“Hold your peace, bairns,” cried the Mistress, peremptorily; “what can you ken, twa laddies that have no more insight into life than babes unborn--how can the like of you tell? Do I no’ see sin outbye there with a painted face, and sounds of fiddling and laughing, and light enough to burn up the haill town? Eh, bairns, if ever ye touch such dirt with but the ends of your fingers, the mother that bore ye will think shame of ye--burning shame! It sounds like pleasure--do ye hear?--but it’s no pleasure, it’s destruction!--and I canna tell, for my ain part, how a decent woman can daur to close her e’en, kenning what evil’s nigh. But I’m no’ meaning that for you,” added the Mistress, changing her tone; “the like of you young things need sleep and rest, and though I canna tell where we’re to get the things we want in a miserable place like this, we’ll have to be stirring early the morn.” “And we’ll find a better place,” said Huntley; “don’t be afraid, mother--but for that and all the rest that we have to do and to bear, you must try to rest yourself.” “Aye, laddie,” said the Mistress, hurriedly wiping her eyes, “but I canna get my thoughts out of that ship that’s on the sea this nicht! and maybe mony a lone woman sitting still with nae sons to come in to her--and whiles I canna but mind what’s coming to mysel’.” “I am only twenty, mother, and Patie but eighteen,” said Huntley; “would you like us to remain as we are, knowing nothing of life, as you say? or are you afraid to trust your sons in the battle, like other men?” “Na! no’ me!” cried the Mistress; “you’re baith right, and I approve in my mind--but only just this, bairns;--I’m your mother--and yon ship is sailing in the dark before my very e’en, as plain as if I saw her now!” And whether it was thinking of that ship, or of the sons of other mothers who were errant in her, or of her own boy, so soon to join their journey, the Mistress heard the last sound that disturbed the house that night, and the earliest in the morning. Her eyes were dry and sore when she got up to see the daylight aspect of the unknown and unlovely world around her; and the lads were still fast asleep in their privilege of youth, while their mother stood once more wistfully looking out upon the high black wall of the dock, and the masts appearing over it. She could not see the river, or any thing more gracious than this seaman-tempting street. There was nothing either within or without to divert her from her own thoughts; and as she watched the early sunshine brighten upon a scene so different from that of her own hills and streams, these thoughts were forlorn enough.