Common daylight, common life, the dead buried out of their sight, the
windows open, the servants coming to ask common questions about the
cattle and the land. Nothing changed, except that the father was no
longer visible among them--that Huntley sat at the foot of the table,
and the Mistress grew familiar with her widow’s cap. Oh, cruel life!
This was how it swallowed up all the solemnities of their grief.
And now it was the evening, and the eager youths could be restrained no
longer. Common custom had aroused even the Mistress out of her inaction,
sitting by the corner window, she had once more begun mechanically to
notice what went and came at the kitchen door--had been very angry with
the packman, who had seduced Jenny to admit him--and with Jenny for so
far forgetting the decorum due to “an afflicted house;” had even once
noticed, and been partially displeased by the black ribbons in Marget’s
cap, which it was extravagant to wear in the morning; and with
melancholy self-reproof had opened the work basket, which had been left
to gather dust for weeks past.
“I needna be idle _now_"--the Mistress said to herself, with a heavy
sigh; and Huntley and Patie perceived that it was no longer too early to
enter upon their own plans and views.
With this purpose, they came to her about sunset, when she had settled
herself after her old fashion to her evening’s work. She saw
instinctively what was coming, and, with natural feeling, shrunk for the
moment. She was a little impatient, too, her grief taking that form.
“Keep a distance, keep a distance, bairns!” cried the Mistress; “let me
have room to breathe in! and I’m sure if ye were but lassies, and could
have something in your hands to do, it would be a comfort to me. There’s
Jenny, the light-headed thing, taken her stocking to the door, as if
nothing was amiss in the house. Pity me!--but I’ll not be fashed with
_her_ long, that’s a comfort to think of. Laddies, laddies, can ye no
keep still? What are ye a’wanting with me?”
“Mother, it’s time to think what we’re to do; neither Patie nor me can
keep quiet, when we think of what’s before us,” said Huntley--“and
there’s little comfort in settling on any thing till we can speak of it
to you.”
The Mistress gave way at these words to a sudden little outbreak of
tears, which you might almost have supposed were tears of anger, and
which she wiped off hurriedly with an agitated hand. Then she proceeded
very rapidly with the work she had taken up, which was a dark gray
woolen stocking--a familiar work, which she could get on with almost
without looking at it. She did look at her knitting, however, intently,
bending her head over it, not venturing to look up at her children; and
thus it was that they found themselves permitted to proceed.
“Mother,” said Huntley, with a deep blush--“I’m a man, but I’ve learned
nothing to make my bread by. Because I’m the eldest, and should be of
most use, I’m the greatest burden. I understand about the land and the
cattle, and after a while I might manage a farm, but that’s slow work
and weary--and the first that should be done is to get rid of me.”
“Hold your peace!” cried the Mistress, with a break in her voice; “how
dare ye say the like of that to your mother? Are you not my eldest son,
the stay of the house? Wherefore do ye say this to me?”
“Because it’s true, mother,” said Huntley, firmly; “and though it’s true
I’m not discouraged. The worst is, I see nothing I can do near you, as I
might have done if I had been younger, and had time to spare to learn a
trade. Such as it is, I’m very well content with my trade, too; but what
could I do with it here? Get a place as a grieve, maybe, through
Tyneside’s help, and the minister’s, and be able to stock a small farm
by the time I was forty years old. But that would please neither you nor
me. Mother, you must send me away!”
The Mistress did not look up, did not move--went on steadily with her
rapid knitting--but she said:--
“Where?” with a sharp accent, like a cry.
“I’ve been thinking of that,” said Huntley, slowly; “If I went to
America, or Canada, or any such place, I would be like to stay. My
mind’s against staying; I want to come back--to keep home in my eye. So
I say Australia, mother.”
“America, Canada, Australia!--the laddie’s wild!” cried the Mistress.
“Do you mean to say ye’ll be an emigrant? a bairn of mine?”
Emigration was not then what it is now; it was the last resort--sadly
resisted, sadly yielded to--of the “broken man;” and Huntley’s mother
saw her son, in imagination, in a dreary den of a cabin, in a poor
little trading ship, with a bundle on the end of a stick, and despair in
his heart, when he spoke of going away.
“There’s more kinds of emigrants than one kind, mother,” said Patie.
“Ay,” said the Mistress, her imagination shifting, in spite of her, to a
dismal family scene, in which the poor wife had the baby tied on her
back in a shawl, and the children at her feet were crying with cold and
hunger, and the husband at her side looking desperate. “I’ve seen folk
on the road to America--ay, laddies, mony a time. I’m older than you
are. I ken what like they look; but pity me, did I ever think the like
of that would be evened to a bairn of mine!”
“Mother,” said Huntley, with a cheerfulness which he did not quite feel,
“an emigrant goes away to stay--I should not do that--I am going, if I
can, to make a fortune, and come home--and it’s not America; there are
towns _there_ already like our own, and a man, I suppose, has only a
greater chance of getting bread enough to eat. I could get bread enough
in our own country-side; but I mean to get more if I can--I mean to get
a sheep farm and grow rich, as everybody does out there.”
“Poor laddie! Do they sell sheep and lands out there to them that have
no siller?” said the Mistress. “If you canna stock a farm at hame, where
you’re kent and your name respected, Huntley Livingstone, how will you
do it there?”
“That’s just what I have to find out,” said Huntley, with spirit; “a
man may be clear he’s to do a thing, without seeing how at the moment.
With your consent, I’m going to Australia, mother; if there’s any thing
over, when all our affairs are settled, I’ll get my share--and as for
the sheep and the land, they’re in Providence; but I doubt them as
little as if they were on the lea before my eyes. I’m no’ a man out of a
town that knows nothing about it. I’m country bred and have been among
beasts all my days. Do you think I’m feared! Though I’ve little to start
with, mother, you’ll see me back rich enough to do credit to the name of
Norlaw!”
His mother shook her head.
“It’s easy to make a fortune on a summer night at hame, before a lad’s
twenty, or kens the world,” she said. “I’ve seen mony a stronger man
than you, Huntley, come hame baith penniless and hopeless--and the like
of such grand plans, they’re but trouble and sadness to me.”
Perhaps Huntley was discouraged by the words; at all events he made no
reply--and the mind of his mother gradually expanded. She looked up from
her knitting suddenly, with a rapid tender glance.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” said the Mistress; “there’s some will win and some
will fail in spite of the haill world. The Lord take the care of my
bairns! Who am I, that I should be able to guide you, three lads, coming
to be men? Huntley, you’re the auldest, and you’re strong. I canna say
stay at hame--I dinna see what to bid you do. You must take your ain
will, and I’ll no’ oppose.”
If Huntley thanked his mother at all it was in very few words, for the
politenesses were not cultivated among them, the feelings of this
Scottish family lying somewhat deep, and expressing themselves otherwise
than in common words; but the Mistress brushed her hand over her eyes
hurriedly, with something like a restrained sob, intermitting for a
single instant, and no longer, the rapid glitter of her “wires"--but you
would scarcely have supposed that the heart of the mother was moved thus
far, to hear the tone of her next words. She turned to her second son
without looking at him.
“And where are _you_ for, Patie Livingstone?” said the Mistress, with
almost a sarcastic sharpness. “It should be India, or the North Pole to
pleasure you.”
Patie was not emboldened by this address; it seemed, indeed, rather to
discomfit the lad; not as a reproach, but as showing a greater
expectation of his purposes than they warranted.
“You know what I aimed at long ago, mother,” he said, with hesitation.
“It may be that we can ill afford a ’prentice time now--but I’m no’
above working while I learn. I can scramble up as well as Huntley. I’ll
go either to Glasgow or to Liverpool, to one of the founderies there.”
“Folk dinna learn to be _civil_ engineers in founderies,” said the
Mistress; “they’re nothing better than smiths at the anvil. You wanted
to build a light-house, Patie, when ye were a little bairn--but you’ll
no’ learn there.”
“I’ll maybe learn better. There’s to be railroads soon, everywhere,”
said Patie, with a little glow upon his face. “I’ll do what I can--if
I’m only to be a smith, I’ll be a smith like a man, and learn my
business. The light-house was a fancy; but I may learn what’s as good,
and more profitable. There’s some railroads already, mother, and there’s
more beginning every day.”
“My poor bairn!” said the Mistress, for the first time bestowing a
glance of pity upon Patie--“if your fortune has to wait for its making
till folk gang riding over a’ the roads on steam horses, like what’s
written in the papers, I’ll never live to see it. There’s that man they
ca’ Stephenson, he’s made something or other that’s a great wonder; but,
laddie, you dinna think that roads like that can go far? They may have
them up about London--and truly you might live to make another, I’ll no’
say--but I would rather build a tower to keep ships from being wrecked
than make a road for folk to break their necks on, if it was me.”
“Folk that are born to break their necks will break them on any kind of
road,” said Patie, with great gravity; “but I’ve read about it all, and
I think a man only needs to know what he has to do, to thrive; and
besides, mother, there’s more need for engines than upon railroads. It’s
a business worth a man’s while.”
“Patie,” said the Mistress, solemnly, “I’ve given my consent to Huntley
to gang thousands of miles away over the sea; but if _you_ gang among
thae engines, that are merciless and senseless, and can tear a living
creature like a rag of claith--I’ve seen them, laddie, with my own e’en,
clanging and clinking like the evil place itself--I’ll think it’s Patie
that’s in the lion’s mouth, and no’ my eldest son.”
“Well, mother!” said Patie, sturdily--“if I were in the lion’s mouth,
and yet had room to keep clear, would you be feared for me?”
This appeal took the Mistress entirely without preparation. She brushed
her hands hastily over her eyes once more, and went on with her
knitting. Then a long, hard-drawn breath, which was not a sigh, came
from the mother’s breast; in the midst of her objections, her
determination not to be satisfied, a certain unaccountable pride in the
vigor, and strength, and resolution of her sons rose in the kindred
spirit of their mother. She was not “feared"--neither for one nor the
other of the bold youths by her side. Her own strong vitality went forth
with them, with an indescribable swell of exhilaration--yet she was
their mother, and a widow, and it wrung her heart to arrange quietly how
they were to leave her and their home.
“And me?” said Cosmo, coming to his mother’s side.
_He_ had no determination to announce--he came out of his thoughts, and
his musings, and his earnest listening, to lay that white, long hand of
his upon his mother’s arm. It was the touch which made the full cup run
over. The widow leaned her head suddenly upon her boy’s shoulder,
surprised into an outburst of tears and weakness, unusual and
overpowering--and the other lads came close to this group, touched to
the heart like their mother. They cried out among their tears that Cosmo
must not go away--that he was too young--too tender! What they had not
felt for themselves, they felt for him--there seemed something forlorn,
pathetic, miserable, in the very thought of this boy going forth to meet
the world and its troubles. This boy, the child of the house, the son
who was like his father, the tenderest spirit of them all!
Yet Cosmo, who had no plans, and who was only sixteen, was rather
indignant at this universal conclusion. He yielded at last, only because
the tears were still in his mother’s eyes, and because they were all
more persistent than he was--and sat down at a little distance, not
sullen, but as near so as was possible to him, his cheek glowing with a
suspicion that they thought him a child. But soon the conversation
passed to other matters, which Cosmo could not resist. They began to
speak of Melmar, their unprovoked enemy, and then the three lads looked
at each other, taking resolution from that telegraphic conference; and
Huntley, with the blood rising in his cheeks, for the first time asked
his mother, in the name of them all, for that tale which her husband, on
his death-bed, had deputed her to tell them, the story of the will which
was in the mid-chamber, and that Mary who was Mary of Melmar evermore in
the memory of Norlaw.
At the question the tears dried out of the Mistress’s eyes, an impatient
color came to her face--and it was so hard to elicit this story from her
aggrieved and unsympathetic mind, that it may be better for Mrs.
Livingstone, in the estimation of other people, if we tell what she told
in other words than hers.