Thisagitating episode in Lily’s life was a relief to her from her own prevailing troubles. They all apologized to her for bringing her into the midst of their annoyances, but it was, in fact, nothing but an advantage. To contrast what she had herself to bear with the lot of Helen even was good for Lily. If she had but known a little sooner how long and sweetly that patient creature had waited, how many years had passed over her head, while she did her duty quietly, and neither upbraided God nor man, Lily thought it would have shamed herself into quiet, too, and prevented, perhaps, that crowning outcome of impatience which had taken place in the Manse parlor on that January night. Did she regret that January night with all its mystery, its hurry, and tumult of feeling? Oh, no! shesaid to herself, it would be false to Ronald to entertain such a thought; but yet how could she help feeling with a sort of yearning the comparative freedom of her position then, the absence of all complication? Lily had believed, as Ronald told her, that all complications would be swept away by this step. She would be freed, she thought, at once from her uncle’s sway, and ready to follow her husband wherever their lot might lie. Every thing would be clear before her when she was Ronald’s wife. She had thought so with certain and unfeigned faith. She might perhaps have been in that condition still, always believing, feeling that nothing was wanted but the bond that made them one, if that bond had not been woven yet. Poor Lily! She would not permit herself to say that she regretted it. Oh, no! how could she regret it? Every thing was against them for the moment, but yet she was Ronald’s, and Ronald hers, forever and ever. No man could put them asunder. At any time, in any circumstances, if the yoke became too hard for her to bear, she could go unabashed to her husband for succor. How, then, could she regret it? But Helen had waited through years and years, while Lily had grown impatient before the end of one; or perhaps it was not Lily, but Ronald, that had grown impatient. No, she could not shelter herself with that. Lily had been as little able to brave the solitude, the separation, the banishment, as he. And here stood Helen, patient, not saying a word, always bearing a brave face to the world, enduring separation, with a hundred pangs added to it, terrors for the man she loved, self-reproach, and all the exactions of life beside, which she had to meet with a cheerful countenance. How much better was this quiet, gentle woman, pretending to nothing, than Lily, who beat her wings against the cage, and would not be satisfied? Even now what would not Helen give if she could see her lover from time to time as Lily saw her husband, if she knew that he was satisfied, and, greatest of all, that he was unimpeachable, above all reproach? For that certainty Helen would be content to die, or tolive alone forever, or to endure any thing that could be given her to bear. And Lily was not content, oh! not at all content! Her heart was torn by a sense of wrong that was not in Helen’s mind. Was it that she was the most selfish, the most exacting, the least generous of all? Even Ronald was happy—a man, who always wanted more than a woman—in having Lily, in the fact that she belonged to him; while she wanted a great deal more than that—so much more that there was really no safe ground between them, but as much disagreement as if they were a disunited couple, who quarrelled and made scenes between themselves, which was a suggestion at which Lily half laughed, half shuddered. If it went on long like this, they might turn to be—who could tell?—a couple who quarrelled, between whom there was more opposition and anger than love. Lily laughed at the thought, which was ridiculous; but there was certainly a shiver in it, too.
Duff had gone away before her short visit to the Manse came to an end. He disappeared after a last long interview with Helen under the bare lilac bushes, of which the little party in the parlor was very well aware, though no one said a word. The minister shifted uneasily on his chair, and held his paper with much fierce rustling up in his hands toward the lamp, as if it had been light he wanted. But what he wanted was to shield himself from the observation of the others, who sat breathless, exchanging, at long intervals, a troubled syllable or two. Mr. Douglas had, perhaps, strictly speaking, no right to be there, spying, as the old minister thought, upon the troubles of the family, and, as he himself was painfully conscious, intrusively present in the midst of an episode with which he had nothing to do. But he could not go away, which would make every thing worse, for he would then probably find himself in face of Helen tremblingly coming back, or of the desperate lover going away. A consciousness that it was the last was in all their minds, though nobody could have told why. Lily sat trembling, with her head down over her work, sometimes saying alittle prayer for Helen, broken off in the middle by some keen edge of an intrusive thought, sometimes listening breathless for the sound of her step or voice. At last, to the instant consciousness of all, which made the faintest sound audible, the Manse door was opened and closed so cautiously that nothing but the ghost of a movement could be divined in the quiet. No one of the three changed a hair-breadth in position, and yet the sensation in the room was as if every one had turned to the door. Was she coming in here fresh from that farewell? Would she stand at the door, and look at them all, and say: “I can resist no longer. I am going with him.” This was what the old minister, with a deep distrust in human nature, which did not except Helen, feared and would always fear. Or would she come as if nothing had happened, with the dew of the night on her hair, and Alick Duff’s desperate words in her ears, and sit down and take up her seam, which Lily, feeling that in such a case the stress of emotion would be more than she could bear, almost expected? Helen did none of these things. She was heard, or rather felt, to go upstairs, and then there was an interval of utter silence, which only the rustling of the minister’s paper, and a subdued sob, which she could not disguise altogether, from Lily, broke. And presently Helen came into the room, paler than her wont, but otherwise unchanged. “It is nine o’clock, father,” she said; “I will put out the Books.” The “Books” meant, and still mean, in many an old-fashioned Scotch house, the family worship, which is the concluding event of the day. She laid the large old family Bible on the little table by his side, and took from him the newspaper, which he handed to her without saying a word. And Marget came in from the kitchen, and took her place near the door.
Thus Helen’s tragedy worked itself out. There is always, or so most people find when their souls are troubled, something in the lesson for the day, or in “the chapter,” as we say in Scotland, when it comes to be read in its natural course, which goes direct to the heart.Very, very seldom, indeed, are the instances in which this curious unintentionalsortesfails. As it happened, that evening the chapter which Mr. Blythe read in his big and sometimes gruff voice was that which contained the parable of the prodigal son. He began the story, as we so often do, with the indifferent tones of custom, reverential as his profession and the fashion of his day exacted, but not otherwise moved. But perhaps some glance at his daughter’s head, bent over the Bible, in which she devoutly followed, after the prevailing Scotch fashion, the words that were read, perhaps the wonderful narrative itself, touched even the old minister’s heavy spirit. His voice took a different tone. It softened, it swelled, it rose and fell, as does that most potent of all instruments when it is tuned by the influence of profound human feeling. The man was a man of coarse fibre, not capable of the finer touches of emotion; but he had sons of his own out in the darkness of the world, and the very fear of losing the last comfort of his heart made him more susceptible to the passion of parental anguish, loss, and love. Lower and lower bowed Helen’s head as her father read; all the little involuntary sounds of humanity, stirrings and breathings, which occur when two or three are gathered together, were hushed; even Marget sat against the wall motionless; and when finally, like the very climax of the silence, another faint, uncontrollable sob came from Lily, the sensation in the room was as of something almost too much for flesh and blood. Mr. Blythe shut the book with a sound in his throat almost like a sob. He waved his hand toward the younger man at the table. “You will give the prayer,” he said in what sounded a peremptory tone, and leaned back in the chair, from which he was incapable of moving, covering his face with his hands.
It was hard upon the poor, young, inexperienced assistant and successor to be called upon to “give” that prayer. It was not that he was untouched by the general emotion, but to ask him to follow the departure of that prodigal whose feet they had all heard grind the gravel,the garden gate swinging behind the vehemence of his going—the prodigal who yet had been all but pointed out as the object of the father’s special love, and for whom Helen Blythe’s life had been, and would yet be, one long embodied prayer—was almost more than Helen Blythe’s lover, waiting, if perhaps the absence of the other might turn her heart to him, could endure. None of them, fortunately, was calm enough to be conscious how he acquitted himself of this duty, except, perhaps, Mr. Blythe himself, who was not disinclined to contemplate the son-in-law whom he would have preferred as “cauld parritch,” Duff’s contemptuous description of him. “No heart in that,” the old minister said to himself as he uncovered his face and the others rose from their knees. The mediocrity of the prayer, with its tremulous petitions, to which the speaker’s perplexed and troubled soul gave little fervor, restored Mr. Blythe to the composure of ordinary life.
Helen said little on that occasion or any other. “He will be far away before the end of the week,” she said next morning. “It’s best so, Lily. Why should he bide here, tearing the heart out of my breast, and his own, too? if it was not for that wonderful Scripture last night! He’s away, and I’m content. And all the rest is just in the Lord’s hands.” The minister, too, had his own comment to make. “She’ll be building a great deal on that chapter,” he said to Lily, “as if there was some kind of a spell in it. Do not you encourage her in that. It was a strange coincidence, I am not denying it; but it’s just the kind of thing that happens when the spirits are high strung. I was not unmoved myself. But that lad’s milk and water,” he added, with a gruff laugh, “he let us easy down.” The poor “lad,” time-honored description of a not fully fledged minister, whose prayer was milk and water, and his person “cauld parritch” to the two rougher and stronger men, accompanied Lily part of the way on foot as she rode home, Rory having come to fetch her, while the black powny carried her baggage. He was very desirous to unbosom his soul to Lily, too.
“Miss Ramsay, do you think she will waste all her heart and her life upon that vagabond?” he said. “It’s just an infatuation, and her friends should speak more strongly than they do. Do you know what he is? Just one of those wild gamblers, miners, drinkers—it may be worse for any thing I know, but my wish is not to say a word too much—that we hear of in America, and such places, in the backwoods, as they call it—men without a spark of principle, without house or home. I believe that’s what this man Duff has come to be. I wish him no harm, but to think of such a woman as Helen Blythe descending into that wretchedness! It should not be suffered, it should not be suffered! taking nobody else into consideration at all, but just her own self alone.”
“I think so, too, Mr. Douglas,” said Lily, restraining the paces of Rory, “but then what can any one say if Helen herself——”
“Helen herself!” he said almost passionately; “what does she know? She is young; she is without experience. She is very young,” he added, with a flush that made it apparent for the first time to Lily that he was younger than Helen, “because she is so inexperienced. She has never been out of this village. Men, however little they may have seen of themselves, get to know things; but a woman, a young lady—how can she understand? Oh, you should tell her, her friends should tell her!” he cried with vehemence. “It is a wicked thing to let a creature like that go so far astray.”
“I agree with you, Mr. Douglas,” said Lily again, “but if Helen in her own heart says ‘Yes,’ where is there a friend of hers that durst say ‘No’? Her father: that is true. But he will never be asked to give his consent, for while he lives she will never leave him.”
“You are sure of that?” the young minister asked.
“If it had not been so, would she have let him go now? She will never leave her father, but beyond that I don’t think Helen will ever change, Mr. Douglas. If he nevercomes back again, she will just sit and wait for him till she dies.”
“Miss Ramsay, I have no right to trouble you. What foolish things I may have cherished in my mind it is not worth the while to say. I thought, when the old man is away, what need to leave the house she was fond of, the house where she was born, when there was me ready to step in and give her the full right. It’s been in my thoughts ever since I was named to the parish after him. It’s nothing very grand, but it’s a decent down-sitting, what her mother had before her, and no need for any disagreeable change, or questions about repairs, or any unpleasant thing. Just her and me, instead of her and him. I would not shorten his days, not by an hour—the Lord forbid! but just I would be always ready at her hand.”
“Oh, Mr. Douglas,” cried Lily, “her father would like it—and me, I would like it.”
“Would you do that?” cried the young minister, laying his hand for a moment on Lily’s arm. The water stood in his eyes, his face was full of tender gratitude and hope. But either the young man had pulled Rory’s bridle unawares, or Rory thought he had done so, or resented the too close approach. He tossed his shaggy head and swerved from the side of the path to the middle of the road, when, after an ineffectual effort to free himself of Lily, he bolted with her, rattling his little hoofs with triumph against the frosty way. It was perhaps as well that the interview should terminate thus. It gave a little turn to Lily’s thoughts, which had been very serious. And Rory flew along till he had reached that spot full of associations to Lily, where the broken brig and the Fairy Glen reminded her of her own little romance that was over. Over! Oh, no, that was far from over; that had but begun that wonderful day when Ronald and she picnicked by the little stream and the accident happened, without which, perhaps, her own story would have gone no further, and Helen’s would never have been known to her. Rory stopped there, and helped himself to a mouthful or two offresh grass, as if to call her attention pointedly to the spot, and then proceeded on his way leisurely, having given her the opportunity of picking up those recollections which, though so little distant, were already far off in the hurry of events which had taken place since then. Had it been possible to go back to that day, had there been no ascent of that treacherous ruin, no accident, none of all the chains of events that had brought them so much closer to each other and wound them in one web of fate, if every thing had remained as it was before the fated New Year, would Lily have been glad? That the thought should have gained entrance into her mind at all gave a heavy aspect to the scene and threw a cloud over every thing. She did not regret it: oh, no, no! how could she regret that which was her life? But something intolerable seemed to have come into the atmosphere, something stifling, as if she could not breathe. She forced the pony on, using her little switch in a manner with which Rory was quite unacquainted. Let it not be thought of, let it not be dwelt upon, above all, let it not be questioned, the certainty of all that had happened, the inevitableness of the past!
Thespring advanced with many a break and interval of evil weather. The east winds blew fiercely over the moor, and the sudden showers of April added again a little to the deceitful green that covered bits of the bog. But May was sweet that year; in these high-lying regions the whins, which never give up altogether, lighted a blaze of color here and there among the green knowes and hollows where there was solid standing-ground, and where one who did not mind an occasional dash from the long heads of the ling which began to thrill with sap, or an occasional sinking of a foot on a watery edge, might now venture again to trace the devious way upon the most deliciousturf in the world here and there across the moor. The advancing season brought many a thrill of rising life to Lily. It seemed impossible to dwell upon the darker side of any prospect while the sunshine so lavished itself upon the gold of the whins and the green of the turf, and visibly moved the heather and the rowan-trees to all the effort and the joyous strain of life. I do not pretend that the sun always shone, for the history of the north of Scotland would, I fear, contradict that; but the number of heavenly mornings there were—mornings which lighted a spark in every glistening mountain burn and wet flashing rock over which it poured, and opened up innumerable novelties of height and hollow, projecting points and deep withdrawing valleys, in a hillside which seemed nothing but a lump of rock and moss on duller occasions—were beyond what any one would believe. They are soon over: the glory of the day is often eclipsed by noon; but Lily, whose heart, being restless, woke her early, had the advantage of them all. And many a tiny flower began to peep by the edges of the moor—little red pimpernels, little yellow celandines, smaller things still that have no names. And the hills stood round serenely waiting for summer, as with a smile to each other under the hoods which so often came down upon their brows even while the sun was shining. What did it matter, a storm or two, the wholesome course of nature? Summer was coming with robes of purple to clothe them, and revelations of a thousand mysteries in the hearts of the silent hills.
Amid such auguries and meditative expectations it was not possible that Lily could remain unmoved. And thus her expectation, if not so sublime as that of nature, was at least as exact and as well defined. Alas, the difference was that nature was quite sure of her facts, while an unfortunate human creature never is so. The course of the sun does not fail, however he may delay that coming forth from his chamber, like a bridegroom, which is the law of the universe. But for the heart of man no one can answer. It was such a little thing to do, such an easy thing—no trouble,no trouble! Lily said to herself. To find the little house they wanted, oh, how easily she could do it if she could but go and see herself to this, which was really a woman’s part of the business. Lily imagined herself again and again engaged in that delightful quest. She saw herself running lightly up and down the long stairs. Why take Ronald from his work when she could do it so easily, so gladly, so pleasantly, with so much enjoyment to herself? And though she had been banished for so long, there was still many a house in Edinburgh which would take her in with kindly welcome, and rejoice over her marriage, and help and applaud the young couple in their start. Oh, how easy it all was were but the first step sure. She had thought, in her childishness, that the mere fact of marriage would be enough; that it would bring all freedom, all independence, with it; that the moment she stood by Ronald’s side as his wife the path of their life lay full in the sunshine and light of perfect day. Alas, that had not proved so!
He came again another time between March and May. It was wonderful the journeys he took, thinking nothing of a long night in the coach coming and going, to see his love, for the sake of only a couple of days in her society. The women at Dalrugas were very much impressed, too, by the money it must cost him to make these frequent visits. “Bless me,” Katrin said, “he is just throwing away his siller with baith hands; and what are they to do for their furnishing and to set up their house? I am not wanting you to go, Beenie—far, far from that. It will be like the sun gone out of the sky when we’re left to oursel’s in the house, nothing but Dougal and me. But, oh! only to think of the siller that lad is wastin’ with a’ his life before him. They would live more thrifty in their own house than him there and her here, and thae constant traiks from one place to another, even though her and you at present cost him naething—but what, after a’, is a woman’s meat?”
“I wot weel it would be more thrift, and less expense,not to say better in every way; but if the man does not see it, Katrin, what can the wife do?”
“I ken very weel what I would do,” said Katrin, with a toss of her head. These were the comments below stairs. But when May came and went, and it was not till early June that Lily received her husband, the fever of expectation and anxiety which consumed her was beyond expression. She met him at the head of the spiral stair as usual, but speechless, without a word to say to him. Her cheeks flamed with the heat of her hopes, her terrors, her wild uncertainty. She held out her hands in welcome with something interrogative, enquiring, in them. She did not wish to be taken to his heart, to be kept by any caress from seeing his face and reading what was in it. Was it possible that it was not Ronald at all she was thinking of, but something else—not her husband’s visit, his presence, his love, and the delight of seeing him? And how common, how trivial, how paltry a thing it was which Lily was thinking of first, before even Ronald! Had he found the little house? Had he got it, that hope of her life? was it some business connected with that that had detained him? Had he got the key of it, something resembling the key of it, to lay at her feet, to place in her hand, the charter of her rights and her freedom? But he did not say a word. Was it natural he should when he had just arrived, barely arrived, and was thinking of nothing but his Lily? It was his love that was in his mind, not any secondary thing such as filled hers. He led her in, with his arms around her and joy on his lips. His bonnie Lily! if she but knew how he had been longing for a sight of her, how he had been stopped when he was on the road, how every exasperating thing had happened to hold him back! Ah, she said to herself, it would be the landlord worrying for more money, or some other wicked thing. “But now,” cried Ronald, “the first look of my Lily pays for all!” That was how it was natural he should speak. She supported it all, though her bosom was like to burst. She would not forestall him in his story of how he had securedit, nor yet chill him by showing him that while the first thought in his mind was love, the first in hers was the little house. Oh, no, she would respond, as, indeed, her heart did; but she was choked in her utterance, and could speak few words. If he would only say a word of that, only once: “I have got it, I have got it!” then the floodgates would have been opened, and Lily’s soul would have been free.
Ronald spoke no such word; he said nothing, nothing at all upon that subject, or any thing that could lead to it. He was delighted to see her again, to hold her in his arms. Half the evening, until Beenie brought the dinner, he was occupied in telling her that every time he saw her she was more beautiful, more delightful, in his eyes. And Lily gasped, but made no sign. She would wait, she would wait! She would not be impatient; after all, that was just business, and this was love. She would have liked the business best, but perhaps that was because she was common, just common, not great in mind and heart like—other folk, a kind of a housewife, a poor creature thinking first of the poorest elements. He should follow his own way, he that was a better lover, a finer being, than she; and in his own time he would tell her—what, after all, was no fundamental thing, only a detail.
The dinner passed, the evening passed, and Ronald said not a word, nor Lily either. She had begun to get bewildered in her mind. Whit-Sunday! Whit-Sunday! Was it not Whit-Sunday that was the term, when houses were to be hired in Edinburgh, and the maids went to their new places? And it was now past, and had nothing been done for her? Was nothing going to be done? Lily began to be afraid now that he would speak; that he would say some word that would take away all hope from her heart. Rather that he should be silent than that! There was a momentary flagging in the conversation when the dinner was ended, and in the new horror that had taken possession of her soul Lily, to prevent this, rushedinto a new subject. She told Ronald about Alick Duff and Helen Blythe, and how she had received them at Dalrugas, and had passed some days at the Manse seeing the end of it. Ronald, with the air of a benevolent lord and master, shook his head at the first, but sanctioned the latter proceeding with a nod of his head. “Keep always friends with the Manse people,” he said; “they are a tower of strength whatever happens; but I would not have liked to see my Lily receiving a black sheep like Alick Duff here.”
What had he to do with the house of Dalrugas, or those who were received there? What right had he to be here himself that he should give an authoritative opinion? Oh, do not believe that Lily thought this, but it flashed through her mind in spite of herself, as ill thoughts will do. She said quickly: “And the worst is I took his part. I would have taken his part with all my heart and soul.”
Ronald did nothing but laugh at this protestation. And he laughed contemptuously at the thought that Helen could have saved the man who loved her. “That’s how he thinks to come over the women. He would not dare say that to a man,” he cried. “Helen Blythe, poor little thing!” He laughed again, and Lily felt that she could have struck him in the sudden blaze out of exasperation which somewhat relieved her troubled mind.
“When you laugh like that, I think I could kill you, Ronald!”
“Lily!” he cried, sitting up in his chair with an astonished face, “why, what is the matter with you, my darling?”
“Nothing is the matter with me! except to hear you laugh at what was sorrow and pain to them, and deadly earnest, as any person might see.”
“Havers!” cried Ronald; “he had his tongue in his cheek all the time, yon fellow. He thought, no doubt, her father must have money, and it would be worth his while——”
“If you believe that every-body thinks first ofmoney——” Lily said, her hand, which was on the table, quivering to every finger’s end.
“Most of us do,” he said quietly; “but what does it mean that my Lily should be so disturbed about Alick Duff, the ne’er-do-well, and Helen Blythe?”
“I can’t tell you,” cried Lily, struggling with that dreadful, inevitable inclination to tears which is so hard upon women. “I am—much alone in this place,” she said, with a quiver of her mouth, “and you away.”
“My bonnie Lily!” he cried once more, hastening to her, soothing her in his arms, as he had done so often before. That was all, that was all he could say or do to comfort her; and that does not always answer—not, at least, as it did the first or even the second or third time. To call her “My bonnie Lily!” to lean her head upon his breast that she might cry it all out there and be comforted, was no reply to the demand in her heart. And the hysteria passion did not come to tears in this case. She choked them down by a violent effort. She subdued herself, and withdrew from his supporting arm, not angrily, but with something new in her seriousness which startled Ronald, he could not tell why. “We will go upstairs,” she said, “or, if you would like it, out on the moor. It is bonnie on the moor these long, long days, when it is night, and the day never ends. And then you can tell me the rest of your Edinburgh news,” she said, suddenly looking into his face.
Oh, he understood her now! His face was not delicate like Lily’s to show every tinge of changing color, but it reddened through the red and the brown with a color that showed more darkly and quite as plainly as the blush on any girl’s face. He understood what was the Edinburgh news she wanted. Was it that he had none to give?
“Let us go out on the moor,” he said. “Where is your plaid to wrap you round? It may be as beautiful as you like, but it’s always cold on a north country moor.”
“Not in June,” she cried, throwing the plaid upon his shoulder. It was nine o’clock of the long evening, but aslight still as day, a day perfected, but subdued, without sun, without shadow, like, if any thing human can be like, the country where there is neither sun nor moon, but the Lamb is the light thereof. The moor lay under the soft radiance in a perfect repose, no corner in it that was not visible, yet all mystery, spellbound in that light that never was on sea or shore. At noon, with all the human accidents of sun and shade, they could scarcely have seen their own faces, or the long distance of the broken land stretched out beyond, or the hills dreaming around in a subdued companionship, as clearly as now, yet all in a magical strangeness that overawed and hushed the heart. Even Lily’s cares—that one care, rather, which was so little, yet so great, almost vulgar to speak of, yet meaning to her every thing that was best on earth—were hushed. The stillness of the shining night, which was day; the silence of the great moor, with all its wild fresh scents and murmurs of sound subdued; the vast round of cloudless sky, still with traces on it of the sunset, but even those forming but an undertone to the prevailing softness of the blue—were beyond all reach of human frettings and struggles. They were on the eve of discovering that the earth had been rent between them, closely though they stood together, but in a moment the edges of the chasm had disappeared, the green turf and the heather, with its buds forming on every bush, spread over every horrible division. Lily put her arm within her husband’s with a long, tremulous sigh. What did any uneasy wish matter, any desire even if desperate, compared with this peace of God that was upon the hills and the moor and the sky?
I doubt, however, whether all of this made it easier for Ronald to clear himself at last of the burden of the unfulfilled trust. When she said next morning, with a catch in her breath, but as perfect an aspect of calm as she could put on: “You have told me nothing about our house,” his color and his breath also owned for a moment an embarrassment which it was difficult to face. She had said it while he stood at the window looking out, with his backtoward her. She had not wished to confront him, to fix him with her eyes, to have the air of bringing him to an account.
Ronald turned round from the window after a momentary pause. He came up to her and took both her hands in his. “My bonnie Lily!” he said.
“Oh,” she cried with sudden impatience, drawing her hands from him, “call me by my simple name! I am your wife; I am not your sweetheart. Do I want to be always petted like a bairn?”
“Lily!” he said, startled, and a little disapproving, “there is something wrong with you. I never thought you were one to be affected with nerves and such things.”
“Did you ever think I was one to live all alone upon the moor? to belong to nobody, to see nobody, to be married in a secret, and get a visit from my man now and then in a secret, too? and none to acknowledge or stand by me in the whole world?”
“Lily! Lily!” he cried, “how far is that from the fact? Am I not here whenever I can find a moment to spare, and ready to come at any time for any need if you but hold up your little finger? Why is it you are not acknowledged and set by my side as I would be proud to do? Can you ever doubt I would be proud to do it? But many a couple have kept their marriage quiet till circumstances were better. You and I are not the first—I could tell you of a score—that would not keep apart half their days and lose the good of their life, but just kept the fact to themselves till better times should come.”
“You said nothing to me about better times coming,” said Lily; “you spoke of the term, and that you could not get a house to live in till the term.”
“And I said quite true,” said Ronald. As soon as he got her to discuss the matter he felt sure of his own triumph. “You knew that as well as I did. And now here is just the truth, Lily: I am not very well off, and it does not mend my practice that I’ve been so often here in the North. Don’t tell me I need not come unless I like;that’s a silly woman’s saying, it is not like my Lily. I am not very well off, and you have nothing if there is a public breach with Sir Robert. And for a little while I have been beginning to think——”
He paused, hoping she would say something, but Lily said nothing. She had covered her face with her hands.
“I have been beginning to think,” he continued slowly, “that this is a bad time for beginning life in Edinburgh. You are not ignorant of Edinburgh life, Lily; you know that in the vacations, when the courts are up, nobody is there. If we had twenty houses, we could not stay in them in August and September, when every-body is away. As this is a bad time for beginning in Edinburgh, I was thinking that to take the expense of a house upon me now would be a foolish thing. Think of a garret in the old town from this to autumn, with all the smoke and the bad air instead of the bonnie moor! And in six weeks or a little more, Lily, I would be able to get some shooting hereabouts, which will be a grand excuse, and we could be together without a word said, with nobody to make any criticisms.”
She cried out, stamping her foot: “Will you never understand? It is the grand excuse and the nobody to criticise that is insufferable to me. Why should there be any excuse? Why should there be a word said? I am your wife, Ronald Lumsden!”
“My dear, you are ill to please,” he said. “But nobody can see reason better than you if you will but open your eyes to it. See here, Lily: two months and more are coming when our house, if we had it, would be useless to us, and in the meantime you are very well off here.”
She gave him a sudden glance, and would have said something, but arrested herself in time.
“You are very well here,” he repeated, “far better than even going upon visits, or at some other little country place, where we might take lodgings, and be very uncomfortable.Your moor is a little estate to you, Lily; it’s company and every thing. And if I had a little shooting which I could manage—a man with a gun is not hard to place in Scotland, and up in the north country there is many an opportunity; and there is always Tom Robison’s cottage to fall back on, where you are very well off as long as you neither need to eat there nor to sleep there. Your servants here are used to me. Whatever explanations Dougal has made to himself, he has made them long ago. I have no fears for him. Where would you be so well, my Lily, as in your home?”
“And where would you be so ill, Ronald,” she cried, “as in—as in——” But Lily could not finish the sentence. How could it be that he did not say that to himself, that he left it to her to say—to her, who was incapable, after all, of saying to the man she loved such hard words? Her own home, her uncle’s house, who had sent her here to separate her once for all from Ronald Lumsden, while Ronald arranged so easily to establish himself under his enemy’s roof.
“Where would I be so ill as in Sir Robert’s house?” he said, with a laugh. “On the contrary, Lily, I am very happy here. I have been happier here than in any other house in the world, and why should I set up scruples, my dear, when I have none? If Sir Robert had been a wise man he never would have tried to separate you and me; and now that we have turned his evil to good, and made his prison a palace, why should we banish ourselves when all is done to do him a very doubtful pleasure? He will never hear a word of it in my belief, and if he does, he will hear far more than that I have come to share your castle for another vacation. It was the first step that was the worst: yon snow-storm, perhaps, at the New Year; but that was the power of circumstances, and no Scots householder would ever have turned a man out into the snow. When we did that, we did the worst. A few weeks, more or less, after that—what can it matter? And, short time or long time, it is my belief, Lily, that he will neverbe a pin the wiser. Then why should we trouble ourselves?” Ronald said.
As for Lily, this time she answered not a word.
Itmay be imagined that after this there was very little said of the house in Edinburgh, which now, indeed, it was impossible to do any thing about till the term at Martinmas. But Lily, I think, never alluded to the Martinmas term. Her heart sank so that it recovered itself again with great difficulty, and the very suggestion of the thing she had so longed for, and fixed all her wishes upon, now brought over her a sickness and faintness both of body and soul. When some one talked by chance of the maids going to their new places at the term, the color forsook her face, and Helen Blythe was much alarmed on one such occasion, believing her friend was going to faint. Lily did not faint. What good would that do? she said to herself with a sort of cynicism which began to appear in her. She dug metaphorically her heels into the soil, and stood fast, resisting all such sudden weaknesses. Perhaps Ronald was surprised, perhaps he was not quite so glad as he expected to be, when she ceased speaking on that subject; but, on the whole, he concluded that it was something gained. If he could but get her to take things quietly, to wait until he was quite ready to set up such an establishment as he thought suitable, or, better still, till Sir Robert died and rewarded her supposed obedience by leaving her his fortune, which was her right, how fortunate that would be! But Lily was taking things too quietly, he thought, with a little tremor. It was not natural for her to give in so completely. He watched her with a little alarm during that short stay of his. Not a word of the cherished object which had always been coming up in their talk came from Lily’s lips again. Shemade no further allusion to their possible home or life together; her jests about cooking his dinner for him, about the Scotch collops and the howtowdie, were over. Indeed, for that time all her jests were over; she was serious as the gravest woman, no longer his laughing girl, running over with high spirits and nonsense. This change made Ronald very uncomfortable, but he consoled himself with thinking that in a light heart like Lily’s no such thing could last, and that she would soon recover her better mood again.
He did not know, indeed, nor could it have entered into his heart to conceive—for even a clever man, as Ronald was, cannot follow further than it is in himself to understand the movements of another mind—the effect that all this had produced upon Lily, the sudden horrible pulling up in the progress of her thoughts, the shutting down as of a black wall before her, the throwing back of herself upon herself. These words could not have had any meaning to Ronald. Why a blank wall? Why a dead stop? He had said nothing that was not profoundly reasonable. All that about the vacation was quite true. Edinburgh is empty as a desert when the courts are up and the schools closed. The emptiness of London after the season, which is such perfect fiction and such absolute truth, is nothing to the desolation of Edinburgh in the time of its holiday. To live, as he said, in a garret in the old town, or even in the top story of one of the newer, more convenient houses in the modern quarter, while every-body was away, instead of here on the edge of the glorious heather, among the summer delights of the moor, was folly itself to think of. It was impossible but that Lily must perceive that, the moment she permitted herself to think. Dalrugas might be dreary for the winter, especially in the circumstances of their separation, he was ready to allow; but in August, with the birds strong on the wing, and the heather rustling under your stride, and no separation at all but the punctual return of the husband to dinner and the evening fire—what was there, what could there be, to complain of? SirRobert’s house an ill place for him! he said to himself, with a laugh. Luckily he was not so squeamish. Such delicate troubles did not affect his mind. He could see what she meant, of course, and he was not very sure that he liked Lily to remind him of it; but he was of a robust constitution. He was not likely to be overwhelmed by a fantastic idea like that.
And the autumnal holiday was, as he anticipated, actually a happy moment in their lives. Before it came Lily had time to go through many fits of despair, and many storms of impatience and indignation. To have one great struggle in life and then to be forever done, and fall into a steady unhappiness in one portion of existence as you have been persistently happy in another, is a thing which seems natural enough when the first break comes in one’s career. But Lily soon learned the great difference here between imagination and reality. There was not a day in which she did not go through that struggle again, and sank into despair and flamed with anger, and then felt herself quieted into the moderation of exhaustion, and then beguiled again by springing hopes and insinuating visions of happiness. Thus notwithstanding all the bitterness of Lily’s feelings on various points, or rather, perhaps, in consequence of the evident certainty that nothing would make Ronald see as she did, or even perceive what it was that she wanted and did not want—the eagerness of her passion for the house, which meant honor and truth to her, but to him only a rash risking of their chances, and foolish impatience on her part to have her way, as is the worst of women—and her bitter sense of the impossibility of his calm establishment here in her uncle’s house, a thing which he regarded as the simplest matter in the world, with a chuckle over the discomfiture of the old uncle—all these things, by dint of being too much to grapple with, fell from despair into the ordinary of life. And Lily agreed with herself to push them away, not to think when she could help it, to accept what she could—the modified happiness, the love andsweetness which are, alas! of themselves not enough to nourish a wholesome existence. She was happy, more or less, when he came in with his gun over his shoulder, and a bag at which Dougal looked with critical but unapproving eyes. Dougal himself took, or had permission, to shoot over Sir Robert’s estate, which was not of great extent. These were not yet the days when even a little bit of Highland shooting is worth a better rent than a farm, and the birds had grown wild about Dalrugas with only Dougal’s efforts at “keeping them down.” What the country thought of Ronald’s position it would be hard to say. He gave himself out as living at Tam Robison’s, the shepherd’s, and being favored by Sir Robert Ramsay’s grieve in the matter of the shooting, which there was nobody to enjoy. No doubt it was well enough known that he was constantly at Dalrugas, but a country neighborhood is sometimes as opaque to perceive any thing doubtful as it is lynx-eyed in other cases. And as few people visited at Dalrugas, there was no scandal so far as any one knew.
And with the winter there came something else to occupy Lily’s thoughts and comfort her heart. It made her position ten times more difficult had she thought of that, but it requires something very terrible indeed to take away from a young wife that great secret joy and preoccupation which arise with the first expectation of motherhood. Besides, it must be remembered that there was in Lily’s mind no terror of discovery. Perhaps it was this fact which kept her story from awakening the suspicious and the scandal mongers of the neighborhood. There was no moment at which she would not have been profoundly relieved and happy to be found out. She desired nothing so much as that her secret should be betrayed. This changes very much the position of those who have unhappily something to conceal, or rather who are forced to conceal something. If you fear discovery, it dodges you at every step, it is always in your way. But if you desire it, by natural perversity the danger is lessened, and nobody suspects what you would wishfound out. So that even this element added something to Lily’s happiness in her new prospects. That hope in the mind of most women needs nothing to enhance it; the great mystery, the silent joy of anticipation, the overwhelming thought of what is, by ways unknown, by long patience, by suffering, by rapture, about to be, fills every faculty of being. I am told that these sentiments are old-fashioned, and that it is not so that the young women of this concluding century regard these matters. I do not believe it: nature is stronger than fashion, though fashion is strong, and can momentarily affect the very springs of life. But when it did come into Lily’s mind as she sat in a silent absorption of happiness, not thinking much, working at her “seam,” which had come to be the most delightful thing in heaven or earth, that the new event that was coming would demand new provisions and create new necessities which it seemed impossible could be provided for at Dalrugas, the thought gave an additional impetus to the secret joy that was in her. Such things, she said to herself, could not be hid. It would be impossible to continue the life of secrecy in which she had been kept against her will so long. Whatever happened, this must lead to a disclosure, to a home of her own where in all honor her child should see the light of day.
For a long time Lily had no doubt on this point. She began to speak again about the term and the upper story in the old town. “But I would like the other better now,” she said; “it would be better air for——, and more easy to get out to country walks and all that is needed for health and thriving.” It had been an uncomfortable sensation to Ronald when she had renounced all the talk and anticipation of the house to be taken at the term. But now that he was accustomed to exemption from troublesome enquiries on that point he felt angry to have it taken up again. He was disposed to think that she did it only to annoy him, at a time, too, when he was setting his brain to work to think and to plan how the difficulties could be got over, and how in the most satisfactory way, and with theleast trouble to her, every thing could be arranged for Lily’s comfort. But he did not betray himself; he took great pains even to calm all inquietudes, and not to irritate her or excite her nerves (as he said) by opposition. He tried, indeed, to represent mildly that of all country walks and good air nothing could be so good as the breeze over the moors and the quiet ways about, where every thing delicate and feeble must drink in life. But Lily had confronted him with a blaze in her eyes, declaring that such a thing was not possible, not possible! in a tone which she had never taken before. He said nothing more at that time. He made believe even, when Whit-Sunday returned, that he had seen a house, which he described in detail, but did not commit himself to say he had secured it. Into this trap Lily fell very easily. She had all the rooms, the views from the windows, the arrangement of the apartment described to her over and over again, and for the great part of that second summer of her married life there was no drawback to the blessedness of her life. She spent it in a delightful dream, taking her little sober walks like a woman of advanced experience, no longer springing from hummock to hummock like a silly girl about the moor, taking in, in exquisite calm, all its sounds and scents and pictures to her very heart. In the height of the summer days, when the air was full of the hum of the bees, Lily would sit under the thin shade of a rowan-tree, thinking about nothing, the air and the murmur which was one with the air filling her every consciousness. Why should she have sought a deeper shadow. She wanted no shadow, but basked in the warm shining of the sun, and breathed that dreamy hum of life, and watched, without knowing it, the drama among the clouds, shadows flitting like breath as swift and sudden, coming and going upon the hills. All was life all through, constant movement, constant sound, alternation and change, no need of thinking, foreseeing, fore-arranging, but the great universe swaying softly in the infinite realm of space, and God holding all—the bees, the flickering rowan-leaves, the shadows and themountains and Lily brooding over her secret—in the hollow of his hand.
As the summer advanced, however, troubles began to steal in. She was anxious, very anxious, to be taken to the house, which he allowed her to believe was ready for her. It must be said that Ronald was very assiduous in his visits, very anxious to please her in every way, full of tenderness and care, though always avoiding or evading the direct question. It went to his heart to disappoint her, as he had to do again and again. The house was not ready; there were things to be done which had been begun, which could not be interrupted without leaving it worse than at first. And then was it not of the greatest importance for her own health that she should remain as long as possible in the delicious air of the North—the air which was, if not her own native air, at least that of her family? Lily had been deeply disappointed, disturbed in her beautiful calm, and a little excited, perhaps, in the nerves, which she had never been conscious of before, but which Ronald assured her now made her “ill to please”—by his unreasonable resistance to her desire to take refuge in the house which she believed to be awaiting her—when a curious incident occurred. Beenie appeared one morning with a very confused countenance to ask whether her mistress would permit her to receive the visit of a cousin of hers, “a real knowledgable woman,” who was out of a place and in want of a shelter. “You had better ask Katrin than me, Beenie,” cried Lily; “I’ve filled the house too much and too long already. It is not for me to take in strangers.” “Eh, mem,” cried Katrin, her head appearing behind that of Beenie in the doorway, “it will be naething but a pleasure to me to have her.” Katrin’s countenance was anxious, but Beenie’s was confused. She could not look her mistress in the face, but stood before her in miserable embarrassment, laying hems upon her apron. “Speak up, woman, canna ye?” cried Katrin, “for your ain relation. Mem [Katrin never said Miss Lily now], I ken her as weel as Beenie does. She’s a decent woman and no one thatmeddles nor gies her opinion. I’ll be real glad to have her if you’ll give your consent.” “Oh, I give my consent,” Lily cried lightly. And in this easy way was introduced into Dalrugas a very serious, middle-aged woman, not in the least like Beenie, of superior education, it appeared, and a quietly authoritative manner, whose appearance impressed the whole household with a certain awe. It was a few days after the termination of one of Ronald’s visits that this incident occurred, and Lily could not resist a certain instinctive alarm at the appearance of this new figure in the little circle round her. “You are sure she is your cousin, Beenie? She is not like you at all.” “And you’re no like Sir Robert, Miss Lily, that is nearer to ye than a cousin,” said Beenie promptly. She added hurriedly: “It’s her father’s side she takes after, and she’s had a grand education. I’ve heard say that she kent as much as the doctors themselves. Education makes an awfu’ difference,” said Beenie with humility. I am not sure that Lily was more attached to this new inmate on account of her grand education. But that was, after all, a matter of very secondary importance; and so the days and the weeks went on.
There occurred at this time an interval longer than usual between Ronald’s visits, and Lily lost all her happy tranquillity. She became restless, unhappy, full of trouble. “What is to become of me, what is to become of me?” she would cry, wringing her hands. Was she to be left here at the crisis of her fate in a solitude where there was no help, no one to stand by her? She felt in herself a reflection, too, of the visible anxiety of the two women, Beenie and Katrin, who never would let her out of their sight, who seemed to tremble for her night and day. The sight of their anxious faces angered her, and roused her occasionally to send them off with a sharp word, half jest, half wrath. But when she was freed from these tender yet exasperating watchers, Lily would cover her face with her hands and cry bitterly, with a helplessness that was more terrible than any other pain. For what could shedo? She could not set out, inexperienced, alone, without money, without knowing where to go. She had, indeed, Ronald’s address; but had he not changed into the new house, if new house there was? Lily began to doubt every thing in this dreadful crisis of her affairs. She had no money, and to travel cheaply in these days was impossible. And how could she get even to Kinloch-Rugas, she who had avoided being seen even by Helen Blythe? She wept like a child in the helplessness of her distress. She did not hear any knock at the door or permission asked to come in, but started to find some one bending over her, and to see that it was the strange woman Marg’ret, Beenie’s supposed cousin. Lily made this discovery with resentment, and bid her hastily go away.
“Mem, Mrs. Lumsden,” Marg’ret said.
Lily quickly uncovered her face. “You know!” she cried with a mixture, which she could not explain to herself, of increased suspicion, yet almost pleasure; for nobody had as called yet her by that name.
“I would be a stupid person indeed if I didna know. Oh, madam, I’ve made bold to come in, for I know more things than that. Beenie would tell you I’ve had an education. I’ve come to beg you, on my bended knees, to give up all thoughts of moving—it’s too late, my dear young leddy—and just make yourself as content as you can here.”
“Here!” cried Lily, with a scream of distress. “No, no, no, I must be in my own house. Woman, whoever you are, do you know I’m Miss Ramsay here? It’s not known who I am, and what will they think if any thing—any thing—should happen?”
“Are you wanting to conceal it, Mrs. Lumsden?”
“No, no, no! Any thing but that! If you will go to the cross of Kinloch-Rugas and say Lily Ramsay has been Ronald Lumsden’s wife for more than a year, I will—I will kiss you,” cried Lily, as if that was the greatest sacrifice she could make.“Then why should you not bide still? If it’s found out, it’s found out, and you’re pleased. And if it’s not found out, maybe the gentleman’s pleased. Mrs. Lumsden, I’m a real, well-qualified nurse. I will tell you the truth: they were frightened, thae women. I said, when Beenie told me, I would come and just be here if there was any occasion. Mistress Lumsden, I will show you my certificates. I am just all I say, and maybe a little more. Will you trust yourself to me?”
And what could Lily do? She was in no condition to enquire into it, to satisfy herself if it was a plot of Ronald’s making, or only, as this woman said, a scheme of the women. To think over such subjects was no exercise for her at that moment. She yielded, for she could do nothing else. And a very short time after there was an agitated night in the old tower. It was the night of the market, and Dougal had come in, in the muzzy condition which was usual to him on such occasions, and consequently slept like a log and was conscious of nothing that was going on. Ronald had arrived the day before. And when the morning came, there was another little new creature added to the population of the world.
It was more like a dream than ever to Lily—a dream of rapture and completion, of every trouble calmed, and every pang over, and every promise fulfilled. She was surrounded by love and the most sedulous watching. She seemed to have no longer any wishes, only thanks in her heart. She even saw her husband go away without trouble. “Come back soon and fetch us. Come back and fetch us,” she said, smiling at him through half-closed eyes.
It was not, however, much more than a week after when Ronald, without warning or announcement, rushed into her room, pale with fatigue, and dusty from his journey. “I have come here post-haste!” he cried. “Lily, your Uncle Robert is in Edinburgh. He is coming on here for the shooting, and other men with him. If I’m a day in advance, that is all. I have thought of the only thing that is to be done if you will but consent.”
“The only thing to be done,” said Lily, raising herselfin her bed, with sparkling eyes, “is what I have always wished: to tell him all that’s happened, and, oh! what a light conscience I will have, and what a happy heart!”
“He would turn you out of his doors!” cried Ronald in dismay.
“Well!” cried Lily, who felt capable of every thing, “I may not be a great walker yet, but I’ll hirple on till a cart passes or something, and they’ll take me in at the Manse.”
“Oh, my darling, don’t think of such a risk!” he cried. “For God’s sake, keep quiet! Say nothing and do nothing till you hear from me again. I have thought of a plan. Will you promise to do nothing, to make no confession, till I’m at your side, or till you hear from me?”
“Are you not going to stay with me, to meet him?”
“I cannot, I cannot! I’ve come now at the greatest risk. Lily, you will promise?”
“I am going to dress the baby for the night,” said the nurse, interposing. “Will ye give him a kiss, mem, before I take him away?”
Lily’s lips settled softly on the infant’s cheeks like a bee on a flower. “He’s sweeter and sweeter every day. Ronald, you must not ask me too much. But I will try, so long as all is well and safe with him.”
“I will see that all is safe with him,” Ronald cried. He lingered a little with the young mother, half jealous of the looks she cast at the door for the return of the child in Margaret’s arms.
“You have told her not to bring him back,” she said with smiling reproach, “but I’ll have him all to myself after.” She was not afraid of his news, she was not shaken by his excitement. The approach of this tremendous crisis seemed only to exhilarate Lily. She was so glad, so glad, to be found out. It was the only thing that was wanting to her perfect happiness.
Ronald’s gig had been waiting all the time while he lingered. He had to rush away at last in order to catch the night coach from Kinloch-Rugas, he said; and Lilywaited, with smiles shining through the tears in her eyes, to hear the sound of the wheels carrying him away. And then she cried impatiently: “Marg’ret, Marg’ret, bring me my baby!”
But Marg’ret, it seemed, did not hear.
SirRobert arrived, as they had been warned, next day. An express came in the morning, preceding him, to order rooms to be prepared for three guests—to the great indignation of Katrin, who demanded where she was expected to get provender for four men, and maybe men-servants into the bargain, that were worse than their masters, at a moment’s notice. “As if there was naething to do but put linen on the beds,” she cried. “The auld man must have gaun gyte. Ye canna make a dinner for Sir Robert and his gentlemen out of a chuckie and a brace o’ birds frae the moor. If I had but a hare to make soup o’, or a wheen trout, or a single blessed thing. You’ll just put the black powny in the cart, Dougal, and ye’ll gang down yoursel’ to the toun. Sandy! What does Sandy ken? How could I trust that callant to look after Sir Robert’s denner? You’re nane so clever yoursel’—but it’s you that shall go, and no another. Man, have ye no thought of your auld maister and his first dinner when the auld man comes home?”
“I think of him maybe mair than some folk that have keepit grand goings on in his auld hoose.”
“Whatwere ye saying?” cried Katrin, fixing him with a commanding eye. She pronounced this, as I have gently insinuated before, “F’what,” which gave great force to the sound. “I might have kent,” she cried, with a toss of her head, “there wasna a man breathing that could hold his tongue when he thought he had a story to tell!”
“Me—tell a story!” said Dougal in instinctive self-defence. Then he added: “It a’ depends—on what a man has to tell.”
“Ye’re born traitors, a’ the race o’ ye, from Adam doun!” cried Katrin in her wrath, “and aye the women to bear the wyte, accordin’ to you. Tell till ye burst!” she exclaimed with concentrated fury, “and it’s no me ’ll say a word; but put the powny in the cart and gang doun to the town, and try what ye can get for my denner. I’ll no have the auld man starved, no, nor yet shamed afore his freends, nor served with an ill denner the first night—him that hasna been in his ain auld hoose for years.”
“Ye’re awfu’ particular about his denner, considering every thing that’s come and gone, and the care you’ve ta’en of him and his.”
“Yes!” cried Katrin, “I’m awfu’ particular about his denner. Are you going? or will I have to leave the rooms to settle themselves and go mysel’?”
Dougal at last obeyed this strong impulsion; but the black powny and the cart were not for so important a person as Sir Robert’s factotum the day his master came home. He put Rory into the geeg, and drove down in such state as was procured by these means, with his countenance full of unutterable things. He was, indeed, when the little quarrel with Katrin was over, a man laden with much thought. Dougal had observed not very clearly, but yet more than he was believed to have observed. His stolid understanding had been played upon unmercifully by the women, and he had been taken in many times in respect to Ronald’s presence or absence in the house. Often it had occurred that he “could have sworn” the visitor was there when he was not there, and still oftener he could have sworn the reverse; but at the end of all the tricks and deceptions he was tolerably clear as to the position of affairs, if he had possessed the faculty of speech, and sufficient indifference to other motives to have used it. But Dougal, who was a very simple soul, was held in the grasp of as great a complication of influences as if he had been the most subtle and the most self-analyzing. Shouldhe tell Sir Robert what he had seen and guessed? Sir Robert was his master, and it was Dougal’s duty, as guardian of the house, to report what had occurred in it. Ay! but would he shame the house by raising a story that maybe never would be got at by the right end? For what could he say? That a gentleman from Edinburgh had been about the place, coming and going by night and by day; that a person could never tell when he was there and when he wasna there; and, finally, that it was clear as daylight him and Miss Lily were “great freends.” Ah, Miss Lily! That brought up again another series of motives. She was his, Dougal’s, young leddy, by every lawful tie, the only bairn of the house, the real heir. If Sir Robert, as he was perfectly capable, were to leave Dalrugas away from her the morn, she would not a whit the less be the only Ramsay left of the old family, Mr. James’s daughter, who had been Dougal’s adoration in his youth. Was he to raise a scandal on Miss Lily—he, her own father’s man? Dougal’s heart revolted at the thought. And Katrin, that spoiled the lassie, that could see nothing that was not perfect in her—Katrin would never have a good word for her man again. She would call him a traitor—that word that burns and never ceases to wound—like black Monteith that betrayed the Wallace wight, like—— But Dougal’s courage was not equal to that anticipation; rather any thing than that, rather flee the country than that—to betray a bit creature that trusted him, Mr. James’s daughter, the last Ramsay, a little lass that could not fight for herself. “No me!” cried Dougal to all the winds that blew. “No me!” he said, confronting old Schiehallion, as if that tranquil mountain had tempted him. He shook his fist at the hills and at the world. “No me, no me!” he said.
I do not believe that Katrin ever was in the least afraid in respect to Dougal, but a very troubled woman was Katrin that day. She had been in Ronald Lumsden’s confidence all along, more than his wife knew, and in her way had abetted him and helped him, though often against her conscience. Beenie had done the same, but she hadnot Katrin’s head, and meekly followed where the other led. They had both been partially guilty in respect to Marg’ret, a woman introduced into the house by the clumsiest means, which Lily could have seen through in a moment had she tried, but whose presence was so great a comfort and relief to the other two that their eagerness to accede to the artifice by which she was brought as a guest to Dalrugas was very excusable. “What would you and me do, Beenie?” Katrin had said, for once acknowledging a situation with which she was not able to cope. They had been able “to sleep at night,” as they both said, sincethatwoman was there, and there was nothing to be said against the woman. She was not troublesome, she was kind, she knew what she was about. That she was Ronald’s emissary was nothing against her. She was, on the contrary, an evidence of the husband’s tender care for his wife; his anxiety that she should have the best and most costly attention. “And a bonnie penny she will cost him,” the two women said to themselves. But the events of the last twenty-four hours had altogether overwhelmed Katrin, and she had not the comfort even of speaking to any one on the subject, of expressing her horror, her amazement and dismay, for Beenie was shut up with Lily, whose state was such that she could not be left alone for a moment. It was well for the housekeeper that her head was filled with Sir Robert’s dinner and the airing of the mattresses. It gave her a relief from her heavy thoughts to drag down the feather beds and turn them over and over before a blazing fire, though it was August, and the sun blazing hot out of doors. She worked—as a Highland housekeeper works the day the gentlemen are to arrive—for the credit of the house and her own. “Would I let strangers find a word to say, or a thing forgotten, and me the woman in charge of Dalrugas this mony and mony a year?” she said to herself. And it did Katrin a great deal of good, as she did not hesitate to acknowledge. It took off her thoughts.
Sir Robert arrived in the evening with two elderlyfriends and one young one, with all their guns and paraphernalia, Sir Robert’s own man directing every thing, and at least one other man-servant, bringing dismay to Katrin’s heart. “You will not have more than two or three good days on my little bit of moor,” the old gentleman had said with proud humility, “but the neighbors are very friendly, and no doubt my niece has got a lot of cheerful Highland lassies about her that will enliven the time for you, my young friend.” The friends, young and old, had protested their perfect prospective satisfaction with the entertainment Sir Robert had to offer, none of them believing, as, indeed, he did not believe himself, his own disparaging account of the moor. They arrived very dusty in their post-chaise, but in high spirits, the old gentleman with an excited pleasure in returning to the old house of his fathers, which he had not seen for years. Perhaps it looked to him small and gray and chill, as is the wont of old paternal houses when a long-absent master comes back. He called out almost as soon as he came in sight of the door, where Dougal was waiting with his bonnet poised on the extreme edge of his head, on one hair, and Sandy behind him, ready with awe to follow the directions of the gentlemen’s gentlemen, and carry the luggage upstairs. “Where is Miss Lily? Where is my niece?” Sir Robert cried. “Does she not think it worth her trouble to come and meet her old uncle at the door?”
Katrin came forward from the threshold, within which she had been lurking, and courtesied to the best of her ability. “You’re welcome, Sir Robert; you’re awfu’ welcome,” she said; “but Miss Lily, I’m sorry to say, is just very ill in her bed.”
“Ill in her bed!” cried Sir Robert. “Nonsense! Nonsense! I know that kind of illness. She is vexed at me for sending her here, and she’s made up her mind to sulk a little that I may flatter her and plead with her. You may tell her it won’t do. I’m not that kind of man. I’ll pardon, maybe, a bonnie lass in all her braws and showingher pleasure in them, but a sulky, sour young woman—— Eh, Evandale, what were you saying—an old house? It’s old enough if ye think that to its credit, and bare enough. Katrin, I hope you’ll be able to make these gentlemen comfortable in the old barrack, such as it is.”
“I hope so, Sir Robert,” said Katrin. She was relieved that his animadversions on Lily should be cut short.
And then they mounted the spiral staircase with the worn steps, which in one or two places were almost dangerous, and which the elder men mounted very cautiously, one after the other, the loud footsteps of the men echoing through the place, their deeper voices filling the air.
“Lord bless us all!” Katrin cried within herself, “if they had arrived ten days ago!” It was a comfort, in the midst of all the trouble, that Lily was safe in her bed, and, whatever happened, could not be disturbed.
Sir Robert’s enquiries again next morning after his niece were made late and after long delay. It was the 12th of August, and unnecessary to say that Dalrugas was full of sound and hurry from an early hour; the manufacture and consumption of an enormous breakfast, and the preparations for the first great day with the grouse, occupying every-body, so that Katrin herself, though very anxious, had not found a moment to visit Lily’s room, or even to snatch a moment’s talk with Beenie over her mistress’s state. “Just the same, and that’s very bad,” Beenie said, through the half-open door, “and just half out of her wits with the noise, and no able to understand what it means.” “Oh, it’s a’ thae men!” cried Katrin. “The gentlemen and their grouse, and the others with the guns and the douges and a’ the rest o’t. Pity me that have not a moment, that must gang and toil for them and their breakfasts!” When every thing was ready at last, and the party set out, Sir Robert, whose shooting days were over, accompanied them to a certain favorite corner upon Rory, who, though the old gentleman was not a heavy weight, objected to the unusual length of his limbs and decision of his proceedings; but he returned to the house shortly after, musing, with a sigh or two. Perhaps it was a rash experimentto come back after so many years; his doctor had advised it strongly, giving him much hope from his native air, the air of the moors and hills, and from the quiet and regular hours and rule of measured living which he would have no temptation to transgress. “We must remember we are not so young as we once were—any of us,” the physician had said, notwithstanding that he himself was but forty. When a man is old and ailing, and lives too perilously well, and sees and does too much in the gayer regions of the land, and is known at the same time to have a castle in the North, an old patrimony in the Highlands, delightful in August at least, and probably the best place in the world for him at all times of the year, such a prescription is easy. “Your native air, Sir Robert, and a quiet country life.” The 12th of August, a fine day, and already the sharp, clear report of the guns in the brilliant air, and a sense of company and enjoyment about, and the moor a great magnificent garden, purple with heather, is about as cheerful a moment as could be chosen to make a beginning of such a life. But old Sir Robert, returning from the beginning of the sport which he was not able to share to his old house, his Highland castle, which, as he turned toward it in the glorious sunshine of the morning, looked so gray and pinched and penurious, with the tower, that was only a high outstanding gable, and the farm buildings, which had for so long a time been the chief and most important points of the cluster of buildings to its humble occupants, had little to make him cheerful. A sharp sensation almost of shame stung the old man as he realized what his friends must have thought of his Highland castle. Taymouth and Inverary are castles, and so are the brand-new houses down the Clyde in which the Glasgow merchants establish themselves with all the luxuries which money can buy. But where did old Dalrugas come in, so spare and poor, rising straight out of the moor without garden or plaisance, not to speak of parks or woods? He smiled to himself a little sadly at the misnomer. He was wounded in the pride with which he had regarded that shrunken, impoverished littleplace—a pride which he felt now was half ludicrous and yet half pathetic. How was it that he had not thought so when last he was here, then a mature man and having passed all the glamour of youth? He shook his head at the pinched, tall gable, the corbie steps cut so clearly against the blue sky, the gray line of the bare, blank wall. After all, it was but a poor house for a family with such pretensions as the Ramsays of Dalrugas—a poor thing to brag to his Southern friends about. And it was not very gay. He, who had been a man who loved to enjoy himself, and who had done so wherever he had been, to come back here in the end of his days to settle down to the dreariness of the solitary moor and the silence of a country life—was it not a discipline more than he could bear that “those doctors” had put him under? Was a year or two more of vegetation here worth the giving up of all his old gratifications and amusements? It is hard even upon a man who knows he is old, but does not care to acknowledge it, to accompany on a pony for a little way his friends, who are keen for their sport, to set them off on the 12th without being able to go a step or fire a shot with them. Those doctors—what did they know? They had probably sent him off, not knowing what more to do for him, that they might not be troubled with the sight of him dying before their eyes.