“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—”