“I felt always secure about Harry when you were with him,” she said, with an involuntary artifice. “He was so fond of you, Mr. Campbell—and I always felt that you knew how important his safety was, and how much depended—”
“Pardon me,” said Colin; he was angry in his weakness at her pertinacity. “I have no right to your gratitude. Your son and I have no love for each other, Lady Frankland. I picked him out of the canal, not because I thought of the importance of his life, but because I had seen him go down, and should have felt myself a kind of murderer had I not tried to save him. That is the whole. Why should I be supposed to have any special regard for him? Perhaps,” said Colin, whose words came slowly and whose voice was interrupted by his weakness—“I would have given my life with more comfort for any other man.”
“Oh Mr. Campbell! don’t be so angry and bitter. After all, it was not our fault,” said Lady Frankland, with a wondering offence and disappointment—and then she hurriedly changed her tone, and began to congratulate his mother on his improved looks. “I am so glad to see him looking so much better. There were some people coming here,” said my lady, faltering a little; “we would not have them come so long as he was so ill. Neither Harry nor any of us could have suffered it. We had sent to put them off; but, now that he is so much better—” said Lady Frankland, with a voice which was half complaint and half appeal. She thought it was rather ill-tempered of the mother and son to make so little response. “When I almost asked their permission!” she said, with a little indignation, when she had gone downstairs; “but they seem to think they should be quite masters, and look as black as if we had done them an injury. Send to everybody, and say it is to be on Wednesday, Matty; for Henry’s interests must not be neglected.” It was a ball, for which Lady Frankland had sent out her invitations some time before the accident; for Harry Frankland was to ask the suffrages of the electors of Earie at the approaching election. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful to Mr. Campbell,” said the Lady of Wodensbourne, smoothing her ruffled plumes. “I am sure nobody can say I have not been grateful; but, at the same time, I can’t be expected to sacrifice my own son.” Such were the sentiments with which Lady Frankland came downstairs. As for the other mother, it would be hard to describe what was in her mind. In the bitterness of her heart she was angry with the God who had no pity upon her. If Harry Frankland’s life was precious, what was Colin’s? and the Mistress, in her anguish, made bitter comparisons, and cried out wildly with a woman’s passion. Downstairs, in the fine rooms which her simple imagination filled with splendour, they would dance and sing unconcerned, though her boy’s existence hung trembling in the balance: and was not Heaven itself indifferent, taking no notice? She was glad that twilight was coming on to conceal her face, and that Colin, who lay very silent, did not observe her. And so, while Lady Frankland, feeling repulsed and injured, managed to escape partially from the burden of an obligation which was too vast to be borne, and returned to the consideration of her ball, the two strangers kept silence in the twilight chamber, each dumbly contending with doubts that would not be overcome, and questions which could not be answered. What did God mean by permitting this wonderful, this incomprehensible difference between the two? But the great Father remained silent and made no reply. The days of revelation, of explanation were over. For one, joy and prosperity; for another, darkness and the shadow of death—plain facts not to be misconceived or contested—and in all the dumb heavens and silent observant earth no wisdom nor knowledge which could tell the reason why.
CHAPTER XXII.
“Ay, I heard of the accident. No that I thought anything particular of that. You’re no the kind of callant, nor come of the kind of race, to give in to an accident. I came for my own pleasure. I hope I’m old enough to ken what pleases myself. Take your dinner, callant, and leave me to mind my business. I could do that much before you were born.”
It was Lauderdale who made this answer to Colin’s half-pleased, half-impatient questioning. The new comer sat, gaunt and strange, throwing a long shadow over the sick-bed, and looking, with a suppressed emotion, more pathetic than tears, upon the tray which was placed on a little table by Colin’s side. It was a sad sight enough. The young man, in the flush and beauty of his youth, with his noble physical development, and the eager soul that shone in his eyes, laid helpless, with an invalid’s repast before him, for which he put out his hand with a languid movement like a sick child. Lauderdale himself looked haggard and careworn. He had travelled by night, and was unshaven and untrimmed, with a wild gleam, of exhaustion and hungry anxiety in his eyes.
“Whatever the reason may be, we’re real glad to see you,” said Mrs. Campbell. “If I could have wished for anything to do Colin good more than he’s getting, it would have been you. But he’s a great deal better—a wonderful deal better; you would not know him for the same creature that he was when I came here; and I’m in great hopes he’ll no need to be sent away for the rest of the winter, as the doctor said,” said the sanguine mother, who had reasoned herself into hope. She looked with wistful inquiry as she spoke into Lauderdale’s eyes, trying hard to read there what was the opinion of the new comer. “It would be an awfu’ hard thing for me to send him away by himsel’, and him no strong,” said the Mistress, with a hope that his friend would say that Colin’s looks did not demand such a proceeding, but that health would come back to him with the sweet air of the Holy Loch.
“I heard of that,” said Lauderdale, “and, to tell the truth, I’m tired of staying in one place all my life mysel’. If a man is to have no more good of his ain legs than if he were a vegetable, I see no good in being a man; it would save an awfu’ deal of trouble to turn a cabbage at once. So I’m thinking of taking a turn about the world as long as I’m able; and, if Colin likes to go with me—”
“Which means, mother, that he has come to be my nurse,” said Colin, whose heart was climbing into his throat; “and here I lie like a log, and will never be able to do more than say thanks. Lauderdale—”
“Whisht, callant,” said the tender giant, who stood looking down upon Colin with eyes which would not trust themselves to answer the mother’s appealing glances; “I’m terrible fatigued with my life, and no able to take the trouble of arguing the question. Not that I consent to your proposition, which has a fallacy on the face of it; for it would be a bonnie-like thing to hear you say thanks either to your mother or me. Since I’ve been in my situation—which, maybe, I’ll tell you more about by-and-bye, now that my mouth’s opened—I’ve saved a little siller, a hundred pounds—or maybe mair,” said the philosopher, with a momentary smile, “and I see no reason why I shouldna have my bit holiday as well as other folk. I’ve worked long for it.” He turned away just then, attracted by a gleam of sunshine at the window, his companion thought, and stood looking out disposing as he best could of a little bitter moisture that had gathered in the deep corners of his eyes. “It’ll no be very joyful when it comes,” he said to himself, with a pang of which nobody was aware, and stood forming his lips into an inaudible whistle to conceal how they quivered. He, too, had built high hopes upon this young head which was now lying low. He had said to himself, with the involuntary bitterness of a mind disappointed and forlorn, that here at least was a life free from all shadows—free from the fate that seemed to follow all who belonged to himself—through which he might again reconcile himself to Providence, and re-connect himself with existence. As he stood now, with his back to Colin, Lauderdale was again going over the burning ploughshares, enduring the fiery ordeal. Once more his unselfish hope was going out in darkness. When he turned round again his lips had steadied into the doleful turn of a familiar air, which was connected in Colin’s mind with many an amusing and many a tender recollection. Between the two people who were regarding him with love and anguish so intense, the sick youth burst into pleasant laughter—laughter which had almost surprised the bystanders into helpless tears—and repeated, with firmer breath than Lauderdale’s, the fragment of his favourite air.