"Is that you, Maister John? Ye'll be clean high aboot gaun back. Ye'll hae seen a' that's to be seen here, for after a' it's no a great place. And ye maun mind and put a bottle o' French brandy in your valise, or you'll be awfu' oot on the sea. I think it's likely to be coorse on the water."
I took my servant's advice, and when all was done to my liking, I walked down to the college gate for one last look at the place. I was in a strange temper—partly glad, partly sad—and wholly excited. When I looked on the grey, peaceful walls, breathing learning and repose, and thought of the wise men who had lived there, and the great books that had been written, and the high thoughts that had been born, I felt a keen pang of regret. For there was at all times in me much of the scholar's spirit, and I doubted whether it had not been better for me, better for all, had I chosen the life of study. I reflected how little my life would lie now in cloisters and lecture halls, in what difficulties I would soon be plunged and what troublous waters I might be cast upon. My own land was in a ferment, with every man's hand against his brother; my love might be in danger; of a surety it looked as if henceforward quiet and gentleness might be to seek in my life. I own that I looked forward to it without shrinking—nay, with a certain hopeful anticipation; but I confess also that I looked at the past and all that I was leaving with a certain regret. Indeed, I was born between two stools; for, while I could never be content to stay at home and spend my days among books, on the other hand, the life of unlettered action was repugnant. Had it been possible, I should have gladly dwelt among wars and tumults with men who cared not for these things alone, and could return, when all violence was at an end, to books and study with a cheerful heart. But no man has the making of the world, and he must even fit himself to it as he finds it. Nor do I think it altogether evil to have many desires and even many regrets, for it keeps a man's spirit active, and urges him on to valiant effort. Of this I am sure, that contentment is the meanest of the virtues.
As I left the place there was a cool, grey haze over all the gardens and towers—mellow and soft and lucid. But to the north, where lay the sea, there was a broken sky, blue, with fitful clouds passing athwart. It seemed, as it were, the emblem of my life—the tranquil and the unsettled. Yet in the broken sky there was a promise of sunshine and brilliance, which was not in the even grey; and this heartened me.
So at four that evening we mounted horse and rode forth by the way we had come, and ere the hour of eleven were on the wharf at Rotterdam, sniffing the distant smell of the sea.
CHAPTER IX
AN ACCOUNT OF MY HOME-COMING
Captain Steen met me on deck and greeted me heartily. "There's a brisk wind from the sou'-east," said he, "which should speed us well;" and soon, amid creaking of cordage and flapping of sails, we dropped down the estuary and set our face sea-wards. There was something of a squall of rain which beat on us till we were fairly beyond the Dutch coast; but after that it drew down to the west, and when I awoke the next morn, the sky was blue and sunshiny, and the soft south wind whistled gaily in the rigging.
Of my voyage home I do not purpose to tell at length. On it I met with none of the mishaps which I had encountered before, so the brandy was wholly needless. Indeed, I found the greatest pleasure in the journey; the motion of the ship gave me delight; and it was fine to watch the great, heaving deserts before and behind, when the sun beat on them at mid-day, or lay along them in lines of gold and crimson at the darkening. The captain I found a friendly, talkative man, and from him I had much news of the state of the land whither I was returning. Nor was it of such a sort as to elate me, for it seemed as if, in the short time I had been away, things had taken many steps to the devil. The truth of the matter, I fancy, was that when I left Tweeddale I was little more than a boy, with a boy's interests, but that now I had grown to some measure of manhood and serious reflection.
But my time during the days of our sailing was in the main taken up with thoughts of Marjory. The word I had got still rankled in my mind, and I puzzled my brain with a thousand guesses as to its purport. But as the hours passed this thought grew less vexatious, for was not I on my way home, to see my love once more, to help her in perplexity, and, by God's help, to leave her side never again? So anxiety was changed by degrees to delight at the expectation of meeting her, and, as I leaned over the vessel's edge and looked at the foam curling back from the prow, I had many pleasing images in my fancy. I would soon be in Tweeddale again, and have Scrape and Dollar Law and Caerdon before my eyes, and hear the sing-song of Tweed running through the meadows. I thought of golden afternoons in the woods of Dawyck, or the holms of Lyne, of how the yellow light used to make the pools glow, and the humming of bees was mingled with the cry of snipe and the song of linnet. As I walked the deck there were many pictures of like nature before me. I thought of the winter expeditions at Barns, when I went out in the early morning to the snow-clad hills with my gun, with Jean Morran's dinner of cakes and beef tightly packed in my pocket; and how I was wont to come in at the evening, numb and frozen, with maybe a dozen white hares and duck over my shoulder, to the great fire-lit hall and supper. Every thought of home made it doubly dear to me. And more than all else, there was my lady awaiting me, looking for the sight of my horse's head at the long avenue of Dawyck. An old catch, which wandering packmen used to sing, and which they called "The North Countree," ran in my head; and, as I looked over the vessel's bowsprit, I found myself humming:
"There's an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain
When I ride through Annan Water wi' my bonny bands again."