“I think shame of myself,” said Mrs Ogilvy, “to have been overtaken by sleep in this way: but it is very seldom I go in to Edinburgh, and the hot streets and the glaring sun are not what I am used to. However, perhaps I am all the better of it, and my head clearer. I doubt if, when it’s at its clearest, it would be of much service to you--men that both know the world better than I do, though you are but laddies to me.”
“Yes; I think we know the world better than you do,” said Lew. “We’ve been a bit more about. This is a sweet little place, but you don’t see much of life; and then you’re too good, mother, to understand it if you saw it,” he said.
“You are mistaken, Mr Lew, in thinking there is little life to be seen here: everywhere there is life, in every place where God’s creatures are. Many a story have I seen working out, many a thing that might have been acted on the stage, many a tragedy, too, though you mightn’t think it. The heart and the mind are the same wherever you find them--and love, that is the grandest and most terrible thing on this earth, and death, and trouble. Oh, I could not tell you in a long summer day the things I have seen!”
“Very different from our kind of things, mother,” said Lew, with a laugh. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything like the fix we’re in at present, for instance: the police on our heels, and not a penny to get out of the way with--and in this blessed old country, where you’ve to go by the railway and pay for all your meals. These ain’t the things that suit us, are they, Bob?”
Robert was standing up, leaning against the securely closed and curtained window. The night was very warm, and the windows being closed, it was hot inside. His face was completely in shade, and he made no reply, but stood like a shadow, moving only his hand occasionally, pressing down the tobacco in the over-charged pipe.
“I have told you, Mr Lew,” Mrs Ogilvy said, with a slight quiver in her voice, “that whatever money you may want for your journey, and something to give you a new start wherever you go, you should have, and most welcome--oh, most welcome! I say, not for my Robbie’s sake, but out of my own heart. Oh, laddie, you are but young yet! I have said it before, and I will say it again--whatever you may have done in the past, life is always your own to change it now.”