The voyage, as it happened, was a very favorable one--even the
Mistress’s inland terrors were scarcely aroused by the swell of that
summer sea; and Huntley himself, though his ideas expanded to a much
longer journey, unconsciously took it as a good omen that his first
night at sea should be so calm and fair. They came into the great
seaport late on another summer evening. It was not nearly so extensive
then as it is now, but still the masts were in forests, the ships in
navies; and their inexperienced eyes, unenlightened by the hasty and
darkling glimpse of the Clyde, and knowing nothing greater or busier
than the Forth, with its great bosom diversified by an island and a
sail, the one scarcely more plentiful than the other, opened wide with
amazement at the fleet of vessels in the Mersey. Insensibly to herself,
the Mistress drew a certain comfort from the fact, as the Glasgow
steamer went gliding up the river, in the late summer sunset. Ships were
moored in the deep calm and shadow of the banks; ships were coming and
going in the midwaters of the river, and lines of spars and masts,
indistinguishable and without number, fringed the whole water edge, from
which the smoke of the town, reddened by a last ray of sunshine, rose
inland, out of sight, in a great overhanging cloud. The sight of such a
throng brought a momentary comfort to the heart of Huntley’s mother. The
very sea, it almost seemed, could not be so lonely, when all these big
wayfarers, and thousands more, were tracking its waters day by day.
“Mony a mother’s son is there,” she said to herself softly, as she stood
gazing about her--and even the community of hardship had a solace in it.
As the steamboat puffed and snorted to its destination, a big ship,
crowded with pensive faces, bare of sails, and tugged along by a little
steamer, came lumbering silently along through the peaceful evening
light, going out to sea. Two or three voices round announced it “an
emigrant ship,” and the Mistress gazed into it and after it, clasping
her son’s arm with a thrill at her heart. Evening; the sweet daylight
fading into a charmed and tender twilight--the sky growing pale with
very calm; the houses and churches and piles of buildings beginning to
stand out black against the colorless, mysterious light which casts no
shadows; the water gleaming in long, still ripples, as pale as the
sky--every thing softening and darkening into natural rest--yet, through
all, the great ship departing silently, with her throng of travelers,
beginning to unfold the sails of her wayfaring, beginning to vibrate to
the quickening wave, as she neared the sea.
“God go with them!” said the Mistress, with a sob out of her full heart.
“Oh, Huntley, laddie! mony a mother’s son is there!”
The landing, when they came to it; the rush of porters and vagabonds
from the pier; the half light, in which it seemed doubly necessary to
the Mistress, roused into prompt and vigorous self-defense, to keep the
most vigilant watch on the luggage--and the confusion with which both
mother and sons contemplated the screaming, shouting crowd who
surrounded them with offers of service, and bawled to them from the
shore, made altogether a very serious business of the arrival. The
Mistress never knew how she came through that ordeal; the “English
tongue,” which had a decidedly Irish brogue in that scene, and under
these circumstances, deafened the rural Scottish woman. The crowd of
spectators, and the foray upon everybody’s luggage made by some scores
of ragged fellows, whom her uncharitable imagination set down as robbers
or madmen, filled her with indignation and a strong propensity to
resistance; and it was not till she found herself safely deposited in an
odd little sitting-room of a little inn, close to the docks, with all
her packages safe and undiminished, that a measure of calmness returned
to the ruffled bosom of Mrs. Livingstone. Then, after they had rested
and refreshed themselves, Huntley and Patrick went out with natural
curiosity to see the new scene and the new country--for the whole party
fully considered that it was “England,” not Liverpool, in which they now
found themselves--and the Mistress was left alone. She sat in the little
parlor under the unfamiliar gas-light, looking round with forlorn eyes
upon the room. There was a little model of a ship upon the mantel-piece
in front of the little mirror, and another upon a small side-table under
the barometer; other odd little ornaments, such as sailors bring home,
shells and curious boxes, and little painted glass cups of Dutch art,
gave a very nautical aspect to the shabby apartment, which, further,
bore traces of having recently been smoked in, which disgusted the
Mistress. Then all the noises of a noisy and not very well-behaved
quarter seemed to rise up to her window, mingled with a jar of music
from a big blazing drinking-place, almost next door--and the private
tumult of the inn itself, voices and footsteps, shutting of doors and
ringing of bells, still further oppressed the solitary stranger.
“Mercy on me! is that what they ca’ speaking English?” cried the
Mistress to herself, disturbed, lonely, sick at heart, and almost
offended with her sons for leaving her. She put her hands to her ears
with a gesture of disdain; the unfamiliar accent was quite an
aggravation and insult to her solitude--and then her thoughts settled
down upon the circumstances which brought her here. But a day or two
more, and she might never see Huntley again.
Meanwhile the boys were straying through the mean, noisy streets,
blazing with light, which only showed their squalor the more, where a
whole disreputable population seemed to be exerting all its arts for the
fascination of the sailors, who were the patrons and support of all this
quarter. It was quite a new phase of life to the lads, fresh from their
rural solitudes, and all the proprieties of a respectable Scottish
family--but the novelty beguiled them on, though it disgusted them. They
went wandering about, curious, astonished, revolted, till they found
themselves among dark mazes of warehouses from which it was not easy to
find their way back. When they did get back it was late, though the
noise remained undiminished, and the Mistress’s temper was not improved,
if truth must be told, by her solitude. She had been trying to look out
from the window, where opposite there was nothing but the high brick
walls of the docks, and beneath, upon the lighted pavement, only such
scenes as horrified the soul of the Mistress within her.
“It’s a marvel to me what pleasure even thoughtless laddies could find
wandering about a place like that,” said the Mistress; “England, quotha!
I thought mysel’ there must be something worth seeing in a place that
folk make such a wark about; but instead of that, it’s waur than the
Cowgate; pity me! and sharp tongues that gang through my head like a
bell!”
“But Liverpool is not England,” said Huntley, coming to a slow
perception of that fact, and laughing at himself as he said it.
“And maybe this is not Liverpool,” said Patie, with still greater
enlightenment.
“Hold your peace, bairns,” cried the Mistress, peremptorily; “what can
you ken, twa laddies that have no more insight into life than babes
unborn--how can the like of you tell? Do I no’ see sin outbye there with
a painted face, and sounds of fiddling and laughing, and light enough
to burn up the haill town? Eh, bairns, if ever ye touch such dirt with
but the ends of your fingers, the mother that bore ye will think shame
of ye--burning shame! It sounds like pleasure--do ye hear?--but it’s no
pleasure, it’s destruction!--and I canna tell, for my ain part, how a
decent woman can daur to close her e’en, kenning what evil’s nigh. But
I’m no’ meaning that for you,” added the Mistress, changing her tone;
“the like of you young things need sleep and rest, and though I canna
tell where we’re to get the things we want in a miserable place like
this, we’ll have to be stirring early the morn.”
“And we’ll find a better place,” said Huntley; “don’t be afraid,
mother--but for that and all the rest that we have to do and to bear,
you must try to rest yourself.”
“Aye, laddie,” said the Mistress, hurriedly wiping her eyes, “but I
canna get my thoughts out of that ship that’s on the sea this nicht! and
maybe mony a lone woman sitting still with nae sons to come in to
her--and whiles I canna but mind what’s coming to mysel’.”
“I am only twenty, mother, and Patie but eighteen,” said Huntley; “would
you like us to remain as we are, knowing nothing of life, as you say? or
are you afraid to trust your sons in the battle, like other men?”
“Na! no’ me!” cried the Mistress; “you’re baith right, and I approve in
my mind--but only just this, bairns;--I’m your mother--and yon ship is
sailing in the dark before my very e’en, as plain as if I saw her now!”
And whether it was thinking of that ship, or of the sons of other
mothers who were errant in her, or of her own boy, so soon to join their
journey, the Mistress heard the last sound that disturbed the house that
night, and the earliest in the morning. Her eyes were dry and sore when
she got up to see the daylight aspect of the unknown and unlovely world
around her; and the lads were still fast asleep in their privilege of
youth, while their mother stood once more wistfully looking out upon the
high black wall of the dock, and the masts appearing over it. She could
not see the river, or any thing more gracious than this seaman-tempting
street. There was nothing either within or without to divert her from
her own thoughts; and as she watched the early sunshine brighten upon a
scene so different from that of her own hills and streams, these
thoughts were forlorn enough.
During the day, the little party went out to make some last purchases
for Huntley. The young man was to carry with him, in the securest form
which they could think of, a little fortune of a hundred pounds, on
which he was to make his start in the world, nothing doubting to find in
it a nucleus of wealth; and the Mistress, spite of the natural economy
of her ideas, and her long habit of frugality, was extravagant and
lavish in her anxiety to get every thing for Huntley that he could or
might require. When they came into the region of shops, she began to
drop behind, anxiously studying the windows, tempted by many a possible
convenience, which, if she had acted on her first impulse and purchased
each incontinently, would have made Huntley’s outfit an unbelievable
accumulation of peddlery.
As it was, his mother’s care and inexperience freighted the young man
with a considerable burden of elaborate conveniences--cumbrous machines
of various forms, warranted invaluable for the voyage or for the bush,
which Huntley lugged about with many a year after, and tried to use for
his mother’s sake. When they got back to their inn, the Mistress had
suffered herself to be convinced that the noisy street outside the docks
was not Liverpool, much less England. But the “English tongue,” which
“rang through her head like a knife,” to vary the image--the mean brick
houses at which the triumphant Scotchwoman pointed her finger with
unspeakable contempt, the narrow streets, and noise and dust of the
great commercial town, filled her patriotic spirit with a disdainful
complacency.
“Weel, laddies,” said Mrs. Livingstone, when they reached the inn, very
tired, that night; and the Mistress spoke with the natural satisfaction
of a traveled person; “I have aye heard a great wark made about
England--but I’m very sure, now that we’ve been in it, and seen for
ourselves, none of us desires to gang any further. Bits of brick houses
that you can mostly see through!--streets that neighbors could shake
hands across!--and for my part, ilka time I hear them speak, I think
they’re flyting. Eh, bairns, such sharp tongues! I wouldna gie Melrose
though it’s wee-er and hasna sae mony shops, for twenty of this
place--and as for Edinburgh--!”
But the contrast was unspeakable, and took away the Mistress’s breath.