Part 5 (2/2)

”What's the address, Tallisker?”

”Regent's Place, London.”

The answer arrived in due time. It was as proper as a letter could be.

Colin said he was just leaving for America, but did not expect to be more than six months there. But he never said a word about coming to Crawford. Tallisker was downright angry at the young man. It was true his father had told him he did not wish to see him again, but that had been said under a keen sense of family wrong and of bitter disappointment. Colin ought to have taken his father's ready response to his request as an overture of reconciliation. For a moment he was provoked with both of them.

”You are a dour lot, you Crawfords; ane o' you is prouder than the ither.”

”The Crawfords are as G.o.d made them, dominie.”

”And some o' them a little wa.r.s.e.”

Yet, after all, it was Colin Tallisker was really angry at. For the present he had to let his anger lie by. Colin had gone, and given him no address in America.

”He is feared I will be telling him his duty, and when he comes back that is what I shall do, if I go to London to mak him hear me.”

For a moment the laird looked hopefully into the dominie's face, but the hope was yet so far off he could not grasp it. Yet, in a dim, unacknowledged way it influenced him. He returned to his money-making with renewed vigor. It was evident he had let the hope of Colin's return steal into his heart. And the giving of that 4,000 Tallisker considered almost a sign of grace. It had not been given from any particularly n.o.ble motive; but any motive, not sinful, roused in opposition to simple avarice, was a gain. He was quite determined now to find Colin as soon as he returned from America.

In rather less than six months there were a few lines from Colin, saying that the money sent had been applied to the proper purpose, and had n.o.bly fulfilled it. The laird had said he wanted no explanations, and Colin gave him none.

Tallisker read the letter with a half smile.

”He is just the maist contrary, conceited young man I e'er heard tell o'. Laird, as he wont come to us, I am going to him.”

The laird said nothing. Any grief is better than a grief not sure. It would be a relief to know all, even if that ”all” were painful.

CHAPTER VIII.

Tallisker was a man as quick in action as in resolve; the next night he left for London, it was no light journey in those days for a man of his years, and who had never in all his life been farther away from Perths.h.i.+re than Edinburgh. But he feared nothing. He was going into the wilderness after his own stray sheep, and he had a conviction that any path of duty is a safe path. He said little to any one. The people looked strangely on him. He almost fancied himself to be Christian going through Vanity Fair.

He went first to Colin's old address in Regent's Place. He did not expect to find him there, but it might lead him to the right place.

Number 34 Regent's Place proved to be a very grand house. As he went up to the door, an open carriage, containing a lady and a child, left it. A man dressed in the Crawford tartan opened the door.

”Crawford?” inquired Tallisker, ”is he at home?”

”Yes, he is at home;” and the servant ushered him into, a carefully-shaded room, where marble statues gleamed in dusk corners and great flowering plants made the air fresh and cool. It as the first time Tallisker had ever seen a calla lily and he looked with wonder and delight at the gleaming flowers. And somehow he thought of Helen. Colin sat in a great leathern chair reading. He did not lift his head until the door closed and he was sensible the servant had left some one behind. Then for a moment he could hardly realize who it was; but when he did, he came forward with a glad cry.

”Dominie! O Tallisker!”

”Just so, Colin, my dear lad. O Colin, you are the warst man I ever kenned. You had a good share o' original sin to start wi', but what wi' pride and self-will and ill-will, the old trouble is sairly increased.”

Colin smiled gravely. ”I think you misjudge me, dominie.” Then refreshments were sent for, and the two men sat down for a long mutual confidence.

Colin's life had not been uneventful. He told it frankly, without reserve and without pride. When he quarrelled with his father about entering Parliament, he left Rome at once, and went to Canada. He had some idea of joining his lot with his own people there. But he found them in a state of suffering dest.i.tution. They had been unfortunate in their choice of location, and were enduring an existence barer than the one they had left, without any of its redeeming features. Colin gave them all he had, and left them with promises of future aid.

Then he went to New York. When he arrived, there was an intense excitement over the struggle then going on in the little republic of Texas. He found out something about the country; as for the struggle, it was the old struggle of freedom against papal and priestly dominion. That was a quarrel for which Scotchmen have always been ready to draw the sword. It was Scotland's old quarrel in the New World, and Colin went into it heart and soul. His reward had been an immense tract of the n.o.ble rolling Colorado prairie. Then he determined to bring the Crawfords down, and plant them in this garden of the Lord. It was for this end he had written to his father for 4,000. This sum had sufficed to transplant them to their new home, and give them a start. He had left them happy and contented, and felt now that in this matter he had absolved his conscience of all wrong.

<script>