a word to say. “I thought,” he began—and then he stopped short. Had not shame already been busy with Robbie Ogilvy’s name? But however much he had been in possession of his faculties and recollections, silence was the wiser way.
“There is one thing,” Mrs Ogilvy said; “if this be true, and if it behim—there will be a trial, and he will need defence. He must have the best defence, the best advocate. You will send somebodyout at once without losing a day. Oh, I’m old, I’m weak, I’m an old woman that knows nothing! I’ve never been from home. But what is all that. What is all that to my Robbie? I think, Mr Somerville, I will go myself.”
“You must not think of that,” he cried. “A wild unsettled country, and miles and miles, in all probability, to be done on horseback, and no certainty where to find him—if it is him—on one side of the continent or the other. For, you will see, none of them were taken. Not the chief person, who will doubtless be a very different sort of person, nor—any of the others. They will all be away from that place like the lightning. They will not bide to be put through an interrogatory or stand their trial. I will tell you what I will do. I will write to our correspondents most particularly. I will bid them employ the sharpest fellow they can find about there to follow him and run him down.”
“Run him down!” she cried, with a mixture of horror and indignation,—“my boy! You use words that are ill chosen and drive me out of my senses,” she added, with a certain dignity. “But you are well meaning, Mr Somerville, and not an injudicious person in business so far as I have seen. You will write to no correspondents. There must be sharp fellows here, and men that have been about the world. You will send one of them. If I go myselfor not, I will take a little time to think; but without losing a day or a moment you will send one of them.”
“It will be a great expense, Mrs Ogilvy—and the other way would be better. I might even cable to our correspondents: that means telegraph. It’s another of their new-fangled words.”
“The one need not hinder the other. You can do both. Cable, as you call it——”
“It is very expensive,” he said.
“Man!” cried Mrs Ogilvy, towering over him, “what am I caring about expense?—expense! when it’s him that is in question. It will be the quickest way. Cable or telegraph, or whatever you call it; and since there’s nothing that can be done to-night, send the man wherever you may find him—to-morrow.”
“You go very fast,” he cried, panting as if for breath.
“And so would you, if it was your only son, your only child, that was in question. And I will think. I will perhaps set out to-morrow myself.”
“To-morrow is the Sabbath-day,” said Mr Somerville, with an indescribable sensation of relief.
This damped Mrs Ogilvy’s spirit for the moment. “It’s not that I would be kept back by the Sabbath-day,” she said; “for Him that was the Lord of the Sabbath, He just did more on that day than anyother, healing and saving: and would He put it against me? Oh no! I ken Him too well for that. But since it’s not a lawful day for travelling, and there’s few trains and boats, send your cable to-night, Mr Somerville. Let that be done at least, if it is the only thing we can do.”
“There will still be time; but I will have to hurry away,” said the old gentleman reluctantly, “to Edinburgh by the next train.”
And then there ensued a struggle in the mind of the hostess, to whom hospitality was second nature. “I did not think of that; and you’ve had a hot journey out here, and nothing to refresh you. Forgive me, that have been just wrapped up in my own concerns. You will stay and take—some dinner before you go back.”
“No, no,” he said; “it’s a terrible thing for you to refuse a dinner to a hungry man. You never did the like of that in your life before. But it’s best I should go. There’s a train in half an hour. I’ll take a glass of the wine you would not take, and I’ll be fresh again for my walk to the station. It’s not just so warm as it was.”
“You will stay to your dinner, Mr Somerville.”
“No; I could not swallow it, and you could not endure to see me eating it and losing time.”
“Then Andrew shall put in the pony, and drive you down to Eskholm,” Mrs Ogilvy said. Thiswas a relief to her, in the unexampled contingency of sending a visitor unrefreshed from her house—a thing which perhaps had never happened in her life before.
She went out to her habitual place outside a little later, at her usual hour. She was not capable of saying anything to Janet, who followed her wistfully, putting herself forward to bring out her mistress’s cushion, her footstool, her book, her knitting, one after another, always hoping to be told what Mrs Ogilvy had promised to tell her after. But not a word did her mistress say. She did not even sit down as she usually did, but walked about, quickly at first, then with gradually slackening steps, sometimes pausing to look round, sometimes stooping to throw away a withered leaf, but always resuming that restless walk which was so unlike her usual tranquillity. She had her hand pressed upon her side, as one might press a handkerchief upon a wound. And indeed she had the stroke of a sword in her heart, and the life-blood flowing. Robert Ogilvy, Robbie Ogilvy, the bonnie name! and after the silence of fifteen years to hear it now as in the ‘Hue and Cry,’ at the end of all that long string of awful nicknames. It was only now that she had full time to realise it all. Yesterday at this time what would she not have given for any indication that he was living and where he was! Shewould have said she could bear anything only to know that he was safe, and to have some clue by which he could be found. And now she had both, and a wound gaping in her heart that required both her hands to cover it, to prevent her life altogether from welling away. Robert Ogilvy, Robert Ogilvy—oh, his bonnie name!
After a while, her forces wearing out, she sat down in her usual place, but not with her usual patience and calm. Was that what could be called an answer to her prayers?—the sudden revelation of her son, for whom she had cried to God for all these years night and day, in anguish and crime and danger? Oh, was this an answer? Her eyes wandered by habit to the landscape below and the road which she had watched so often, the white road, white with summer dust, upon which every passing figure showed. There was a passing figure now, walking slowly along as far as she could see. On another day she would have wondered who the man was. She took no interest in him now, but saw him pass and pass again as if it were the merest accident. It was not until she had seen him pass three or four times that her attention was roused. A big figure, not one she could identify with any of the usual passers-by, strangely clad, and carrying a cloak folded over one shoulder. A cloak? what could a man like that want with a cloak—an old-fashioned cumbrous thing. Whateverhe wanted, he kept his face towards the Hewan. Sometimes he passed very slow, lingering at every step; sometimes very fast, as if he were pursued. Other figures went and came—the farmers’ gigs, a few carriages of the gentry going home. It was late, though it was still so light. What was that man doing loitering always there? Her attention was more and more drawn to the road. At last she saw that nobody except this one man was within sight, not a wheel audible, not a creature visible. The figure seemed to hesitate, and then all at once with a dart approached the gate, which swung at his touch. Was he coming here? Who was he? Long, long had she watched and waited. Was he coming home at last this June day,—this night of all nights? And who was he, who was he, the man that was coming? It will only be some person with a message—it will only be some gangrel person, Mrs Ogilvy said to herself.
Thefootstep came slowly up the sloping path. The holly-hedges were high, and for some time nothing more was visible than a moving speck over the solid wall of green. There is something in awaiting in this way the slow approach of a stranger which affects the nerves, even when there is little expectation and no alarm in the mind. Mrs Ogilvy sat speechless and unable to move, her throat parched and dry, her heart beating wildly. Was it he? Was it some one pursuing him—some avenger of blood on his track? Was it no one at all—some silly messenger, some sturdy beggar, some one who would require Andrew to turn him away? These questions went through her head in a whirl, without any volition of hers. The last was the most likely. She waited with a growing passion and suspense, yet still in outward semblance as the rose-bush with all its buds showing white, which stood tranquilly in the dimnessbehind her. It was growing dark; or rather it was growing dim, everything still visible, but vaguely, as if a veil had dropped between the eye and what it saw. When the man came out at the head of the path, detached and separate from all the trees and their shadows, upon the little platform, a thrill came over the looker-on. He seemed to pause there for a moment, then advanced slowly.
A tall big man, loosely dressed so as to make his proportions look bigger: his features, which there would not in any case have been light enough to see, half lost in a long brown beard, and in the shade of the broad soft hat, partly folded back, which covered his head. He did not take that off or say anything, but came slowly, half reluctantly forward, till he stood before her. It seemed to Mrs Ogilvy that she was paralysed. She could not move nor speak. This strange figure came into the peaceful circle of the little house closing up for the night, separated from all the world—in silence, like a ghost, like a secret and mysterious Being whose coming meant something very different from the comings and goings of the common day. He stood all dark like a shadow before the old lady trembling in her chair, with her white cap and white shawl making a strange light in the dim picture. How long this moment of silence lasted neither knew. It became intolerable to both at the same moment. She burstforth, “Who are you, who are you, man?” in a voice which shook and went out at the end like the flame of a candle in the air. “Have you forgotten me—altogether?” he said.
“Altogether?” she echoed, painfully raising herself from her chair. It brought her a little nearer to him, to the brown beard, the shadowed features, the eyes which looked dimly from under the deep shade of the hat. She stood for a moment tottering, trembling, recognising nothing, feeling the atmosphere of him sicken and repel her. And then there came into that wonderful pause a more wonderful and awful change of sentiment, a revolution of feeling. “Mother!” he said.
And with a low cry Mrs Ogilvy fell back into her chair. At such moments what can be done but to appeal to heaven? “Oh my Lord God!” she cried.
She had looked for it so long, for years and years and years, anticipated every particular of it: how she would recognise him afar off, and go out to meet him, like the father of the prodigal, and bring him home, and fill the house with feasting because her son who had been lost was found: how he would come to her all in a moment, and fling himself down by her side, with his head in her lap, as had been one of his old ways. Oh, and a hundred ways besides, like himself, like herself, when the mother and theson after long years would look each other in the face, and all the misery and the trouble would be forgotten! But never like this. He said “Mother,” and she dropped away from him, sank into the seat behind her, putting out neither hands nor arms. She did not lose consciousness—alas! she had not that resource, pain kept her faculties all awake—but she lost heart more completely than ever before. A wave of terrible sickness came over her, a sense of repulsion, a desire to hide her face, that the shadows might cover her, or cover him who stood there, saying no more: the man who was her son, who said he was her son, who said “Mother” in a tone which, amid all these horrible contradictions, yet went to her heart like a knife. Oh, not with sweetness! sharp, sharp, cutting every doubt away!
“Mother,” he said again, “I would have sworn you would not forget me, though all the world forgot me.”
“No,” she said, like one in a dream. “Can a mother forget her——” Her voice broke again, and went out upon the air. She lifted her trembling hands to him. “Oh Robbie, Robbie! are you my Robbie?” she said in a voice of anguish, with the sickness and the horror in her heart.
“Ay, mother,” he said, with a tone of bitterness in his voice; “but take me in, for I’m tired to death.”
And then a great compunction awoke within her: her son, for whom she had longed and prayed all these years—and instead of running out to meet him, and putting the best robe on him, a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, he had to remind her that he was tired to death! She took him by the hand and led him in, and put him in the big chair. “I am all shaken,” she said: “both will and sense, they are gone from me: and I don’t know what I am doing. Robbie, if ye are Robbie——”
“Do you doubt me still, mother?” He took off his hat and flung it on the floor. Though he was almost too much broken down for resentment, there was indignation in his tone. And then she looked at him again, and even in the dimness recognised her son. The big beard hid the lower part of his face, but these were Robbie’s eyes, eyes half turned away, sullen, angry—as she had seen him look before he went away, when he was reproved, when he had done wrong. She had forgotten that ever he had looked like that, but it flashed back to her mind in a moment now. She had forgotten that he had ever been anything but kind and affectionate and trusting, easily led away, oh, so easily led away, but nothing worse than that. Now it all came back upon her, the shadows that there had been to that picture even at its best.
“Robbie,” she said, with faltering lips, “Robbie, oh,my dear! I know you now,” and she put those trembling lips to his forehead. They were cold—it could not feel like a kiss of love; and she was trembling from head to foot, chiefly with emotion, but a little with fear. She could not help it: her heart yearned over him, and yet she was afraid of this strange man who was her son.
He did not attempt to return the salutation in any way. He said drearily, “I have not had bite nor sup for twelve hours, nothing but a cup of bad coffee this morning. My money’s all run out.”
“Oh, my laddie!” she cried, and hurried to the bell but did not ring it, and then to the door. But before she could reach the door, Janet came in with the lamp. She came unconscious that any one was there, with the sudden light illuminating her face, and making all the rest of the room doubly dark to her. She did not see the stranger sitting in the corner, and gave a violent start, almost upsetting the lamp as she placed it on the table, when with a half laugh he suddenly said, “And here’s Janet!” out of the shade. Janet turned round like lightning, with a face of ashes. “Who’s that,” she cried, “that calls me by my name?”
“We shall see,” he said, rising up, “if she knows me better than my mother.” Mrs Ogilvy stood by with a pang which words could not describe, as Janet flung up her arms with a great cry. It was true:the woman did recognise him without a moment’s hesitation, while his mother had held back—the woman, who was only the servant, not a drop’s blood to him. The mother’s humiliation could not be put into words.
“Janet,” she said severely, mastering her voice, “set out the supper at once, whatever is in the house. It will be cold; but in the meantime put the chicken to the fire that you got for to-morrow’s dinner: the cold beef will do to begin with: and lose not a moment. Mr Robert,”—she paused a moment after those words,—“Mr Robert has arrived suddenly, as you see, and he has had a long journey, and wants his supper. You can speak to him after. Now let us get ready his food.”
She went out of the room before her maid. She would not seem jealous, or to grudge Janet’s ready and joyful greeting. She went into the little dining-room, and began to arrange the table with her own hands. “Go you quick and put the chicken to the fire,” she said. Was she glad to escape from his presence, from Robbie, her long absent son, her only child? All the time she went quickly about, putting out the shining silver, freshly burnished, as it was Saturday; the fresh linen, put ready for Sunday; the best plates, part of the dinner-service that was kept in the dining-room. “This will do for the cold things,” she said; “and oh, make haste, make hastewith the rest!” Then she took out the two decanters of wine, the port and the sherry, which nobody drank, but which she had always been accustomed to keep ready. The bread was new, just come in from the baker’s, everything fresh, the provisions of the Saturday market, and of that instinct which prepares the best of everything for Sunday—the Sabbath—the Lord’s day. It was not the fatted calf, but at least it was the best fare that ever came into the house, the Sunday fare.
Then she went back to him in the other room: he had not followed her, but sat just as she had left him, his head on his breast. He roused up and gave a startled look round as she came in, as if there might be some horrible danger in that peaceful place. “Your supper is ready,” she said, her voice still tremulous. “Come to your supper. It is nothing but cold meat to begin with, but the chicken will soon be ready, Robbie: there’s nothing here to fear——”
“I know,” he said, rising slowly: “but if you had been like me, in places where there was everything to fear, it would be long before you got out of the way of it. How can I tell that there might not be somebody watching outside that window, which you keep without shutter or curtain, in this lonely little house, where any man might break in?”
He gave another suspicious glance at the windowas he followed her out of the room. “Tell Janet to put up the shutters,” he said.
Then he sat down and occupied himself with his meal, eating ravenously, like a man who had not seen food for days. When the chicken came he tore it asunder (tearing the poor old lady’s heart a little, in addition to all deeper wounds, by the irreverent rending of the food, on which, she had also remarked, he asked no blessing), and ate the half of it without stopping. His mother sat by and looked on. Many a time had she sat by rejoicing, and seen Robbie, as she had fondly said, “devour” his supper, with happy laugh and jest, and questions and answers, the boy fresh from his amusements, or perhaps, though more rarely, his work—with so much to tell her, so much to say,—she beaming upon him, proud to see how heartily he ate, rejoicing in his young vigour and strength. Now he ate in silence, like a wild animal, as if it might be his last meal; while she sat by, the shadow of her head upon the wall behind her showing the tremor which she hoped she had overcome, trying to say something now and then, not knowing what to say. He had looked up after his first onslaught upon the food, and glanced round the table. “Have you no beer?” he said. Mrs Ogilvy jumped up nervously. “There is the table-beer we have for Andrew,” she said. “You will have whisky, at least. I must have something to drink with my dinner,” he answered,morosely. Mrs Ogilvy knew many uses for whisky, but to drink it, not after, but with dinner, was not one that occurred to her. She brought out the old-fashioned silver case eagerly from the sideboard, and sought among the shelves where the crystal was for the proper sized glass. But he poured it out into the tumbler, to her horror, dashing the fiery liquid about and filling it up with water. “I suppose,” he said again, looking round him with a sort of angry contempt, “there’s no soda-water here?”
“We can get everything on Monday, whatever you like, my—my dear,” she said, in her faltering voice.
Afterwards she was glad to leave him, to go up-stairs and help Janet, whose steps she heard overhead in the room so long unused—his room, where she had always arranged everything herself, and spent many an hour thinking of her boy, among all the old treasures of his childhood and youth. It was a room next to her own—a little larger—“for a lad has need of room, with his big steps and his long legs,” she had many a time said. She found Janet hesitating between two sets of sheets brought out from Mrs Ogilvy’s abundant store of napery, one fine, and one not so fine. “It’s a grand day his coming hame,” Janet said. “Ye’ll mind, mem, a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet: it’s true that shoon are first necessaries, but no the ring on his finger.”
“Take these things away,” said Mrs Ogilvy, withan indignation that was more or less a relief to her, pushing away the linen, which slid in its shining whiteness to the floor, as if to display its intrinsic excellence though thus despised. She went to the press and brought out the best she had, her mother’s spinning in the days when mothers began to think of their daughter’s “plenishing” for her wedding as soon as she was born. She brought it back in her arms and placed it on the bed. “He shall have nothing but the best,” she said, spreading forth the snowy linen with her own hands. Oh! how often she had thought of doing that, going over it, spreading the bed for Robbie, with her heart dancing in her bosom! It did not dance now, but lay as if dead, but for the pain of its deadly wounds.
“And, Janet,” she said, “how it is to be done I know not, but Andrew must hurry to the town to get provisions for to-morrow. It will be too late to-night, and who will open to him, or who will sell to him on the Sabbath morning, is more than I can tell; but we must just trust——”
“Mem,” said Janet, “I have sent him already up Esk to Johnny Small’s to get some trout that he catched this afternoon, but couldna dispose o’ them so late. And likewise to Mrs Loanhead at the Knowe farm, to get a couple of chickens and as many eggs as he could lay his hands on. You’ll not be surprised if ye hear the poor things cackling. We’ll just thrawtheir necks the morn. I maun say again, as I have aye said, that for a house like this to have nae resources of its ain, no a chicken for a sudden occasion without flying to the neebors, is just a very puir kind of thing.”
“And what would become of my flowers, with your hens and their families about?”
“Flooers!” said Janet, contemptuously: and her mistress had not spirit to continue the discussion.
“And now,” she said, “that all’s ready, I must go down and see after my son.”
“Eh, mem, but you’re a proud woman this night to say thae words again! and him grown sic a grand buirdly man!”
The poor lady smiled—she could do no more—in her old servant’s face, and went down-stairs to the dining-room, which she found to her astonishment full of smoke, and those fumes of whisky which so often fill a woman’s heart with sickness and dismay, even when there is no need for such emotion. Robert Ogilvy sat with his chair pushed back from the table, a pipe in his mouth, and a tumbler of whisky-and-water at his hand. The whisky and the food had perhaps given him a less hang-dog look, but the former had not in the least affected him otherwise, nor probably had he taken enough to do so. But the anguish of the sight was not less at the first glance to his mother, so long unaccustomed to the habits ofeven the soberest men. She said nothing, and tried even to disguise the trouble in her expression, heart-wrung with a cumulation of experiences, each adding something to those that had gone before.
“Your room is ready, Robbie, my dear. You will be wearied with this long day—and the excitement,” she said, with a faint sob, “of coming home.”
“I do not call that excitement,” he said: “a man that knows what excitement is has other ways of reckoning——”
“But still,” she said, with a little gasp accepting this repulse, “it would be something out of the common. And you will have been travelling all day. How far have you come to-day, my dear?”
“Don’t put me through my catechism all at once,” he said, with a hasty wrinkle of anger in his forehead. “I’ll tell you all that another time. I’m very tired, at least, whether I’ve come a short way or a long.”
“I have put your bed all ready for you—Robbie.” She seemed to say his name with a little reluctance: his bonnie name! which had cost her so keen a pang to think of as stained or soiled. Was it the same feeling that arrested it on her lips now?
“Am I bothering you, mother, staying here a little quiet with my pipe? for I’ll go, if that is what you want.”
She had coughed a little, much against her will, unaccustomed to the smoke. “Bothering me!” shecried: “is it likely that anything should bother me to-night, and my son come back?”
He looked at her, and for the first time seemed to remark her countenance strained with a wistful attempt at satisfaction, on the background of her despair.
“I am afraid,” he said, shaking his head, “there is not much more pleasure in it to you than to me.”
“There would be joy and blessing in it, Robbie,” she cried, forcing herself to utterance, “if it was a pleasure to you.”
“That’s past praying for,” he replied, almost roughly, and then turned to knock out his pipe upon the edge of the trim summer fireplace, all so daintily arranged for the warm season when fires were not wanted. Her eyes followed his movements painfully in spite of herself, seeing everything which she would have preferred not to see. And then he rose, putting the pipe still not extinguished in his pocket. “If it’s to be like this, mother,” he said, “the best thing for me will be to go to bed. I’m tired enough, heaven knows; but the pipe’s my best friend, and it was soothing me. Now I’ll go to bed——”
“Is it me that am driving you, Robbie? I’ll go ben to the parlour. I will leave you here. I will do anything that pleases you——”
“No,” he said, with a sullen expression closing over his face, “I’ll go to bed.” He was going withoutanother word, leaving her standing transfixed in the middle of the room—but, after a glance at her, came back. “You’ll be going to church in the morning,” he said. “I’ll take what we used to call a long lie, and you need not trouble yourself about me. I’m a different man from what you knew, but—it’s not my wish to trouble you, mother, more than I can help.”
“Oh, Robbie, trouble me!” she cried: “oh, my boy! would I not cut myself in little bits to please you? would I not—— I only desire you to be comfortable, my dear—my dear!”
“You’ll make them shut up all these staring open windows if you want me to be comfortable,” he said. “I can’t bear a window where any d——d fellow might jump in. Well, then, good-night.”
She took his hand in both hers. She reached up to him on tiptoe, with her face smiling, yet convulsed with trouble and pain. “God bless you, Robbie! God bless you! and bless your homecoming, and make it happier for you and me than it seems,” she said, with a sob, almost breaking down. He stooped down reluctantly his cheek towards her, and permitted her kiss rather than received it. Oh, she remembered now! he had done that when he was angered, when he was blamed, in the old days. He had not been, as she persuaded herself, all love and kindness even then.
But she would not allow herself to stop and think.Though she had herself slept securely for years, in the quiet of her age and peacefulness, with little heed to doors and windows, she bolted and barred them all now with her own hands. “Mr Robert wishes it,” she said, explaining to Janet, who came in in much surprise at the sound. “He has come out of a wild country full of strange chancy folk—and wild beasts too, in the great forests,” she added by an after-thought. “He likes to see that all’s shut up when we’re so near the level of the earth.”
“I’m very glad that’s his opinion,” said Janet, “for it’s mine; no for wild beasts, the Lord preserve us! but tramps, that’s worse. But Andrew’s not back yet, and he will be awfu’ surprised to see all the lights out.”
“Andrew must just keep his surprise to himself,” said the mistress in her decided tones, “for what my son wishes, whatever it may be, that is what I will do.”
“’Deed, mem, and I was aye weel aware o’ that,” Janet said.
Thenext day was such a Sunday as had never been passed in the Hewan before. Mrs Ogilvy did not go to church: consequently Sandy was not taken out of the stable, nor was there any of the usual cheerful bustle of the Sunday morning, the little commotion of the best gown, the best bonnet, the lace veil taken out of their drawers among the lavender. Nobody but Mrs Ogilvy continued to wear a lace veil: but her old, softly tinted countenance in the half mask of a piece of net caught upon the nose, as was once the fashion, or on the chin, as is the fashion now, would have been an impossible thing. Her long veil hung softly from her bonnet behind it or above it. It could cover her face when there was need; but there never was any reason why she should cover her face. Her faithful servants admired her very much in her Sunday attire. Janet, though she was so hot a churchwoman, wasnot much of a churchgoer. Somebody, she said, had to stay at home to look after the house and the dinner, even when it was a cold dinner: and to see the mistress sit down without even a hot potatie, was more than she could consent to: so except on great occasions she remained at home, and Andrew put a mark in his Bible at the text, and told her as much as he could remember of the discourse. It was a “ploy” for Janet to come out to the door into the still and genial sunshine on Sunday morning, and see the little pony-carriage come round, all its polished surfaces shining, and Sandy tossing his head till every bit of the silver on his harness twinkled in the sun, and Andrew, all in his best, bringing him up with a little dash at the door. And then Mrs Ogilvy would come out, not unconscious and not displeased that the old servants were watching for her, and that the sight of her modest finery was a “ploy” to Janet, who had so few ploys. She would pin a rose on her breast when it was the time of roses, and take a pair of grey gloves out of her drawer, to give them pleasure, with a tender feeling that made the little vanity sweet. The grey gloves were, indeed, her only little adornment, breaking the monotony of the black which she always wore; but Janet loved the lustre of the best black silk, and to stroke it with her hand as she arranged it in the carriage, loath to cover up its sheen withthe wrapper which was necessary to protect it from the dust. Nothing of all this occurred on the dull morning of this strange Sabbath, which, as if in sympathy, was grey and cheerless—the sky without colour, the landscape without sunshine. Mrs Ogilvy came out to the door to speak to Andrew as he ploughed across the gravel with discontented looks—for to walk in to the kirk did not please the factotum, who generally drove. She called him to her, standing on the doorstep drawing her white shawl round her as if she had taken a chill. “Andrew,” she said, “I know you are not a gossip; but it’s a great event my son coming home. I would have you say little about it to-day, for it would bring a crowd of visitors, and perhaps some even on the Sabbath: and Mr Robert is tired, and not caring to see visitors. He must just have a day or two to rest before everybody knows.”
“I’m no a man,” said Andrew, a little sullen, “for clashes and clavers: you had better, mem, say a word to the wife.” Andrew was conscious that in his prowl for victuals the night before he had spread the news of Ogilvy’s return,—“and nae mair comfort to his mother nor ever, or I am sair mistaen”—far and wide.
“Whatever you do,” Mrs Ogilvy said, a little subdued by Andrew’s looks, “do not say anything to the minister’s man.”
She went back, and sat down in her usual place between the window and the fireplace. The room was full of flowers, gathered fresh for Sunday; and the Bible lay on the little table, the knitting and the newspapers being carefully cleared away. She took the book and opened it, or rather it opened of itself, at those chapters in St John’s Gospel which are the dearest to the sorrowful. She opened it, but she did not read it. She had no need. She knew every word by heart, as no one could do by any mere effort of memory: but only by many, many readings, long penetration of the soul by that stream of consolation. It did her a little good to have the book open by her side: but she did not need it—and, indeed, the sacred words were mingled unconsciously by many a broken prayer and musing of her own. She had gone to her son’s room, to the door, many times since she parted with him the night before; but had heard no sound, and, hovering there on the threshold, had been afraid to go in, as she so longed to do. What mother would not, after so long an absence, steal in to say again good-night—to see that all was comfortable, plenty of covering on the bed, not too much, just what he wanted; or again, in the morning, to see how he had slept, to recognise his dear face by the morning light, to say God bless him, and God bless him the first morning as the first night of his return? ButMrs Ogilvy was afraid. She went and stood outside the door, trembling, but she had not the courage to go in. She felt that it might anger him—that it might annoy him—that he would not like it. He had been a long time away. He had grown a man almost middle-aged, with none of the habits or even recollections of a boy. He would not like her to go near him—to touch him. With a profound humility of which she was not conscious, she explained to herself that this was after all “very natural.” A man within sight of forty (she counted his age to a day—he was thirty-seven) had forgotten, being long parted from them, the ways of a mother. He had maybe, she said to herself with a shudder, known—other kinds of women. She had no right to be pained by it—to make a grievance of it. Oh no, no grievance: it was “very natural.” If she went into the parlour, where she always sat in the morning, she would hear him when he began to move: for that room was over this. Meantime, what could she do better than to read her chapter, and say her prayers, and bless him—and try “to keep her heart”?
Many, many times had she gone over the same thoughts that flitted about her mind now and interrupted the current of her prayers, and of the reading which was only remembering. There was Job, whom she had thought of so often, whose habit was, when his sons and daughters were in alltheir grandeur before anything happened to them, to offer sacrifices for them, if, perhaps, in the carelessness of their youth, they might have done something amiss. How she had longed to do that! and then had reminded herself that there were no more sacrifices, that there had been One for all, and that all she had to do was but to put God in mind, to keep Him always in mind: that there was her son yonder somewhere out in His world, and maybe forgetting what his duty was. To put God in mind!—as if He did not remember best of all, thinking on them most when they were lost, watching the night when even a mother slumbers and sleeps, and never, never losing sight of them that were His sons before they were mine! What could she say then, what could she do, a poor small thing of a woman, of as little account as a fly in the big world of God? Just sit there with her heart bleeding, and say between the lines, “In my Father’s house are many mansions”—and, “If a man love me, my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him:” nothing but “my Robbie, my Robbie!” with anguish and faith contending. This was all mixed up among the verses now, those verses that were balm, the keen sharpness of this dear name.
She was not, however, permitted to remain with these thoughts alone. Janet came softly to the door,half opening it, asking, “May I come in?” “Oh, who can prevent you from coming in?” her mistress said, in the sudden impatience of a preoccupied mind, and then softly, “Come in, Janet,” in penitence more sudden still. Janet came in, and, closing the door behind her, stood as if she had something of the gravest importance to say. “What is it, woman, what is it?” Mrs Ogilvy cried in alarm.
“I was thinking,” said Janet, “Mr Robert brought nae luggage with him when he came last night.”
“No—he was walking—how could he bring luggage?” cried Mrs Ogilvy, picking up that excuse, as it were, from the roadside, for she had not thought of it till this minute.
“That is just what I am saying,” said Janet: “no a clean shirt, nor a suit of clothes to change, and this the Sabbath-day——!”
“There are his old things in the drawer,” said Mrs Ogilvy.
“His auld things!—that wouldna peep upon him, the man he is now. He was shapin’ for a fine figger of a man when he went away: but no braid and buirdly as he is now.”
Janet spoke in a tone of genuine admiration and triumph, which was balm to her mistress’s heart. His bigness, his looseness of frame, had indeed been one of the little things that had vexed her among so many others. “Not like my Robbie,” she had breathedto herself, thinking of the slim and graceful boy. But it gave her great heart to see how different Janet’s opinion was. It was she who was always over-anxious. No doubt most folk would be of Janet’s mind.
“I was thinking,” said Janet, “to take him a shirt of my man’s, just his best. It has not been on Andrew’s back for many a day. ’Deed, I just gave it a wash, and plenty of stairch, as the gentlemen like, and ironed it out this morning. The better day the better deed.”
“On the Sabbath morning!” said Mrs Ogilvy, half laughing, half crying.
“I’ll take the wyte o’t,” said Janet. “But I can do nae mair. I canna offer him a suit of Andrew’s: in the first place, his best suit, he has it on: and I wouldna demean Mr Robert to a common man’s working claes; and then besides——”
“If you’ll get those he’s wearing, Janet, and brush them well, that’ll do fine. And then we must have no visitors to-day. I know not who would come from the town on the Sabbath-day, except maybe Miss Susie. Miss Susie is not like anybody else; but oh, I would not like her to see him so ill put on! Yet you can never tell, with that ill habit the Edinburgh folk have of coming out to Eskholm on the Sunday afternoon, and then thinking they may just daunder in to the Hewan and get a cup of tea. The time when youwant them least is just the time they are like to come.”
“We’ll just steek the doors and let them chap till they’re wearied,” said Janet, promptly. “They’ll think ye’ve gane away like other folk, for change of air.”
“I’m loth to do that—when folk have come so far, and tired with their walk. Do you think, Janet, you could have the tea ready, and just say I have—stepped out to see a neighbour, or that I’m away at the manse, or——? I would be out in the garden out of sight, so it would be no lee to say I was out of the house.”
“If it’s the lee you’re thinking of, mem—I’m no caring that,” and Janet snapped her fingers, “for the lee.”
Neither mistress nor maid called it a lie, which was a much more serious business. The Scottish tongue is full of thosenuances, which in other languages we find so admirable.
“Oh, Janet!” cried Mrs Ogilvy again, between laughing and crying, “I fear I’ll have but an ill character to give you—washing out a shirt on Sunday and caring nothing for a lee!”
“If we can just get Andrew aff to his kirk in the afternoon. I’ll no have him at my lug for ever wi’ his sermons. Lord, if I hadna kent better how to fend for him than he did himsel’, would he ever have been a man o’ weight, as they say he is, in that Auld Licht meetin’ o’ his, and speakingill o’ a’ the ither folk? Just you leave it to me. Bless us a’! sae lang as the dear laddie is comfortable, what’s a’ the rest to you and me?”
“Oh, Janet, my woman!” said the mistress, holding out her hand. It was so small and delicate that Janet was seized with a compunction after she had squeezed it in her own hard but faithful one, which felt like an iron framework in comparison. “I doubt I’ve hurt her,” she said to herself; “but I was just carried away.”
And Mrs Ogilvy was restored to her musing and her prayers, which presently were interrupted again by sounds in the room overhead—Janet’s step going in, which shook and thrilled the flooring, and the sound of voices. The mother sat and listened, and heard his voice speaking to Janet, the masculine tone instantly discernible in a woman’s house, speaking cheerfully, with after a while a laugh. His tone to her had been very different. It had been full of involuntary self-defence, a sort of defiance, as if he felt that at any moment something might be demanded of him, excuse or explanation—or else blame and reproach poured forth upon him. The mother’s heart swelled a little, and yet she smiled. Oh, it was very natural! He could even joke and laugh with the faithful servant-woman, who could call him to no account, whom he had known all his life. If there was any passing cloud in MrsOgilvy’s mind it passed away on the instant, and the only bitterness was that wistful one, with a smile of wonder accompanying it, “That he could think I would demand an account—me!”
He came down-stairs later, half amused with himself, in the high collar of Andrew’s gala shirt, and with a smile on his face. “I’m very ridiculous, I suppose,” he said, walking to the glass above the mantelpiece; “but I did not want to vex the woman, and clean things are pleasant.”
“Is your luggage—coming, Robbie?” she ventured to say, while he stood before the glass trying to fold over or modify as best he could the spikes of the white linen which stood round his face.
“How much luggage do you think a man would be likely to have,” he said impatiently, standing with his back towards her, “who came from New York as a stowaway in a sailing-ship?”
She had not the least idea what a stowaway was, but concluded it to be some poor, very poor post, with which comfort was incompatible. “My dear,” she said, “you will have to go into Edinburgh and get a new outfit. There are grand shops in Edinburgh. You can get things—I mean men’s things—just as well, they tell me, as in London.”
She spoke in a half-apologetic tone, as if he had been in the habit of getting his clothes from London, and might object to a less fashionable place—for indeed the poor lady was much confused, believing rather that her son had lived extravagantly and lavishly than that he had been put to all the shifts of poverty.
“I’ve had little luggage this many a day,” he said,—“a set of flannels when I could get them for the summer, and for winter anything that was warm enough. I’ve not been in the way of sending to Poole for my clothes.” He laughed, but it was not the simple laugh that had sounded from the room above. “What did I ever know about London, or anything but the commonest life?”
“Just what we could give you, Robbie,” she said, in a faltering tone.
“Well!” he cried impatiently. And then he turned round and faced her—Andrew’s collars, notwithstanding all his efforts, giving still a semi-ludicrous air, which gave the sting of an additional pang to Mrs Ogilvy, who could not bear that he should be ridiculous. He confronted her, sitting down opposite, fixing his eyes on her face, as if to forestall any criticism on her part. “I’ve come back as I went away,” he said with defiance. “I had very little when I started,—I have nothing now. If you had not kept me so bare, and never a penny in my pocket, I might have done better: but nothing breeds nothing, you know, mother. It’s one of the laws of the world.”
“Robbie, I gave you what I had,” she exclaimed, astonished, yet half relieved, to find that it was she who was put on her defence.
“Ay, that’s what everybody says. You must have kept a little more for yourself, however, for you seem very comfortable: and you talk at your ease of a new outfit, while I’ve been glad of a cast-off jacket or an old pair of breeks that nobody else would wear.”
“Oh Robbie, Robbie!” she cried in a voice of anguish, “and me laying up every penny for you, and ready with everything there was—at a moment’s notice!”
“Well, perhaps it’s better as it is,” he said: “I might just have lost it again. You get into a sort of a hack-horse way—just the same round, and never able to get out of it—unless when you’ve got to cut and run for your life.”
“Robbie!”
“I’ll tell you about that another time. I don’t know what you’re going to do with me, now you’ve got me here. I’m a young fellow enough yet, mother—a sort of a young fellow, but not good for anything. And then if this affair comes up, I may have to cut and run again. Oh, I’ll tell you about it in time! It’s not likely they’ll be after me, with all the loose swearing there is yonder, and extraditions, and that kind of thing; but I’m not one that would standbeing had up and examined—even if I was sure I should get off: I’d just cut and run.”
“Is there any danger?” she said in a terrified whisper.
He burst out laughing again, but these laughs were not good to hear. “Of what do you think? That they might hang me up to the first tree? But till it blows over I can be sure of nothing—or if any other man turns up. There is a man before whom I would just cut and run too. If he should get wind that I was here”—he gave a suspicious glance round. “And this confounded house on a level with the ground, and the windows open night and day!”
“Who is it? Who is the man?” she said. She followed every change of his face, every movement, every question, with eyes large with panic and terror.
What he said first, he had the grace to say under his breath out of some revived tradition of respect, “Would you be any the wiser if I told you a name—that you never heard before?” he said.
“No, Robbie, no. But tell me one thing, is it a man you have wronged? Oh Robbie, tell me, tell me that, for pity’s sake!”
“No!” he shouted with a rage that overcame all other feelings. “Damn him! damn him! it’s he that has never done anything but hunt and harm me.”
“Oh, God be thanked!” cried his mother, suddenly rising and going to him. “Oh Robbie, my dear, the Lord be praised! and God forgive that unfortunate person, for if it’s him, it’s not you!”
He submitted unwillingly for a moment to the arm which she put round him, drawing his head upon her breast, and then put her not ungently away. “If there’s any consolation in that, you can take it,” he said: “There’s not much consolation in me, any way.” And then he reached his large hand over the table to her little bookcase, which stood against the wall. “I can always read a book,” he said, “a story-book; it’s the only thing I can do. You used to have all the Scotts here.”
“They are just where they used to be, Robbie,” she said, in a subdued tone. She watched him, still standing while he chose one; and throwing himself back in his chair, began to read. It added a little sense of embarrassment, of confusion and disorder, to all the heavier trouble, that he had thrown himself into her chair, the place in which she had sat through all those years when there was no one to interfere with her. Glad was she to give up the best place in the house to him, whatever he might please to choose; but it gave her a feeling of disturbance which she could not explain, not being even aware at first what it was that caused it. She did not know where to sit, nor what to do. She could notgo back to fetch her open Bible, nor sit down to read it, partly because it would be a reproach to him sitting there reading a novel—only a novel, no reading for Sabbath, even though it was Sir Walter’s; partly because it would seem like indifference, she thought, to occupy herself with reading at all, when at any moment he might have something to say to her again.