The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish Story

Emigration was not then what it is now; it was the last resort—sadly resisted, sadly yielded to—of the “broken man;” and Huntley’s mother saw her son, in imagination, in a dreary den of a cabin, in a poor little trading ship, with a bundle on the end of a stick, and despair in his heart, when he spoke of going away.

“There’s more kinds of emigrants than one kind, mother,” said Patie.

“Ay,” said the Mistress, her imagination shifting, in spite of her, to a dismal family scene, in which the poor wife had the baby tied on her back in a shawl, and the children at her feet were crying with cold and hunger, and the husband at her side looking desperate. “I’ve seen folk on the road to America—ay, laddies, mony a time. I’m older than you are. I ken what like they look; but pity me, did I ever think the like of that would be evened to a bairn of mine!”

“Mother,” said Huntley, with a cheerfulness which he did not quite feel, “an emigrant goes away to stay—I should not do that—I am going, if I can, to make a fortune, and come home—and it’s not America; there are towns there already like our own, and a man, I suppose, has only a greater chance of getting bread enough to eat. I could get bread enough in our own country-side; but I mean to get more if I can—I mean to get a sheep farm and grow rich, as everybody does out there.”

“Poor laddie! Do they sell sheep and lands out there to them that have no siller?” said the Mistress. “If you canna stock a farm at hame, where you’re kent and your name respected, Huntley Livingstone, how will you do it there?”

“That’s just what I have to find out,” said Huntley, with spirit; “a man may be clear he’s to do a thing, without seeing how at the moment. With your consent, I’m going to Australia, mother; if there’s any thing over, when all our affairs are settled, I’ll get my share—and as for the sheep and the land, they’re in Providence; but I doubt them as little as if they were on the lea before my eyes. I’m no’ a man out of a town that knows nothing about it. I’m country bred and have been among beasts all my days. Do you think I’m feared! Though I’ve little to start with, mother, you’ll see me back rich enough to do credit to the name of Norlaw!”

His mother shook her head.

“It’s easy to make a fortune on a summer night at hame, before a lad’s twenty, or kens the world,” she said. “I’ve seen mony a stronger man than you, Huntley, come hame baith penniless and hopeless—and the like of such grand plans, they’re but trouble and sadness to me.”

Perhaps Huntley was discouraged by the words; at all events he made no reply—and the mind of his mother gradually expanded. She looked up from her knitting suddenly, with a rapid tender glance.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” said the Mistress; “there’s some will win and some will fail in spite of the haill world. The Lord take the care of my bairns! Who am I, that I should be able to guide you, three lads, coming to be men? Huntley, you’re the auldest, and you’re strong. I canna say stay at hame—I dinna see what to bid you do. You must take your ain will, and I’ll no’ oppose.”

If Huntley thanked his mother at all it was in very few words, for the politenesses were not cultivated among them, the feelings of this Scottish family lying somewhat deep, and expressing themselves otherwise than in common words; but the Mistress brushed her hand over her eyes hurriedly, with something like a restrained sob, intermitting for a single instant, and no longer, the rapid glitter of her “wires"—but you would scarcely have supposed that the heart of the mother was moved thus far, to hear the tone of her next words. She turned to her second son without looking at him.

“And where are you for, Patie Livingstone?” said the Mistress, with almost a sarcastic sharpness. “It should be India, or the North Pole to pleasure you.”

Patie was not emboldened by this address; it seemed, indeed, rather to discomfit the lad; not as a reproach, but as showing a greater expectation of his purposes than they warranted.

“You know what I aimed at long ago, mother,” he said, with hesitation. “It may be that we can ill afford a ’prentice time now—but I’m no’ above working while I learn. I can scramble up as well as Huntley. I’ll go either to Glasgow or to Liverpool, to one of the founderies there.”

“Folk dinna learn to be civil engineers in founderies,” said the Mistress; “they’re nothing better than smiths at the anvil. You wanted to build a light-house, Patie, when ye were a little bairn—but you’ll no’ learn there.”

“I’ll maybe learn better. There’s to be railroads soon, everywhere,” said Patie, with a little glow upon his face. “I’ll do what I can—if I’m only to be a smith, I’ll be a smith like a man, and learn my business. The light-house was a fancy; but I may learn what’s as good, and more profitable. There’s some railroads already, mother, and there’s more beginning every day.”

“My poor bairn!” said the Mistress, for the first time bestowing a glance of pity upon Patie—“if your fortune has to wait for its making till folk gang riding over a’ the roads on steam horses, like what’s written in the papers, I’ll never live to see it. There’s that man they ca’ Stephenson, he’s made something or other that’s a great wonder; but, laddie, you dinna think that roads like that can go far? They may have them up about London—and truly you might live to make another, I’ll no’ say—but I would rather build a tower to keep ships from being wrecked than make a road for folk to break their necks on, if it was me.”

“Folk that are born to break their necks will break them on any kind of road,” said Patie, with great gravity; “but I’ve read about it all, and I think a man only needs to know what he has to do, to thrive; and besides, mother, there’s more need for engines than upon railroads. It’s a business worth a man’s while.”

“Patie,” said the Mistress, solemnly, “I’ve given my consent to Huntley to gang thousands of miles away over the sea; but if you gang among thae engines, that are merciless and senseless, and can tear a living creature like a rag of claith—I’ve seen them, laddie, with my own e’en, clanging and clinking like the evil place itself—I’ll think it’s Patie that’s in the lion’s mouth, and no’ my eldest son.”

“Well, mother!” said Patie, sturdily—“if I were in the lion’s mouth, and yet had room to keep clear, would you be feared for me?”

This appeal took the Mistress entirely without preparation. She brushed her hands hastily over her eyes once more, and went on with her knitting. Then a long, hard-drawn breath, which was not a sigh, came from the mother’s breast; in the midst of her objections, her determination not to be satisfied, a certain unaccountable pride in the vigor, and strength, and resolution of her sons rose in the kindred spirit of their mother. She was not “feared"—neither for one nor the other of the bold youths by her side. Her own strong vitality went forth with them, with an indescribable swell of exhilaration—yet she was their mother, and a widow, and it wrung her heart to arrange quietly how they were to leave her and their home.

“And me?” said Cosmo, coming to his mother’s side.

He had no determination to announce—he came out of his thoughts, and his musings, and his earnest listening, to lay that white, long hand of his upon his mother’s arm. It was the touch which made the full cup run over. The widow leaned her head suddenly upon her boy’s shoulder, surprised into an outburst of tears and weakness, unusual and overpowering—and the other lads came close to this group, touched to the heart like their mother. They cried out among their tears that Cosmo must not go away—that he was too young—too tender! What they had not felt for themselves, they felt for him—there seemed something forlorn, pathetic, miserable, in the very thought of this boy going forth to meet the world and its troubles. This boy, the child of the house, the son who was like his father, the tenderest spirit of them all!

Yet Cosmo, who had no plans, and who was only sixteen, was rather indignant at this universal conclusion. He yielded at last, only because the tears were still in his mother’s eyes, and because they were all more persistent than he was—and sat down at a little distance, not sullen, but as near so as was possible to him, his cheek glowing with a suspicion that they thought him a child. But soon the conversation passed to other matters, which Cosmo could not resist. They began to speak of Melmar, their unprovoked enemy, and then the three lads looked at each other, taking resolution from that telegraphic conference; and Huntley, with the blood rising in his cheeks, for the first time asked his mother, in the name of them all, for that tale which her husband, on his death-bed, had deputed her to tell them, the story of the will which was in the mid-chamber, and that Mary who was Mary of Melmar evermore in the memory of Norlaw.

At the question the tears dried out of the Mistress’s eyes, an impatient color came to her face—and it was so hard to elicit this story from her aggrieved and unsympathetic mind, that it may be better for Mrs. Livingstone, in the estimation of other people, if we tell what she told in other words than hers.

CHAPTER XI

Yet we do not see why we are called upon to defend Mrs. Livingstone, who was very well able, under most circumstances, to take care of herself. She did not by any means receive her sons’ inquiries with a good grace. On the contrary, she evaded them hotly, with unmistakable dislike and impatience.

“Mary of Me’mar! what is she to you?” said the Mistress. “Let bygones be bygones, bairns—she’s been the fash of my life, one way and another. Hold your peace, Cosmo Livingstone! Do you think I can tell this like a story out of a book. There’s plenty gossips in the countryside could tell you the ins and the outs of it better than me—”

“About the mid-chamber and the will, mother?” asked Patrick.

“Weel, maybe, no about that,” said the Mistress, slightly mollified; “if that’s what ye want. This Mary Huntley, laddies, I ken very little about her. She was away out of these parts before my time. I never doubted she was light-headed, and liked to be admired and petted. She was Me’mar’s only bairn; maybe that might be some excuse for her—for he was an auld man and fond. But, kind as he was, she ran away from him to marry some lad that naebody kent—and went off out of the country with her ne’er-do-weel man, and has never been heard tell of from that time to this—that’s a’ I ken about her.”

This was said so peremptorily and conclusively, setting aside at once any further question, that even these lads, who were not particularly skilled in the heart or its emotions, perceived by instinct, that their mother knew a great deal more about her—more than any inducement in the world could persuade her to tell.

“I’ve heard that Me’mar was hurt to the heart,” said the Mistress, “and no much wonder. His bairn that he had thought nothing too good for! and to think of her running off from him, a lone auld man, to be married upon a stranger-lad without friends, that naebody kent any good o’, and that turned out just as was to be expected. Oh, aye! it does grand to make into a story—and the like of you, you think it all for love, and a warm heart, and a’ the rest of it; but I think it’s but an ill heart that would desert hame and friends, and an auld man above three-score, for its ain will and pleasure. So Me’mar took it very sore to heart; he would not have her name named to him for years. And the next living creature in this world that he liked best, after his ungrateful daughter, was—laddies, you’ll no’ be surprised—just him that’s gone from us—that everybody likit weel—just Norlaw.”

There was a pause after this, the Mistress’s displeasure melting into a sob of her permanent grief; and then the tale was resumed more gently, more slowly, as if she had sinned against the dead by the warmth and almost resentment of her first words.

“Me’mar lived to be an auld man,” said the Mistress. “He aye lived on till Patie was about five years auld, and a’ our bairns born. He was very good aye to me; mony’s the present he sent me, when I was a young thing, and was more heeding for bonnie-dies, and took great notice of Huntley, and was kind to the whole house. It was said through a’ the country-side that ye were to be his heirs, and truly so you might have been, but for one thing and anither; no’ that I’m heeding—you’ll be a’ the better for making your way in the world yourselves.”

“And the will, mother?” said Huntley, with a little eagerness.

“I’m coming to the will; have patience;” said the Mistress, who had not a great deal herself, to tell the truth. “Bairns, it’s no’ time yet for me to speak to you of your father; but he was aye a just man, with a tender heart for the unfortunate—you ken that as well as me. He wouldna take advantage of another man’s weakness, or another man’s ill-doing, far less of a poor silly lassie, that, maybe, didna ken what she was about. And when the old man made his will, Norlaw would not let him leave his lands beyond his ain flesh and blood. So the will was made, that Mary Huntley, if she ever came back, was to be heir of Melmar, and if she never came back, nor could be heard tell of, every thing was left to Patrick Livingstone, of Norlaw.”

It was impossible to restrain the start of amazement with which Huntley, growing red and agitated, sprang to his feet, and the others stirred out of their quietness of listening. Their mother took no time to answer the eager questions in their eyes, nor to hear even the exclamations which burst from them unawares. She bent her head again, and drew through her fingers, rapidly, the hem of her apron. She did not see, nor seem to think of, her children. Her mind was busy about the heaviest epoch of her own life.

“When Melmar died, search was caused to be made every place for his daughter,” said the Mistress, passing back and forwards through her hands this tight strip of her apron. “Your father thought of nothing else, night nor day; a’ for justice, bairns, doubtless for justice—that nobody might think he would take an advantage of his kinswoman, though he could not approve of her ways! He went to Edinburgh himself, and from there to London. I was young then, and Cosmo little mair than an infant, and a’ thing left in my hands. Aye this one and the other one coming to tell about Mary Huntley—and Norlaw away looking for her—and the very papers full of the heiress—and me my lane in the house, and little used to be left to mysel’. I mind every thing as if it had happened this very day.”

The Mistress paused once more—it was only to draw a long breath of pain, ere she hurried on with the unwelcome tale, which now had a strange interest, even for herself. The boys could not tell what was the bitterness of the time which their mother indicated by these compressed and significant words; but it was impossible to hear even her voice without perceiving something of the long-past troubles, intense and vivid as her nature, which nothing in the world could have induced her to disclose.

“The upshot was, she could not be found,” said the Mistress, abruptly; “either she never heard tell that she was sought for, or she took guilt to herself, and would not appear. They kept up the search as long as a year, but they never heard a word, or got a clue to where she was.”

“And then?” cried Huntley, with extreme excitement.

“And then,” said the Mistress—“was he a man to take another person’s lands, when but a year had gane?” She spoke with a visible self-restraint, strong and bitter—the coercion which a mind of energy and power puts upon itself, determining not to think otherwise than with approbation of the acts of a weaker nature—and with something deeper underlying even this. “He said she would still come hame some day, as was most likely. He would not take up her rights, and her living, as he was persuaded in his mind. The will was proved in law, for her sake, but he would not take possession of the land, nor put forward his claims to it, because he said she lived, and would come hame. So, laddies, there’s the tale. A Mr. Huntley, a writer, from the northcountry, a far-away friend, came in and claimed as next of kin. Mary of Melmar was lost and gane, and could not be found, and Norlaw would not put in his ain claim, though it was clear. He said it would be taking her rights, and that then she would never come back to claim her land. So the strange man got possession and kept it, and hated Norlaw. And from that day to this, what with having an enemy, and the thought of that unfortunate woman coming back, and the knowledge in his heart that he had let a wrongful heir step in—what with all that bairns, and more than that, another day of prosperity never came to this house of Norlaw.”

“Then we are the heirs of Me’mar!” said Huntley; “we, and not my father’s enemy! Mother, why did we never hear this before?”

“Na, lads,” said the Mistress, with an indescribable bitterness in her tone; “it’s her and her bairns that are the heirs—and they’re to be found, and claim their inheritance, soon or syne.”

“Then this is what I’ll do,” cried Cosmo, springing to his feet; “I’ll go over all the world, but I’ll find Mary of Melmar! I’m not so strong as Huntley, or as Patie, but I’m strong enough for this. I’ll do what my father wished—if she should be in the furtherest corner of the earth, I’ll bring her hame!”

To the extreme amazement of the boys, the Mistress laid a violent hand on Cosmo’s shoulder, and, either with intention or unconsciously, shook the whole frame of the slender lad with her impetuous grasp.

“Will ye?” cried his mother, with a sharpness of suffering in her voice that confounded them. “Is it no’ enough, all that’s past? Am I to begin again? Am I to bring up sons for her service? Oh, patience, patience! it’s more than a woman like me can bear!”

Amazed, grieved, disturbed by her words and her aspect, her sons gathered around her. She pushed them away impatiently, and rose up.

“Bairns, dinna anger me!—I’m no’ meek enough,” said the Mistress, her face flushing with a mixture of mortification and displeasure. “You’ve had your will, and heard the story—but I tell you this woman’s been a vexation to me all my life—and it’s no’ your part, any one of you, to begin it a’ over again.”

CHAPTER XII