A Son of the Soil

by Mrs. Oliphant

“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.”