She spoke in a hurt tone, and yet with a painful consciousness that what she said was not far off the truth, more especially as the earl did not absolutely deny the accusation.
"I think, my dear Helen, that it would be better if he were separated from us all for a time. We are such quiet, old-fashioned folks at Cairnforth, he may come to weary of us, you know. But my strongest motive is exactly what I stated—that he should be left to himself, to feel his own strength and the strength of those principles which we have tried to give him—that any special character he possesses may have free space to develop itself. Up to a certain point we can take care of our children; beyond, we can not—nay, we ought not; they must take care of themselves. I believe—do not be angry, Helen— but I believe there comes a time in every boy's life when the wisest thing even his mother can do for him is—to leave him alone."
"And not watch over him—not to guide him?"
"Yes, but not so as to vex him by the watching and the guiding.
However, we will talk of this another day. Here the lad comes."
And the earl's eyes brightened almost as much as Helen's did when Cardross leaped in at the window, all his good-humor restored, kissed his mother in his rough, fond way, of which he was not in the least ashamed as yet, and sat down by the wheeled chair with that tender respectfulness and involuntary softening of manner and tone which he never failed to show Lord Cairnforth, and had never shown so much to any other human being.
Ay, the earl had his compensations. We all have, if we know it.
Gradually, in many a long, quiet talk, during which she listened to his reasonings as probably she would have listened to no other man's, he contrived to reconcile Mrs. Bruce to the idea of parting with her boy —their first separation, even for a day, since Cardross was born. It was neither for very long nor very far, since civilization had now brought Edinburg within a few hours' journey of Cairnforth; but it was very sore, nevertheless, to both mother and son.
Helen took her boy and confided him to Mrs. Menteith herself; but she could not be absent for more than one day, for just about this time her father's "green old age" began to fail a little, and he grew extremely dependent upon her, which, perhaps, was the best thing that could have happened to her at this crisis. She had to assume that tenderest, happiest duty of being "nursing mother" to the second childhood of one who throughout her own childhood, youth, and middle age had been to her every thing that was honored and deserving honor—loving, and worthy of love—in a parent.
Not that Mr. Cardross had sank into any helpless state of mind or body; the dread of paralysis had proved a false alarm; and Helen's coming home, to remain there forever, together with the thoroughly peaceful life which he had since lived for so many years, had kept up the old man's vitality to a surprising extent. His life was now only fading away by slow and insensible degrees, like the light out of the sunset clouds, or the colors from the mountains—silent warnings of the night coming "in which no man can work."
The minister had worked all his days—his Master's work; none the less worthy that it was done in no public manner, and had met with no public reward. Beyond his own Presbytery the name of the Reverend Alexander Cardross was scarcely known. He was not a popular preacher; he had never published a book, nor even a sermon, and he had taken no part in the theological controversies of the time. He was content to let other men fight about Christianity; he only lived it, spending himself for naught, some might think, in his own country parish and among his poor country people, the pastor and father of them all.