“Speak it out,” said Colin. He was a little affronted, but he kept his composure. As he folded up his papers and put them away in his pocket-book, he too heard the song which Lauderdale had been listening to. It was only a countrywoman singing as she went about her work, and there was no marked resemblance in the voice to anything he had heard before. Yet he knew what was coming when he put up his papers in his pocket-book, and it occurred to him that perhaps it would be well to have the explanation over and be done with it, for he knew how persistent his companion was.
“It’s no that there’s much to say,” said Lauderdale, changing his tone; “a man like me, that’s little used to change, get’s awfu’ like a fool in his associations. There’s naething that ony reasonable creature could see in thae hills, and a’ the sheep on them, that should bring that to my mind; and, as you say, callant, it’s Cumberland they’re a’ speaking, and no English. It’s just a kind of folly that men are subject to that live their lane. I canna but go a’ through again, from the beginning to—— Well, I suppose,” said Lauderdale with a sigh, “what you and me would call the end.”
“What any man in his senses would call the end,” said Colin, beginning to cut his pencil with some ferocity, which was the only occupation that presented itself to him for the moment; “I don’t suppose there can be any question as to what you mean. Was it to be expected that I should court rejection over again for the mere pleasure of being rejected?—as you know I have been, both by letter and in person; and then, as if even that was not enough, accused of fortune-hunting; when Heaven knows——” Here Colin stopped short, and cut his pencil so violently that he cut his finger, an act which convicted him of using unnecessary force, and of which accordingly he was ashamed.
“It is no that I was thinking of,” said Lauderdale, “I was minding of the time when we a’ met first, and the bit soft English voice—it’s no that I’m fond of the English, or their ways,” continued the philosopher. “We’re maybe no so well in our ain country, and maybe we’re better; I’ll no say. It’s a question awfu’ hard to settle. But, if ever we a’ foregather again, I cannot think there will be that difference. It wasna to say musical that I ken of, but it was aye soft and pleasant—maybe ower soft, Colin, for the like of you—and with a bit yielding tone in it, as if the heart would break sooner than make a stand for its own way. I mind it real weel,” said Lauderdale, with a sigh. “As for the father, no doubt there was little to be said in his favour. But, after a’, it wasna him that you had any intention to marry. And yon Sabbath-day after he was gone, poor man!—when you and me didna ken what to do with ourselves till the soft thing came out of her painted cha’amer, and took the guiding of us into her hands. It’s that I was thinking of,” said Lauderdale, fixing his eyes on a far-off point upon the hills, and ending his musings with a sigh.
Colin sighed, too, for sympathy—he could not help it. The scene came before him as his friend spoke. He thought he could see Alice, in her pallor and exhaustion, worn to a shadow, in her black dress, coming into the bare Italian room in the glorious summer day, which all the precautions possible could not shut out from the house of mourning—with her prayer-book in her hand; and then he remembered how she had chidden him for reading another lesson than that appointed for the day. It was in the height of his own revolutionary impulses that this thought struck him; and he smiled to himself in the midst of his sigh, with a tender thought for Alice, and a passing wonder for himself, what change might have been wrought upon him if that dutiful little soul had actually become the companion of his life. Colin was not the kind of man who can propose to himself to form his wife’s mind, and rule her thoughts, and influence her without being sensible of her influence in return. That was not the order of domestic affairs in Ramore; and naturally he judged the life that might have been, and even yet might be, by that standard. The Mistress’s son did not understand having a nullity, or a shadow of himself, for a wife; and insensibly he made his way back from the attendrissement into which Lauderdale’s musings had led him, into half-amused speculation as to the effect Alice and her influence might have had upon him by this time. “If that had happened,” he said with a smile, bursting out, as was usual to him when Lauderdale was his companion, at that particular point of his thoughts which required expression, without troubling himself to explain how he came there—“if that had happened,” said Colin, with the conscious smile of old, “I wonder what sort of fellow I should have been by this time? I doubt if I should have had any idea of disturbing the constituted order of affairs. Things are always for the best, you perceive, as everybody says. A man who has any revolutionary work to do must be free and alone. But don’t let us talk any more of this—I don’t like turning back upon the road. But for that feeling I should have settled the business before now about poor Arthur’s ‘Voice from the Grave.’”
“I was aye against that title,” said Lauderdale, “if he would have paid any attention; but you’re a’ the same, you young callants; it’s nae more a voice from the grave than mine is. It’s a voice from an awfu’ real life, that had nae intention to lose a minute that was permitted. It would be awfu’ agreeable to ken if he was permitted to have any pleasure in his book; but then, so far as I can judge, he maun ken an awfu’ deal better by this time—and maybe up there they’re no heeding about a third edition. It’s hard to say; he was so terrible like himself up to the last moment; I canna imagine, in my own mind, that he’s no like himself still. There should be a heap of siller,” said Lauderdale, “by this time; and sooner or later you’ll have to open communication, and let them ken.”
“Yes,” said Colin, with a momentary look of sullenness and repugnance; and then he added, in a lighter tone, “heaps of money never came out of a religious publisher’s hands. A third edition does not mean the same thing with them as with other people. Of course, it must be set right some time or other. We had better set off, I can tell you, and not talk idle talk like this, if we mean to get to our journey’s end to-night.”
“Oh, ay,” said Lauderdale, “you’re aye in a hurry, you young callants. Is it the father that makes you so unwilling for any correspondence?—but it’s awfu’ easy to settle a thing like that.”
“I think you want to try how far my patience can go,” said Colin, who had grown crimson up to the hair. “Do you think a man has no feeling, Lauderdale? Do you think it is possible to be treated as I have been, and yet go back again with humility, hat in hand? I don’t feel myself capable of that.”
“If you’re asking me my opinion,” said Lauderdale, calmly, “I’ve nae objection to tell you what I think. You’re no vindictive, and you’ve nae pride to speak of—I’m meaning pride of that kind. It’s no in you to bear a grudge at onybody, beyond, maybe, the hour or the day. So I’m no heeding much about that question, for my part. If you had an awfu’ regard for the man, he might affront you; but no being indifferent. I’m telling you just my opinion, with my partial knowledge of the premises; and for her, I cannot but say what is in my ain mind. I’ve a kind of longing to see her again; we used to be awfu’ good friends, her and me. I had you to take care of, callant, and she had him; and whiles she had a moment of envy, and grudged terrible in her heart to see the air and the sun, that are for baith the good and the evil, so hard upon him, and so sweet to you. There was little in her mind to hide, and her and me were good friends. I’ll never forget our counts and our reckonings. It’s awfu’ hard for the like o’ me to divine wherefore it is that a’ that has come to an end, and her and you dropped out of one another’s life.”