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!”