Colin acted upon this permission to the full extent of all his youthful prowess and prejudices, and went on learning his Latin and Greek, and discussing all manner of questions in heaven and earth, with the fervour of a boy and a Scotsman. They kept together, this strange pair, for the greater part of the short winter days, taking long walks, when they left the University, through the noisy dirty streets, upon which Lauderdale moralized; and sometimes through the duller squares and crescents of respectability which formed the frame of the picture. Sometimes their peregrinations concluded in Colin’s little room, where they renewed their arguments over the oatcakes and cheese which came in periodical hampers from Ramore; and sometimes Lauderdale gave his friend a cheap and homely dinner at the tavern where they had first broken bread together. But not even Colin, much less any of his less familiar acquaintances, knew where the tall Mentor lived, or how he managed to maintain himself at college. He said he had his lodging provided for him, when any inquiry was made, and added, with an odd humourous look, that his was an honourable occupation; but Lauderdale afforded no further clue to his own means or dwelling-place. He smiled, but he was secret and gave no sign. As for his studies, he made but such moderate progress in them as was natural to his age and his character. No particular spur of ambition seemed to stimulate the man whose habits were formed by this time, and who found enjoyment enough, it appeared, in universal speculation. When he failed, his reflections as to the effect of failure upon the mind of man, and the secondary importance after all of mere material success, “which always turns out more disappointing to a reflective spirit than an actual break-down,” the philosopher would say, “being aye another evidence how far reality falls short of the idea,” became more piquant than usual; and when he succeeded, the same sentiments moderated his satisfaction. “Oh ay, I’ve got the prize,” he said, holding it on a level with Colin’s head, and regarding its resplendent binding with a smile; “which is to say, I’ve found out that it’s only a book with the college arms stamped upon it, and no a palpable satisfaction to the soul as I might have imagined it to be, had it been yours, boy, instead of mine.”
But with all this composure of feeling as respected his own success, Lauderdale was as eager as a boy about the progress of his pupil. When the prize lay in Colin’s way, his friend spared no pains to stimulate and encourage and help him on; and as the years passed, and the personal pride of the elder became involved in the success of the younger, Lauderdale’s anxieties awoke a certain impatience in the bosom of his protégé. Colin was ambitious enough in his own person, but he turned naturally with sensitive boyish pride against the arguments and inducements which had so little influence upon the speaker himself.
“You urge me on,” he would say, “but you think it does not matter for yourself.” And though it was Colin’s third session, and he reckoned himself a man when he said this, he was jealous to think that Lauderdale urged upon him what he did not think it worth his while to practise in his own person.
“When a thing’s spoilt in the making, it matters less what use ye put it to,” said the philosopher. It was a bright day in March, and they were seated on the grass together in a corner of the Green, looking at the pretty groups about, of women and children—children and women, perhaps not over tidy, if you looked closely into the matter, but picturesque to look at—some watching the patches of white linen bleaching on the grass, and some busily engaged over their needlework. The tall student stretched his long limbs on the grass, and watched the people about with reflective eyes. “There’s nothing in this world so important to a man as a right beginning,” he went on. “As for me, I’m all astray, and can never win to any certain end—no that I’m complaining, or taking a gloomy view of things in general; I’m just as happy in my way as other folk are in theirs—but that’s no the question under discussion. When a man reaches my years without coming to anything he’ll never come to much all his days; but you’re only a callant, and have all the world before you, said Lauderdale.” He did not look at Colin as he spoke, but went on in his usual monotone, looking into the blue air, in which he saw much that was not visible to the eager young eyes which kept gazing at him. “When I was like you,” he continued, with a half-pathetic, half-humourous smile, “it looked like misery and despair to feel that I was not to get my own way in this world. I’m terrible indifferent now-a-days—one kind of life is just as good as another as long as a man has something to do that he can think to be his duty; but such thoughts are no for you,” said Colin’s tutor, waking up suddenly. “For you, laddie, there’s nothing grand in the world that should not be possible. The lot that’s accomplished is aye more or less a failure; but there’s always something splendid in the life that is to come.”
“You talk to me as if I were a child,” said Colin, with a little indignation; “you see things in their true light yourself, but you treat me like a baby. What can there be that is splendid in my life?—a farmer’s son, with perhaps the chance of a country church for my highest hope—after all kinds of signings, and confessions, and calls, and presbyteries. It would be splendid, indeed,” said the lad, with boyish contempt, “to be plucked by a country presbytery that don’t know six words of Greek, or objected to by a congregation of ploughmen—that’s all a man has to look for in the Church of Scotland, and you know it, Lauderdale, as well as I do.”
Colin broke off suddenly, with a considerable show of heat and impatience. He was eighteen, and he was of the advanced party, the Young Scotland of his time. The dogmatic Old Scotland, which loved to bind, and limit, and make confessions, and sign the same, belonged to the past centuries. As for Colin’s set, they were “viewy” as the young men at Oxford used to be in the days of Froude and Newman. Colin’s own “views” were of a vague description enough, but of the most revolutionary tendency. He did not believe in Presbytery, nor in that rule of Church government which in Scotland is known as Lord Aberdeen’s Act; and his ideas respecting extempore worship and common prayer were much unsettled. But as neither Colin nor his set had any distinct model to fall back upon, nor any clear perception of what they wanted, the present result of their enlightenment was simply the unpleasant one of general discontent with existing things, and a restless contempt for the necessary accessories of their lot.
“Plucked is no a word in use in Scotland,” said Lauderdale; “it smacks of the English universities, which are altogether a different matter. As for the Westminster Confession, I’m no clear that I could put my name to that myself as my act and deed—but you are but a callant, and don’t know your own mind as yet. Meaning no offence to you,” he continued, waving his hand to Colin, who showed signs of impatience, “I was once a laddie myself. Between eighteen and eight-and-twenty you’ll change your ways of thinking, and neither you nor me can prophesy what they’ll end in. As for the congregation of ploughmen, I would be very easy about you if that was the worst danger. Men that are about day and night in the fields when all’s still, cannot but have thoughts in their minds now and then. But it’s no what you are going to be, I’m thinking of,” said Colin’s counsellor, raising himself from the grass with a spark of unusual light in his eyes, “but what you might be, laddie. It’s no a great preacher, far less what they call a popular minister, that would please me. What I’m thinking of is, the Man that is aye to be looked for, but never comes. I’m speaking like a woman, and thinking like a woman,” he said, with a smile; “they have a kind of privilege to keep their ideal. For my part, I ought to have more sense, if experience counted for anything; but I’ve no faith in experience. And, speaking of that,” said the philosopher, dropping back again softly on the greensward, “what a grand outlet for what I’m calling the ideal was that old promise of the Messias who was to come! It may still be so for anything I can tell, though I cannot say that I put much trust in the Jews. But aye to be able to hope that the next new soul might be the One that was above failure, must have been a wonderful solace to them that had failed and lost heart. To be sure, they missed Him when He came,” continued Lauderdale; “that was natural. Human nature is aye defective in action; but a grand idea like that makes all the difference between us and the beasts, and would do, if there were a hundred theories of development—which I would not have you put faith in, laddie,” continued the volunteer tutor. “Steam and iron make awful progress, but no man—”
“That is one of your favourite theories,” said Colin, who was ready for any amount of argument; “though iron and steam are dead and stationary, but for the mind which is always developing. What you say is a kind of paradox; but you like paradoxes, Lauderdale.”
“Everything’s a paradox,” said the reflective giant, getting up slowly from the turf; “and the grass is damp, and the wind’s cold, and I don’t mean to sit here and haver nonsense any longer. Come along, and I’ll see you home. What I like women for is, that they’re seldom subject to the real, or convinced by what you callants call reason. Reason and reality are terrible fictions at the bottom. I never believe in facts, for my part. The worst of it is, that a woman’s ideal is apt to look a terrible idiot when she sets it up before the world,” continued Lauderdale, his face brightening gradually with one of his slow smiles. “The ladies’ novels are instructive on that point. But there’s few things in this world so pleasant as to have a woman at hand that believes in you,” he said, suddenly breaking off in his discourse at an utterly unexpected moment. Colin was startled by the unlooked-for silence, and by the sound of something like a sigh which disturbed the air over his head; and being still but a boy, and not superior to mischief, looked up, with a little laughter.
“You must have once had a woman who believed in you, or you would not speak so feelingly,” said the lad, in his youthful amusement; and then Colin, too, stopped short, having encountered quite an unaccustomed look in his companion’s face.