“I wonder what you are thinking of,” said Colin. “Not of me, certainly; but I see you are afraid of something, as if I were going to encounter a great danger. Lauderdale,” said the lad, stopping and laying his hand on his friend’s arm for one confidential moment, “whatever danger there is, I have encountered it. Don’t be afraid for me.”
“I was saying nothing about you, callant,” said Lauderdale, pettishly. “Why should I aye be thinking of you? A man has more things to consider in this life than the vagaries of a slip of a laddie, that doesna see where he’s bound for. I’m thinking of things far out of your way,” said the philosopher; “of disappointments and heart-breaks, and a’ the eclipses that are invisible to common e’en. I’ve seen many in my day. I’ve seen a trifling change that made no difference to the world quench a’ the light and a’ the comfort out of life. There’s more things in heaven or earth than were ever dreamt of at your years. And whiles a man wonders how, for very pity, God can stay still in His heavens and look on—”
Colin could not say anything to the groan with which his friend broke off. He was troubled and puzzled, and could not make it out. They went on together along the white line of road, on which, far off in the distance, the youth already saw the postman whom he was hastening to meet; and, busy as he was with his own thoughts, Colin had already forgotten to inquire what his companion referred to, when his attention, which had wandered completely away, was suddenly recalled again by the voice at his side.
“I’m speaking like a man that cannot see the end,” said Lauderdale, “which is clear to Him, if there’s any meaning in life. You’re for taking your chance and posting your letter, laddie! and you ken nothing about any nonsense that an old fool like me may be maundering. For one thing, there’s aye plenty to divert the mind in this country,” said the philosopher, with a sigh; and stood still at the foot of the long slope they had just descended, looking with a wistful abstracted look upon the loch and the hills; at which change of mood Colin could not restrain himself, but with ready boyish mirth laughed aloud.
“What has this country to do with it all? You are in a very queer mood to-day, Lauderdale—one moment as solemn and mysterious as if you knew of some great calamity, and the next talking of the country. What do you mean I wonder?” But his wonder was not very deep, and stirred lightly in the heart which was full of so many wishes and ambitions of its own. With that letter in his hand, and that new life before him, how could he help but look at the lonely man by his side with a half-divine compassion?—a man to whom life offered no prizes, and scarcely any hopes. He was aware in his heart that Lauderdale was anxious about himself, and the thought of that unnecessary solicitude moved Colin half to laughter. Poor Lauderdale—upon whom he looked down from the elevation of his young life with the tenderest pity! He smiled upon his friend in his exaltation and superiority. “You are more inexplicable than usual to-day. I wonder what you mean?” said Colin with all the sunshine of youth and joy, defying evil forebodings, in his eyes.
“It would take a wise man to tell,” said Lauderdale; “I would not pretend, for my own part, to fathom what any fool might mean—much less what I mean myself, that have glimmerings of sense at times. Yon sunshine’s awfu’ prying about the hills. Light’s aye inquisitive, and would fain be at the bottom of every mystery—which is, maybe, the reason,” said the speculative observer, “why there’s nae grandeur to speak of, nor meaning, according to mortal notions, without clouds and darkness. Yonder’s your postman, callant. Give him the letter and be done with it. I whiles find myself wondering how it is that we take so little thought to God’s meanings—what ye might call His lighter meanings—His easy verses and such-like, that are thrown about the world, in the winds and the sky. To be sure, I ken just as well as you do that it’s currents of air, and masses of vapour, and electricity, and all the rest of it. It’s awfu’ easy learning the words—but will you tell me there’s no meaning to a man’s heart and soul in the like of that?” said Colin’s companion, stopping suddenly with a sigh of impatience and vexation, which had to do with something more vital than the clouds. Just then, nature truly seemed to have come to a pause, and to be standing still, like themselves, looking on. The sky that was so blue and broad a moment since had contracted to a black vault over the Holy Loch. Blackness that was positive and not a mere negation frowned out of all the half-disclosed mysterious hollows of the hills. The leaves that remained on the trees thrilled with a spasmodic shiver, and the little ripples came crowding up on the beach with a sighing suppressed moan of suspense and apprehension. So, at least, it seemed to one if not both of the spectators standing by.
“It means a thunderstorm, in the first place,” said Colin; “look how it begins to come down in a torrent of gloom over Loch Goil. We have just time to get under shelter. It is very well for us we are so near Ramore.”
“Ay—” said Lauderdale. He repeated the syllable over again and again as they hurried back. “But the time will come, when we’ll no be near Ramore,” he said to himself as the storm reached him and dashed in his face not twenty yards from the open door. Colin’s laugh, as he reached with a bound the kindly portal, was all the answer which youth and hope gave to experience. The boy was not to be discouraged on that sweet threshold of his life.
CHAPTER XIV.
Wodensbourne was as different from any house that Colin had ever seen before, as the low flat country, rich and damp and monotonous, was unlike the infinitely varied landscape to which his eye had been accustomed all his life. The florid upholstery of Ardmartin contrasted almost as strangely with the sober magnificence of the old family-house, in which the Franklands had lived and died for generations, as did the simple little rooms to which Colin had been accustomed in his father’s house. Perhaps, on the whole, Ramore, where everything was for use and nothing for show, was less unharmonious with all he saw about him than the equipments of the bran new castle, all built out of new money, and gilded and lackered to a climax of domestic finery. Colin’s pupil was the invalid of the family; a boy of twelve, who could not go to Eton like his brothers, but whom the good-natured baronet thought, as was natural, the cleverest of his family.—“That’s why I wanted you so much, Campbell,” Sir Thomas said, by way of setting Colin at ease in his new occupation; “he’s not a boy to be kept to classics isn’t Charley—there’s nothing that boy wouldn’t master—and shut up as he has to be, with his wretched health, he wants a little variety. I’ve always heard you took a wider range in Scotland; that’s what I want for my boy.” It was with this exposition of his patron’s wishes that the new tutor was introduced to his duties at Wodensbourne. But a terrible disappointment awaited the young man, a disappointment utterly unforeseen. There was nobody there but Sir Thomas himself, and Charley, and some little ones still in the nursery. “We’re all by ourselves, but you won’t mind,” said the baronet, who seemed to think it all the better for Colin; “my lady and Matty will be home before Christmas, and you can get yourself settled comfortably in the meantime. Lady Frankland is with her sister, who is in very bad health. I don’t know what people mean by getting into bad health—women, too, that can’t go in for free living and that sort of thing,” said Sir Thomas. “The place looks dreary without the ladies, but they’ll be back before Christmas,” and he went to sleep after dinner as usual, and left the young tutor at the other side of the table sitting in a kind of stupefied amazement and mortification, in the silence, wondering what he came here for, and where all his hopes and brilliant auguries had gone.