MRS OGILVY went wearily up-stairs after the suspense and alarm of this long, long day. It was all that she could do to drag one foot after another, to keep upright; her brain was in a confusion of misery, out of which she now could distinguish no distinct sentiment—terror and grief and suspense, and the vague wild apprehension of some unintelligible catastrophe, all mingling together. When she reached the head of the stairs she met Robbie, who told her, not looking at her, that he had bidden Janet prepare the supper earlier than usual, “for we’ll have to make a start to-night,” he said.
She seized his hand in her frail ones, which could scarcely hold it. “Robbie, will you go?—will you go, and break my heart?”
“It’s of no use speaking, mother; let me be free of you at least, for God’s sake! You will drive me mad——”
“Robbie! Robbie! my only son—my only child! I’ll be dead and gone before ever you could come back.”
“You’ll live the longest of the two of us, mother.”
“God forbid!” she said; “God forbid! But why will ye go out into the jaws of death and the mouth of hell? If the pursuers of blood are after him, they are not after you. Oh, Robbie, stay with your mother. Dinna forsake me for a strange man.”
“Mother,” he said, with a hoarse voice, “when your friend is in deadly danger, is that the time, think you, to forsake him?”
And Mrs Ogilvy was silent. She looked at him with a gasp in her throat. All her old teachings, the tenets of her life, came back upon her and choked her. When your friend is in deadly danger! Was it not she who had taught her son that of all the moments of life that was the last to choose to abandon a friend. She could make him no answer; she only stared at him with troubled failing eyes.
“But once he is in safety,” Robbie said, with a stammer of hesitation and confusion, “once I can feel sure that—— Mother, I promise you, if I can help it, I will not go—where he is going. I—promise you.” He cast a look behind him. There was no one there, but Lew’s door was open, and it was possible he might hear. Robbie bent forward hastily to his mother’s ear. “I cannot stand against him,” he said; “I cannot: I told you—he is my master,—didn’t I tell you? But I will come back—I will come back—as soon as I am free.”
He trembled, too, throughout his big bulk, with agitation and excitement—more than she ever did in her weakness. If this was so, was it not now her business to be strong to support her boy? She went on to her room to put on her other cap, to prepare for the evening, and the last meal they were to eat together. The habits of life are so strong; her heart was breaking, and yet she knew that it was time to put on her evening cap. She went into her room, too, with the feeling that there no new agitation could come near her, that she might kneel down a moment by her bedside, and get a little calm and strength. But not to-night. To her astonishment and horror, the tall figure of Lew raised itself from the old-fashioned escritoire in which she kept her papers and did her writing. He turned round, and faced her with a laugh. “Oh, it is you!” he said. “I thought it was your good son Bob. You surprised us when we were making a little examination by ourselves. It is always better to examine for yourself, don’t you know——”
“To examine—what?”
“Where the money is, mother,” he said, with another laugh.
She had herself closed the door before she had seen him. She was at his mercy.
“You think, then,” she said, “that I’ve told you a lie—about money?”
“Everybody tells lies about money, mother. I never knew one yet who did not declare he had none—until it was taken out of his pockets, or out of his boxes, or out of a nice little piece of furniture like this, which an old lady can keep in her bedroom—locked.”
She took her keys out of her pocket, a neat little bunch, shining like silver, and handed them to him without a word. He received them with a somewhat startled look. It was something like the sensation of having the other cheek turned to you, after having struck the first. He had been examining the lock with a view to opening by other methods. The keys put into his hand startled him; but again he carried it off with a laugh. “Plucky old girl!” he said. And then he turned round and proceeded to open the well-worn old secretary which had enclosed all Mrs Ogilvy’s little valuables, and the records of her thoughts since she was a girl. It opened as easily as any door, and gave up its little treasures, her letters, her little memorials, the records of an innocent woman’s evanescent joys and lasting sorrows. The rough adventurer, whose very presence here was a kind of sacrilege, stooped over the little writing-board, the dainty little drawers, like a bear examining a beehive. He pulled out a drawer or two, in which there were bundles of old letters, all neatly tied up, touching them as if his hands were too big for the little ivory knobs; and then he suddenly turned round upon her, shutting the drawers again hurriedly, and flung the keys into her lap.
“Hang it all! I cannot do it. I’ve not come to that. Rob a rogue by day or night; that’s fair enough: but turn to picking and stealing. No! take back your keys—you may have millions for me. I can’t look up your little drawers, d—n you!” he cried.
“No, laddie!” said Mrs Ogilvy, looking up at him with tears in her eyes, “you’re fit for better things.”
He looked at her strangely. She sat quite still beside him, not moving, not even taking up her keys, which lay in her lap.
“You think so, do you?” he said. “And yet I would have killed you last night.”
“Thank the Lord,” said the old lady, “that delivered you from that temptation.”
“That saved your life, you mean. But it wasn’t the Lord. It was Bob, your son, who couldn’t stand and see it after all.”
“Thank the Lord still more,” she said, “that wakened the old heart, his own natural heart, in my boy.”
“Well that is one view to take of it,” said Lew. “I should have thought it more sensible, however, to thank the Lord, as you say, for your own life.”
Mrs Ogilvy rose up. The keys of her treasures fell to the ground. What were they to her at this moment? “And what is my life to me,” she said, “that I should think of it instead of better things? Do you think it matters much to me, left here alone an auld wreck on the shore, without a son, without a companion, without a hope for this world, whether I live or die? Man!” she cried, laying a hand on his arm, “it’s not that I would give it for my Robbie, my own son, over and over and over! but I would give it for you. Oh, dinna think that I am making a false pretence! For you, laddie, that are none of mine, that would have killed me last night, that would kill me now for ever so little that I stood in your way.”
“No!” he said in a hoarse murmur, “no!”—but she saw still the gleam of the devil in his eye, that murderous sense of power—that he had but to put forth a hand.
“If it would not be for the sin on your soul—you that are taking my son from me—you might take my life too, and welcome,” she said.
She could not stand. She was restless, too, and could not bear one position. She sank upon her chair again, and, lifting up the keys, laid them down upon the open escritoire, where they lay shining between the two, neither of use nor consequence to either. Lew began to pace up and down the room, half abashed at his own weakness, half furious at his failure. She might have millions—but he could not fish them out of her drawers, not he. That was no man’s work. He could have killed her last night, and he could, she divined, kill her now, with a sort of satisfaction, but not rob her escritoire.
“Mr Lew, will you leave me my son?” she said.
“No: I have nothing to do with it; he comes of his own will,” cried the other. “You make yourself a fine idea of your son. Do you know he has been in with me in everything? Ah! he has his own scruples; he has not mine. He interfered last night; but he’d turn out your drawers as soon as look at you. It’s a pity he’s not here to do it.”
“Will you leave me my son?” she repeated again; “he is all I have in the world.”
“I’ve got less,” cried Lew; “I haven’t even a son, and don’t want one. You are a deal better without him. Whatever he might be when he was a boy, Bob’s a rover now. He never would settle down. He would do you a great deal more harm than good.”
“Will you leave me my son?” she said again.
“No! I can say No as well as you, mother; but I’ve nothing to do with it. Ask himself, not me. Do you think this is a place for a man? What can he do? Who would he see? Nobody. It is not living—it is making believe to live. No; he won’t stay here if he will be guided by me.”
The door opened suddenly, and Robbie looked in. “Are you going to stay all night?” he said, gruffly. “There’s supper waiting, and no time to be lost, if——”
“If—we take that long run we were thinking of to-night. Well, let’s go. Mrs Ogilvy, you’re going to keep us company to-night.”
“It’s the last time,” said her son.
“Oh, Robbie, Robbie!” she cried.
“Stop that, mother. I’ve said all I’m going to say.”
To sit down round the table with the dishes served as usual, the lamp shining, the men eating largely, even it seemed with enjoyment, a little conversation going on—was to go from one dreadful dream to another with scarcely a pause between. Was it real that they were sitting there to-day and would be far away to-morrow? That this was her son, whom she could touch, and to-morrow he would have disappeared again into the unseen? Love is the most obdurate, the most unreasoning thing in the world. Mrs Ogilvy knew now very well what her Robbie was. There were few revelations which could have been made to her on the subject. Perhaps—oh, horrible thing to think or say!—it was better for her before he came back, when she had thought that his absence was the great sorrow of her life: she had learnt many other things since then. Perhaps in his heart the father of the prodigal learned this lesson too, and knew that, even with the best robe upon him, and the ring on his finger and the shoes on his feet, he was still hankering after the husks which the swine eat, and their company. How much easier would life be, and how many problems would disappear or be solved, if we could love only those whom we approved! But how little, how very little difference does this make. Mrs Ogilvy knew everything, divined everything, and yet the thought that he was going away made heaven and earth blank to her. She could not reconcile herself to the dreadful thought. And he, for his part, said very little. He showed no regret, but neither did he show that eagerness to take the next step which began to appear in Lew. He sat very silent, chiefly in the shade, saying nothing. Perhaps after all he was sorry; but his mother, watching him in her anguish, could not make sure even of that. Janet was, next to Lew himself, the most cheerful person in the room. She pulled her mistress’s sleeve, and showed her two shining pieces of gold in her hand, with a little nod of her head towards Lew. “And Andrew has one,” she whispered. “I aye said he was a real gentleman! Three golden sovereigns between us—and what have we ever done? I’ll just put them by for curiosities. It’s no often you see the like o’ them here.” The mistress looked at them with a rueful smile. Gold is not very common in rural Scotland. She had taken so much trouble to get those golden sovereigns for her departing guest! but it did not displease her that he had been generous to her old servants. There was good in him—oh, there was good in him!—he had been made for better things.
Janet had been in this radiant mood when she cleared the table; but a few minutes after she came in again with a scared face, and beckoned to her mistress at the door. Mrs Ogilvy hurried out, afraid she knew not of what, fearing some catastrophe. Andrew stood behind Janet in the hall. “What is it, what is it?” the mistress cried.
“Have you siller in the house, mem? is it known that you have siller in the house?”
“Me—siller? are you out of your senses? I have no siller in the house—nothing beyond the ordinary,” Mrs Ogilvy cried.
“It’s just this,” said Janet, “there’s a heap of waiff characters creeping up about the house. I canna think it’s just for the spoons and the tea-service and that, that are aye here; but I thought if you had been sending for money, and thae burglars had got wit of it——”
“What kind of waiff characters?” said Mrs Ogilvy, trembling.
“They are both back and front. Andrew he was going to supper Sandy, and a man started up at his lug. The doors and the windows are all weel fastened, but Andrew he said I should let you ken.”
“The gentlemen,” said Andrew, “will maybe know—they will maybe know——”
“How should the gentlemen know, poor laddies, mair than any one of us?” cried Janet.
It was a great thing for Andrew all his life after that the mistress approved his suggestion. “I will go and tell them,” she said; “and you two go ben to your kitchen and keep very quiet, but if ye hear anything more let me know.”
She went back into the lighted room, trembling, but ready for everything. The two men were seated at the table. They were not talking as usual, but sat like men full of thought, saying nothing to each other. They looked up both—Lew with much attention, Rob with a sort of sulky indifference. “It appears,” said Mrs Ogilvy, speaking in a broken voice, “that there are men—all round the house.”
“Men! all round the house.” There was a moment of consternation, and then Lew sprang to his feet. “It has come, Bob; the hour has come, sooner than we thought.”
Rob rose too, slowly; an oath, which in this terrible moment affected his mother more than all the rest, came from his lips. “I told you—you would let them take you by surprise.”
“Fool again! I don’t deny it,” the other said, with a sort of gaiety. “Now for your gulley and Eskside, and a run for it. We’ll beat them yet.”
“If they’ve not stopped us up like blind moles,” cried Robbie. “Mother, keep them in parley as long as you can; every moment’s worth an hour. You’ll have to open the door, but not till the very last.”
She answered only with a little movement of her head, and stood looking without a word, while they caught up without another glance at her—Robbie the cloak which he had brought with him, and Lew a loose coat, in which he enveloped himself. Their movements were very quiet, very still, as of men absorbed in what they were doing, thinking of nothing else. They hurried out of the room, Robbie first, leading the way, and his mother’s eyes following him as if they would have burst out of the sockets. He was far too much preoccupied to think of her, to give her even a look. And this was their farewell, and she might never see him more. She stood there motionless, conscious of nothing but that acute and poignant anguish that she had taken her last look of her son, when suddenly the air, which was trembling and quivering with excitement and expectation, like the air that thrills and shimmers over a blazing furnace, was penetrated by the sound for which the whole world seemed to have been waiting—a heavy ominous loud knock at the outer door. Mrs Ogilvy recovered all her faculties in a moment. She went to the open door of the dining-room, where Andrew and Janet, one on the heels of the other, were arriving in commotion, Andrew about to stride with a heavy step to the door. She silenced them, and kept them back with a movement of her hands, stamping her impatient foot at Andrew and his unnecessary haste. She thought it would look like expectation if she responded too soon—and had they not told her to parley, to gain time? She stood at the dining-room door and waited till the summons should be repeated. And after an interval it came again, with a sound of several voices. She put herself in motion now, coming out into the hall, pretending to call upon Andrew, as she would have done in former days if so disturbed. “Bless me!” she cried; “who will that be making such a noise at the door?”
“Will I open it, mem?” Andrew said.
“No, no; let me speak to them first. Who is it?” Mrs Ogilvy said, raising her calm voice; “who is making such a disturbance at my door at this hour of the night?”
“Open in the Queen’s name,” cried somebody outside.
“Ay, that would I willingly,” cried Mrs Ogilvy; “but who are ye that are taking her sacred Majesty’s name? None of her servants, I’m sure, or you would not disturb an honest family at this hour of the night.”
“Open to the police, at your peril,” said another voice.
“The police—in this house? No, no,” she cried, standing white and trembling, but holding out like a lion. “You will not deceive me with that—in this house.”
“Open the door, or we’ll break it in. Here, you speak to her!”—“Mem,” said a new voice, very tremulous but familiar, “it is me, Peter Young, with the men from Edinburgh. It’s maybe some awfu’ mistake; but you must let us in—you maun open the door.”
“You, Peter Young!” cried Mrs Ogilvy, “you are not the man to disturb my house in the middle of the night. It ill becomes you after all you’ve got from the Hewan. Just tell these idle folk there is nothing to be gotten here, and bid them go away.”
“This is folly,” said a more imperative voice. “Break in the door if she will not open it. We can’t stand all the night parleying here.”
Then Mrs Ogilvy heard, her ears preternaturally sharp in the crisis, a sound as of women’s voices, which gave her a momentary hope. Was it a trick that was being played upon her after all? for if it was for life or death why should there be women’s voices there?
And then another voice arose which was even more reassuring. It was the minister who spoke. The minister dragged hither against his will, but beginning to feel piously that it was the hand of providence, and that he had been directed not by Mrs Ainslie, but by some special messenger from heaven—if indeed she was not one. “Mrs Ogilvy,” the minister said, “it must be, as Peter says, some dreadful mistake—but it certainly is the police from Edinburgh, and you must let them in.”
“Who is that that is speaking? is it the minister that is speaking? are ye all in a plot to disturb the rest of a quiet family? No,” with a sudden exclamation, “ye will not break in my door. I will open it, since ye force me to open it. I am coming, I am coming.”
Andrew rushed forward, to pull back with all expedition the bolts and bars. But his mistress stamped her foot at him once more, and dismissed him behind backs with a look—from which he did not recover for many a long day—and coming forward herself, began to draw back with difficulty and very slowly the innocent bolts and bars. They might have been the fastenings of a fortress from the manner in which she laboured at them, with her unaccustomed hands. “And me ready to do it in a moment,” Andrew said, aggrieved, while she kept asking herself, the words buzzing in her ears, like flies coming and going, “Have I kept them long enough? have I given my lads their time? Oh, if they got out that quiet they should be safe by now.” There was the bolt at the bottom and the top, and there was the chain, and then the key to turn. The door was driven in upon her at last by the sudden entrance of a number of impatient men, a great gust of fresh air, a ray of moonlight straight from the skies: and Mr Logan and his companions, Susie pale and crying, and Mrs Ainslie pale too—but with eyes sparkling and all the keen enjoyment of an exciting catastrophe in her face.
“We have a warrant for the arrest of Lew or Lewis Winterman, alias, &c., &c., accused of murder,” said the leader of the party, “who we have reason to believe has been for some weeks harboured here.”
Mrs Ogilvy disengaged herself from the man whose sudden push inwards had almost carried her away. She came forward into the midst in her white cap and shawl, a wonderful centre to all these dark figures. “There is no such person in my house,” she said.
And then there came a cry and tumult from behind, and through the door of the dining-room, which stood wide open, making it a part of the scene, there suddenly appeared another group of whirling struggling figures, steadily pushing back before them the two fugitives, who had crept their way out, only to be met and overpowered, and brought back to answer as they could for themselves. Then, and only then, Mrs Ogilvy’s strength failed her. The light for a moment went out of her eyes. All that she had done had been in vain, in vain.