Huntley could not see his mother after this outrage became known to her.
The widow resented it with all a woman’s horror and passion, and with
all the shame of a Scottish matron, jealous, above all things, of
privacy and “respect.” Pretty Katie Logan sat at her feet crying in
inarticulate and unreasoning sympathy, which was better for the Mistress
than all the wisdom and consolation with which good Mrs. Blackadder
endeavored to support her. In the kitchen, Jenny and her mother cried
too, the latter telling doleful stories of similar circumstances which
she had known; but Marget went about with a burning cheek, watching “the
laddies” with a jealous tenderness, which no one but their mother could
have surpassed, eager to read their looks and anticipate their meaning.
It was a sultry, oppressive day, hot and cloudy, threatening a thunder
storm; and it is impossible to describe the still heavier oppression of
distress and excitement in this closed-up and gloomy house. When Marget
went out to the byre, late in the afternoon, several hours after these
occurrences, Huntley came to her secretly by a back way. What he said
roused the spirit of a hero in Marget’s frame. She put aside her pail on
the instant, smoothed down her new black gown over her petticoat, and
threw a shawl across her head.
“This moment, laddie--this instant--ye may trust me!” cried Marget, with
a sob; and before Huntley, passing round behind the offices, came in
sight of the high road, his messenger had already disappeared on the way
to Kirkbride.
Then Huntley drew his cap over his eyes, threw round him a gray
shepherd’s plaid, as a partial disguise, and set out in the opposite
direction. Before he reached his journey’s end, the sweeping deluge of a
thunder storm came down upon those uplands, in white sheets of falling
water. The lad did not pause to take shelter, scarcely to take breath,
but pushed on till he reached some scattered cottages, where the men
were just returning from their day’s work. At that time the rain and the
western sun, through the thickness of the thunder cloud, made a
gorgeous, lurid, unearthly glow, like what it might make through the
smoke of a great battle. Huntley called one of the men to him into a
little hollow below the hamlet. He was one of the servants of Norlaw, as
were most of these cottagers. The young master told his tale with little
loss of words, and met with the hearty and ready assent of his horrified
listener.
“I’ll no’ fail ye, Maister Huntley; neither will the Laidlaws. I’ll
bring them up by the darkening; ye may reckon upon them and me,” said
the laborer; “and what use burdening yoursel’ with mair, unless it were
to show respect. There’s enow, with ane of you lads to take turns, and
us three.”
“Not at the darkening--at midnight, Willie; or at earliest at eleven,
when it’s quite dark,” said Huntley.
“At eleven! mid nicht! I’m no heeding; but what will we say to the
wives?” said Willie, scratching his head in momentary dismay.
“Say--but not till you leave them--that you’re coming to serve Norlaw in
extremity,” said Huntley; “and to make my brothers and me debtors to
your kindness forever.”
“Whisht about that,” said Willie Noble; “mony a guid turn’s come to us
out of Norlaw;--and Peggie’s nae like the maist of women--she’ll hear
reason. If we can aince win owre Tweed, we’re safe, Maister Huntley; but
it’s a weary long way to there. What would you say to a guid horse and a
light cart? there’s few folk about the roads at night.”
Huntley shrunk with involuntary horror from the details even of his own
arrangement.
“I’ll take care for that,” he said, hurriedly; “but we could not take a
carriage over Tweed, and that is why I ask this help from you.”
“And kindly welcome; I wish to heaven it had been a blyther errand for
your sake,” said the man, heartily; “but we maun take what God sends;
and wha’s to keep the officer quiet, for that’s the chief of the haill
plan?”
“I’ve to think of that yet,” said Huntley, turning his face towards home
with a heavy sigh.
“I’d bind him neck and heels, and put him in Tyne to cool himsel’!” said
Willie, with a fervent effusion of indignation. Huntley only bade him
remember the hour, shook his hard hand, and hurried away.
It was a painful, troubled, unhappy evening, full of the excitement of a
conspiracy. When Huntley and Patrick communicated with each other it was
impossible to say, for they never seemed to meet alone, and Patrick had
taken upon himself the hard duty of keeping Elliot company.
The minister and his daughter departed sadly in the twilight, knowing no
comfort for the family they left. And Mr. Blackadder returned gloomily
from his visit to the attorney, bringing the news that he had no
authority to stop proceedings till he consulted with his principal,
after which, in good time, and with a look and grasp of Huntley’s hand,
which were full of meaning, the good farmer, too, took his wife away.
Then came the real struggle. The officer kept his watch in the
dining-room, to which he had shifted from some precautionary notion, and
sat there in the great chintz easy-chair, which the hearts of the lads
burned to see him occupy, perfectly content to talk to Patie, and to
consume soberly a very large measure of toddy, the materials for which
stood on the table the whole evening. Patie discharged his painful
office like a hero. He sat by the other side of the table, listening to
the man’s stories, refusing to meet Huntley’s eye when by chance he
entered the room, and taking no note of the reproachful, indignant
glances of Cosmo, who still knew nothing of their plans, and could not
keep his patience when he saw his brother entertaining this coarse
intruder in their sorrowful affairs.
Huntley, meanwhile, moved about stealthily, making all the arrangements.
It was a considerable discouragement to find that the officer had made
up his mind to spend the night in the dining-room, where Marget, with a
swell and excitement in her homely form, which, fortunately, Elliot’s
eyes were not sufficiently enlightened to see, prepared the hair-cloth
sofa for his night’s repose. He was sober, in spite of the toddy, but it
seemed more than mortal powers could bear, keeping awake.
It was midnight; and Huntley knew by Marget’s face that his assistants
were in attendance, but still they scarcely ventured to say to each
other that every thing was ready for their melancholy office.
Midnight, and the house was still. Yet such a perturbed and miserable
stillness, tingling with apprehension and watchfulness! The widow had
left her sorrowful retirement up-stairs; she stood outside on the
gallery in the darkness, with her hands clasped close together, keeping
down all natural pangs in this unnatural hardship. Marget, who was
strong and resolute, stood watching breathless at the closed door of the
dining-room, with a great plaid in her hands, which nobody understood
the occasion for. No one else was to be seen, save a train of four black
figures moving noiselessly up the stairs. At every step these midnight
emissaries took, Marget held her breath harder, and the Mistress clasped
her hand upon her heart with an agonizing idea that its throbs must be
heard throughout the house. A single faint ray of light directed their
way to the room where the dead lay; all beside was in the deepest
darkness of a stormy night--and once more with a merciful noise
pattering loud upon the trees without, came down the deluge of the
thunder storm.
It was at this moment that Cosmo, sitting in his own room, trying to
compose his heart with a chapter in his Bible, saw, for he could not
hear, his door open, and Huntley’s face, pale with agitation, look in.
“Come!” said the elder brother, who was almost speechless with strong
excitement.
“Where?” cried the amazed boy.
Huntley held up his hand to bar speaking.
“To bury my father,” he answered, with a voice which, deep in solemn
meaning, seemed, somehow, to be without common sound, and rather to
convey itself to the mind, than to speak to the ear.
Without a word, Cosmo rose and followed. His brother held him fast upon
the dark gallery, in a speechless grip of intense emotion. Cosmo could
scarcely restrain the natural cry of terror, the natural sob out of his
boy’s heart.
It went down solemnly and noiselessly, down the muffled stair, that
something, dark and heavy, which the noiseless figures carried. At the
foot of the stairs, Patie, his own pale face the only thing there on
which the light fell fully, held with a steady, patient determination,
and without a tremble, the little rush light, hid in a lantern, which
guided their descent, and in the darkness above stood the Mistress, like
a figure in a dream, with her hands pressed on her heart.
Then a blast of colder air, a louder sound of the thunder-rain. The two
brothers stole down stairs, Huntley still holding fast by Cosmo’s
arm--and in another moment the whole procession stood safe and free, in
the garden, under the blast of big rain and the mighty masses of cloud.
So far, all was safe; and thus, under shelter of the midnight, set forth
from his sad house, the funeral of Norlaw.