Quentin almost asked these questions aloud, as, with a mind deeply agitated by conflicting thoughts, the poor fellow journeyed on.
A strong regard for the home he had left (of any other he had no memory now save a vague and indistinct dream), with painful doubts lest he had been ungracious, ungrateful, or unkind to any there, beset him, after the soft revulsion of feeling excited by the solemn aspect of the midnight churchyard.
Then came dim foreshadowings, the anxious hopes—a boy's certainty of future fame and distinction; but how, where, and in what path?
His romance-reading with Flora and the yarns of the quartermaster had filled his mind with much false enthusiasm and many odd fancies. He had misty recollections of heroes expelled or deserting from home under circumstances pretty similar to his own, who had flung themselves over awful precipices, when their bones were picked white (a doubly unpleasant idea) by the Alpine eagles or bears of the Black Forest: or who had thrown themselves upon their swords, or drowned themselves (the Lollard's Linn was pouring not far off; but the night was decidedly cold), yet none of these modes of exit, suited his purpose so well as walking manfully on, and imagining, with a species of grim satisfaction, the surmises and so forth at Rohallion, when the supper-bell rang and he did not appear; when Jack Andrews, with military punctuality, closed the old feudal fortress for the night, and still he was not to be found; and then the next day, with its increased excitement, was a thought that quite cheered him!
But there was Flora—sweet Flora Warrender, with all her winning little ways; and her image came upbraidingly before him despite the smarting of the wound given him by the Master, and the deeper sting of Lady Rohallion's words.
As glittering fancies rose like soap-bubbles in the sunshine; as the Châteaux en Espagne rose too, and faded away into mud-hovels and even prisons, love and affection drew his thoughts back and seemed to centre his hopes in and about Rohallion. Flora's face, the memory of past years of love and kindness experienced from Lady Winifred, and from the old Lord, melted his heart, or filled it with regard and gratitude towards them, and he felt that, go where he might, Rohallion could never be forgotten. A verse of Burns that occurred to him, seemed but to embody his own ideas and emotions—
"The monarch may forget his crown,
That on his head an hour hath been;
The bridegroom may forget the bride,
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
The mother may forget her child,
That smiles so sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And all that thou hast done for me."
From an eminence above the oakwood shaw, he turned to take his last view of the old dwelling-place; but he could only see its lights twinkling like distant stars, for the night was obscure and murky; the clouds were rolling in great masses; the wind came in fierce and fitful gusts from the Firth of Clyde, while the rain began to descend steadily.
Bodily discomfort soon recalled all his emotions of hate and anger at the Master, and with eyes that flashed in the dark, he turned his back, almost resentfully, on the old castle, and resumed his aimless journey.
"There is sometimes," says a writer, "a stronger sense of unhappiness attached to what is called being hardly used by the world, than by a direct and palpable misfortune, for though the sufferer may not be able even in his own heart to set out with clearness one single count in the indictment, yet a general sense of hard treatment, unfairness, and so forth, brings with it a great depression and feeling of desolation."