“He was a canny, canny Scot, although brought up in America. Only for the times when his mother would take him back to Aberdeen with my Katherine for long visits, he never saw Scotland, but what’s in the blood holds fast through life. He was a canny Scot. It takes a time for letters to go and come, and in those days longer than now, when in two weeks one may reach the other side. The reply came as speedily as those days would admit, and it was carefully considered. Ah, Peter was a clever man to bring about his own way. Never a word did he say about forgiveness. It was as if no breach had ever been, but one thing I noticed that she thought must be only an omission, because of the more important things that crowded it out. It was that never once did he mention me any more than if I had never existed. He said he would send her a certain sum of money––and it was a generous one, that is but just to admit––if when she received it she would take another sum, which he would also send, and return to them. He said his home was hers forever if she wished, and that he loved her, and had never had other feeling for her than love. Upon this letter came a long time of pleading with me––and I was ever soft––with her. She won her way.
“‘We will both go, Larry, dear,’ she said. ‘I know he forgot to say you might come, too. If he loves me as he says, he would not break my heart by leaving you out.’
“‘He sends only enough for one––for you,’ I said.
“‘Yes, but he thinks you have enough to come by yourself. He thinks you would not accept it––and would not insult you by sending more.’
“‘He insults me by sending enough for you, dear. If I 231 have it for me, I have it for you––most of all for you, or I’m no true man. If I have none for you––then we have none.’
“‘Larry, for love of me, let me go––for the gulf between my twin brother and me will never be passed until I go to him.’ And this was true enough. ‘I will make them love you. Hester loves you now. She will help me.’ Hester was the sweet wife of her brother. So she clung to me, and her hands touched me and caressed me––lad, I feel them now. I put her on the boat, and the money he sent relieved the suffering around me, and I gave thanks with a sore heart. It was for them, our own peasantry, and for her, I parted with her then, but as soon as I could I sold my little holding near my grandfather’s house to an Englishman who had long wanted it, and when it was parted with, I took the money and delayed not a day to follow her.
“I wrote to her, telling her when and where to meet me in the little town of Leauvite, and it was on the bluff over the river. I went to a home I knew there––where they thought well of me––I think. In the evening I walked up the long path, and there under the oak trees at the top where we had been used to sit, I waited. She came to me, walking in the golden light. It was spring. The whip-poor-wills called and replied to each other from the woods. A mourning dove spoke to its mate among the thick trees, low and sad, but it is only their way. I was glad, and so were they.
“I held her in my arms, and the river sang to us. She told me all over again the love in her heart for me, as she used to tell it. Lad! There is only one theme in the world that is worth telling. There is only one song in the 232 universe that is worth singing, and when your heart has once sung it aright, you will never sing another. The air was soft and sweet around us, and we stayed until a town clock struck twelve; then I took her back, and, as she was not strong, part of the way I carried her in my arms. I left her at her brother’s door, and she went into the shadows there, and I was left outside,––all but my heart. She had been home so short a time––her brother was not yet reconciled, but she said she knew he would be. For me, I vowed I would make money enough to give her a home that would shame him for the poverty of his own––his, which he thought the finest in the town.”
For a long time there was silence, and Larry Kildene sat with his head drooped on his breast. At last he took up the thread where he had left it. “Two days later I stood in the heavy parlor of that house,––I stood there with their old portraits looking down on me, and my heart was filled with ice––ice and fire. I took what they placed in my arms, and it was––my––little son, but it might have been a stone. It weighed like lead in my arms, that ached with its weight. Might I see her? No. Was she gone? Yes. I laid the weight on the pillow held out to me for it, and turned away. Then Hester came and laid her hand on my arm, but my flesh was numb. I could not feel her touch.
“‘Give him to me, Larry,’ she was saying. ‘I will love him like my own, and he will be a brother to my little son.’ And I gave him into her arms, although I knew even then that he would be brought up to know nothing of his father, as if I had never lived. I gave him into her arms because he had no mother and his father’s heart had gone out of him. I gave him into her arms, because I felt it was all I 233 could do to let his mother have the comfort of knowing that he was not adrift with me––if they do know where she is. For her sake most of all and for the lad’s sake I left him there.