“Come here and sit down,” said Mrs. Campbell; “you needna’ think shame of my hand on your head, though you are gaun to the college the morn. Eh! Colin, you dinna ken a’ the temptations nor the trials. Ye’ve aye had your ain way at hame—”
Here Colin made a little movement of irrepressible dissent. “I’ve aye done what I was bidden,” said the honest boy. He could not accept that gentle fiction even when his heart was touched by his mother’s farewell.
“Weel, weel,” said the farmer’s wife, with a little sigh; “you’ve had your ain way as far as it was good for you. But its awfu’ different, living among strangers, and living in your father’s house. Ye’ll have to think for yoursel’ and take care of yoursel’ now. I’m no one to give many advices,” said the mother, putting up her hand furtively to her eyes, and looking into the fire till the tears should be re-absorbed which had gathered there. “But I wouldna like my firstborn to leave Ramore and think a’ was as fair in the world as appears to the common e’e. I’ve been real weel off a’ my days,” said the mistress, slowly, letting the tears which she had restrained before drop freely at this reminiscence of happiness; “a guid father and mother to bring me up, and then him there, that’s the kindest man!—But you and me needna praise your father, Colin; we can leave that to them that dinna ken,” she went on, recovering herself; “but I’ve had ae trouble for a’ so weel as I’ve been, and I mean to tell you what that is afore you set out in the world for yoursel’.”
“Nothing about poor George,” said the farmer, breaking in—
“Oh, ay, Colin, just about poor George; I maun speak,” said the mistress. “He was far the bonniest o’ our family, and the best-likit; and he was to be a minister, laddie, like you. He used to come hame with his prizes, and bring the very sunshine to the auld house. Eh! but my mother was proud; and for me, I thought there was nothing in this world he mightna’ do if he likit. Colin,” said Mrs. Campbell, with solemn looks, “are ye listening? The last time I saw my brother was in a puir place at Liverpool, a’ in rags and dirt, with an auld coat buttoned to his throat, that it mightna’ be seen what was wantin’, and a’ his wild hair hangin’ about his face, and his feet out o’ his shoon, and hunger in his eye—”
“Jeanie, Jeanie, nae mair,” said big Colin from the other side of the fire.
“But I maun say mair; I maun tell a’,” cried his wife, with tears. “Hunger in his bonnie face, that was ance the blythest in the country-side—no hunger for honest meat as nature might crave, but for a’ thing that was unlawfu’, and evil, and killin’ to soul and body. He had to be watched for fear he should spend the hard-won silver that we had a’ scraped together to send him away. Him that had been our pride, we couldna trust him, Colin, no ten minutes out o’ our sight but he was in some new trouble. It was to Australia we sent him, where a’ the unfortunates go. Eh, me! the like o’ that ship sailing! If there was a kind o’ hope in our breasts it was the hope o’ despair. It wasna’ my will, for what is there in a new place to make a man reform his ways? And that was how your Uncle George went away.”
“And then?” cried the boy, whose interest was raised, and who had heard mysteriously of this Uncle George before.
“We’ve heard no word from that day to this,” said Mrs. Campbell, drying her eyes. “Listen till I tell you a’ that his pleasurings brought him to. First, and greatest, to say what was not true, Colin—to deceive them that trusted him. If the day should ever dawn that I couldna trust a bairn o’ mine—if it should ever come sickening to my heart that e’e or tongue was false that belonged to me—if I had to watch my laddies, and to stand in doubt at every word they said—eh! Colin, God send I may be in my grave afore such an awfu’ fate should come to me.”
Young Colin of Ramore answered not a word; he stared into the fire instead, making horrible faces unawares. He could not have denied, had he been taxed with it, that tears were in his eyes; but rather than shed them he would have endured tortures; and any expression of his feelings in words was more impossible still.