“Would my mother let you remain with her, Marget?” said Huntley; “I can’t bear to think she’s alone in her trouble. Somebody should have come to stay with her; Katie Logan from the manse, perhaps. Why did not some one think of it before?” “Whisht! and gang to your beds,” said Marget; “no fremd person, however kindly, ever wins so far into the Mistress’s heart. If she had been blessed with a daughter of her ain, it might have been different. Na, Huntley, your mother wouldna put up with me. She’s no ane to have either friend or servant tending on her sorrows. Some women would, but no’ the Mistress; and I’m o’ the same mind mysel’. Gang to your beds, and get your rest, like good bairns; the morn will be a new day.” “Shut up the house and sleep; that’s all we can do,” said Cosmo; “but I canna rest--and he’ll never be another night in this house. Oh, father, father! I’ll keep the watch for your sake!” “If he’s in this house, he’s here,” said Patrick, suddenly, to the great amazement of his hearers, moved for once into a higher imagination than any of them; “do you hear me Cosmo? if he’s out of heaven, he’s here; he’s no’ on yon bed dead. It’s no’ _him_ that’s to be carried to Dryburgh. Watching’s past and done, unless he watches us; he’s either in heaven, or he’s here.” “Eh, laddie! God bless you, that’s true!” cried Marget, moved into sudden tears. There was not composure enough among them to add another word; they went to their rooms silently, not to disturb their mother’s solitude. But Huntley could not rest; he came softly down stairs again, through the darkened house, to find Marget sitting by the fire which she had just “gathered” to last all night, reading her last chapter in the big Bible, and startled her by drawing the bolts softly aside and stepping out into the open air. “I must breathe,” the lad said with a voice full of broken sobs. The night was like a night of heaven, if such a glory is, where all glories are. The moon was more lavish in her full, mellow splendor, than she had ever been before, to Huntley’s eyes; the sky seemed as light as day, almost too luminous to show the stars, which were there shining softly in myriads, though you could scarcely see them; and the water flowed, and the trees rustled, with a perfection of still music, exquisite, and silent, and beyond description, which Nature only knows when she is alone. The youth turned back again with a sob which eased his heart. Out of doors nothing but splendor, glory, a beatitude calm and full as heaven; within, nothing but death and the presence of death, heavy, like a pall, upon the house and all its inmates. He went back to his rest, with the wonder of humanity in his heart; when, God help us, should this terrible difference be over? when should the dutiful creation, expanding thus, while the rebel sleeps, receive once more its fullest note of harmony, its better Eden, the race for whom sin and sorrow has ended for evermore? CHAPTER VI.