“The night will soon be fallin' now,” said she, at last. “I hope she's not at sea!”
In spite of herself, Kate Henderson caught the contagion of the old woman's terrors, and felt a dreamy, undefined dread of coming evil. As she looked out, however, at the calm and fair landscape, which, as day declined, grew each moment more still, she rallied from the gloomy thoughts, and said,—“I wish I knew how to be of any service to you, Mrs. Broon. If you could think of anything I could do—anywhere I could go—” She stopped suddenly at a gesture from the old woman, who, lifting her hand to impress silence, stood a perfect picture of eager anxiety to hear. Bending down her head, old Catty stood for several seconds motionless.
“Don't ye hear it now?” broke she in. “Listen! I thought I heerd something like a wailin' sound far off, but it is the wind. See how the tree-tops are bendin'!—That's three times I heerd it now,” said Catty. “If ye live to be as old as me, you 'll not think light of a warnin'. You think your hearin' better because you're younger; but I tell you that there 's sounds that only reach ears that are goin' to where the voices came from. When eyes grow dim to sights of this world, they are strainin' to catch a glimpse of them that's beyond it.” Although no tears rose to her eyes, the withered face trembled in her agony, and her clasped hands shook in the suffering of her sorrow.
Against impressions of this sort, Kate knew well enough how little reasoning availed, and she forbore to press arguments which she was aware would be unsuccessful. She tried, however, to turn the current of the old woman's thoughts, by leading her to speak of the condition of the country and the state of the people. Catty gave short, abrupt, and unwilling answers to all she asked, and Kate at length arose to take her leave.
“You're goin' away, are ye?” said Catty, half angrily.
“I have only just remembered that I have a long way to walk, and it is already growing late.”
“Ay, and ye 're impatient to be back again, at home, beside your own fire, with your own people. But she has no home, and her own has deserted her!”
“Mine has not many charms for me!” muttered Kate to herself.
“It's happy for you that has father and mother,” went on the old woman. “Them 's the only ones, after all!—the only ones that never loves the less, the less we desarve it! I don't wonder ye came back again!” And in a sort of envious bitterness Catty wished her a good-night.
If the distance she had to walk was not shortened by the tenor of her thoughts, as little did she feel impatient to press onward. Dreary and sad enough were her reveries. Of the wild visionary ambitions which once had stirred her heart, there remained nothing but disappointments. She had but passed the threshold of life to find all dreary and desolate; but perhaps the most painful feeling of the moment was the fact that now pressed conviction on her, and told that in the humble career of such a one as Mary Martin there lay a nobler heroism and a higher devotion than in the most soaring path of political ambition, and that all the theorizing as to popular rights made but a sorry figure beside the actual benefits conferred by one true-hearted lover of her kind. “She is right, and I am wrong!” muttered she to herself. “In declining to entertain questions of statecraft she showed herself above, and not beneath, the proud position she had taken. The very lowliness of this task is its glory. Oh, if I could but win her confidence and be associated in such a labor! and yet my very birth denies me the prestige that hers confers.” And then she thought of home, and all the coldness of that cheerless greeting smote upon her heart.