“I wish you’d make up your mind and do something,” he said.
“I have: the first thing is to see who that woman is——”
“A woman! when you’ve got to run for your life.”
“Do you think I mean any nonsense, you fool? She’s not a woman, she’s a danger. Man alive, can’t you see? She’ll have to be squared somehow. And look here, Bob,” he said suddenly, putting his arm through that of his friend’s, who retained his reluctant attitude—“don’t sulk, you ass: ain’t we in the same boat—get all you can out of the old girl. We’ll have to make tracks, I suppose—and a lot of money runs away in that. Get everything you can out of her. She may cool down and repent, don’t you see? Strike, Bob, while the iron’s hot. The old girl——”
“Look here, I’ll not have her called names; neither mother, as if you had any right to her—nor—nor any other. We’ve had enough of that. I’ll not take any more of it from you, Lew!”
“Oh, that’s how it is!” said the other coolly, with a sneer. “Then I beg to suggest to you, my friend Bob, that the respectable lady we’re talking of may repent; and that if you’re not a fool, and won’t take more energetic measures, you’ll strike, don’t you see, while the iron is hot.”
Rob gave his friend a look of sullen wrath, and then disengaged his arm and turned away.
“You’ll find me in Andrew’s bower, among the flower-pots,” Lew called after him, and whistling a tune, went off behind the house to the garden, where in the shade Andrew kept his tools and all the accessories of his calling. He had no good of his ain tool-house, since thae two were about, Andrew complained every day.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Hewan was very quiet and silent that afternoon. Mrs Ogilvy perhaps would not have recognised the crisis of exhaustion at which she had arrived, had it not been for the remarks of the stranger within her doors, the unwelcome guest whom she was so anxious to send away, and who yet had an eye for the changes of her countenance which her son had not. He took more interest in her fatigue than Robbie, who did not remark it even now, and to whom it had not at all occurred that his mother should want care or tenderness. She had always given it, in his experience; it did not come into his mind. But, tutored by Lew, Mrs Ogilvy felt that she could do no more. She went to her room, and even, for a wonder, lay down on her bed, half apologising to herself that it was just for once, and only for half an hour. But the house was very quiet. There was no noise below to keep her watchful. If there were any voices at all, they came in a subdued murmur from the garden behind, where perhaps Robbie was showing to his friend the breakneck path down the brae to the Esk, which nobody had remembered during the many years of his absence. It had been his little mystery which he had delighted in as a boy. There was no gate opening on it, nor visible mode of getting at it. The little gap in the hedge through which as a boy he had squeezed himself so often was all concealed by subsequent growth, but Robert’s eyes could still distinguish it. Mrs Ogilvy said to herself, “He will be showing him that awful road—and how to push himself through.” She felt herself repeat vaguely “to push himself through, to push himself through,” and then she ceased to go on with her thoughts. She had fallen asleep; so many times she had not got her rest at night—and she was very tired. She fell asleep. She would never have permitted herself to do so but for these words of Lew. He was not at all bad. They said he had taken away a man’s life—God forgive him!—but he saw when a woman was tired—an old woman—that was not his mother: may be—if he had ever had a mother—— And here even these broken half-words, that floated through her brain, failed. She fell asleep—more soundly than she had slept perhaps for years.