They were detained for some days waiting the sailing of the ship, which
already the little party had gone over, the Mistress with awe and
solemnity, the brothers with eager interest and excitement, more than
once. The bark Flora, Captain Gardner master, bound for Port
Philip--through those days and nights of suspense, when they hoped and
feared every morning to hear that this was the last day, this name might
have been heard even among the dreams of Huntley’s mother. Yet this
procrastination of the parting was not good even for her. She said her
farewell a hundred times in the bitterness of imagination before the
real moment came, and as they all went down every morning early to one
of the piers, opposite to which in the river the Flora lay, and made a
mournful, anxious promenade up and down, gazing at the anchored ship,
with her bare cordage, the emigrant encampments on her big deck, and the
fresh vegetables strung in her bows, noting with sharp and solicitous
eyes any signs of preparation there, the pain of parting was
indefinitely repeated, though always with a pang of joy at the
end--another day. However, even emigrant ships have to make up their
minds some time. At last came the last night, when they all sat
together, looking into each other’s faces, knowing that, after
to-morrow, they might never meet again. The Mistress had not a great
deal to say on that last night; what she did say was of no one
continuous tone. She could not make sermons to her boys--it might be
that there was abruptness and impatience even in her motherly warnings.
The grief of this farewell did not change her character, though it
pierced to her heart.
“Try and get a decent house to live in--dinna be about inns or such like
places,” said the Mistress; “I ken by mysel’, just the time we’ve been
here, Huntley--and if it’s unsettling to the like of me, what should it
be to a young lad?--but dinna be owre great friends either with them
that put you up--I’m no fond of friendship out of folks’ ain degree,
though I ken weel that nobody that’s kind to my bairn will find an
ungrateful thought in me; but mind aye what ye are, and wha ye are, and
a’ that’s looked for at your hands.”
“A poor emigrant, mother,” said Huntley, with rather a tremulous smile.
“Hold your peace, laddie, dinna be unthankful,” said the Mistress; “a
lad with a good house and lands at hame, and a hundred pound clear in
his pocket, no’ to say how mony conveniences and handy things in his
boxes, and a’ the comforts that ye can carry. Dinna sin your mercies,
Huntley, before me.”
“It would not become me,” said Huntley, “for I might have had few
comforts but for you, mother, that thought of every thing; as every
thing I have, if I needed reminding, would make me think of home and
you.”
“Whisht, whisht, bairn!” said the Mistress, with a broken voice and a
sob, two big tears falling out of her eyes upon her trembling hands,
which she wiped off hurriedly, almost with a gesture of shame; “and
ye’ll no’ forget your duty, Huntley,” she added with agitated haste;
“mind what the minister said; if there be nae kirk, as there might not
be, seeing it’s a savage place, never let the Sabbath day slip out of
your hand, as if there was na difference. Kirks and ministers are a
comfort, whiles--but, Huntley, mind God’s aye nigh at hand. I bid ye
baith mind that--I’m no’ what I should be--I canna say a’ that’s in my
heart--but, oh, laddies, mind if you should never hear another word out
of your mother’s lips! They speak about ships and letters that make
far-away friends nigh each other, but, bairns, the Lord Himsel’ is the
nighest link between you and me--as He’s the only link between us a’ and
him that’s gane.”
There was a long pause after this burst out of the desolate heart of
Norlaw’s widow and Huntley’s mother; a pause in which words would have
been vain, even if any one of them could have found any words to say,
and in which the fatherless sons, and the mother who was a widow, turned
their faces from each other, shedding those hurried, irrestrainable
tears, which they dared not indulge. It was the Mistress who found
composure first, but she did not prolong the emotion of the little party
by continuing the same strain. Like herself, she had no sooner found her
voice, than, shy of revealing the depths of her heart, even to her
children, she resumed on a totally different theme.
“If ye gang up into the country, Huntley, dinna bide aye among the
beasts,” said the Mistress, abruptly; “mind, it’s no’ that I put very
much faith in this lad Cassilis, but still, whatever’s possible shouldna
be forgotten. You might be Melmar, with a great estate, before mony
years were past, and, at any rate, you’re master of your ain land, and
have as good a name to bear as ever came of _that_ house. It’s my hope
to see you back at the head of your household, a man respected--so dinna
you sink into a solitary, Huntley, or dwell your lane ower lang. I’ve
nothing to say against the making of siller--folk canna live without it
in this world--but a fortune’s no equal to a man--and if ye canna make
the ane without partly sacrificing the other, come hame.”
“I will, mother,” said Huntley, seriously.
“And there’s just one thing mair,” added the Mistress, not without a
look of uneasiness, “be aye particular about the kind of folk you make
friends o’--and specially--weel, weel, you’re both young lads. I canna
keep ye bairns--you’ll soon be thinking of the like of that yoursel’.
I’m no fond of strangers, Huntley Livingstone, I dinna understand their
ways; dinna bring me a daughter of that land to vex me as the fremd
women vexed Rebecca. No’ that I’m meaning to put bondage on you--na--I
wouldna have it said I was jealous of my sons--but you’re young, and
young lads are easily beguiled; wait till you come hame.”
“I give you my word for that, mother!” cried Huntley, eagerly, the blood
rushing over his face, as he grasped the Mistress’s hand with a quite
unnecessary degree of fervor.
Perhaps his mother found him rather more in earnest than the vague
nature of her advice seemed to justify. She looked at him with a
startled glance of suspicion and dawning displeasure.
“Ay, laddie!” cried the Mistress; “ane would think you had made up your
mind!” and she turned her eyes upon the glow and brightening of
Huntley’s face, with a little spark of impatience. But at that moment
the clock below stairs began to strike twelve; it startled them all as
they sat listening--and gradually, as stroke followed stroke with that
inevitable regularity, the heart of Huntley’s mother sank within her.
She took the hand, which she had been half angry to find grasping hers
in confirmation of his earnestness, tenderly between her own--she
stroked the strong young fingers with that hand of hers, somewhat
large, somewhat wrinkled, without an ornament upon it save its worn
wedding-ring, the slow, fond, loving touch of which brought hot tears to
Huntley’s eyes. The Mistress did not look up, because her own face was
moved with a grief and tenderness unspeakable and beyond the reach of
words--she could not say any thing--she could only sit silent, keeping
down the sob in her throat, the water that gathered in her eyes, fondly
holding her son’s hand, caressing it with an indescribable pathetic
gesture, more touching than the wildest passionate embrace.
Then they all stood up together to say good-night.
“Laddies, it’s no more night!--it’s morning, and Huntley sails this
day,” said the Mistress; “oh, my bairns!--and I canna speak; dinna say a
word to me!--but gang and lie down and take your rest, and the Lord send
sleep to us a’ and make us ready for what’s to come.”
It was with this good-night, and no more, that they parted, but the
sleep and rest for which she had prayed did not come to the mother. She
was up by daybreak, once more looking over the last box which Huntley
was to take with him on board, to see if any thing could be added to its
stores.
She stole into her sons’ room to look at them in their sleep, but would
not suffer any one to wake them, though the lads slept long, worn out by
excitement and emotion. Then the Mistress put on her bonnet, and went
out by herself to try if she could not get something for their
breakfast, more delicate and dainty than usual, and, when she returned,
arranged the table with her own hands, pausing often to wipe away, not
tears, but a sad moisture with which her eyes were always full. But she
was perfectly composed, and went about all these homely offices of love
with a smile more touching than grief. The emergency had come at last,
and the Mistress was not a woman to break down or lose the comfort of
this last day. Time enough to break her heart when Huntley was gone.
And the inevitable hours went on, as hours do before one of those
life-partings--slow, yet with a flow and current in their gradual
progress, which seemed to carry them forward more forcibly than the
quickest tide of pleasure. And at last it was time to embark. They went
down to the river together, saying very little; then on the river, in a
boat, to reach the ship.
It was a glorious harvest-day, warm, sunny, overflowing with happiness
and light. The opposite bank of the river had never looked so green, the
villages by its side had never detached themselves so brightly from the
fields behind and the sands before. The very water swelling under their
boat rippled past with a heave and swell of enjoyment, palpitating under
the sunshine; and the commonest boatman and hardest-laboring sailor on
these rejoicing waters looked like a man whose life was holiday. People
on the pier, ignorant bystanders, smiled even upon this little party as
their boat floated off into the midway of the sun-bright stream, as if
it was a party of pleasure. Instinctively the Mistress put down her
thick, black vail, worked with big, unearthly flowers, which made so
many blots upon the sunshine, and said to Huntley, from behind its
shelter:--
“What a pleasure it was to see such a day for the beginning of his
voyage!”
They all repeated the same thing over mechanically at different times,
and that was almost the whole substance of what they said until they
reached the ship.
And presently, the same little boat glided back again over the same
gleaming, golden waters, with Patie, very pale and very red by turns, in
one end of it, and the Mistress, with her black vail over her face,
sitting all alone on one side, with her hands rigidly clasped in her
lap, and her head turned towards the ship. When the Flora began to move
from her place, this silent figure gave a convulsive start and a cry,
and so Huntley was gone.
He was leaning over the bulwark of the ship, looking out at this speck
in the water--seeing before him, clearer than eyes ever saw, the faces
of his mother, his brothers, his dead father--perhaps even of others
still--with a pang at his heart, which was less for himself than for the
widow who could no longer look upon her son; his heart rising, his heart
sinking, as his own voyage hence, and her voyage home, rose upon his
imagination--living through the past, the present, and the future--the
leave-taking to which his mind vibrated--the home-coming which now
seemed almost as near and certain--the unknown years of absence, which
fled before him like a dream.
He, too, started when the vessel moved upon the sunny river--started
with a swell of rising enterprise and courage. The daring of his
nature, and the gay wind blowing down the river; fresh and favorable,
dried the tears in Huntley’s eyes; but did not dry that perpetual
moisture from the pained eyelids of the Mistress, as she turned to Patie
at last, with faltering lips, to repeat that dreary congratulation:--
“Eh, Patie! what a blessing, if we could but think upon it, to see such
a day as this for a guid beginning on the sea!”