CHAPTER IV.
November weather is not cheerful on the Holy Loch. The dazzling snow on the hills when there is sunshine, the sharp cold blue of the water, the withered ferns and heather on the banks, give it, it is true, a new tone of colour unknown to its placid summer beauty; but, when there is no sunshine, as is more usual, when the mountains are folded in dark mists, and the rain falls cold, and the trees rain down a still heavier and more melancholy shower of perpetually falling leaves, there is little in the landscape to cheer the spirits of the inhabitants, who, fortunately for themselves, take it very calmly, like most people accustomed to such a climate. The farmer’s wife of Ramore, however, was not of that equable mind. When she looked out from her homely parlour-window, it oppressed her heart to miss her mountains, and to see the heavy atmosphere closing in over her own little stretch of hill-side. She was busy, to be sure, and had not much time to think of it; but, when she paused for a moment in her many occupations, and looked wistfully for signs of “clearing,” the poetic soul in her homely bosom fell subdued into an unconscious harmony with the heavy sky. If the baby looked pale by chance, the mother took gloomy views of the matter on such days, and was subject to little momentary failures of hope and courage, which amazed, and at the same time amused, big Colin, who by this time knew all about it.
“You were blythe enough about us a’ yesterday, Jeanie,” he would say with a smile, “and nothing’s happened to change the prospect but the rain. It’s just as weel for the wean that the doctor’s a dozen miles off; for it’s your e’en that want physic, and a glint o’ sunshine would set a’ right.” He was standing by her, hovering like a great good-humoured cloud, his eyes dwelling upon her with that tender perception of her sacred weakness, and admiring pride in her more delicate faculties, which are of the highest essence of love.
“I hope you dinna think me a fool altogether,” the mistress would answer, with momentary offence; “as if I was thinking of the rain, or as if there was onything but rain to be lookit for! but when I mind that my Colin gangs away the morn—”
And then she took up her basket of mended stockings, and, with a little impatience, to hide a chance drop on her eyelash, carried them away to Colin’s room, where his chest stood open and was being packed for the journey. It was not a very long journey, but it was the boy’s first outset into independent life; and very independent life was that which awaited the country lad in Glasgow, where he was going to the University. On such a day dark shadows of many a melancholy story floated somehow upon the darkened atmosphere into Mrs. Campbell’s mind.
“If we could but have boarded him in a decent family,” she said to herself, as she packed her boy’s stockings. But it had been “a bad year” at Ramore, and no decent family would have received young Colin for so small a sum as that on which he himself and various more wise advisers considered it possible for him to live, by the help of an occasional hamper of home produce, in a little lodging of his own. Mrs. Campbell had acceded to this arrangement as the best; but it occurred to her to remember various wrecks she had encountered even in her innocent life; and her heart failed her a little as she leaned over Colin’s big “kist.”
Colin himself said very little on the subject, though he thought of nothing else; but he was a taciturn Scotch boy, totally unused to disclose his feelings. He was strolling round and round the place with his hands in his pockets, gradually getting soaked by the persistent rain, and rather liking it than otherwise. As he strayed about—having nothing to do that day in consideration of its being his last day at home—Colin’s presence was by no means welcomed by the other people about the farm. Of course, being unoccupied himself, he had the sharpest eyes for every blunder that was going on in the stable or the byre, and announced his little discoveries with a charming candour. But in his heart, even at the moment when he was driving Jess to frenzy by uncalled-for remarks touching the dinner of the pigs, Colin was all a-blaze with anticipation of the new life that was to begin to-morrow. He thought of it as something grand and complete, not made up of petty details like this life he was leaving. It was a mist of learning, daily stimulation and encounter of wits, with glorious prizes and honours hanging in the hazy distance, which Colin saw as he went strolling about the farm-yard in the rain, with his hands in his pockets. If he said anything articulate to himself on the subject, it was comprised in one succinct, but seemingly inapplicable, statement. “Eton’s no a college,” he said once, under his breath, with a dark glow of satisfaction on his face as he stopped opposite the door, and cast a glance upon the loch and the boat, which latter was now drawn up high and dry out of reach of the wintry water; and then a cloud suddenly lowered over Colin’s face, as a sudden doubt of his own accuracy seized him—a torturing thought which drove him indoors instantly to resolve his doubt by reference to a wonderful old Gazetteer which was believed in at Ramore. Colin found it recorded there, to his great mental disturbance, that Eton was a college; but, on further inquiry, derived great comfort from knowing that it certainly was not a university, after which he felt himself again at liberty to issue forth and superintend and aggravate all the busy people about the farm.
That night the family supper-table was somewhat dull, notwithstanding the excitement of the boys, for Archie was to accompany his father and brother to Glasgow, and was in great glee over that unusual delight. Mrs. Campbell, for her part, was full of thoughts natural enough to the mother of so many sons. She kept looking at her boys as they sat round the table, absorbed in their supper. “This is the beginning, but wha can tell what may be the end?” she said half to herself; “they’ll a’ be gane afore we ken what we’re doing.” Little Johnnie, to be sure, was but six years old; but the mother’s imagination leapt over ten years, and saw the house empty, and all the young lives out in the world. “Eh me!” said the reflective woman, “that’s what we bring up our bairns for, and rejoice over them as if they were treasure; and then by the time we’re auld they’re a’ gane;” and, as she spoke, not the present shadow only, but legions of vague desolations in the time to come came rolling up like mists upon her tender soul.
“As lang as there’s you and me, we’ll fend, Jeanie,” said the farmer, with a smile; “twa’s very good company to my way o’ thinking; but there’s plenty of time to think about the dispersion which canna take place yet for a year or twa. The boys came into the world to live their ain lives and serve their Maker, and no’ just to pleasure you and me. If you’ve a’ done, ye can cry on Jess, and bring out the big Bible, Colin. We maunna miss our prayers to-night.”
To tell the truth, Colin of Ramore was not quite so regular in his discharge of this duty as his next neighbour, Eben Campbell of Barnton, thought necessary, and was disapproved of accordingly by that virtuous critic; but the homely little service was perhaps all the more touching on this special occasion, and marked the “night before Colin went first to the college,” as a night to be remembered. When his brothers trooped off to bed, Colin remained behind as a special distinction. His mother was sitting by the fire without even her knitting, with her hands crossed in her lap, and clouds of troubled, tender thought veiling her soft eyes. As for the farmer, he sat looking on with a faint gleam of humour in his face. He knew that his wife was going to speak out her anxious heart to her boy, and big Colin’s respect for her judgment was just touched by a man’s smile at her womanish solemnity, and the great unlikelihood that her innocent advices would have the effect she imagined upon her son’s career. But, notwithstanding the smile, big Colin, too, listened with interest to all that his wife had to say.