“It’s hard to ken what to say,” said the Mistress, going to the window
for the hundredth time, and looking out wistfully upon the sky which
shone dazzling over the Holy Loch with the excessive pathetic brightness
of exceptional sunshine. “I canna make out for my part if he’s
broken-hearted or no, and a word wrong just at a moment like this would
be hard on the callant. It’s a wonderful mercy it’s such a bonnie day.
That’s aye a blessing both to the body and the mind.”
“Well, it’s you that Colin takes after,” said the farmer of Ramore,
with an undertone of dissatisfaction; “so there’s no saying but what the
weather may count for something. I’ve lost understanding for my part of
a lad that gangs abroad for his health, and gets himself engaged to be
married. In my days, when marriage came into a man’s head, he went
through with it, and there was an end of the subject. For my part, I
dinna pretend to understand your newfangled ways.”
“Eh, Colin, dinna be so unfeeling,” said the Mistress, roused to
remonstrance. “You were like to gang out of your mind about the marriage
when you thought it was to be; and now you’re ready to sneer at the poor
laddie, as if he could help it. It’s hard when his ain friends turn
against him after the ingratitude he’s met wi’, and the disappointment
he’s had to bear.”
“You may trust a woman for uphaudin’ her son in such like nonsense,”
said big Colin. “The only man o’ sense among them that I can see was yon
Mr. Meredith that took the lassie away. What the deevil had Colin to do
with a wife, and him no a penny in his pouch? But in the meantime
yonder’s the steamboat, and’ I’m gaun down to meet them. If I were you I
would stop still here. You’re no that strong,” said the farmer, looking
upon his wife with a certain secret tenderness. “I would stop still at
hame if I were you. It’s aye the best welcome for a callant to see his
mother at her ain door.”
With which big Colin of Ramore strode down to the beach, where his sons
were launching their own boat to meet the little steamer by which Colin
was coming home. His wife looked after him with mingled feelings as he
went down the brae. He had been a little hard upon Colin for these six
months past, and had directed many a covert sarcasm at the young man who
had gone so far out of the ordinary course as to seek health in Italy.
The farmer did not believe in any son of his needing such an expedient;
and, in proportion as it seemed unnecessary to his own vigorous
strength, and ignorance of weakness, he took opportunity for jeers and
jests which were to the mother’s keen ears much less good-natured than
they seemed to be. And then he had been very angry on the receipt of
Colin’s letter announcing his intended marriage, and it was with
difficulty Mrs. Campbell had prevented her husband from sending in
return such an answer as might have banished Colin for ever from his
father’s house. Now all these clouds had blown past, and no harm had
come of them, and he was coming home as of old. His brothers were
launching the boat on the beach, and his father had gone down to meet
the stranger. The Mistress stood at her door, restraining her eagerness
and anxiety as best she could, and obeying her husband’s suggestion, as
women do so often, by way of propitiating him, and bespeaking tenderness
and forbearance for her boy. For indeed the old times had passed away,
with all their natural family gladness, and union clouded by no sense of
difference. Now it was a man of independent thoughts, with projects and
pursuits of his own differing from theirs, and with a mind no doubt
altered and matured by those advantages of travel which the Mistress
regarded in her ignorance with a certain awe, who was coming back to
Ramore. Colin had made so many changes, while so few had occurred at
home; and even a bystander, less anxious than his mother, might have had
reason to inquire and wonder how the matured and travelled son would
look upon his unprogressive home.
It was now the end of September, though Colin had left Rome in May; but
then his Scholarship was intended to give him the advantage of travel,
and specially that peculiar advantage of attendance at a German
University which is so much prized in Scotland. He had accordingly
passed the intervening months in a little German town, getting up the
language and listening to lectures made doubly misty by imperfect
understanding of the tongue. The process left Colin’s theological ideas
very much where it found them--which is to say, in a state of general
vagueness and uncertainty; but then he had always the advantage of being
able to say that he studied at Dickofptenberg. Lauderdale had left his
friend, after spending, not without satisfaction, his hundred pounds,
and was happily re-established in the “honourable situation” which he
had quitted on Colin’s account; and the young man was now returning home
alone, to spend a little time with his family before he returned to his
studies. The Mistress watched him land from the boat, with her heart
beating so loudly in her ears that no other sound was audible; and Colin
did not lose much time in ascending the brae where she stood awaiting
him. “But you should not have left your father,” Mrs. Campbell said,
even in the height of her happiness. “He’s awfu’ proud to see you home,
Colin, my man!” Big Colin, however, was no way displeased in his own
person by his son’s desertion. He came up leisurely after him, not
without a thrill of conscious satisfaction. The farmer was sufficiently
disposed to scoff aloud at his son’s improved looks, at his beard, and
his dress, and all the little particulars which made a visible
difference between the present Colin and the awkward country lad of two
years ago; but in his heart he made involuntary comparisons, and
privately concluded that the minister’s son was far from being Colin’s
equal, and that even the heir and pride of the Duke would have little to
boast of in presence of the farmer’s son of Ramore. This--though big
Colin would not for any earthly inducement have owned the
sentiment--made him regard his son’s actions and intentions unawares
with eyes more lenient and gracious. No contemptible weakness of health
or delicacy of appearance appeared in the sunburnt countenance, so
unexpectedly garnished by a light-brown, crisp, abundant beard--a beard
of which, to tell the truth, Colin himself was rather proud, all the
more as it had by rare fortune escaped that intensification of colour
which is common to men of his complexion. The golden glitter which
lighted up the great waves of brown hair over his forehead had not
deepened into red on his chin, as it had done in Archie’s young but
vigorous whiskers. His complexion, though not so ruddy as his brother’s,
had the tone of perfect health and vigour, untouched by any shade of
fatigue, or weakness. He was not going to be the “delicate” member of
the family, as the farmer, with a certain contempt, had foreboded; for,
naturally, to be delicate included a certain weakness of mind as well as
of body to the healthful dwellers in Ramore.
“You’ll find but little to amuse you here after a’ your travels,” the
farmer said. “We’re aye busy about the beasts, Archie and me. I’ll no
say it’s an elevating study, like yours; but it’s awfu’ necessary in our
occupation. For my part, I’m no above a kind o’ pride in my cattle; and
there’s your mother, she’s set her shoulder to the wheel and won a
prize.”
“Ay, Colin,” said the Mistress, hastening to take up her part in the
conversation, “it’s aye grand to be doing something. And it’s no’ me but
Gowan that’s won the prize. She was aye a weel-conditioned creature,
that it was a pleasure to have onything to do with; but there’s plenty
of time to speak about the beasts. You’re sure you’re weel and strong
yourself, Colin, my man? for that’s the first thing now we’ve got you
hame.”
“There doesna look much amiss with him,” said the farmer, with an
articulate growl. “Your mother’s awfu’ keen for somebody to pet and play
wi’; but there’s a time for a’ thing; and a callant, even, though he’s
brought up for a minister, maun find out when he’s a man.”
“I should hope there was no doubt of that,” said Colin. “I’m getting on
for two-and-twenty, mother, and strong enough for anything. Thanks to
Harry Frankland for a splendid holiday; and now I mean to settle down to
work.”
Here big Colin again interjected an inarticulate exclamation. “I ken
little about your kind of work,” said the discontented father; “but, if
I were you, when I wanted a bit exercise I would take a hand at the
plough, or some wise-like occupation, instead of picking fools out of
canals--or even out of lochs, for that matter,” he added, with a subdued
thrill of pride. “Sir Thomas is aye awfu’ civil when he comes here; and,
as for that bonnie little creature that’s aye with him, she comes
chirping about the place with her fine English, as if she belonged to
it. I never can make out what she and your mother have such long cracks
about.”
“Miss Frankland?” said Colin, with a bright look of interest. The
Mistress had been so much startled by this unexpected speech of her
husband, that she turned round upon Colin with an anxious face, eager to
know what effect an intimation so sudden might have upon him. For the
farmer’s wife believed in true love and in first love with all her
heart, and had never been able to divest herself of the idea that it was
partly pique and disappointment in respect to Miss Matty which had
driven her son into so hasty an engagement. “Is she still Miss
Frankland?” continued the unsuspicious Colin. “I thought she would have
been married by this time. She is a little witch,” the young man said
with a conscious smile--“but I owe her a great many pleasant hours. She
was always the life of Wodensbourne. Were they here this year?” he
asked; and then another thought struck him. “Hollo! it’s only
September,” said Colin; “I ought to ask, Are they here now?”
“Oh, ay, Colin, they’re here now,” said the Mistress, “and couldna be
more your friends if you were one of the family. I’m no clear in my mind
that thae two will ever be married. No that I ken of any obstacle--but,
so far as I can see, a bright bonny creature like that, aye full of life
and spirit, is nae match for the like of him.”
“I do not see that,” said the young man who once was Matty Frankland’s
worshipper. “She is very bright, as you say; but he is the more honest
of the two. I used to be jealous of Harry Frankland,” said Colin,
laughing; “he seemed to have everything that was lacking to me; but I
have changed my mind since then. One gets to believe in compensations,”
said the young man; and he shut his hand softly where it rested on the
table, as if he felt in it the tools which a dozen Harry Franklands
could have made no use of. But this thought was but dimly intelligible
to his hearers, to one of whom, at least, the word “jealous” was limited
in its meaning; and, viewed in this light, the sentiment just expressed
by Colin was hard to understand.
“I’m no fond of what folk call compensations,” said the Mistress. “A
loss is aye a loss, whatever onybody can say. Siller that’s lost may be
made up for, but naething more precious. It’s aye an awful marvel to me
that chapter about Job getting other bairns to fill the place o’ the
first. I would rather have the dead loss and the vacant place,” said the
tender woman, with tears in her eyes, “than a’ your compensations. One
can never stand for another--it’s awfu’ infidelity to think it. If I
canna have happiness, I’ll be content with sorrow; but you’re no to
speak of compensations to me.”
“No,” said Colin, laying his hand caressingly on his mother’s; “but I
was not speaking of either love or loss. I meant only that for Harry
Frankland’s advantages over me, I might, perhaps, have a little balance
on my side. For example, I picked him out of the canal, as my father
says,” the young man went on laughing; “but never mind the Franklands; I
suppose I shall have to see them, as they are here.”
“Weel, Colin, you can please yourself,” said his father. “I’m no a man
to court the great, but an English baronet, like Sir Thomas, is aye a
creditable acquaintance for a callant like you; and he’s aye awfu’ civil
as I was saying; but the first thing to be sure of is what you mean to
do. You have had the play for near a year, and it doesna appear to me
that tutorships, and that kind of thing, are the right training for a
minister. You’ll go back to your studies, and go through with them
without more interruptions, if you’ll be guided by me.”
But at this point Colin paused, and had a good many explanations to
give. His heart was set on the Balliol scholarship, which he had once
given up for Matty’s sake; and now there was another chance for him,
which had arisen unexpectedly. This it was which had hastened his return
home. As for his father, the farmer yielded with but little demur to
this proposal. A clear Scotch head, even when it begins to lose its
sense of the ideal, and to become absorbed in “the beasts,” seldom
deceives itself as to the benefits of education; and big Colin had an
intense secret confidence in the powers of his son. Honours at Oxford,
in the imagination of the Scotch farmer, were a visionary avenue leading
to any impossible altitude. He made a little resistance for appearance
sake, but he was in reality more excited by the idea of the
conflict--first, for the scholarship itself; then for all possible
prizes and honours to the glory of Scotland and Ramore--than was Colin
himself.
“But after a year’s play you’re no qualified,” he said, with a sense of
speaking ironically, which was very pleasant to his humour. “A
competition’s an awfu’ business; your rivals that have aye been keeping
at it will be better qualified than you.”
At which Colin smiled, as his father meant him to smile, and answered,
“I am not afraid,” more modestly a great deal than the farmer in his
heart was answering for him; but then an unexpected antagonist arose.
“I dinna pretend to ken a great deal about Oxford,” said the Mistress,
whose brow was clouded; “but it’s an awfu’ put-off of time as far as I
can see. I’m no fond of spending the best of life in idle learning.
Weel, weel, maybe its no idle learning for them that can spare the time;
but for a lad that’s no out of the thought of settling for himself and
doing his duty to his fellow-creatures--I was reading in a book no that
long ago,” said Colin’s mother, “about thae fellowships and things; and
of men so misguided as to stay on and live to be poor bachelor bodies,
with their Greek and their Latin, and no mortal use in this world. Eh,
Colin, laddie, if that was a’ that was to come of you!--”
“You’re keen to see your son in a pulpit, like the rest of the silly
women,” said the farmer; “for my part, I’m no that bigoted to the kirk;
if he could do better for himsel’----”
But at this juncture the Mistress got up with a severe countenance,
laying aside the stocking she was knitting. “Oh, Colin, if you wouldn’t
be so worldly!” cried the anxious mother. “I’m no one that’s aye
thinking of a callant bettering himself. If he’s taken arles in one
service, would you have him desert and gang over to another? I canna
bear for my part to see broken threads; be one thing or be another, but
dinna melt away and be nothing at a’,” the indignant woman concluded
abruptly, moving away to set things in order in the room before they all
retired for the night. It was the faint, far-off, and impossible idea of
her son settling down into one of the Fellowships of which Mrs. Campbell
had been reading which moved her to this little outburst. Her authority
probably was some disrespectful novel or magazine article, and this was
all the respect she had, in her ignorance, for the nurseries of
learning.
Her husband got up in his turn with mingled complacency and derision, as
came natural to him. “Leave the callant to himself, Jeanie. He kens
what he’s doing; that’s to say, he has an awfu’ ambition considering
that he’s only your son, and mine,” said big Colin of Ramore; and he
went out to take a last look at his beasts with a thrill of secret pride
which he would not for any reward have expressed in words. He was only a
humble Westland farmer looking after his beasts, and she was but his
true wife, a helpmeet no way above her natural occupations; but there
was no telling what the boy might be, though he was only “your son and
mine.” As for Colin the younger, he went up to his room half an hour
later, after the family had made their homely thanksgiving for his
return, smiling in himself at the unaccountable contraction of that
little chamber, which he had once shared with Archie without finding it
too small. Many changes and many thoughts had come and gone since he
last lay down under its shelving roof. Miss Matty who had danced away
like a will-o’-the-wisp, leaving no trace behind her; and Alice who had
won no such devotion, yet whose soft shadow lay upon him still; and then
there was the death-bed of Meredith, and his own almost death-bed at
Wodensbourne, and all the thoughts that belonged to these. Such
influences and imaginations mature a man unawares. While he sat
recalling all that had passed since he left this nest of his childhood,
the Mistress tapped softly at his door, and came in upon him with
wistful eyes. She would have given all she had in the world for the
power of reading her son’s heart at that moment, and, indeed, there was
little in it which Colin would have objected to reveal to his mother.
But the two human creatures were constrained to stand apart from each in
the bonds of their individual nature--to question timidly and answer
vaguely, and make guesses which were all astray from the truth. The
Mistress came behind her son and laid one hand on his shoulder, and with
the other caressed and smoothed back the waves of brown hair of which
she had always been so proud. “Your hair is just as long as ever,
Colin,” said the admiring mother; “but it’s no a’ your mother’s now,”
she said with a soft, little sigh. She was standing behind him that her
eyes might not disconcert her boy, meaning to woo him into confidence
and the opening of his heart.
“I don’t know who else cares for it,” said Colin; and then he too was
glad to respond to the unasked question. “My poor Alice,” he said; “if I
could but have brought her to you, mother--She would have been a
daughter to you.”
Mrs. Campbell sighed. “Eh, Colin, I’m awfu’ hard-hearted,” she said; “I
canna believe in ony woman ever taking _that_ place; I’m awfu’ bigoted
to my ain. But she would have been dearly welcome for my laddie’s sake;
and I’m real anxious to hear how it a’ was. It was but little you said
in your letters; and a’ this night I’ve been wanting to have you to
mysel’, and to hear all that there was to say.”
“I don’t know what there is to say,” said Colin; “I must have written
all about it. Her position, of course, made no difference to my
feelings,” he went on, rather hotly, like a man who in his own
consciousness stands somewhat on his defence; “but it made us hasten
matters. I thought if I could only have brought her home to you----”
“It was aye you for a kind thought,” said the Mistress; “but she would
have had little need of the auld mother when she had the son; and Colin,
my man, is it a’ ended now?”
“Heaven knows!” said Colin with a little impatience. “I have written to
her through her father, and I have written to her direct, and all that I
have had from her is one little letter, saying that her father had
forbidden all further intercourse between us, and bidding me farewell;
but----”
“But,” said the Mistress, “it no of her own will; she’s faithful in her
heart? And if she’s true to you, you’ll be true to her? Isna that what
you mean?”
“I suppose so,” said Colin; and then he made a little pause. “There
never was any one so patient and so dutiful,” he said. “When poor Arthur
died, it was she who forgot herself to think of us. Perhaps even this is
not so hard upon her as one thinks.”
“Eh, but I was thinking first of my ain, like a heartless woman as I
am,” said his mother. “I was thinking it was hard on _you_.”
He did not turn round his face to her as she had hoped; but her keen
eyes could see the heightened colour which tinged even his neck and his
forehead. “Yes,” said Colin; “but for my part,” he added, with a little
effort, “it is chiefly Alice I have been thinking of. It may seem vain
to say so--but she will have less to occupy her thoughts than I shall
have, and--and the time may hang heavier. You don’t like me to go to
Oxford, mother?” This question was said with a little jerk, as of a man
who was pleased to plunge into a new subject; and the Mistress was far
too close an observer not to understand what her son meant.
“I like whatever is good for you, Colin,” she said; “but it was aye in
the thought of losing time. I’m no meaning real loss of time. I’m
meaning I was thinking of mair hurry than there is. But you’re both
awfu’ young, and I like whatever is for your good, Colin,” said the
tender mother. She kept folding back his heavy locks as she spoke,
altogether disconcerted and at a loss, poor soul; for Colin’s calmness
did not seem to his mother quite consistent with his love; and the
possibility of a marriage without that foundation was to Mrs. Campbell
the most hideous of all suppositions. And then, like a true woman as she
was, she went back to her little original romance, and grew more
confused than ever.
“I’m maybe an awfu’ foolish woman,” she said, with an attempt at a
smile, which Colin was somehow conscious of, though he did not see it,
“but, even if I am, you’ll no be angry at your mother. Colin, my man,
maybe it’s no the best thing for you that thae folk at the castle should
be here?”
“Which folk at the castle?” said Colin, who had honestly forgotten for
the moment. “Oh, the Franklands! What should it matter to me?”
This time he turned round upon her with eyes of unabashed surprise,
which the Mistress found herself totally unprepared to meet. It was now
her turn to falter, and stammer, and break down.
“Eh, Colin, it’s so hard to ken,” said the Mistress. “The heart’s awfu’
deceitful. I’m no saying one thing or another; for I canna read what
you’re thinking, though you are my ain laddie; but if you were to think
it best no to enter into temptation--”
“Meaning Miss Matty?” said Colin; and he laughed with such entire
freedom that his mother was first silenced and then offended by his
levity. “No fear of that, mother; and then she has Harry, I suppose, to
keep her right.”
“I’m no so clear about that,” said Mrs. Campbell, nettled,
notwithstanding her satisfaction, by her son’s indifference; “he’s away
abroad somewhere; but I would not say but what there might be another,”
she continued, with natural _esprit du corps_, which was still more
irritated by Colin’s calm response,--
“Or two or three others,” said the young man; “but, for all that, you
are quite right to stand up for her, mother; only I am not in the least
danger. No, I must get to work,” said Colin; “hard work, without any
more nonsense; but I’d like to show those fellows that a man may choose
to be a Scotch minister though he is Fellow of an English college--”
The Mistress interrupted her son with the nearest approach to a scream
which her Scotch self-control would admit of. “A Fellow of an English
college,” she said in dismay, “and you troth-plighted to an innocent
young woman that trusts in you, Colin! That I should ever live to hear
such words out of the mouth of a son of mine!”
And, notwithstanding his explanations, the Mistress retired to her own
room, ill at ease, and with a sense of coming trouble. “A man that’s
engaged to be married shouldna be thinking of such an awfu’ off-put of
time,” she said to herself; “and ah, if the poor lassie is aye trusting
to his coming, and looking for him day by day!” This thought took away
from his mother half the joy of Colin’s return. Perhaps her cherished
son, too, was growing “worldly,” like his father, who thought of the
“beasts” even in his dreams. And, as for Colin himself, he, too, felt
the invisible curb upon his free actions, and chafed at it in the depths
of his heart when he was alone. With all this world of work and ambition
before him, it was hard to feel upon his proud neck that visionary rein.
Though Alice had set him free in her little letter, it was still in her
soft fingers that this shadowy bond remained. He had not repudiated it,
even in his most secret thoughts; but, as soon as he began to act
independently, he became conscious of the bondage, and in his heart
resented it. If he had brought her home, as he had intended, to his
father’s house, his young dependent wife, he probably would have felt
much less clearly this sense of having forestalled the future, and
mortgaged his very life.