Wonders come natural at fifteen; the farmer’s son of Ramore, though a
little dazzled at the moment, was by no means thrown off his balance by
the flattering attentions of Lady Frankland, who said everything that
was agreeable and forgot that she had said it, and went over the same
ground again half a dozen times, somewhat to the contempt of Colin, who
knew nothing about fine ladies, but had all a boy’s disdain for a silly
woman. Thanks to his faculty of silence, and his intense pride, Colin
conducted himself with great external propriety when he dined with his
new friends. Nobody knew the fright he was in, nor the strain of
determination not to commit himself, which was worthy of something more
important than a dinner. But after all, though it shed a reflected glory
over his path for a short time, Sir Thomas Frankland’s dinner and all
its bewildering accessories was but an affair of a day, and the only
real result it left behind was a conviction in the mind of Lauderdale
that his young _protégé_ was born to better fortune. From that day the
tall student hovered, benignly reflective, like a tall genie over
Colin’s boyish career. He was the boy’s tutor so far as that was
possible where the teacher was himself but one step in advance of the
pupil; and as to matters speculative and philosophical, Lauderdale’s
monologue, delivered high up in the air over his head, became the
accompaniment and perpetual stimulation of all Colin’s thoughts. The
training was strange, but by no means unnatural, nor out of harmony with
the habits of the boy’s previous life, for much homely philosophy was
current at Ramore, and Colin had been used to receive all kinds of
comments upon human affairs with his daily bread. Naturally enough,
however, the sentiments of thirty and those of fifteen were not always
harmonious, and the impartial and tolerant thoughtfulness of his tall
friend much exasperated Colin in the absolutism of his youth.
“I’m a man of the age,” Lauderdale would say as they traversed the
crowded streets together; “by which I am claiming no superiority over
you, callant, but far the contrary, if you were but wise enough to ken.
I’ve fallen into the groove like the rest of mankind, and think in
limits as belongs to my century--which is but a poor half-and-half kind
of century, to say the best of it--but you are of all the ages, and know
nothing about limits or possibilities. Don’t interrupt me,” said the
placid giant; “you are far too talkative for a laddie, as I have said
before. I tell you I’m a man of the age: I’ve no very particular faith
in anything. In a kind of a way, everything’s true; but you needna tell
me that a man that believes like _that_ will never make much mark in
this world or any other world I ever heard tell of. I know that, a great
deal better than you do. The best thing you can do is to contradict me;
it’s good for you, and it does me no harm.”
Colin acted upon this permission to the full extent of all his youthful
prowess and prejudices, and went on learning his Latin and Greek, and
discussing all manner of questions in heaven and earth, with the fervour
of a boy and a Scotsman. They kept together, this strange pair, for the
greater part of the short winter days, taking long walks, when they left
the University, through the noisy dirty streets, upon which Lauderdale
moralized; and sometimes through the duller squares and crescents of
respectability which formed the frame of the picture. Sometimes their
peregrinations concluded in Colin’s little room, where they renewed
their arguments over the oatcakes and cheese which came in periodical
hampers from Ramore; and sometimes Lauderdale gave his friend a cheap
and homely dinner at the tavern where they had first broken bread
together. But not even Colin, much less any of his less familiar
acquaintances, knew where the tall Mentor lived, or how he managed to
maintain himself at college. He said he had his lodging provided for
him, when any inquiry was made, and added, with an odd humourous look,
that his was an honourable occupation; but Lauderdale afforded no
further clue to his own means or dwelling-place. He smiled, but he was
secret and gave no sign. As for his studies, he made but such moderate
progress in them as was natural to his age and his character. No
particular spur of ambition seemed to stimulate the man whose habits
were formed by this time, and who found enjoyment enough, it appeared,
in universal speculation. When he failed, his reflections as to the
effect of failure upon the mind of man, and the secondary importance
after all of mere material success, “which always turns out more
disappointing to a reflective spirit than an actual break-down,” the
philosopher would say, “being aye another evidence how far reality falls
short of the idea,” became more piquant than usual; and when he
succeeded, the same sentiments moderated his satisfaction. “Oh ay, I’ve
got the prize,” he said, holding it on a level with Colin’s head, and
regarding its resplendent binding with a smile; “which is to say, I’ve
found out that it’s only a book with the college arms stamped upon it,
and no a palpable satisfaction to the soul as I might have imagined it
to be, had it been yours, boy, instead of mine.”
But with all this composure of feeling as respected his own success,
Lauderdale was as eager as a boy about the progress of his pupil. When
the prize lay in Colin’s way, his friend spared no pains to stimulate
and encourage and help him on; and as the years passed, and the personal
pride of the elder became involved in the success of the younger,
Lauderdale’s anxieties awoke a certain impatience in the bosom of his
_protégé_. Colin was ambitious enough in his own person, but he turned
naturally with sensitive boyish pride against the arguments and
inducements which had so little influence upon the speaker himself.
“You urge _me_ on,” he would say, “but you think it does not matter for
yourself.” And though it was Colin’s third session, and he reckoned
himself a man when he said this, he was jealous to think that Lauderdale
urged upon him what he did not think it worth his while to practise in
his own person.
“When a thing’s spoilt in the making, it matters less what use ye put it
to,” said the philosopher. It was a bright day in March, and they were
seated on the grass together in a corner of the Green, looking at the
pretty groups about, of women and children--children and women, perhaps
not over tidy, if you looked closely into the matter, but picturesque to
look at--some watching the patches of white linen bleaching on the
grass, and some busily engaged over their needlework. The tall student
stretched his long limbs on the grass, and watched the people about with
reflective eyes. “There’s nothing in this world so important to a man as
a right beginning,” he went on. “As for me, I’m all astray, and can
never win to any certain end--no that I’m complaining, or taking a
gloomy view of things in general; I’m just as happy in my way as other
folk are in theirs--but that’s no the question under discussion. When a
man reaches my years without coming to anything he’ll never come to much
all his days; but you’re only a callant, and have all the world before
you, said Lauderdale.” He did not look at Colin as he spoke, but went on
in his usual monotone, looking into the blue air, in which he saw much
that was not visible to the eager young eyes which kept gazing at him.
“When I was like you,” he continued, with a half-pathetic,
half-humourous smile, “it looked like misery and despair to feel that I
was not to get my own way in this world. I’m terrible indifferent
now-a-days--one kind of life is just as good as another as long as a man
has something to do that he can think to be his duty; but such thoughts
are no for you,” said Colin’s tutor, waking up suddenly. “For you,
laddie, there’s nothing grand in the world that should not be possible.
The lot that’s accomplished is aye more or less a failure; but there’s
always something splendid in the life that is to come.”
“You talk to me as if I were a child,” said Colin, with a little
indignation; “you see things in their true light yourself, but you treat
me like a baby. What can there be that is splendid in my life?--a
farmer’s son, with perhaps the chance of a country church for my highest
hope--after all kinds of signings, and confessions, and calls, and
presbyteries. It would be splendid, indeed,” said the lad, with boyish
contempt, “to be plucked by a country presbytery that don’t know six
words of Greek, or objected to by a congregation of ploughmen--that’s
all a man has to look for in the Church of Scotland, and you know it,
Lauderdale, as well as I do.”
Colin broke off suddenly, with a considerable show of heat and
impatience. He was eighteen, and he was of the advanced party, the Young
Scotland of his time. The dogmatic Old Scotland, which loved to bind,
and limit, and make confessions, and sign the same, belonged to the past
centuries. As for Colin’s set, they were “viewy” as the young men at
Oxford used to be in the days of Froude and Newman. Colin’s own “views”
were of a vague description enough, but of the most revolutionary
tendency. He did not believe in Presbytery, nor in that rule of Church
government which in Scotland is known as Lord Aberdeen’s Act; and his
ideas respecting extempore worship and common prayer were much
unsettled. But as neither Colin nor his set had any distinct model to
fall back upon, nor any clear perception of what they wanted, the
present result of their enlightenment was simply the unpleasant one of
general discontent with existing things, and a restless contempt for the
necessary accessories of their lot.
“Plucked is no a word in use in Scotland,” said Lauderdale; “it smacks
of the English universities, which are altogether a different matter. As
for the Westminster Confession, I’m no clear that I could put my name to
that myself as my act and deed--but you are but a callant, and don’t
know your own mind as yet. Meaning no offence to you,” he continued,
waving his hand to Colin, who showed signs of impatience, “I was once a
laddie myself. Between eighteen and eight-and-twenty you’ll change your
ways of thinking, and neither you nor me can prophesy what they’ll end
in. As for the congregation of ploughmen, I would be very easy about you
if that was the worst danger. Men that are about day and night in the
fields when all’s still, cannot but have thoughts in their minds now and
then. But it’s no what you are going to be, I’m thinking of,” said
Colin’s counsellor, raising himself from the grass with a spark of
unusual light in his eyes, “but what you _might_ be, laddie. It’s no a
great preacher, far less what they call a popular minister, that would
please me. What I’m thinking of is, the Man that is aye to be looked
for, but never comes. I’m speaking like a woman, and thinking like a
woman,” he said, with a smile; “they have a kind of privilege to keep
their ideal. For my part, I ought to have more sense, if experience
counted for anything; but I’ve no faith in experience. And, speaking of
that,” said the philosopher, dropping back again softly on the
greensward, “what a grand outlet for what I’m calling the ideal was that
old promise of the Messias who was to come! It may still be so for
anything I can tell, though I cannot say that I put much trust in the
Jews. But aye to be able to hope that the next new soul might be the One
that was above failure, must have been a wonderful solace to them that
had failed and lost heart. To be sure, they missed Him when He came,”
continued Lauderdale; “that was natural. Human nature is aye defective
in action; but a grand idea like that makes all the difference between
us and the beasts, and would do, if there were a hundred theories of
development--which I would not have you put faith in, laddie,” continued
the volunteer tutor. “Steam and iron make awful progress, but no man--”
“That is one of your favourite theories,” said Colin, who was ready for
any amount of argument; “though iron and steam are dead and stationary,
but for the mind which is always developing. What you say is a kind of
paradox; but you like paradoxes, Lauderdale.”
“Everything’s a paradox,” said the reflective giant, getting up slowly
from the turf; “and the grass is damp, and the wind’s cold, and I don’t
mean to sit here and haver nonsense any longer. Come along, and I’ll see
you home. What I like women for is, that they’re seldom subject to the
real, or convinced by what you callants call reason. Reason and reality
are terrible fictions at the bottom. I never believe in facts, for my
part. The worst of it is, that a woman’s ideal is apt to look a terrible
idiot when she sets it up before the world,” continued Lauderdale, his
face brightening gradually with one of his slow smiles. “The ladies’
novels are instructive on that point. But there’s few things in this
world so pleasant as to have a woman at hand that believes in you,” he
said, suddenly breaking off in his discourse at an utterly unexpected
moment. Colin was startled by the unlooked-for silence, and by the sound
of something like a sigh which disturbed the air over his head; and
being still but a boy, and not superior to mischief, looked up, with a
little laughter.
“You must have once had a woman who believed in you, or you would not
speak so feelingly,” said the lad, in his youthful amusement; and then
Colin, too, stopped short, having encountered quite an unaccustomed look
in his companion’s face.
“Ay,” said Lauderdale, and then there was a pause. “If it were not that
life is aye a failure, there would be some cases harder than could be
borne,” he continued, after a moment; “no that I’m complaining; but if I
were you, laddie, I would set my face dead against fortune, and make up
my mind to win. And speaking of winning, when did you hear of your grand
English friends, and the callant you picked out of the loch? Have they
ever been here in Glasgow again?”
At which question Colin drew himself to his full height, as he always
did at Harry Frankland’s name; he was ashamed now to express his natural
antagonism to the English lad in frank speech as he had been used to do,
but he insensibly elevated his head, which, when he did not stoop, as he
had a habit of doing, began to approach much more nearly than of old to
the altitude of his friend’s.
“I know nothing about their movements,” he said, shortly. “As for
winning, I don’t see what connexion there can be between the Franklands
and any victory of mine. You don’t suppose Miss Matilda believes in me,
do you?” said Colin, with an uneasy laugh; “for that would be a
mistake,” he continued, a moment after. “She believes in her cousin.”
“Maybe,” said Lauderdale, in his oracular way, “it’s an uncanny kind of
relationship upon the whole; but I would not be the one to answer for
it, especially if it’s him she’s expected to believe in. But there were
no Miss Matildas in my mind,” he added, with a smile. “I’ll no ask what
she had to do in yours, for you’re but a callant, as I have to remind
you twenty times in a day. But such lodgers are no to be encouraged,”
said Colin’s adviser, with seriousness; “when they get into a young head
it’s hard to get them out again; and the worst of them is, that they
take more room than their fair share. Have you got your essay well in
hand for the Principal? That’s more to the purpose than Miss Matilda;
and now the end of the session’s drawing near, and I’m a thought anxious
about the philosophy class. Yon Highland colt with the red hair will run
you close, if you don’t take heed. It’s no prizes I’m thinking upon,”
said Lauderdale; “it’s the whole plan of the campaign. I’ll come up and
talk it all over again, if you want advice; but I’ve great confidence in
your own genius.” As he said this, he laid his hand upon the lad’s
shoulder and looked down into his eyes. “Summer’s the time to dream,”
said the tall student, with a smile and a sigh. Perhaps he had given
undue importance to the name of Miss Matilda. He looked into the fresh
young face with that mixture of affection and pathos--ambition for the
lad, mingled with a generous, tender envy of him--which all along had
moved the elder man in his intercourse with Colin. The look for once
penetrated through the mists of custom and touched the boy’s heart.
“You are very good to me, Lauderdale,” he said, with a little effusion;
at the sound of which words his friend grasped his shoulder
affectionately and went off, without saying anything more, into the
dingy Glasgow streets. Colin himself paused a minute to watch the tall,
retreating figure before he climbed his own tedious stair. “Summer’s the
time to dream,” he repeated to himself, with a certain brightness in his
face, and went up the darkling staircase three steps at a time,
stimulated most probably by some thoughts more exciting than anything
connected with college prizes or essays. It was the end of March, and
already now and then a chance breeze whispered to Colin that the
primroses had begun to peep out about the roots of the trees in all the
soft glens of the Holy Loch. It had only been in the previous spring
that primroses became anything more to Colin than they were to Peter
Bell; but now the youth’s eyes were anointed--he had begun to write
poetry, and to taste the delights of life. Though he had already learned
to throw a very transparent vein of pretended sadness upon his verses,
it did not occur to Colin as possible that the life which was so sweet
one year might not be equally delightful the next, or that anything
could occur to deprive him of the companionship he was looking forward
to. He had never received any shock yet in his youthful certainty of
pleasure, and did not stop to think that the chance which brought Sir
Thomas Frankland’s nursery, and with it his pretty niece, to the Castle,
for all the long spring and summer, might never recur again. So he went
upstairs three steps at a time, in the dingy twilight, and sat down to
his essay, raising now and then triumphant, youthful eyes, which
surveyed the mean walls and poor little room without seeing anything of
their poverty, and making all his young, arrogant, absolute philosophy
sweet with thoughts of the primroses, and the awaking waters, and the
other human creature, the child-Eve of the boy’s Paradise. This was how
Colin managed to compose the essay, which drew tears of mingled laughter
and emotion from Lauderdale’s eyes, and dazzled the professor himself
with its promise of eloquence, and secured the prize in the philosophy
class. The Highland colt with the red hair, who was Colin’s rival, was
very much sounder in his views, and had twenty times more logic in his
composition; but the professor was dazzled, and the class itself could
scarcely forbear its applause. Colin went home accordingly covered with
glory. He was nearly nineteen; he was one of the most promising students
of the year; he had already distinguished himself sufficiently to
attract the attention of people interested in college successes; and he
had all the long summer before him, and no one could tell how many
rambles about the glens, how many voyages across the loch, how many
researches into the wonders of the hills. He bade farewell to Lauderdale
with a momentary seriousness, but forgot before the smoke of Glasgow was
out of sight that he had ever parted from anybody, or that all his
friends were not awaiting him in this summer of delight.