A Son of the Soil

by Mrs. Oliphant

Probably the readers of this history will think that Colin deserved his fate.

He gave them to her in the evening, when he found her alone in the drawing-room—alone, at least, in so far that Lady Frankland was nodding over the newspaper, and taking no notice of Miss Matty’s proceedings. “Oh, thank you; how nice of you!” cried the young lady; but she crumpled the little billet in her hand, and put it, not into her bosom as young ladies do in novels, but into her pocket, glancing at the door as she did so. “I do believe you are right in saying that there is nothing but prose here,” said Matty. “I can’t read it just now. It would only make them laugh, you know;” and she went away forthwith to the other end of the room, and began to occupy herself in arranging some music. She was thus employed when Harry came in, looking black enough. Colin was left to himself all that evening. He had, moreover, the gratification of witnessing all the privileges once accorded to himself given to his rival. Even in matters less urgent than love, it is disenchanting to see the same attentions lavished on another of which one has imagined one’s self the only possessor. It was in vain that Colin attempted a grim smile to himself at this transference of Matty’s wiles and witcheries. The lively table-talk—more lively than it could be with him, for the two knew all each other’s friends and occupations; the little services about the tea-table which he himself had so often rendered to Matty, but which her cousin could render with a freedom impossible to Colin; the pleased, amused looks of the elders, who evidently imagined matters to be going on as they wished;—would have been enough of themselves to drive the unfortunate youth half wild as he sat in the background and witnessed it all. But, as Colin’s evil genius would have it, the curate was that evening dining at Wodensbourne. And, in pursuance of his benevolent intention of cultivating and influencing the young Scotchman, this excellent ecclesiastic devoted himself to Colin. He asked a great many questions about Scotland and the Sabbath question, and the immoral habits of the peasantry, to which the catechumen replied with varying temper, sometimes giving wild answers, quite wide of the mark, as he applied his jealous ear to hear rather the conversation going on at a little distance than the interrogatory addressed to himself. Most people have experienced something of the difficulty of keeping up an indifferent conversation while watching and straining to catch such scraps as may be audible of something more interesting going on close by; but the difficulty was aggravated in Colin’s case by the fact that his own private interlocutor was doing everything in his power to exasperate him in a well-meaning and friendly way, and that the words which fell on his ear close at hand were scarcely less irritating than the half-heard words, the but too distinctly seen combinations at the other end of the room, where Matty was making tea, with her cousin hanging over her chair. After he had borne it as long as he could, Colin turned to bay.

“Scotland is not in the South Seas,” said the young Scotchman; “a day’s journey any time will take you there. As for our Universities, they are not rich like yours, but they have been heard of from time to time,” said Colin, with indignation. His eyes had caught fire from long provocation, and they were fixed at this moment upon Matty, who was showing her cousin something which she half drew out of her pocket under cover of her handkerchief. Was it his foolish offering that the two were about to laugh over? In the bitterness of the moment, he could have taken the most summary vengeance on the irreproachable young clergyman. “We don’t tattoo ourselves now-a-days, and no Englishman has been eaten in my district within the memory of man,” said the young savage, who looked quite inclined to swallow somebody, though it was doubtful who was the immediate object of the passion which played in his brown eyes. Perhaps Colin had never been so much excited in his life.

“I beg your pardon,” said the wondering curate. “I tire you, I fear—” and he followed Colin’s eyes, after his first movement of offence was over, and perhaps comprehended the mystery, for the curate himself had been in his day the subject of experiments. “They seem to have come to a very good understanding, these two,” he said, with a gentle clerical leaning towards inevitable gossip. “I told you how it was likely to be. I wish you would come to the vicarage oftener,” continued the young priest. “If Frankland and you don’t get on—”

“Why should not we get on?” said Colin, who was half mad with excitement; he had just seen some paper, wonderfully like his own verses, handed from one to another of the pair who were so mutually engrossed—and, if he could have tossed the curate or anybody else who might happen to be at hand out of window, it would have been a relief to his feelings. “He and I are in very different circumstances,” said the young man, with his eyes aflame. “I am not aware that it is of the least importance to any one whether we get on or not. You forget that I am only the tutor.” It occurred to him, as he spoke, that he had said the same words to Matty at Ardmartin, and how they had laughed together over his position. It was not any laughing matter now; and to see the two heads bending over that bit of paper was more than he could bear.

“I wish you would come oftener to the parsonage,” said the benevolent curate. “I might be—we might be—of—of some use to each other. I am very much interested in your opinions. I wish I could bring you to see the beauty of all the Church’s arrangements and the happiness of those—”

Here Colin rose to his feet without being aware of it, and the curate stopped speaking. He was a man of placid temper himself, and the young stranger’s aspect alarmed him. Harry Frankland was coming forward with the bit of paper in his hand.

“Look here,” said Frankland, instinctively turning his back on the tutor, “here’s a little drawing my cousin has been making for some schools you want in the village. She says they must be looked after directly. It’s only a scratch, but I think it’s pretty—a woman is always shaky in her outlines, you know; but the idea ain’t bad, is it? She says I am to talk to you on the subject,” said the heir; and he spread out the sketch on the table and began to discuss it with the pleased curate. Harry was pleased too, in a modified way; he thought he was gratifying Matty, and he thought it was good of such a wayward little thing to think about the village children; and, finally, he thought if she had been indifferent to the young lord of the manor she would not have taken so much trouble—which were all agreeable and consolatory imaginations. As for Colin, standing up by the table, his eyes suddenly glowed and melted into a mist of sweet compunctions; he stood quite still for a moment, and then he caught the smallest possible gesture, the movement of a finger, the scarce-perceptible lifting of an eyelash, which called him to her side. When he went up to Matty he found her reading very demurely, with her book held in both her hands, and his little poem placed above the printed page. “It is charming!” said the little witch; “I could not look at it till I had got rid of Harry. It is quite delightful, and it is the greatest shame in the world not to print it; but I can’t conceive how you can possibly remember the trumpery little things I say.” The conclusion was, that sweeter dreams than usual visited Colin’s sleep that night. Miss Matty had not yet done with her interesting victim.

CHAPTER XVII.

Colin found a letter on the breakfast-table next morning, which gave a new development to his mental struggle. It was from the Professor in Glasgow in whose class he had won his greatest laurels. He was not a correspondent nor even a friend of Colin’s, and the effect of his letter was increased accordingly. “One of our exhibitions to Balliol is to be competed for immediately after Christmas,” wrote the Professor. “I am very anxious that you should be a candidate. From all I have seen of you, I am inclined to augur a brilliant career for your talents if they are fully cultivated; and for the credit of our University, as well as for your own sake, I should be glad to see you the holder of this scholarship. Macdonald, your old rival, is a very satisfactory scholar, and has unbounded perseverance and steadiness—doggedness, I might almost say; but he is not the kind of man—I speak to you frankly—to do us any credit at Oxford, nor indeed to do himself any particular advantage. His is the commonly received type of Scotch intelligence—hard, keen, and unsympathetic—a form as little true to the character of the nation as conventional types usually are. I don’t want, to speak the truth, to send him to my old college as a specimen of what we can produce here. It would be much more satisfactory to myself to send you, and I think you could make better use of the opportunities thus opened to you. Lauderdale informs me that Sir Thomas Frankland is an old friend and one under obligations to you or your family: probably, in the circumstances, he would not object to release you from your engagement. The matter is so important, that I don’t think you should allow any false delicacy in respect to your present occupation to deter you from attending to your own interests. You are now just at the age to benefit in the highest degree by such an opportunity of prosecuting your studies.”