Ere the winter had fully arrived, visible changes had taken place in the
house and steading of Norlaw. As soon as all the operations of the
harvest were over, the Mistress dismissed all the men-servants of the
farm, save two, and let, at Martinmas, all the richer portion of the
land, which was in good condition, and brought a good rent. Closely
following upon the plowmen went Janet, the younger maidservant, who
obtained, to her great pride, but doubtful advantage, a place in a great
house in the neighborhood.
The Norlaw byres were enlarged and improved--the Norlaw cattle increased
in number by certain choice and valuable specimens of “stock,”
milch-kine, sleek and fair, and balmy-breathed. Some few fields of
turnips and mangelwurzel, and the rich pasture lands on the side of Tyne
behind the castle, were all that the Mistress retained in her own hands,
and with Marget for her factotum, and Willie Noble, the same man who had
assisted in Norlaw’s midnight funeral, for her chief manager and
representative out of doors, Mrs. Livingstone began her new undertaking.
She was neither dainty of her own hands, nor tolerant of any languid
labor on the part of others. Not even in her youth, when the hopes and
prospects of Norlaw were better than the reality ever became, had the
Mistress shown the smallest propensity to adopt the small pomp of a
landed lady. She was always herself, proud, high-spirited, somewhat
arbitrary, by no means deficient in a sense of personal importance, yet
angrily fastidious as to any false pretensions in her house, and
perceiving truly her real position, which, with all the added dignity of
proprietorship, was still in fact that of a farmer’s wife. All the
activity and energy with which she had toiled all her life against her
thriftless husband’s unsteady grasp of his own affairs, and against the
discouraging and perpetual unprosperity of many a year, were intensified
now by the consciousness of having all her purposes within her own hand
and dependent on herself. Naked and empty as the house looked to the
eyes which had been accustomed to so many faces, now vanished from it,
there began to grow an intention and will about all its daily work,
which even strangers observed. Though the Mistress sat, as usual, by the
corner window with her work in the afternoon, and the dining-parlor was
as homelike as ever, and the neighbors saw no change, except the change
of dress which marked her widowhood, Marget, half ashamed of the
derogation, half proud of the ability, and between shame and pride
keeping the secret of these labors, knew of the Mistress’s early toils,
which even Cosmo knew very imperfectly; her brisk morning hours of
superintendence and help in the kitchen and in the dairy, which, with
all its new appliances and vigorous working, became “just a picture,” as
Marget thought, and the pride of her own heart. Out of the produce of
those carefully tended precious “kye,” out of the sweet butter, smelling
of Tyne gowans, and the rich, yellow curds of cheese, and the young,
staggering, long-limbed calves which Willie Noble had in training, the
Mistress, fired with a mother’s ambition, meant to return tenfold to
Huntley his youthful self-denial, and even to lay up something for her
younger sons.
It was still only fourteen years since the death of the old Laird of
Melmar, the father of the lost Mary; and there was yet abundant time for
the necessary proceedings to claim her inheritance, without fear of the
limiting law, which ultimately might confirm the present possessor
beyond reach of attack. The last arrangement made by Huntley had
accordingly been, that all these proceedings should be postponed for
three or four years, during which time the lost heiress might reappear,
or, more probable still, the sanguine lad thought, his own fortunes
prosper so well, that he could bear the expense of the litigation
without touching upon the little patrimony sacred to his mother. After
so long an interval, a few years more or less would not harm the cause,
and in the meantime every exertion was to be made by Cassilis, as
Huntley’s agent, for the discovery of Mary of Melmar. This was the only
remaining circumstance of pain in the whole case to the Mistress. She
could not help resenting everybody’s interest about this heiress, who
had only made herself interesting by her desertion of that “home and
friends,” which, to the Mistress herself, were next to God in their
all-commanding, all-engrossing claim. She was angry even with the young
lawyer, but above all, angry that her own boys should be concerned for
the rights of the woman who had forsaken all her duties so violently,
and with so little appearance of penitence; and if sometimes a thought
of despondency and bitterness crossed the mind of the Mistress at night,
as she sat sewing by the solitary candle, which made one bright speck of
light, and no more, in the dim dining-room of Norlaw, the aggrieved
feeling found but one expression. “I would not say now, but what after
we’ve a’ done our best--me among the beasts, and my laddie ower the
seas, and the writers afore the Fifteen,” were the words, never spoken,
but often conceived, which rose in the Mistress’s heart; “I would not
wonder but then, when the land’s gained and a’s done, she’ll come hame.
It would be just like a’ the rest!” And let nobody condemn the Mistress.
Many a hardly-laboring soul, full of generous plans and motives, has
seen a stranger enter into its labors, or feared to see it, and felt the
same.
In the meantime, Cosmo, who had got all that the parish schoolmaster of
Kirkbride--no contemptible teacher--could give him, had been drawing
upon Dr. Logan’s rusty Latin and Greek, rather to the satisfaction of
the good minister than to his own particular improvement, and tired of
reading every thing that could be picked up in the shape of reading from
the old parchment volumes of second-rate Latin divinity, which the
excellent minister never opened, but had a certain respect for, down to
the _Gentle Shepherd_ and the floating ballad literature of the
country-side, began to grow more and more anxious to emulate his
brothers, and set out upon the world. The winter nights came on,
growing longer and longer, and Cosmo scorched his fair hair and stooped
his slight shoulders, reading by the fire-light, while his mother worked
by the table, and while the November winds began to sound in the echoing
depths of the old castle. The house was very still of nights, and missed
the absent sorely, and both the Mistress and her faithful servant were
fain to shut up the house and go to rest as soon as it was seemly, a
practice to which their early habits in the morning gave abundant
excuse, though its real reason lay deeper.
“Ane can bear mony a thing in good daylight, when a’ the work’s in
hand,” Marget said; “but womenfolk think lang at night, when there’s nae
blythe step sounding ower the door, nor tired man coming hame.” And
though she never said the same words, the same thought was in the
Mistress’s heart.
One of these slow nights was coming tardily to a close, when Cosmo, who
had been gathering up his courage, having finished his book on the
hearth-rug, where the boy half sat and half reclined, rose suddenly and
came to his mother at the table. Perhaps some similar thoughts of her
own had prepared the Mistress to anticipate what he was about to say.
She did not love to be forestalled, and, before Cosmo spoke, answered
with some impatience to the purpose in his eye.
“I ken very well what you’re going to say. Weel, I wot the night’s lang,
and the house is quiet--mair folk than you can see that,” said the
Mistress, “and you’re a restless spirit, though I did not think it of
you. Cosmo, do you ken what _I_ would like you to do?”
“I could guess, mother,” said the boy.
“Ay, ’deed, and ye could object. I might have learned that,” said his
mother.
“I’ve got little of my ain will a’ my life, though a fremd person would
tell you I was a positive woman. Most things I’ve set my heart on have
come to naught. Norlaw’s near out of our hands, and Huntley and Patie
are in the ends of the earth, and I’m a widow woman, desolate of my
bairns; weel, weel, I’m no complaining--but when I saw you first in your
cradle, Cosmo--you were the bonniest of a’ my bairns--I put my hands on
your head, and I said to myself--‘I’ll make him my offering to the Lord,
because he’s the fairest lamb of a’.’ Na, laddie--never mind, I’m no
heeding. You needna put your arms round me. It’s near seventeen year
ago, and mony a weary day since then, but I’ve aye thought upon my vow.”
“Mother, if I can, I’ll fulfill it!” cried Cosmo; “but how could I know
your heart was in it, when you never spoke of it before?”
“Na,” said the Mistress, restraining herself with an effort. “I’ve done
my best to bring you up in the fear of the Lord, and it’s no written
that you maun be a minister, before you can serve Him. I’ll no’ put a
burden on your conscience; but just I was a witless woman, and didna
mind when I saw the bairn in the cradle that before it came that length,
it would have a will of its own.”
“Send me to college, mother!” said Cosmo, with tears in his eyes. “I
have made no plans, and if I had I could change them--and at the worst,
if we find I can not be a minister, I will never forget your vow--put
your hands on my head and say it over again.”
But when the boy knelt down at her side with the enthusiasm of his
temper, and lifted his glowing, youthful face, full of a generous young
emotion, which was only too generous and ready to be swayed by the
influences of love, the Mistress could only bend over him with a silent
burst of tenderness.
“God bless my dearest bairn!” she said at last, with her broken voice.
“But no, no!--I’ve learned wisdom. The Lord make ye a’ His ain
servants--every ane--I can say nae mair.”