That night the family supper-table was somewhat dull, notwithstanding the excitement of the boys, for Archie was to accompany his father and brother to Glasgow, and was in great glee over that unusual delight. Mrs. Campbell, for her part, was full of thoughts natural enough to the mother of so many sons. She kept looking at her boys as they sat round the table, absorbed in their supper. “This is the beginning, but wha can tell what may be the end?” she said half to herself; “they’ll a’ be gane afore we ken what we’re doing.” Little Johnnie, to be sure, was but six years old; but the mother’s imagination leapt over ten years, and saw the house empty, and all the young lives out in the world. “Eh me!” said the reflective woman, “that’s what we bring up our bairns for, and rejoice over them as if they were treasure; and then by the time we’re auld they’re a’ gane;” and, as she spoke, not the present shadow only, but legions of vague desolations in the time to come came rolling up like mists upon her tender soul.
“As lang as there’s you and me, we’ll fend, Jeanie,” said the farmer, with a smile; “twa’s very good company to my way o’ thinking; but there’s plenty of time to think about the dispersion which canna take place yet for a year or twa. The boys came into the world to live their ain lives and serve their Maker, and no’ just to pleasure you and me. If you’ve a’ done, ye can cry on Jess, and bring out the big Bible, Colin. We maunna miss our prayers to-night.”
To tell the truth, Colin of Ramore was not quite so regular in his discharge of this duty as his next neighbour, Eben Campbell of Barnton, thought necessary, and was disapproved of accordingly by that virtuous critic; but the homely little service was perhaps all the more touching on this special occasion, and marked the “night before Colin went first to the college,” as a night to be remembered. When his brothers trooped off to bed, Colin remained behind as a special distinction. His mother was sitting by the fire without even her knitting, with her hands crossed in her lap, and clouds of troubled, tender thought veiling her soft eyes. As for the farmer, he sat looking on with a faint gleam of humour in his face. He knew that his wife was going to speak out her anxious heart to her boy, and big Colin’s respect for her judgment was just touched by a man’s smile at her womanish solemnity, and the great unlikelihood that her innocent advices would have the effect she imagined upon her son’s career. But, notwithstanding the smile, big Colin, too, listened with interest to all that his wife had to say.