“There has some change come over you, Colin—what has happened?” said his father. “I’m no a man that despises money, nor thinks it a sin to get on in the world, but it’s only fools that quarrel wi’ what’s within their reach for envy of what they can never win to. If ye had displayed a strong bent any other way I wouldna have minded,” said big Colin. “But it’s the new-fangled dishes at Ardmartin that have spoiled the callant’s digestion; he’ll come back to his natural inclination when he’s been at home for a day or two,” the farmer added, laying his large hand on his son’s shoulder with a pressure which meant more than his words; but the youth was vexed, and impatient, and imagined himself laughed at, which is the most dreadful of insults at Colin’s age, and in his circumstances. He paid no attention to his father’s looks, but plunged straightway into vehement declaration of his sentiments, to which the elder people around him listened with many complications of feeling unknown to Colin. The lad thought, as was natural at his years, that nobody had ever felt before him the same bondage of circumstance and perplexities of soul, and that it was a new revelation he was making to his little audience. If he could have imagined that both the men were looking at him with the half sympathy, half pity, half envy of their maturer years, remembering as vividly as if it had occurred but yesterday similar outbreaks of impatience and ambition and natural resistance to all the obstacles of life, Colin would have felt deeply humiliated in his youthful fervour; or, if he could but have penetrated the film of softening dew in his mother’s eyes, and beheld there the woman’s perennial spectatorship of that conflict which goes on for ever. Instead of that, he thought he was making a new revelation to his hearers; he thought he was cruel to them, tearing asunder their pleasant mists of illusion, and disenchanting their eyes; he had not an idea that they knew all about it better than he did, and were watching him as he rushed along the familiar path which they all had trod in different ways, and of which they knew the inevitable ending. Colin, in the heat and impatience of his youth, took full advantage of his moment of utterance. He poured forth in his turn that flood of immeasurable discontent with all conditions and restrictions, which is the privilege of his years. To be sure, the restrictions and conditions surrounding himself were, so far as he knew, the sole objects of that indignation and scorn and defiance which came to his lips by force of nature. As for his mother, she listened, for her part, with that mortification which is always the woman’s share. She understood him, sympathised with him, and yet did not understand nor could tolerate his dissent from all that in her better judgment she had decided upon on his behalf. She was far more tender, but she was lest tolerant than the other spectators of Colin’s outburst; and mingled with all her personal feeling was a sense of wounded pride and mortification, that her boy had thus betrayed himself “before a stranger.” “If we had been our lane, it would have been less matter,” she said to herself, as she wiped the furtive tears hurriedly from the corners of her eyes.
When Colin had come to an end there was a pause. The boy himself thought it was a pause of horror and consternation, and perhaps was rather pleased to produce an effect in some degree corresponding to his own excitement. After that moment of silence, however, the farmer got up from his chair. “It’s very near time we were a’ gaun to our beds,” said big Colin. “I’ll take a look round to see that the beasts are comfortable, and then we’ll have in the hot water. You and me can have a talk the morn,” said the farmer to his son. This was all the reply which the youth received from the parental authorities. When the master went out to look after the beasts, Lauderdale followed to the door, where Colin in another moment strayed after him, considerably mortified, to tell the truth; for even his mother addressed herself to the question of “hot water,” which implied various other accessories of the homely supper-table; and the young man, in his excitement and elevation of feeling, felt as if he had suddenly tumbled down out of the stormy but lofty firmament, into which he was soaring—down, with a shock, into the embraces of the homely tenacious earth. He went after his friend, and stood by Lauderdale’s side, looking out into a darkness so profound that it made his eyes ache and confused his very mind. The only gleam of light visible in earth or heaven was big Colin’s lantern, which showed a tiny gleam from the door of the byre where the farmer was standing. All the lovely landscape round, the loch and the hills, the sky and the clouds, lay unseen—hidden in the night. “Which is an awfu’ grand moral lesson, if we had but sense to discern it,” said the voice of Lauderdale ascending half-way up to the clouds; “for the loch hasna’ vanished, as might be supposed, but only the light. As for you, callant, you ken neither the light nor the darkness as yet, but are aye seeing miraculous effects like yon man Turner’s pictures, Northern Streamers, or Aurora Borealis, or whatever ye may call it. And it’s but just you should have your day;” with which words Lauderdale heaved a great sigh, which moved the clouds of hair upon Colin’s forehead, and even seemed to disturb, for a moment, the profound gloom of the night.
“What do you mean by having my day?” said Colin, who was affronted by the suggestion. “You know I have said nothing that is not true. Can I help it if I see the difficulties of my own position more clearly than you do, who are not in my circumstances?” cried the lad with a little indignation. Lauderdale, who was watching the lantern gliding out and in through the darkness, was some time before he made any reply.
“I’m no surprised at yon callant Leander, when one comes to think of it,” he said in his reflective way; “it’s a fine symbol, that Hero in her tower. May be she took the lamp from the domestic altar and left the household god in darkness,” said the calm philosopher; “but that makes no difference to the story. I wouldna’ say but I would swim the Hellespont myself for such an inducement—or the Holy Loch—it’s little matter which; but whiles she lets fall the torch before you get to the end—”
“What do you mean? or what has Hero to do with me?” cried Colin, with a secret flush of shame and rage, which the darkness concealed but which he could scarcely restrain.
“I was not speaking of you—and after all, it’s but a fable,” said Lauderdale; “most history is fable, you know; it’s no actual events, (which I never believe in, for my part,) but the instincts o’ the human mind that make history—and that’s how the Heros and Leanders are aye to be accounted for. He was drowned in the end like most people,” said Lauderdale, turning back to the parlour where the mistress was seated, pondering with a troubled countenance upon this new aspect of her boy’s life. Amid the darkness of the world outside this tender woman sat in the sober radiance of her domestic hearth, surrounded and enshrined by light; but she was not like Hero on the tower. Colin, too, came back, following his friend with a flush of excitement upon his youthful countenance. After all, the idea was not displeasing to the young man. The Hellespont, or the Holy Loch, were nothing to the bitter waters which he was prepared to breast by the light of the imaginary torch held up in the hand of that imaginary woman who was beckoning Colin, as he thought, into the unknown world. Life was beginning anew in his person, and all the fables had to be enacted over again; and what did it matter to the boy’s heroic fancy, if he too should go to swell the record of the ancient martyrs, and be drowned, as Lauderdale said—like most people—in the end?
There was no further conversation upon this important subject until next morning, when the household of Ramore got up early, and sat down to breakfast before it was perfect daylight; but Colin’s heart jumped to his mouth, and a visible thrill went through the whole family, when the farmer came in from his early inspection of all the byres and stables, with another letter from Sir Thomas Frankland conspicuous in his hand.
CHAPTER XIII.
“The question is, will ye go or will ye stay?” said big Colin of Ramore; “but for this, you and me might have had a mair serious question to discuss. I see a providence in it for my part. You’re but a callant; it will do you nae harm to wait; and you’ll be in the way of seeing the world at—what do they call the place? If your mother has nae objections, and ye see your ain way to accepting, I’ll be very well content. It’s awfu’ kind o’ Sir Thomas after the way ye’ve rejected a’ his advances—but, no doubt he’s heard that you got on gey weel, on the whole, at your ain college,” said the farmer, with a little complacency. They were sitting late over the breakfast table, the younger boys looking on with eager eyes, wondering over Colin’s wonderful chances, and feeling severely the contrast of their own lot, who had to take up the ready satchel and the “piece,” which was to occupy their healthful appetites till the evening, and hurry off three miles down the loch to school. As for Archie, he had been long gone to his hard labour on the farm, and the mother and father and the visitor were now sitting, a little committee upon Colin’s prospects, which the lad himself contemplated with a mixture of delight and defiance wonderful to see.
“It’s time for the school, bairns,” said the farmer’s wife; “be good laddies, and dinna linger on the road either coming or going. Ye’ll get apples a-piece in the press. I couldna give ony advice, if you ask me,” said the Mistress, looking at her son with her tender eyes: “Colin, my man, it’s no for me nor your father either to say one thing or another—it’s you that must decide—it’s your ain well-being and comfort and happiness——.” Here the Mistress stopped short with an emotion which nobody could explain; and at which even Colin, who had the only clue to it, looked up out of his own thoughts, with a momentary surprise.