"I cannot leave you here in such a state," said he again. "Come home, my good woman, and I shall accompany you."
"I have no home," was her sad reply. "Alas! I have no home but the grave. I am a poor, silly, undone woman, in my old age. Comfortable, and even rich as I was, I am now destitute. I have neither house nor hall to cover my grey hairs. Oh, if I were only dead and buried out of this sinful world, to hide the shame of my own child. An hour is scarce passed since I thought my heart would burst in my bosom before I would be enabled to reach the Greyfriars' church-yard, to lay my head upon Willie Horner's grave, and the graves of my innocent babes that sleep in peace by his side. I feared my strength would fail; for all I wish is to die there. I did reach the object of my wish, and laid myself upon the cold turf, and prayed for death to join as he had separated us; but my heart refused to break, and tears that were denied me before, began to stream from my eyes. The fear of unearthly sights came strong upon me, stronger even than my grief. Strange moanings and sounds came on the faint night wind, from Bloody Mackenzie's tomb, and the bright moonlight made the tombstones look like unearthly things. I rose and fled. I will tarry here, and die in sight of the gallows stone; for it was here my only brother fell, killed by a shot from cruel Porteous' gun; and on the fatal tree which that stone is meant to support, my grandfather cheerfully gave his testimony for the covenanted rights of a persecuted kirk. Leave me, Thomas Kerr—leave me to my destiny. I can die here with pleasure; and it is time I were dead. To whom can a mother look for comfort or pity, when her own son has turned her out upon a cold world? I am as Rachel mourning for her children. I will not be comforted." And the mourner wrapped her mantle round her head with the energy of despair, and, bending it upon the well, burst anew into an agony of sobs and tears.
The treasurer felt himself in an awkward situation. He paused, and began to revolve in his mind what was best to be done at the moment—whether to obey the widow or the dictates of humanity. His better feeling prompted him to stay and do all in his power for the mourner, whom he had known in happier times; but his caution and avarice, backed by the dread of his spouse, urged him, with a force he felt every moment less able to resist, to leave her and hurry home. As he stood irresolute, the voice of the stern monitor sounded in the auricles of his heart like the knell of doom, and roused into fearful energy feelings he had long treated lightly, or striven to suppress when they rose upon him with greater force. He ran like a guilty criminal from the spot. The wailings of the crushed and pitiable object he had left, had given them a force he had never before known, and he urged his way down the Cowgate head as if he wished to fly from himself—the traces of the evening's enjoyments having fled, and their place being supplied by the pangs of an awakened conscience. There was, indeed, too much cause for his agitation, often hinted at by his acquaintances, but in its full extent only known in his own family—a striking similarity between the situation of his own mother and that of Widow Horner. The cases of the two aged individuals agreed in all points, save that he had not yet turned her out of doors; and conscience told him that even that result had been prevented, more by the patient endurance of his worthy parent herself, than any kindly feeling on the part of her son.
The father of the treasurer, and the husband of Widow Horner, had both been industrious, and, for their rank in life, wealthy burgesses of the city. At their death, they had left their widows with an only child to succeed them and be a comfort to their mothers, who had struggled hard to retain and add to the wealth, until their sons were of age to succeed and manage it for themselves. Their sole and rich reward, as they anticipated, would be the pleasure of witnessing the prosperity of their sons. That they would be ungrateful, was an idea so repugnant to their maternal feelings, that, for a moment, it was never harboured in their bosoms. A cruel reality was fated to falsify their anticipations.
The treasurer had, before he was twenty-five years of age, married a female, whom his fond mother had thought unworthy of her son; and to prevent the marriage she had certainly done all that lay in her power. Her endeavours and remonstrances had only served to hasten the event she wished so much to retard and hinder from taking place; the consequence was, that the hated alliance was made several weeks before she was made aware of it, by the kindness of a gossiping neighbour or two. Much as she felt, and sore as her heart was wrung, she, like a prudent woman, shed her tears of bitter anguish at the want of filial regard in her son, in secret. She at once resolved to pardon this act of ingratitude, and, for her son's sake, to receive her unwelcome daughter-in-law with all the kindness she could assume on the trying occasion. Not so her daughter-in-law, who was of an overbearing, subtile, and vindictive turn of mind. The mother of her husband had wounded her pride; she resolved never to forget or forgive; and, before she had crossed her threshold, a deep revenge was vowed against her, as soon as it was in her power to execute it. The first meeting was embarrassing on both sides; each had feelings to contend against and disguise; yet it passed off well to outward appearance—the widow from love to her son, striving to love his wife—the latter, again, with feigned smiles and meekness, affecting to gain her mother-in-law's esteem; and so well did she act her part, that, before many days after their first interview had passed, Thomas was requested to bring his wife into the house, to reside in the family, and to save the expense of a separate establishment. From that hour the house of Widow Kerr began to cease to be her own, for the first few months almost imperceptibly. Thomas, although a spoiled child, was not naturally of an unfeeling disposition, but selfish and capricious from over-indulgence. Amidst all his faults, there was still a love and esteem of his mother, which his wife, seeing it would be dangerous openly to attack it, had resolved to undermine, and therefore laid her wicked schemes accordingly. In the presence of her husband, she was, for a time, all smiles and affability; but, in his absence, she said and did a thousand little nameless things, to tease and irritate the good old dame. This produced complaints to her son, who, when he spoke to his wife of them, was only answered by her tears and lamentations, for the misery she suffered in being the object of his mother's dislike. To himself she referred, if she did not do all in her power to please his mother. These scenes had become of almost daily occurrence, and were so artfully managed, that the mother had the appearance of being in the fault. Gradually, the son's affection became deadened towards his parent; she had ceased to complain, and now suffered in silence. For her there was no redress—for, in a fit of fondness, she had made over to her son all she possessed in the world. She was thus in his power; yet her heart revolted at exposing his cruelty. The revenge of the wife was not complete, even after the spirit of the victim was completely crushed, and she had ceased to complain. Often the malignant woman would affect lowness of spirits, and even tears, refusing to tell the cause of her grief until urged by endearments, and obtaining an assurance that he would not regard her folly in yielding to her feelings; but she could not help it—were it not for her love to him, she knew not in what she had ever offended his mother, save in preferring him to every other lover who had sought her hand. Thus, partly by artifice, but more by her imperious turn of mind, which she had for years ceased to conceal, the treasurer was completely subdued to her dictation; and, by a just retribution, he was punished for his want of filial affection, for he was as much the sufferer from her temper as his mother was the victim of her malice. With a crushed heart, the old woman ate her morsel in the kitchen, moistened by her tears. Even her grandchildren were taught to insult and wound her feelings. So short-sighted is human nature, the parents did not perceive that by this proceeding they were laying rods in pickle for themselves, which, in due time, would be brought in use, when the recollection of their own conduct would give tenfold poignancy to every blow.
On the occasion to which we have alluded, the situation and wailings of Widow Horner still rung in the ears of the treasurer. All his acts of unkindness to his parent passed before him like a hideous phantasmagoria as he hurried down the Cowgate. He even became afraid of himself, as scene after scene arose to his awakened conscience—all the misery and indignities that had been heaped upon his parent by his termagant wife, he himself either looking on with indifference, or supporting his spouse in her cruelty. Goaded by remorse, he still hurried on. The celerity of his movements seemed to relieve him. He had formed no fixed resolution as to how he was to act upon his arrival at home. A dreamy idea floated in his tortured mind that he had some fearful act to perform to ease it, and do justice to his parent; yet, as often as he came to the resolution to dare every consequence, his courage would again quail at the thought of encountering one who had, in all contentions, ever been the victor, and riveted her chains the more closely around him on every attempt he had made to break them. In this pitiable state, he had got as far towards home as the foot of the College Wynd, when the sound of a carriage approaching rapidly from the east roused him and put all other thoughts to flight. With a start of horror and alarm, he groaned—"The Lord have mercy upon me! The Major's coach! If I see it, my days are numbered." And, with an effort resembling the energy of despair, he rushed into a stair foot, and, placing both his hands upon his face to shut out from his sight the fearful object, supported himself by leaning upon the wall. As the sound increased, so did the treasurer's fears; but what words can express his agony when it drew up at the foot of the very stair in which he stood, and a sepulchral voice issued from it—
"Is he here?"
"Just come," was the reply in a similar tone.
"Then all's right."
"O God! have mercy on my sinful soul!" screamed the treasurer, as he sank senseless out of the foot of the stair upon the street.