“She will be a daughter to you, mother,” said Colin, in the fulness of his heart.

But at this two great tears dropped out of Mrs. Campbell’s eyes. “She’s sweet and bonnie; eh, Colin, she’s bonnie and sweet! but I’m an awfu’ hardhearted woman,” said the Mistress. “I cannot think ony woman will ever take that place; I’m aye so bigoted for my ain; God forgive me; but her that is my Colin’s wife has nae occasion for ony other name,” she said with a tender artifice, stooping over her boy and putting back those great waves of his hair which were the pride of her heart. “And I have none of my ain to go out of my house a bride,” the Mistress added, under her breath, with one great sob. Colin could not tell why his mother should say such words at such a moment. But perhaps Alice, though she was not so clever as Colin, had she been there, might have divined their meaning after the divination of the heart.

It is hard to see what can be said about a man after he is married, unless he quarrels with his wife and makes her wretched and gets into trouble, or she does as much for him. This is not a thing which has happened, or has the least chance of happening, in Colin’s case. Not only did Alice receive a very flattering welcome in Afton, and, what was still more gratifying, in St. Rule’s, where, as most people are aware, very good society is to be found; but she did more than that, and grew very popular in the parish, where, to be sure, no curate could have been more serviceable. She bad undoubted Low Church tendencies, which helped her on with many of the people; and in conjunction with these she had little High Church habits, which were very quaint and captivating in their way; and, all unconscious as she was of Colin’s views in respect to Church reformation, Alice was “the means,” as she herself would have said, of introducing some edifying customs among the young people of the parish, which she and they were equally unaware were capable of having been interpreted to savour of papistry, had the power and inclinations of the Presbytery been in good exercise as of old. As for Colin, he was tamed down in his revolutionary intentions without knowing how. A man who has given hostages to society, who has married a wife—and especially a wife who does not know anything about his crotchets, and never can clearly understand why the bishop (seeing that there certainly is a bishop in the kingdom of Fife, though few people pay any attention to him) does not come to Afton and confirm the catechumens—is scarcely in a position to throw himself headlong upon the established order of things and prove its futility. No. I. of the “Tracts for the Times” got printed certainly, but it was in an accidental sort of way; and, though it cannot be said to have been without its use, still the effect was transitory, in consequence of the want of continuous effort. No doubt it made a good deal of sensation in the Scotch papers, where, as such of the readers of this history as live North of the Tweed may recollect, there appeared at one time a flood of letters signed by parish ministers on the subject. But then, to be sure, it came into the minds of sundry persons that the Church of Scotland had thoughts of going back to the ante-Laudian times in robes of penitence, to beg a prayer-book from her richer sister—which was not in the least Colin’s intention, and roused his national spirit. For we have already found it necessary to say that the young man, notwithstanding that he had many gleams of insight, did not always know what he would be at, or what it was precisely that he wanted. What he wanted, perhaps, was to be catholic and belong to Christendom, and not to shut himself up in a corner, and preach himself and his people to death, as he once said. He wanted to keep the Christian feasts, and say the universal prayers, and link the sacred old observances with the daily life of his dogmatical congregation, which preferred logic. All this, however, he pursued in a milder way after that famous journey to Windermere, upon which he had set out like a lion, and from which he returned home like a lamb. For it would be painful to think that this faithful but humble history should have awakened any terrors in the heart of the Church of Scotland in respect to the revolutionary in her bosom; and it is pleasant to be able to restore the confidence, to a certain extent, of the people and presbyters of that venerable corporation. Colin is there, and no doubt he has his work to do in the world; but he is married and subdued, and goes about it quietly like a man who understands what interests are involved; and up to the present moment he has resisted the urgent appeals of a younger brotherhood, who have arisen since these events, to continue the publication of the “Tracts for the Times.”

It is at this point that we leave Colin, who has entered on a period of his life which is as yet unfinished, and accordingly is not yet matter for history. Some people, no doubt, may be disposed to ask, being aware of the circumstances of his marriage, whether he was happy in his new position. He was as happy as most people are; and, if he was not perfectly blessed, no unbiassed judge can refuse to acknowledge that it was his own fault. He was young, full of genius, full of health, with the sweetest little woman in the kingdom of Fife, as many people thought, for his wife, and not even the troublesome interpellations of that fantastic woman in the clouds to disturb his repose. She had waved her hand to him for the last time from among the rosy clouds on the night before his marriage day; for if a man’s marriage is good for anything, it is surely good against the visitings of a visionary creature who had refused to reveal herself when she had full time and opportunity to do so. And let nobody suppose that Colin kept a cupboard with a skeleton in it to retire to for his private delectation when Alice was sleeping, as it is said some people have a habit of doing. There was no key of that description under his pillow; and yet, if you will know the truth, there was a key, but not of Bluebeard’s kind. It was a key that opened the innermost chamber, the watch-tower and citadel of his heart. So far from shutting it up from Alice, he had done all that tender affection could do to coax her in, to watch the stars with him and ponder their secrets; but Alice had no vocation for that sort of recreation. And the fact was, that from time to time Colin went in and shut the door behind him, and was utterly alone underneath the distant wistful skies. When he came out, perhaps his countenance now and then was a little sad; and perhaps he did not see so clear as he might have done under other circumstances. For Colin, like Lauderdale, believed in the quattr’ occhi—the four eyes that see a landscape at its broadest and heaven at its nearest. But then a man can live without that last climax of existence when everything else is going on so well in his life.

THE END.

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