Robertwent in again to Edinburgh a few days later, with results very similar. Mrs Ogilvy once more waited for him half through the night: but she sat with her window closed, and with a book in her hand, reading or making believe to read, and with no longer any passion of tears or panic in her heart, but a vague misery, a thrill of expectation she knew not of what, of bad or good, of danger or safety. He came in always, sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later, with a kind of regularity which she had to accept, which, indeed, she accepted, without remonstrance or complaint. The atmosphere about him was always the same, tobacco and whisky, to both which things the little fragrant feminine house was getting accustomed, to which she consented with a pang indescribable, but which had no consequences to make any complaint of, as she acknowledged with thankfulness. When he didnot go to Edinburgh, he remained quietly enough in the house, doing nothing, saying not very much, taking his walks in the darkening, when it was quite late, and consequently keeping her in a sort of perennial uneasiness, only intensified on those occasions when he went to Edinburgh. On no evening was she sure that he might not come in, in a state of alarm, bidding her extinguish every light, and watching from the chinks of the window lest some one clandestine might be roaming round the house; or that he might not appear with another at his elbow, the man whom he hated yet would obey, the shedder of blood, as she called him; or, finally, that he might never come back at all,—that the man who had so much influence over him might sweep him away, carry him off, notwithstanding all his unwillingness. It is not to be supposed that much comfort now dwelt in the Hewan, in the constant contemplation of so many dangers. Yet everything was more or less as before. The mistress of the house gave no external sign of trouble. To anxious eyes, had there been any to inspect her, there would have appeared new lines in her countenance; but no eyes were anxious about her looks. She pursued her usual habits, as careful as always of the neatness of her house, her dress, her garden, everything surrounding her. Her visitors still came, though this was her hardest burden. To them she said nothing of herson’s return. He withdrew hurriedly to his room whenever there was the smallest sign of any one approaching; and few of them were of his time. The neighbourhood had changed in fifteen years, as the face of the country changes everywhere. There were plenty of people in the neighbourhood who knew Robert Ogilvy, but these were not of the kind who go out in the afternoon to tea. The habit had not begun when he left home. There were wives of his own contemporaries among the ladies who paid their visits at the Hewan, but Robert was not acquainted with them. Of those whom he had known of old, the elder ladies were like his mother, receiving their little company, not going forth to seek it, and the younger ones married, bearing names with which he was not acquainted, or perhaps gone from the country-side altogether. “I know nobody, and nobody would know me,” he said; which was a great mistake, however, for already the rumour of his return had flashed all over the neighbourhood, and was hotly discussed in the parish, and half of the visitors who came to the Hewan came with the determination of ascertaining the truth. But they ascertained nothing. He was never visible, his mother looked “just in her ordinary,” the house seemed undisturbed and unchanged. Sometimes a whiff of tobacco was sensible to the nostrils of some of the guests; but when one bold woman said so, Mrs Ogilvy had answeredquietly, “There is at present a great deal of smoke about the house,” with a glance, or so the visitor thought, at her rose-trees, which Andrew fumigated diligently against the greenfly in that simple way. The greenfly is a subject on which all possessors of gardens are kin. The questioner determined that she would have it tried that very evening on her own rose-bushes, for Mrs Ogilvy’s buds were uncommonly vigorous and clean; and so the smell of tobacco ceased to be discussed or perceived, being accounted for.
This secrecy could not, of course, have been maintained had Mrs Ogilvy taken counsel with any one, or opened her mind on the subject. It could not have been maintained, for instance, had Mr Logan, the minister, been in his right mind. I do not know that she would have naturally consulted on such a subject her legitimate spiritual guide. But the intimacy between the families was such that it could not have been hid. Even had the boys been at home instead of going to Edinburgh every day, some large-limbed rapid lad would no doubt have darted into the house with a message from Susie at an inopportune moment, and found Robert. Susie herself was the only person now whom Mrs Ogilvy half dreaded, half hoped for. The secret could not have been kept from her—that would have been impossible; and from day to day her coming was looked for, notwithout a rising of hope, not without a thrill of fear. In other circumstances Mrs Ogilvy would have been moved to seek Susie, to discover how she was bearing the complications of her own lot. Susie was the only creature for whom Mrs Ogilvy longed: the sight of her would have been good: the possibility of unburdening her soul, even if she had not done it, would have been a relief, to the imagination at least. Her complete separation from Susie for the time, which was entirely accidental, was one of the most curious circumstances in this curious and changed life.
If she did not see Susie, however, she saw the woman who was about to change Susie’s life and circumstances still more than her own were changed,—the lady from England who carried an indefinable atmosphere of suspicion about with her, as Robbie carried that whiff of tobacco. Mrs Ainslie took upon her an air of unwarrantable intimacy which the mistress of the Hewan resented. “I thought you would have come to see me,” the visitor said, in a tone of flattering reproach.
“I go to see nobody,” said Mrs Ogilvy, “except old friends, or where I am much needed. It’s a habit of mine that is well known.”
“But you must excuse me,” said the other, “for not knowing all the habits of the people here” (as if Mrs Ogilvy of the Hewan had been but one ofthe people here!). And then she made a pause and put her head on one side, and regarded the old lady, now impenetrable as a stone wall, with cajoling sweetness. “He has told you!” she said.
“If you are meaning the minister——”
“Oh, why should we play at hide-and-seek, when I am dying for your sympathy, and you know very well whom I mean? Who could I mean but—— And oh, dear Mrs Ogilvy, do wish me joy, and say you think I have done well——”
“Upon your marriage with the minister?”
“Oh,” cried the lady, holding up her hands, “don’t crush me with your minister! I think it’s pretty. I have no objections to it: but still you do call him Mr Logan when you speak to him. Poor man! he has been so lonely ever since his poor wife died. And I—I have been very lonely too. Can any one ever take the same place as a wife or a husband? We are two lonely people——”
“Not him,” said Mrs Ogilvy; “I can say nothing for you. Very good company he has had, better than most of the wives I see. His own daughter just the best and the kindest—and that has kept his house in such order—as it will take any strange woman no little trouble to do.”
“Oh, don’t think I shall attempt that,” said the visitor. “I have promised to be his wife, but not to be his drudge. Poor Susan has been his drudge. Notmuch wonder, therefore, that she could not be much of a companion to him. One can’t, my dear Mrs Ogilvy, be busy with a set of children, and teaching the a b c, all day, and then be lively and amusing to a man when he comes in tired at night.”
“I have nothing to say to it one way or another,” said Mrs Ogilvy. “I wish you may never rue it, neither him nor you, and that is just all that will come to my lips. If she is a lively companion or not, I cannot say, but my poor Susie has been a mother to these bairns; and what he will do with the little ones turned out of the house, and Susie turned out of his house——”
“You are so prejudiced! The little girls will be far better at school—and Susie is going to marry, which she should have done ten years ago. Her father has no right to keep a girl from making a happy marriage and securing the man of her heart.”
“And where is she to get,” said Mrs Ogilvy, with a slight choke in her throat, “what you call the man of her heart?”
“Oh, my dear lady, you that have known Susie all through, how can you ask? He proposed to her when she was twenty, and I believe he has asked her every year since——”
“So he has told you that old story; but he had not the courage, knowing a little more than you do, to speak to me of the man of her heart. Oh no,he had not the boldness to do that! And is Susie aware of the happiness you are preparing for her, her father and you?” the old lady said, grimly.
“Mr Logan,” said the lady, “has a timidity about that which I don’t understand. I tell him he is frightened for his daughter. It is as if he felt he had jilted her.”
“Indeed, and it is very like that,” Mrs Ogilvy said.
“He thought you, perhaps, dear Mrs Ogilvy, as such a very old friend, would tell her,—and then, when he found that you were disinclined to do it, he—well, I fear he has shirked it again. Nothing so cowardly as a man in certain circumstances. I believe at the last I will have to do it myself.”
“Nobody could be better qualified——”
“Do you really think so? I’m so glad you are learning to do me justice. It’s all for her good—you know it is. To marry and have children of her own is better than acting mother to another person’s children. Oh yes, they are her own brothers and sisters now; but they will grow up, and if Susie does not marry, what prospect has she? Those who really love her should take all these things into account.”
Mrs Ainslie spoke these sensible words with many little gestures and airs, which exasperated the older woman perhaps all the more that there was nothingto be said against the utterance itself. But at that moment she heard a step that she knew well upon the gravel outside, and of all people in the world to meet and divine who Robert was, and publish it abroad, this interloper, this stranger, who had awakened a warmer feeling of hostility in Mrs Ogilvy’s bosom than any one had done before, was the last. She sat breathless, making no answer, while she heard him enter the house: he had been in the garden with his pipe and his newspaper—for it was still morning, and not an hour when the Hewan was on guard against visitors. His large step, so distinctly a man’s step, paused in the hall. Mrs Ogilvy raised her voice a little, to warn him, as she made an abstract reply.
“It’s rare,” she said, “that we’re so thankful as we ought to be—to them that deal with us for our good.”
“Do you hear that step in the passage?” cried Mrs Ainslie. “Ah, I know who it is. It is dear James—it is Mr Logan, I mean. I felt sure he would not be long behind me. Mayn’t I let him in?”
She rose in a flutter, and rushing to the door threw it open, with an air of eager welcome and arch discovery; but recoiled a step before the unknown personage, large, silent, with his big beard and watchful aspect, who stood listening and uncertainoutside. “Oh!” she cried, and fell back, not without a start of dismay.
Mrs Ogilvy’s pride did not tolerate any denial of her son, who stood there, making signs to her which she declined to notice. “This is my son,” she said, “the master of the house. He has just come back after a long time away.”
“Oh—Mr Ogilvy!” the lady faltered. She was anxious to please everybody, but she was evidently frightened, though it was difficult to tell why. “How pleased you must be to have your son come back at last!”
He paused disconcerted on the threshold. “I did not mean to—disturb you, mother—I did not know there was anybody here.”
“Don’t upbraid me, please, with coming at such untimely hours,” she cried. Mrs Ainslie was in a flutter of consciousness, rubbing her gloved hands, laughing a little hysterically, but more than ever anxious to please, and instinctively putting on her little panoply of airs and graces. “I had business. I had indeed. It was not a mere call meaning nothing. Your mother will tell you, Mr Ogilvy——” She let her veil drop over her face, with a tremulous movement, and almost cringed while she flattered him, with little flutterings and glances of incomprehensible meaning.
The woman was trying to cast her spells overRobbie! There flew through Mrs Ogilvy’s mind a sensation which was not all disagreeable. “The woman” was odious to her; but she was a well-looking woman, and not an ignorant one, knowing something of the world; and Robert, with his big beard and his rough clothes, had given Mrs Ogilvy the profoundly humiliating consciousness that he had ceased to look like a gentleman; but the woman did not think so. The woman made her little coquettish advances to him as if he had been a prince. This was how his mother interpreted her visitor’s looks: she thought no better of her for this, but yet the sensation was soothing, and raised her spirits,—even though she scorned the woman for it, and her son for the hesitating smile which after a moment began to light up his face.
“However,” said the lady, hurriedly, “unless you wish for the minister on my heels, perhaps I had better go now. No? you will not be persuaded, indeed? You are more hard-hearted than I expected. So then there is nothing for it but that I must do it myself. There, Mr Ogilvy! You see we have secrets after all—mysteries! Two women can’t meet together, can they, without having something tremendous, some conspiracy or other, for each other’s ears?”
“I did not say so,” said Robert, not unresponsive, though taken by surprise.
“Oh no, you did not say so; but you were thinking so all the same. They always do, don’t they? Gentlemen have such fixed ideas about women.” She had overcome her little tremor, but was more coquettish than ever. While she held his mother’s hand in hers, she held up a forefinger of the other archly at Robert. “Oh, I’ve had a great deal of experience. I know what to expect from men.”
She led him out after her to the door talking thus, and down towards the gate; while Mrs Ogilvy stood gazing, wondering. It was one of her tenets, too, that no man can resist such arts; but the anger of a woman who sees them thus exerted in her very presence was still softened by the sensation that this woman, so experienced, still thought Robbie worth her while. He came back again in a few minutes, having accompanied the visitor to the gate, with a smile faintly visible in his beard. “Who is that woman?” he said. “She is not one of your neighbours here?”
“What made you go with her, Robbie?”
“Oh, she seemed to expect it, and it was only civil. Where has she come from? and how did you pick such a person up?”
“She is a person that will soon be—a neighbour, as you say, and a person of importance here. She is going to be married upon the minister, Robbie.”
“The minister!” he gave a low whistle—“that willbe a curious couple; but I hope it’s a new minister, and not poor old Logan, whom I—whom I remember so well. I’ve seen women like that, but not among ministers. I almost think I’ve—seen her somewhere. Old Logan! But he has a wife,” Robert said.
“He had one; but she’s been dead these ten years, and this lady is new come to the parish, and he has what you call fallen in love with her. There are no fules like old fules, Robbie. I like little to hear of falling in love at that age.”
“Old Logan!” said Robert again. There were thoughts in his eyes which seemed to come to sudden life, but which his mother did not dare investigate too closely. She dreaded to awaken them further; she feared to drive them away. What memories did the name of Logan bring? or were there any of sufficient force to keep him musing, as he seemed to do, for a few minutes after. But at the end of that time he burst into a sudden laugh. “Old Logan!” he said; “poor old fellow! I remember him very well. The model of a Scotch minister, steady-going, but pawky too, and some fun in him. Where has he picked up a woman like that? and what will he do with her when he has got her? I have seen the like of her before.”
“But, Robbie, she is just a very personable, well-put-on woman, and well-looking, and no ill-mannered. She is not one I like,—but I am maybe prejudiced,considering the changes she will make; and there is no harm in her, so far as we have ever heard here.”
“Oh, very likely there is no harm in her; but what has she to do in a place like this? and with old Logan!” He laughed again, and then, growing suddenly grave, asked, “What changes is she going to make?”
“There are always changes,” said Mrs Ogilvy, evasively, “when a man marries that has a family, and everything settled on another foundation. They are perhaps more in a woman’s eyes than in a man’s; I will tell you about that another time. But you that wanted to be private, Robbie—there will be no more of that, I’m thinking, now.”
“Well, it cannot be helped,” he said, crossly; “what could I do? Could I refuse to answer her? Private!—how can you be private in a place like this, where every fellow knew you in your cradle? Two or three have spoken to me already on the road——”
“I never thought we could keep it to ourselves—and why should we?” his mother said.
He answered with a sort of snort only, which expressed nothing, and then fell a-musing, stretched out in the big chair, his legs half away across the room, his beard filling up all the rest of the space. His mother looked at him with mingled sensations of pride and humiliation—a half-admiration and a half-shame. He was a big buirdly man, as Janet said; and he had his new clothes, which were at least clean and fresh: butthey had not made any transformation in his appearance, as she had hoped. Was there any look of a gentleman left in that large bulk of a man? The involuntary question went cold to Mrs Ogilvy’s heart. It still gave her a faint elation, however, to remember that Mrs Ainslie had quite changed her aspect at the sight of him, quite acknowledged him as one of the persons whom it was her mission in the world to attract. It was a small comfort, and yet it was a comfort. She took up her stocking and composed herself to wait his pleasure, till he should have finished his thoughts, whatever they were, and be disposed to talk again.
But when his voice came finally out of his beard and out of the silence, it was with a startling question: “What do you mean to do with me, mother, now I am here?”
Theysat and looked at each other across the little area of the peaceful room. He, stretching half across it, too big almost for the little place. She, in her white shawl and her white cap, its natural occupant and mistress. Her stocking had dropped into her lap, and she looked at him with a pathos and wistfulness in her eyes which were scarcely concealed by the anxious smile which she turned upon him. They were not equal in anything, in this less than in other particulars—for he was indifferent, asking her the question without much care for the answer, while she was moved to her finger-ends with anxiety on the subject, thrilling with emotion and fear. She looked at him for her inspiration, to endeavour to read in his eyes what answer would suit him best, what she could say to follow his mood, to please him or to guide him as might be. Mrs Ogilvy had not many experiences that were encouraging. She had little confidence inher power to influence and to lead. If she could know what he would like her to say, that would be something. She had in her heart a feeling which, though very quiet, was in reality despair. She did not know what to do with him—she had no hope that it would matter anything what she wanted to do. He would do what he liked, what he chose, and not anything she could say.
“My dear,” she said, “when this calamity is over-past, and you have got settled a little, there will be plenty of things that you could do.”
“That’s very doubtful,” he said; “and you have not much faith in it yourself. I’ve been used to do nothing. I don’t know what work is like. Do you think I’m fit for it? I had to work on board ship, and how I hated it words could never tell. I was too much of a duffer, they said, to do seaman’s work. They made me help the cook—fancy, your son helping the cook!”
“It is quite honest work,” she said, with a little quiver in her voice—“quite honest work.”
He laughed a little. “That’s like you,” he said; “and now you will want me to do more honest work. I will need to, I suppose.” He paused here, and gave her a keen look, which, fortunately, she did not understand. “But the thing is, I’m good for nothing. I cannot dig, and to beg I am ashamed. I’ve done many things, but I’ve not worked much all my life. I will be left on your hands—and what will you do withme?” He was not so indifferent, after all, as when he began. He was almost in earnest, keeping his eye upon her, to read her face as well as her words. But somehow she, who was so anxious to divine him, to discover what he wished her to say—she had no notion, notwithstanding all her anxiety, what it was he desired to know.
“My bonnie man!” she said, “it’s a hard question to answer. What could I wish to do with you but what would be best for yourself? I have made no plan for you, Robbie. Whatever you can think of that you would like—or whatever we can think of, putting our two heads together—but just, my dear, what would suit you best——”
“But suppose there is nothing I would like—and suppose I was just on your hands a helpless lump——”
“I will suppose no such thing,” she said, with the tears coming to her eyes; “why should I suppose that ofmyson? No, no! no, no! You are young yet, and in all your strength, the Lord be praised! You might have come back to me with the life crushed out of you, like Willie Miller; or worn with that weary India, and the heat and the work, like Mrs Allender’s son in the Glen. But you, Robbie——”
“What would you have done with me,” he repeated, insisting, though with a half smile on his face, “if it had been as bad as that—if I had come to you like them?”
“Why should we think of that that is not, nor is like to be? Oh! my dear, I would have done the best I could with a sore heart. I would just have done my best, and pinched a little and scraped a little, and put forth my little skill to make you comfortable on what there was.”
“You have every air of being very comfortable yourself,” he said, looking round the room. “I thought so when I came first. You are like the man in the proverb—the parable, I mean—whose very servants had enough and to spare, while his son perished with hunger.”
She was a little surprised by what he said, but did not yet attach any very serious meaning to it. “I am better off,” she said, “than when you went away. Some things that I’ve been mixed up in have done very well, so they tell me. I never have spent what came in like that. I have saved it all up for you, Robbie.”
“Not for me, mother,” he said; “to please yourself with the thought that there was more money in the bank.”
“Robbie,” she said, “you cannot be thinking what you are saying. That was never my character. There is nobody that does not try to save for their bairns. I have saved for you, when I knew not where you were, nor if I would ever see you more. The money in the bank was never what I was thinking of. Therewould be enough to give you, perhaps, a good beginning—whatever you might settle to do.”
“Set me up in business, in fact,” he said, with a laugh. “That is what would please you best.”
“The thing that would please me best would be what was the best for you,” she said, with self-restraint. She was a little wounded by his inquiries, but even now had not penetrated his meaning. He wanted more distinct information than he had got. Her gentle ease of living, her readiness to supply his wants, to forestall them even—the luxury, as it seemed to him after his wild and wandering career, of the long-settled house, the carefully kept gardens, the little carriage, all the modest abundance of the humble establishment, had surprised him. He had believed that his mother was all but poor—not in want of anything essential to comfort, but yet very careful about her expenditure, and certainly not allowing him in the days of his youth, as he had often reflected with bitterness, the indulgences to which, if she had been as well off as she seemed now, he would have had, he thought, a right. What had she now? Had she grown rich? Was there plenty for him after her, enough to exempt him from that necessity of working, which he had always feared and hated? It was, perhaps, not unreasonable that he should wish to know.
“I told you,” he said, after a short interval, “that Iwas good for nothing. If I had stayed at home, what should I have been now? A Writer to the Signet with an office in Edinburgh, and, perhaps, who can tell, clients that would have come to consult me about where to place their money and other such things.” He laughed at the thought. “I can never be that now.”
“No,” she said, in tender sympathy with what she was quick to think a regret on his part. “No, Robbie, my dear; I fear it’s too late for that now.”
“Well! it’s perhaps all the better: for how could I tell them what to do with their money, who never had any of my own? No; what I shall do is this: be a dependent on you, mother, all my life; with a few pounds to buy my clothes, and a few shillings to get my tobacco and a daily paper, now that the ‘Scotsman’ comes out daily—and some wretched old library of novels, where I can change my books three or four times a-week: and that’s how Rob Ogilvy will end, that was once a terror in his way—no, it was never I that was the terror, but those I was with,” he added, in an undertone.
Mrs Ogilvy’s heart was wrung with that keen anguish of helplessness which is as the bitterness of death to those who can do nothing to help or deliver those they love. “Oh, my dear, my dear,” she said, “why should that be so? It is all yours whatever is mine. It’s not a fortune, but you shall be nodependent—you shall have your own: and better thoughts will come—and you will want more than a library of foolish books or a daily paper. You will want your own honest life, like them that went before you, and your place in the world—and oh, Robbie! God grant it! a good wife and a family of your own.”
He got up and walked about, with large steps that made the boards creak, and with the laugh which she liked least of all his utterances. “No, mother, that will never be,” he said. “I’m not one to be caught like that. You will not find me putting myself in prison and rolling the stone to the mouth of the cave.”
“Robbie!” she cried, with a sense of something profane in what he said, though she could scarcely have told what. But the conversation was interrupted here by Janet coming to announce the early dinner, to which Robert as usual did the fullest justice. Whatever he might have done or said to shock her, the sight of his abundant meal always brought Mrs Ogilvy’s mind, more or less, back to a certain contentment, a sort of approval. He was not too particular nor dainty about his food: he never gave himself airs, as if it were not good enough, nor looked contemptuous of Janet’s good dishes, as a man who has been for years away from home so often does. He ate heartily, innocently, like one who had nothing on his conscience, a good digestion, and a clean record.It was not credible even that a man who ate his dinner like that should not be one who would work as well as eat, and earn his meal with pleasure. It uplifted her heart a little, and eased it, only to see him eat.
Afterwards it could scarcely be said that the conversation was resumed; but that day he was in a mood for talk. He told her scraps of his adventures, sitting with the ‘Scotsman’ in his hand, which he did not read—taking pleasure in frightening her, she thought; but yet, after leading her to a point of breathless interest, breaking off with a half jest—“It was not me, it was him.” She got used to this conclusion, and almost to feel as if this man unknown, who was always in her son’s mind, was in a manner the soul of Robert’s large passive body, moving that at his will. Then her son returned with a sudden spring to the visitor of the morning, and to poor old Logan and the strangeness of his fate. “She’s like a woman I once saw out yonder”—with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder—“a singer, or something of that sort,—a woman that was up to anything.”
“Don’t say that, my dear, of a woman that will soon be the minister’s wife.”
“The minister’s wife!” he said, with a great explosion of laughter. And then he grew suddenly grave. “Old Logan,” he said, with a sort of hesitation, “had—a daughter, if I remember right.”
“If you remember right! Susie Logan, that you played with when you were both bairns—that grew up with you—that I once thought—— a daughter! Well I wot, and you too, that he had a daughter.”
“Well, mother,” he said, subdued, “I remember very well, if that will please you better. Susie: yes, that was her name. And Susie—I suppose she is married long ago?”
“They are meaning,” said Mrs Ogilvy, with an intonation of scorn, “to marry her now.”
“What does that mean—to marry her now? Do you mean she has never married—Susie? And why? She must be old now,” he said, with a half laugh. “I suppose she has lost her looks. And had no man the sense to see she was—well, a pretty girl—when she was a pretty girl?”
“If that was all you thought she was!” said Mrs Ogilvy—even her son was not exempted from her disapproval where Susie was concerned. She paused again, however, and said, more softly, “It has not been for want of opportunity. The man that wants her now wanted her at twenty. She has had her reasons, no doubt.”
“Reasons—against taking a husband? I never heard there were any—in a woman’s mind.”
“There are maybe more things in heaven and earth—than you just have the best information upon,” she said.
She thought it expedient after this to go up-stairs a little, to look for something Janet wanted, she explained. Sometimes there were small matters which affected her more than the greater ones. The early terrible impression of him was wearing a little away. She had got used to his new aspect, to his new voice, to the changed and altered being he was. The bitterness of the discovery was over. She knew more or less what to expect of him now, as she had known what to expect of the boyish Robbie of old; and, indeed, this man who was made up of so many things that were new to her had thrown a strange and painful light on the Robbie of old, whom during so many years she had made into an ideal of all that was hopeful and beautiful in youth. She remembered now, yet was so unwilling to remember. She was very patient, but patient as she was, there were some things, some little things, which she found hard to bear; as for instance about Susie—Susie: that she was a pretty girl, but must be old now, and had probably lost her looks,—was that all that Robert Ogilvy knew of Susie? It gave her a sharp pang of anger, in spite of her great patience, in spite of herself.
It took her some time to find what Janet wanted. She was not very sure what it was. She opened two or three cupboards, and with a vague look went over their contents, trying to remember. Perhaps it wasnothing of importance after all. She went down again to the parlour at last, to resume any conversation he pleased, or to listen to whatever he might tell her, or to be silent and wait till he might again be disposed to talk; passing by the kitchen on her way first to tell Janet that she had forgotten what it was she had promised to get for her: but if she would wait a little, the first time she went up-stairs,—and then the mistress returned to her drawing-room by the other way, coming through the back passage. She had not heard any one come to the front door.
But when she went into the room she saw a strange sight. In the doorway opposite to her stood a familiar figure, which had always been to Mrs Ogilvy like sunshine and the cheerful day, always welcome, always bringing a little brightness with her—Susie Logan, in her light summer dress, a soft transparent shadow on her face from the large brim of her hat, every line of her figure expressing the sudden pause, the arrested movement of a great surprise and wonder,—nothing but wonder as yet. She stood with her lips apart, one foot advanced to come in, her hand upon the door as she had opened it, her eyes large with astonishment. She was gazing at him, where he half sat, half lay, in the great chair, his long legs stretched half across the room, his head laid back. He had fallen asleep in the drowsy afternoon, after the early dinner, with the newspaper spread out uponhis knee. He had nothing to do, there was not much in the paper: there was nothing to wonder at in the fact that he had fallen asleep. His mother, to whom it always gave a pang to see him do so, had explained it to herself as many times as it happened in this way; and there sprang up into her eyes the ready challenge, the instant defence. Why should he not sleep? He had had plenty, oh plenty, to weary him; he was but new come home, where he could rest at his pleasure. But this warlike explanation died out of her as she watched Susie’s face, who as yet saw nobody but this strange sleeper in possession of the room. The wonder in it changed from moment to moment; it changed into a gleam of joy, it clouded over with a sudden trouble: there came a quiver to her soft lip, and something liquid to her eyes, more liquid, more soft than their usual lucid light, which was like the dew. There rose in Susie’s face a look of infinite pity, of a tenderness like that of a mother at the sight of a suffering child. Oh, more tender than me, more like a mother than me! said to herself the mother who was looking on. And then there came from Susie’s bosom a long deep sigh, and the tears brimmed over from her eyes. She stepped back noiselessly from the door and closed it behind her; but stood outside, making no further movement, unable in her great surprise and emotion to do more.
There Mrs Ogilvy found her a moment after, when,closing softly, as Susie had done, the other door upon the sleeper, she went round trembling to the little hall, in which Susie stood trembling too, with her hand upon her breast, where her heart was beating so high and loud. They took each other’s hands, but for a moment said nothing. Then Susie, with the tears coming fast, said under her breath, “You never told me!” in an indescribable tone of reproach and tenderness.
Mrs Ogilvy led her into the other room, where they sat down together. “You knew him, Susie, you knew him?” she said.
“Knew him!—what would hinder me to know him?” Susie replied, with the same air of that offence and grievance which was more tender than love itself.
“Oh, me! I was not like that,” the mother cried. She remembered her first horror of him, with horror at herself. She that was his mother, flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone. And here was Susie, that had neither trouble nor doubt.
“To think I should come in thinking about nothing—thinking about my own small concerns—and find him there as innocent! like a tired bairn. And me perhaps the only one,” said Susie, “never to have heard a word! though the oldest friend—I do not mind the time I did not know Robbie,” she cried, with that keen tone of injury; “it began with our life.”
Here was the difference. He too had admitted that he remembered her very well—a pretty girl; but she must be old now, and have lost her looks. Susie had not lost her looks; it was he who had lost his looks. Mrs Ogilvy’s heart sank, as she thought how completely those looks were lost, and of the unfavourable aspect of that heavy sleep, and the attitude of drowsy abandonment in the middle of the busy day. But Susie was conscious of none of these things.
Theday after this was one of the days on which Robert chose to go to Edinburgh, which were days his mother dreaded, though no harm that she could specify came of them. He had not seen Susie on that afternoon, but was angry and put out when he heard of her visit, and that she had seen him asleep in his chair. “You might have saved me from that,” he said, angrily; “you need not have made an exhibition of me.” “I did not know, Robbie, that she was there.” “It is the same thing,” he cried: “you keep all your doors and windows open, in spite of everything I say. What’s that but making an exhibition of me, that am something new, that anybody that likes may come and stare at?” She thought he had reason for his annoyance, though it was no fault of hers: and it pleased her that he should be angry at having been seen by Susie in circumstances so unfavourable. Was not that the best thing for him to beroused to a desire to appear at his best, not his worse? He went to Edinburgh next day in the afternoon, after the early dinner. There was no question put to him now as to when he should be back.
During that afternoon Susie came again, and was much disappointed and cast down not to see him. Perhaps it was well that Susie’s first sight of him had been at a moment when he could say or do nothing to diminish or spoil her tender recollection. None of those things that vexed the soul of his mother affected Susie. The maturity of the man, so different from the boy; the changed tone; the different way of regarding all around him; the indifference to everything,—all these were hidden from her. The only thing unfavourable she had seen of him was his personal appearance, and that had not struck Susie as unfavourable. The long, soft, brown beard, so abundant and well grown, had been beautiful to her; his size, the large development of manhood, had filled her with a half pride, half respect. Pride! for did not Robbie, her oldest friend, more or less belong to Susie too. She had dreamt already of walking about Eskholm with him, happy and proud in his return, in the falsification of all malicious prophecies to the contrary. He was her oldest friend, her playfellow from her first recollection. There was nothing more wanted to justify Susie’s happy excitement—her satisfaction in his return.
“And he is away to Edinburgh, and has never come to see us! That is not like Robbie,” she cried, with a trace of vexation in her eyes.
“Susie, I will tell you and no other the secret, if it is a secret still. He had fallen into ill company, as I always feared, in that weary, far America.”
“How could he help it?” cried Susie, ready to face the world in his defence, “young as he was, and nobody to guide him.”
“That is true; and we that live in a quiet country, and much favoured and defended on every side, we know nothing of the lawlessness that is there. You will read even in the very papers, Susie: they think no more of drawing a pistol than a gentleman here does of taking his stick when he goes out for a walk.”
Susie nodded her head in acquiescence, and Mrs Ogilvy went on: “Where that’s the custom, harm will come. Men with pistols in their hands like that, that sometimes go off, even when it’s not intended, as you may also read in the papers every day——. Oh, Susie! it happened that there was an accident. How can we tell at this long distance, and so little as we know their manners and their ways, the rights of it all, and what meaning there was in it, or if there was any meaning! But a shot went off, and a man was killed. I am used to it now,” said Mrs Ogilvy, her lip quivering, her face appealing in every line to the younger woman at her side not—oh! not—to condemnhim; “but at the first moment I was as one that had no more life. The stain of blood may be upon my son’s hand.”
“No, no!” cried Susie. “No, I will not believe it—not him, of all that are in the world!”
“God bless you, my bonnie dear, that is just the truth! But the shot came out of the band, he among them. There is another man that was at the head who is likely the man. And he is like Robbie, the same height, and so forth. And he has kept hold of him, and kept fast to him, and never let him go.”
“I am not surprised,” said Susie, very pale, and with her head high. “For Robbie would never betray him. He would never fail one that trusted in him.”
“And the terror in his heart is—oh, he says little to me, but I can divine it!—the terror in his heart is that this man will come after him here.”
“From America!” said Susie; “so far, so far away.”
“It is not so far but that you can come in a week or a fortnight,” said Mrs Ogilvy; “you or me would say, impossible: but naturally he is the one that knows best. And he does not think it is impossible. He makes us bolt all the windows and lock the doors as soon as the sun goes down. Susie, this is what is hanging over us. How can he go and see his friends, or let them know he is here, or take the good of coming home—with this hanging over him night and day?”
The colour had all gone out of Susie’s face. She put an arm round her old friend, and gave her a trembling almost convulsive embrace. “And you to have this to bear after all the rest!”
“Me!” said Mrs Ogilvy; “who is thinking of me? It is an ease to my mind to have said it out. You were the only one I could speak to, Susie, for you will think of him just as I do. You will excuse him and forgive him, and explain it all within yourself—— as I do, as I must do.”
“Excuse him!” cried Susie; “that will I not! but be proud of him, because he’s faithful to the man in trouble, whoever he may be!”
Mrs Ogilvy did not say, even to Susie, that it was not faithfulness but panic that moved Robert, and that all his anxiety was to keep the man in trouble at arm’s-length. Even in confessing what was his problematical guilt and danger, it was still the first thing in her thoughts that Robbie should have the best of it whatever the position might be. They were walking up and down together on the level path in front of the house—now skirting the holly hedges, now brushing the boxwood border that made a green edge to the flowers. Susie had come with perplexities of her own to lay before her friend, but they all fled from her mind in face of this greater revelation. What did it matter about Susie? Whatever came to her, it would be but she who was in question, and she couldbear it—but Robbie! Me! who is thinking of me? she said to herself, as Mrs Ogilvy had said it, with a proud contempt of any such petty subject. It was not the spirit of self-sacrifice, the instinct of unselfishness, as people are pleased to call such sentiments. I am afraid there was perhaps a little pride in it, perhaps a subtle self-confidence that whatever one had to fear in one’s own person, what did it matter? one would be equal to it. But Robbie—— What blood could be shed, what ordeal dared to keep it from him!
“You will feel now that I am always ready,” said Susie, “to do anything, if there is anything to do. You will send for me at any moment. If it were to take a message, if it were to send a letter, if it were to go to Edinburgh for any news, if it were to—hide the man——”
“Susie!”
“And wherefore not? it’s not ours to punish. I know nothing about him: but to save Robbie and you, or only to help you, what am I caring? I would put my arm through the place of the bolt, like Katherine Douglas for King James. And why should I not hide a man in trouble? Them that went before us have done that, and more than that, for folk in trouble, many a day.”
“But not for the shedder of blood,” said Mrs Ogilvy.
“They were all shedders of blood,” cried Susie; “there was not one side nor the other with clean hands—and our fore-mothers helped them all, whichever were the ones that were pursued: and so would I any man that stood between you and peace. If he were as bad a man as ever lived, I would help him to get away.”
“We must not go so far as that, Susie. We will hope that nothing will need to be done. Robbie and me, we will just keep very quiet till all this trouble blows over. I have a confidence that it will blow over,” said Mrs Ogilvy, with a shadow in her eyes which belied her words.
“Certainly it will,” cried Susie, with an intensity of assent which, though she knew so little, yet comforted the elder woman’s heart.
And Susie once more left her friend without saying a word of the anxieties which were becoming more and more urgent in her own life. She had not yet been told what was the true state of the case, but many alarms had filled her mind, terrors which she would not acknowledge to herself. It did not seem credible that she should be dethroned from her own household place, which she had filled so long, to make way for a stranger, “a strange woman,” as Susie, like Mrs Ogilvy, said; nor that the children should be taken out of her hands, and her home be no longer hers. But all other apprehensions and alarms hadbeen confusedly deepened and increased, she could scarcely tell how, by the sudden interference of her father in behalf of an old lover long ago rejected, whose repeated proposals had become the jest of the family, a man whom nobody for years had taken seriously. Mr Logan had suddenly taken up his cause, and pressed it hotly and injudiciously, filling Susie with consternation and indignant distress. The minister had naturally employed the most unpalatable arguments. He had bidden her to remember that her time was running short, that she had probably out-stayed her market, that a wooer was not to be found by every dykeside, and that at her age it was no longer possible to pick and choose, but to take what you could get. Exasperated by all this, Susie had rushed to her friend to ask what was the interpretation of it. But the appearance of Robert had driven every other thought out of her mind, and now again, more than ever, his story, the danger he was in, the reason why his return was not published abroad and rejoiced in. To Susie’s simple and straightforward mind this was the only point in the whole matter that was to be deplored. She found no fault with Robbie’s appearance, with his mid-day sleep, with the failure of his career—even with the ill company and dreadful associations of which Mrs Ogilvy’s faltering story had told her. She was ready to wipe all that record out with one tear of tenderness and pity. He had been ledaway; he had come back. That he had come back was enough to atone for all the rest. But there should be no secret, no concealing of him, no silence as to this great event. She accepted the bond, but it was heavy on her soul, and went home, her mind full of Robert, only vexed and discouraged that she must not speak of Robert, forgetting every other trouble and all the changes that seemed to threaten herself. Me! who is caring about me? Susie said to herself proudly, as Mrs Ogilvy said it. These women scorned fate when it was but themselves that were threatened by it.
When she was gone, Mrs Ogilvy continued for a while to walk quietly up and down the little platform before the door of her peaceful house. She had almost given up her evenings out of doors since Robert’s return, but to-night her heart was soothed, her fears were calmed. Susie could do nothing to clear up the situation. Yet to have unbosomed herself to Susie had done her good. The burden which was so heavy on herself, which was Robbie in his own person, the most intimate of all, did not affect Susie. She was willing to take him back as at the same point where he had dropped from her ken. There was no criticism in her eyes or her mind,—nothing like that dreadful criticism, that anguish of consciousness which perceived all his shortcomings, all the loss that had happened to him in his dismal way through the world,which was in his mother’s mind. That Susie did not perceive these things was a precious balm to Mrs Ogilvy’s wounds. It was her exacting imagination that was in fault, perhaps nothing else or little else. If Susie were pleased, why should she, who ought to be less clear-sighted than Susie, be so far from pleased? Nothing could have so comforted her as did this. She was calmed to the bottom of her heart. Robbie would be very late to-night, she knew; but what harm was there in that, if it was an amusement to him, poor laddie? He had no variety now in his life, he that had been accustomed to so much. She heard Andrew come clanking round from the back-garden with his pails and his watering-pots. She had not assisted at the watering of the flowers, not since the day of Robbie’s return, but she did so this calm evening in the causeless relief of her spirit. “But I would not be so particular,” she said, “Andrew; for it will rain before the morning, or else I am mistaken.” “It’s very easy, mem, to be mistaken in the weather,” said Andrew; “I’ve thought that for a week past.” “That is true; it has been a by-ordinary dry season,” his mistress said. “Just the ruin of the country,” said the man. “Oh,” cried she, “you are never content!”
But she was content that night, or as nearly content as it was possible to be with such a profound disturbance and trouble in her being. She had her chairbrought out, and her cushion and footstool, her stocking and her book, as in the old days, which had been so short a time before and yet seemed so far off. It was not so fine a night as it had usually been, she thoughtthen. The light had not that opal tint, that silvery pearl-like radiance. There was a shadow as of a cloud in it, and the sky, though showing no broken lines of vapour, was grey and a little heavy, charged with the rain which seemed gathering after long drought over the longing country. Esk, running low, wanted the rain, and so did the thirsty trees, too great to be watered like the flowers, which had begun to have a dusty look. But in the meantime the evening was warm, very warm and very still, waiting for the opening up of the fountains in the skies. Mrs Ogilvy sat there musing, almost as she had mused of old: only instead of the wistful longing and desire in her heart then, she had now an ever-present ache, the sense of a deep wound, the only partially stilled and always quivering tremor of a great fear. Considering that these things were, however, and could not be put away, she was very calm.
She had been sitting here for some time, reading a little of her book, knitting a great deal of her stocking, which did not interfere with her reading, thinking a great deal, sometimes dropping the knitting into her lap to think the more, to pray a little—one running into the other almost unconsciously—when she suddenly heard behind her a movement in the hedge. It was a high holly hedge, as has been already said, very well trimmed, and impenetrable, almost as high as a man. When a man walked up the slope from the road, only his hat, or if he were a tall man, his head, could be seen over it. The hedge ran round on the right-hand side to the wall of the house, shutting out the garden, which lay on the other slope, as on the left it encircled the little platform, with its grass-plot and flower-borders and modest carriage-drive in front of the Hewan. It was in the garden behind that green wall that the sound was, which a month ago would not have disturbed her, which was probably only Janet going to the well or Andrew putting his watering-cans away. Mrs Ogilvy, however, more easily startled now, looked round quickly, but saw nothing. The light was stealing away, the rain was near; it was that rather than the evening which made the atmosphere so dim. The noise had made her heart beat a little, though she felt sure it was nothing; it made her think of going in, though she could still with a slight effort see to read. It was foolish to be disturbed by such a trifle. She had never been frightened before: a step, a sound at the gate, had been used, before Robert came back, to awaken her to life and expectation, to a constantlydisappointed but never extinguished hope. That, however, was all over now: but at this noise and rustle among the bushes, which was not a footstep or like any one coming, her heart stirred in her, like a bird in the dark, with terror. She was frightened for any noise. This was one of the great differences that had arisen in herself.
She turned, however, again, with some resolution, to her former occupations. It was not light enough to see the page with the book lying open on her knee. She took it in her hand, and read a little. It was one of those books which, for my own part, I do not relish, of which you are supposed to be able to read a little bit at a time. She addressed herself to it with more attention than usual, in order to dissipate her own foolish thrill of excitement and the disturbance within her. She read the words carefully, but I fear that, as is usual in such cases, the meaning did not enter very clearly into her mind. Her attention was busy, behind her back as it were, listening, listening for a renewal of the sound. But there was none. Then through her reading she began to think that, as soon as she had quite mastered herself, she would go in at her leisure, and quite quietly, crying upon Janet to bring in her chair and her footstool; and then would call Andrew to shut the windows and bar the door, as Robbie wished. Perhaps a man understood the dangers better, andit was well in any case to do what he wished. She would have liked to rise from her seat at once, and go in hurriedly and do this, but would not allow herself, partly because she felt it would be foolish, as there could be no danger, and partly because she would not allow herself to be supposed to be afraid, supposing that there was. She sat on, therefore, and read, with less and less consciousness of anything but the words that were before her eyes.
When suddenly there came almost close by her side, immediately behind her, the sound as of some one suddenly alighting with feet close together, with wonderfully little noise, yet a slight sound of the gravel disturbed: and turning suddenly round, she saw a tall figure against the waning light, which had evidently vaulted over the hedge, in which there was a slight thrill of movement from the shock. He was looking at his finger, which seemed, from the action, to have been pricked with the holly. Her heart gave a great leap, and then became quiet again. There was something unfamiliar, somehow, in the attitude and air; but yet no doubt it was her son—who else could it be?—who had made a short cut by the garden, as he had done many a time in his boyhood. Nobody but he could have known of this short cut. All this ran through her mind, the terror and the reassurance in one breath, as she started up hastily from her chair, crying, “Robbie! my dear,what a fright you have given me. What made you come that way?”
He came towards her slowly, examining his finger, on which she saw a drop of blood; then enveloping it leisurely in the handkerchief which he took from his pocket, “I’ve got a devil of a prick from that dashed holly,” he said.
And then she saw that he was not her son. Taller, straighter, of a colourless fairness, a strange voice, a strange aspect. Not Robbie, not Robbie! whoever he was.
Fora moment Mrs Ogilvy’s heart sank within her. There was something in the moment, in the hour, in that sudden appearance like a ghost, only with a noise and energy which were not ghost-like, of this man whom at the first glance she had taken for Robbie, which chilled her blood. Then she reminded herself that a similar incident had befallen her before now. A tramp had more than once made his way into the garden, and, but for her own lion mien, and her call upon Andrew, might have robbed the house or done some other unspeakable harm. It was chiefly her own aspect as of a queen, protected by unseen battalions, and only conscious of the extraordinary temerity of the intruder, that had gained her the victory. She had not felt then as she felt now: the danger had only quickened her blood, not chilled it. She had been dauntless as she looked: but now a secret horror stole her strength away.
“I think,” she said, with a little catching of the breath, “you have made a mistake. This is no public place, it is my garden; but if you have strayed from the road, I will cry upon my man to show you the right way—to Edinburgh, or wherever you may be going.”
“Edinburgh’s not good for my health. I like your garden,” he said, strolling easily towards her; “but look here, mother, give me something for my scratch. I’ve got a thorn in my hand.”
“You will just go away, sir,” said Mrs Ogilvy. “Whoever you may be, I permit no visitor here at this late hour of the night. I will cry upon my man.”
“I’m glad you’ve got a man about the place,” said the stranger, sitting down calmly upon the bench and regarding her little figure as she stood before him, with an air half of mockery, half of kindness. “It’s a little lonely for an old lady. But then you’re all settled and civilised here. None the better for that,” he continued, easily; “snakes in the grass, thieves behind the door.”
“I have told you, sir,” said Mrs Ogilvy, trembling more and more, yet holding her ground, “that I let nobody come in here, at this hour. You look like—like a gentleman:” her voice trembled on the noiseless colourless air, in which there was not a breath to disturb anything: “you will therefore not, I am sure, do anything to disturb a woman—who lives alone,but for her faithful servants—at this hour of the night.”
“You are a very plucky old lady,” he said, “and you pay me a compliment. I’m not sure that I’m a gentleman in your meaning, but I’m proud that you think I look like one. Sit down and let us talk. There’s no pleasure in sitting at one’s ease when a lady’s standing: and, to tell the truth, I’m too tired to budge.”
“I will cry upon my man Andrew——”
“Not if you’re wise, as I’m sure you are.” The stranger’s hand made a movement to his pocket, which had no significance for Mrs Ogilvy. She was totally unacquainted with the habits of people who carry weapons; and if she had thought there was a revolver within a mile of her, would have felt herself and the whole household to be lost. “It will be a great deal better for Andrew,” said this man, with his easy air, “if you let him stay where he is. Sit down and let’s have our talk out.”
Mrs Ogilvy did not sit down, but she leant trembling upon the back of her chair. “You’re not a tramp on the roads,” she said, “that I could fee with a supper and a little money—nor a gentleman, you say, that will take a telling, and refrain from disturbing a woman’s house. Who are you then, man, that will not go away,—that sit there and smile in my face?”
“I’m a man that has always smiled in everybody’s face,—if it were the whole posse, if it were Deathhimself,” he replied. “Mother, sit down and take things quietly. I’m a man in danger of my life.”
A shriek came to her lips, but she kept it in by main force. In a moment the vague terror which had enveloped her became clear, and she knew what she had been afraid of. Here was the man who was like Robbie, who was Robbie’s leader, his tyrant, whose influence he could not resist—provided only that Robbie did not come back and find him here!
“Sir,” she said, trembling so that the chair trembled too under the touch of her hand, but standing firm, “you are trying to frighten me—but I am not feared. If it is true you say (though I cannot believe it is true), what can I do for you? I am a peaceable person, with a peaceable house, as you see. I have no hiding-places, nor secret chambers. Where could I put you that all that wanted could not see? Oh, for the love of God, go away! I know nothing about you. I could not betray you if—if I desired to do so.”
“You would never betray anybody,” he said, quite calmly. “I know what is in a face. If you thought it would be to my harm, though you hate me and fear me, you would die before you would say a word.”
“God forbid I should hate you!” cried Mrs Ogilvy, with trembling white lips. “Why should I hate you?—but oh, it is late at night, and you will get no bed any place if you do not hurry and go away.”
“That’s what I ask myself,” he said, unmoved. “Why should you hate me, if you know nothing about me?—that is what surprises me. You know something about me, eh?—you have a guess who I am? you are not terrified to death when a tramp comes in to your grounds, or a gentleman strays: eh? You call for Andrew. But you haven’t called for Andrew—you know who I am?”
“I know what you are not,” she cried, with the energy of despair. “You are no vagrant, nor yet a gentleman astray. You would have gone away when I bid you, either for fear or for right feeling, if you had been the one or the other. I know you not. But go, for God’s sake go, and I will say no word to your hurt, if all the world were clamouring after you. Oh, man, will ye go?”
She thought she heard that well-known click of the gate,—the sound which she had listened for, for years—the sound most unwished and unlooked for now—of Robbie coming home. He saw her momentary pause and the holding of her breath, the almost imperceptible turn of her head as she listened. It had now become almost dark, and she was not much more than a shadow to him, as he was to her; but the whiteness of her shawl and cap made her outline more distinct underneath the faintly waving shadows of the surrounding trees. The stranger settled himself into the corner of the bench. He watched her repressed movements and signs of agitation with amusement, asone watches a child. She would not betray him—but even in the dimness of the evening air she betrayed herself. Her eagerness, her agitation, were far more, he judged rightly, being a man accustomed to study the human race and its ways, than any chance accident would have brought about. She was a plucky old lady. A vagrant would have had no terrors for her, still less a gentleman—a gentleman! that name that the English give such weight to. Her appeal to him as being like one had gone deep into his soul.
“I will do better,” he said, “mother, than seek a bed in any strange place; you will give me one here.”
“I hope you will not force me—to take strong measures,” she said, with consternation which she could scarcely conceal. “There is a constable—not far off. I will have to send for him, loath, loath though I would be to do so, if ye will not go away.”
The stranger laughed, and made again that movement towards his pocket. “You will have to provide then for his widow and his orphans: and a country constable has always a large family,” he said.
“Man,” cried the little lady with passion, “will ye mock both at the law and at what is right? Then you shall not mock at me. I will put you forth from my door with my own hands.”
“Ah,” he said, startled, “that’s a different thing.”He was moved by this extraordinary threat. Even in her agitation Mrs Ogilvy felt there must be some good in him, for he was visibly moved. And she felt her power. She went forward undaunted to take him by the arm. When she was close to him he put out his hand, and smiled in her face, not with a smile of ridicule but of appeal. “Mother,” he said, “is it the act of a mother to turn a man out of doors to the wild beasts that seek his life—even if he has deserved it, and if he is not her son?”
There came from her strained bosom a faint cry. A mother, what is that? The tigress that owns one cub, and would murder and slay a thousand for it, as men sometimes say—or something that is pity and help and love, the mother of all sons through her own? Her hand dropped from his shoulder. The sensation that she would have done what she threatened, that he would not have resisted her, made her incapable even of a touch after that.
“Besides,” he said in another tone, having, as he perceived, gained the victory, “I have come to tell you of your son.”
A swift and sudden change came over Mrs Ogilvy’s mind. He did not know, then, that Robbie had come back. He had come in ignorance, not meaning any harm, meaning to appeal to her for help for Robbie’s sake. And she was in no danger from him, though Robbie was. She might even help him secretly, anddo her son no harm. If only a good Providence would keep Robbie late to-night.
“Sir,” she said, “I can do nothing against you with my son’s name on your lips; but if you are in danger as you say, there is no safety for you here. I have friends coming to see me that would wonder at you, and find out about you, and would not be held back like me. I cannot undertake for what times they might come, morning or night: and their first question would be, Who is that you have in your house? and, What is he doing here? You would not be safe. I have a number of friends—more than I want, more than I want—if there was anything to hide. But if you will trust yourself to me, I will find a good bed for you, and a safe place, where my word will be enough. I will send my woman-servant with you. That will carry no suspicion: and I will come myself in the morning to see what I can do for you—what you want, if it is clothes or if it is money, or—— Ah! I think I heard the click of that gate,—that will be somebody coming. There is a road by the back of the house—oh, come with me and I will show you the way!”
For a moment he seemed inclined to yield; but he saw her extreme agitation, and his quick perception divined something more than alarm for him behind.
“I think,” he said, stretching himself out on thebench, “that I prefer to take the risks and to stay. If I cannot take in a parcel of your country-folks, I am not good for much. You can say I am a friend of Rob’s. And that is true, and I bring you news of him—eh? Don’t you want to hear news of your son?”
She heard a step on the gravel coming up the slope, slow as it was now, not springy and swift as Robbie’s once was, and her anguish grew. She took hold of his arm again, of his hand. “Come with me, come with me,” she cried, scarcely able to get out the words, “before you are seen! Come with me before you are seen!”
He was so carried away by her passion, of which all the same he was very suspicious, that he permitted her to raise him to his feet, following her impulse with a curious smile on his face, perhaps touched by the feeling of the small old soft hand that laid hold upon his—when Janet with her large solid figure filling the whole framework of the door suddenly appeared behind him. “Will I bring in the supper, mem?” Janet said in her tranquil tones, “for I hear Mr Robert coming up the road: and you’re ower lang out in the night and the falling dew.”
The stranger threw himself back on the bench with a loud laugh that seemed to tear the silence and rend it. “So that’s how it is!” he said. “You’ve got Rob here—that’s how it is! I thought you knew morethan you said. Dash you, old woman, I was beginning to believe in you! And all the time it was for your precious son!”
Mrs Ogilvy took hold of the back of her chair again to support her. Here was this strange man now in possession of her poor little fortress. And Robbie would be here also in a moment. Two lawless broken men, and only she between them, a small old woman, to restrain them, to conceal them, to feed and care for them, to save their lives it might be. She felt that if the little support of the chair were taken from her she would drop. And yet she must stand for them, fight for them, face the world as their champion. She felt the stranger’s reproach, too, thrill through her with a pang of compunction over all. Yes, it had been not for his sake, not for pity or the love of God, but for her son’s sake, for the love of Robbie. She was the tigress with her cub, after all. Her heart spoke a word faintly in her own defence, that it was not to betray this strange man that she had intended, but to save him too: only also to get him out of her way, out of Robbie’s way; to save her son from the danger of his company, and from those still more apparent dangers which might arise from his mere presence here. She did not say a word, however, except faintly, with a little nod of her head to Janet, “Ay,—and put another place.” The words were so little distinct that, but for her mistress’slook towards the equally indistinct figure on the bench, Janet would not have understood. With a little start of surprise and alarm she disappeared into the house, troubled in her mind, she knew not why. “Andrew,” she said to her husband when she returned to the kitchen, “I would just take a turn about the doors, if I were you, in case ye should be wanted.” “Wha would want me? and what for should I turn about the doors at this hour of the nicht?” “Oh, I was just thinking——” said Janet: but she added no more. After all, so long as Mr Robert was there, nothing could happen to his mother, whoever the strange man might be.