“What for?” said Lauderdale. “I’ll no say but what it’s an interesting
study, if life was long enough to allow such indulgences; but--take you
my word for it, callant--it’s awfu’ hard to see a life wearing out like
that, drop by drop. It’s not only that you might get to be fond of the
poor lad himself, and miss him sair when he was gone,” said the
philosopher, who had not just then perfect command of himself; “but it
raises awfu’ questions, and you are not one of those that can take
things as they come and ask no reason. What should you bind yourself
for! I see a’ that would happen as clear as day. You would go into a bit
country place with him, only to watch him die; and, when he was gone,
you would be left with the bit bonnie sister, two bairns together--and
then--but you’re no destitute of imagination,” said Lauderdale, grimly;
“and I leave you to figure that part of the business to yoursel’.”
“This is foolish talk,” said Colin. “The sister, except that I am very
sorry for her, has nothing in the world to do with it. If we could
manage as well beside them as anywhere else, one should be glad to be of
some use to one’s fellow-creatures. I am not afraid of anything that
might happen,” the young man added, with a slight additional colour. “As
for responsibility, it is strange to hear you warning me against
that--you who were willing to take upon yourself all the responsibility
of travelling with me when you thought I was dying--”
“No such thing,” said Lauderdale, hotly. “I’m fool enough, no doubt, but
no such a fool as that. Callants of your age canna keep a medium. When
you have a sore finger you take thoughts of dying; but I’m a man of some
experience in this world. I’m travelling for my own pleasure and no for
you, nor no man. As for this lad, I’ve seen the like before. He’s no
singular, though I’ve little doubt he thinks he is. It’s awfu’ hard work
to stop short just when you’ve come to the brow of the hill, and see a’
the fair prospect before you,” said Colin’s guardian, whose countenance
was overcast and cloudy. “When the mind’s no very strong, the like of
that sets it off its balance. I’ve seen them that came out of the trial
as calm as the angels of God,” he went on, after a little pause, with a
strain in his voice which showed unusual emotion; “and I have seen them
that battled with Him that made them, to make Him render a reason; and I
have seen them that took it with a high hand, and turned into preachers
like this one. ‘A Voice from the Grave,’ did she say? But you’re a’
babies that ken no better. How are the like of you to know that there’s
men like me--ay, and women more than men--that would give a’ their
living, and would not grudge life itself, no for a voice only, but for
two or three words--for one word and no more.” He put down his face in
his hands for a moment as he spoke, though not to conceal tears; for
Lauderdale’s sorrows, whatever they might have been, were wrapped in the
deadly stillness of that past grief with which no stranger intermeddles;
and his young companion watched him sorrowfully, sympathetically, but in
ignorance, and with the timidity of youth, not knowing what to say.
“Him, and the like of him,” said Lauderdale, going on more softly when
he found that Colin made no reply, “their voice from the grave is like a
Halloween ghost to frighten the unwary. Whisht, callant! I’m no laughing
at the poor dying lad. There’s nae laughing in my head one way or
another; but it’s so little you know. You never think, with your
warnings and your terrors, of us that have sat by our graves for years,
and been confounded by the awfu’ silence. Why can they no speak nor we
hear? You’ll no tell me that Heaven and the presence of God can take the
love out of a living soul. I wish you would not disturb my mind with
your vain thoughts; it’s no a question I dare go into. If love’s no
everlasting, I’ve no desire to be everlasting myself; and, if I’m to be
no more hereafter to them that belong to me, than to legions of strange
angels, or a haill nation of fremd folk!--Whisht, callant! you’re no to
say such things to me.”
Colin said nothing at all to interrupt this monologue. He let his friend
wear himself out, pacing up and down the narrow little cabin, which it
required but two of Lauderdale’s strides to traverse from end to end. He
had known a chance word to produce similar results before, but had never
been made acquainted with the real history of his friend’s life. He
waited now till this excitement was over, knowing by experience that it
was the best way; and, after a while, Lauderdale calmed down and came
back to his seat, and resumed the conversation where he had left it,
before his heart within him was roused to make brief utterance of its
unknown burden.
“The short and the long of it is,” said Lauderdale, “that you’re making
up your mind, by some process of your own--I’m no saying what it is--to
give up our own plan and tack yourself on to a poor failing callant
that has not above a month or two to live?”
“How do you know he has not above a month or two to live?” said Colin.
“You thought the same of me a few weeks ago. One hears of the climate
working wonders; and, if he had some one by him to amuse and interest
him, and keep him off that book, as--as Miss Meredith says--”
“Oh, ay, no doubt, no doubt,” said Lauderdale, drily. “He has one nurse
already bound to him body and soul, and maybe, if he had another to
undertake the spiritual department--! But you’re no old enough, callant,
to take him in hand, and you’re no strong enough, and I cannot say, for
my own part, that I see any special qualification for such an office in
ye,” said the merciless critic, looking at Colin in a seriously
contemplative way, with his head a little on one side. After he had
shown any deep emotion, Lauderdale, like a true Briton, despised
himself, and made as great a leap as was practicable on the other side.
“No,” said Colin, who was a little piqued in spite of himself; “I don’t
suppose I am good for much; and I never thought of being his nurse. It
is out of the question to imagine that I could be for Meredith, or any
other man, what you have been for me.”
“I’ve kent ye longer than two days,” said Colin’s guardian, without
showing any signs of propitiation, “which to be sure makes a little
difference. Though them that are destined to come together need little
time to make it up--I’ve aye been a believer, for my part, not only in
love, but in friendship, at first sight.”
“There’s no question of either love or friendship,” said Colin, with
prompt irritation. “Surely one may feel pity, sympathy, fellow-feeling,
with a man of one’s own age without being misunderstood.”
“I understand you an awfu’ deal better than you understand yourself,”
said Lauderdale; “and, as I was saying, I am a great believer in first
impressions. It’s a mercenary kind of thing to be friends with a man for
his good qualities--there’s a kind of barter in it that goes against my
instincts; but, when you take to a man for nae reason, but out of pure
election and choice, that’s real friendship--or love, as it might be,”
he went on, without pity, enjoying the heightened colour and air of
embarrassment on Colin’s face.
“You say all this to make me lose my temper,” said Colin. “Don’t let us
talk of it any more to-night; I will think it all over again, since you
oppose it, and to-morrow--”
“Ay, to-morrow,” said Lauderdale--“it’s a bonnie new world, and we’ll no
interfere with it. Good-night, callant; I’m no a man that can be
quarrelled with if you tried ever so hard; to-morrow you’ll take your
own way.”
Colin did not sleep till the night was far advanced. He lay awake,
watching the moonlight, and pondering over this matter, which looked
very important as he contemplated it. By thinking was meant, in his
mind, as in most minds of his age, not any complicated course of
reasoning, but a rapid framing of pictures on one side and the other. On
one side he saw Meredith beguiled from his book, persuaded to moderate
his words in season and out of season, and induced to take a little
interest in ordinary human affairs, gradually recovering his health, and
returning to a life which should no longer appear to him a near
preparation for dying; and it cannot be denied that there did come into
Colin’s mind a certain consciousness of grateful looks and sweet-voiced
thanks attending this restoration, which made the picture wonderfully
pleasant. Then, on the other side, there was Lauderdale’s sketch of the
sadder possibilities filled in by Colin’s imagination:--poor Meredith
dying slowly, looking death in the face for long days and lonely nights,
sorely wanting all the succour that human compassion could give him; and
the forlorn and solitary mourner that would be left, so young and
friendless, by the stranger’s grave. Perhaps, on the whole, this
suggestion of Lauderdale’s decided the matter. The thought was too
pitiful, too sad to be borne. She was nothing in the world to him; but
she was a woman, and Colin thought indignantly of the unchristian
cowardice which, for fear of responsibility, would desert a friendless
creature exposed to such dangers. Notwithstanding, he was prudent, very
prudent, as was natural. It was not Alice, but Arthur Meredith who was
to be his friend. She had nothing to do with this decision whatever. If
such a melancholy necessity should happen, Colin felt it was in him,
respectfully, sympathetically, to take the poor girl home; and if,
somehow, the word “home” suggested to him his mother, who that knew
anything of the Mistress, could wonder at that thought?
Thus he went on drawing the meshes closer about his feet, while the
moonlight shone on the sea, and poor Meredith wrote his book, and
Lauderdale, as sleepless as his charge, anxiously pondered the new state
of affairs. At home that same moon suggested Colin to more minds than
one in the peaceful country over which the March winds were blowing.
Miss Matty thought of him, looking out over the Wodensbourne avenue,
where the great trees stood stately in the moonlight with a glory on
their heads. She was so late because she had been at a ball, where her
cousin Harry had made himself highly disagreeable, and where, prompted
by his sulky looks, she had carried a little flirtation a hair’s-breadth
too far--which was not a comfortable consciousness. Why she should think
of Colin under such circumstances it would be hard to say; but the
thoughts of a young woman at three o’clock in the morning are not
expected to be logical. She thought of him with a shadow of the same
feeling that made the Psalmist long for the wings of a dove; though, if
Miss Matty had but known it, her reception--could she have made her
escape to her former worshipper at that moment--would have been of a
disappointing character. And about the same time the Mistress woke out
of her quiet sleep, and saw the broad, white flood of light streaming
through the little square window of the room in which Colin was born.
Her fancy was busy enough about him night and day; and she fancied she
could see, as clear as in a picture, the ship speeding on, with perhaps
its white wings spread over the glistening sea, and the moon stealing in
at the cabin window, and caressing her boy, who must be fast asleep,
resting and gathering strength, with new life breathing in upon him in
every breath of favourable wind that crisped the sleeping sea. Such was
the vision that came to the mind of the Mistress when she woke in the
“dead of night,” and saw the moonlight at her window. “God bless my
Colin,” she said to herself, as she closed her tender eyes; and in the
meantime Colin, thinking nothing of his old love, and not very much of
his home, was busily engaged in weaving for himself another tangle in
the varied web of existence--although none of the people most interested
in him--except Lauderdale, who saw a faint shadow of the future--had the
least idea that this night at sea was of any moment in his life. He did
not know it himself, though he was conscious of a certain thrill of
pleasant excitement and youthful awe, half voluntary, half real. And so
the new scene got arranged for this new act of the wonderful drama; and
all the marvellous, delicate influences of Providence and will, poising
and balancing each other, began to form and shape the further outlines
of his life.