“Come away into the fire; it’s bonnie weather, but it’s sharp on the hillside,” said the mistress of Ramore. “I never wearied for you, Colin, so much as I’ve done this year. No that there was ony particular occasion, for we’ve a’ been real weel, and a good season, and baith bairns and beasts keeping their health; but the heart’s awfu’ capricious, and canna hear reason. Come in bye to the fire.”
“There’s been three days of east wind,” said the farmer, who had gone across the loch to meet his son, and bring him home in triumph, “which accounts for your mother’s anxiety, Colin. When there’s plenty of blue sky, and the sun shining, there’s naething she hasna courage for. What’s doing in{54} Glasgow? or rather what’s doing at the college? or maybe, if you insist upon it, what are you doing? for that’s the most important to us.”
To which Colin, who was almost as shy of talking of his own achievements as of old, gave for answer some bald account of the winding up of the session, and of his own honours. “I told you all about it in my last letter,” he said, hurrying over the narrative; “there was nothing out of the common. Tell me rather all the news of the parish. Who is at home and who is away, and if any of the visitors have come yet?” said the lad, with a conscious tremor in his voice. Most likely his mother understood what he meant.
“It’s ower early for visitors yet,” she said, “though I think for my part there’s nothing like the spring, with the days lengthening, and the light aye eking and eking itself out. To be sure, there’s the east winds, which are a sore drawback, but they have nae great effect on the west coast. The castle woods are wonderful bonnie, Colin; near as bonnie as they were last year, when a’ thae bright English bairnies made the place look cheerful. I wonder the Earl bides there so seldom himself. He’s no rich, to be sure, but it’s a moderate kind of a place. If I had enough money I would rather live there than in the Queen’s palace, and so the minister says. You’ll have to go down to the manse the morn, and tell him a’ about your prizes, Colin,” said his proud mother, looking at him with beaming eyes. She put her hand upon her boy’s shoulder, and patted him softly as he stood beside her. “He takes a great interest in what you’re doing at the college,” she continued; “he says you’re a credit to the parish, and so I hope you’ll aye be,” said Mrs. Campbell. She had not any doubt on the subject so far as her own convictions went.
“He does not know me,” said the impatient Colin; “but I’ll go to the manse to-morrow if you like. It’s halfway to the castle,” he said, under his breath, and then felt himself colour, much to his annoyance, under his mother’s eyes.
“There’s plenty folk to visit,” said the farmer. “As for the castle, it’s out of our way, no to say it looked awfu’ doleful the last time I was by. The factor would get it but for the name of the thing. We’ve had a wonderful year, take it a’thegither, and the weather is promising for the season. If you’re no over-grand with all your honours, I would be glad of your advice, as soon as you’ve rested, about the Easter fields. I’m thinking of some changes, and there’s nae time to lose.{55}”
“If you would but let the laddie take breath!” said the farmer’s wife. “New out of all his toils and his troubles, and you canna refrain from the Easter fields. It’s my belief,” said the mistress, with a little solemnity, “that prosperity is awfu’ trying to the soul. I dinna think you ever cared for siller, Colin, till now; but instead of rejoicing in your heart over the Almighty’s blessing, I hear nothing, from morning to night, but about mair profit. It’s no what I’ve been used to,” said Colin’s mother, “and there’s mony a thing mair important that I want to hear about. Eh! Colin, it’s my hope you’ll no get to be over-fond of this world!”
“If this world meant no more than a fifty pound or so in the bank,” said big Colin, with a smile; “but there’s no denying it’s a wonderful comfort to have a bit margin, and no be aye from hand to mouth. As soon as your mother’s satisfied with looking at you, you can come out to me, Colin, and have a look at the beasts. It’s a pleasure to see them. Apart from profit, Jeanie,” said the farmer, with his humorous look, “if you object to that, it’s grand to see such an improvement in a breed of living creatures that you and me spend so much of our time among. Next to bonnie bairns, bonnie cattle’s a reasonable pride for a farmer, no to say but that making siller in any honest way is as laudable an occupation as I ken for a man with a family like me.”
“If it doesna take up your heart,” said the mistress. “But it’s awfu’ to hear folk how they crave siller for siller’s sake; especially in a place like this, where there’s aye strangers coming and going, and a’ body’s aye trying how much is to be got for everything. I promised the laddies a holiday the morn to hear a’ Colin’s news, and you’re no to take him off to byres and ploughed land the very first day;—though I dinna say but I would like him to see Gowan’s calf,” said the farmer’s wife, yielding a little in her superior virtue. As for Colin, he sat very impatiently through this conversation, vainly attempting to bring in the question which he longed, yet did not like, to ask.
“I suppose the visitors will come early, as the weather is so fine?” he ventured to say as soon as there was a pause.
“Oh, ay, the Glasgow folk,” said Mrs. Campbell; and she gave a curious inquiring glance at her son, who was looking out of the window with every appearance of abstraction. “Do you know anybody that’s coming, Colin?” said the anxious mother; “some of your new friends?” And Colin was so sensible of her look, though his eyes were turned in exactly{56} the opposite direction, that his face grew crimson up to the great waves of brown hair which were always tumbling about his forehead. He thrust his heavy lovelocks off his temples with an impatient hand, and got up and went to the window that his confusion might not be visible. Big Colin of Ramore was at the window too, darkening the apartment with his great bulk, and the farmer laid his hand on his son’s shoulder with a homely roughness, partly assumed to conceal his real feeling.
“How tall are you, laddie? no much short of me now,” he said. “Look here, Jeanie, at your son.” Then the mistress put down her work, and came up to them, defeating all Colin’s attempts to escape her look; but in the meantime she, too, forgot the blushes of her boy in the pleasant sight before her. She was but a little woman herself, considered in the countryside rather too soft and delicate for a farmer’s wife; and with all the delicious confidence of love and weakness, the tender woman looked up at her husband and her son.
“Young Mr. Frankland’s no half so tall as Colin,” said the proud mother; “no that height is anything to brag about unless a’ things else is conformable. He’s weel enough, and a strong-built callant, but there’s a great difference; though, to be sure, his mother is just as proud,” said the mistress, bearing her conscious superiority with meekness; “it’s a grand thing that we’re a’ best pleased with our ain.”
“When did you see young Frankland?” said Colin, hastily. The two boys had scarcely met since the encounter which had made a link between the families without awaking very friendly sentiments in the bosoms of the two persons principally concerned.
“That’s a thing to be discussed hereafter,” said the farmer of Ramore. “I didna mean to say onything about it till I saw what your inclinations were, but women-folk are aye hasty Sir Thomas has made me a proposition, Colin. He would like to send you to Oxford with his own son if you and me were to consent. We’re to gie him an answer when we’ve made up our minds. Nae doubt he has heard that you were like enough to be a creditable protejee,” said Big Colin, with natural complacency. “A lad of genius gies distinction to his patron—if ye can put up with a patron, Colin.”
“Can you?” cried his son. The lad was greatly agitated by the question. Ambitious Scotch youths of Colin’s type, in the state of discontent which was common to the race, had come to look upon the English universities as the goal of all possible{57} hopes. Not that Colin would have confessed as much had his fate depended on it—but such was the fact notwithstanding. Oxford, to his mind, meant any or every possibility under heaven, without any limit to the splendour of the hopes involved. A different kind of flush, the glow of eagerness and ambition, suddenly covered his face. But joined with this came a tumult of vague but burning offence and contradiction. While he recognised the glorious chance thus opened to him, pride started up to bolt and bar those gates of hope. He turned upon his father with something like anger in his voice, with a tantalizing sense of all the advantages thus flourished wantonly, as he thought, before his eyes. “Could you put up with a patron?” he repeated, looking almost fiercely in the farmer’s face; “and if not, why do you ask me such a question?” When he came to think of it, Colin felt injured by the suggestion. To be offered the thing of all others he most desired in the world, by means which made it impossible to accept the offer would have been galling enough under any circumstances; but just now, at this crisis of his youthful ambition and excitement, such a tantalizing glimpse of the possible and the impossible was beyond bearing. “Are we his dependents that he makes such an offer to me?” said the exasperated youth; and Big Colin himself looked on with a little surprise ............