"Do you suppose, then, that you come to the University to amuse yourself, and that no work should be asked from you?"
"I don't amuse myself a bit," cried John. "And if you call that rot (I beg your pardon, sir) work – Well, yes, I suppose it was work, it was such a horrible task to me."
"Take care what you are saying, Mr Rushton: it's as easy for me to send you down, remember, as to throw your essay into the fire."
"I wish you would, sir," cried John; "it would give me an excuse for going away. It would give me satisfaction to see that rot burning, and myself too almost, in one way or other. I thought once I'd paint a little picture and bring you that instead."
"Oh, you can paint pictures?"
"I try," said John. He smiled a little to think that while the Warden probably expected him to produce a daub like a schoolboy's or schoolgirl's, there were people quite as good as the Warden in their way who would have needed no further information than his name as to what he could do. He who could produce nothing better than that very bad essay; he – Well, he had heard a picture of his recognised as a "little Rushton" once, by a man who knew. He laughed in a way which the Warden did not understand and thought silly, and then he grew grave. "I think, sir, on the whole," he said, suddenly, "I will take the advice you were good enough to give me when I first came up."
"And what was that?" said the Warden, with a faint smile. "I believe I have given you a great deal of good advice."
"It was – to go down," said John; and he felt a little attack of the wounded vanity which that advice had roused in him as he repeated the words, notwithstanding that he was making them his own.
"Oh," said the Warden, with a little surprise, "was that my advice? – and why was it my advice?"
"It was chiefly, I think, because this miserable essay, which you think disgraceful, and so do I, had not been written – the writing of it has convinced me of the justice of what you said."
"But not me," said the Warden; "the essay is not very good, certainly" (he had tacitly allowed it to be "rot," in its author's forcible language, two minutes before); "still it is a piece of work creditably gone through with, though against the grain. That does not count in literature, perhaps, but it does in morals."
"I don't think so," said the audacious John: few were the men who had dared to say so to the Warden before. "Bad work is bad work, sir, if it were done with the best motive in the world."
The great man's face wavered a little between wrath and approval. There was a spark of humour in him. "Thank you," he said, "for the lesson" – while John's countenance blazed like fire.
"Oh, sir, I hope you don't think – "
"You need not apologise. I thought a week or two ago you had better go down. I don't think so now. I need not stand upon my consistency. You had better work out the problem for yourself."
John stood before him doubtfully, shaking his head. "The tides outside are very strong," he said; "they catch a man's feet – "
"And do you know, my young Daniel," said the Warden, "any place where the tides outside are not strong?"
All I know is that John Rushton did take his degree – a mere pass, of course – and I don't know that it was of the least use to him. But he was very strong in his sense that it was best not to be beaten, whatever the battle might be.
THE HEIRS OF KELLIE
AN EPISODE OF FAMILY HISTORY.
CHAPTER I
Sir Walter Oliphant of Kellie in Fife was a man who had grown old amid many perturbations of the State and of the house. In Mary's stormy and troubled day he had been, as many were, not so certain in his beliefs, either political or religious, as a person of so much consequence in his county ought to have been. He had been the Queen's man, and he had been the King's man, without, however, being either a time-server or a turncoat. He was one of those who would have given his life to prove his Queen's innocence, but who all the time could not but feel that this would be a poor argument, and no evidence at all, against the cold chill of doubt that lingered all the time even in his own heart. And his reason was convinced of the advantages of the English alliance, and that everything must be risked rather than King James's heirship, notwithstanding the strong revolt in his heart against that which was so likely to follow, the abandonment of Scotland, and ebbing away of her dearly-bought glory and the pride of her independence, second to none. But all the active struggles of life had died away from him when he sate in his old hall, in the dreary years after the Court had gone away to London, drawing so many with it; and the change had stricken to the heart of Scotland, as wise men had known it would, although all the country had cheered and shouted when their king assumed the English crown, as if it had been by his prowess and for their greatness that he had won that other kingdom. The land was subdued and troubled in these days, yet did not venture to complain; for had not they desired that which had come to pass? And the Kirk was troubled and uncertain too, alarmed by threatenings of interference, though no great thing had yet been attempted, and the ministers still had dominion more or less, and, though many things were tolerated that had been condemned, still guided most things their own way.
But all the affairs of the world had grown dim to Sir Walter Oliphant, sitting in his little warm chamber – the room of panelled and carved oak, which opened from the hall of Kellie Castle, as all the chief rooms did and do to this day, without any chill of corridors or passages, but one room out of another, after the ancient fashion. He sat by his fire, and his mind was full of thoughts. He was an old man, but not so old in years as in condition. His life, which had been a stirring one, was far off from him, as if it had been a dream. There were times when it came up into his mind like a tale that had been told, with which he had little to do – the time when he was stout and strong, and rode out to feast and to fight, and came back to hear the shouts and the sports of his boys making the rafters ring. He thought of all these things sometimes vaguely, as of things that had been; but at present his occupation was chiefly to keep himself warm, and to think who should be the heir of his Castle and his lands when he should be carried for the last time down the winding stair. He was not much concerned about that, any more than he was concerned for all that had happened to him in the past: but the thought of who should have Kellie after him was still real in his mind. That the natural heirs were gone had caused him bitter sorrow in his day; but even that had grown far away and dim to him, and all his life had shrunk into the routine of getting up from his bed and going back to it – both tiresome processes – and swallowing the food that had no taste, and sitting by the fire that had so little warmth. Only this one thing held him, the great care of making up his mind who was to be the heir of Kellie in the days when he should be there no more.
It was not that he was without kin or heirs-at-law. There was one even at his own hearthstone who might well have ended all difficulties, being its natural inheritress. Though Sir Walter was an old man, he had a sister who was little more than a girl, though that is a strange thing to think of. His father had lived long, and had made a foolish marriage in his old age, and left behind him a child much younger than his grandsons, and who was like a grandchild to her brother. She had grown up in the house, the plaything of everybody, her right to her home never doubted, yet without any position in it. When the others disappeared Jean remained, and it might be that the father bereaved felt in the bottom of his heart some grudge that she of whom no account was made should continue when the loftier heads were laid low. But if this was in his heart he did not betray it. She grew and blossomed out, and came to her full height, which was not small, and was now of an age to be considered the lady of the house. And no doubt, the old knight might easily have given her to a fitting wooer, and thus found himself an heir among the best blood of Fife; but of this he never thought, nor of Jean his little sister as in any sense his successor. It angered him greatly when Master Melville of Carnbee kirk and parish took it upon him to speak a word to this effect. "Her, the heiress!" cried the old knight, with a roar in his throat like a wounded lion. And he would not speak to Master Melville again for many a day.