But Mrs Lithgow did not dare to go any further. The slight elevation of Mrs Laurie’s head, the sudden erectness of that stooping figure by the fireside, warned the good woman in time; so, after a hurried breathless pause, she resumed:—
“I would be real glad—it would be naething but a pleasure; and I’ll ne’er forget how guid you were to me when I was in trouble about Johnnie, and aye gied me hope. Puir laddie! next month he’s coming down to be married—and I’m sure I hope he’ll be weel off in a guid wife, for he canna but be a guid man, considering what a son he’s been to me.”
“He will be very well off,” said Mrs Laurie; “and poor little July goes away next month, does she? Has Jenny come in yet, Menie? We have scarcely had time to settle in our new house, Mrs Lithgow; but I will remember your kind offer, and thank you. How dark the night grows—and it looks like snow.”
“I’ll have to be gaun my ways,” said the visitor, rising; “it’s a lanesome road, and I’m no heeding about leaving my house, and a’ the grand new things Johnnie’s sent me, their lane in the dark. I’ll bid you good night, ladies, kindly, and I’m real blithe to see you in the countryside again.”
She was gone, and the room fell into a sudden hush of silence, broken by nothing but the faint rustling of a moved hand, or the fall, now and then, of ashes on the hearth. The bustle and excitement of the “flitting” were over—the first pleasure of being home in their own country was past. Grey and calm their changed fate came down upon them, with no ideal softening of its everyday realities. This sliding panel here opens upon their bed; this little table serves all purposes of living; these four dim walls, and heavy raftered roof, shut in their existence. Now, through the clear frosty air without, a merry din breaks into the stillness. It is little Davie from the cot-house over the way, who has just escaped from the hands which were preparing him for rest, and dares brothers and sisters in a most willing race after him, their heavy shoes ringing upon the beaten way. Now, you hear them coming back again, leading the truant home, and by-and-by all the urchins are asleep, and the mother closes the ever-open door. So good night to life and human fellowship. Now—none within sight or hearing of us, save Jenny humming a broken song, on the other side of the wooden partition, which, sooth to say, is Jenny’s bed—we are left alone.
Menie, bending, in her despondent attitude, over the fire, which throws down, now and then, these ashy flakes upon the hearth—our mother, pausing from her work, to bend her weary brow upon her hand. So very still, so chill and forsaken. Not one heart in all the world, except the three which beat under this thatched roof, to give anything but a passing thought to us or our fate; and nothing to look to but this even path, winding away over the desolate lands of poverty into the skies.
Into the skies!—woe for us, and our dreary human ways, if it were not for that blessed continual horizon line; so we do what we have not been used to do before—we read a sad devout chapter together, and have a faltering prayer; and then for silence and darkness and rest.
Say nothing to your child, good mother, of the bitter thoughts that crowd upon you, as you close your eyes upon the wavering fire-light, and listen, in this stillness, to all the stealthy steps and touches of the wakeful night. Say nothing to your mother, Menie, of the tears which steal down between your cheek and your pillow, as you turn your face to the wall. What might have been—what might have been; is it not possible to keep from thinking of that? for even Jenny mutters to herself, as she lies wakefully contemplating the glow of her gathered fire—mutters to herself, with an indignant fuff, and hard-drawn breath, “I wish her muckle pleasure of her will: she’s gotten her will: and I wouldna say but she minds him now—a bonnie lad like yon!”