THE Mistress traveled home once more by the slow canal to Edinburgh, and from thence by the stage-coach to Kirkbride. She had left Patie, at last, with some degree of confidence, having seen Mr. Crawford, the manager of the foundery, and commended her son specially to his care; and having, besides, done what she could to improve the comfort of Patie’s little apartment, and to warn him against the temptations of Glasgow. It was rather heavy work afterward, gliding silently home alone by the monotonous motion of that canal, seeing the red-tiled cottages, the green slopes, the stubble-fields move past like a dream, and remembering how she had left her boys behind, one on the sea, and one among strangers, both embarked upon the current of their life. She sat still in the little cabin of the boat by one of the windows, moving nothing but her fingers, which clasped and unclasped mechanically. Her big black vail hung over her bonnet, but did not shroud her face; there was always moisture in her eyes, but very seldom tears that came the length of falling; and her mind was very busy, and with life in its musings—for it was not alone of the past she was thinking, but also of the future—of her own life at home, where Huntley’s self-denial had purchased comfort for his mother, and where his mother, not to be outdone, silently determined upon the course of those days, which she did not mean to be days of leisure. This Melmar, which had been a bugbear to the Mistress all her days, gradually changed its aspect now. It no longer reminded her of the great bitterness of her life—it was her son’s possible inheritance, and might be the triumphant occasion of Huntley’s return.
It was late on a September afternoon, when she descended from the coach at the door of the Norlaw Arms, and found Cosmo and Marget waiting there to welcome her. The evening sunshine streamed full in their faces, falling in a tender glory from the opposite brae of Tyne, where the white manse at the summit, and the cottages among the trees, shone in the tranquil light, with their kindliest look of home. The Mistress turned hurriedly from the familiar prospect, to repose her tired and wet eyes on the shadowed corner of the village street, where the gable of the little inn kept out the sunshine, and where the ostler had lifted down her trunk. She grasped Cosmo’s hand hastily, and scarcely ventured to look the boy in the face; it was dreary coming home alone; as she descended, bowed Jaacob at the smithy door took off his cowl in token of respect, and eyed her grimly with his twinkling eye. Jaacob, who was a moral philosopher, was rather satisfied, on the whole, with the demeanor of the family of Norlaw under their troubles, and testified his approbation by a slightly authoritative approval. The Mistress gave him a very hasty nod, but could not look even at Jaacob; a break-down, or public exhibition of emotion, being the thing of all others most nervously avoided by respectable matrons of her country and temper, a characteristic very usual among Scotchwomen, of middle age and sober mind. She would have “thought shame” to have been seen crying or “giving way,” “in the middle of the town,” as, even now, enlightened by the sight of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Liverpool, the Mistress still called the village street of Kirkbride; another hasty nod acknowledged the sympathetic courtesy of the widow who kept the village mangle, and whose little boy had wept at the door of Norlaw when its master was dying; and then Cosmo and Marget took the trunk between them, and the Mistress drew down her vail, and the little party set out, across the foot-bridge, through the tender slanting sunshine going home.
Then, at last, between the intervals of question and answer as to the common matters of country life, which had occurred during her absence, the Mistress’s lips were opened. Marget and Cosmo went on before, along the narrow pathway by the river, and she followed. Cosmo had spent half of his time at the manse, it appeared, and all the neighbors had sent to make kindly inquiry when his mother was expected home.
“It’s my hope you didna gang oftener than you were welcome, laddie,” said the Mistress, with a characteristic doubt; “but I’ll no deny the minister’s aye very kind, and Katie too. You should not call her Katie now, Cosmo, she’s woman grown. I said the very same to Huntley no’ a week ago, but he’s no like to offend onybody, poor lad, for many a day to come. And I left him very weel on the whole—oh, yes, very weel, in a grand ship for size, and mony mair in her—and they say they’ll soon be out of our northerly seas, and win to grand weather, and whiles I think, if there was great danger, fewer folk would gang—no’ to say that the Almighty’s no’ a bit nigher by land than he is by sea.”
“Eh! and that’s true!” cried Marget, in an involuntary amen.
The Mistress was not perfectly pleased by the interruption. This tender mother could not help being imperative even in her tenderest affections; and even the faithful servant could not share her mother-anxieties without risk of an occasional outbreak.
“How’s a’ the kye?” said the Mistress with a momentary sharpness. “I’ve never been an unthrifty woman, I’m bauld to say; but every mutchkin of milk maun double itself now, for my bairns’ sakes.”
“Na, mem,” said Marget, touched on her honor, “it canna weel do that; but you ken yoursel’, if you had ta’en my advice, the byre might have been mair profit years ago. Better milkers are no’ in a’ the Lowdens; and if you sell Crummie’s cauf, as I aye advised—”
“You’re aye very ready with your advice, my woman. I never meant any other thing,” said the Mistress, with some impatience; “but after this, the house of Norlaw maun even get a puir name, if it must be so; for I warn ye baith, my thoughts are upon making siller; and when I put my mind to a thing, I canna do it by halves.”
“Then, mother, you must, in the first place, do something with me,” said Cosmo. “I’m the only useless person in the house.”
“Useless, laddie!—hold you peace!” said the Mistress. “You’re but a bairn, and you’re tender, and you maunna make a profitless beginning till you win to your strength. Huntley and Patie—blessings on them!—were both strong callants in their nature, and got good time to grow; and I’ll no’ let my youngest laddie lose his youth. Eh, Cosmo, my man! if you were a lassie, instead of their brother, thae twa laddies that are away could not be mair tender of you in their hearts!”
A flush came over Cosmo’s face, partly gratified affection, partly a certain shame.
“But I’ll soon be a man,” he said, in a low and half excited tone; “and I can not be content to wait quietly at home when my brothers are working. I have a right to work as well.”
“Bless the bairn!” cried Marget, once more involuntarily.
“Dinna speak nonsense,” said the Mistress. “There’s a time for every thing; and because I’m bereaved of twa, is that a reason my last bairn should leave me? Fie, laddie! Patie’s eighteen—he’s come the length of a man—there’s a year and mair between him and you. But what I was speaking of was the kye. There’s nae such stock in the country as the beasts that are reared at Tyneside; and I mean to take a leaf out of Mr. Blackadder’s book, if I’m spared, and see what we can do at Norlaw.”
“Eh, Mistress, Mr. Blackadder’s a man in his prime!” cried Marget.
“Weel, you silly haverel, what am I? Do you think a man that’s laboring just for good name and fame, and because he likes it, and that has nae kin in the world but a far-away cousin, should be stronger for his wark than a widow woman striving for her bairns?” cried the Mistress, with a hasty tear in her eye, and a quick flush on her cheek; “but I’ll let you a’ see different things, if I’m spared, in Norlaw.”
While she spoke with this flush of resolution, they came in sight of their home; but it was not possible to see the westerly sunshine breaking through those blank eyes of the old castle, and the low, modern house standing peacefully below, those unchanged witnesses of all the great scenes of all their lives, without a strain of heart and courage, which was too much for all of them. To enter in, remembering where the father took his rest, and how the sons began their battle—to have it once more pierced into the depths of her heart, that, of all the family once circling her, there remained only Cosmo, overpowered the Mistress, even in the midst of her new purpose, with a returning agony. She went in silent, pressing her hand upon her heart. It was a sad coming home.