The Railway Man and His Children - Mrs. Oliphant

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crowded steamboat came to the spot where the white colonnade had always been visible among the noble groups of trees, which withdrew a little just there, and stood about in clumps and gatherings to let the view be seen. There it stood upon its green knoll unchanged, the sloping greensward stretching down towards the salt, dazzling, water, the windows caught and shining out in the sun. It was by good fortune—which everybody knows is not invariable in these regions—a beautiful day, and to Rowland it seemed paradise to see the heavy clouds of the foliage open, and the white pillars come in view. He landed upon the side of the peninsula, where a little salt water loch runs up into the bosom of the hills. It is characteristic of a Scot in all countries that he never sees a landscape which does not remind him, to its own disadvantage, of some landscape at home. But Rowland, who had been a great deal about the world, went a step further and declared to himself that he had never seen anything to equal that “silver streak” of sea-water, with the noble line of mountains stretching across the upper end. They were beautiful in themselves, their outlines as grand against the sky and intense sunshine as if they had been as lofty as the Himalayas; but this was only half their fascination. It was the capricious Northern lights and shadows that made them so delightful, so unlike anything but themselves. In the East the sunshine drags and becomes tedious: it goes on blazing all day long without change.{v.1–12424} But the North is dramatic, individual, full of vicissitude, making a new combination every minute, never for half an hour the same. He stood and watched the clouds flying over the hills, like the breath of some spell-bound giant, now one point and now another coming into light; and the little waves dancing, and the soft banks reflected like another enchanted country under the surface of the water. The sight uplifted in his bosom the heart of the homely man who had no raptures to express, but felt the beauty to the depths of his being. “I’ve travelled far, but I never saw anything like it,” he said to the agent, who had met him on the little pier, and who backed him up with enthusiasm, partly because he was of the district too, and prone to believe that there was nothing equal to Rosmore in the world, and partly because he was a good man of business, and liked to see a wealthy tenant in such a good frame of mind.

      But it would be difficult to describe the emotions of James Rowland as he walked through the beautiful woods and entered the house. He had never been in the house before. Naturally, at the time when he first conceived his passion for it, the young foundry man, however clever, could never have had any means of entering into such a place; and to tell the truth, he did not much know what was required by a family of condition in an English or rather Scotch house. He knew the luxury of the East, and how to make a bungalow comfortable, but the arrangements of a mansion at home were strange to him.

      He followed the agent accordingly with a little awe,{v.1–12525} which he carefully concealed, through the suites of rooms, libraries, morning rooms, boudoirs, all sorts of lavish accommodation, with the uses of which he was practically unacquainted. But he did not betray his ignorance. On the contrary he was very critical, finding out the defects in the old-fashioned furniture as if he had been accustomed to such things all his life.

      “This looks as old as Methuselah,” he said. “Why, the things must be mouldy. I should think they can’t have been touched for a hundred years.”

      “More than that,” said the agent, “and that’s just why the ladies like it. It is called Countess Jean’s boudoir. Everything is just as it was when she came home a bride. The ladies will not have it touched.”

      “Oh, I know that decayed style is the fashion,” said Mr. Rowland without winking an eyelid: “but you can’t imagine we will put up with these old hangings? You must have them cleared away.”

      “Well do that, if it’s your desire; but the hangings are real tapestry—the oldest in Scotland. The Earl will be just delighted to have them back.”

      “Now I look at them,” said Rowland, “I believe my wife will like them. For my part I like fresh colours and rich stuffs. I like to have bright things about me, I find it all a little dingy, Mr. Campbell. You must put your best foot forward and have it put in complete order. And a great many other things will be wanted. We have got a boat load,” said the engineer with exhilaration, “of Indian toys and stuff. My wife’s fond of all that sort of thing. We have curios enough to set up a shop.{v.1–12626}”

      “Ah,” said the agent respectfully, “you have had unusual opportunities, Mr. Rowland: and ladies are so fond of picking things up.”

      “Yes,” said Rowland, “my wife has wonderful taste—she knows a good thing when she sees it.”

      “Which is very far from being a general quality,” said the appreciative agent “Mrs. Rowland, I make no doubt, will turn Rosmore into a beautiful place.”

      “It is a beautiful place to begin with,” said the new tenant; “and it would be a strange place that would not be improved when my wife got it into her hands,” he added with a glow of pride. He wanted much to confide to the agent that she was a lady of one of the best English families, and full of every accomplishment; but his better sense restrained him.

      What exultation he felt in his bosom as he stood under the white colonnade and gazed at the great Clyde rushing upon the beach at the foot of the knoll, and the steamer crossing (which it did by the influence of some good fairy just at this moment) the shining surface, and all the specks of passengers turning in one direction to catch that glimpse of Rosmore. So many times had he gazed at it so—and now for the first time, in the other sense, here he was looking down upon the landscape from his own door. It was not the satisfied appetite of acquisition—it was something finer and more ethereal—a youthful ideal and boyish sentiment carried through a whole life. He had dreamed of this long before there had been any conscious aim at all in his mind; and now he had actually attained the thing which had so pleased his boyish thoughts.{v.1–12727} James Rowland took off his hat as he stood under the white colonnade. The agent thought he was saluting somebody in the passing steamer, and murmured, “They’ll not see you; it’s farther off than it looks;” but Rowland was saluting One who always sees, and who does not so often as ought to be receive thanks thus warm and glowing from a grateful heart. “And for Evelyn too, who is the best of all!” he said within himself.

      The agent gleaned enough to perceive that Mr. Rowland was exceedingly proud of his wife, and formed an exaggerated, and consequently rather unfavourable opinion of this unknown lady. He thought she must be a connoisseuse with her boat load of curiosities, which indeed, to tell the truth, were things that Rowland had “picked up” himself in many advantageous ways, before he had even seen his wife, and which Evelyn was not acquainted with at all. Mr. Campbell thought she must be a fantastic woman, and would, as he said, transmogrify the good honest old house, and turn it into a curiosity shop, or “chiney” warehouse—which was an idea he did not contemplate with pleasure. However, this was no reason why he should undervalue so rich and so easily pleased a tenant. He made the most ample promises as to what should be done, and the expedition with which everything should be accomplished—and accompanied Rowland to the boat, introducing him to the minister and to various local authorities on the way. “This is Mr. Rowland that has taken Rosmore. Ye’ll likely see a great deal of him, for he means to make his principal residence{v.1–12828} here.—It’s the great Rowland, the Indian engineer and railway man,” he said aside, but not quite inaudibly, in each new-comer’s ear.

      The local potentates looked with admiration and interest at the new-comer. Any possible inmate of Rosmore would have been interesting to the minister, who had not much society in the parish, and had a natural confidence in the social qualities of a man who was so rich. The “merchant” who had long dreamt of a railway up the side of the loch, which would bring Glasgow excursionists in their thousands to Rosmore, gazed with awe on the new inhabitant who had but to look upon a country destitute of means of locomotion, and lo, the iron way was there. Other points of interest abounded in the new inhabitant. He would quicken life in the parish in every way: probably his very name would secure that second delivery of letters for which the whole peninsula had been agitating so long. The steamboat would certainly call summer and winter at the pier, now that the House would be occupied and visitors always coming and going; and the decoration of the church, which was so much wanted, would, the minister thought, be

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