The two young men sometimes went to Edinburgh, as Robbie had been in the habit of doing before the other’s arrival. They went in the morning and returned late at night, the much disturbed and troubled household sitting up for them to give them their meal and secure their perfect comfort. After the first time Mrs Ogilvy, though her heart was always full of anxiety for their safety, thought it best not to appear when they returned. They had both gibed at her anxiety, at the absurdity and impossibility of her sitting up for them, and her desire to tie her son to her apron-strings. Robbie was angry, indignantly accusing her of making him ridiculous by her foolish anxiety. Poor Mrs Ogilvy had no desire to tie him to her apron-strings. It was not foolish fondness, but terror, that was in her heart. She had a fear--almost a certainty--that one time or other they would not come back,--that they would hear bad news and not return at all, but depart again into the unknown, leaving her on the rack.
But though she did not appear, she sat up in her room at the window, watching for the click of the gate, the sound of their steps on the path, the dark figures in the half dark of the summer night. They had means of getting news, she knew not how, and came back sometimes elated and noisy, sometimes more quiet, according as these were bad or good. And then she heard Janet bustling below bringing their supper, asking, in the peremptory tones which amused them in her, if they wanted anything more, if they could not just get what they wanted themselves, and let a poor woman, that had to be up in the morning to her work, get to her bed. Sometimes Janet held forth to them while she put their supper on the table. “It’s fine for you twa strong buirdly young men, without a hand’s turn to do, to turn day into nicht and nicht into day--though, losh me! how ye can pit up with it, just jabbering and reading idle books a’ the day, and good for nothing, is mair than I can tell. But me, I’m a hard-working woman. I’ve my man’s breakfast to get ready at seeven, and the house to clean up, and to keep the whole place like a new pin. Bless me, if ye were to take a turn at the garden and save Andrew’s auld bones, that are often very bad with the rheumatism, or carry in a bucket of coals or a pail of water for me that am old enough to be your mother, it would set you better. Just twa strong young men, and never doing a hand’s turn--no a hand’s turn from morning to nicht.”