CHAPTER XXIII
The voyage, as it happened, was a very favorable one—even the Mistress’s inland terrors were scarcely aroused by the swell of that summer sea; and Huntley himself, though his ideas expanded to a much longer journey, unconsciously took it as a good omen that his first night at sea should be so calm and fair. They came into the great seaport late on another summer evening. It was not nearly so extensive then as it is now, but still the masts were in forests, the ships in navies; and their inexperienced eyes, unenlightened by the hasty and darkling glimpse of the Clyde, and knowing nothing greater or busier than the Forth, with its great bosom diversified by an island and a sail, the one scarcely more plentiful than the other, opened wide with amazement at the fleet of vessels in the Mersey. Insensibly to herself, the Mistress drew a certain comfort from the fact, as the Glasgow steamer went gliding up the river, in the late summer sunset. Ships were moored in the deep calm and shadow of the banks; ships were coming and going in the midwaters of the river, and lines of spars and masts, indistinguishable and without number, fringed the whole water edge, from which the smoke of the town, reddened by a last ray of sunshine, rose inland, out of sight, in a great overhanging cloud. The sight of such a throng brought a momentary comfort to the heart of Huntley’s mother. The very sea, it almost seemed, could not be so lonely, when all these big wayfarers, and thousands more, were tracking its waters day by day.
“Mony a mother’s son is there,” she said to herself softly, as she stood gazing about her—and even the community of hardship had a solace in it. As the steamboat puffed and snorted to its destination, a big ship, crowded with pensive faces, bare of sails, and tugged along by a little steamer, came lumbering silently along through the peaceful evening light, going out to sea. Two or three voices round announced it “an emigrant ship,” and the Mistress gazed into it and after it, clasping her son’s arm with a thrill at her heart. Evening; the sweet daylight fading into a charmed and tender twilight—the sky growing pale with very calm; the houses and churches and piles of buildings beginning to stand out black against the colorless, mysterious light which casts no shadows; the water gleaming in long, still ripples, as pale as the sky—every thing softening and darkening into natural rest—yet, through all, the great ship departing silently, with her throng of travelers, beginning to unfold the sails of her wayfaring, beginning to vibrate to the quickening wave, as she neared the sea.
“God go with them!” said the Mistress, with a sob out of her full heart. “Oh, Huntley, laddie! mony a mother’s son is there!”
The landing, when they came to it; the rush of porters and vagabonds from the pier; the half light, in which it seemed doubly necessary to the Mistress, roused into prompt and vigorous self-defense, to keep the most vigilant watch on the luggage—and the confusion with which both mother and sons contemplated the screaming, shouting crowd who surrounded them with offers of service, and bawled to them from the shore, made altogether a very serious business of the arrival. The Mistress never knew how she came through that ordeal; the “English tongue,” which had a decidedly Irish brogue in that scene, and under these circumstances, deafened the rural Scottish woman. The crowd of spectators, and the foray upon everybody’s luggage made by some scores of ragged fellows, whom her uncharitable imagination set down as robbers or madmen, filled her with indignation and a strong propensity to resistance; and it was not till she found herself safely deposited in an odd little sitting-room of a little inn, close to the docks, with all her packages safe and undiminished, that a measure of calmness returned to the ruffled bosom of Mrs. Livingstone. Then, after they had rested and refreshed themselves, Huntley and Patrick went out with natural curiosity to see the new scene and the new country—for the whole party fully considered that it was “England,” not Liverpool, in which they now found themselves—and the Mistress was left alone. She sat in the little parlor under the unfamiliar gas-light, looking round with forlorn eyes upon the room. There was a little model of a ship upon the mantel-piece in front of the little mirror, and another upon a small side-table under the barometer; other odd little ornaments, such as sailors bring home, shells and curious boxes, and little painted glass cups of Dutch art, gave a very nautical aspect to the shabby apartment, which, further, bore traces of having recently been smoked in, which disgusted the Mistress. Then all the noises of a noisy and not very well-behaved quarter seemed to rise up to her window, mingled with a jar of music from a big blazing drinking-place, almost next door—and the private tumult of the inn itself, voices and footsteps, shutting of doors and ringing of bells, still further oppressed the solitary stranger.
“Mercy on me! is that what they ca’ speaking English?” cried the Mistress to herself, disturbed, lonely, sick at heart, and almost offended with her sons for leaving her. She put her hands to her ears with a gesture of disdain; the unfamiliar accent was quite an aggravation and insult to her solitude—and then her thoughts settled down upon the circumstances which brought her here. But a day or two more, and she might never see Huntley again.
Meanwhile the boys were straying through the mean, noisy streets, blazing with light, which only showed their squalor the more, where a whole disreputable population seemed to be exerting all its arts for the fascination of the sailors, who were the patrons and support of all this quarter. It was quite a new phase of life to the lads, fresh from their rural solitudes, and all the proprieties of a respectable Scottish family—but the novelty beguiled them on, though it disgusted them. They went wandering about, curious, astonished, revolted, till they found themselves among dark mazes of warehouses from which it was not easy to find their way back. When they did get back it was late, though the noise remained undiminished, and the Mistress’s temper was not improved, if truth must be told, by her solitude. She had been trying to look out from the window, where opposite there was nothing but the high brick walls of the docks, and beneath, upon the lighted pavement, only such scenes as horrified the soul of the Mistress within her.
“It’s a marvel to me what pleasure even thoughtless laddies could find wandering about a place like that,” said the Mistress; “England, quotha! I thought mysel’ there must be something worth seeing in a place that folk make such a wark about; but instead of that, it’s waur than the Cowgate; pity me! and sharp tongues that gang through my head like a bell!”
“But Liverpool is not England,” said Huntley, coming to a slow perception of that fact, and laughing at himself as he said it.
“And maybe this is not Liverpool,” said Patie, with still greater enlightenment.
“Hold your peace, bairns,” cried the Mistress, peremptorily; “what can you ken, twa laddies that have no more insight into life than babes unborn—how can the like of you tell? Do I no’ see sin outbye there with a painted face, and sounds of fiddling and laughing, and light enough to burn up the haill town? Eh, bairns, if ever ye touch such dirt with but the ends of your fingers, the mother that bore ye will think shame of ye—burning shame! It sounds like pleasure—do ye hear?—but it’s no pleasure, it’s destruction!—and I canna tell, for my ain part, how a decent woman can daur to close her e’en, kenning what evil’s nigh. But I’m no’ meaning that for you,” added the Mistress, changing her tone; “the like of you young things need sleep and rest, and though I canna tell where we’re to get the things we want in a miserable place like this, we’ll have to be stirring early the morn.”
“And we’ll find a better place,” said Huntley; “don’t be afraid, mother—but for that and all the rest that we have to do and to bear, you must try to rest yourself.”
“Aye, laddie,” said the Mistress, hurriedly wiping her eyes, “but I canna get my thoughts out of that ship that’s on the sea this nicht! and maybe mony a lone woman sitting still with nae sons to come in to her—and whiles I canna but mind what’s coming to mysel’.”
“I am only twenty, mother, and Patie but eighteen,” said Huntley; “would you like us to remain as we are, knowing nothing of life, as you say? or are you afraid to trust your sons in the battle, like other men?”
“Na! no’ me!” cried the Mistress; “you’re baith right, and I approve in my mind—but only just this, bairns;—I’m your mother—and yon ship is sailing in the dark before my very e’en, as plain as if I saw her now!”
And whether it was thinking of that ship, or of the sons of other mothers who were errant in her, or of her own boy, so soon to join their journey, the Mistress heard the last sound that disturbed the house that night, and the earliest in the morning. Her eyes were dry and sore when she got up to see the daylight aspect of the unknown and unlovely world around her; and the lads were still fast asleep in their privilege of youth, while their mother stood once more wistfully looking out upon the high black wall of the dock, and the masts appearing over it. She could not see the river, or any thing more gracious than this seaman-tempting street. There was nothing either within or without to divert her from her own thoughts; and as she watched the early sunshine brighten upon a scene so different from that of her own hills and streams, these thoughts were forlorn enough.
During the day, the little party went out to make some last purchases for Huntley. The young man was to carry with him, in the securest form which they could think of, a little fortune of a hundred pounds, on which he was to make his start in the world, nothing doubting to find in it a nucleus of wealth; and the Mistress, spite of the natural economy of her ideas, and her long habit of frugality, was extravagant and lavish in her anxiety to get every thing for Huntley that he could or might require. When they came into the region of shops, she began to drop behind, anxiously studying the windows, tempted by many a possible convenience, which, if she had acted on her first impulse and purchased each incontinently, would have made Huntley’s outfit an unbelievable accumulation of peddlery.
As it was, his mother’s care and inexperience freighted the young man with a considerable burden of elaborate conveniences—cumbrous machines of various forms, warranted invaluable for the voyage or for the bush, which Huntley lugged about with many a year after, and tried to use for his mother’s sake. When they got back to their inn, the Mistress had suffered herself to be convinced that the noisy street outside the docks was not Liverpool, much less England. But the “English tongue,” which “rang through her head like a knife,” to vary the image—the mean brick houses at which the triumphant Scotchwoman pointed her finger with unspeakable contempt, the narrow streets, and noise and dust of the great commercial town, filled her patriotic spirit with a disdainful complacency.
“Weel, laddies,” said Mrs. Livingstone, when they reached the inn, very tired, that night; and the Mistress spoke with the natural satisfaction of a traveled person; “I have aye heard a great wark made about England—but I’m very sure, now that we’ve been in it, and seen for ourselves, none of us desires to gang any further. Bits of brick houses that you can mostly see through!—streets that neighbors could shake hands across!—and for my part, ilka time I hear them speak, I think they’re flyting. Eh, bairns, such sharp tongues! I wouldna gie Melrose though it’s wee-er and hasna sae mony shops, for twenty of this place—and as for Edinburgh—!”
But the contrast was unspeakable, and took away the Mistress’s breath.
CHAPTER XXIV
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!”