Robert had led the way sullenly into the dining-room. He had made as
though he would not sit down at table, where the other placed himself at
once unceremoniously, pulling towards him the dish which Janet had just
placed on the table, and helping himself eagerly--waiting for no grace,
giving no thanks, nor even the tribute of civility to his entertainers,
as Mrs Ogilvy remarked in passing, though her mind was full of other and
more important things. “I’m too tired, I think, to eat; I’ll go to bed,
mother,” Robbie said. Mrs Ogilvy seized the chance of separating him
from the other with rapture. She ventured--it was not always she could
do so--to give him a good-night kiss on his cheek, and whispered, “I
will send you up something,” unwilling that he should suffer by so much
as a spoilt meal.
“What! are you going to leave me in the lurch, Bob? steal another march
on me, now I’ve thrown myself like an innocent on your good faith?
That’s not like a _bon camarade_. I thought we were to stick to each
other for life or death.”
“I never bargained--you were to come here and frighten my mother.”
“No, no,” she cried; “no, no,” with her hand on his arm patting it
softly, endeavouring to lead him away.
“Your mother’s not frightened, old boy. She’s full of pluck, and we’re
the best of friends. It’s you that are frightened. You think I’ve got
hold of you again. So I have, and you’re not going to give me the slip
so soon. Sit down and don’t be uncivil. I never yet got the good of a
dinner by myself.”
Mrs Ogilvy held her son’s arm with her hand. She felt the thrill in him
turning towards his old comrade, though he did not move. Perhaps the
pressure of her hand was too strong on his arm. A woman does not know
exactly how far to go. An added hair’s-breadth is sometimes too much.
“I don’t want to be uncivil,” said Robbie, after a moment’s hesitation.
“After all, I think I’ll try to eat a morsel, mother; I’m in my own
place. And you asked him in, I suppose; he’s in a manner your guest----”
“If you think so, Robbie----” Her hand loosened from his arm. Perhaps if
she had been firm at that moment,--but she had already been fighting for
a long time; and when a woman is old she gets tired. Her legs were
trembling under her. She did not feel as if she could stand many minutes
longer. She did, however; while Robbie, with an air of much sullenness
and reluctance, took his place at the table, and secured the remains of
the dish which his friend had nearly emptied. Robert held his place as
host with an air of offended dignity, which would have touched his
mother with amusement had her mind been more free. But there was no
strength in him; already he was yielding to the stronger personality;
and as he ate and listened, though in spite of himself, it was clear
that one by one the reluctances gave way. Mrs Ogilvy did not pretend to
take part in the meal. It was prepared for Robbie, as was always the
case when he went to Edinburgh and returned late. She remained in the
room for a time, sometimes going to the kitchen to see what more could
be found to replenish the table,--for the stranger ate as if he had
fasted for a twelvemonth, and Robbie on his part had always an excellent
appetite. How it did not choke them even to swallow a morsel in the
situation of danger in which they were, bewildered her. And greater
wonders still arose. As she went and came, the conversation quickened
between them; and when she came back the second time from the kitchen,
Robbie was leaning back in his chair, his mouth open in a great peal of
laughter, his countenance so brightened and smoothed out, that for the
first time since his return Mrs Ogilvy’s heart bounded with a
recognition of her bright-faced smiling boy as he had been, but was no
more. His face overcast again for a moment at the sight of her, as if
that was enough to damp all pleasurable emotion; and when she had again
looked round the table to see if anything was wanted, the mother, with a
little movement of wounded pride, left them. She went into her parlour,
and sat down in the dark, in the silence, to rest a little. If her
overstrained nerves and the quick sensation of the wound of the moment
brought a tear or two to her eyes, that was nothing. Her mind
immediately began to plan and arrange how this dangerous stranger could
be got away, how his safety could be secured. I presume that Mrs Ogilvy
had forgotten what his crime was. Is it not impossible to believe that a
man who is under your own roof, who is like other men, who has smiled
and spoken, and shown no barbarous tendency, should be a murderer? The
consciousness of that had gone out of her mind. She thought, on the
contrary, that there was good in him: that he was not without
understanding, even of herself, an old woman, which was, Mrs Ogilvy was
aware, unusual among young men. He had no contempt for her, which was
what they generally had, even Robbie: perhaps--it was at least within
the bounds of possibility--he might be got to do what she suggested. She
searched into all the depths to find out what would be the best. To
provide a place for him more private than the Hewan, a room in a
cottage which she knew, where he would be made quite comfortable; and
then, after great thought taken, where would be the best and safest
refuge, to get him to depart thither, with money enough--money which,
with a faint pang to lose it for Robbie, she felt would be well-spent
money to free him for ever from that dangerous companion. Mrs Ogilvy
thought, and better thought, as she herself described the process: where
would be the safest place for him to go? How would one of the Highland
isles do, or the Isle of Man, or perhaps these other islands which she
believed were French, though that would most likely make no
difference--Guernsey or Jersey, or some of these? She was strongly, in
her mind, in favour of an island. It was not so easy to get at, and yet
it was easy to escape from should there be any pursuit. She thought, and
better thought, sitting there in the dark, with the window still open,
and the air of the night blowing in. The wind was cold rather; but her
mind was so taken up that she scarcely felt it. It is when the mind is
quite free that you have time to think of all these little things.
While she was sitting so quiet the conversation evidently warmed in the
other room, the voices grew louder, there were peals of laughter, sounds
of gaiety which had not been heard there for many a day. Mrs Ogilvy’s
heart rose in spite of herself. She had not heard Robbie laugh like
that--not since he was a boy. God bless him! And, oh, might she not
say, God bless the other too, that made him laugh so hearty? He could
not be all bad, that other one: certainly there was good in him. It was
not possible that he could laugh like that, a man hunted for his life,
if he had his conscience against him too. She began to think that there
must be some mistake. And so great are the inconsistencies of human
nature, that this mother who had repulsed the stranger with almost
tragic passion so short a time ago, sat in the dark soothed and almost
happy in his presence--almost glad that her Robbie had a friend. She
heard Janet come and go, with a cheerful word addressed to her, and
giving cheerful words in return and advice to the young men to go to
their beds and not sit up till all the hours of the night. After one of
these colloquies Robbie came into the room where Mrs Ogilvy was. “Are
you here, mother?” he said, “sitting in the dark without a candle--and
the window still open. I think it is your craze to keep these windows
open, whatever I may say.”
“It can matter little now, Robbie--since he’s here.”
“Oh, since he’s here! and how about those that may come after him? But
you never will see what I mean. There is more need than ever to bar the
doors.” He closed the window himself with vehemence, and the shutters,
leaving her in total darkness. “I will tell Janet to bring you a
light,” he said.
“You need not do that: I will maybe go up-stairs.”
“To your bed--as Janet has been bidding us to do.”
“I’ll not promise” said Mrs Ogilvy; “I’ve many things to think of.”
“Never mind to-night; but there’s one thing I want of you,--your keys.
Janet says the mistress locks everything up but just what is going.
There is next to nothing in the bottle.”
“Oh, Robbie, my man, it’s neither good for him nor for you! It would be
far better, as Janet says, to go to your beds.”
“It is a pretty thing,” said Robbie, “that I cannot entertain a friend,
not for once, and he a stranger that has heard me boast of my home; and
that you should grudge me the first pleasant night I have had in this
miserable dull place.”
“Oh, Robbie!” she cried, as if he had given her a blow. And then
trembling she put her keys into his hand, groping to find it in the
dark. He went away with a murmur, whether of thanks or grumbling she
could not tell, and left her thus to feel the full force of that flying
stroke. Then she picked herself up again, and allowed to herself that it
was a dull place for a young man that had been out in the world and had
seen much. And it was natural that he should be pleased and excited,
with a man to talk to. Almost all women are humble on this point. They
do not hope that their men can be satisfied with their company, but are
glad that they should have other men to add salt and savour to their
life. It gave Mrs Ogilvy a pang to hear her gardevin unlocked, and the
bottles sounding as they were taken out: but yet that he should make
merry with his friend, was not that sanctioned by the very Scripture
itself? She sat there a while trying to resume the course of her
thoughts; but the sound of the talk, the laughing, the clinking of the
glasses, filled the air and disordered all these thoughts. She went
softly up-stairs after a while; but the sounds pursued her there almost
more distinctly, for her room was over the dining-room,--the two voices
in endless conversation, the laughter, the smell of their tobacco. You
would have said two light-hearted laddies to hear them, Mrs Ogilvy said
to herself: and one of them a hunted man, in danger of his life! She did
not sleep much that night, nor even go to bed, but sat up fully dressed,
the early daylight finding her out suddenly in her white shawl and cap
when it came in, oh! so early, revealing the whole familiar world
about,--giving her a surprise, too, to see herself in the glass, with
her candle flickering on the table beside her. It was broad
daylight--but they would not see it, their shutters being closed--before
the sounds ceased, and she heard them stumbling up-stairs, still
talking and making a great noise in the silence, to their rooms; and
then after a while everything was still. And then she could think.
Then she could think! Oh, her plan was a very simple one, involving
little thought,--first that house down the water, on the very edge of
the river, where Andrew’s brother lived. It was as quiet a place as
heart could desire, and a very nice room, where in her good days, in
Robbie’s boyhood, in the time when there were often visitors at the
Hewan, she had sent any guest she had not room for. Down the steep bank
behind on which the Hewan stood, you could almost have slid down to the
little house in the glen. There would be very little risk there. Robbie
and he could see each other, and nobody the wiser; and then, after he
was well rested, he would see the danger of staying in a place like the
Hewan, where anybody at any moment might walk up to the door. And then
the place must be chosen where he should go. If he would but go quiet to
one of the islands, and be out of danger! Mrs Ogilvy’s mind was very
much set on one of the islands; I cannot tell why. It seemed to her so
much safer to be surrounded by the sea on every side. If he would
consent to go to St Kilda or some place like that, where he would be as
safe as a bird in its nest. Ah! but St Kilda--among the poor
fisher-folk, where he would have no one to speak to. A chill came over
her heart in the middle of her plans. Would he not laugh in her face if
she proposed it? Would he go, however safe it might be? Did he care so
much for his safety as that? She wrung her hands with a sense of
impotence, and that all her fine plans, when she had made them, would
come to nothing. She might plan and plan; but if he would not do it,
what would her planning matter? If she planned for Robbie in the same
way, would he do it? And she had no power over this strange man. Then
after demonstrating to herself the folly of it, she began her planning
all over again.
In the morning there were the usual pleasant sounds in the house of
natural awakening and new beginning, and Mrs Ogilvy got up at her usual
hour and dressed herself with her usual care. She saw, when she looked
at herself in the glass, that she was paler than usual. But what did
that matter for an old woman? She was not tired--she did not feel her
body at all. She was all life and force and energy, thrilling to her
finger-points with the desire of doing something--the ability to do
whatever might be wanted. She would have gone off to St Kilda straight
without the loss of a moment, if her doing so could have been of any
avail. But of what avail could that have been? The early morning passed
over in its usual occupations, and grew to noon before there was any
stirring up-stairs. Then Janet, who had no responsibility, who had
always kept her old footing with Robbie as his old nurse who might say
anything and do anything--without gravity, laughing with him at herself
and her old domineering ways, yet sometimes influencing him with her
domineering more than his mother’s anxious love could do--Janet went
boldly up-stairs with her jugs of hot water, and knocked at one door
after another. Mrs Ogilvy then heard various stirrings, shouts to know
what was wanted, openings of doors, Robbie, large and heavy, though with
slippered feet, going into his companion’s room, and the loud talk of
last night resumed. Nearly one o’clock, the middle of the day. Alas for
that journey to St Kilda, or anywhere! When the day was half over, how
was any such enterprise to be undertaken? And if the police were after
him--the police! in her honourable, honest, stainless house--how was he
to get away, to have a chance of escape? in his bed and undefended,
sleeping and insensible to any danger, till one of the clock. It must
have been two before Robbie showed down-stairs. He was a little abashed,
not facing his mother--looking, she thought, as if his eyes had been
boiled.
“We were a little late last night,” he said. “I’m sorry, but it’s
nothing to look so serious about. Lew’s first night.”
“Robbie,” she said, “it’s nothing. I’m old-fashioned. I have my
prejudices. But it was not that I was thinking of. Is he in danger of
his life or no?”
Robbie blanched a little at this, but shook himself with nervous
impatience. “That’s a big word to use,” he said.
“It was the word he used to me when he came upon me last night. If he is
in danger of his life, he is not safe for a moment here.”
“Rubbish!” said Robbie; “why is he not safe? It is as out of the way as
anything can be. Not a soul about but your village people, who don’t
know him from Adam, nor anything about us, good or bad. I am just your
son to them, and he is just my friend.”
“If that were so! It is not a thing I know about: it is only what you
have told me, him and you. He said he was in danger of his life.”
“He was a fool for his pains; but he always liked a sensation, and to
talk big----”
“Then it is not true?”
She looked at him, and he at her. He was pale, too, with the doings of
last night, but a quick colour flashed over his face under her eyes. “I
am not going to be cross-examined,” he said. Then after a pause: “It may
be true, and it mayn’t be true--if they’re on his track. But he doesn’t
think now that they are on his track.”
“He thought so last night, Robbie.”
“What does it matter about last night? You’re insufferable--you can
imagine nothing. There is a difference between a man when he’s tired and
fasting, and when he’s had a good rest and a square meal. He doesn’t
think so now. He’s quite happy about us both. He says we’ll pull along
here famously for a time. You so motherly (he likes you), and Janet such
a good cook, and the whisky very decent. He’s a connoisseur, I can tell
you!--and nobody here that has half an idea in their heads----”
“You may be deceived, there,” said Mrs Ogilvy, suddenly resenting what
he said--“you may be deceived in that, both him and you----”
“Not about the cook and the whisky,” said Robbie, with a laugh. “In
short, we think we can lie on our oars a little and watch events. We can
cut and run at any moment if danger appears.”
“You say ‘we,’ Robbie?”
“Yes,” he said, with a momentary scowl, “I said ‘we.’ Of course, I’m in
with Lew as soon as he turns up. I always said I was. You forget the
nonsense I’ve talked about him. That’s all being out of sight that
corrupts the mind. Lord, what a difference it makes to have him here!”
She looked a little wistfully at the young man to whom her own love and
devotion mattered nothing. He calculated on it freely, took advantage of
it, and thought no more of it--which was “quite natural”: she quieted
all possibilities of rebellion in her own mind by this. “But, Robbie,”
she said, “if he is in danger. I’m not one to advise you to be
unfaithful to a friend--oh, not even if---- But his welfare goes before
all. If it’s true all I’ve heard--if there’s been wild work out yonder
in America, and he’s blamed for it----”
“Who told you that?”
“Partly Mr Somerville before you came, Robbie, and partly yourself--and
partly it was in a newspaper I read.”
“A newspaper!” he cried, almost with a shout. “If it has been in the
newspapers here----”
“I did not say it was a newspaper here.”
“I know what it was,” said Robbie, with a scornful laugh. “You’ve been
at a woman’s tricks. I thought you were above them. You’ve searched my
pockets, and you’ve found it there.”
“I found it lying with your coat, in no pocket: and I had seen it before
in Mr Somerville’s hands. You go too far--you go too far!” she said.
“Well,” he said with bravado, “what does a Yankee paper matter?--nobody
reads them here. Anyhow,” he added, “Lew and I, we’re going to face it
out. We’ll stay where we are, and make ourselves as comfortable as we
can. Danger at present there’s none. Oh, you need not answer me with
supposing this or that; I know.”
Mrs Ogilvy opened her lips to speak, but said no word. She was perhaps
tempted to suggest that it was her house, her money, her life and
comfort, of which these two men were disposing so calmly; but she did
not. After all, she said to herself, it was not hers, but Robbie’s;
everything that was hers was his. She had saved the money which he might
have been spending had he been at home--which he might have been
extravagant with, who could tell?--for him. And should she grudge him
the use of it now? If he was right, if all was safe, if there was no
need for alarm, why, then---- Her peace was gone; but had she not all
these years been ready to sacrifice peace, comfort, life
itself--everything in the world--for Robbie’s sake? And now that he had
been brought back to her as if it were out of the grave,--“this thy son
was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found,”--what was
there more to say? That father who ran out to meet his son, who fell
upon his neck, and clothed him in the best garment, and would not even
listen to his confession and penitence--perhaps when the prodigal had
settled back again into the monotony of home, was not so happy in him as
he had hoped to be.