“Poor laddie! Do they sell sheep and lands out there to them that have no siller?” said the Mistress. “If you canna stock a farm at hame, where you’re kent and your name respected, Huntley Livingstone, how will you do it there?”
“That’s just what I have to find out,” said Huntley, with spirit; “a man may be clear he’s to do a thing, without seeing how at the moment. With your consent, I’m going to Australia, mother; if there’s any thing over, when all our affairs are settled, I’ll get my share—and as for the sheep and the land, they’re in Providence; but I doubt them as little as if they were on the lea before my eyes. I’m no’ a man out of a town that knows nothing about it. I’m country bred and have been among beasts all my days. Do you think I’m feared! Though I’ve little to start with, mother, you’ll see me back rich enough to do credit to the name of Norlaw!”
His mother shook her head.
“It’s easy to make a fortune on a summer night at hame, before a lad’s twenty, or kens the world,” she said. “I’ve seen mony a stronger man than you, Huntley, come hame baith penniless and hopeless—and the like of such grand plans, they’re but trouble and sadness to me.”
Perhaps Huntley was discouraged by the words; at all events he made no reply—and the mind of his mother gradually expanded. She looked up from her knitting suddenly, with a rapid tender glance.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” said the Mistress; “there’s some will win and some will fail in spite of the haill world. The Lord take the care of my bairns! Who am I, that I should be able to guide you, three lads, coming to be men? Huntley, you’re the auldest, and you’re strong. I canna say stay at hame—I dinna see what to bid you do. You must take your ain will, and I’ll no’ oppose.”
If Huntley thanked his mother at all it was in very few words, for the politenesses were not cultivated among them, the feelings of this Scottish family lying somewhat deep, and expressing themselves otherwise than in common words; but the Mistress brushed her hand over her eyes hurriedly, with something like a restrained sob, intermitting for a single instant, and no longer, the rapid glitter of her “wires"—but you would scarcely have supposed that the heart of the mother was moved thus far, to hear the tone of her next words. She turned to her second son without looking at him.
“And where are you for, Patie Livingstone?” said the Mistress, with almost a sarcastic sharpness. “It should be India, or the North Pole to pleasure you.”
Patie was not emboldened by this address; it seemed, indeed, rather to discomfit the lad; not as a reproach, but as showing a greater expectation of his purposes than they warranted.
“You know what I aimed at long ago, mother,” he said, with hesitation. “It may be that we can ill afford a ’prentice time now—but I’m no’ above working while I learn. I can scramble up as well as Huntley. I’ll go either to Glasgow or to Liverpool, to one of the founderies there.”