This New Year’s Eve remained, amid all the experiences of Lily, a thing
apart. It became painful to her to think of it in after times, but in
the present it was like a completion and climax of life, still all in
the visionary stage, yet so close on the verge of the real that she
became herself like an instrument, thrilling to every touch, answering
every air that blew, every word that was said, in each and all of which
there were meanings hidden of which none was aware but herself. There
was the little dinner first, so carefully prepared by Katrin, so
tenderly served by Beenie, the two young people sitting on either side
of the table as if at their bridal banquet, while the sound of the
festivities going on in the kitchen came up by times when the door was
opened: a squeak of the fiddle, the sound of the stamping of the
guisards as they performed their little archaic drama, adding a franker
note of laughter to the keen supreme pleasure that reigned above. Beenie
went and came, always bringing with her along with every new dish that
little gust of laughter and voices from below, to which she kept open
half an ear, while with the other she attended to what her little
mistress said.
“You maun come down, Miss Lily, to do them a grace: they a’ say they’ll
no steer till they’ve seen the young leddy; and they’re decent lads
just come out to play, as the bairns say in their sang, neither beggars
nor yet stravaigers, but lads from the town, to please ye with their bit
performance; and I ken a’ their mothers!” Beenie cried with a little
outburst of affectionate emotion.
When Lily went down accordingly, followed closely by her lover, the
little primitive drama was repeated, with more stamping and shouting
than ever; and then there was an endless reel, to the sound of the
squeaking fiddle, in which Lily danced as long as she could hold out,
and Beenie held out, as it seemed, forever, wearing out all the lads.
“Eh! I was a grand dancer in my time,” she admitted, when she had breath
enough, while the fiddle squeaked on and on.
And then, as was right, Ronald said good-night as the rural band
streamed away from the door. The curious group of the guisards, some of
them in white shirts outside their garments, some in breastplates of
tin, with an iron pot on their heads by way of helmet, “set him home”
with much respectful kindness. “But I wuss ye were coming with us to the
toun, for Tam the shepherd’s is no a howff for a gentleman,” they said.
“Any hole will do for me,” said Ronald in the exhilaration of the
evening; and all the house came out of doors to speed the parting
guests. The moon shone mistily over the long stretch of the moor,
throwing up a sinister gleam here and there from the deep cuttings, and
flinging a veil as of gossamer over the great breadth of the country.
The air was fresh, not over-cold, “saft,” as Dougal called it, with the
suggestion of rain, and the sudden irruption of voices and steps into
the supreme and brooding silence made the strangest effect in the middle
of the night. Lily stood watching them as they streamed away, Ronald so
distinct from them all as they streamed down under the shadow of the
bank, to show again, chiefly by reason of their disguises, upon the road
a little way down. Lily lingered until a speck of white in the distance
was all that was visible. She was wrapped in a plaid which Ronald had
put round her, drawing the soft green and checkered folds closely around
her face, and as warm physically as she was at heart. Now he was
himself; he had flung all prudences and fancies to the wind; he had
forgotten Sir Robert and his fortune, and every other common thing that
could come between. Lily danced up the spiral staircase with a heart
that sang still more than her lips did as she “turned” the tune to which
they had been dancing. No one can keep still to whom “Tullochgoram” is
sung or played. She danced up the stairs, keeping time faster and faster
to the mad melody--the essence unadulterated of reckless fun and
drollery.
“Eh, my bonnie leddy!” Beenie cried, who had gone before with the
candles; while Katrin stood looking after her, and Dougal locked and
bolted the great hall-door. Katrin shook her head a little: she was much
experienced. “Eh, if he be but worthy of her!” she sighed.
“It’s late, late at nicht, and the New Year well begun,” said Robina.
“Eh, Miss Lily, you’ll never forget this New Year?”
“Why should I forget it?” said Lily. “You had better wait till it is
past before you say that. But maybe you are right, after all, for there
never was a Hogmanay like this; and to think that the morn will come,
and that it will be no more like the other days than this has been!
Beenie, did you ever hear that folk might be as feared for joy as for
trouble? or is it only me that am so timorsome, and cannot tell which it
is going to be?”
“’Deed, and I’ve heard o’ that many’s the day. It’s just the common way,
my bonnie dear. Many a bonnie lassie would fain flee to the ends of the
earth the day before her bridal that is just pleased enough when a’s
said and done. You mustna lose heart.”
“I’m not losing heart,” said Lily. “The day before my bridal! Is that
what it is? I will just be happy to-night and never think of the morn;
for when I begin to think, it takes so many things to be satisfied, and
I would like to be satisfied just for once, and take no thought.”
Robina had a great deal to do in Lily’s room that night. She kept moving
to and fro, softly opening and shutting drawers and presses, laying away
her mistress’s things with a care that was scarcely necessary, and meant
only restlessness and excitement and an incapacity to keep still. Long
before she had done moving about the half-lighted room Lily was fast
asleep, her excitement, though presumably greater, not being enough to
keep sleep from the eyes which were dazzled with the sudden gleam of
something so new and strange in her life, as well as tired with an
unusual vigil. Lily slept as soundly as a child till the clear, somewhat
shrill daylight, touched with frost, shone upon her late in the wintry
morning and called her up much more effectually than the wavering call
of Beenie, who was hanging over her in the morning, as she had been at
night, the first to meet her eyes.
“Eh, Miss Lily, what a grand sleep ye have had!” Beenie cried. She had
slept but little herself, her head full of the new situation and all the
strange things that might be to come. The house in general had a sense
of excitement breathing through it, not visible, indeed, in Dougal, who
was, as usual, wrestling with the powny outside, but very apparent in
Katrin, who went about her morning work with an extremely serious face,
as if all the cares of the world were on her shoulders. Robina and she
had various stolen moments of communication through the day, indeed,
which testified to a degree of confidence between them, and a mutual
preoccupation.
“I’m no to say a word to her; but how am I to keep my tongue in my head
when Dauvit himself says that when he was musin’ the fire burnt!”
“Losh,” cried Katrin, “if it was naething but haudin’ your tongue! but
what I’ve to think of is mair than that. Eh, I’m doing that for Miss
Lily I would do for none of my kin, no, nor Dougal himself; and I wish I
was just clean out of it, for I’m no fond of secrets--they are uncanny
things.”
“Eh, woman! ye wouldna betray them?” Beenie cried.
“Betray them? Am I a person to betray what’s trusted to me? But I wish
there were nae secrets in this world. It’s just aye cheating somebody.
Ye canna be straichtforward, do what ye will, when ye’ve got other
folks’ secrets to keep, let alone them that are your ain.”
“I’m no sae particular,” said Beenie, with a little toss of her head,
“and there will be no stress upon ye for long. It’s just the ae step.”
“I have my doubts,” said Katrin, shaking her head.
“Ye have your doubts? And what doubts would ye have? It will a’ be plain
when ance it’s done. There are nae mair secrets after that! It’s just as
I said, the ae step. Eh me, I could have likit it far better in Sir
Robert’s grand house in George Square, and a’ Edinburgh there, and the
Principal himself to join their hands thegether, and my bonnie Miss Lily
in the white satin, and the auld lady’s grand necklace about her bonnie
white neck. But we canna have every thing our ain gate. The Manse parlor
is just a’ that can be desired in the circumstances we’re noo in; and
when it’s done, it will just be done and naething more to say.”
But Katrin still shook her head. She was a far-seeing woman. “I’m no
just sure we will be out of it sae easy as that,” she said.
This talk was not completed at once, but came in on various occasions, a
few words here and there, as opportunity secured; and the two women,
though both were excited and disturbed, did no doubt enjoy the rôle of
conspirator, more or less, and felt that those secret consultations
added a zest to life. Beenie, whose lips were sealed in the presence of
her mistress, and Katrin, who had to maintain an aspect of absolute calm
in the sight of Dougal, could not but feel a consciousness of
superiority, which consoled them for much that was uncomfortable. But,
indeed, it was exasperatingly easy to deceive Dougal. He suspected
nothing; secrets or mysteries had never come his way. Life meant to him
his daily work, his daily parritch, the comfort of a crack now and then
with his friends, a glass of toddy on an occasion, and the prevailing
consciousness of being well done for at all times, with a clean
hearthstone, and the parritch and the broth both well boiled and
appetizing, more than fell to the lot of ordinary men. If he had known
even that Katrin was keeping a secret from him, it is doubtful whether
he would have been at all moved. He would have thought it some
whigmaleerie of the wife’s, and would have remained perfectly easy in
his mind, in the conviction that she would tell him if it was any thing
he had to do with, and if not, wha was minding? Nothing that she did or
said roused his curiosity to any great degree. There had need to be
something more serious than Dougal to account for the little contraction
over Katrin’s eyes.
This was, perhaps, more visible, however, after the conversation she had
with Mr. Lumsden on the afternoon of New Year’s Day. I cannot tell what
he said to her, but there was something in it additional to what he had
said on the evening before, when he had told her and Beenie what their
parts were to be in the little drama for which he had not yet fully
prepared the chief actor of all. Lily waited for him at the window with
a heart that beat high in her breast on that frosty morning, when all
the stretches of the moor were crisp and white, and every little
rowan-tree and bush of withered heather shone like something of frosted
silver across the gray surface, tinged with a lower tone of whiteness.
Lily saw him almost before he had come within the range of mortal
vision, so far off that the road itself could not be seen, and only a
faint speck that moved was distinguishable in the chill and frozen
silence. The speck moved on, disappeared, came out again till it grew
into absolute sight and knowledge, near enough to be recognized from the
window, and hastily met at the door with a sweep of flying feet and
hands outstretched. “My bonnie Lily! the only flower that’s not
frosted!” he said. The change that had taken place between them was made
plain by this: that he came quite openly to the door, and that Lily
flew to meet him. There was no longer any occasion for the supposed
accident of meetings on the moor. How this change came about Lily did
not stop to enquire. It was, and that was enough; and she was too happy
in it ever to wonder what could have been said or done underneath to
make the lover’s appearance now a thing expected, and which it was
unnecessary to attempt to conceal.
“It will perhaps be for to-morrow and perhaps for the day after; I am
not certain yet,” Ronald said.
“What will perhaps be for to-morrow?” Lily cried, with a sudden flush on
her cheek.
“We are not going to make any fuss about it, Lily. You promised me you
would not desire that. It’s very easy to be married in our country. If
we were to call Dougal up and Katrin, and say we were man and wife, we
would be married just as fast as by all the ministers in the world.”
“Ronald!” cried Lily, growing pale.
“I am not suggesting such a thing. Do you think that I would put a scorn
on my bonnie Lily with a marriage like that? Not I! What I cannot bear
is that you should be stinted of one thing you would like--though, for
my part, the less the better, I say, and the most agreeable to me. But
no; I am not that kind of man. I like the sanction of the Kirk. I like
every thing done decently and in order. That is why I say to-morrow or
the next day, for I have not yet seen Mr. Blythe.”
“And is it to be so soon as that?” said Lily with awe.
“My darling, what object have we in waiting? The vacation is short
enough anyway. We must not lose a day. You promised to be ready at a
moment’s warning. Well, I’m giving you a day’s warning. If every thing
had been right, it would have been you to fix the time, and all your
fancies consulted. But we’re past that, Lily. You know you put yourself
into my hands to have it done as soon as was possible.”
“Did I?” said Lily, confused; and then she added: “I know. I am not one
to make a trouble. It is best to be done when we can--and as soon as we
can--and end this dreary life.”
“That is what I knew you would say. No certainty, no ground to stand on,
and not knowing what might happen at any moment. No, Lily, it is no time
for scruples now.”
“Still,” said Lily, “I would have liked to have heard all your plans and
what we are to do. It is fine planning. It is aye a pleasure, even when
it comes to nothing. And now, when it must come to something----”
“That’s the difference, I suppose, between man and woman,” said Ronald,
with a laugh. “I have no thought of any thing but one thing. I care
nothing about plans. You, that are all made up of imagination, you shoot
past and begin again. But me, I think only of getting my Lily, of having
her for my own. I have neither plots nor plans in my head.”
“It is a good thing, then, that women think of them, for we can’t do
without them,” Lily said. But she was soothed and pleased that her
bridegroom should have no thought but for herself. Perhaps this was what
was most fit for the man. The woman had the outset to think of, the new
house to live in, and every thing else that was involved. The reverse
thought gives pleasure in other circumstances. There is no consistency
in the reasonings of this period of life.
“Let us go out now,” said Ronald; “the frost is hard, and it’s fine dry
walking; we’ll get a turn round the moor, and then I will be off to the
‘toun’ to see the minister, and to-night I’ll come back and tell you all
about it. Wrap up well, for it’s cold, but so bright that it does the
heart good. But it is the day itself, and because it is the day, that
does the heart most good,” he said, once more wrapping Lily up, close
round her pretty throat, with the soft, voluminous folds of the plaid.
The two faces so close together, the light in her eyes, the contagious
happiness in his face, took every shadow from Lily’s heart. There had
been no shadows, only a faint sort of floating gossamer, which had no
meaning, and now it melted all away.
The ramble round the moor filled all the bright noon of the wintry day.
It was not possible to wander among the ling bushes, or by the soft,
meandering lines of turf. All was crisp with the curling whiteness of
the frost, except here and there where a prominent point had been melted
and darkened by the sun. They went along the road, which crackled under
their feet, with small ice crystals in every fissure. The mountains
stood blue in a faint haze that seemed to breathe into the still air,
and the moor stretched white, like a piece of crisp embroidery, under
the shining of the light. How wintry the air was, and how exhilarating,
tightening the nerves and stimulating every force! Toward the north the
sky was heavy and spoke of snow, but there were soft breaks of blue and
lines of yellow light in the brighter quarter. They walked now quickly
as they faced the wind, now slowly as they turned their backs upon it,
and, wrapped in their soft plaids, felt the soft glow and warmth mount
to their youthful cheeks. I doubt if any summer ramble, in the sweetest
air and among the flowers, was more full of pleasure. They talked to
each other incessantly, but perhaps not very much that would bear
repeating; yet there was a little veiled conflict certainly going on all
the time, scarcely conscious, hidden in innocent questions and
suggestions, in innocent seeming evasions. Lily wanted to ask so much,
but half feared to put a direct question lest it should be an offence,
while he wanted to keep every question at arm’s-length, but did not dare
to do so lest it should excite suspicion. There was an occasional flash
of the rapiers, soon covered up in the softest tones and touches, but
still they kept their distinct parts: she anxious to see a little
beyond, he eager to keep her within the limits of the day. He parried
all her thrusts with this pretence: that his thoughts could not stray
beyond to-morrow. “Sufficient unto the day is the happiness thereof,” he
said.
Then they went in and had their mid-day meal together, once more
attended by Beenie, with a world of meaning in every glance. “They are
just twa bonnie doos crooning on a branch,” she said to Katrin, as she
came down stairs for another dish. “Doos!” cried Katrin; “they have a
very good will to their meat, that’s a’ that I can say.” “They are like
twa bonnie squirrels in a wood,” cried Beenie, at her next dive into the
kitchen, “givin’ aye a look the one to the ither.” “Squirrels, my certy!
but I wouldna like to gether the nits for them a’ the year through,”
said Katrin. But when Beenie came back for the pudding, and declared
that “they were like twa bonnie fishes side by side in the burn, the ane
mair silvery and golden than the other,” Katrin’s amazement and
ridicule, and the excitement underneath, found vent in a shriek which
brought Dougal hurrying in from the barn. “Losh, woman! are ye burnt in
the fire, or have ye spilt the boiling pot upon ye, or what have ye
done?” “I’ll gie you the boiling pot yourself, and a dishclout to pin to
your tail, and that will learn ye to ask fule questions!” Katrin said.