A Son of the Soil

by Mrs. Oliphant

But, meanwhile, awaiting the end of the world, Colin, when he was settled for the night in his old room, with its shelving roof, took out and elaborated his Tract for the Times. It was discontent as great as that of his mother’s which breathed out of it; but then hers was the discontent of a life which had nothing to do or to look for, and which had found out by experience how little progress can be made in a lifetime, and how difficult it is to change evil into good. Colin’s discontent, on the contrary, was that exhilarating sentiment which stimulates youth, and opens an endless field of combat and conquest. At his end of the road it looked only natural that the obstacles should move of themselves out of the way, and that what was just and best should have the inevitable victory. When he had done, he thought with a tenderness which brought tears to his eyes, yet at the same moment a smile to his lips, of the woman’s impatience that would hasten the wheels of fate, and call upon God to take matters, as she said, in His own hand. That did not, as yet, seem a step necessary to Colin. He thought there was still time to work by the natural means, and that things were not arrived as such a pass that it was needful to appeal to miracle. It could only be when human means had failed that such a resource could be necessary; and the human means had certainly not failed entirely so long as he stood there in the bloom of his young strength, with his weapons in his hand.

He preached in his native church on the following Sunday, as was to be expected; and from up the Loch and down the Loch all the world came to hear young Colin of Ramore. And big Colin the farmer sat glorious at the end of his pew, and in the pride of his heart listened, and noted, and made inexorable criticisms, and commented on his son’s novel ideas with a severe irony which it was difficult to understand in its true sense. The Duke himself came to hear Colin’s sermon, which was a wonderful honour to the young man, and all the parish criticised him with a zest which it was exhilarating to hear. “I mind when he couldna say his Questions,” said Evan of Barnton; “I wouldna like to come under ony engagement that he kens them noo. He was aye a callant awfu’ fond of his ain opinion, and for my part I’m no for Presbyteries passing ower objections so easy. Either he’s of Heward’s school or he’s no; but I never saw that there was ony right decision come to. There were some awfu’ suspicious expressions under his second head—if you could ca’ yon a head,” said the spiritual ruler, with natural contempt; for indeed Colin’s divisions were not what they ought to have been, and he was perfectly open to criticism so far as that was concerned.

“A lot of that was out of Dennistoun,” said another thoughtful spectator. “I’m aye doubtful of thae misty phrases. If it wasna for hurting a’ their feelings, I would be awfu’ tempted to say a word. He’s no’ that auld, and he might mend.”

“He’ll never mend,” said Evan. “I’m no’ one that ever approved of the upbringing of thae laddies. They have ower much opinion of themselves. There’s Archie, that thinks he kens the price of cattle better than a man of twice his age. She’s an awfu’ fanciful woman, that mother of theirs—and then they’ve a’ been a wee spoiled with that business about the English callant; but I’ll no say but what he has abilities,” the critic added, with a national sense of clanship. The parish might not approve of the upbringing of the young Campbells, nor of their opinions, but still it had a national share in any reputation that the family or any of its members might attain.

Colin continued his course on the Monday with his friend. He had stayed but a few days at home, but it was enough, and all the party were sensible of the fact. Henceforward that home, precious as it was, could not count for much in his life. It was a hard thing to think of, but it was a necessity of nature. Archie and the younger sons greeted with enthusiasm the elder brother, who shared with them his better fortunes and higher place; but, when the greeting was given on both sides, there did not remain very much to say; for, to be sure, seen by Colin’s side, the young Campbells,—still gauche, and shamefaced, and with the pride of a Scotch peasant in arms, looked inferior to what they really were, and felt so—and the mother felt it for them, though Colin was her own immediate heir and the pride of her heart. She bade him farewell with suppressed tears, and a sense of loss which was not to be suppressed. “He has his ain hame, and his ain place, and little need of us now, the Lord be praised,” the Mistress said to herself as she watched him going down to the boat; “I think I would be real content if he had but a good wife.” But still it was with a sigh that she went in again and closed the door upon the departing boat that carried her son back to the world.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

As for Colin and his friend, they went upon their way steadily, with that rare sympathy in difference which is the closest bond of friendship. Lauderdale by this time had lost almost all the lingerings of youth which had hung long about him, perhaps by right of his union with the fresh and exuberant youth of his brother-in-arms. His gaunt person was gaunter than ever, though, by an impulse of the tenderest pride—not for himself but for his companion—his dress fitted him better, and was more carefully put on than it had even been during all his life; but his long hair, once so black and wild, was now grey, and hung in thin locks, and his beard, that relic of Italy, which Lauderdale preserved religiously, and had ceased to be ashamed of, was grey also, and added to the somewhat solemn aspect of his long thoughtful face. He was still an inch or two taller than Colin, whose great waves of brown hair, tossed up like clouds upon his forehead, and shining brown eyes, which even now had not quite lost the soft shade of surprise and admiration which had given them such a charm in their earlier years, contrasted strangely with the worn looks of his friend. They were not like father and son; for Lauderdale preserved in his appearance an indefinable air of solitude and of a life apart, which made it impossible to think of him in any such relationship; but perhaps their union was more close and real than even that tie could have made it, since the unwedded childless man was at once young and old, and had kept in his heart a virgin freshness more visionary, and perhaps even more spotless, than that of Colin’s untarnished youth; for, to be sure, the young man not only was conscious of that visionary woman in the clouds, but had already solaced himself with more than one love, and still meant to marry a wife like other men, though that was not at present the foremost idea in his mind; whereas, whatever love Lauderdale might have had in that past from which he never drew the veil, it had never been replaced by another, nor involved any earthly hope.

As they crossed the borders, and found themselves among the Cumberland hills, Lauderdale began to make gradual advances to a subject which had been for a long time left in silence between them. Perhaps it required that refinement of ear natural to a born citizen of Glasgow to recognise that it was “English” which was being spoken round them as they advanced—but the philosopher supposed himself to have made that discovery. He recurred to it with a certain pathetic meaning as they went upon their way. They had set out on foot from Carlisle, each with his knapsack, to make their leisurely way to the Lakes; and, when they stopped to refresh themselves at the humble roadside inn which was their first resting-place, the plaintive cadence of his friend’s voice struck Colin with a certain amusement. “They’re a’ English here,” Lauderdale said, with a tone of sad recollection, as a man might have said in Norway or Russia, hearing for the first time the foreign tongue, and bethinking himself of all the dreary seas and long tracts of country that lay between him and home. It might have been pathetic under such circumstances, though the chances are that even then Colin, graceless and fearless, would have laughed; but at present, when the absence was only half a day’s march, and the difference of tongue, as we have said, only to be distinguished by an ear fine and native, the sigh was too absurd to be passed over lightly. “I never knew you have the mal du pays before,” Colin said with a burst of laughter:—and the patriot himself did not refuse to smile.

“Speak English,” he said, with a quaint self-contradiction; “though I should say speak Scotch if I was consistent;—you needna make your jokes at me. Oh ay, it’s awfu’ easy laughing. It’s no that I’m thinking of; there’s nothing out of the way in the association of ideas this time, though they play bonnie pranks whiles. I’m thinking of the first time I was in England, and how awfu’ queer it sounded to hear the bits of callants on the road, and the poor bodies at the cottage doors.”

“The first time you were in England—that was when you came to nurse me,” said Colin; “I should have died that time but for my mother and you.”