But she was not there, and a thrill of terror ran through his frame when he at last discovered her, face downward, on the floor, her widow's coif flung far away, and her long locks, streaked—by the hand of grief, not time—abundantly with gray, streaming round her in a disorder which struck Hamish all the more forcibly, that it was in such direct contrast to the natural habits of order and propriety she had brought with her from her English home. There she lay, not weeping—such misery as hers knows nothing of the relief of tears—not weeping, but crushed and powerless, as if her very body had proved unequal to the weight of sorrow put upon it, and had fallen beneath the burthen. She seemed, indeed, not in a swoon, but stunned and stupefied, and quite unconscious that she was not alone. Hamish trembled for her intellect; but young as he was, he was used to sorrow, and understood both the danger and the remedy.
His lady must be roused at any cost, even at that the very thought of which made him tremble, the recalling her to a full knowledge of her misery. He advanced farther into the room, moving softly, in his great reverence for her desolation, as we move, almost unconsciously to ourselves, in the presence of the dead, and occupied himself for a few minutes in arranging the loose papers on her desk, and the flowers which Nellie had placed upon the prie dieu only a day or two before. They were faded now—faded as the poor child's fortunes—but instead of throwing them away, he poured fresh water into the vase which held them, as if that could have restored their beauty. Yet he sighed heavily as he did so for the thought would flash across his mind that, whether he sought to give, back life to a withered flower, or joy to the heart of a bereaved mother, in either case his task was hopeless. Mrs. Netterville took no notice of his proceedings, though, as he began to get used to the situation, he purposely made rather more bustle than was needed, in hopes of arousing her. At last, in despair of succeeding by milder methods, he let fall a heavy inkstand, smashing it into a thousand pieces, and scattering the ink in all directions, an event that in happier times would certainly not have passed unreproved. But now she lay within a few inches of the inky stream, as heedless as though she were dead in earnest; and, hopeless of recalling her to consciousness by anything short of a personal appeal, he knelt down beside her and tapped her sharply on the shoulder, half wondering at his own temerity as he did so. She shuddered as if, light as the touch had been, it yet had hurt her, and muttered impatiently, and like one half asleep:
"Not now, Hamish! not now!—leave me for the present, I entreat you!"
"And why not now?" Hamish answered almost roughly. "Do you think you only have a cause for grieving? Tell me, my mistress, if we, humble as we are, and not to be thought of in comparison with your ladyship's honor, if we have not lost—are losing nothing? Ah! if you could but hear the weeping and wailing that is going on among the creatures down-stairs, you would never do us such a wrong as to suppose that your heart is the only one sore and bleeding to-day!"
"Sore and bleeding! Yes! yes! I doubt it not," moaned the lady sadly. "Sore and bleeding; but not widowed—not childless; they have still husbands and children—they have not lost as I have lost!"
"They have lost—not, may be, quite so much, but yet enough, and more than enough, to set them wailing," answered Hamish firmly— "they have lost a master, who was more like a father than a master, and a young mistress, who was all as one as a daughter to every one of them; and moreover," he added mournfully—"and moreover, instead of the kind hand and generous heart that has reigned over them till now, they are going to be handed over, (as if they were so many stocks or stones encumbering the land,) whether they like it or whether they don't, to the tender mercies of those very men who thought it neither sin nor shame to make the child a shield against the soldier's sword, when they fought knee-deep in blood at the siege of Tredagh!"
"Why do you say these things, Hamish?" she almost shrieked in her anguish. "Is it my fault? Could I help it? or why do you reproach me with it?"
"Your fault! No, indeed, it is not. More's the pity; for if you could have helped it, to a dead certainty it never would have happened," said Hamish, glad that he had roused her, even if only to a fit of anger. "But though you cannot prevent these things, my mistress, you can at all events comfort the creatures that have to bear them, by showing that you have feelings for their sorrows as well as for your own."
"I give comfort! God help me, I give comfort!" she answered, with a sort of passionate irony in her manner; adding, however, immediately afterward, in a softer tone, "How can I give comfort, Hamish—I who need it so entirely myself?"