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.”
This was the letter which woke all the slumbering forces of Colin’s mind to renew the struggle against his heart and his fancy which he had already waged unsuccessfully. He was not of much use to Charley for that day at least; their conjugations, negative or affirmative, made but small progress, and the sharp-witted boy gave his tutor credit for being occupied with Matty, and scorned him accordingly—of which fact the young man was fortunately quite unaware. When it became possible for Colin to speak to Sir Thomas on the subject, he had again lost himself in a maze of conflicting inclinations. Should he leave this false position, and betake himself again, in improved and altered circumstances, to the business of his life? But Colin saw very clearly that to leave his present position was to leave Matty—to relinquish his first dream; to give up the illusion which, notwithstanding all its drawbacks, had made life lovely to him for the past year at least. Already he had so far recovered his senses as to feel that, if he left her now, he left her for ever, and that no new tie could be woven between his humble fortunes and those of the little siren of Wodensbourne. Knowing this, yet all the while subject to her witcheries—hearing the song that lured him on—how was he to take a strenuous resolution, and leap back into the disenchanted existence, full of duty but deprived of delights, which awaited him in his proper sphere? He had gone out to the terrace again in the afternoon to argue it out with himself, when he encountered Sir Thomas, who had a cold, and was taking his constitutional discreetly for his health’s sake, not without an eye to the garden in which Lady Frankland intended sundry alterations which were not quite satisfactory to her lord. “Of course I don’t mean to interfere with my lady’s fancies,” said the baronet, who was pleased to find some one to whom he could confide his griefs; “a flower-garden is a woman’s department, certainly, if anything is; but I won’t have this terrace disturbed. It used to be my mother’s favourite walk,” said Sir Thomas. The good man went on, a little moved by this particular recollection, meditating his grievance. Sir Thomas had got very nearly to the other end of that table-land of existence which lies between the ascent and the descent—that interval in which the suns burn hottest, the winds blow coldest, but upon which, when it is fair weather, the best part of life may be spent. By right of his extended prospect, he was naturally a little contemptuous of those griefs and struggles of youth which cloud over the ascending way. Had any one told him of the real conflict which was going on in Colin’s mind, the excellent middle-aged man would but have laughed at the boy’s folly—a laughter softened yet confirmed by the recollection of similar clouds in his own experience which had long dispersed into thin air. He was a little serious at the present moment, about my lady’s caprice, which aimed at altering the smooth stretch of lawn to which his eyes had been accustomed for years—and turned to listen to Colin, when the young man addressed him, with a slight air of impatience, not knowing anything of importance which the youth could have to say.
“I should be glad to know,” said Colin, with hesitation, “how long you think Charley will want my services. Lady Frankland was speaking the other day of the improvement in his health—”
“Yes,” said the baronet, brightening up a little, for his invalid boy was his favourite. “We are greatly obliged to you, Campbell. Charley has brightened and improved amazingly since you came here.”
This was an embarrassing way of receiving Colin’s attempt at disengaging himself from Charley. The youth hesitated and stammered, and could not well make up his mind what to say next. In his perplexity he took out the letter which had stimulated him to this attempt. Sir Thomas, who was still a little impatient, took it out of his hands and read it. The baronet whistled under his breath with puzzled astonishment as he read. “What does it mean?” said Sir Thomas. “You declined to go to Oxford under my auspices, and now here is something about a scholarship and a competition. You want to go to the University after all—but why then reject my proposal when I made it?” said Colin’s patron, who thought his protégé had chosen a most unlucky moment for changing his mind.
“I beg your pardon,” said Colin, “but I could not accept your offer at any time. I could not accept such a favour from any man; and I know no claim I have upon you to warrant—”
“Oh, stuff!” said Sir Thomas; “I know very well what are the obligations I am under to you, Campbell. You saved my son Harry’s life—we are all very sensible of your claims. I should certainly have expected you to help Harry as far as was possible—for he is like myself—he is more in the way of cricket and boating, and a day with the hounds when he can get it, than Greek; but I should have felt real pleasure,” said the baronet blandly, “in helping so deserving a young man, and one to whom we all feel so much indebted—”
“Thank you,” said Colin, who at that moment would have felt real pleasure in punching the head, or maltreating the person of the heir of Wodensbourne—“I suppose we have all some pride in one way or another. I am obliged to you, Sir Thomas, but I could not accept such a favour from you; whereas, a prize won at my own university,” said the young man, with a little elevation, “is no discredit, but—
“Discredit!” said Sir Thomas; “you must have a very strange idea of me, Mr. Campbell, if you imagine it discreditable to accept a kindness at my hands.”
“I beg your pardon,” again said Colin, who was at his wit’s end; “I did not mean to say anything uncivil; but I am Scotch. I dislike receiving favours. I prefer—”
Sir Thomas rubbed his hands. The apology of nationality went a long way with him, and restored his temper. “Yes, yes; I understand,” he said, with good-humoured superiority: “you prefer conferring favours—you like to keep the upper hand. I know a great deal of you Scotchmen; I flatter myself I understand your national character. I should like to know now,” said the baronet, confidentially, “if you are set upon becoming a Scotch minister, as you once told me, what good it will do you going to Oxford? Supposing you were to distinguish yourself, which I think very possible; supposing you were to take a—a second-class, or even a first-class, for example, what would be the good? The reputation and the—the prestige and that sort of thing would be altogether lost in Scotland. All the upper classes you know have gone from the old Kirk, and you would not please the peasants a bit better for that—indeed, the idea of an Oxford first-class man spending his life preaching to a set of peasants is absurd,” said Sir Thomas. “I know more about Scotland than most men: I paid a great deal of attention to that Kirk question. If you go to Oxford I shall expect you to change your mind about your profession. If you don’t take to something more ambitious, at least you’ll go in for the Church.”
“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.