Mrs Ogilvyrose from her bed after the little conversation which had roused her more effectually than anything else could have done, more than half ashamed of having slept, and a little feverish with her sudden awakening and Robbie’s strange demand: and though it was late—more like, indeed, the proper and lawful moment for going to bed than for getting up and making an unnecessary toilet in the middle of the night—put on her cap again, and her pretty white shawl, and went down-stairs. She had put on one of the fine embroidered China crape-shawls which were for the evening, and, to correspond with that, a clean cap with perfectly fresh ribbons, which gave her the air of being in her best, more carefully dressed than usual. And her long sleep had refreshed her. When she went into the dining-room, where Janet was removing the remains of the supper from the table, she was like an image of peace and whiteness andbrightness coming into the room, to which, however, carefully Janet might arrange it, the two men always gave a certain aspect of disorder. Mrs Ogilvy had tried to dismiss from her face every semblance of agitation. She would not remember the request Robbie had made to her, nor think of it at all save as a sudden impulse of reckless generosity on his part to his friend. The two young men, however, were not equally successful in composing their faces. Robbie had his pipe in his hand, which he had crammed with tobacco, pushing it down with his thumb, as if to try how much it would contain; but he did not light it: and even Lew, usually so careless and smiling, looked grave. He it was who jumped up to place a chair for her. Janet had so far improved matters that the remains of the meal were all cleared away, and only the white tablecloth left on the table.
“I think shame of myself,” said Mrs Ogilvy, “to have been overtaken by sleep in this way: but it is very seldom I go in to Edinburgh, and the hot streets and the glaring sun are not what I am used to. However, perhaps I am all the better of it, and my head clearer. I doubt if, when it’s at its clearest, it would be of much service to you—men that both know the world better than I do, though you are but laddies to me.”
“Yes; I think we know the world better than you do,” said Lew. “We’ve been a bit more about. This is a sweet little place, but you don’t see much of life;and then you’re too good, mother, to understand it if you saw it,” he said.
“You are mistaken, Mr Lew, in thinking there is little life to be seen here: everywhere there is life, in every place where God’s creatures are. Many a story have I seen working out, many a thing that might have been acted on the stage, many a tragedy, too, though you mightn’t think it. The heart and the mind are the same wherever you find them—and love, that is the grandest and most terrible thing on this earth, and death, and trouble. Oh, I could not tell you in a long summer day the things I have seen!”
“Very different from our kind of things, mother,” said Lew, with a laugh. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything like the fix we’re in at present, for instance: the police on our heels, and not a penny to get out of the way with—and in this blessed old country, where you’ve to go by the railway and pay for all your meals. These ain’t the things that suit us, are they, Bob?”
Robert was standing up, leaning against the securely closed and curtained window. The night was very warm, and the windows being closed, it was hot inside. His face was completely in shade, and he made no reply, but stood like a shadow, moving only his hand occasionally, pressing down the tobacco in the over-charged pipe.
“I have told you, Mr Lew,” Mrs Ogilvy said, with a slight quiver in her voice, “that whatever moneyyou may want for your journey, and something to give you a new start wherever you go, you should have, and most welcome—oh, most welcome! I say, not for my Robbie’s sake, but out of my own heart. Oh, laddie, you are but young yet! I have said it before, and I will say it again—whatever you may have done in the past, life is always your own to change it now.”
“We will consider all that as said,” said Lew, with the movement of concealing a slight yawn. “You’ve been very kind in that as in everything else, putting my duty before me; but there’s something more urgent just at present. This money—we must go far, Bob and I, if we’re to be safe——”
“Not Robbie, not Robbie!” she cried.
“We must go far if we’re to be safe, not back where we were. It’s a pity when a place becomes too hot to hold you, especially when it’s the place that suits you best. We’ll have to go far. I have my ideas on that point; but it’s better not to tell them to you: for then when you are questioned you can’t answer, don’t you see.”
“But Robbie—is not pursued. Robbie, Robbie! you will never leave me! Oh, you will not leave me again, and break my heart!”
Robbie did not say a word: his face was completely in the shadow, and nothing could be read there any more than from his silent lips.
“Going far means a deal of money; setting upagain means a deal of money. If we were to open a bank, for instance,” said Lew, with a short laugh—“a respectable profession, and just in our way. That’s probably what we shall do—we shall open a bank; but it wants money, a deal of money—a great deal of money. You would like to see your son a respectable banker, eh? Then, old lady, you must draw your purse-strings.”
“I do not think,” said Mrs Ogilvy, “that Robbie would do much as a banker—nor you either, Mr Lew. You would have to be at office-desks every day and all the day. To me it would seem natural, but to you that have used yourselves, alack! to such different things—— And then it is not what you call just money that is wanted. It is capital; and where are you to find it? Oh, my dear laddies, in this you know less, not more, than me. You must get folk to trust in you by degrees when you have showed yourselves trustworthy. But a bank at once, without either character—alack, that I should say it!—or capital. Oh no, my dears, oh, not a bank, not a bank, whatever you do!”
“You must trust us, mother—we know what we’re talking about: a bank—which is perhaps not just exactly the kind of thing you are thinking of—is the only thing for Bob and me; but we must have money, money, money,” he said, tapping with his hand upon the table.
“Capital,” said Mrs Ogilvy, with a confident air of having suggested something quite different.
“It’s the same thing, only more of it; and as that lies with you to furnish, we shall not quarrel about the word.”
“There is some mistake,” said Mrs Ogilvy, with dignity. “I have never said, I have never promised. Mr Lew, I found out to-day what was the passage-money of the farthest place you could go to, and I have got the siller here in the house.”
The dark figure at the window stirred a little, raising a hand as if in warning: the other listened with a sudden, eager gleam in his eyes, leaning forward. It made his face shine to hear of the money in the house.
“Yes,” he said, joyfully, “that’s something like speaking. I love a practical mind. You have got it here in the house?” There came a certain tigerish keenness into his look, as if he might have snatched at her, torn it from her. The shadow against the window stirred a little, but whether in sympathy with the keen desire of the one, or touched by the aspect of the other, it was impossible to tell. Meanwhile Mrs Ogilvy, suspecting nothing, saw nothing to fear.
“It is in the house. I got it even in English notes, that you might have no trouble. There will be a hundred pounds,” said Mrs Ogilvy. She spoke with alittle pride, as of one announcing a great thing, a donation almost unparalleled, but which yet she gave like a princess, not grudging. “And thirty besides,” she added, with a little sigh, “that when you get there you may not be without a pound in your pocket. I give it you with all my heart, Mr Lew. Oh, if the money, the poor miserable siller, might maybe be the means of calling you back to a steady and to an honest life!”
Lew said nothing in reply: his hungry eyes, lighted up by such a gleam of covetousness, gave one fiery glance at Robbie standing, as it seemed, imperturbable, immovable, in the shade. Then he began to beat out a tune on the table with his fingers: but he made no other answer, to Mrs Ogilvy’s great surprise.
“I believe,” she said, with hesitation, “that will pay a passage even to India; but if you should find that it will need more——”
He went on with his tune, beating on the table, half whistling to accompany the beats of his fingers. Something of the aspect of a fierce animal, lashing its tail, working itself up into fury, had come into his usually smiling pleasant looks, though the smile was still on his face.
“I fear,” he said, with the gleam in his eyes which she began to perceive with wonder, “that it is not enough. They will be of no use to us, these few shillings. I thought you would have done anything for your son; but I find, mother, that you’re like allthe mothers, good for everything in words, but for a little less in money. You will have to give us more than that——”
Mrs Ogilvy was much surprised, but would not believe her ears. She said mildly, “I have told you, Mr Lew: it is not for my son, but chiefly out of a great feeling I have for yourself, poor laddie, that have nobody to advise you or lead you in a better way.”
“You may preach if you like,” he said, with a laugh, “if you’re ready to pay; but no preaching without paying, old lady. Come, let’s look at it a little closer. Here are you rolling in money, and he there, your only son, sent out into the world——”
“Not Robbie,” she cried, with a gasp, “not Robbie! I said it was for you——”
“We do not mean to be parted, however,” he said. “You must double your allowance, mother, and then see how much you can add to that.”
She looked at her son, clasping her hands together, her face, amid the whiteness of her dress, whiter still, its only colour the eyes, so bright and trustful by nature, looking at him with a supreme but voiceless appeal. Whether it touched him or not, could not be seen: he stirred a little, but probably only as a relief from his attitude of stillness—and his face was too deep in the shade to betray any expression for good or for evil.
Then Mrs Ogilvy rose up trembling to her feet. She said, clasping her hands again as if to strengthen herself, “I have been very wishful to do all to please you—to treat you, Mr Lew, as if you were—what can I say?—not my own son, for he is but one—but like the son of my friend. But I have a duty—I am not my own woman, to do just what I please. I have a charge of my son before the Lord. I will give you this money to take you away, for this is not your place or your home, and you have nothing ado here. But my son: Robbie, all I have is yours—you can have it all when you like and how you like, my own boy. But not to go away with this man. If you will forsake your home, let it be well considered and at another time. To take you away with this man, fleeing before the pursuer, taking upon you a shame and a sin that is not yours—— No! I will not give you a penny of your father’s money and my savings for that. No, no!—all, when you will, in sobriety and judgment, but nothing now.”
Her smallness, her weakness, her trembling, were emphasised by the fact that she seemed to tower over Lew where he sat, and to stand like a rock between the two strong men.
“You’re a plucky old girl,” said her antagonist, with a laugh—“I always said so—game to the last: but we can’t stand jabbering all night, don’t you know.Business is business. You must fork out if you were the Queen, my fine old lady. Sit down, for there’s a good deal to say.”
“I can hear what you have to say as I am, if it is anything reasonable,” Mrs Ogilvy said. She felt, though she could scarcely keep that upright position by reason of agitation and fear, that she had an advantage over him as she stood.
He sprang to his feet before she knew what was going to happen, and with two heavy hands upon her shoulders replaced her in her chair. I will not say forced her back into it, though indeed that was how it was. She leaned back panting and astonished, and looked at him, but did not rise or subject herself to that violence again.
“I hope I did not hurt you—I didn’t intend to hurt you,” he said: “but you must remember, mother, though you treat us as boys, that we’re a pair of not too amiable men—and could crush you with a touch, with a little finger,” he added, looking half fiercely, half with a jest, into her eyes.
“No,” she said very softly, “you could not crush me—not with all your power.”
“Give that paper here, Bob,” said his chief.
Robert scarcely moved, did not reveal himself in any way to the light, but with a faint stir of his large shadow produced a folded paper which had been within the breast of his coat. Lew took it andplayed with it somewhat nervously, the line of white like a wand of light in his hands.
“You are rolling in wealth,” he said.
She made as if she had said “No!” shaking her head, but took no other notice of the question.
“We have reason to suppose you are well off, at least. You have got your income, which can’t be touched, and you have got a lot of money well invested.”
She did not make any reply, but looked at him steadily, marking every gesture.
“It is this,” he said, “to which Bob has a natural right. I think we are very reasonable. We don’t want to rob you, notwithstanding our great need of money: you can see that we wish to use no violence, only to set before you what you ought to do.”
“I will not do it,” said Mrs Ogilvy.
“We’ll see about that. I have been thinking about this for some time, and I have taken my measures. Here is a list which we got from your man—the old fogey you threatened us with—or at least fromhisman. And here is a letter directing everything to be realised, and the money paid over to your son. You will sign this——”
“From my man—you are meaning Mr Somerville?” Mrs Ogilvy looked at the paper which had been thrust into her hand, bewildered. “And he never said a word of it to me!”
“Don’t let us lay the blame where it isn’t due,” said the other, lightly: “from his man. Probably the respectable old fogey never knew——”
“Ah!” she cried, “the clerk that was Robbie’s friend! Then it was Robbie himself——”
“Robbie himself,” said Lew, in the easiest tone, “as it was he who had the best, the only, right to find out. Now, mother, come! execute yourself as bravely as you have done the other things. Sign, and we’ll have a glass all round, and part the best friends in the world. When you wake in the morning you’ll find we’ve cleared out.”
“It was Robbie,” she said to herself, murmuring, scarcely audible to the others, “it was Robbie—Robbie himself.” She took no notice of the paper which was placed before her. All her mind seemed occupied by this. “Robbie—it was Robbie, my son.”
“Who should it be but Bob? Do you think that information would have been furnished to me? What did I know about it? It was Bob, of course; and don’t you think he was quite right? Come! here’s pen and ink ready. Sign, and then it will be all over. It goes against me, mother, to ask anything you don’t like—it does, though you mayn’t believe me. Now, one moment, and the thing will be done.”
He spoke to her, coaxing her, as to a child, but there was a kindling devil in his eye. Robbie neverraised his head or opened his mouth, but he made to his comrade an imperative gesture with his hand. The tension was becoming too much to bear.
“Come, mother,” said Lew, “sign—sign!”
This time she did not rise up as before. She had a faint physical dread of provoking his touch upon her person again; but she lifted her head, and looking at him, said steadily, “No.”
“No?—you say this to us who could—kill you with a touch?”
“I will not do it,” she said.
“Do you know what you are saying, old woman?—tempting me, tempting him, to murder? You needn’t look to the door: there is not a soul that could hear you—Andrew’s fast asleep, and you wouldn’t call him, to bear witness against your son.”
“No,” she said, “I would not call him to bear witness—against—my son.”
“Sign! sign! sign!” cried Lew; “do you think we’ll wait for you all night?”
“I will not sign.”
“Old woman! you wretched old fool, trusting, I suppose, to that fellow there! Better trust me than him. Look here, no more of this. You shall sign whether you will or not.” He seized her hand as he spoke, thrust the pen into it, and forced it upon the paper. Her little wrist seemed to crush together in his big hand. She gave a faint cry, but no more.Her fingers remained motionless in his hold. He was growing red with impatience and fury, his eyes fierce, his mouth set. She looked up at him for a moment, but said not a word.
“Will you do it? will you do it?—at once!—when I tell you.”
“No.”
He let her hand go and seized her by the shoulders. He had by this time forgotten everything except that he was crossed and resisted by a feeble creature in his power. And in this state he was appalling, murder in his eye, and an ungovernable impulse in his mind. He seized her by her shoulders, the white shawl crumpling in soft folds not much less strong to resist than the flesh beneath in his hands, and shook her, violently, furiously, like a dog rather than a man.
“Do what I tell you, woman! Sign!”
“No.”
She thought that she was dead. She thought it was death, her breath going from her, her eyes turning in their sockets. Next moment a roar of rage seemed to pass over her head, she was pushed aside like a straw flung out of the fiery centre of the commotion, the grip gone from her shoulders, and she herself suddenly turned as it were into nothing, like the chair at which she clutched to support herself, not knowing what it was. She had a vision for a moment of Robbie, her son, standing where she hadstood, tearing and tearing again in a hundred pieces a paper in his hands, while Lew against the opposite wall, as if he too had been dashed out of the way like herself, stood breathing hard, his eyes glaring, his arm up. Next moment she was pushed suddenly, not without violence, thrust out of the room, and the door closed upon her. All was dark outside, and she helpless, broken, bleeding she thought, a wounded, lacerated creature, not able to stand, far more unable in the tumult and trouble of body and soul to go away, to seek any help or shelter. She dropped down trembling upon her knees, with her head against that closed door.
Howthis night passed over, this dreadful night, under the once peaceful roof of the Hewan, was never known. It must have been dawn, though it seemed to her so dark, when Mrs Ogilvy dropped on her knees by the dining-room door—and how she got to her own room she did not know. She came to herself with the brilliant summer morning pervading all things, her room full of light, her body full of pain, her mind, as soon as she was conscious, coming back with a dull spring to the knowledge of catastrophe and disaster, though for the first moment she could not tell what it was. She was lying upon her bed fully dressed, her white shawl, which she had been wearing last night, flung, all crumpled, upon the floor, but nothing else changed. A thicker shawl had been thrown over her. Who was it that had carried her up-stairs? This became an awful question as her mind grew clearer. Who was it? who was it?—thevictor—perhaps the survivor—— She was aching from head to foot, feeling as if her bones were broken, and she could never stand on her feet again; but when this thought entered her mind she sprang up from her bed like a young girl. The survivor!—perhaps Robbie, Robbie, her once innocent boy, with the stain of blood on his hands: perhaps—— Mrs Ogilvy snatched at the shawl on the floor, which looked almost as if something dead might lie hidden under it, and wrapped herself in it, not knowing why, and stole down-stairs in the brightness of that early morning before even Janet was stirring. She hurried into the dining-room, from which she had been shut out only a few hours ago, with her heart leaping in her throat, not knowing what awful scene she might see. But there was nothing there. A chair had been knocked down, and lay in the middle of the floor in a sort of grotesque helplessness, as if in mockery of the mother’s fears. Nothing else. She stood for a moment, rendered weak again by sudden relief, asking herself if that awful vision of the night had been merely a dream, until suddenly a little heap of torn paper flung upon the ornaments in the grate brought it back again so vividly that all her fears awoke once more. Then she stole away again to the bedrooms, in which, if all was well, they should be lying asleep. There was no sound from Robbie’s, or she could hear none from the beating of her heart. She stole in very softly, as shehad not ventured to do since the first morning after his return. There he lay, one arm over his head like a child, breathing that soft breath of absolute rest which is almost inaudible, so deep and so quiet. What fountains of love and tenderness burst forth in the old mother’s breast, softening it, healing it, filling its dryness with heavenly dew. Oh, Robbie, God bless him! God bless him! who at the last had stood for his mother—who would not let her be hurt—who would rather lose everything. And she had perhaps been hard upon him! There was no blood on the hand of one who slept likethat. She went to the other door and listened there with her heart lightened; and the breathing there was not inaudible. She retired to her own room almost with a smile on her face.
When Mrs Ogilvy came into the room in which the two young men awaited her for the only meal they shared, the early dinner, she was startled to see a person who seemed a stranger to her in Lew’s place. He wore Lew’s clothes, and spoke with Lew’s voice, but seemed another man. He turned to Robert as she drew back bewildered, and burst into a laugh. “There’s a triumph for me; she doesn’t know me,” he said. Then he approached her with a deprecating look. “I am the man that was so rude to you last night. Forget there was ever such a person. You see I have thrown off all semblance of him.” He spoke gravely and with a sort of dignity, standing in the same place in whichMrs Ogilvy remembered in a flash of sudden vision he had almost shaken the life out of her last night, glaring at her with murderous eyes. There was a gleam in them still which was not reassuring; but his aspect was everything that was penitent and respectful. The change in his appearance was made by the removal of the beard which had covered his face. He had suddenly grown many degrees lighter in colour, it seemed, by the removal of that forest of dark hair; and the man had beautiful features, a fine mouth, that rare beauty either in man or woman. His expression had always been good-humoured and agreeable. It was more so, a look in which there seemed no guile, but for that newly awakened tigerish expression in his eyes. Mrs Ogilvy felt a thrill of terror such as had not moved her through all the horrors of the previous night, when Robbie for a moment left the room. She felt that the handsome smiling man before her would have strangled her without a moment’s hesitation had there been any possibility of getting the money for which he had struggled in another way, in what was for her fortunately the only possible way. She felt his grip upon her shoulders, and a shiver ran through her in spite of herself. She could not help a glance towards the door, where, indeed, Janet was at the moment about to come in, pushing it open before her. There was no danger to-day, with everybody about—but another night—who could tell?
When the dinner was over, Lew addressed her again. “This,” he said, putting up his hand to his chin, “is mytoilette de voyage. You are going to be free of us soon. We shall make no flourish of trumpets, but go suddenly as we came.”
“If it doesn’t prove too late,” said Robert, gruffly.
“Listen to the croaker! It isn’t, and it shan’t be, too late. I don’t admit the possibility—so long as your mother, to whom we behaved so badly last night——”
“You,” Mrs Ogilvy breathed forth in spite of herself.
“Oh, he was in it just as much as I was,” said the other, lightly; “but he’s a canny Scot, Bob; he knows when to stop. I, when I am in a good way, don’t.”
There was a savage meaning in the lightness of this speech and the smile that accompanied it. Mrs Ogilvy, terrified, felt herself again shaking like a leaf, like a rag in these tremendous hands. And Robbie, who only knew when to stop—oh, no, no—oh, no, no—she would not believe that: though he had stood still long and looked on.
“You shall see that I will keep my word,” she said, and hurried out of the room to fetch the money which she had brought from Edinburgh with so many precautions. She who had been above all fear felt it now penetrating to her very soul. She locked her doorwhen she went into her room, a precaution she had probably never taken in her life before. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she passed, and saw that her countenance was blanched, and her eyes wide with fright. Two men, perhaps—at least one in the fulness of his strength—and she such a little old feeble woman. Had the money she possessed been more easily got at, she knew that she would have had short shrift. And, indeed, if he killed her, there would have been no need of making her sign anything first. It would all go to Robbie naturally—provided she could be sure that Robbie would be free of any share of the guilt. Oh, he would be free! he would not stand by and see her ill-used—he had not been able to bear it last night. Robbie would stand by her whatever happened. But her bosom panted and her heart beat in her very throat. She had to go down again into the room where red murder was in the thoughts of one, and perhaps—God forbid it! God forbid it! Oh, no, no, no!—it was not in nature: not on his mother, not on any one to kill or hurt would Robbie ever lay a hand.
She went down-stairs after a very short interval, and as she reached the dining-room door heard the voice of Lew talking to Janet in the most genial tones. He was so cheerful, so friendly, that it was a pleasure to hear so pleasant a voice; and Robbie, very silent behind backs, was altogether eclipsed byhis friend, although to Janet too that often sullen Robbie was “my ain laddie,” dear in spite of all. But there was no drawback in her opinion of Mr Lewis, as she called him, “Aye canty and pleasant, aye with a good word in his head; no pride about him; just as pleasant with me as if I were the Duchess hersel’.” She held up her hands in expressive horror as she met her mistress at the door. “He carries it off wi’ his pleasant ways; but oh, he has just made an objeck of himself,” Janet said.
Mrs Ogilvy went in, feeling as if she were going to her doom. She took her little packet to the table, and put it down before him. The room was filled with clouds of smoke; and that bottle, which was so great a trial to her, stood on the table; but these details had sunk into absolute insignificance. She had taken the trouble to get the money in English notes and gold—the latter an unusual sight in the Hewan, where one-pound notes were the circulating medium. In the tremor of her nerves and commotion of her feelings she had added twenty pounds which were in the house, of what she called “her own money,” the money for the housekeeping, to the sum which she had told him was to be for him. It was thus a hundred and fifty pounds which she put before him—hastily laying it down as if it burned her, and yet with a certain reluctance too.
“Ah!” he said, and threw a look across the table toRobbie; “another twenty pounds—and more where that came from, mother, eh?”
“I have no more—not a farthing,” she said, hastily; “this was my money for my house. I thought I would add it to the other: since you were not pleased—last night.”
It was evidently an unfortunate movement on her part. “You will perhaps find some more still,” he said, with a laugh, “before this night. It’s not very much for two, and one your only son; but there will be plenty of time to settle that to-night.”
“Robbie,” she said, breathlessly, “is not going—he is not going: it is for you.”
“Are you not going, Bob?”
Robert said not a word in reply—he sat with his head supported on his hands, his elbows on the table: and his countenance was invisible—he made no movement or indication of what he meant to do.
“I have no more,” said Mrs Ogilvy, with a trembling voice; for she was afraid of the look, half fierce, half mocking, with which he met her eyes. “It would perhaps have been better if I had—money in the bank, and could draw a cheque like most people now; but I have always followed the old-fashioned way, and all I have is in the hands of——”
She broke off with a quavering, broken sound—seeing over again the scene of last night, and the paper with Mr Somerville’s name upon it,—she rememberednow, suddenly, that Mr Somerville’s name was upon the paper which they had wanted her to sign. What had become of Mr Somerville that he had not come, as he promised, to speak to Robbie, to persuade the other one to go away? It was difficult to recall to herself the fact that it was only two days since she had gone to Edinburgh and poured her trouble into his sympathetic ears. Perhaps it would have been better if she had not done this, or opened her heart to any one. Mr Somerville would never betray them, he would not betray Robbie; but still it seemed that something had happened between that time and this, a greater sense of insecurity, the feeling that something was going to happen. Things had been better before, when that strange life which she had felt to be insupportable was going on: now it was more than insupportable, it was almost over, and after——? A great chasm seemed to have opened at her feet, and she felt herself hurrying towards it, but could not tell what was below. After? what was to happen after, if Robbie drifted away again, and she saw his face no more?
He avoided her all day, while she watched for him at every corner, eager only to get a word, to ask a question, to put forth a single prayer. The afternoon was terribly long: it went over, one sunny hour after another, hot, breathless, terrible. It was clear by all those signs that a thunderstorm was coming, and themost appalling roll of thunder would have been a relief; but even that delayed its coming, and a dead stillness hung over heaven and earth. There was not a breath of air, the flowers languished in the borders, the leaves hung their heads, and all was still indoors. She did not know what the young men were doing, but they made no sound. Perhaps the weather affected them too—perhaps, another storm coming, which they had been long looking for, had overcome their spirits. Perhaps they were making preparations for their departure. But what preparations could they make, unless it were a bundle on the end of a stick like the tramps? She said to herselfthey, and then with anguish changed it in her mind tohe, but did not believe it even while she did so. No! she had a conviction in her heart that Robbie would go. What was there to keep him back? Nothing but dulness and the society of an old woman. What was that to keep a man at home? She was not angry with him, nor intolerant, but simply miserable. What was there in her to make a young man happy at home? to keep him contented without society or any amusement? No, no, she could not blame Robbie. He wanted movement, he wanted life at his age. He was not even like a young lad who sometimes has a great feeling for his mother. She could not expect it of him that he should stay here for his mother. Even the flight, the excitement of being pursued, the difficultyof getting away—Mrs Ogilvy had heard that such things were more attractive than quietness and safety at home. It was natural—and, what was the chief thing above all other, Robbie was not so much, not so very much, to blame.
She was still wandering about when the day began to wane into evening, like an unquiet soul. Where were they? what were they doing? The quiet of the house became dreadful to her. She who had loved her quiet so, who had felt it so insupportable to have her calm solitude so spoiled and broken!—but now she would have given much only to hear the scuffle of their feet, the roar of their loud laughter. She went about the house from one room to another, avoiding only the bedrooms where she supposed they were. She would not drive them out of that last refuge. She would not interfere there, be importunate, disturb them, if, perhaps, it was the last day.
And then she went outside and gazed right and left for she knew not what. She was looking for no one—or was it the storm she was looking for? Everything was grey, the sky, like some deep solid lid for the panting breathless world, stealing down upon the earth, closely hiding the heavens: it seemed to come closer and closer down, as if to smother the universe and all the terrified creatures on it. The birds flew low, making little agitated flights, as if they thought the end of the world was at hand. So did she, towhom, as far as she knew, everything was hastening to a conclusion—her son about to disappear again into the unknown, if he had not already done so, and her life about to be wound up for ever. For she knew well there would be no second coming back. Oh! never, never again would she sit at her door, and listen and hope for his step on the path. If he left her now, it would be for ever. It might be that for the sake of the money he would have seen some violence done to his mother; but no money, if it were ten times as much, would bring him back again—none! none! not if it were ten times as much. If he went now, he would never come back; and how could she keep him from going now?
About seven o’clock the windows of heaven were opened, and torrents of rain fell—not the storm for which everybody had been looking, but only the tail of the storm, which sounded all round the horizon in distant dull reports, like a battle going on a dozen miles away, and the tremendous downpour of rain. She said to herself, “In such a night they can never go,” with a mingled happiness and despair—happiness to put off the inevitable, to gain perhaps a propitious moment, and supplicate her son not to go; and despair in the prospect of another twenty-four hours of misery like this, the dreadful suspense, the terror of she knew not what. When the first darkening of the twilight began, Mrs Ogilvy began to think of another night togo through, and Lew’s laughing threats, and the devil in his eyes. He had said there would be time to talk of that to-night. Perhaps he would murder her to-night; and all the country-side would believe it was her son, and curse him, though it would not be Robbie—not Robbie, who had saved her once, but perhaps might not again. She asked herself whether it would not be better to go away somewhere, to save herself and, above all, them, from such a dreadful temptation. But where could she go, exposing the misery of her house? and how did she know that something might not happen which would make her presence a protection to them? She gazed out from the window through the rain, and it occurred to her that she could always run out there and hide herself among the trees. They would not think of looking for her there. She would be safe there, or at least—— This idea gave her a little comfort. How could he find her in the dark, in the heavy rain, among her own trees?
The rain had driven her indoors, and in the parlour where she was, she heard them overhead. They seemed to be moving about softly, and sometimes crossed the passage, as if going from one room to another. They had shared the clothes with which Robbie had liberally provided himself on his return—and the thought that they were busied only with so homely an occupation as packing brought back a little comfort to her. A man does not fash abouthis clothes, she thought, who has murder in his head. She shook off her terror with a heat of shame flaming over her. Shame to have done injustice to her neighbour, how much more to her son! They were thinking of no such dreadful things: it was only the panic of her own imagination which was in fault. She said to herself that if it must be so, if Robbie left her, she would get from him a sure address, and there she would send him the money he wanted, or whatever he wanted—for was it not all his? This was what she would do: she had nothing to give him now. Perhaps, perhaps he might be deterred by that and wait till she could get it for him, while his friend went on. What a thing this would be, to get him alone, to talk to him, to represent to him how much better to take a little time, to think, to give himself a chance. She thought over all this, and shook her head while she thought; for, alas! this was what Robbie would never do.
Suddenly, it seemed in a moment, the rain stopped, the distant thunder came to an end, the battle in the skies was over. And after all the tumult and commotion of the elements, the clouds, which had poured themselves out, dispersed in rags and fragments of vapour, and let the sky look through—the most serene evening sky, with the stars faintly visible through the wistful lingering daylight—the sweetest evening, with that clearness as of weeping, and radiance as of hopereturned, which is in the skies after the relief of the rain, and in a human countenance sometimes when all its tears have been shed, and there are no more to come. Was it a good omen, or was it only the resignation of despair which shone upon her out of that evening sky?
Mrs Ogilvywent wearily up-stairs after the suspense and alarm of this long, long day. It was all that she could do to drag one foot after another, to keep upright; her brain was in a confusion of misery, out of which she now could distinguish no distinct sentiment—terror and grief and suspense, and the vague wild apprehension of some unintelligible catastrophe, all mingling together. When she reached the head of the stairs she met Robbie, who told her, not looking at her, that he had bidden Janet prepare the supper earlier than usual, “for we’ll have to make a start to-night,” he said.
She seized his hand in her frail ones, which could scarcely hold it. “Robbie, will you go?—will you go, and break my heart?”
“It’s of no use speaking, mother; let me be free of you at least, for God’s sake! You will drive me mad——”
“Robbie! Robbie! my only son—my only child! I’ll be dead and gone before ever you could come back.”
“You’ll live the longest of the two of us, mother.”
“God forbid!” she said; “God forbid! But why will ye go out into the jaws of death and the mouth of hell? If the pursuers of blood are after him, they are not after you. Oh, Robbie, stay with your mother. Dinna forsake me for a strange man.”
“Mother,” he said, with a hoarse voice, “when your friend is in deadly danger, is that the time, think you, to forsake him?”
And Mrs Ogilvy was silent. She looked at him with a gasp in her throat. All her old teachings, the tenets of her life, came back upon her and choked her. When your friend is in deadly danger! Was it not she who had taught her son that of all the moments of life that was the last to choose to abandon a friend. She could make him no answer; she only stared at him with troubled failing eyes.
“But once he is in safety,” Robbie said, with a stammer of hesitation and confusion, “once I can feel sure that—— Mother, I promise you, if I can help it, I will not go—where he is going. I—promise you.” He cast a look behind him. There was no one there, but Lew’s door was open, and it was possible he might hear. Robbie bent forward hastily to his mother’s ear. “I cannot stand against him,” he said; “I cannot: Itold you—he is my master,—didn’t I tell you? But I will come back—I will come back—as soon as I am free.”
He trembled, too, throughout his big bulk, with agitation and excitement—more than she ever did in her weakness. If this was so, was it not now her business to be strong to support her boy? She went on to her room to put on her other cap, to prepare for the evening, and the last meal they were to eat together. The habits of life are so strong; her heart was breaking, and yet she knew that it was time to put on her evening cap. She went into her room, too, with the feeling that there no new agitation could come near her, that she might kneel down a moment by her bedside, and get a little calm and strength. But not to-night. To her astonishment and horror, the tall figure of Lew raised itself from the old-fashioned escritoire in which she kept her papers and did her writing. He turned round, and faced her with a laugh. “Oh, it is you!” he said. “I thought it was your good son Bob. You surprised us when we were making a little examination by ourselves. It is always better to examine for yourself, don’t you know——”
“To examine—what?”
“Where the money is, mother,” he said, with another laugh.
She had herself closed the door before she had seen him. She was at his mercy.
“You think, then,” she said, “that I’ve told you a lie—about money?”
“Everybody tells lies about money, mother. I never knew one yet who did not declare he had none—until it was taken out of his pockets, or out of his boxes, or out of a nice little piece of furniture like this, which an old lady can keep in her bedroom—locked.”
She took her keys out of her pocket, a neat little bunch, shining like silver, and handed them to him without a word. He received them with a somewhat startled look. It was something like the sensation of having the other cheek turned to you, after having struck the first. He had been examining the lock with a view to opening by other methods. The keys put into his hand startled him; but again he carried it off with a laugh. “Plucky old girl!” he said. And then he turned round and proceeded to open the well-worn old secretary which had enclosed all Mrs Ogilvy’s little valuables, and the records of her thoughts since she was a girl. It opened as easily as any door, and gave up its little treasures, her letters, her little memorials, the records of an innocent woman’s evanescent joys and lasting sorrows. The rough adventurer, whose very presence here was a kind of sacrilege, stooped over the little writing-board, the dainty little drawers, like a bear examining a beehive. He pulled out a drawer or two, in which there were bundles of old letters, all neatly tied up,touching them as if his hands were too big for the little ivory knobs; and then he suddenly turned round upon her, shutting the drawers again hurriedly, and flung the keys into her lap.
“Hang it all! I cannot do it. I’ve not come to that. Rob a rogue by day or night; that’s fair enough: but turn to picking and stealing. No! take back your keys—you may have millions for me. I can’t look up your little drawers, d—n you!” he cried.
“No, laddie!” said Mrs Ogilvy, looking up at him with tears in her eyes, “you’re fit for better things.”
He looked at her strangely. She sat quite still beside him, not moving, not even taking up her keys, which lay in her lap.
“You think so, do you?” he said. “And yet I would have killed you last night.”
“Thank the Lord,” said the old lady, “that delivered you from that temptation.”
“That saved your life, you mean. But it wasn’t the Lord. It was Bob, your son, who couldn’t stand and see it after all.”
“Thank the Lord still more,” she said, “that wakened the old heart, his own natural heart, in my boy.”
“Well that is one view to take of it,” said Lew. “I should have thought it more sensible, however, to thank the Lord, as you say, for your own life.”
Mrs Ogilvy rose up. The keys of her treasures fellto the ground. What were they to her at this moment? “And what is my life to me,” she said, “that I should think of it instead of better things? Do you think it matters much to me, left here alone an auld wreck on the shore, without a son, without a companion, without a hope for this world, whether I live or die? Man!” she cried, laying a hand on his arm, “it’s not that I would give it for my Robbie, my own son, over and over and over! but I would give it for you. Oh, dinna think that I am making a false pretence! For you, laddie, that are none of mine, that would have killed me last night, that would kill me now for ever so little that I stood in your way.”
“No!” he said in a hoarse murmur, “no!”—but she saw still the gleam of the devil in his eye, that murderous sense of power—that he had but to put forth a hand.
“If it would not be for the sin on your soul—you that are taking my son from me—you might take my life too, and welcome,” she said.
She could not stand. She was restless, too, and could not bear one position. She sank upon her chair again, and, lifting up the keys, laid them down upon the open escritoire, where they lay shining between the two, neither of use nor consequence to either. Lew began to pace up and down the room, half abashed at his own weakness, half furious at his failure. She might have millions—but he could notfish them out of her drawers, not he. That was no man’s work. He could have killed her last night, and he could, she divined, kill her now, with a sort of satisfaction, but not rob her escritoire.
“Mr Lew, will you leave me my son?” she said.
“No: I have nothing to do with it; he comes of his own will,” cried the other. “You make yourself a fine idea of your son. Do you know he has been in with me in everything? Ah! he has his own scruples; he has not mine. He interfered last night; but he’d turn out your drawers as soon as look at you. It’s a pity he’s not here to do it.”
“Will you leave me my son?” she repeated again; “he is all I have in the world.”
“I’ve got less,” cried Lew; “I haven’t even a son, and don’t want one. You are a deal better without him. Whatever he might be when he was a boy, Bob’s a rover now. He never would settle down. He would do you a great deal more harm than good.”
“Will you leave me my son?” she said again.
“No! I can say No as well as you, mother; but I’ve nothing to do with it. Ask himself, not me. Do you think this is a place for a man? What can he do? Who would he see? Nobody. It is not living—it is making believe to live. No; he won’t stay here if he will be guided by me.”
The door opened suddenly, and Robbie looked in. “Are you going to stay all night?” he said, gruffly.“There’s supper waiting, and no time to be lost, if——”
“If—we take that long run we were thinking of to-night. Well, let’s go. Mrs Ogilvy, you’re going to keep us company to-night.”
“It’s the last time,” said her son.
“Oh, Robbie, Robbie!” she cried.
“Stop that, mother. I’ve said all I’m going to say.”
To sit down round the table with the dishes served as usual, the lamp shining, the men eating largely, even it seemed with enjoyment, a little conversation going on—was to go from one dreadful dream to another with scarcely a pause between. Was it real that they were sitting there to-day and would be far away to-morrow? That this was her son, whom she could touch, and to-morrow he would have disappeared again into the unseen? Love is the most obdurate, the most unreasoning thing in the world. Mrs Ogilvy knew now very well what her Robbie was. There were few revelations which could have been made to her on the subject. Perhaps—oh, horrible thing to think or say!—it was better for her before he came back, when she had thought that his absence was the great sorrow of her life: she had learnt many other things since then. Perhaps in his heart the father of the prodigal learned this lesson too, and knew that, even with the best robe upon him, and the ring onhis finger and the shoes on his feet, he was still hankering after the husks which the swine eat, and their company. How much easier would life be, and how many problems would disappear or be solved, if we could love only those whom we approved! But how little, how very little difference does this make. Mrs Ogilvy knew everything, divined everything, and yet the thought that he was going away made heaven and earth blank to her. She could not reconcile herself to the dreadful thought. And he, for his part, said very little. He showed no regret, but neither did he show that eagerness to take the next step which began to appear in Lew. He sat very silent, chiefly in the shade, saying nothing. Perhaps after all he was sorry; but his mother, watching him in her anguish, could not make sure even of that. Janet was, next to Lew himself, the most cheerful person in the room. She pulled her mistress’s sleeve, and showed her two shining pieces of gold in her hand, with a little nod of her head towards Lew. “And Andrew has one,” she whispered. “I aye said he was a real gentleman! Three golden sovereigns between us—and what have we ever done? I’ll just put them by for curiosities. It’s no often you see the like o’ them here.” The mistress looked at them with a rueful smile. Gold is not very common in rural Scotland. She had taken so much trouble to get those golden sovereigns for her departing guest! but it did not displeaseher that he had been generous to her old servants. There was good in him—oh, there was good in him!—he had been made for better things.
Janet had been in this radiant mood when she cleared the table; but a few minutes after she came in again with a scared face, and beckoned to her mistress at the door. Mrs Ogilvy hurried out, afraid she knew not of what, fearing some catastrophe. Andrew stood behind Janet in the hall. “What is it, what is it?” the mistress cried.
“Have you siller in the house, mem? is it known that you have siller in the house?”
“Me—siller? are you out of your senses? I have no siller in the house—nothing beyond the ordinary,” Mrs Ogilvy cried.
“It’s just this,” said Janet, “there’s a heap of waiff characters creeping up about the house. I canna think it’s just for the spoons and the tea-service and that, that are aye here; but I thought if you had been sending for money, and thae burglars had got wit of it——”
“What kind of waiff characters?” said Mrs Ogilvy, trembling.
“They are both back and front. Andrew he was going to supper Sandy, and a man started up at his lug. The doors and the windows are all weel fastened, but Andrew he said I should let you ken.”
“The gentlemen,” said Andrew, “will maybe know—they will maybe know——”
“How should the gentlemen know, poor laddies, mair than any one of us?” cried Janet.
It was a great thing for Andrew all his life after that the mistress approved his suggestion. “I will go and tell them,” she said; “and you two go ben to your kitchen and keep very quiet, but if ye hear anything more let me know.”
She went back into the lighted room, trembling, but ready for everything. The two men were seated at the table. They were not talking as usual, but sat like men full of thought, saying nothing to each other. They looked up both—Lew with much attention, Rob with a sort of sulky indifference. “It appears,” said Mrs Ogilvy, speaking in a broken voice, “that there are men—all round the house.”
“Men! all round the house.” There was a moment of consternation, and then Lew sprang to his feet. “It has come, Bob; the hour has come, sooner than we thought.”
Rob rose too, slowly; an oath, which in this terrible moment affected his mother more than all the rest, came from his lips. “I told you—you would let them take you by surprise.”
“Fool again! I don’t deny it,” the other said, with a sort of gaiety. “Now for your gulley and Eskside, and a run for it. We’ll beat them yet.”
“If they’ve not stopped us up like blind moles,” cried Robbie. “Mother, keep them in parley as longas you can; every moment’s worth an hour. You’ll have to open the door, but not till the very last.”
She answered only with a little movement of her head, and stood looking without a word, while they caught up without another glance at her—Robbie the cloak which he had brought with him, and Lew a loose coat, in which he enveloped himself. Their movements were very quiet, very still, as of men absorbed in what they were doing, thinking of nothing else. They hurried out of the room, Robbie first, leading the way, and his mother’s eyes following him as if they would have burst out of the sockets. He was far too much preoccupied to think of her, to give her even a look. And this was their farewell, and she might never see him more. She stood there motionless, conscious of nothing but that acute and poignant anguish that she had taken her last look of her son, when suddenly the air, which was trembling and quivering with excitement and expectation, like the air that thrills and shimmers over a blazing furnace, was penetrated by the sound for which the whole world seemed to have been waiting—a heavy ominous loud knock at the outer door. Mrs Ogilvy recovered all her faculties in a moment. She went to the open door of the dining-room, where Andrew and Janet, one on the heels of the other, were arriving in commotion, Andrew about to stride with a heavy step to the door. She silenced them, and kept them backwith a movement of her hands, stamping her impatient foot at Andrew and his unnecessary haste. She thought it would look like expectation if she responded too soon—and had they not told her to parley, to gain time? She stood at the dining-room door and waited till the summons should be repeated. And after an interval it came again, with a sound of several voices. She put herself in motion now, coming out into the hall, pretending to call upon Andrew, as she would have done in former days if so disturbed. “Bless me!” she cried; “who will that be making such a noise at the door?”
“Will I open it, mem?” Andrew said.
“No, no; let me speak to them first. Who is it?” Mrs Ogilvy said, raising her calm voice; “who is making such a disturbance at my door at this hour of the night?”
“Open in the Queen’s name,” cried somebody outside.
“Ay, that would I willingly,” cried Mrs Ogilvy; “but who are ye that are taking her sacred Majesty’s name? None of her servants, I’m sure, or you would not disturb an honest family at this hour of the night.”
“Open to the police, at your peril,” said another voice.
“The police—in this house? No, no,” she cried, standing white and trembling, but holding out like alion. “You will not deceive me with that—in this house.”
“Open the door, or we’ll break it in. Here, you speak to her!”—“Mem,” said a new voice, very tremulous but familiar, “it is me, Peter Young, with the men from Edinburgh. It’s maybe some awfu’ mistake; but you must let us in—you maun open the door.”
“You, Peter Young!” cried Mrs Ogilvy, “you are not the man to disturb my house in the middle of the night. It ill becomes you after all you’ve got from the Hewan. Just tell these idle folk there is nothing to be gotten here, and bid them go away.”
“This is folly,” said a more imperative voice. “Break in the door if she will not open it. We can’t stand all the night parleying here.”
Then Mrs Ogilvy heard, her ears preternaturally sharp in the crisis, a sound as of women’s voices, which gave her a momentary hope. Was it a trick that was being played upon her after all? for if it was for life or death why should there be women’s voices there?
And then another voice arose which was even more reassuring. It was the minister who spoke. The minister dragged hither against his will, but beginning to feel piously that it was the hand of providence, and that he had been directed not by Mrs Ainslie, but by some special messenger from heaven—if indeed she was not one. “Mrs Ogilvy,” the minister said, “it must be, as Peter says, some dreadful mistake—but it certainly is the police from Edinburgh, and you must let them in.”
“Who is that that is speaking? is it the minister that is speaking? are ye all in a plot to disturb the rest of a quiet family? No,” with a sudden exclamation, “ye will not break in my door. I will open it, since ye force me to open it. I am coming, I am coming.”
Andrew rushed forward, to pull back with all expedition the bolts and bars. But his mistress stamped her foot at him once more, and dismissed him behind backs with a look—from which he did not recover for many a long day—and coming forward herself, began to draw back with difficulty and very slowly the innocent bolts and bars. They might have been the fastenings of a fortress from the manner in which she laboured at them, with her unaccustomed hands. “And me ready to do it in a moment,” Andrew said, aggrieved, while she kept asking herself, the words buzzing in her ears, like flies coming and going, “Have I kept them long enough? have I given my lads their time? Oh, if they got out that quiet they should be safe by now.” There was the bolt at the bottom and the top, and there was the chain, and then the key to turn. The door was driven in upon her at last by the sudden entrance of a number of impatientmen, a great gust of fresh air, a ray of moonlight straight from the skies: and Mr Logan and his companions, Susie pale and crying, and Mrs Ainslie pale too—but with eyes sparkling and all the keen enjoyment of an exciting catastrophe in her face.
“We have a warrant for the arrest of Lew or Lewis Winterman,alias, &c., &c., accused of murder,” said the leader of the party, “who we have reason to believe has been for some weeks harboured here.”
Mrs Ogilvy disengaged herself from the man whose sudden push inwards had almost carried her away. She came forward into the midst in her white cap and shawl, a wonderful centre to all these dark figures. “There is no such person in my house,” she said.
And then there came a cry and tumult from behind, and through the door of the dining-room, which stood wide open, making it a part of the scene, there suddenly appeared another group of whirling struggling figures, steadily pushing back before them the two fugitives, who had crept their way out, only to be met and overpowered, and brought back to answer as they could for themselves. Then, and only then, Mrs Ogilvy’s strength failed her. The light for a moment went out of her eyes. All that she had done had been in vain, in vain.