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.”