The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish Story

Saying which, he swaggered past with his cloak hanging over his shoulders—a romantic piece of drapery which was more picturesque than comfortable on this summer day. The Mistress paused to look after him, clasping with rather an urgent pressure her son’s arm, and with an impulse of impatient pity moving her heart.

“I could never bear a stranger nigh in my troubles,” she cried, at last, “but yon woman’s no’ like me. She’s used to lean upon other folk. What can she do, with that poor failing creature at one side of her and this villain at the other? Huntley, my man! she’s nae friend of mine, but she’s a lone woman, and you’re her kinsman. Go back and give her your countenance to send the vagabone away!”

“Mother, I am a stranger,” cried Huntley, with surprise and embarrassment; “what could I do for her? how could I venture indeed to intrude myself into their private affairs? Cosmo might have done it who knows them well, but I—I can not see a chance of serving them, perhaps quite the reverse. If you are right, this man belongs to the family, and blood is thicker than water. No, no; of course I will do what you wish, if you wish it; but I do not think it is an office for me.”

And the Mistress, whose heart had been moved with compassion for the other widow who had no son, and who had suggested voluntarily that Huntley should help her, could not help feeling pleased nor being ashamed of her pleasure, when he declined the office. He, at least, was not “carried away” by the fascinations of Mary of Melmar. She took a secret pleasure in his disobedience. It soothed the feelings which Cosmo’s divided love had aggrieved.

“Weel, maybe it’s wisest; they ken best themselves how their ain hearts are moved—and a strange person’s a great hindrance in trouble. I couldna thole it mysel’,” said the Mistress; “I canna help them, it’s plain enough—so we’ll do little good thinking upon it. But, Huntley, my man, what’s your first beginning to be, now that you are hame?”

At this question, Huntley looked his mother full in the face, with a startled, anxious glance, and grew crimson, but said not a word; to which the Mistress replied by a look, also somewhat startled, and almost for the moment resentful. She did not save him from his embarrassment by introducing then the subject nearest to his heart. She knew, and could not doubt what it was, but she kept silent, watching him keenly, and waiting for his first words. Madame Roche would have thrown herself into his arms and wept with an effusion of tenderness and sympathy, but this was the Mistress, who was long out of practice of love-matters, and who felt her sons more deeply dear to her own heart than ever lover was in the world. So it was with a little faltering that Huntley spoke.

“It is seven years since I went away, and she was only a girl then—only a girl, though like a mother. I wonder what change they have made upon Katie Logan, these seven years?”

“She’s a good lassie,” said the Mistress; “eh, Huntley, I’m ower proud!—I think naebody like my sons; but she’s a very good lassie. I havena a word to say against her, no’ me! I canna take strangers easy into my heart, but Katie Logan’s above blame. You ken best yoursel’ what you’ve said to one another, her and you—but I canna blame ye thinking upon her—na,” said the Mistress, clearing her throat, “I am thankful to the Almighty for putting such a good bairn into your thoughts. I’m a hard woman in my ain heart, Huntley. I’ll just say it out once for a’. You’ve a’ been so precious to me, that at the first dinnle I canna bide to think that nane of you soon will belong to your mother. That’s a’—for you see I never had a daughter of my ain.”

The Mistress ended this speech, which was a long speech for her, with great abruptness, and put up her hand hurriedly to wipe something from her eye. She could be angry with Cosmo, who confided nothing to her, but her loving, impatient heart could not stand against the frankness of his brother. She made her confession hurriedly, and with a certain obstinate determination—hastily wiped the unwilling tear out of the corner of her eye, and the next moment lifted her head with all her inalienable spirit, ready, if the smallest advantage was taken of her confession, to gird on her armor on the moment, and resist all concessions to the death.

But Huntley was wise. “We have said nothing to each other,” he answered quickly, “but I would fain see Katie first of all.”

This was about the sum of the whole matter—neither mother nor son cared to add much to this simple understanding. Katie had been absent from Kirkbride between four and five years, and during all that time the Mistress had only seen her once, and not a syllable of correspondence had passed between her and Huntley. It might be that she had long ago forgotten Huntley; it might be that Katie never cared for him, save with that calm regard of friendship which Huntley did not desire from her. It was true that the Mistress remembered Katie’s eyes and Katie’s face on that night, long ago, when a certain subtle consciousness of the one love which was in the hearts of both, gave the minister’s daughter a sudden entrance into the regard of Huntley’s mother. But the Mistress did not tell Huntley of that night. “It’s no for me to do,” said the Mistress to herself, when she had reached home, with a momentary quiver of her proud lip. “Na, if she minds upon my Huntley still—and wha could forget him?—I’ve nae right to take the words out of Katie’s mouth; and he’ll be all the happier, my puir laddie, to hear it from hersel’.”

It was a magnanimous thought; and somehow this self-denial and abnegation—this reluctant willingness to relinquish now at last that first place in her son’s heart, which had been so precious to the Mistress, shed an insensible brightness that day over Norlaw. One could not have told whence it came; yet it brightened over the house, a secret sunshine, and Huntley and his mother were closer friends than, perhaps, they had ever been before. If Cosmo could but have found this secret out!

CHAPTER LXXI

In the meantime, Cosmo, angry with himself and everybody else, went into Edinburgh to his weekly labor. It was such lovely summer weather, that even Edinburgh, being a town, was less agreeable than it is easy to suppose that fairest of cities; for though the green hill heights were always there to refresh everybody’s eyes, clouds of dust blew up and down the hilly streets of the new town, which had even still less acquaintance then than now with the benevolent sprinkling of the water-carts. If one could choose the easiest season for one’s troubles, one would not choose June, when all the world is gay, and when Nature looks most pitiless to sad hearts. Sad hearts! Let every one who reads forgive a natural selfishness—it is the writer of this story, who has nothing to do with its events, who yet can not choose but make her sorrowful outcry against the sunshine, sweet sunshine, smiling out of the heart of heaven! which makes the soul of the sorrowful sick within them. It is not the young hero in the agitation of his young troubles—warm discontents and contests of life—the struggles of the morning. Yet Cosmo was vexed and aggravated by the light, and heat, and brightness of the fair listless day, which did not seem made for working in. He could not take his seat at Mr. Todhunter’s writing-table, laden with scraps of cut-up newspapers, with bundles of “copy,” black from the fingers of the printers, and heaps of proof sheets. He could not sit down to read through silly romances, or prune the injudicious exuberance of young contributors. Unfortunately, the contributors to the Auld Reekie Magazine were almost all young; it had not turned out such an astounding “start” as the Edinburgh Review; it had fallen into the hands of young men at college, who, indisputably, in that period of their development, however great they may become eventually, are not apt to distinguish themselves in literature; and Cosmo, who had just outgrown the happy complacence of that period, was proportionately intolerant of its mistakes and arrogances, and complained (within himself) of his uncongenial vocation and unfortunate fate. He was not fit to be editor of the Auld Reekie. He was not able for the labor dire and weary woe of revising the papers which were printed, and glancing over those which were not—in short, he was totally dissatisfied with himself, his position and his prospects, very probably, but for his love-dream, Cosmo would have launched himself upon the bigger sea in London, another forlorn journeyman of literature, half conscious that literature was not the profession to which he was born; but the thought of Desirée held him back like a chain of gold. He could see her every week while he remained here, and beyond that office of Mr. Todhunter’s in which perseverance and assiduity, and those other sober virtues which are not too interesting generally to young men, might some time make him a partner, Cosmo could not for his life have told any one what he would do.

After he had endured his work as long as he could in this quiet little den, which Mr. Todhunter shared with him, and where that gentleman was busy, as usual, with paste and scissors, Cosmo at last tossed an unreadable story into the waste-paper basket, and starting up, got his hat. His companion only glanced up at him with an indignant reproof.

“What! tired? Are they so awful bad?” said Mr. Todhunter; but this model of a bookseller said no more when his young deputy sallied out with a nod and a shrug of his shoulders. The proprietor of the Auld Reekie Magazine was one of those rare and delightful persons—Heaven bless their simple souls!—who have an inalienable reverence for “genius,” and believe in its moods and vagaries with the devoutness of a saint.

“Of course I would exact common hours from a common young man,” said Mr. Todhunter, “but a lad of genius is another matter. When he’s in the vein, he’ll get through with his work like a giant. I’ve seen him write four papers with his own hand after the twenty-third of the month, and the magazine as sharp to its time, notwithstanding, as if he had been a year preparing. He’s not a common lad, my sub-editor;"—and Cosmo quite took credit with his employer on the score of his fits of varying energy and his irregular hours.

Cosmo, however, sauntered away through the bright and busy streets without giving himself so much credit. The young man was thoroughly uncomfortable, self-displeased, and aggravated. He knew well enough that it was not the impatience of genius, but only a restless and disturbed mind, which made his work intolerable on that long summer afternoon. He was thinking of Desirée, who would not bear thinking of, and whom he supposed himself to have bitterly and proudly relinquished—of Madame Roche, with her ridiculous fancy in respect to Huntley—and of Huntley himself, who it was just possible might accept it, and take Desirée’s reluctant hand. It seemed to Cosmo the strangest, miserable perversion of everybody’s happiness; and he could not help concluding upon all this wrong and foolishness coming to pass, with all the misanthropical certainty of disappointed youth. Cosmo even remembered to think of Katie Logan, by way of exaggerating his own discontent—Katie, who quite possibly had been faithful to Huntley’s memory all these seven long years.

He was thus pondering on, with quick impatient step, when he caught a glimpse of some one at a distance whose appearance roused him. The figure disappeared down the Canongate, which Cosmo was crossing, and the young man hastened to follow, though this famous old street is by no means a savory promenade on a hot summer afternoon. He pushed down, notwithstanding, along the dusty burning pavement, amid evil smells and evil sounds, and passengers not the most agreeable. Women on the outside stairs, with dirty babies in their arms, loud in gossip, and unlovely in apparel—ragged groups at the high windows, where noble ladies once looked out upon the noble highway, but where now some poor housemother’s washing, thrust out upon a stick, dallied with the smoky air, and was dried and soiled at the same moment—hopeless, ill-favored lads and girls, the saddest feature of all, throwing coarse jokes at each other, and, indeed, all the usual symptoms of the most degraded class of town population, which is much alike everywhere. Cosmo threaded his way among them with disgust, remembering how he had once done so before with Cameron, whom he was now pursuing, and at a time when his own anticipations, as well as his friend’s, pointed to the sacred profession in which the Highlandman now toiled. That day, and that conversation, rose vividly before Cosmo. It sickened his sensitive heart to realize the work in which Cameron was employed; but when his mind returned to himself, who had no profession, and to whose eyes no steady aim or purpose presented itself anywhere, Cosmo felt no pleasure in the contrast. This was not the sphere in which a romantic imagination could follow the footsteps of the evangelist. Yet, what an overpowering difference between those steps and the wanderings of this disturbed trifler with his own fortune and youth.

But Cameron still did not reappear. Somewhat reluctantly Cosmo entered after him at the narrow door, with some forgotten noble’s sculptured shield upon its keystone, and went up the stair where his friend had gone. It was a winding stair, dark, close, and dirty, but lighted in the middle of each flight by a rounded window, through which—an extraordinary contrast—the blue sky, the June sunshine, and a far-off glimpse of hills and sea, glanced in upon the passenger with a splendor only heightened by the dark and narrow frame through which the picture shone. Cosmo paused by one of these windows with an involuntary fascination. Just above him, on the dusky landing, were two doors of rooms, tenanted each by poverty and labor, and many children, miserable versions of home, in which the imagination could take no pleasure. In his fastidious distaste for the painful and unlovely realities, the young man paused by the window;—all the wealth of nature glowing in that golden sunshine—how strange that it should make its willing entrance here!

He was arrested by a voice he knew—subdued, but not soft by nature, and sounding audibly enough down the stairs.

“I don’t know if he can do them harm—very likely no’—I only tell you I heard somebody speak of him, and that he was going to Melmar. Perhaps you don’t care about the family at Melmar? I am sure, neither do I; but, if you like, you can tell Cosmo Livingstone. It’s nothing to me!”

“I’ll tell him,” said Cameron. “Who was the man? Do you know?”

“He was French; and I’m sure a vagabond—I am sure a vagabond!” cried the other. “I don’t know if you can mind me, but Cosmo will—I’m Joanna Huntley. I care for none of them but Desirée. Her mother and her sister may take care of themselves. But we were great friends, and I like her; though I need not like her unless I please,” added Joanna, angrily; “it’s no’ for her sake, but because I canna help it. There—just tell Cosmo Livingstone! Perhaps it’s nothing, but he might as well know.”

“I’ll tell him,” said Cameron, once more.

Then there came a sound of a step upon the stair—not a light step, but a prompt and active one—and Joanna herself, grown very tall, tolerably trim, rather shabby, and with hair of undiminished redness, came rapidly down the narrow side of the spiral stair, with her hand upon its rib of stone. She started and stopped when she had reached almost as far as Cosmo’s window—made as though she would pass him for the first moment, but finally drew up with considerable hauteur, a step or two above him. Joanna could not help a little offense at her father’s conqueror, though she applauded him in her heart.

“I’ve been in London,” said Joanna, abruptly, entering upon her statement without any preface. “I saw a man there who was inquiring about Melmar—at least about the eldest daughter, for he did not know the house—and Oswald directed him every step of the way. I’ll no’ say he was right and I’ll no’ say he was wrong, but I tell you; the man was a rascal, that’s all I know about him—and you can do what you like now.”

“But stop, Miss Huntley; did you seek Cameron out to tell him?” said Cosmo, with gratitude and kindness.

“I am Miss Huntley now,” said Joanna, with an odd smile. “Patricia’s married to an officer, and away, and Oswald’s in London. My brother has great friends there. Did I seek Mr. Cameron out? No. I was here on my own business, and met him. I might have sought you out, but not him, that scarcely knows them. But it was not worth while seeking you out either,” added Joanna, with a slight toss of her head. “Very likely the man is a friend of theirs—they were but small people, I suppose, before they came to Melmar. Very likely they’ll be glad to see him. But Oswald was so particular telling him where they were, and the man had such an ill look,” added Joanna, slowly, after a pause, “that I can not think but that he wanted to do them an ill turn.”

“Thank you for warning them. He had come yesterday, and I fear he will do Marie a very ill turn,” said Cosmo; “but nobody has any right to interfere—he is a—a relation. But may I tell Desirée—I mean Miss Roche—any thing of yourself? I know she often speaks, and still oftener thinks, of you.”

“She has nothing to do with us that I know of,” said Joanna, sharply; “good day to you; that was all I had to say,” and she rushed past him, passing perilously down the narrow edge of the stair. But when she had descended a few steps, Joanna’s honest heart smote her. She turned back, looking up to him with eyes which looked so straightforward and sincere, in spite of their irascible sparkle, that Joanna’s plain face became almost pretty under their light. “I am sure I need not quarrel with you,” she said with a little burst of her natural frankness, “nor with Desirée either. It was not her fault—but I was very fond of Desirée. Tell her I teach in a school now, and am very happy—they even say I’m clever,” continued the girl, with a laugh, “which I never was at Melmar; and mamma is stronger, and we’re all as well as we can be. You need not laugh, Cosmo Livingstone, it’s true!” cried Joanna, with sudden vehemence, growing offended once more; “papa may have done wrong whiles, but he’s very good to us; and no one shall dare throw a stone at him while I’m living. You can tell Desirée.”

“I will tell Desirée you were very fond of her—she will like that best,” said Cosmo.

Whereupon the vail, which had been hanging about her bonnet, suddenly dropped over Joanna’s face; it is to be supposed from the suppressed and momentary sound that followed, that, partly in anger, partly in sorrow, partly in old friendship and tenderness, she broke down for the instant, and cried—but all that could clearly be known was, that she put out her hand most unexpectedly, shook Cosmo’s hand, and immediately started down the stair with great haste and agitation. Cosmo could not try to detain or follow her; he knew very well that no such proceeding would have found favor in the eyes of Joanna; and Cameron at that moment came in sight from the upper floor.

Cosmo never could tell by what sudden impulse it was that he begged his old friend to return with him to his lodgings and dine; he had no previous intention of doing so—but the idea seized him so strongly, that he urged, and almost forced the half reluctant Highlandman into compliance. Perhaps the listless loveliness of the day affected Cameron, in a less degree, somewhat as it affected his more imaginative companion—for, at length, after consulting his note-book, he put his strong arm within Cosmo’s, and went with him. Cameron, like everybody else, had changed in these five years. He was now what is called a licentiate in the Church of Scotland—authorized to preach, but not to administer the sacraments, an office corresponding somewhat with the deacon’s orders of the English Church. And like other people, too, Cameron had not got his ideal fortune. The poor student had no patronage, and the Gaelic-speaking parish among his own hills, to which his fancy had once aspired, was still as distant as ever from the humble evangelist. Perhaps Cameron did not even wish it now—perhaps he had never forgotten that hard lesson which he learned in St. Ouen—perhaps had never so entirely recovered that throwing away of his heart, as to be able to content himself among the solitudes of the hills. But, at least, he had not reached to this desired end—and was now working hard among the wynds and closes of old Edinburgh, preaching in a public room in that sad quarter, and doing all that Christian man could do to awaken its inhabitants to a better life.

“It is good, right, best! I confess it!” cried Cosmo, in a sudden accés of natural feeling, “but how can you do it, Cameron?—how is it possible to visit, to interest, to woo, such miserable groups as these? Look at them!” exclaimed the young man. “Mean, coarse, brutal, degraded, luxuriating in their own wretchedness, knowing nothing better—unable to comprehend a single refined idea, a single great thought. Love your neighbor—love them?—is it in the power of man?”

Cameron looked round upon them, too; though with a different glance.

“Cosmo,” said the Highlandman, with that deep voice of his, to which additional years and personal experience had given a sweeter tone than of old, “do you forget that you once before asked me that same question? Love is ill to bind, and hard to draw. I love few in this world, and will to the end; but first among them is One whose love kens no caprice like to ours. I tell you again, laddie, what I tell them forever. Can I comprehend it?—it’s just the mystery of mysteries—He loves them all. I have room in my goodwill, if not in my heart, for them that you love, Cosmo; and what should I have for them that He loved, and loved to the death? That is the secret. My boy, I would rather than gear and lands that you found it out for yourself.”

“I can understand it, at least,” said Cosmo, grasping his friend’s hand; “but I blush for myself when I look at your work and at mine. They are different, Cameron.”

“A lad may leave the plow in mid-furrow for a flower on the brae or a fish in the water,” said Cameron, with a smile; “but a man returns to the work he’s put his hand to. Come back, my boy, to your first beginning—there’s time.”

And Cosmo was almost persuaded, as they went on discussing and remonstrating to the young man’s lodging, where other thoughts and other purposes were waiting for them both.

CHAPTER LXXII

For on Cosmo’s table lay a letter, newly arrived, and marked immediate. Cosmo felt himself forewarned by the sudden tremor which moved him, as he sprang forward to take it up, that it was from Madame Roche. Perhaps some strange instinct suggested the same to Cameron, for he withdrew immediately from his friend’s side, and went away to Cosmo’s book-shelf in the corner without a word. Then, perhaps, for the first time, any unconcerned spectator looking on might have perceived that Cameron looked weary, and that, besides the dust upon his boots and black coat, the lines in his face were deeper drawn than his years and strength warranted, and told of a forlorn fatigue somewhere which no one tried to comfort. But he did not say any thing—he only stood quietly before the book-shelf, looking over Cosmo’s books.

Cosmo, on the contrary, his face flushed with excitement and expectation, and his heart beating high, opened the letter. As he ran over it, in his haste and anxiety, the flush faded from his face. Then he read it seriously a second time—then he looked at his friend.

“Cameron!” said Cosmo.

But it seemed that Cameron did not hear him till he was called a second time, when he looked round slowly; and, seeing Cosmo holding towards him the letter which he had just read so eagerly, looked at it with a strange confusion, anxiety, and embarrassment, half-lifting his hand to take it, and saying “Eh?” with a surprised and reluctant inquiry.

“It concerns you as well as me. Look at it, Cameron,” said the young man.

It was from Madame Roche; and this is what Cameron read:—

“Cosmo—my son, my friend! come back and help us! Pierrot—he of whom you warned us—has come; and I, in my folly—in my madness, could not deny to Marie to see him. You will ask me why? Alas! he is her husband, and she loves him! I thought, in my blindness, it might make her well; but we have known her illness so long, we have forgotten how great it is; and the shock has killed her—ah, me! unhappy mother!—has stricken my child! She was very joyful, the poor soul!—she was too happy!—and he who is so little deserving of it! But it has been more than she could bear, and she is dying! Come!—sustain us, comfort us, Cosmo, my friend! We are but women alone, and we have no one who will be so tender to us as you! It was but Monday when he came, and already she is dying!