IT is unnecessary to say that Colin won the prize on which he had set his heart. The record is extant in the University, to save his historian trouble; and, to be sure, nobody can be supposed to be ignorant on so important a point—at least nobody who is anybody and has a character to support. He took a double first-class—as he had set his heart on doing—and thereby obtained, as some great man once said in a speech, an equal standing to that of a duke in English society. It is to be feared that Colin did not experience the full benefits of his elevation; for, to be sure, such a dukedom is of a temporary character, and was scarcely likely to survive beyond his year. But the prize when it was won, and all the long details of the process of winning it, were not without their effect upon him. Colin, being still young and inexperienced, had, indeed, the idea that the possessor of such a distinction needed but to signify his august will, and straightway every possible avenue of advancement would open before him. But for that idea, the pride of carrying home his honours, and laying them at the feet of his native church and country, would have been much lessened; and, to tell the truth, when the moment of triumph came, Colin yielded a little to the intoxication, and lent his thoughts, in spite of himself, to those charmed voices of ambition which, in every allegory that ever was invented, exercise their siren influence on the young man at the beginning of his career. He waited to be wooed at that eventful moment. He had a vague idea at the bottom of his heart that the State and the Church, and the Bar and the Press, would all come forward open-armed to tempt the hero of the year; and he had nobly determined to turn a deaf ear to all their temptations, and cling to his natural vocation, the profession to which he had been destined from his cradle with a constancy to which the world could not fail to do honour. Colin accordingly took possession of his honours with a little expectation, and waited for the siren-voices. When they did not come, the young man was a little astonished, a little mortified and cast down for the moment. But after that, happily, the absurdity of the position struck him. He burst into sudden laughter in his rooms, where he sat in all the new gloss of his fame and dignity, with much congratulations from his friends, but no particular excitement on the part of the world. Great Britain, as it appeared, for the moment, was not so urgently in want of a new Secretary of State as to contest the matter with the anonymous Scotch parish which had a claim upon the young man as its minister; and neither the Times nor the Quarterly Review put forth any pretensions to him. And University life, to which he might have had a successful entrée, did not exercise any charm upon Colin. A tutorship, though with unlimited prospect of pupils, or even a final hope of reaching the august elevation of Master, was not the vocation on which he had set his heart. The consequence was, as we have said, that the new Fellow of Balliol remained expectant for some time, then began to feel mortified and disappointed, and finally arose, with a storm of half-indignant laughter, to find that, after all, his position was not vitally changed by his success.
This was a strange, and perhaps in some respects a painful, discovery for a young man to make. He had distinguished himself among his fellows as much as a young soldier who had made himself the hero of a campaign would have distinguished himself among his; but this fact had very little effect upon his entry into the world. If he had been the Duke’s son, his first-class glories would have been a graceful addition to the natural honours of his name, and perhaps might have turned towards him with favour the eyes of some of those great persons who hold the keys of office in their hands. But Colin was only the farmer of Ramore’s son, and his prize did him no more good than any other useless laurel—except indeed that it might have helped him to advancement in the way of pupils, had that been Colin’s rôle. But, considering how honourable a task it is to rear the new generation, it is astonishing how little enthusiasm generally exists among young men for that fine and worthy office. Colin had not the least desire to devote himself henceforward to the production of other first-class men—though, doubtless, that would have been a very laudable object of ambition; and, notwithstanding his known devotion to the “Kirk,” as his Oxford friends liked to call it, the young man was, no doubt, a little disappointed to find himself entirely at liberty to pursue his vocation. To be sure, Colin’s “set” still remonstrated against his self-immolation, and assured him that with his advantages fabulous things might be done. But the young Scotsman was too clear-sighted not to see that a great many of his congratulating friends had a very faint idea what to do with themselves, though some of them were but a step or two beneath him in honours. And, in the meantime, Colin felt quite conscious that the world gave no sign of wanting him, nor even availed itself of the commonest opportunities of seeking his invaluable services. A man who takes such a discovery in good part, and can turn back without bitterness upon his original intentions, is generally a man good for something; and this is precisely what, with much less flourish of trumpets than at the beginning, Colin found it necessary to do.
But he was not sorry to pay a visit to Wodensbourne, where he was invited after his victory, and to take a little time to think it all over. Wodensbourne had always been a kind of half-way house. It stood between him and his youthful life, with its limited external circumstances and unlimited expectations—and that other real life—the life of the man, wonderfully enlarged in outward detail, and miraculously shrunk and confined in expectation—which, by the force of contrast, young as he was, seemed to make two men of Colin. It was there first that he had learned to distinguish between the brilliant peasant firmament of Ramore, full of indistinct mists of glory, underneath which everything was possible—an atmosphere in which poor men rose to the steps of the throne, and princesses married pages, and the world was still young and fresh and primitive; and that more real sky in which the planets shone fixed and unapproachable, and where everything was bound by bonds of law and order, forbidding miracle. The more Colin had advanced, the more had he found advancement impossible according to the ideas entertained of it in his original sphere; and it was at Wodensbourne that he had first made this grand discovery. It was there he had learned the impossibility of the fundamental romance which at the bottom of their hearts most people like to believe in;—of that love which can leap over half a world to unite two people and to make them happy ever after, in spite not only of differences of fortune but of the far larger and greater differences by which society is regulated. Colin was on perfectly pleasant terms with Miss Matty by this time, and did not hide from himself how much he owed to her,—though perhaps she, who owed to him a momentary perception of the possibility which she had proved to his heart and understanding to be impossible, would have been but little grateful had she been made aware of the nature of his indebtedness. But now, having made still another discovery in his life, the young man was pleased to come to Wodensbourne to think over it, and make out what it meant. And the Franklands were, as always, very kind to Colin. Miss Matty, who had had a great many nibbles in the interval, was at length on the eve of being married. And Harry, who had nothing particular to do, and who found Wodensbourne stupid now that he was not to marry his cousin, was abroad, nobody seemed exactly to know where; and various things, not altogether joyful, had happened in the family, since the far-distant age when Colin was the tutor, and had been willing for Miss Matty’s sake to resign everything, if it should even be his life.
“It will be a very nice marriage,” said Lady Frankland. “I will not conceal from you, Mr. Campbell, that Matty has been very thoughtless, and given us a great deal of anxiety. It is always so much more difficult, you know, when you have the charge of a girl who is not your own child. One can say anything to one’s own child; but your niece, you know—and, indeed, not even your own, but your husband’s niece——”
“But I am sure Miss Frankland is as much attached to you,” said Colin, who did not like to hear Matty blamed, “as if——”
“Oh yes,” said Lady Frankland; “but still it is different. You must not think I am the least vexed about Harry. I never thought her the proper person for Harry. He has so much feeling, though strangers do not see it; and if he had been disappointed in his wife after they were married, fancy what my feelings would have been, Mr. Campbell. I was always sure they never would have got on together; and you know, when that is the case, it is so much better to break off at once.”
“What is that you are saying about breaking off at once?” said Miss Matty, who came into the room at that moment. “It must be Mr. Campbell who is consulting you, aunt. I thought he would have asked my advice in such a case. I do believe my lady has forgotten that there ever was a time when she was not married and settled, and that is why she gives you such cruel advice. Mr. Campbell, I am much the best counsellor, and I beg of you, don’t break it off at once!” said Miss Matty, looking up in his face with eyes that were half mocking and half pathetic. She knew very well it was herself whom my lady had been talking of—which made her the more disposed to send back the arrow upon Colin. But Matty, after all, was a good deal disconcerted—more disconcerted than he was, when she saw the sudden flush that came to Colin’s face. Naturally, no woman likes to make the discovery that a man who has once been her worshipper has learned to transfer his affections to somebody else. When she saw that this chance shaft had touched him, she herself was conscious of a sudden flush—a flush which had nothing whatever to do with love, but proceeded from the indescribable momentary vexation and irritation with which she regarded Colin’s desertion. That he was her adorer no longer was a fact which she had consented to; but Miss Matty experienced a natural movement of indignation when she perceived that he had elevated some one else to the vacant place. “Oh, if you look like that, I shall think it quite unnecessary to advise,” she said, with a little spitefulness, lowering her voice.
“What do I look like?” said Colin with a smile; for Lady Frankland had withdrawn to the other end of the room, and the young man was perfectly disposed to enter upon one of the half-mocking, half-tender conversations which had given such a charm to his life of old.
“What do you look like?” said Miss Matty. “Well, I think you look a great deal more like other people than you used to do; and I hate men who look like everybody else. One can generally tell a woman by her dress,” said the young lady pensively; “but most men that one meets in society want to have little labels with their names on them. I never can tell any difference between one and another for my part.”
“Then perhaps it would clear the haze a little if I were to name myself,” said Colin. “I am Colin Campbell of Ramore, at your ladyship’s service—once tutor to the learned and witty Charley, that hope of the house of Wodensbourne—and once also your ladyship’s humble boatman and attendant on the Holy Loch.”
“Fellow of Balliol, double-first—Coming man, and reformer of Scotland,” said Miss Matty with a laugh. “Yes, I recognise you; but I am not my ladyship just yet. I am only Matty Frankland for the moment, Sir Thomas’s niece, who has given my lady a great deal of trouble. Oh, yes; I know what she was saying to you. Girls who live in other people’s houses know by instinct what is being said about them. Oh, to be sure, it is quite true; they have been very, very kind to me; but, don’t you know, it is dreadful always to feel that people are kind. Ah! how sweet it used to be on the Holy Loch. But you have forgotten one of your qualifications, Mr. Campbell; you used to be a poet as well as tutor. I think, so far as I was concerned, it was the former capacity which you exercised with most applause. I have a drawer in my desk full of certain effusions; but, I suppose, now you are a Fellow of Balliol you are too dignified for that.”
“I don’t see any reason why I should be,” said Colin; “I was a great deal more dignified, for that matter, when I was eighteen, and a student at Glasgow College, and had very much more lofty expectations than now.”
“Oh, you always were devoted to the Kirk,” said Miss Matty; “which was a thing I never could understand—and now less than ever, when everybody knows that a man who has taken such honours as you have, has everything open to him.”
“Yes,” said Colin; “but then what everybody knows is a little vague. I should like to hear of any one thing that really is open to me except taking pupils. Of course,” said the young man, with dignity, “my mind is made up long ago, and my profession fixed; but for the good of other people in my position—and for my own good as well,” Colin added with a laugh—“for you know it is pleasant to feel one’s-self a martyr, rejecting every sort of advantage for duty’s sake.”
“Oh, but of course it is quite true,” said Matty; “you are giving up everything—of course it is true. You know you might go into Parliament, or you might go into the Church, or you might—I wish you would speak to my uncle about it; I suppose he knows. For my part, I think you should go into Parliament; I should read all your speeches faithfully, and always be on your side.”
“That is a great inducement,” said Colin. “With that certainty one could face a great many obstacles. But, on the other hand, when I have settled down somewhere in my own parish, you can come and hear me preach.”
“That will not be half so interesting,” said Miss Matty, making a little moue of disdain; “but, now, tell me,” she continued, sinking her voice to its most confidential tone, “what it was that made you look so?—you know we are very old friends,” said Miss Matty, with the least little tender touch or pathos; “we have done such quantities of things together—rowed on the Holy Loch, and walked in the woods, and discussed Tennyson, and amused Sir Thomas—you ought to tell me your secrets; you don’t know what a good confidante I should be; and if I know the lady—— But, at all events, you must tell me what made you look so?” she said, with her sweetest tone of inquisitive sympathy, the siren of Colin’s youth.
“Perhaps—when you have explained to me what it means to look so,” said Colin; “after being buried for three years one forgets that little language. And then I am disposed to deny ever having looked so,” he went on, laughing; but, notwithstanding his laugh, Colin was much more annoyed than became his reasonable years and new dignities to feel once more that absurd crimson rising to his hair. The more he laughed the higher rose that guilty and conscious colour; and, as for Miss Matty, she pointed her little pink finger at him with an air of triumph.
“There!” she said, “and you dare to pretend that you never looked so! I shall be quite vexed if you don’t tell me. If it was not something very serious,” said Miss Matty, “you would not change like that.”
“Here is Sir Thomas; he will never accuse me of looking so, or changing like that—and it is a guest’s first duty to make himself agreeable to his host, is it not?” said Colin, who was rather glad of Sir Thomas’s arrival. As for Matty, she was conscious that Lady Frankland had given her what she would have called “a look” before leaving the room, and that her uncle regarded her with a little anxiety as he approached. Decidedly, though she liked talking to Colin, it was necessary to be less confidential. “I won’t say au revoir,” she said, shrugging her pretty shoulders; “you know what you said about that once upon a time, when you were a poet.” And then Matty felt a little sorry for herself as she went away. “They might know, if they had any sense, that it does not matter in the least what I say to him,” the young lady said to herself; but then she was only suffering the natural penalty of a long course of conquest, and several good matches sacrificed, and matters were serious this time, and not to be trifled with. Miss Matty accordingly gave up her researches into Colin’s secret; but not the less regarded with a certain degree of lively despite, the revelation out of the clouds of that unknown woman at thought of which Colin blushed. “I daresay it is somebody quite stupid, who does not understand him a bit,” she said to herself, taking a little comfort from the thought—for Matty Frankland was not a model woman, desiring only the hero’s happiness; and a man who is sufficiently insensible to console himself under such circumstances with another attachment, deserves to have his inconstancy punished, as everybody will allow.
To tell the truth, Colin, though guiltless of any breach of allegiance towards Matty, was punished sufficiently for his second attempt at love. He had heard nothing of Alice all these three years, but, notwithstanding, had never ceased to feel upon his neck that invisible bridle which restrained him against his will. Perhaps, if the woman of his imagination had ever fairly revealed herself, the sight would have given him courage to break for ever such a visionary bond, and to take possession of his natural liberty; but she contented herself with waving to him those airy salutations out of the clouds, and with now and then throwing a glance at him out of the eyes of some passer-by, who either disappeared at once from his sight, or turned out upon examination to be utterly unlike that not impossible She; and Colin had two sentinels to keep watch upon his honour in the forms of his mother and Lauderdale, both of whom believed in Love, and did not know what inconstancy meant. He said to himself often enough that the struggle in his heart was not inconstancy; but then he was not a man who could admit to them, or even to himself, that the bond between him and Alice was a great and tender pity, and not love. She had been on the eve of becoming his wife—she might be his wife still for anything he knew to the contrary—and Colin, who in this respect was spotless as any Bayard, would not, even to his dearest friends, humiliate by such a confession the woman whose love he had once sought.
And now the time had almost come when he could in reality “settle in life.” His Scotch parish came nearer and nearer, in the natural course of affairs, without any dazzling obstacles and temptations between it and himself, as he had once hoped; and Alice was of age by this time; and honour seemed to demand that, now when his proposal really meant something, he should offer to her the possibility of confirming her early choice. But somehow Colin was not at all anxious to take this step; he hung back, and nursed the liberty which still remained to him, and longed, in spite of himself, towards the visionary creature of his dreams, who was not Alice. Accordingly, he had two rather troublesome matters to think over at Wodensbourne, and occupied a position which was made all the more vexatious because it was at the same time amusing and absurd. His mind had been made up from the beginning as to his future life, as he truly said; but then he had quite intended it to be a sacrifice which he made out of his supreme love for his Church and his country. He meant to have fought his way back to the venerable mother through every sort of brilliant temptation; and to carry his honours to her with a disinterested love which he should prove by leaving behind him still higher honours and ambitions; whereas, in reality, the world was permitting him to return very quietly to his native country as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The disappointment was perhaps harsher in its way than if Colin had meant to avail himself of those splendid imaginary chances; and it did not make it any the less hard to bear that he himself saw the humour of the situation, and could not but laugh grimly at himself.
Perhaps Colin will suffer in the opinion of the readers of this history when we add that, notwithstanding the perplexing and critical character of the conjuncture, and notwithstanding the other complication in his history in regard to Alice, he employed his leisure at Wodensbourne, after the interview we have recorded, in writing[3] verses for Miss Matty. It was true she had challenged him to some such task, but still it was undoubtedly a weakness on the part of a man with so much to think of. Truth, however, compels his historian to confess to this frivolity. As he strayed about the flat country, and through the park, the leisure in which he had intended to think over his position only betrayed him into this preposterous idleness; for, to be sure, life generally arranges itself in its own way without much help from thinking—but one cannot succeed in writing a farewell to a first love, for which one retains a certain kindness, without a due attention to one’s rhymes: and this was the sole result, as far as anybody was aware, of Colin’s brief but pleasant holiday at Wodensbourne.