The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish Story. Маргарет Олифант
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the Sabbath with light literature; and amusing themselves while their father lay dead was a sin quite as heinous. So Patrick Livingstone read, with a knitted brow, sermons of the old Johnsonian period, and Cosmo pondered the quaint Bible woodcuts, and Huntley watched the sunshine; and they had not spoken a word to each other for at least an hour.
Huntley was the first to break the silence.
“I wish to-morrow were come and gone,” he exclaimed, suddenly, rising up and taking a rapid turn through the room; “a week of this would kill me.”
Cosmo looked up, with an almost feminine reproof in his tearful black eyes.
“Well, laddie,” said the elder brother; “dinna look at me with these e’en! If it would have lengthened out his days an hour, or saved him a pang, would I have spared years to do it? but what is he heeding for all this gloom and silence now?”
“Nothing,” said the second brother, “but the neighbors care, and so does my mother; it’s nothing, but it’s all we can give—and he would have heeded and been pleased, had he thought beforehand on what we should be doing now.”
It was so true, that Huntley sat down again overpowered. Yes, he would have been pleased to think of every particular of the “respect” which belonged to the dead. The closed houses, the darkened rooms, the funeral train; that tender human spirit would have clung to every one of them in his thoughts, keeping the warmth of human sympathy close to him to the latest possibility, little, little though he knew about them now.
“What troubles me is standing still,” said Huntley, with a sigh. “I can not tell what’s before us; I don’t think even my mother knows; I believe it’s worse than we can think of; and we’ve neither friends, nor money, nor influence. Here are we three Livingstones, and I’m not twenty, and we’ve debts in money to meet, and mortgages on the land, and nothing in the world but our hands and our heads, and what strength and wit God has given us. I’m not grumbling—but to think upon it all, and to think now that—that he’s gone, and we’re alone and for ourselves—and to sit still neither doing nor planning, it’s that that troubles me!”
“Huntley, it’s Sabbath day!” said Cosmo.
“Ay, I ken! it’s Sabbath and rest, but not to us,” cried the young man; “here’s me, that should have seen my way—I’m old enough—me that should have known where I was going, and how I was going, and been able to spare a hand for you; and I’m the biggest burden of all; a man without a trade to turn his hand to, a man without knowledge in his head or skill in his fingers—and to sit still and never say a word, and see them creeping down, day by day, and every thing put back as if life could be put back and wait. True, Patie! what would you have me do?”
“Make up your mind, and wait till it’s time to tell it,” said Patie, without either reproof or sympathy; but Cosmo was more moved—he came to his eldest brother with a soft step.
“Huntley,” said Cosmo, in the soft speech of their childhood, “what makes ye speak about a trade, you that are Livingstone of Norlaw? It’s for us to gang and seek our fortunes; you’re the chief of your name, and the lands are yours—they canna ruin you, Huntley. I see the difference mysel’, the folks see it in the country-side; and as for Patie and me, we’ll seek our fortunes—we’re only the youngest sons, it’s our inheritance; but Norlaw, and home, and the name, are with you.”
This appeal had the strangest effect upon Huntley; it seemed to dissipate in an instant all the impatience and excitement of the youth’s grief; he put his arm round Cosmo, with a sudden melting of heart and countenance.
“Do ye hear him, Patie?” cried Huntley, with tears; “he thinks home’s home forever, because the race has been here a thousand years; he thinks I’m a prince delivering my kingdom! Cosmo, the land’s gone; I know there’s not an acre ours after to-morrow. I’ve found it out, bit by bit, though nobody said a word; but we’ll save the house, and the old castle, if we should never have a penny over, for mother and you.”
The boy stared aghast into his brother’s face. The land! it had been Cosmo’s dream by night, and thought by day. The poetic child had made, indeed, a heroic kingdom and inheritance out of that little patrimonial farm. Notwithstanding, he turned to Patie for confirmation, but found no comfort there.
“As you think best, Huntley,” said the second son, “but what is a name? My mother will care little for Norlaw when we are gone, and the name of a landed family has kept us poor. I’ve found things out as well as you. I thought it would be best to part with all.”
“It was almost his last word,” said Huntley, sadly.
“Ay, but he could not tell,” said the stout-hearted boy; “he was of another mind from you or me; he did not think that our strength and our lives were for better use than to be wasted on a word. What’s Norlaw Castle to us, more than a castle in a book? Ay, Cosmo, it’s true. Would you drag a burden of debt at Huntley’s feet for the sake of an acre of corn-land, or four old walls? We’ve been kept down and kept in prison, us and our forbears, because of Norlaw. I say we should go free.”
“And I,” cried Cosmo, lifting his long, white hand in sudden passion, “I, if Huntley does not care for the name, nor for my father’s last wish, nor for the house of our ancestors; I will never rest night nor day, though I break my heart or lose my life, till I redeem Norlaw!”
Huntley, whose arm still rested on the boy’s shoulder, drew him closer, with a look which had caught a tender, sympathetic, half-compassionate enthusiasm from his.
“We’ll save Norlaw for my father’s son,” said the elder brother; and, young as Huntley was, he looked with eyes full of love and pity upon this boy, who inherited more from his father than his name. Huntley had been brought up in all the natural love and reverence of a well-ordered family; he knew there was weakness in his father’s character, beautiful, lovable, tender weakness, for which, somehow, people only seem to like him better. He had not permitted himself to see yet what harm and selfish unconsciousness of others that graceful temperament had hidden. He looked at Cosmo, thinking as a strong mind thinks of that constitution which is called poetic—of the sensitive nature which would shrink from unkindness, and the tender spirit which could not bear the trials of the world; and the lad’s heart expanded over his father’s son.
Patie got up from his chair, and went to the little bookcase in the corner to look for another book of sermons. This boy could not blind his eyes, even with family affection. He loved his father, but he knew plainly, and in so many words, that his father had ruined their inheritance. He could not help seeing that this amiable tenderness bore no better fruit than selfishness or cruelty. He thought it would be right and just to all their hopes to part with even the name of Norlaw. But it was not his concern; he was ready to give his opinion at the proper time, but not to stand out unreasonably against the decision of his elder brother; and when he, too, looked at Cosmo, it was with soberer eyes than those of Huntley—not that he cared less for his father’s son—but Patrick could not help seeing with those clear eyes of his; and what he feared to see was not the sensitive nature and the tender spirit, but the self-regard which lay beneath.
Which of them was right, or whether either of them were right, this history will best show.
CHAPTER V
Sabbath night; a July night, sweet with summer stars and moonlight, and with no darkness in it: the water running soft with its quietest murmur, the thrush and blackbird beguiled to sing almost as late as the southland nightingale; the scent of the late roses coming round the corner of the house on the faint breeze; the stars clustered in a little crowd over the gaunt castle walls, and in the distance the three weird Eildons, standing out dark against the pale azure blue and flood of moonlight; a Sabbath evening with not a sound in it, save the sweetest sounds of nature, a visible holy blessing of quiet and repose.
But the table was spread in the dining-parlor at Norlaw; there was a basket of oat-cakes and flour “bannocks” upon the table, in a snowy napkin, and butter, and milk, and cheese, all of the freshest and most fragrant, the produce of their own lands. Two candles made a little spot of light upon the white table-cloth, but