With this she disappeared, leaving Rob in a state of wonder which almost reached the point of consternation. It made him superstitious. His mother—his mother! to pause and recommend to him the bonniest view! Something must be going to happen. Never in his life had he been so surprised. He got up, half stupefied, as if under a mystic compulsion, and got his sketching-block and his colors, and went out to the west green. It was as if some voice had come out of the sky above him, or from the soil beneath his feet, commanding this work. What was he that he should be disobedient to the heavenly vision? He went out like a man in a dream, his feet turning mechanically to the indicated spot.
It was a fresh yet sunny morning, the dew not yet off the grass, for everything was early at the farm. The hills, far off, lay clear in softest tints of blue, dark yet transparent, the very color of aerial distance, while all the hues of the landscape between, the brown ploughed land, the green corn, the faint yellowing of here and there a prosperous field, the darkness of the trees and hedges, the pale gleams of water, rose into fuller tones of color as they neared him, yet all so heavenly clear. The morning was so clear that Jean, in the byre, shook her head, and said there would be rain. The clearness of the atmosphere brought everything near; you might have stretched out your hands and touched the Sidlaws, and even the blue peaks of the Grampians beyond; and in the centre of the landscape lay the Kirkton, glorified, every red roof in it, every bit of gray-yellow thatch and dark brown wall telling against the background of fields; the trees scarcely ruffled by the light morning wind, the church rising like a citadel upon its mound of green, flecked with the burial-places of the past, the houses clustered round it, the smoke rising, a faint darkening, as of breath in the air, to mark where human living was. What a scene! yet nothing; the homeliest country, low hills, broad fields, a commonplace village. For a moment Rob, though he had no genius, fell into a trance, as of genius, before this wonderful, simple landscape. “A voice said unto me, Write; and I said, What shall I write?” How put it into words, into colors upon dull paper? His head was filled with a magical confusion. For once in his life he approached the brink of genius—in the sense of his incapacity. He sat down, gazed, and could do no more.
By-and-by Mrs. Glen came strolling out from the house, with that assumed air of ease and leisure which is always so comically transparent. She meant to assume that she had nothing to do, and was taking a walk for pleasure, which was about as unlikely a thing as could have happened, almost as unlikely as pure interest in Rob’s work, which was her real motive. She wanted to see what he had done, whether he had taken that bonniest view, how he was getting on with it, and if it was a thing which could, by any possibility, dazzle and delight a young lady who was an heiress. Assuredly she had not sent out her son to dream over the landscape, to do anything but draw it there and then without delay, as if he had been sent to plough a field. She came up to him, elaborately unoccupied and at her ease, yet explanatory.
“I’ve just come out to look about me,” she said, with fictitious jauntiness. “So you’re at it again! Eh, laddie, what a waste o’ time and good paper, no to speak of thae colors that cost money! And how far are you on by this time? are you near done?”
Rob had the presence of mind to shut his book hastily.
“I have just begun, mother; but, I did not think you took any interest in my poor drawing.”
“Me—take an interest? No! But if you’re to waste my substance and your ain time taking pictures, I may as well see what there is to see as other folk.”
“You shall see it when it is done,” said Rob. “It is not in a condition to show now. It is not a thing that can be done in a minute. There is a great deal of thought necessary—the different harmonies of color, the relation of one part to another—”
Mrs. Glen was overawed.
“Ane would think it was some grand affair. A bit scart upon the paper, and a wheen greens and blues: and ye talk as if it was a battle to fight or a grand law-plea.”