“Willie had served out his prenticeship, and was sailing second-mate in a timber ship to the Baltic; but that time he had ta’en a langer voyage, to India and thereaway, and didna came hame till the year was out. The very next day after Willie came, Mr. Norman arrived on a visit at Merkland, and the first body he came to see, after his father, was just my very sel—and what do ye think he had been devising in the kindness of his heart for my Willie? There was a schooner lying at Leith on sale, and Mr. Norman had made an offer for’t, for Willie’s sake, and no ither, to make him captain; and when they had rested themsells a week at hame, Mr. Norman took Willie away to Leith wi’ him to see the ship. Weel, Miss Anne, every thing was bright for baith o’ them when they gaed away; but when they got to Leith, and had near settled about the boat, my puir Willie, being maybe ower proud and uplifted about the honor, and the grand prospect, was careless o’ himself: and the first word that came to me was, no that he was captain of Mr. Norman’s ship, but that he was pressed, and ta’en away to some of the muckle English sea-towns on the east coast, to be a common man afore the mast in a man-o-war.”
Esther paused to wipe her eyes with her apron.
“Eh, Miss Anne, thae sore and humbling providences! just when ane thought every thing was prosperous and full of promise to be cast down into the very depths—my heart was sick within me. I had no more spirit for onything, but just gaed about the house like a ghaist, and caredna to spin, as the lass says in the sang. Mr. Norman did his endeavor to free my puir laddie, but it couldna be—and ye may think what a clould fell upon me, dwelling here alane, and my son far away in the dangers o’ the war, where, if he were spared, I couldna see him for years.
“Mr. Norman came seldom back to Merkland after that. He liked Mrs. Ross but little at all times, and I think he reproached himsel for no being carefu’ enough of Willie, though I never blamed him—no for a moment; but onyway he was altogether pairted from his ain auld hame—no that he forgot us; there was aye the tither bit present coming to me, at New-year’s times, and his birth-days and the like; and many fine claes and toys, and things, to yoursel, Miss Anne, that ye didna get the half o’—
“So three years ran out, and ane day when I happened to be up at Merkland, on some errand concerning yoursel, ye came, to me, Miss Anne, wi’ a paper in your hand, to let me hear ye read (ye were six years auld then.) So I got the paper—ye had slipped it out o’ the lockit book-case in the library, the time your papa was writing a letter, and didna see ye. I mind the very words ye said—because I likit to see the papers—and so I did, to see what word there was about the war, and if there was ony tidings of Willie’s ship. Sae I got it, and began to read it, the time Mr. Lewis and you were playing at my fit.
“Eh! Miss Anne: I mind the bits of words that came in upon me now and then, when I was looking at that awful paper, as if I had heard them in a fever. There was the haill story of the murder in’t; of how Mr. Norman and Mr. Aytoun had had a bitter quarrel the night before, and parted in anger—and how, the next morning. Mr. Aytoun was found lying dead in a lone place by a waterside—and how a man, gaun to his work, had met Mr. Norman coming, like from the same place, just about the time the deed bid to hae been dune—and there was mair than that still—a gun was found in the wood, and the gun was Mr. Norman’s, and when the officers gaed to take him up, he had fled, no man kent whither. My e’en were reeling in my head, but I could read it for a’ that—I didna lose a word; and in anither place there was mair news—the murderer, as they daured to ca’ him, had been traced into a Holland boat, and there was certain word of it, that it was wrecked, and all on board lost, so he had come, they said, to speedy punishment. I ken not now, how I had strength to do it; but I rose up the moment I was done, and went down into the library mysel’—what cared I at that time, if I had met a’ the leddies in the land?—to put it back secretly into the book-case again. Your father was sitting in the library, Miss Anne, a changed man; the white on his face was the white of death, and he was trembling like as with the cauld, and had the darkest woe in his e’e, that I ever looked upon. I put down the paper on the table, and he started, and looked up at me. There was never a word said between us; but we were equal in our terrible sorrow. He kent that, and so did I.
“I know not how I gaed hame that day; it was a bonnie day in June, but I thought that the sky, and the earth, and the trees, were a’ black alike, and the running of the Oran was hoarse and loud, like the wild sea that was flowing over my dear, dear bairn. It was before my eyes night and day, sleeping and waking. I kent he couldna have done it out of evil counsel or malice, but he might have done it in passion. The sinking ship, and the storm, and the black sky, and my pleasant laddie in the midst, wi’ bluid on his hand, and despair in his soul; oh, Miss Anne!
“A month past in that way. I dauredna face Merkland, and he never came near me, and I thought not there was any hope for Mr. Norman; I never doubted he was dead. In the beginning of July, I got a letter from Willie, telling me his ship was lying in Leith Roads, and I was to come and see him. So I put up a bit bundle, and took some lying siller, and set out upon the road. I wanted to buy some bits of things the puir laddie needed, and so I couldna afford to tak the coach, but walked every step, and a weary road it was. So Willie met me in my cousin’s house in the Citadel, and whenever our first meeting was ower, he came after me to the room I was to sleep in, and shut the door, and I saw there was trouble in his face. So I did not doubt he had heard. ‘Mother,’ he said to me, ‘I have news to tell you.’
“ ‘Oh, Willie!’ said I. ‘I ken, I ken; it has near broken my heart.’
“So Willie went to the door again, and saw it was safe shut, and said he, ‘Mother, what do ye ken?’