It is unnecessary to say that Colin won the prize on which he had set
his heart. The record is extant in the University, to save his historian
trouble; and, to be sure, nobody can be supposed to be ignorant on so
important a point--at least nobody who is anybody and has a character
to support. He took a double first-class--as he had set his heart on
doing--and thereby obtained, as some great man once said in a speech, an
equal standing to that of a duke in English society. It is to be feared
that Colin did not experience the full benefits of his elevation; for,
to be sure, such a dukedom is of a temporary character, and was scarcely
likely to survive beyond his year. But the prize when it was won, and
all the long details of the process of winning it, were not without
their effect upon him. Colin, being still young and inexperienced, had,
indeed, the idea that the possessor of such a distinction needed but to
signify his august will, and straightway every possible avenue of
advancement would open before him. But for that idea, the pride of
carrying home his honours, and laying them at the feet of his native
church and country, would have been much lessened; and, to tell the
truth, when the moment of triumph came, Colin yielded a little to the
intoxication, and lent his thoughts, in spite of himself, to those
charmed voices of ambition which, in every allegory that ever was
invented, exercise their siren influence on the young man at the
beginning of his career. He waited to be wooed at that eventful moment.
He had a vague idea at the bottom of his heart that the State and the
Church, and the Bar and the Press, would all come forward open-armed to
tempt the hero of the year; and he had nobly determined to turn a deaf
ear to all their temptations, and cling to his natural vocation, the
profession to which he had been destined from his cradle with a
constancy to which the world could not fail to do honour. Colin
accordingly took possession of his honours with a little expectation,
and waited for the siren-voices. When they did not come, the young man
was a little astonished, a little mortified and cast down for the
moment. But after that, happily, the absurdity of the position struck
him. He burst into sudden laughter in his rooms, where he sat in all the
new gloss of his fame and dignity, with much congratulations from his
friends, but no particular excitement on the part of the world. Great
Britain, as it appeared, for the moment, was not so urgently in want of
a new Secretary of State as to contest the matter with the anonymous
Scotch parish which had a claim upon the young man as its minister; and
neither the _Times_ nor the _Quarterly Review_ put forth any pretensions
to him. And University life, to which he might have had a successful
_entrée_, did not exercise any charm upon Colin. A tutorship, though
with unlimited prospect of pupils, or even a final hope of reaching the
august elevation of Master, was not the vocation on which he had set
his heart. The consequence was, as we have said, that the new Fellow of
Balliol remained expectant for some time, then began to feel mortified
and disappointed, and finally arose, with a storm of half-indignant
laughter, to find that, after all, his position was not vitally changed
by his success.
This was a strange, and perhaps in some respects a painful, discovery
for a young man to make. He had distinguished himself among his fellows
as much as a young soldier who had made himself the hero of a campaign
would have distinguished himself among his; but this fact had very
little effect upon his entry into the world. If he had been the Duke’s
son, his first-class glories would have been a graceful addition to the
natural honours of his name, and perhaps might have turned towards him
with favour the eyes of some of those great persons who hold the keys of
office in their hands. But Colin was only the farmer of Ramore’s son,
and his prize did him no more good than any other useless laurel--except
indeed that it might have helped him to advancement in the way of
pupils, had that been Colin’s _rôle_. But, considering how honourable a
task it is to rear the new generation, it is astonishing how little
enthusiasm generally exists among young men for that fine and worthy
office. Colin had not the least desire to devote himself henceforward to
the production of other first-class men--though, doubtless, that would
have been a very laudable object of ambition; and, notwithstanding his
known devotion to the “Kirk,” as his Oxford friends liked to call it,
the young man was, no doubt, a little disappointed to find himself
entirely at liberty to pursue his vocation. To be sure, Colin’s “set”
still remonstrated against his self-immolation, and assured him that
with his advantages fabulous things might be done. But the young
Scotsman was too clear-sighted not to see that a great many of his
congratulating friends had a very faint idea what to do with themselves,
though some of them were but a step or two beneath him in honours. And,
in the meantime, Colin felt quite conscious that the world gave no sign
of wanting him, nor even availed itself of the commonest opportunities
of seeking his invaluable services. A man who takes such a discovery in
good part, and can turn back without bitterness upon his original
intentions, is generally a man good for something; and this is precisely
what, with much less flourish of trumpets than at the beginning, Colin
found it necessary to do.
But he was not sorry to pay a visit to Wodensbourne, where he was
invited after his victory, and to take a little time to think it all
over. Wodensbourne had always been a kind of half-way house. It stood
between him and his youthful life, with its limited external
circumstances and unlimited expectations--and that other _real_
life--the life of the man, wonderfully enlarged in outward detail, and
miraculously shrunk and confined in expectation--which, by the force of
contrast, young as he was, seemed to make two men of Colin. It was there
first that he had learned to distinguish between the brilliant peasant
firmament of Ramore, full of indistinct mists of glory, underneath which
everything was possible--an atmosphere in which poor men rose to the
steps of the throne, and princesses married pages, and the world was
still young and fresh and primitive; and that more real sky in which the
planets shone fixed and unapproachable, and where everything was bound
by bonds of law and order, forbidding miracle. The more Colin had
advanced, the more had he found advancement impossible according to the
ideas entertained of it in his original sphere; and it was at
Wodensbourne that he had first made this grand discovery. It was there
he had learned the impossibility of the fundamental romance which at the
bottom of their hearts most people like to believe in;--of that love
which can leap over half a world to unite two people and to make them
happy ever after, in spite not only of differences of fortune but of the
far larger and greater differences by which society is regulated. Colin
was on perfectly pleasant terms with Miss Matty by this time, and did
not hide from himself how much he owed to her,--though perhaps she, who
owed to him a momentary perception of the possibility which she had
proved to his heart and understanding to be impossible, would have been
but little grateful had she been made aware of the nature of his
indebtedness. But now, having made still another discovery in his life,
the young man was pleased to come to Wodensbourne to think over it, and
make out what it meant. And the Franklands were, as always, very kind to
Colin. Miss Matty, who had had a great many nibbles in the interval, was
at length on the eve of being married. And Harry, who had nothing
particular to do, and who found Wodensbourne stupid now that he was not
to marry his cousin, was abroad, nobody seemed exactly to know where;
and various things, not altogether joyful, had happened in the family,
since the far-distant age when Colin was the tutor, and had been willing
for Miss Matty’s sake to resign everything, if it should even be his
life.
“It will be a very nice marriage,” said Lady Frankland. “I will not
conceal from you, Mr. Campbell, that Matty has been very thoughtless,
and given us a great deal of anxiety. It is always so much more
difficult, you know, when you have the charge of a girl who is not your
own child. One can say anything to one’s own child; but your niece, you
know--and, indeed, not even your own, but your husband’s niece----”
“But I am sure Miss Frankland is as much attached to you,” said Colin,
who did not like to hear Matty blamed, “as if----”
“Oh yes,” said Lady Frankland; “but still it is different. You must not
think I am the least vexed about Harry. I never thought her the proper
person for Harry. He has so much feeling, though strangers do not see
it; and if he had been disappointed in his wife after they were married,
fancy what my feelings would have been, Mr. Campbell. I was always sure
they never would have got on together; and you know, when that is the
case, it is so much better to break off at once.”
“What is that you are saying about breaking off at once?” said Miss
Matty, who came into the room at that moment. “It must be Mr. Campbell
who is consulting you, aunt. I thought he would have asked _my_ advice
in such a case. I do believe my lady has forgotten that there ever was a
time when she was not married and settled, and that is why she gives you
such cruel advice. Mr. Campbell, I am much the best counsellor, and I
beg of you, don’t break it off at once!” said Miss Matty, looking up in
his face with eyes that were half mocking and half pathetic. She knew
very well it was herself whom my lady had been talking of--which made
her the more disposed to send back the arrow upon Colin. But Matty,
after all, was a good deal disconcerted--more disconcerted than he was,
when she saw the sudden flush that came to Colin’s face. Naturally, no
woman likes to make the discovery that a man who has once been her
worshipper has learned to transfer his affections to somebody else. When
she saw that this chance shaft had touched him, she herself was
conscious of a sudden flush--a flush which had nothing whatever to do
with love, but proceeded from the indescribable momentary vexation and
irritation with which she regarded Colin’s desertion. That he was her
adorer no longer was a fact which she had consented to; but Miss Matty
experienced a natural movement of indignation when she perceived that he
had elevated some one else to the vacant place. “Oh, if you look like
that, I shall think it quite unnecessary to advise,” she said, with a
little spitefulness, lowering her voice.
“What do I look like?” said Colin with a smile; for Lady Frankland had
withdrawn to the other end of the room, and the young man was perfectly
disposed to enter upon one of the half-mocking, half-tender
conversations which had given such a charm to his life of old.
“What do you look like?” said Miss Matty. “Well, I think you look a
great deal more like other people than you used to do; and I hate men
who look like everybody else. One can generally tell a woman by her
dress,” said the young lady pensively; “but most men that one meets in
society want to have little labels with their names on them. I never can
tell any difference between one and another for my part.”
“Then perhaps it would clear the haze a little if I were to name
myself,” said Colin. “I am Colin Campbell of Ramore, at your ladyship’s
service--once tutor to the learned and witty Charley, that hope of the
house of Wodensbourne--and once also your ladyship’s humble boatman and
attendant on the Holy Loch.”
“Fellow of Balliol, double-first--Coming man, and reformer of Scotland,”
said Miss Matty with a laugh. “Yes, I recognise you; but I am not my
ladyship just yet. I am only Matty Frankland for the moment, Sir
Thomas’s niece, who has given my lady a great deal of trouble. Oh, yes;
I know what she was saying to you. Girls who live in other people’s
houses know by instinct what is being said about them. Oh, to be sure,
it is quite true; they have been very, very kind to me; but, don’t you
know, it is dreadful always to feel that people are kind. Ah! how sweet
it used to be on the Holy Loch. But you have forgotten one of your
qualifications, Mr. Campbell; you used to be a poet as well as tutor. I
think, so far as I was concerned, it was the former capacity which you
exercised with most applause. I have a drawer in my desk full of certain
effusions; but, I suppose, now you are a Fellow of Balliol you are too
dignified for that.”
“I don’t see any reason why I should be,” said Colin; “I was a great
deal more dignified, for that matter, when I was eighteen, and a student
at Glasgow College, and had very much more lofty expectations than now.”
“Oh, you always were devoted to the Kirk,” said Miss Matty; “which was a
thing I never could understand--and now less than ever, when everybody
knows that a man who has taken such honours as you have, has everything
open to him.”
“Yes,” said Colin; “but then what everybody knows is a little vague. I
should like to hear of any one thing that really is open to me except
taking pupils. Of course,” said the young man, with dignity, “my mind is
made up long ago, and my profession fixed; but for the good of other
people in my position--and for my own good as well,” Colin added with a
laugh--“for you know it is pleasant to feel one’s-self a martyr,
rejecting every sort of advantage for duty’s sake.”
“Oh, but of course it is quite true,” said Matty; “you _are_ giving up
everything--of course it is true. You know you might go into Parliament,
or you might go into the Church, or you might--I wish you would speak to
my uncle about it; I suppose he knows. For my part, I think you should
go into Parliament; I should read all your speeches faithfully, and
always be on your side.”
“That is a great inducement,” said Colin. “With that certainty one could
face a great many obstacles. But, on the other hand, when I have settled
down somewhere in my own parish, you can come and hear me preach.”
“That will not be half so interesting,” said Miss Matty, making a little
_moue_ of disdain; “but, now, tell me,” she continued, sinking her voice
to its most confidential tone, “what it was that made you look so?--you
know we are _very_ old friends,” said Miss Matty, with the least little
tender touch or pathos; “we have done such quantities of things
together--rowed on the Holy Loch, and walked in the woods, and discussed
Tennyson, and amused Sir Thomas--you _ought_ to tell me your secrets;
you don’t know what a good _confidante_ I should be; and if I know the
lady---- But, at all events, you must tell me what made you look so?”
she said, with her sweetest tone of inquisitive sympathy, the siren of
Colin’s youth.
“Perhaps--when you have explained to me what it means to look _so_,”
said Colin; “after being buried for three years one forgets that little
language. And then I am disposed to deny ever having looked _so_,” he
went on, laughing; but, notwithstanding his laugh, Colin was much more
annoyed than became his reasonable years and new dignities to feel once
more that absurd crimson rising to his hair. The more he laughed the
higher rose that guilty and conscious colour; and, as for Miss Matty,
she pointed her little pink finger at him with an air of triumph.
“There!” she said, “and you dare to pretend that you never looked _so_!
I shall be quite vexed if you don’t tell me. If it was not something
very serious,” said Miss Matty, “you would not change like _that_.”
“Here is Sir Thomas; he will never accuse me of looking _so_, or
changing like _that_--and it is a guest’s first duty to make himself
agreeable to his host, is it not?” said Colin, who was rather glad of
Sir Thomas’s arrival. As for Matty, she was conscious that Lady
Frankland had given her what she would have called “a look” before
leaving the room, and that her uncle regarded her with a little anxiety
as he approached. Decidedly, though she liked talking to Colin, it was
necessary to be less confidential. “I won’t say _au revoir_,” she said,
shrugging her pretty shoulders; “you know what you said about that once
upon a time, when you were a poet.” And then Matty felt a little sorry
for herself as she went away. “They might know, if they had any sense,
that it does not matter in the least what I say to _him_,” the young
lady said to herself; but then she was only suffering the natural
penalty of a long course of conquest, and several good matches
sacrificed, and matters were serious this time, and not to be trifled
with. Miss Matty accordingly gave up her researches into Colin’s secret;
but not the less regarded with a certain degree of lively despite, the
revelation out of the clouds of that unknown woman at thought of which
Colin blushed. “I daresay it is somebody quite stupid, who does not
understand him a bit,” she said to herself, taking a little comfort from
the thought--for Matty Frankland was not a model woman, desiring only
the hero’s happiness; and a man who is sufficiently insensible to
console himself under such circumstances with another attachment,
deserves to have his inconstancy punished, as everybody will allow.
To tell the truth, Colin, though guiltless of any breach of allegiance
towards Matty, was punished sufficiently for his second attempt at love.
He had heard nothing of Alice all these three years, but,
notwithstanding, had never ceased to feel upon his neck that invisible
bridle which restrained him against his will. Perhaps, if the woman of
his imagination had ever fairly revealed herself, the sight would have
given him courage to break for ever such a visionary bond, and to take
possession of his natural liberty; but she contented herself with waving
to him those airy salutations out of the clouds, and with now and then
throwing a glance at him out of the eyes of some passer-by, who either
disappeared at once from his sight, or turned out upon examination to be
utterly unlike that not impossible She; and Colin had two sentinels to
keep watch upon his honour in the forms of his mother and Lauderdale,
both of whom believed in Love, and did not know what inconstancy meant.
He said to himself often enough that the struggle in his heart was not
inconstancy; but then he was not a man who could admit to them, or even
to himself, that the bond between him and Alice was a great and tender
pity, and not love. She had been on the eve of becoming his wife--she
might be his wife still for anything he knew to the contrary--and Colin,
who in this respect was spotless as any Bayard, would not, even to his
dearest friends, humiliate by such a confession the woman whose love he
had once sought.
And now the time had almost come when he could in reality “settle in
life.” His Scotch parish came nearer and nearer, in the natural course
of affairs, without any dazzling obstacles and temptations between it
and himself, as he had once hoped; and Alice was of age by this time;
and honour seemed to demand that, now when his proposal really meant
something, he should offer to her the possibility of confirming her
early choice. But somehow Colin was not at all anxious to take this
step; he hung back, and nursed the liberty which still remained to him,
and longed, in spite of himself, towards the visionary creature of his
dreams, who was not Alice. Accordingly, he had two rather troublesome
matters to think over at Wodensbourne, and occupied a position which was
made all the more vexatious because it was at the same time amusing and
absurd. His mind had been made up from the beginning as to his future
life, as he truly said; but then he had quite intended it to be a
sacrifice which he made out of his supreme love for his Church and his
country. He meant to have fought his way back to the venerable mother
through every sort of brilliant temptation; and to carry his honours to
her with a disinterested love which he should prove by leaving behind
him still higher honours and ambitions; whereas, in reality, the world
was permitting him to return very quietly to his native country as if it
was the most natural thing in the world. The disappointment was perhaps
harsher in its way than if Colin had meant to avail himself of those
splendid imaginary chances; and it did not make it any the less hard to
bear that he himself saw the humour of the situation, and could not but
laugh grimly at himself.
Perhaps Colin will suffer in the opinion of the readers of this history
when we add that, notwithstanding the perplexing and critical character
of the conjuncture, and notwithstanding the other complication in his
history in regard to Alice, he employed his leisure at Wodensbourne,
after the interview we have recorded, in writing[3] verses for Miss
Matty. It was true she had challenged him to some such task, but still
it was undoubtedly a weakness on the part of a man with so much to think
of. Truth, however, compels his historian to confess to this frivolity.
As he strayed about the flat country, and through the park, the leisure
in which he had intended to think over his position only betrayed him
into this preposterous idleness; for, to be sure, life generally
arranges itself in its own way without much help from thinking--but one
cannot succeed in writing a farewell to a first love, for which one
retains a certain kindness, without a due attention to one’s rhymes:
and this was the sole result, as far as anybody was aware, of Colin’s
brief but pleasant holiday at Wodensbourne.