IT was some time before Colin recovered his composure, or found it possible to console himself for the failure of his hopes. He wrote a great deal of poetry in the meantime—or rather of verses which looked wonderfully like poetry, such as young men of genius are apt to produce under such circumstances. The chances are, that if he had confided them to any critic of a sympathetic mind, attempts would have been made to persuade Colin that he was a poet. But luckily Lauderdale was not at hand, and there was no one else to whom the shy young dreamer would have disclosed himself. He sent some of his musings to the magazines, and so added a little excitement and anxiety to his life. But nobody knew Colin in that little world where, as in other worlds, most things go by favour, and impartial appreciation is comparatively unknown. The editors most probably would have treated their unknown correspondent in exactly the same manner had he been a young Tennyson. As it was, Colin did not quite know what to think about his repeated failures in this respect. When he was despondent he became disgusted with his own productions, and said to himself that of course such maudlin verse could be procured by the bushel, and was not worthy of paper and print. But in other moods the lad imagined he must have some enemy who prejudiced the editorial world, and shut against him the gates of literary fame. In books all the heroes, who could do nothing else, found so ready a subsistence by means of magazines, that the poor boy was naturally puzzled to find that all his efforts could not gain him a hearing. And it began to be rather important to him to find something to do. During the previous summers Colin had not disdained the farm and its labours, but had worked with his father and brothers without any sense of incongruity. But now matters were changed. Miss Matty, with her curls and her smiles, had bewitched the boy out of his simple innocent life. It did not seem natural that the hand which she consented to touch with her delicate fingers should hold the plough or the reaping hook, or that her companion in so many celestial rambles should plod through the furrows at other times, or go into the rough drolleries of the harvest field.
Colin began to think that the life of a farmer’s son at Ramore was inconsistent with his future hopes, and there was nothing else for it but teaching, since so little was to be made of the magazines. When he had come to himself and began to see the surrounding circumstances with clearer eyes, Colin, who had no mind to be dependent, but meant to make his own way as was natural to a Scotch lad of his class, bethought himself of the most natural expedient. He had distinguished himself at college, and it was not difficult to find the occupation he wanted. Perhaps he was glad to escape from the primitive home, from the mother’s penetrating looks, and all the homely ways of which the ambitious boy began to be a little impatient. He had come to the age of discontent. He had begun to look forward no longer to the vague splendours of boyish imagination, but to elevation in the social scale, and what he heard people call success in life. A year or two before it had not occurred to Colin to consider the circumstances of his own lot;—his ambition pointed only to ideal grandeur, unembarrassed by particulars—and it was very possible for the boy to be happy, thinking of some incoherent greatness to come, while engaged in the humblest work, and living in the homeliest fashion. But the time had arrived when the pure ideal had to take to itself some human garments, and when the farmer’s son became aware that a scholar and a gentleman required a greater degree of external refinement in his surroundings. His young heart was wounded by this new sense, and his visionary pride offended by the thought that these external matters could count for anything in the dignity of a man. But Colin had to yield like every other. He loved his family no less, but he was less at home among them. The inevitable disruption was commencing, and already, with the quick insight of her susceptible nature, the mistress of Ramore had discovered that the new current was setting in, that the individual stream of Colin’s life was about to disengage itself, and that her proud hopes for her boy were to be sealed by his separation from her. The tender-hearted woman said nothing of it, except by an occasional pathetic reflection upon things in general, which went to Colin’s heart, and which he understood perfectly; but perhaps, though no one would have confessed as much, it was a relief to all when the scholar-son, of whom everybody at Ramore was so proud, went off across the loch, rowed by two of his brothers, with his portmanteau and the first evening coat he had ever possessed, to Ardmartin, the fine house on the opposite bank, where he was to be tutor to Mr. Jordan’s boys, and eat among strangers the bread of his own toil.
The mistress stood at the door shading her eyes with her hand, and looking after the boat as it shot across the bright water. Never at its height of beauty had the Holy Loch looked more fair. The sun was expanding and exulting over all the hills, searching into every hollow, throwing up unthought-of tints, heaps of moss, and masses of rock, that no one knew of till that moment; and with the sunshine went flying shadows that rose and fell like the lifting of an eyelid. The gleam of the sun before she put up her hand to shade her face fell upon the tear in the mistress’s eye, and hung a rainbow upon the long lash, which was wet with that tender dew. She looked at her boys gliding over the loch through this veil of fairy colours, all made out of a tear, and the heart in her tender bosom beat with a corresponding conjunction of pain and happiness. “He’ll never more come back to bide at home like his father’s son,” she said to herself, softly, with a pang of natural mortification; “but, eh, I’m a thankless woman to complain, and him so weel and so good, and naething in fant but nature,” added the mother, with all the compunction of true love; and so stood gazing till the boat had gone out of hearing, and had begun to enter that sweet shadow of the opposite bank, projected far into the loch, which plunged the whole landscape into a dazzling uncertainty, and made it a doubtful matter which was land and which was water. Colin himself, touched by the loveliness of the scene, had paused just then to look down the shining line to where this beatified paradise of water opened out into the heaven of Clyde. And to his mother’s eyes gazing after him, the boat seemed to hang suspended among the sweet spring foliage of the Lady’s Glen, which lay reflected, every leaf and twig, in the sweeter loch. When somebody called her indoors she went away with a sigh. Was it earth, or a vision of Paradise, or “some unsubstantial fairy place?” The sense of all this loveliness struck intense, with almost a feeling of pain, upon the gentle woman’s poetic heart.
And it was in such a scene that Colin wrote the verses which borrowed from the sun and the rain prismatic colours like those of his mother’s tears, and were as near poetry as they could possibly be to miss that glory. Luckily for him he had no favourite confidant at hand to persuade him that he was a poet; so the verse-making did him nothing but good, providing a safety-valve for that somewhat stormy period of his existence.
Mr. Jordan was very rich and very liberal, and, indeed, lavish of the money which had elevated him above all his early friends and associations. He had travelled, he bought pictures, he prided himself upon his library, and he was very good to his young tutor, who, he told everybody, was “a lad of genius;” and though naturally, even with all this, Colin’s existence was not one of unmingled bliss, the change was good for him. As soon as he had left Ramore he began to look back to it with longing, as was natural to his years. The sense that he had that home behind him, with everybody ready to stand by him whatever trouble he might fall into, and every heart open to hear and sympathize in all the particulars of his life, restored the young man all at once to content and satisfaction with the homely household that loved him. When he was there life looked gray and sombre in all its sober-coloured garments; but when he looked across the loch at the white house on the hillside, that little habitation had regained its ideal character. He had some things to endure, as was natural, that galled his high spirit, but, on the whole, he was happier than if he had still been at Ramore.
And so the summer passed on. He had sent his answer to Sir Thomas without any delay—an answer in which, on the whole, his father concurred—written in a strain of lofty politeness which would not have misbecome a young prince. “He was destined for the Church of Scotland,” Colin wrote, “and such being the case, it was best that he should content himself with the training of a Scotch university. Less perfect, no doubt,” the boy had said, with a kind of haughty humility; “but, perhaps, better adapted to the future occupations of a Scotch clergyman.” And then he went on to offer thanks in a magnificent way, calculated to overwhelm utterly the good-natured baronet, who had never once imagined that the pride of the farmer’s son would be wounded by his proposal. The answer had been sent, and no notice had been taken of it. It was months since then, and not a word of Sir Thomas Frankland or his family had been heard about the Holy Loch. They seemed to have disappeared altogether back again into their native firmament, never more to dazzle the eyes of beholders in the west country. It was hard upon Colin thus to lose, at a stroke, not only the hope on which he had built so securely, but at the same time a great part of the general stimulation of his life. Not only the visionary budding love which had filled him with so many sweet thoughts, but even the secret rivalry and opposition which no one knew of, had given strength and animation to his life—and now both seemed to have departed together. He mused over it often with wonder, asking himself if Lauderdale was right; if it was true that most things come to nothing; and whether meetings and partings, which looked as if they must tell upon life for ever and ever, were, after all, of not half so much account as the steady routine of existence? The youth perplexed himself daily with such questions, and wrote to Lauderdale many a long mysterious epistle which puzzled his anxious friend, who could not make out what had set Colin’s brains astray out of all the confident philosophies of his years. When the young man, in his hours of leisure, climbed up the woody ravine close by, to where the burn took long leaps over the rocks, flinging itself down in diamonds and showers of spray into the heart of the deep summer foliage in the Lady’s Glen, and from that height looked down upon the castle on the other side, seated among its lawns and trees on the soft promontory which narrowed the entrance of the loch, Colin could not but feel the unexpected void which was suddenly made in his life. The Frankland family had been prominent objects on his horizon for a number of years. In disliking or liking, they had been always before him; and even at his most belligerent period, there was something not disagreeable to the lad’s fancy, at least, in this link of connexion with a world so different from his own—a world in which, however commonplace might be the majority of the actors, such great persons as were to be had in the age might still be found. And now they had gone altogether away out of Colin’s reach or ken; and he was left in his natural position nowise affected by his connexion with them. It was a strange feeling, and notwithstanding the scorn with which he rejected the baronet’s kindness and declined his patronage, much disappointment and mortification mingled with the sense of surprise in Colin’s mind. “It is all as it ought to be,” he said to himself many times as he pondered over it; but, perhaps, if it had been quite as he expected, he would not have needed to impress that sentiment on his mind by so many repetitions. These reflections still recurred to him all the summer through whenever he had any time to himself. But Colin’s time was not much at his own disposal. Nature had given to this country lad a countenance which propitiated the world. Not that it was handsome in the abstract, or could bear examination feature by feature; but there were few people who could resist the mingled shyness and frankness of the eyes with which Colin looked out upon the miraculous universe, perceiving perpetual wonders. The surprise of existence was still in his face, indignant though he would have been had anybody told him so; and tired people of the world, who knew better than they practised, took comfort in talking to the youth, who, whatever he might choose to say, was still looking as might be seen, with fresh eyes at the dewy earth, and saw everything through the atmosphere of the morning. This unconscious charm of his told greatly upon women, and most of all upon women who were older than himself. The young ladies were not so sure of him, for his fancy was preoccupied; but he gained many friends among the matrons whom he encountered, and generally was a popular individual. And then hospitality reigns paramount on those sweet shores of the Holy Loch. Mr. Jordan filled his handsome house with a continual succession of guests from all quarters; and as neither the host nor hostess was in the least degree amusing, Colin’s services were in constant requisition. Sometimes the company was good, often indifferent; but, at all events, it occupied the youth, and kept him from too much inquisition into the early troubles of his own career.
His life went on in this fashion until September brought sportsmen in flocks to the heathery braes of the loch. Colin, whose engagement was but a temporary one, was beginning to look forward once again to his old life in Glasgow—to the close little room in Donaldson’s Land, and the long walks and longer talks with Lauderdale, which were almost his only recreation. Perhaps the idea was not so agreeable to him as in former years. Somehow, he was going back with a duller idea of existence, with no radiance of variable light upon his horizon; and in the absence of that fairy illumination the natural circumstances became more palpable, and struck him with a sense of their poverty and meanness such as he had never felt before. He had to gulp down a little disgust as he thought of his attic, and even, in the involuntary fickleness of his youth, was not quite so sure of enjoying Lauderdale’s philosophy as he had been for all those bygone years.
He was in this state of mind when he heard of a new party of visitors who were to arrive the day after at Ardmartin—a distinguished party of visitors, fine people, whom Mr. Jordan had met somewhere in the world, and who had deigned to forget his lack of rank, and even of interest, in his wealth, and his grouse, and the convenient situation of his house; for Colin’s employer was not moderately rich—a condition which does a man no good in society—but had heaps upon heaps of money, or was supposed to have it, which comes to about the same, and was respected accordingly. Colin listened but languidly to the scraps of talk he heard about these fine people. There was a dowager countess among them, whose name abstracted the lady of the house from all other considerations. As for Colin, he was still too young to care for dowagers; he heard without hearing of all the preparations that were to be made, and the exertions that were thought necessary in order to make Ardmartin agreeable to so illustrious a party, and paid very little attention to anything that was going on, hoping within himself to make his escape from the fuss of the reception, and have a little time to himself. On the afternoon on which they were expected he betook himself to the hills, as soon as his work with his pupils was over. It had been raining as usual, and everything shone and glistened in the sun, which blazed all over the braes with a brightness that did not neutralize the chill of the season. The air was so still that Colin heard the crack of the sportsmen’s guns from different points around him, miles apart from each other, and could even, on the height where he stood, make out the throb of the little steamer which was progressing through the loch at his feet, reflected to the minutest touch, from its pennon of white steam at the funnel to the patches of colour among its passengers on the deck, in the clear water over which it glided. The young man pursued his walk till the shadows began to gather, and the big bell of Ardmartin pealed out its summons to dress into all the echoes as he reached the gate. The house looked crowded to the very door, where it had overflowed in a margin of servants, some of whom were still unloading the last carriage as Colin entered. He pursued his way to his own room languidly enough, for he was tired, and he was not much interested in anything he personally was likely to hear or see.
But as he went up the grand staircase, he passed a door which was ajar, and from which came the sound of an animated conversation. Colin started as if he had received a blow, as one of these voices fell on his ear. He came to a dead pause in the gallery upon which this room opened, and stood listening, unconscious of the surprised looks of somebody’s maid, who passed him with her lady’s dress in her arms, and looked very curiously at the tutor. Colin stopped short and listened, suddenly roused up to a degree of interest which brought the colour to his cheek and the light to his eye. He thought all the ladies of the party must be there, so varied was the pleasant din and so many the voices; but he had been standing breathless, in the most eager pose of listening, for nearly half the time allowed for dressing, before he heard again the voice which had arrested him. Then, when he began to imagine that it must have been a dream, the sound struck his ear once more—a few brief syllables, a sweet, sudden laugh, and again silence. Was it her voice? or was it only a trick of fancy? While he stood lingering, wondering, straining his ear for a repetition of the sound, the door opened softly, and various white figures in dressing-gowns flitted off upstairs and downstairs, some of them uttering little exclamations of fright at sight of the alarming apparition of a man. It was pretty to see them dispersing, like so many white doves, from that momentary confabulation; but she was not among them. Colin went up to his room and dressed with lightning speed, chafing within himself at the humble place which he was expected to take at the table. When he went into the dining-room, as usual, all the rest of the party were taking their places. The only womankind distinctly within Colin’s sight was a lady of fifty, large enough to make six Matildas. He could not see her though he strained his eyes up and down through the long alley of fruits and flowers. Though he was not twenty, and had walked about ten miles that afternoon over the wholesome heather, the poor young fellow could not eat any dinner. He had been placed beside a heavy old man to amuse him, whom his employer thought might be useful to the young student; but Colin had not half a dozen words to spend upon any one. Was she here? or was it mere imagination which brought down to him now and then, through the pauses of the conversation, a momentary tone that was like hers? When the ladies left the room the young man rushed, though it was not his office, to open the door for them. Another moment and Colin was in paradise—the paradise of fools. How was it possible that he could have been deceived? The little start with which she recognised him, the movement of surprise which made her drop her handkerchief and brought the colour to her cheek, rapt the lad into a feeling more exquisite than any he had known all his life. She smiled; she gave him a rapid, sweet look of recognition, which was made complete by that start of surprise. She was here, under the same roof—she whom he had never hoped to see again. Colin fell headlong into the unintended snare. He sat pondering over her look and her startled gesture all the tedious time, while the other men drank their wine, without being at all aware what divine elixir was in his cup. Her look of sweet wonder kept shining ever brighter and brighter before his imagination. Was it wonder only, or some dawning of another sentiment? If she had spoken, the spell might have been less powerful. A crowd of fairy voices kept whispering all manner of delicious follies in Colin’s ear, as he sat waiting for the moment when he could follow her. Imagination did everything for him in that moment of expectation and unlooked-for delight.