The Balliol Scholarship was, however, too important a reality to leave the young candidate much time to consider his position—and Colin’s history would be too long, even for the patience of his friends, if we were to enter into this part of his life in detail. Everybody knows he won the scholarship; and, indeed, neither that, nor his subsequent career at Balliol, are matters to be recorded, since the chronicle has been already made in those popular University records which give their heroes a reputation, no doubt temporary, but while it lasts of the highest possible flavour. He had so warm a greeting from Sir Thomas Frankland that it would have been churlish on Colin’s part had he declined the invitations he received to the Castle, where, indeed, Miss Matty did not want him just at that moment. Though she was not the least in the world in love with him, it is certain that between the intervals of her other amusements in that genre, the thought of Colin had often occurred to her mind. She thought of him with a wonderful gratitude and tenderness sometimes, as of a man who had actually loved her with the impossible love—and sometimes with a ring of pleasant laughter, not far removed from tears. Anything “between them” was utterly impossible, of course—but, perhaps, all the more for that, Miss Matty’s heart, so much as there was remaining of it, went back to Colin in its vacant moments, as to a green spot upon which she could repose herself, and set down her burden of vanities for the time. This very sentiment, however, made her little inclined to have him at the Castle, where there was at present a party staying, including, at least, one man of qualifications worthy a lady’s regard. Harry and his cousin had quarrelled so often that their quarrel at last was serious, and the new man was cleverer than Harry, and not so hard to amuse; but it was difficult to go over the well-known ground with which Miss Frankland was so familiar in presence of one whom she had put through the process in a still more captivating fashion, and who was still sufficiently interested to note what she was doing, and to betray that he noted it. Colin, himself, was not so conscious of observing his old love in her new love-making as she was conscious of his observation; and, though it was only a glance now and then, a turn of the head, or raising of the eyes, it was enough to make her awkward by moments, an evidence of feeling for which Miss Matty could not forgive herself.

Thus it happened that Colin was not thrown into temptation in the way his mother dreaded. The temptation he was thrown into was one of a much more subtle character. He rushed at his work, and the preparations for his work, with all the energy of his character; he felt himself free to follow out the highest visions of life that had formed themselves among his youthful dreams. He thought of the new study on which he was about to enter, and the honours upon which he already calculated in his imagination, as but stepping stones to what lay after, and offered himself up with a certain youthful effusion and super-abundance to his Church and his country, for which he had assuredly something to do more than other men. And then, when Colin had got so far as this, and was tossing his young head proudly in the glory of his intentions, there came a little start and shiver, and that sense of the curb, which had struck him first after his confidence with his mother, returned to his mind. But the bondage seemed to grow more and more visionary as he went on. Alice had given him up, so to speak; she was debarred by her father from any correspondence with him, and might, for anything Colin knew, gentle and yielding as she was, be made to marry some one else by the same authority; and, though he did not discuss the question with himself in words, it became more and more hard to Colin to contemplate the possibility of having to abridge his studies and sacrifice his higher aims to the necessity of getting “settled in life.” If he were “settled in life” to-morrow, it could only be as an undistinguished Scotch minister, poor, so far as money was concerned, and with no higher channel either to use or fame; and, at his age, to be only like his neighbours was of all things the most irksome to him.

Those neighbours, or at least the greater part of them, were good fellows enough in their way. So far as a vague general conception of life and its meaning went, they were superior as a class in Colin’s opinion to that other clerical class represented by the gentle curate of Wodensbourne, whose soul was absorbed in the restoration of his Church, and the fit states of mind for the Sundays after Trinity; but there were also particulars in which, as a class, they were wonderfully inferior to that mild and gentlemanly Anglican. As for Colin, he had not formed his ideal on any curate, or even bishop, of the wealthier Church. Like other fervent young men, an eager discontent with everything he saw lay at the bottom of his imaginations; and it was the development of Christianity—“more chivalrous, more magnanimous, than that of modern times”—that he thought of. A dangerous condition of mind, no doubt; and the people round him would have sneered much at Colin and his ambition had he put it into words; but, after all, it was an ideal worth contemplating which he presented to himself.

In the midst of such thoughts, and of all the future possibilities of life, it was a little hard to be suddenly stopped short, and reminded of Mariana in her moated grange, sighing, “He does not come.” If he did come, making all the unspeakable sacrifices necessary to that end, as his mother seemed to think he should, the probabilities were that the door of the grange would be closed upon him; and who could tell but that Alice, always so docile, might be diverted even from the thought of him by some other suitor presented to her by her father? Were Colin’s hopes to be sacrificed to her possible faith, and the possible relenting of Mr. Meredith? And, alas! amid all the new impulses that were rising within him, there came again the vision of that woman in the clouds, whom as yet, though he had been in love with Matty Frankland, and had all but married Alice Meredith, Colin had never seen. She kissed her shadowy hand to him by times out of those rosy vapours that floated among the hills when the sun had gone down, and twilight lay sweet over the Holy Loch—and beckoned him on, on, to the future and the distance where she was. When the apparition had glanced out upon him after this old fashion, Colin felt all at once the jerk of the invisible bridle on his neck, and chafed at it; and then he shut his eyes wilfully, and rushed on faster than before, and did his best to ignore the curb. After all, it was no curb if it were rightly regarded. Alice had released, and her father had rejected him, and he had been accused of fortune-hunting, and treated like a man unworthy of consideration. So far as external circumstances went, no one could blame him for inconstancy, no one could imagine that the engagement thus broken was, according to any code of honour, binding upon Colin; but yet—

This was the uncomfortable state of mind in which he was when he finally committed himself to the Balliol Scholarship, and thus put off that “settling in life” which the Mistress thought due to Alice. When the matter was concluded, however, the young man became more comfortable. At all events, until the termination of his studies, no decision, one way or other, could be expected from him; and it would still be two years before Alice was of the age to decide for herself. He discussed the matter—so far as he ever permitted himself to discuss it with any one—with Lauderdale, who managed to spend the last Sunday with him at Ramore. It was still only October but winter had begun betimes, and a sprinkling of snow lay on the hills at the head of the loch. The water itself, all crisped and brightened by a slight breeze and a frosty sun, lay dazzling between its banks, reflecting every shade of colour upon them—the russet lines of wood with which their little glens were outlined, and the yellow patches of stubble, or late corn, still unreaped, that made lights of the landscape, and relieved the hazy green of the pastures, and the brown waste of withered bracken and heather above. The wintry day, the clearness of the frosty air, and the touch of snow on the hills, gave to the Holy Loch that touch of colour which is the only thing ever wanting to its loveliness; a colour cold, it is true, but in accordance with the scene. The waves came up with a lively cadence on the beach, and the wind blew showers of yellow leaves in the faces of the two friends as they walked home together from church. Sir Thomas had detained them in the first place, and after him the minister, who had emerged from his little vestry in time for half an hour’s conversation with his young parishioner, who was something of a hero on the Holy Loch—a hero, and yet subject to the inevitable touch of familiar depreciation which belongs to a prophet in his own country. The crowd of church-goers had dispersed from the roads when the two turned their faces towards Ramore. Perhaps by reason of the yew-trees under which they had to pass, perhaps because this Sunday, too, marked a crisis, it occurred to both of them to think of their walk through the long ilex avenues of the Frascati villa, the Sunday after Meredith’s death. It was Lauderdale, as was natural, who returned to that subject the first.

“It’s a wee hard to believe that it’s the same world,” he said, “and that you and me are making our way to Ramore, and not to yon painted cha’amer, and our friend, with her distaff in her hand. I’m whiles no clear in my mind that we were ever there.”

At which Colin was a little impatient, as was natural. “Don’t be fantastic,” he said. “It does not matter about Sora Antonia; but there are other things not so easily dropped;” and here the young man paused and uttered a sigh, which arose half from a certain momentary longing for the gentle creature to whom his faith was plighted, and half from an irksome sense of the disadvantages of having plighted his faith.

“Ay,” said Lauderdale, “I’m no fond myself of dropping threads like that. There’s nae telling when they may be joined again, or how; but if it’s ony comfort to you, Colin, I’m a great believer in sequences. I never put ony faith in things breaking off clean in an arbitrary way. Thae two didna enter your life to be put out again by the will of an old fool of a father. I’ll no say that I saw the requirements of Providence just as clear as you thought you did, but I canna put faith in an ending like what’s happened. You and her are awfu’ young. You have time to wait.”

“Time to wait,” repeated Colin in his impatience; “there is something more needed than time. Mr. Meredith has returned me my last letter with a request that I should not trouble his daughter again. You do not think a man can go on in the face of that?”

“He’s naething but a jailor,” said Lauderdale; “you may be sure that she is neither art nor part in that. When the time comes we’ll a’ ken better; and here, in the meantime, you are making another beginning of your life.”

“It appears to me I am always making beginnings,” said Colin. “It was much such a day as this when Harry Frankland fell into the loch—that was a kind of beginning in its way. Wodensbourne was a beginning, and so was Italy—and now—It appears life is made up of such.”

“You’re no so far wrong there,” said Lauderdale; “but it’s grand to make the new start like you, with a’ heaven and earth on your side. I’ve kent them that had to set their face to the brae with baith earth and heaven against them—or so it seemed. It’s ill getting new images,” said the philosopher meditatively. “I wonder who it was first found out that life was a journey. It’s no an original idea nowadays, but its aye awfu’ true. A man sets out with a hantle mair things than he needs, impedimenta of a’ kinds; but he leaves the maist of them behind afore he’s reached the middle of the road. You’ve an awfu’ body of opinions, callant, besides other things to dispose of. I’m thinking Oxford will do you good for that. You’re no likely to take up with their superfluities, and you’ll get rid of some of your ain.”

“I don’t know what you call superfluities,” said Colin. “I don’t think I am a man of many opinions. A few things are vital and cannot be dispensed with—and these you are quite as distinct upon as I can be. However, I don’t go to Oxford to learn that.”

“I’m awfu’ curious to ken in a general way,” said Lauderdale, “what you are going to Oxford to learn. You’re no a bad hand at the classics, callant. I would like to ken what it was that you were meaning to pay three good years of life to learn.”

Upon which Colin laughed, and felt without knowing why, a flush come to his cheek. “If I should prefer to win my spurs somewhere else than at home,” said the young man lightly, “should you wonder at that? Beside, the English universities have a greater reputation than ours—and in short——”

“For idle learning,” said Lauderdale with a little heat; “not for the science of guiding men, which, so far as I can see, is what you’re aiming at. No that I’m the man to speak ony blasphemy against the dead languages, if the like of that was to be your trade; but for a Scotch parish, or maybe a Scotch presbytery—or in the course of time, if a’ goes well, an Assembly of the Kirk——”

“Stuff!” cried Colin; “What has that to do with it? Besides,” the young man said with a laugh, half of pride, half of shame, “I want to show these fellows that a man may win their honours and carry them back to the old Church, which they talk about in a benevolent way, as if it was in the South Sea Islands. Well, that is my weakness. I want to bring their prizes back here, and wear them at home.”

“The callant’s crazy,” said Lauderdale, but the idea was sufficiently in accord with his national sentiments to be treated with indulgence; “it might maybe be spoiling the Egyptians,” he added grimly, “but, as for ony good to us—You’re like a’ young creatures, callant; you’re awfu’ fond of the impedimenta. But you may change your mind two or three times over between this and that.”

“You have very little respect for my constancy, Lauderdale,” said Colin; and then he felt irritated with himself for the word he had used. “In what respect do you suppose I can change my mind?” he asked with a little impatience; and Colin lifted his eyes full upon his friend’s face, as he had learned to do when there was question of Alice—though certainly it could not be supposed that there was any question of Alice in the present case.

“Whisht, callant,” said Lauderdale; “I’ve an awfu’ trust in your constancy. It’s one o’ the words I like best in the English language, or in the Scotch either for that matter. It’s a kind of word that canna be slipped over among a crowd, but craves full saying and a’ its letters sounded. As I was saying,” he continued, changing his tone, “I’m a great believer in sequences; there’s mony new beginnings, but there’s nae absolute end short of dying, which is aye an end for this world, so far as a man can see. And, next to God and Christ, which are the grand primitive necessities, without which no man can take his journey, I’m aye for counting true love and good faith. I wouldna say but what a’ the rest were more or less impedimenta,” said Lauderdale; “but that’s no the question under discussion. You might change your mind upon a’ the minor matters, and no be inconstant. For example, you might be drawn to the English kirk after three years; or you might come to think you were destined for nae kirk at all, but for other occupations in this world; and, as for me, I wouldna blame you. As long as you’re true to your Master—and next to yoursel’—and next to them that trust you,” said Colin’s faithful counsellor; “and of that I’ve no fear.”

“I did not think of setting the question on such a solemn basis,” said Colin with an amount of irritation which annoyed himself, and which he could not subdue; “however, time will show; and here we are at Ramore.” Indeed he was rather glad to be so near Ramore. This talk of constancy exasperated him, he could not tell how; for, to be sure, he meant no inconstancy. Yet, when the sunset came again, detaching rosy cloudlets from the great masses of vapour, and shedding a mist of gold and purple over the hills—and when those wistful stretches of “daffodil sky” opened out over the western ramparts of the Holy Loch—Colin turned his eyes from the wonderful heavens as if from a visible enemy. Was not she there as always, that impossible woman, wooing him on into the future, into the unimaginable distance where somewhere she might be found any day waiting him? He turned his back upon the west, and went down of his own will to the dark shade of the yew-trees, which were somehow like the ilex alleys of the sweet Alban hills; but even there he carried his impatience with him, and found it best on the whole to go home and give himself up to the home talk of Ramore, in which many matters were discussed unconnected with the beasts, but where this one fundamental question was for the present named no more.