“I have always intended so,” said Colin, with his grand air, ignoring the baronet’s meaning. “To preach, if it is only to peasants, is more worth a man’s while than leading prayers for ever, like your curate here. I am only Scotch; I know no better,” said Colin. “We want changes in Scotland, it is true; but it is as good to work for Scotland as for England—better for me—and I should not grudge my first-class to the service of my native Church,” said the youth, with a movement of his head which tossed his heavy brown locks from his concealed forehead. Sir Thomas looked at him with a blank amazement, not knowing in the least what he meant. He thought the young fellow had been piqued somehow, most probably by Matty, and was in a heroical mood, which mood Colin’s patron did not pretend to understand.
“Well, well,” he said, with some impatience, “I suppose you will take your own way; but I must say it would seem very odd to see an Oxford first-class man in a queer little kirk in the Highlands, preaching a sermon an hour long. Of course, if you like it, that’s another matter; and the Scotch certainly do seem to like preaching,” said Sir Thomas, with natural wonder; “but we flattered ourselves you were comfortable here. I am sorry you want to go away.”
This was taking Colin on his undefended side. The words brought colour to his cheeks and moisture to his eye. “Indeed, I don’t want to go away,” he said, and paused, and faltered, and grew still more deeply crimson. “I can never forget; I can never think otherwise than with—with gratitude of Wodensbourne.” He was going to have said tenderness, but stopped himself in time; and even Sir Thomas, though his eyes were noway anointed with any special chrism of insight, saw the emotion in his face.
“Then don’t go,” said the straightforward baronet; “why should you go if you don’t want to? We are all most anxious that you should stay. Indeed, it would upset my plans dreadfully if you were to leave Charley at present. He’s a wonderful fellow, is Charley. He has twice as much brains as the rest of my boys, sir; and you understand him, Campbell. He is happier, he is stronger, he is even a better fellow—poor lad, when he’s ill he can’t be blamed for a bit of temper—since you came. Indeed, now I think it over,” said Sir Thomas, “you will mortify and disappoint me very much if you go away. I quite considered you had accepted Charley’s tutorship for a year at least. My dear, here’s a pretty business,” he said, turning round at the sound of steps and voices, which Colin had already discerned from afar with a feeling that he was now finally vanquished, and could yield with a good grace; “here’s Campbell threatening to go away.”
“To go away!” said Lady Frankland. “Dear me, he can’t mean it. Why, he only came the other day; and Charley, you know”—said the anxious mother; but she recollected Harry’s objection to the tutor, and did not make any very warm opposition. Colin, however, was totally unconscious of the lukewarmness of the lady of the house. The little scream of dismay with which Miss Matty received the intelligence might have deluded a wiser man than he.
“Going away! I call it downright treachery,” said Miss Matty. “I think it is using you very unkindly, uncle; when he knows you put such dependence on him about Charley; and when we know the house has been quite a different thing since Mr. Campbell came,” said the little witch, with a double meaning, of which Colin, poor boy, swallowed the sweeter sense, without a moment’s hesitation. He knew it was not the improvement in Charley’s temper which had made the house different to Matty; but Lady Frankland, who was not a woman of imagination, took up seriously what seemed to be the obvious meaning of the words.
“It is quite true. I am sure we are much obliged to Mr. Campbell,” she said; “Charley is quite an altered boy; and I had hoped, you were liking Wodensbourne. If we could do anything to make it more agreeable to you,” said Lady Frankland, graciously, remembering how Charley’s “temper” was the horror of the house. “I am sure Sir Thomas would not grudge—”
“Pray do not say any more,” said Colin, confused and blushing; “no house could be more—no house could be so agreeable to me. You are all very kind. It was only my—my own—”
What he was going to say is beyond the reach of discovery. He was interrupted by a simultaneous utterance from all the three persons present, of which Colin heard only the soft tones of Matty. “He does not mean it,” she said; “he only means to alarm us. I shall not say good-bye, nor farewell either. You shall have no good wishes if you think of going away. False as a Campbell,” said the siren under her breath, with a look which overpowered Colin. He never was quite sure what words followed from the elder people; but even Lady Frankland became fervent when she recalled what Charley had been before the advent of the tutor. “What we should do with him now, if Mr. Campbell was to leave and the house full of people, I tremble to think,” said the alarmed mother. When Colin returned to the house it was with a slightly flattered sense of his own value and importance new to him—with a sense too that duty had fully acquitted and justified inclination, and that he could not at the present moment leave his post. This delicious unction he laid to his soul while it was still thrilling with the glance and with the words which Matty, in her alarm, had used to prevent her slave’s escape. Whatever happened, he could not, he would not, go; better to perish with such a hope, than to thrive without it; and, after all, there was no need for perishing, and next year Oxford might still be practicable. So Colin said to himself, as he made his simple toilette for the evening, with a face which was radiant with secret sunshine, “It was only my—my own—.” How had he intended to complete that sentence which the Franklands took out of his mouth? Was he going to say interest, advantage, peace? The unfinished words came to his mind involuntarily when he was alone. They kept flitting in and out, disturbing him with vague touches of uneasiness, asking to be completed. “My own—only my own,” Colin said to himself as he went downstairs. He was saying over the words softly as he came to a landing, upon which there was a great blank staircase-window reaching down to the floor, and darkly filled at this present moment with a grey waste of sky and tumbling clouds, with a wild wind visibly surging through the vacant atmosphere, and conveying almost to the eye in palpable vision the same demonstration of its presence as it did to the ear. “My own—only my own. I wonder what you mean; the words sound quite sentimental,” said Miss Matty, suddenly appearing at Colin’s side, with a light in her hand. The young man was moved strangely; he could not tell why. “I meant my own life, I believe,” he said with a sudden impulse, unawares; “only my own life,” and went down the next flight of stairs before the young lady, not knowing what he was about. When he came to himself, and stood back, blushing with hot shame, to let her pass, the words came back in a dreary whirl, as if the wind had taken them up and tossed them at him, but of that wild windowful of night. His life—only his life; was that what he had put in comparison with Charley’s temper and Matty’s vanity, and given up with enthusiasm? Something chill, like a sudden cold current through his veins, ran to Colin’s heart for a moment. Next minute he was in the room, where bright lights, and lively talk, and all the superficial cordiality of prosperity and good-humour filled the atmosphere round him. Whatever the stake had been, the cast was over and the decision made.