“I’m glad it’s such a bonny day,” said Colin’s mother; “it looks natural and seemly to see you here on a day like this. As for Colin, he aye brings the light with him, but no often such sunshine as you. I canna lay any great feast before you,” said the farmer’s wife with a smile, “but young things like you are aye near enough heaven to be pleased with the common mercies. After a’, if I was a queen I couldna offer you anything better than the white bread and the fresh milk,” said the mistress; and she set down on the table, with her own tender hands, the scones for which Ramore was famous, and the abundant over-running jug of milk, which was not to be surpassed anywhere, as she said. Matty sat down with an odd involuntary conviction that Mr. Jordan’s magnificent table on the other side of the loch offered but a poor hospitality in comparison. Though she laughed at herself an hour after, it was quite impossible at that moment to feel otherwise than respectful. “I never saw anybody with such beautiful manners,” she said to Colin as they went back to the boat. She did not take his arm this time, but walked very demurely after him down the narrow path, feeling upon her the eyes of the mistress, who was standing at her door as usual to see her son go away. Matty could not help a little natural awe of the woman whose soft eyes were watching her. She could manage her aunt perfectly, and did not care in the least for Lady Hallamshire, who was the most accommodating of chaperones, but Mrs. Campbell’s sweet looks, and generous reception of her son’s enslaver somehow overwhelmed Matty. The mistress looked at the girl as if she considered her capable of all the grand and simple emotions which were in her own heart, and Matty was half-ashamed and half-frightened, and did not feel able at the moment to pursue her usual amusement. The row back, to which Colin had been looking with a thrill of expectation, was silent and grave, in comparison with all their former expeditions, notwithstanding that this was the last time they were likely to see each other alone. Poor Colin thought of Lauderdale and his philosophy, for the first time for many days, when he had to stop behind to place the boat in safety on the beach, while Matty, who generally waited for him, skipped up the avenue as fast as she could go, with the little Jordans beside her. Never yet was reality which came truly up to the expectation. Here was an end of his fool’s paradise; he vexed himself by going over and over all that had passed, wondering if anything had offended her; and then thought of Ramore with a pang at his heart—a pang of something nobler than the mere bitterness of contrast, which sometimes makes a poor man ashamed of his home. But all this time the true reason for her new-born reserve—which Miss Matty kept up victoriously until about the close of the evening, when, being utterly bored, she forgot her good resolution and called him to her side again—was quite unsuspected by Colin. He could not divine how susceptible to the opinion of women was the heart of a woman, even when it retained but little of its first freshness. Matty was not startled by Colin’s love, but she was by his mother’s belief in it andherself; it stopped her short in her careless career, and suggested endings that were not pleasant to think of. If she had been kept in amusement for a day or two after, it might have been well for Colin—but being bored she returned to her natural sport, and this interruption did him no good in the end.
Theparting of the two who had been thrown so much together, who had thought so much of each other, and who had, notwithstanding, so few things in common, was as near an absolute parting as is practicable in this world of constant commotion, where everybody meets everybody else in the most unlikely regions. Colin dared not propose to write to her; dared not, indeed—being withheld by the highest impulses of honour—venture to say to her what was in his heart; and Miss Matty herself was a little silent—perhaps a little moved—and could not utter any commonplaces about meeting again, as she had intended to do. So they said good-bye to each other in a kind of absolute way, as if it might be for ever and ever. As for Matty, who was not in love, but whose heart was touched, and who had a vague, instinctive sense that she might never more meet anybody in her life like this country lad—perhaps she had enough generosity left in her to feel that it would be best they should not meet again. But Colin had no such thoughts. He felt in his heart that one time—how or when he knew not—he should yet go to her feet and offer what he had to offer: everything else in the world except that one thing was doubtful to Colin, but concerning that he was confident, and entertained no fear. And so they parted; she, perhaps, for half an hour or so, the most deeply moved of the two. Miss Matty, however, was just as captivating as usual in the next house they went to, where there were one or two people worth looking at, and the company in general was more interesting than at Ardmartin; but Colin, for his part, spent most of the evening on the hillside, revolving in the silence a hundred tumultuous thoughts. It was the end of September, and the nights were cold on the Holy Loch. There was not even a moon to enliven the landscape, and all that could be seen was the cold, blue glimmer ofthe water, upon which Colin looked down with a kind of desolate sense of elevation—elevation of the mind and of the heart, which made the grief of parting look like a grand moral agent, quickening all his powers, and concentrating his strength. Henceforward the strongest of personal motives was to inspire him in all his conflicts. He was going into the battle of life with his lady’s colours on his helmet, like a knight of romance, and failure was not to be thought of as a possibility. As he set his face to the wind, going back to Ardmartin, the pale sky lightened over the other side of the loch, and underneath the breaking clouds, which lay so black on the hills, Colin saw the distant glimmer of a light, which looked like the light in the parlour window at Ramore. Just then a sudden gust swept across the hill-side, throwing over him a shower of falling leaves, and big rain-drops from the last shower. There was not a soul on the road but Colin himself, nor anything to be seen far or near, except the dark tree-tops in the Lady’s Glen, which were sighing in the night wind, and the dark side of Ardmartin, where all the shutters are closed, and one soft star hanging among the clouds just over the spot where that little friendly light in the farmhouse of Ramore held up its glimmer of human consolation in the darkness. It was not Hero’s torch to light her love—was it, perhaps, a sober gleam of truth and wisdom to call the young Leander back from those bitter waters in which he could but perish? All kinds of fancies were in Colin’s mind as he went back, facing the wind, to the dull, closed up house, from which the enchantment had departed; but among them there occurred no thought of discouragement from this pursuit upon which now his heart was set. He would have drowned himself cauld he have imagined it possible that he could cease to love—and so long as he loved how was it possible to fail?
“Andmustyou be a Scotch minister?” When Colin went home a fortnight later to make his preparations for returning to the University, he was occupied, to the exclusion of almost all other questions, by revolving this. It is true that at his age, and with his inexperience, it was possible to imagine that even a Scotch minister, totally unfavoured by fortune, might, by mere dint of genius, raise himself to heights of fame sufficient to bring Sir Thomas Frankland’s niece within his reach—but the thing was unlikely, even to the lively imagination of twenty. And it was the fact that Colin had no special “vocation” towards the profession for which he was being trained. He had been educated and destined for it all his life, and his thoughts had anatural bias that way. But otherwise there was no personal impulse in his mind towards what Mrs. Jordan called “the work of the ministry.” Hitherto his personal impulses had been neither for nor against. Luckily for Colin, and many of his contemporaries, there were so many things to object to in the Church of Scotland, so many defects of order and external matters which required reformation, that they were less strongly tempted to become sceptical in matters of faith than their fellows elsewhere. As for Colin himself, he had fallen off no doubt from the certainty of his boyhood upon many important matters; but the lad, though he was a Scotchman, was happily illogical, and suffered very little by his doubts. Nothing could have made him sceptical, in any real sense of the word, and accordingly there was no repulsion in Colin’s mind against his future profession. But now! He turned it over in his mind night and day in the interval between Matty’s departure and his own return to Ramore. What if, instead of a Scotch minister, incapable of promotion, and to whom ambition itself was unlawful, he were to address himself to the Bar, where there were at least chances and possibilities of fame? He was occupied with this question, to the exclusion of every other, as he crossed the loch in the little steamer, and landed on the pier near Ramore, where his young brothers met him, eager to carry his travelling-bag, and convey him home in triumph. Colin was aware that such a proposal on his part would occasion grievous disappointment at home, and he did not know how to introduce the subject, or disclose his wavering wishes. It was a wonderful relief, as well as confusion to him, when he entered the Ramore parlour, to find Lauderdale in possession of the second arm-chair, opposite the mistress’s, which was sacred to visitors. He had arrived only the evening before, having left Glasgow “for a holiday, like everybody else, in the saut-water season; the first I ever mind of having in my life,” he said, with a certain boyish satisfaction, stretching out his long limbs by the parlour fire.
“It’s ower cauld to have much good of the water,” said the mistress; “the boat’s no laid up yet, waiting for Colin, but the weather’s awfu’ winterly—no to say soft,” she added, with a little sigh, “for its aye soft weather among the lochs, though we’ve had less rain than common this year.”
And as the mistress spoke, the familiar, well-known rain came sweeping down over the hills. It had the usual effect upon the mind of the sensitive woman. “We maun take a’ the good we can of you, laddie,” she said, laying her kind handon her boy’s shoulder, “it’s only a sight we get now in passing. He’s owre much thought of, and made of, to spend his time at hame,” the mistress added, turning, with a half-reproachful pride to Lauderdale; “I’ll be awfu’ sorry if the rain lasts, on your account. But, for myself, I could put up with a little soft weather, to see mair of Colin; no that I want him to stay at hame when he might be enjoying himself,” she continued, with a compunction. Soft weather on the Holy Loch signified rain and mist, and everything that was most discouraging to Mrs. Campbell’s soul, but she was ready to undergo anything the skies could inflict upon her, if fortified by the society of her son.
It was the second night after his return before Colin could make up his mind to introduce the subject of which his thoughts were full. Tea was over by that time, and all the household assembled in the parlour. The farmer himself had just laid down his newspaper, from which he had been reading scraps of county gossip aloud, somewhat to the indignation of the mistress, who, for her part, liked to hear what was going on in the world, and took a great interest in Parliament and the foreign intelligence. “I canna say that I’m heeding about the muckle apple that’s been grown in Clydesdale, nor the new bailies in Greenock,” said the farmer’s wife. “If you would read us something wise-like about thae poor oppressed Italians, or what Louiss Napoleon is thinking about—I canna excuse him for what they ca’ thecoo-detaw,” said Mrs. Campbell; “but for a’ that, I take a great interest in him;” and with this the mistress took up her knitting with a pleasant anticipation of more important news to come.
“There’s naething in theHeraldabout Louiss Napoleon,” said the farmer, “nor the Italians neither—no that I put much faith in thae Italians; they’ll quarrel amang themselves when there’s naebody else to quarrel wi’—though I’m no saying onything against Cavour and Garibaldi. The paper’s filled full o’ something mair immediately interesting—at least, it ought to have mair interest to you wi’ a son that’s to be a minister. Here’s three columns mair about that Dreepdaily case. It may be a grand thing for popular rights, but it’s an awfu’ ordeal for a man to gang through,” said big Colin, looking ruefully at his son.
“I was looking at that,” said Lauderdale. “It’s his prayers the folk seem to object to most—and no wonder. I’ve heard the man mysel’, and his sermon was not bad reasoning, if anybody wanted reasoning; but it’s a wonderful thing to me the way that new preachers take upon them to explain matters to the Almighty,” said Colin’s friend reflectively. “So far as I can see, we’ve little to ask in our worship; but we have an awfu’ quantity of things to explain.”
“It is an ordeal I could never submit to,” said Colin, with perhaps a little more heat than was necessary. “I’d rather starve than be set up as a target for a parish. It is quite enough to make a cultivated clergy impossible for Scotland. Who would submit to expose one’s life, all one’s antecedents, all one’s qualities of mind and language to the stupid criticism of a set of boors? It is a thing I never could submit to,” said the lad, meaning to introduce his doubts upon the general subject by this violent means.
“I dinna approve of such large talking,” said the farmer, laying down his newspaper. “It’s a great protection to popular rights. I would sooner run the risk of disgusting a fastidious lad now and then, than put in a minister that gives nae satisfaction; and if you canna submit to it, Colin, you’ll never get a kirk, which would be worse than criticism,” said his father, looking full into his face. The look brought a conscious colour to Colin’s cheeks.
“Well,” said the young man, feeling himself driven into a corner, and taking what courage he could from the emergency, “one might choose another profession;” and then there was a pause, and everybody in the room looked with alarm and amazement on the bold speaker. “After all, the Church is not the only thing in Scotland,” said Colin, feeling the greatness of his temerity. “Nobody ventures to say it is in a satisfactory state. How often do I hear you criticising the sermon and finding fault with the prayers? and, as for Lauderdale, he finds fault with everything. Then, look how much a man has to bear before he gets a church as you say. As soon as he has his presentation the Presbytery comes together and asks if there are any objections; and then the parish sits upon the unhappy man; and, when everybody has had a turn at him, and all his peculiarities and personal defects and family history have been discussed before the Presbytery—and put in the newspapers, if they happen to be amusing—then the poor wretch has to sign a confession which nobody—”
“Stop you there, Colin, my man,” said the farmer, “that’s enough at one time. I wouldna say that you were a’thegither wrong as touching the sermon and the prayers. It’s awfu’ to go infrom the like of this hill-side and weary the very heart out of you in a close kirk, listening to a man preaching that has nothing in this world to say. I am whiles inclined to think—” said big Colin, thoughtfully—“laddies, you may as well go to your beds. You’ll see Colin the morn, and ye canna understand what we’re talking about. I am whiles disposed to think,” he continued after a pause, during which the younger members of the family had left the room, after a little gentle persuasion on the part of the mistress, “when I go into the kirk on a bonnie day, such as we have by times on the lock baith in summer and winter, that it’s an awfu’ waste of time. You lose a’ the bonnie prospect, and you get naething but weariness for your pains. I’ve aye been awfu’ against set prayers read out of a book; but I canna but allow the English chapel has a kind of advantage in that, for nae fool can spoil your devotion there, as I’ve heard it done many and many’s the time. I ken our minister’s prayers very near as well as if they were written down,” said the farmer of Ramore, “and the maist part of them is great nonsense. Ony little scraps o’ real supplication there may be in them, you could get through in five minutes; the rest is a’ remarks, that I never can discriminate if they’re meant for me or for the Almighty; but my next neibor would think me an awfu’ heathen if he heard what I’m saying,” he continued, with a smile; “and I’m far from sure that I would get a mair merciful judgment from the wife herself.”
The mistress had been very busy with her knitting while her husband was speaking; but, notwithstanding her devotion to her work, she was uneasy and could not help showing it. “If we had been our lane it would have been naething,” she said to Colin, privately; “but afore yon man that’s a stranger and doesna ken!” With which sentiment she sat listening, much disturbed in her mind. “It’s no a thing to say before the bairns,” she said, when she was thus appealed to, “nor before folk that dinna ken you. A stranger might think you were a careless man to hear you speak,” said Mrs. Campbell, turning to Lauderdale with bitter vexation, “for a’ that you havena missed the kirk half a dozen times a’ the years I have kent you—and that’s a long time,” said the mother, lifting hers soft eyes to her boy. When she looked at him she remembered that he too had been rash in his talk. “You’re turning awfu’ like your father, Colin,” said the mistress, “taking up the same thoughtless way of talking. But I think different for a’ you say. Our ain kirk is aye our ain kirk to you as well as to me, in spite o’ your speaking. I’m well accustomed to their ways,” she said, with a smile, to Lauderdale, who, so far from being the dangerous observer she thought him, had gone off at a tangent into his own thoughts.
“The Confession of Faith is a real respectable historical document,” said Lauderdale. “I might not like to commit myself to a’ it says, if you were to ask me; but then I’m not the kind o’ man that has a heart to commit myself to anything in the way of intellectual truth. I wouldna bind myself to say that I would stand by any document a year after it was put forth, far less a hundred years. There’s things in it naebody believes—for example, about the earth being made in six days; but I would not advise a man to quarrel with his kirk and his profession for the like of that. I put no dependence on geology for my part, nor any of the sciences. How can I tell but somebody might make a discovery the morn that would upset all their fine stories? But, on the whole, I’ve very little to say against the Confession. It’s far more guarded about predestination and so forth than might have been expected. Every man of common sense believes in predestination; though I would not be the man to commit myself to any statement on the subject. The like of me is good for little,” said Colin’s friend, stretching his long limbs towards the fire, “but I’ve great ambition for that callant. He’s not a common callant, though I’m speaking before his face,” said Lauderdale; “it would be terrible mortifying to me to see him put himself in a corner and refuse the yoke.”
“If I cannot bear the yoke conscientiously, I cannot bear it at all,” said Colin, with a little heat. “Ifyoucan’t put your name to what you don’t believe, why should I?—and as for ambition,” said the lad, “ambition! what does it mean?—a country church, and two or three hundred ploughmen to criticise me, and the old wives to keep in good humour, and the young ones to drink tea with—is that work for a man?” cried the youth, whose mind was agitated, and who naturally had said a good deal more than he intended to say. He looked round in a little alarm after this rash utterance, not knowing whether he had been right or wrong in such a disclosure of his sentiments. The father and mother looked at each other, and then turned their eyes simultaneously upon their son. Perhaps the mistress had a glimmering of the correct meaning which Colin would not have betrayed wittingly had it cost him his life.
“Eh, Colin, sometime ye’ll think better,” she cried under herbreath—“after a’ our pride in you and our hopes!” The tears came into her eyes as she looked at him. “It’s mair honour to serve God than to get on in this world,” said the mistress. The disappointment went to her heart, as Colin could see; she put her hands hastily to her eyes to clear away the moisture which dimmed them. “It’s maybe naething but a passing fancy—but it’s no what I expected to hear from any bairn of mine,” she said with momentary bitterness. As for the farmer, he looked on with a surprised and inquiring countenance.
“There has some change come over you, Colin—what has happened?” said his father. “I’m no a man that despises money, nor thinks it a sin to get on in the world, but it’s only fools that quarrel wi’ what’s within their reach for envy of what they can never win to. If ye had displayed a strong bent any other way I wouldna have minded,” said big Colin. “But it’s the new-fangled dishes at Ardmartin that have spoiled the callant’s digestion; he’ll come back to his natural inclination when he’s been at home for a day or two,” the farmer added, laying his large hand on his son’s shoulder with a pressure which meant more than his words; but the youth was vexed, and impatient, and imagined himself laughed at, which is the most dreadful of insults at Colin’s age, and in his circumstances. He paid no attention to his father’s looks, but plunged straightway into vehement declaration of his sentiments, to which the elder people around him listened with many complications of feeling unknown to Colin. The lad thought, as was natural at his years, that nobody had ever felt before him the same bondage of circumstance and perplexities of soul, and that it was a new revelation he was making to his little audience. If he could have imagined that both the men were looking at him with the half sympathy, half pity, half envy of their maturer years, remembering as vividly as if it had occurred but yesterday similar outbreaks of impatience and ambition and natural resistance to all the obstacles of life, Colin would have felt deeply humiliated in his youthful fervour; or, if he could but have penetrated the film of softening dew in his mother’s eyes, and beheld there the woman’s perennial spectatorship of that conflict which goes on for ever. Instead of that, he thought he was making a new revelation to his hearers; he thought he was cruel to them, tearing asunder their pleasant mists of illusion, and disenchanting their eyes; he had not an idea that they knew all about it better than he did, and were watching him ashe rushed along the familiar path which they all had trod in different ways, and of which they knew the inevitable ending. Colin, in the heat and impatience of his youth, took full advantage of his moment of utterance. He poured forth in his turn that flood of immeasurable discontent with all conditions and restrictions, which is the privilege of his years. To be sure, the restrictions and conditions surrounding himself were, so far as he knew, the sole objects of that indignation and scorn and defiance which came to his lips by force of nature. As for his mother, she listened, for her part, with that mortification which is always the woman’s share. She understood him, sympathised with him, and yet did not understand nor could tolerate his dissent from all that in her better judgment she had decided upon on his behalf. She was far more tender, but she was lest tolerant than the other spectators of Colin’s outburst; and mingled with all her personal feeling was a sense of wounded pride and mortification, that her boy had thus betrayed himself “before a stranger.” “If we had been our lane, it would have been less matter,” she said to herself, as she wiped the furtive tears hurriedly from the corners of her eyes.
When Colin had come to an end there was a pause. The boy himself thought it was a pause of horror and consternation, and perhaps was rather pleased to produce an effect in some degree corresponding to his own excitement. After that moment of silence, however, the farmer got up from his chair. “It’s very near time we were a’ gaun to our beds,” said big Colin. “I’ll take a look round to see that the beasts are comfortable, and then we’ll have in the hot water. You and me can have a talk the morn,” said the farmer to his son. This was all the reply which the youth received from the parental authorities. When the master went out to look after the beasts, Lauderdale followed to the door, where Colin in another moment strayed after him, considerably mortified, to tell the truth; for even his mother addressed herself to the question of “hot water,” which implied various other accessories of the homely supper-table; and the young man, in his excitement and elevation of feeling, felt as if he had suddenly tumbled down out of the stormy but lofty firmament, into which he was soaring—down, with a shock, into the embraces of the homely tenacious earth. He went after his friend, and stood by Lauderdale’s side, looking out into a darkness so profound that it made his eyes ache and confused his very mind. The only gleam of light visible in earth or heaven was big Colin’s lantern, which showed a tiny gleam fromthe door of the byre where the farmer was standing. All the lovely landscape round, the loch and the hills, the sky and the clouds, lay unseen—hidden in the night. “Which is an awfu’ grand moral lesson, if we had but sense to discern it,” said the voice of Lauderdale ascending half-way up to the clouds; “for the loch hasna’ vanished, as might be supposed, but only the light. As for you, callant, you ken neither the light nor the darkness as yet, but are aye seeing miraculous effects like yon man Turner’s pictures, Northern Streamers, or Aurora Borealis, or whatever ye may call it. And it’s but just you should have your day;” with which words Lauderdale heaved a great sigh, which moved the clouds of hair upon Colin’s forehead, and even seemed to disturb, for a moment, the profound gloom of the night.
“What do you mean by having my day?” said Colin, who was affronted by the suggestion. “You know I have said nothing that is not true. Can I help it if I see the difficulties of my own position more clearly than you do, who are not in my circumstances?” cried the lad with a little indignation. Lauderdale, who was watching the lantern gliding out and in through the darkness, was some time before he made any reply.
“I’m no surprised at yon callant Leander, when one comes to think of it,” he said in his reflective way; “it’s a fine symbol, that Hero in her tower. May be she took the lamp from the domestic altar and left the household god in darkness,” said the calm philosopher; “but that makes no difference to the story. I wouldna’ say but I would swim the Hellespont myself for such an inducement—or the Holy Loch—it’s little matter which; but whiles she lets fall the torch before you get to the end—”
“What do you mean? or what has Hero to do with me?” cried Colin, with a secret flush of shame and rage, which the darkness concealed but which he could scarcely restrain.
“I was not speaking of you—and after all, it’s but a fable,” said Lauderdale; “most history is fable, you know; it’s no actual events, (which I never believe in, for my part,) but the instincts o’ the human mind that make history—and that’s how the Heros and Leanders are aye to be accounted for. He was drowned in the end like most people,” said Lauderdale, turning back to the parlour where the mistress was seated, pondering with a troubled countenance upon this new aspect of her boy’s life. Amid the darkness of the world outside this tender woman sat in the sober radiance of her domestic hearth, surrounded and enshrined by light; but she was not like Hero on the tower.Colin, too, came back, following his friend with a flush of excitement upon his youthful countenance. After all, the idea was not displeasing to the young man. The Hellespont, or the Holy Loch, were nothing to the bitter waters which he was prepared to breast by the light of the imaginary torch held up in the hand of that imaginary woman who was beckoning Colin, as he thought, into the unknown world. Life was beginning anew in his person, and all the fables had to be enacted over again; and what did it matter to the boy’s heroic fancy, if he too should go to swell the record of the ancient martyrs, and be drowned, as Lauderdale said—like most people—in the end?
There was no further conversation upon this important subject until next morning, when the household of Ramore got up early, and sat down to breakfast before it was perfect daylight; but Colin’s heart jumped to his mouth, and a visible thrill went through the whole family, when the farmer came in from his early inspection of all the byres and stables, with another letter from Sir Thomas Frankland conspicuous in his hand.
“Thequestion is, will ye go or will ye stay?” said big Colin of Ramore; “but for this, you and me might have had a mair serious question to discuss. I see a providence in it for my part. You’re but a callant; it will do you nae harm to wait; and you’ll be in the way of seeing the world at—what do they call the place? If your mother has nae objections, and ye see your ain way to accepting, I’ll be very well content. It’s awfu’ kind o’ Sir Thomas after the way ye’ve rejected a’ his advances—but, no doubt he’s heard that you got on gey weel, on the whole, at your ain college,” said the farmer, with a little complacency. They were sitting late over the breakfast table, the younger boys looking on with eager eyes, wondering over Colin’s wonderful chances, and feeling severely the contrast of their own lot, who had to take up the ready satchel and the “piece,” which was to occupy their healthful appetites till the evening, and hurry off three miles down the loch to school. As for Archie, he had been long gone to his hard labour on the farm, and the mother and father and the visitor were now sitting, a little committeeupon Colin’s prospects, which the lad himself contemplated with a mixture of delight and defiance wonderful to see.
“It’s time for the school, bairns,” said the farmer’s wife; “be good laddies, and dinna linger on the road either coming or going. Ye’ll get apples a-piece in the press. I couldna give ony advice, if you ask me,” said the Mistress, looking at her son with her tender eyes: “Colin, my man, it’s no for me nor your father either to say one thing or another—it’s you that must decide—it’s your ain well-being and comfort and happiness——.” Here the Mistress stopped short with an emotion which nobody could explain; and at which even Colin, who had the only clue to it, looked up out of his own thoughts, with a momentary surprise.
“Hoot,” said the farmer; “you’re aye thinking of happiness, you women. I hope the laddie’s happiness doesna lie in the power of a year’s change one way or another. I canna see that it will do him any harm—especially after what he was saying last night—to pause awhile and take a little thought; and here’s the best opportunity he could well have. But he doesna say anything himself—and if you’re against it, Colin, speak out. It’s your concern, most of all, as your mother says.”
“The callant’s in a terrible swither,” said Lauderdale, with a smile; “he’ll have it, and he’ll no have it. For one thing, it’s an awfu’ disappointment to get your ain way just after you’ve made up your mind that you’re an injured man; and he’s but a callant after all, and kens no better. For my part, I’m no fond of changing when you’ve once laid your plans. No man can tell what terrible difference a turn in the road may make. It’s aye best to go straight on. But there’s exceptions,” continued Lauderdale, laying his hand on Colin’s shoulder. “So far as I can see, there’s no reason in this world why the callant should not stand still a moment and taste the sweetness of his lot. He’s come to man’s estate, and the heavens have never gloomed on him yet. There’s no evil in him, that I can see,” said Colin’s friend, with an unusual trembling in his voice; “but for human weakness, it might have been the lad Michael or Gabriel, out of heaven, that’s been my companion these gladsome years. It may be but more sweetness and blessing that’s in store for him. I know no reason why he shouldna pause while the sun’s shining, and see God’s meaning. It cannot be but good.”
The lad’s friend who understood him best stopped short, like his mother, with something in his throat that marred his utterance. Why was it? Colin looked up with the sunshine in his eyes, and laughed with a little annoyance, a little impatience. He was no more afraid of his lot, nor of what the next turn in the path would bring, than a child is who knows no evil. Life was not solemn, but glorious, a thing to be conquered and made beautiful, to his eyes. He did not understand what they meant by their faltering and their fears.
“I feel, on the whole, disposed to accept Sir Thomas’s offer,” said the young prince. “It is no favour, for I am quite able to be his boy’s tutor, as he says; and I see nothing particularly serious in it either; most Scotch students stop short sometime and have a spell of teaching. I have been tutor at Ardmartin; I don’t mind being tutor at Wodensbourne. I would not be dependent on Sir Thomas Frankland or any man,” said Colin; “but I am glad to work for myself, and free you, father. I know you are willing to keep me at college, but you have plenty to do for Archie and the rest; and now it is my turn; I may help myself and them too,” cried the youth, glad to disguise in that view of the matter the thrill of delight at his new prospects, which came from a very different source. “It will give us a little time, as you say, to think it all over,” he continued, after a momentary pause, and turned upon his mother with a smile. “Is there anything to look melancholy about?” said Colin, tossing back from his forehead the clouds of his brown hair.
“Oh, no, no, God forbid!” said the Mistress—“nothing but hope and the blessing of God;” but she turned aside from the table, and began to put away the things by way of concealing the tears that welled up to her tender eyes; though neither she nor any one for her could have told why.
“Never mind your mother,” said the farmer, “though it’s out of the common to see a cloud on her face when there’s no cloud to speak of on the sky. But women are aye having freits and fancies. I think mysel’ it’s the wisest thing ye can do to close with Sir Thomas’s proposal. I wouldna say but you’ll see a good deal o’ the world,” said the farmer, shrewd but ignorant; “not that I’m so simple as to suppose that an English gentleman’s country-seat will bring you to onything very extraordinary in the way of company; but still, that class of folk is wonderfully connected, and ye might see mair there in a season than you could here in a lifetime. It’s time I were looking after Archie and the men,” said big Colin; “it’s no often I’m so late in the morning. I suppose you’ll write to Sir Thomasyourself, and make a’ the arrangements. Ye can say we’re quite content, and pleased at his thoughtfulness. If that’s no to your mind, Colin, I’m sorry for it; for a man should be aye man enough to give thanks where thanks are due.” With this last admonition big Colin of Ramore took up his hat and went off to his fields. “I wish the callant didna keep a grudge,” he said to himself, as he went upon his cheerful way. “If he were to set up in rivalry wi’ young Frankland!” but with the thought a certain smile came upon the father’s face. He too could not refrain from a certain contempt of the baronet’s dainty son; and there was scarcely any limit to his pride and confidence in his boy.
The Mistress occupied herself in putting things to rights in the parlour long after her husband had gone to the fields. She thought Lauderdale too wanted to be alone with Colin; and, with natural jealousy, could not permit the first word of counsel to come from any lips but her own. The mistress had no baby to occupy her in these days; the little one whom she had on her bosom at the opening of our history, who bore her own name and her own smile, and was the one maiden blossom of her life, had gone back to God who gave her; and, when her boys were at school, the gentle woman was alone. There was little doing in the dairy just then, and Mrs. Campbell had planned her occupations so as to have all the time that was possible to enjoy her son’s society. So she had no special call upon her at that moment, and lingered over her little business, till Lauderdale, who would fain have said his say, strayed out in despair, finding no room for him. “When you’ve finished your letter, Colin, you’ll find me on the hill,” he said, as he went out; and could not refrain from a murmur in his own mind at the troublesome cares of “thae women.” “They’re sweet to see about a house, and the place is hame where they are,” said the philosopher to himself with a sigh; “but, oh, such fykes as they ware their hearts on!” The mistress’s “fykes,” however, were over when the stranger left the house. She came softly to Colin’s table, where he was writing, and sat down beside him. As for Colin, he was so much absorbed in his letter that he did not observe his mother; and it was only when he lifted his head to consider a sentence, and found her before him, that he woke up, with a little start, out of that more agreeable occupation, and asked, “Do you want me?” with a look of annoyance which went to the mistress’s heart.
“Yes, Colin, I want you just for a moment,” said his mother.“I want to speak to you of this new change in your life. Your father thinks nothing but it’s Sir Thomas Frankland you’re going to, to be tutor to his boys; but, oh, Colin, I ken better! It’s no the fine house and the new life that lights such light in my laddie’s eye. Colin, listen to me. She’s far above you in this world, though it’s no to be looked for that I could think ony woman was above you; but she’s a lady with mony wooers, and you’re but a poor man’s son. Oh, Colin, my man! dinna gang near that place, nor put yourself in the way of evil, if you havena confidence both in her and yoursel’. Do you think you can see her day by day and no break your heart? or do you think she’s worthy of a heart to be thrown away under her feet? Or, oh, my laddie! tell me this first of a’—do you think you could ask her, or she could consent, to lose fortune and grandeur for your sake? Colin, I’m no joking; it’s awfu’ earnest, whatever you may think. Tell me—if you’ve ony regard for your mother, or wish her ony kind of comfort the time you’re away.”
This Mrs. Campbell said with tears shining in her eyes, and a look of entreaty in her face, which Colin had hard ado to meet. But the lad was full of his own thoughts, and impatient of the interruption which detained him.
“I wish I knew what you meant,” he said pettishly. “I wish you would not talk of—people who have nothing to do with my poor little concerns. Surely, I may be suffered to engage in ordinary work like other people,” said Colin. “As for the lady you speak of—”
And here the youth paused with a natural smile lurking at the corners of his lips—a smile of youthful confidence and self-gratulation. Not for a kingdom would the young hero have boasted of any look or word she had ever bestowed upon him; but he could not deny himself the delicious consciousness that she must have had something to do with this proposal—that it must have been her suggestion, or at least supported, seconded by her. Only through her could her uncle have known that he was tutor at Ardmartin; and the thought that it was she herself who was taking what maidenly means she could for their speedy reunion was too sweet to Colin’s heart to be breathed in words, even if he could have done it without a betrayal of his hopes.
“Ay, Colin, the lady—” said his mother; “you say no more in words, but your eye smiles, and your mouth, and I see the flush on your cheek. She’s bonnie and sweet and fair-spoken, and I canna think she means ony harm; but, oh, Colin, my man, mind what a difference in this world! You’ve nothing tooffer her like what she’s been used to,” said the innocent woman, “and if I was to see my son come back breaking his heart for ane that was above his reach, and maybe no worthy!—” She could not say any more, partly because she had exhausted herself, partly because Colin rose from the table with a flush of excitement, which made his mother tremble.
“Worthy of me!” said the young man, with a kind of groan, “worthy of me! Mother, I don’t think you know what you are saying. I am going to Wodensbourne whatever happens. It may be for good or for evil; I can’t tell; but I am going, and you must ask me no further questions—not on this point. I am to be tutor to Sir Thomas Frankland’s boy,” said Colin, sitting down, with the smile again in his eyes. “Nothing more—and what could happen better to a poor Scotch student? He might have had a Cambridge man, and he chooses me. Let me finish my letter, mother dear.”
“He wouldna get many Cambridge men, or ony other men, like my boy,” said the mother half reassured; and she rearranged with her hands, that trembled a little, the writing-desk, which Colin’s hasty movements had thrust out of the way.
“Ah, mother, but a Scotch University does not count for the same as an English one,” said Colin, with a smile and a sigh; “it is not for my gifts Sir Thomas has chosen me,” he added, somewhat impatiently, taking up his pen again. What was it for? That old obligation of Harry Frankland’s life saved, which Colin had always treated as a fiction? or the sweet influence of some one who knew that Colin loved her? Which was it? If the youth determined it should be the last, could anybody wonder? He bent his head again over his paper, and wrote, with his heart beating high, that acceptance which was to restore him to her society. As for the Mistress, she left her son, and went about her homely business, wiping some tears from her eyes. “I kenna what woman could close her heart,” she said to herself, with a little sob, in her ignorance and innocence. “Oh, if she’s only worthy!” but, for all that, the mother’s heart was heavy within her, though she could not have told why.
The letter was finished and sealed up before Colin joined his friend on the hillside, where Lauderdale was straying about with his hands in his pockets, breathing long sighs into the fresh air, and unable to restrain, or account for, his own restlessness and uneasiness. One of those great dramas of sunshine and shadow, which are familiar to the Holy Loch, was going on just then among the hills, and the philosopher had made various attemptsto interest himself in those wonderful alternations of gloom and light, but without avail. Nature, which is so full of interest when the heart is unoccupied, dwindles and grows pale in presence of the poorest human creature who throws a shadow into her sunshine. Not all those wonderful gleams of light—not all those clouds, driven wildly like so many gigantic phantoms into the solemn hollows, could touch the heart of the man who was trembling for his friend. Lauderdale roused himself up when Colin came to him, and met him cheerfully. “So you’ve written your letter?” he said, “and accepted the offer? I thought as much, by your eye.”
“You did not need to consult my eye,” said Colin, gaily. “I said as much. But I must walk down the loch a mile or two to meet the postman. Will you come? Let us take the good of the hills,” said the youth, with his heart running over. “Who can tell when we may be here again together? I like this autumn weather, with its stormy colours; and I suppose now my fortune, as you call it, will lead me to a flat country—that is, for a year or two at least.”
“Ay,” said Lauderdale, with a kind of groan; “that is how the world appears at your years. Who can tell when we may be here again together? Who can tell, laddie, what thoughts may be in our hearts when wearehere again? I never have any security myself, when I leave a place, that I’ll ever dare to come back,” said the meditative man. “The innocent fields might have a cruel aspect, as if God had cursed them, and, for anything I know, I might hate the flowers that could bloom, and the sun that could shine, and had no heart for my trouble. No that you understand what I’m meaning; but that’s the way it affects a man like me.”
“What are you thinking of?” cried Colin, with a little dismay; “one would fancy you saw some terrible evil approaching. Of course the future is uncertain, but I am not particularly alarmed by anything that appears to me. What are you thinking of, Lauderdale? Your own career?”
“Oh, ay, just my ain career,” said Lauderdale, with a smile; “such a career to make a work about! though I am just as content as most men. I mind when my ain spirit was whiles uplifted as yours is, laddie; it’sthatthat makes a man think. It comes natural to the time of life, like the bright eye and the bloom on the cheek; and there’s no sentence of death in it either, if you come to that,” he went on to himself after a pause. “Life holds on—it aye holds on; a hope mair or less makes littlecount. And without the struggle, never man that was worth calling man came to his full stature.” All this Lauderdale kept saying to himself as he descended the hillside, leaping here and there over a half-concealed streamlet, and making his way through the withered ferns and the long tangled streamers of the bramble, which caught at him as he passed. He was not so skilful in overcoming these obstacles as Colin, who was to the manner born; and he got a little out of breath as he followed the lad, who, catching his monologue by intervals in the descent, looked at the melancholy philosopher with his young eyes, which laughed, and did not understand.
“I wonder what you are thinking of,” said Colin. “Not of me, certainly; but I see you are afraid of something, as if I were going to encounter a great danger. Lauderdale,” said the lad, stopping and laying his hand on his friend’s arm for one confidential moment, “whatever danger there is, Ihaveencountered it. Don’t be afraid for me.”
“I was saying nothing about you, callant,” said Lauderdale, pettishly. “Why should I aye be thinking of you? A man has more things to consider in this life than the vagaries of a slip of a laddie, that doesna see where he’s bound for. I’m thinking of things far out of your way,” said the philosopher; “of disappointments and heart-breaks, and a’ the eclipses that are invisible to common e’en. I’ve seen many in my day. I’ve seen a trifling change that made no difference to the world quench a’ the light and a’ the comfort out of life. There’s more things in heaven or earth than were ever dreamt of at your years. And whiles a man wonders how, for very pity, God can stay still in His heavens and look on—”
Colin could not say anything to the groan with which his friend broke off. He was troubled and puzzled, and could not make it out. They went on together along the white line of road, on which, far off in the distance, the youth already saw the postman whom he was hastening to meet; and, busy as he was with his own thoughts, Colin had already forgotten to inquire what his companion referred to, when his attention, which had wandered completely away, was suddenly recalled again by the voice at his side.
“I’m speaking like a man that cannot see the end,” said Lauderdale, “which is clear to Him, if there’s any meaning in life. You’re for taking your chance and posting your letter, laddie! and you ken nothing about any nonsense that an old fool like me may be maundering. For one thing, there’s ayeplenty to divert the mind in this country,” said the philosopher, with a sigh; and stood still at the foot of the long slope they had just descended, looking with a wistful abstracted look upon the loch and the hills; at which change of mood Colin could not restrain himself, but with ready boyish mirth laughed aloud.
“What has this country to do with it all? You are in a very queer mood to-day, Lauderdale—one moment as solemn and mysterious as if you knew of some great calamity, and the next talking of the country. What do you mean I wonder?” But his wonder was not very deep, and stirred lightly in the heart which was full of so many wishes and ambitions of its own. With that letter in his hand, and that new life before him, how could he help but look at the lonely man by his side with a half-divine compassion?—a man to whom life offered no prizes, and scarcely any hopes. He was aware in his heart that Lauderdale was anxious about himself, and the thought of that unnecessary solicitude moved Colin half to laughter. Poor Lauderdale—upon whom he looked down from the elevation of his young life with the tenderest pity! He smiled upon his friend in his exaltation and superiority. “You are more inexplicable than usual to-day. I wonder what you mean?” said Colin with all the sunshine of youth and joy, defying evil forebodings, in his eyes.
“It would take a wise man to tell,” said Lauderdale; “I would not pretend, for my own part, to fathom what any fool might mean—much less what I mean myself, that have glimmerings of sense at times. Yon sunshine’s awfu’ prying about the hills. Light’s aye inquisitive, and would fain be at the bottom of every mystery—which is, maybe, the reason,” said the speculative observer, “why there’s nae grandeur to speak of, nor meaning, according to mortal notions, without clouds and darkness. Yonder’s your postman, callant. Give him the letter and be done with it. I whiles find myself wondering how it is that we take so little thought to God’s meanings—what ye might call His lighter meanings—His easy verses and such-like, that are thrown about the world, in the winds and the sky. To be sure, I ken just as well as you do that it’s currents of air, and masses of vapour, and electricity, and all the rest of it. It’s awfu’ easy learning the words—but will you tell me there’s no meaning to a man’s heart and soul in the like of that?” said Colin’s companion, stopping suddenly with a sigh of impatience and vexation, which had to do with something more vital than the clouds. Just then,nature truly seemed to have come to a pause, and to be standing still, like themselves, looking on. The sky that was so blue and broad a moment since had contracted to a black vault over the Holy Loch. Blackness that was positive and not a mere negation frowned out of all the half-disclosed mysterious hollows of the hills. The leaves that remained on the trees thrilled with a spasmodic shiver, and the little ripples came crowding up on the beach with a sighing suppressed moan of suspense and apprehension. So, at least, it seemed to one if not both of the spectators standing by.
“It means a thunderstorm, in the first place,” said Colin; “look how it begins to come down in a torrent of gloom over Loch Goil. We have just time to get under shelter. It is very well for us we are so near Ramore.”
“Ay—” said Lauderdale. He repeated the syllable over again and again as they hurried back. “But the time will come, when we’ll no be near Ramore,” he said to himself as the storm reached him and dashed in his face not twenty yards from the open door. Colin’s laugh, as he reached with a bound the kindly portal, was all the answer which youth and hope gave to experience. The boy was not to be discouraged on that sweet threshold of his life.
Wodensbournewas as different from any house that Colin had ever seen before, as the low flat country, rich and damp and monotonous, was unlike the infinitely varied landscape to which his eye had been accustomed all his life. The florid upholstery of Ardmartin contrasted almost as strangely with the sober magnificence of the old family-house, in which the Franklands had lived and died for generations, as did the simple little rooms to which Colin had been accustomed in his father’s house. Perhaps, on the whole, Ramore, where everything was for use and nothing for show, was less unharmonious with all he saw about him than the equipments of the bran new castle, all built out of new money, and gilded and lackered to a climax of domestic finery. Colin’s pupil was the invalid of the family; a boy of twelve, who could not go to Eton like his brothers, but whom the good-natured baronet thought, as was natural, the cleverest of his family.—“That’s why I wanted you so much,Campbell,” Sir Thomas said, by way of setting Colin at ease in his new occupation; “he’s not a boy to be kept to classics isn’t Charley—there’s nothing that boy wouldn’t master—and shut up as he has to be, with his wretched health, he wants a little variety. I’ve always heard you took a wider range in Scotland; that’s what I want for my boy.” It was with this exposition of his patron’s wishes that the new tutor was introduced to his duties at Wodensbourne. But a terrible disappointment awaited the young man, a disappointment utterly unforeseen. There was nobody there but Sir Thomas himself, and Charley, and some little ones still in the nursery. “We’re all by ourselves, but you won’t mind,” said the baronet, who seemed to think it all the better for Colin; “my lady and Matty will be home before Christmas, and you can get yourself settled comfortably in the meantime. Lady Frankland is with her sister, who is in very bad health. I don’t know what people mean by getting into bad health—women, too, that can’t go in for free living and that sort of thing,” said Sir Thomas. “The place looks dreary without the ladies, but they’ll be back before Christmas,” and he went to sleep after dinner as usual, and left the young tutor at the other side of the table sitting in a kind of stupefied amazement and mortification, in the silence, wondering what he came here for, and where all his hopes and brilliant auguries had gone.
Perhaps Colin did not know what he himself meant when he accepted Sir Thomas Frankland’s proposal. He thought he was coming to live in Matty’s society, to be her companion, to walk with her and talk with her, as he had done at Ardmartin; but, when he arrived to find Wodensbourne deserted, with nothing to be seen but Sir Thomas and a nursery governess, who sometimes emerged with her little pupils from the unknown regions upstairs, and was very civil to the new tutor, Colin’s disappointment was overwhelming. He despised himself with a bitterness only to be equalled by the brilliancy of those vain expectations over which he laughed in youthful rage and scorn. It was not to be Matty’s companion he had come; it was not to see, however far off, any portion of the great world which he could not help imagining sometimes must be visible from such an elevation. It was only to train Charley’s precocious intellect, and amuse the baronet a little at dinner. After dinner Sir Thomas went to sleep, and even Charley was out of the way, and the short winter days closed down early over the great house, over the damp woods and silent park, which kept repeating themselves, day by day, upon Colin’s wearied brain. There was noteven an undulation within sight, nothing higher than the dull line of trees, which after a while it made him sick to look at. To be sure, the sunshine now and then caught upon the lofty lantern of Earie Cathedral, and by that means woke up a gleam of light on the flat country; but that, and the daily conflict with Charley’s sharp invalid understanding, and the sight of Sir Thomas sleeping after dinner, conveyed no exhilaration to speak of to lighten the dismal revulsion of poor Colin’s thoughts. His heart rose indignant sometimes, which did him more good. This was the gulf of dismay he tumbled into without defence or preparation after the burst of hope and foolish youthful delight with which he left Ramore.
As for the society at Wodensbourne, it was at the present moment of the most limited description. Colin, who was inexperienced, roused up out of his dullness a little when he heard that two of the canons of Earie were coming to dinner one evening. The innocent Scotch lad woke himself up, with a little curiosity about the clerical dignitaries, of whom he knew nothing, and a good deal of anxiety to comport himself as became the representative of a Scotch University, about whom he did not doubt the visitors would be a little curious. It struck Colin with the oddest surprise and disappointment, to find that the canons of Earie were perfectly indifferent about the Scotch student. The curate of the parish, indeed, who was also dining at Wodensbourne that day, was wonderfully civil to the new tutor. He told him that he understood the Scotch mountains were very near as fine as Switzerland, and that he hoped to see them some day, though the curious prejudices about Sunday and the whisky-drinking must come very much in the way of closer intercourse; at which speech Colin’s indignation and amusement would have been wonderful to see, had any one been there who cared to notice how the lad was looking. On the Sundays, Colin and his pupil went along the level ways to the quaint old mossy church, to which this same curate was devoting all his time and thoughts by way of restoration. The Scotch youth had never seen anything at once so homely and so noble as this little church in the fen-country. He thought it nothing less than a poem in stone, a pathetic old psalm of human life and death, joining in for ever and ever, with the tenderest, sad responses, in the worship of heaven. Never anywhere had he felt so clearly how the dead were waiting for the great Easter to come, nor seen Christianity standing so plainly between the beginning and the end; but when Colin, with hisScotch ideas, heard the curious little sermons to which his curate gave utterance under that roof, all consecrated and holy with the sorrows and hopes of ages, it made the strangest anti-climax in the youth’s thoughts. He laughed to himself when he came out, not because he was disposed to laughter, but because it was the only alternative he had; and Sir Thomas, who had a glimmering perception that this must be something new to his inexperienced guest, gave a doubtful sort of smile, not knowing how to take Colin’s strange looks.
“You don’t believe in saints’ days, and such like, in Scotland?” said the perplexed baronet; “and of course the sermon does not count for so much with us.”
“No, it does not count for much,” said Colin; and they did not enter further into the subject.
As for the young man himself, who had still upon his mind the feeling that he was to be a Scotch minister, the lesson was the strangest possible; for, being Scotch, he could not help listening to the sermon according to the usage of his nation. The curate, after he had said those prayers which are all but divine in their comprehension of the wants of humanity, told his people how wonderfully their beloved Church had provided for all their wants; how sweet it was to recollect that this was the day which had been appointed the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity—and how it was their duty to meditate a fact so touching and so important. Colin thought of the Holy Loch, and the minister’s critics there, and laughed to himself, perhaps a little bitterly. He felt as if he had given up his own career—the natural life to which he was born; and at this distance the usual enchantments of nature began to work, and in his heart he asked himself what he was to gain by transferring his lot and hopes to this wealthy country, where so many things were fairer, and after which he had been hankering so long. The curate’s sermons struck him as a kind of comical climax to his disappointments—and the curate himself who looked at Colin much as he might have looked at a South-Sea Islander, and spoke of the Scotch whisky and Scotch Sabbaths. Poor curate! He knew a great deal more than Colin did about some things, and, if he did not understand how to preach, that was not the fault of his college; neither did they convey much information at that seat of learning about the northern half of the British island—no more than they did at Glasgow about the curious specimen of humanity which is known as a curate on the brighter side of the Tweed.
All these things went through Colin’s mind as he sat in the dining-room after dinner contemplating Sir Thomas’s nap, which was not of itself an elevating spectacle. He thought to himself at that moment that he was but fulfilling the office of a drudge at Wodensbourne, which anybody could fill. It did not require those abilities which had won with acclamation the prize in the philosophy class to teach Charley Frankland the elements of science; and all the emulations and glories of his college career came back to Colin’s mind. The little public of the University had begun to think of him—to predict what he would do, and anticipate his success, at home; but here, who knew anything about him? These thoughts disturbed him much as he sat watching the fire gleam in the wainscot, and calculating the recurrence of that next great snore which would wake Sir Thomas, and make him sit up of a sudden and look fiercely at his companion before he murmured out a “Beg your pardon,” and went to sleep again. Not an interesting prospect certainly. Should he go home? should he represent to the baronet, when he woke up for the night, that it had all been a mistake, and that his present office was perfectly unsuited to his ambition and his hopes? But then what could he say? for after all it was as Charley Frankland’s tutor simply, and with his eyes open, that he came to Wodensbourne, and Sir Thomas had said nothing about the society of his niece, or any other society, to tempt him thither. Colin sat in a bitterness of discontent, which would have been incredible to him a few weeks before, pondering these questions. There was not a sound to be heard, but the dropping of the ashes on the hearth, and Sir Thomas’s heavy breathing as he slept. Life went on velvet slippers in the great house from which Colin would gladly have escaped (he thought) to the poorest cottage on the Holy Loch. He could not help recalling his shabby little room in Glasgow, and Lauderdale’s long comments upon life, and all the talk and the thoughts that made existence bright in that miserable little place, which Sir Thomas Frankland’s grooms would not have condescended to live in, but which the unfortunate young tutor thought of with longing as he sat dreary in the great dining-room. What did it matter to him that the floor was soft with Turkey carpets, that the wine on the table was of the most renowned vintages, and that his slumbering companion in the great easy-chair was the head of one of the oldest commoner families in England—a baronet and a county member? Colin after all was only a son of the soil; he longed for his Glasgowattic, and his companions who spoke the dialect of that remarkable but unlovely city, and felt bitterly in his heart that he had been cheated. Yet it was hard to say to any one—hard even to put in words to himself—what the cheat was. It was a deception he had practised on himself, and in the bitterness of his disappointment the youth refused to admit that anybody’s absence was the secret of his mortification. What was she to him?—a great lady as far out of his reach as the moon or the stars, and who no doubt had forgotten his very name.
These were not pleasant thoughts to season the solitude, and he sat hugging them for a great many evenings before Sir Thomas awoke, and addressed, as he generally did, a few good-humoured, stupid observations to the lad whom, to be sure, the baronet found a considerable bore, and did not know what to do with. Sir Thomas could not forget his obligations to the young man who had saved Harry’s life; and thus it was, from pure gratitude, that he made Colin miserable—though there was no gratitude at all, nor even much respect, in the summary judgment which the youth formed of the heavy ’squire.
This was how matters were going on when Wodensbourne and the world, and everything human, suddenly, all at once, sustained again a change to Colin. He had been living thus, for six weary weeks—during which time he felt himself getting morose, ill-tempered, and miserable—writing sharp letters home, in which he would not confess to any special disappointment, but expressed himself in general terms of bitterness like a young misanthrope, and in every respect making himself, and those who cared for him, unhappy. Even the verses, which did very well to express the tender griefs of sentiment, had been thrown aside at this crisis; for there was nothing melodious in his feelings, and he could not say in sweet rhymes and musical cadences how angry and wretched he was. He was sitting in such a mood one dreary December evening when it was raining fast outside and everything was silent within—as was natural in a well-regulated household where the servants knew their duty, and the nursery was half a mile away through worlds of complicated passages. Sir Thomas was asleep as usual, and, with his eyes shut and his mouth open, the excellent baronet was not, as we have already said, an elevating spectacle; and, at the other end of the table, sat Colin, chafing out his young soul with such thoughts of what was not, but might have been, as youth does not know how to avoid. It was just then, when he was going over his long succession of miseries—thinking of his naturalcareer cut short for the sake of this dreary penance of which nothing could ever come—that Colin was startled by the sound of wheels coming up the wintry avenue. He could not venture to imagine to himself what it might be, though he listened as if for life and death; he heard the sounds of an arrival and the indistinct hum of voices which he could not distinguish, without feeling that he had any right to stir from the table to inquire what it meant; and there he sat accordingly, with his hair thrust back from his forehead and his great eyes gleaming out from the noiseless atmosphere, when the door opened and a pretty figure, all eager and glowing with life, looked into the room. Colin was too much absorbed, too anxious, and felt too deeply how much was involved, to be capable even of rising up to greet her as an indifferent man would have done. He sat and gazed at her as she darted in like a fairy creature, bringing every kind of radiance in her train.
“Here they are, aunty!” cried Miss Matty; and she came in flying in her cloak, with the hood still over her head and great raindrops on it, which she had caught as she jumped out of the carriage. While Colin sat gazing at her, wondering if it was some deluding apparition, or, in reality, the new revelation of life and love that it seemed to be, Matty had thrown herself upon Sir Thomas and woke the worthy baronet by kissing him, which was a pretty sight to behold. “Here we are, uncle; wake up!” cried Matty; “my lady ran to the nursery first, but I came to you, as I always do.” And the little witch looked up at Colin, with a glance under which heaven and earth changed to the lad. He stumbled to his feet, while Sir Thomas rubbed his astonished eyes. What could Colin say? He stood waiting for a word, seeing the little figure in a halo of light and fanciful glory. “How do you do? I knew you were here,” said Miss Matty, putting out two fingers to him while she still hung over her uncle. And presently Lady Frankland came in, and the room became full of pleasant din and commotion as was inevitable. When Colin made a move as if to leave them, fearful of being in the way, Miss Matty called to him, “Oh, don’t go, please; we are going to have tea, and my lady must be served without giving her any trouble, and I want you to help me,” said Matty; and so the evening that had begun in gloom ended in a kind of subdued glory too sweet to be real; surely too good to be true.
Lady Frankland sat talking to her husband of their reason for coming back so suddenly (which was sad enough, being anunexpected death in the house: but that did not make much difference to the two women who were coming home); Matty kept coming and going between the tea-table and the fire, sending Colin on all sorts of errands, and making comments to him aside on what her aunt was saying. “Only fancy the long dreary drive we have had, and my uncle and Mr. Campbell making themselves so cozy,” the little siren said, kneeling down before the fire with still one drop of rain sparkling on her bright locks. And the effect was such that Colin lost his head altogether, and could not have affirmed, had he been questioned on his oath, that he had not enjoyed himself greatly all the time. He took Lady Frankland her tea, and listened to all the domestic chatter as if it had been the talk of angels; and was as pleased when the mistress of the house thanked him for his kindness to Charley, as if he had not thought Charley a wretched little nuisance a few hours ago. He did not in the least know who the people were about whom the two ladies kept up such an unceasing talk, and, perhaps, under other circumstances would have laughed at this sweet-toned gossip, with all its lively comments upon nothing, and incessant personalities; but, at the present moment, Colin had said good-bye to reason, and could not anyhow defend himself against the sudden happiness which seized upon him without any notice. While Sir Thomas and his wife sat on either side of the great fire, and Matty kept darting in and out between them, Colin sat behind near the impromptu tea-table, and listened and felt that the world was changed. If he could have had time to think, he might have been ashamed of himself; but then he had no time to think, and in the meantime he was happy, a sensation not to be gainsaid or rejected; and so fled the few blessed hours of the first evening of Matty’s return.
When he had gone up stairs, and had heard, at a distance, the sound of the last good-night, and was fairly shut up again in the silence of his own room, the youth, for the first time, began to realize what he was doing. He paused, with a little consternation, a little fright, to question himself. For the first time, he saw clearly, without any possibility of self-delusion, what it was which had brought him here, and which made all the difference to him between happiness and misery. It was hard to realize now the state of mind he had been in a few hours before; but he did it, by dint of a great exertion, and saw, with a distinctness which alarmed him, how it was that everything had altered in his eyes. It was Matty’s presence that made allthe difference between this subdued thrill of happiness and that blank of impatient and mortified misery. The young man tried to stand still and consider the reality of his position. He had stopped in his career, made a voluntary pause in his life, entered upon a species of existence which he felt in his heart was not more, but less, noble (for him) than his previous course—and what was it for? All for the uncertain smile, for the society—which might fail him at any time—of a woman so far out of his way, so utterly removed from his reach, as Matilda Frankland? For a moment, the youth was dismayed, and stopped short, Wisdom and Truth whispering in his ear. Love might be fair, but he knew enough to know that life must not be subservient to that witchery; and Colin’s good angel spoke to him in the silence, and bade him flee. Better to go back, and at once, to the grey and sombre world, where all his duties awaited him, than to stay here in this fool’s paradise. As he thought so he got up, and began to pace about his room, as though it had been a cage. Best to flee—it might take all the light out of his life and break his heart, but what else had he to look for sooner or later? He sat up half the night, still pacing about his room, hesitating over his fate, while the December storm raged outside. What was he to do? When he dropped to sleep at last, his heart betrayed him, and strayed away into celestial worlds of dreaming. He woke, still undecided, as he thought, to see the earliest wintry gleam of sunshine stealing in through his shutters. What was he to do? But already the daylight made him feel his terrors as so many shadows. His heart was a traitor, and he was glad to find it so; and that moment of indecision settled more surely than ever the bondage in which he seemed to have entangled his life.