“And we’ll find a better place,” said Huntley; “don’t be afraid, mother—but for that and all the rest that we have to do and to bear, you must try to rest yourself.”
“Aye, laddie,” said the Mistress, hurriedly wiping her eyes, “but I canna get my thoughts out of that ship that’s on the sea this nicht! and maybe mony a lone woman sitting still with nae sons to come in to her—and whiles I canna but mind what’s coming to mysel’.”
“I am only twenty, mother, and Patie but eighteen,” said Huntley; “would you like us to remain as we are, knowing nothing of life, as you say? or are you afraid to trust your sons in the battle, like other men?”
“Na! no’ me!” cried the Mistress; “you’re baith right, and I approve in my mind—but only just this, bairns;—I’m your mother—and yon ship is sailing in the dark before my very e’en, as plain as if I saw her now!”
And whether it was thinking of that ship, or of the sons of other mothers who were errant in her, or of her own boy, so soon to join their journey, the Mistress heard the last sound that disturbed the house that night, and the earliest in the morning. Her eyes were dry and sore when she got up to see the daylight aspect of the unknown and unlovely world around her; and the lads were still fast asleep in their privilege of youth, while their mother stood once more wistfully looking out upon the high black wall of the dock, and the masts appearing over it. She could not see the river, or any thing more gracious than this seaman-tempting street. There was nothing either within or without to divert her from her own thoughts; and as she watched the early sunshine brighten upon a scene so different from that of her own hills and streams, these thoughts were forlorn enough.
During the day, the little party went out to make some last purchases for Huntley. The young man was to carry with him, in the securest form which they could think of, a little fortune of a hundred pounds, on which he was to make his start in the world, nothing doubting to find in it a nucleus of wealth; and the Mistress, spite of the natural economy of her ideas, and her long habit of frugality, was extravagant and lavish in her anxiety to get every thing for Huntley that he could or might require. When they came into the region of shops, she began to drop behind, anxiously studying the windows, tempted by many a possible convenience, which, if she had acted on her first impulse and purchased each incontinently, would have made Huntley’s outfit an unbelievable accumulation of peddlery.
As it was, his mother’s care and inexperience freighted the young man with a considerable burden of elaborate conveniences—cumbrous machines of various forms, warranted invaluable for the voyage or for the bush, which Huntley lugged about with many a year after, and tried to use for his mother’s sake. When they got back to their inn, the Mistress had suffered herself to be convinced that the noisy street outside the docks was not Liverpool, much less England. But the “English tongue,” which “rang through her head like a knife,” to vary the image—the mean brick houses at which the triumphant Scotchwoman pointed her finger with unspeakable contempt, the narrow streets, and noise and dust of the great commercial town, filled her patriotic spirit with a disdainful complacency.
“Weel, laddies,” said Mrs. Livingstone, when they reached the inn, very tired, that night; and the Mistress spoke with the natural satisfaction of a traveled person; “I have aye heard a great wark made about England—but I’m very sure, now that we’ve been in it, and seen for ourselves, none of us desires to gang any further. Bits of brick houses that you can mostly see through!—streets that neighbors could shake hands across!—and for my part, ilka time I hear them speak, I think they’re flyting. Eh, bairns, such sharp tongues! I wouldna gie Melrose though it’s wee-er and hasna sae mony shops, for twenty of this place—and as for Edinburgh—!”
But the contrast was unspeakable, and took away the Mistress’s breath.