Wodensbourne was as different from any house that Colin had ever seen before, as the low flat country, rich and damp and monotonous, was unlike the infinitely varied landscape to which his eye had been accustomed all his life. The florid upholstery of Ardmartin contrasted almost as strangely with the sober magnificence of the old family-house, in which the Franklands had lived and died for generations, as did the simple little rooms to which Colin had been accustomed in his father’s house. Perhaps, on the whole, Ramore, where everything was for use and nothing for show, was less unharmonious with all he saw about him than the equipments of the bran new castle, all built out of new money, and gilded and lackered to a climax of domestic finery. Colin’s pupil was the invalid of the family; a boy of twelve, who could not go to Eton like his brothers, but whom the good-natured baronet thought, as was natural, the cleverest of his family.—“That’s why I wanted you so much,{105} Campbell,” Sir Thomas said, by way of setting Colin at ease in his new occupation; “he’s not a boy to be kept to classics isn’t Charley—there’s nothing that boy wouldn’t master—and shut up as he has to be, with his wretched health, he wants a little variety. I’ve always heard you took a wider range in Scotland; that’s what I want for my boy.” It was with this exposition of his patron’s wishes that the new tutor was introduced to his duties at Wodensbourne. But a terrible disappointment awaited the young man, a disappointment utterly unforeseen. There was nobody there but Sir Thomas himself, and Charley, and some little ones still in the nursery. “We’re all by ourselves, but you won’t mind,” said the baronet, who seemed to think it all the better for Colin; “my lady and Matty will be home before Christmas, and you can get yourself settled comfortably in the meantime. Lady Frankland is with her sister, who is in very bad health. I don’t know what people mean by getting into bad health—women, too, that can’t go in for free living and that sort of thing,” said Sir Thomas. “The place looks dreary without the ladies, but they’ll be back before Christmas,” and he went to sleep after dinner as usual, and left the young tutor at the other side of the table sitting in a kind of stupefied amazement and mortification, in the silence, wondering what he came here for, and where all his hopes and brilliant auguries had gone.

Perhaps Colin did not know what he himself meant when he accepted Sir Thomas Frankland’s proposal. He thought he was coming to live in Matty’s society, to be her companion, to walk with her and talk with her, as he had done at Ardmartin; but, when he arrived to find Wodensbourne deserted, with nothing to be seen but Sir Thomas and a nursery governess, who sometimes emerged with her little pupils from the unknown regions upstairs, and was very civil to the new tutor, Colin’s disappointment was overwhelming. He despised himself with a bitterness only to be equalled by the brilliancy of those vain expectations over which he laughed in youthful rage and scorn. It was not to be Matty’s companion he had come; it was not to see, however far off, any portion of the great world which he could not help imagining sometimes must be visible from such an elevation. It was only to train Charley’s precocious intellect, and amuse the baronet a little at dinner. After dinner Sir Thomas went to sleep, and even Charley was out of the way, and the short winter days closed down early over the great house, over the damp woods and silent park, which kept repeating themselves, day by day, upon Colin’s wearied brain. There was not{106} even an undulation within sight, nothing higher than the dull line of trees, which after a while it made him sick to look at. To be sure, the sunshine now and then caught upon the lofty lantern of Earie Cathedral, and by that means woke up a gleam of light on the flat country; but that, and the daily conflict with Charley’s sharp invalid understanding, and the sight of Sir Thomas sleeping after dinner, conveyed no exhilaration to speak of to lighten the dismal revulsion of poor Colin’s thoughts. His heart rose indignant sometimes, which did him more good. This was the gulf of dismay he tumbled into without defence or preparation after the burst of hope and foolish youthful delight with which he left Ramore.

As for the society at Wodensbourne, it was at the present moment of the most limited description. Colin, who was inexperienced, roused up out of his dullness a little when he heard that two of the canons of Earie were coming to dinner one evening. The innocent Scotch lad woke himself up, with a little curiosity about the clerical dignitaries, of whom he knew nothing, and a good deal of anxiety to comport himself as became the representative of a Scotch University, about whom he did not doubt the visitors would be a little curious. It struck Colin with the oddest surprise and disappointment, to find that the canons of Earie were perfectly indifferent about the Scotch student. The curate of the parish, indeed, who was also dining at Wodensbourne that day, was wonderfully civil to the new tutor. He told him that he understood the Scotch mountains were very near as fine as Switzerland, and that he hoped to see them some day, though the curious prejudices about Sunday and the whisky-drinking must come very much in the way of closer intercourse; at which speech Colin’s indignation and amusement would have been wonderful to see, had any one been there who cared to notice how the lad was looking. On the Sundays, Colin and his pupil went along the level ways to the quaint old mossy church, to which this same curate was devoting all his time and thoughts by way of restoration. The Scotch youth had never seen anything at once so homely and so noble as this little church in the fen-country. He thought it nothing less than a poem in stone, a pathetic old psalm of human life and death, joining in for ever and ever, with the tenderest, sad responses, in the worship of heaven. Never anywhere had he felt so clearly how the dead were waiting for the great Easter to come, nor seen Christianity standing so plainly between the beginning and the end; but when Colin, with his{107} Scotch ideas, heard the curious little sermons to which his curate gave utterance under that roof, all consecrated and holy with the sorrows and hopes of ages, it made the strangest anti-climax in the youth’s thoughts. He laughed to himself when he came out, not because he was disposed to laughter, but because it was the only alternative he had; and Sir Thomas, who had a glimmering perception that this must be something new to his inexperienced guest, gave a doubtful sort of smile, not knowing how to take Colin’s strange looks.

“You don’t believe in saints’ days, and such like, in Scotland?” said the perplexed baronet; “and of course the sermon does not count for so much with us.”

“No, it does not count for much,” said Colin; and they did not enter further into the subject.

As for the young man himself, who had still upon his mind the feeling that he was to be a Scotch minister, the lesson was the strangest possible; for, being Scotch, he could not help listening to the sermon according to the usage of his nation. The curate, after he had said those prayers which are all but divine in their comprehension of the wants of humanity, told his people how wonderfully their beloved Church had provided for all their wants; how sweet it was to recollect that this was the day which had been appointed the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity—and how it was their duty to meditate a fact so touching and so important. Colin thought of the Holy Loch, and the minister’s critics there, and laughed to himself, perhaps a little bitterly. He felt as if he had given up his own career—the natural life to which he was born; and at this distance the usual enchantments of nature began to work, and in his heart he asked himself what he was to gain by transferring his lot and hopes to this wealthy country, where so many things were fairer, and after which he had been hankering so long. The curate’s sermons struck him as a kind of comical climax to his disappointments—and the curate himself who looked at Colin much as he might have looked at a South-Sea Islander, and spoke of the Scotch whisky and Scotch Sabbaths. Poor curate! He knew a great deal more than Colin did about some things, and, if he did not understand how to preach, that was not the fault of his college; neither did they convey much information at that seat of learning about the northern half of the British island—no more than they did at Glasgow about the curious specimen of humanity which is known as a curate on the brighter side of the Tweed.{108}

All these things went through Colin’s mind as he sat in the dining-room after dinner contemplating Sir Thomas’s nap, which was not of itself an elevating spectacle. He thought to himself at that moment that he was but fulfilling the office of a drudge at Wodensbourne, which anybody could fill. It did not require those abilities which had won with acclamation the prize in the philosophy class to teach Charley Frankland the elements of science; and all the emulations and glories of his college career came back to Colin’s mind. The little public of the University had begun to think of him—to predict what he would do, and anticipate his success, at home; but here, who knew anything about him? These thoughts disturbed him much as he sat watching the fire gleam in the wainscot, and calculating the recurrence of that next great snore which would wake Sir Thomas, and make him sit up of a sudden and look fiercely at his companion before he murmured out a “Beg your pardon,” and went to sleep again. Not an interesting prospect certainly. Should he go home? should he represent to the baronet, when he woke up for the night, that it had all been a mistake, and that his present office was perfectly unsuited to his ambition and his hopes? But then what could he say? for after all it was as Charley Frankland’s tutor simply, and with his eyes open, that he came to Wodensbourne, and Sir Thomas had said nothing about the society of his niece, or any other society, to tempt him thither. Colin sat in a bitterness of discontent, which would have been incredible to him a few weeks before, pondering these questions. There was not a sound to be heard, but the dropping ............