That evening the little minister sat silently in his parlour. Darkness
came, and with it weavers rose heavy-eyed from their looms, sleepy
children sought their mothers, and the gate of the field above the
manse fell forward to let cows pass to their byre; the great Bible was
produced in many homes, and the ten o'clock bell clanged its last word
to the night. Margaret had allowed the lamp to burn low. Thinking that
her boy slept, she moved softly to his side and spread her shawl over
his knees. He had forgotten her. The doctor's warnings scarcely
troubled him. He was Babbie's lover. The mystery of her was only a
veil hiding her from other men, and he was looking through it upon the
face of his beloved.
It was a night of long ago, but can you not see my dear Margaret still
as she bends over her son? Not twice in many days dared the minister
snatch a moment's sleep from grey morning to midnight, and, when this
did happen, he jumped up by-and-by in shame, to revile himself for an
idler and ask his mother wrathfully why she had not tumbled him out of
his chair? To-night Margaret was divided between a desire to let him
sleep and a fear of his self-reproach when he awoke; and so, perhaps,
the tear fell that roused him.
"I did not like to waken you," Margaret said, apprehensively. "You
must have been very tired, Gavin?"
"I was not sleeping, mother," he said, slowly. "I was only thinking."
"Ah, Gavin, you never rise from your loom. It is hardly fair that your
hands should be so full of other people's troubles."
"They only fill one hand, mother; I carry the people's joys in the
other hand, and that keeps me erect, like a woman between her pan and
pitcher. I think the joys have outweighed the sorrows since we came
here."
"It has been all joy to me, Gavin, for you never tell me of the
sorrows. An old woman has no right to be so happy."
"Old woman, mother!" said Gavin. But his indignation was vain.
Margaret was an old woman. I made her old before her time.
"As for these terrible troubles," he went on, "I forget them the
moment I enter the garden and see you at your window. And, maybe, I
keep some of the joys from you as well as the troubles."
Words about Babbie leaped to his mouth, but with an effort he
restrained them. He must not tell his mother of her until Babbie of
her free will had told him all there was to tell.
"I have been a selfish woman, Gavin."
"You selfish, mother!" Gavin said, smiling. "Tell me when you did not
think of others before yourself?"
"Always, Gavin. Has it not been selfishness to hope that you would
never want to bring another mistress to the manse? Do you remember how
angry you used to be in Glasgow when I said that you would marry some
day?"
"I remember," Gavin said, sadly.
"Yes; you used to say, 'Don't speak of such a thing, mother, for the
horrid thought of it is enough to drive all the Hebrew out of my
head.' Was not that lightning just now?"
"I did not see it. What a memory you have, mother, for all the boyish
things I said."
"I can't deny," Margaret admitted with a sigh, "that I liked to hear
you speak in that way, though I knew you would go back on your word.
You see, you have changed already."
"How, mother?" asked Gavin, surprised.
"You said just now that those were boyish speeches. Gavin, I can't
understand the mothers who are glad to see their sons married; though
I had a dozen I believe it would be a wrench to lose one of them. It
would be different with daughters. You are laughing, Gavin!"
"Yes, at your reference to daughters. Would you not have preferred me
to be a girl?"
"'Deed I would not," answered Margaret, with tremendous conviction.
"Gavin, every woman on earth, be she rich or poor, good or bad, offers
up one prayer about her firstborn, and that is, 'May he be a boy!'"
"I think you are wrong, mother. The banker's wife told me that there
is nothing for which she thanks the Lord so much as that all her
children are girls."
"May she be forgiven for that, Gavin!" exclaimed Margaret; "though she
maybe did right to put the best face on her humiliation. No, no, there
are many kinds of women in the world, but there never was one yet that
didn't want to begin with a laddie. You can speculate about a boy so
much more than about a girl. Gavin, what is it a woman thinks about
the day her son is born? yes, and the day before too? She is picturing
him a grown man, and a slip of a lassie taking him from her. Ay, that
is where the lassies have their revenge on the mothers. I remember as
if it were this morning a Harvie fishwife patting your head and asking
who was your sweetheart, and I could never thole the woman again. We
were at the door of the cottage, and I mind I gripped you up in my
arms. You had on a tartan frock with a sash and diamond socks. When I
look back, Gavin, it seems to me that you have shot up from that frock
to manhood in a single hour."
"There are not many mothers like you," Gavin said, laying his hand
fondly on Margaret's shoulder.
"There are many better mothers, but few such sons. It is easily seen
why God could not afford me another. Gavin, I am sure that was
lightning."
"I think it was; but don't be alarmed, mother."
"I am never frightened when you are with me."
"And I always will be with you."
"Ah, if you were married----"
"Do you think," asked Gavin, indignantly, "that it would make any
difference to you?"
Margaret did not answer. She knew what a difference it would make.
"Except," continued Gavin, with a man's obtuseness, "that you would
have a daughter as well as a son to love you and take care of you."
Margaret could have told him that men give themselves away needlessly
who marry for the sake of their mother, but all she said was--
"Gavin, I see you can speak more composedly of marrying now than you
spoke a year ago. If I did not know better, I should think a Thrums
young lady had got hold of you."