“Donald told me he had left it for an ‘emergency,’ and I am keeping it till that time arrives.”
“That time is now here, dear Robert. As soon as my trouble is past, let us go far away from Scotland, and begin a new life. You are not twenty-nine years old, and I am only twenty-two. Shall we give up our lives to a ceaseless, contemptible struggle, that brings us neither money nor respect? Somewhere in the world, there is peace and good fortune for us. We will go and find it.”
“Are you really willing to leave Scotland, Milly?”
“I will go to the end of the earth with you, Robert.”
Then he leaped to his feet, and his face was shining, and he kissed me tenderly, “Where shall we go?” he asked. “Canada? India? Australia?”
“What do you say to the United States?” I answered. “Tomorrow 122 I will send to the library for books on all these countries. We will read and consider, and try to be ready to leave Scotland, about the middle of August.”
“At the middle of August? Why that date?”
“Because, about any new movement, it is good to have some one point decided. That is a foundation. We are going to seek good fortune about the middle of August. Let us regard that date as positive, Robert. It is our first step.”
He was by this time in an enthusiasm of fresh hope, and we sat talking till nearly three in the morning, and, if any acquaintance met him that day, they must have thought “Robert Barr has had some good luck. He was like his old self today.” Indeed the prospect of this new life brought back again the old cheerful Robert. Every day he came home with some fresh idea on the subject, or told me of something done to forward our plans. Among other incidental arrangements, he insisted on keeping our intention from the knowledge of his family. He feared his mother’s influence and interference. John Blackie had been urging his release from any further care of the Barr estate, and Robert’s name would be necessary to many papers in connection with this change, and unavoidable delays result. It also gave an air of romance to the flitting, which took it out of the rôle of ordinary emigration. And I will be truthful, and confess, that it pleased me to think of his mother’s and sister’s futile dismay, when they discovered we had escaped forever the shadows and petty humiliations of a conventional Scotch life.
On the twenty-second of May, 1853, my daughter Eliza was born, a bright, beautiful girl, who certainly brought her soul with her—a girl who all her life has been the good genius of extremities—never quailing before any calamity, but always sure there was a road over the mountains of difficulty, which we could find, as soon as we reached them. And, I may add, she always found the road.