Ronald walked into Kinloch-Rugas after the plentiful lunch upon which
Katrin had made so many remarks. His head was buzzing and his bosom
thrilling with the excitement natural at that period of existence. He
loved Lily--as well as he was capable of loving--with all the mingled
sentiment and passion, the emotions high and low, the very human and
half divine, which are involved in that condition of mind. He was a
healthy, vigorous, and in no way vicious young man. If he had not the
highest ideal, he had not at all the lowered standard of a man whose
mind has been debased by evil communications. He was, in his way, a true
lover, at the climax of life which is attained by a bridegroom. His
thoughts were set to a kind of rhythmic measure of “Lily, Lily,” as he
walked swiftly and strongly down the long road toward the village. If
his mind had been laid bare by a touch of the angel’s spear, it would
not, I fear, have satisfied Lily, nor any one who loved her, but it
sufficiently satisfied himself. He did not want to look beyond the next
step, which, he had convinced himself, was the right step to take; what
was to follow was, he tried to assure himself, in the providence of God;
or, if that was too serious (but Ronald was a serious man, willingly
conceding to God the right to influence human affairs), it was open to
all the developments, chances even, if you like to say so, of natural
events. Who could say what would happen on the morrow? In the meantime a
reasonable man’s concern was with the events of the day. And though he
was not a highly strung person by nature, he was to-day all lyrical, and
thrilling with the emotions of a bridegroom. He was not unworthy of the
position. His very foot acknowledged that thrill, and struck the ground
in measure, as if the iron strings of frost had been those of a harp.
The passer-by, plodding along with head down and nose half sheltered
from the cutting wind, took that member half out of the folds of his
plaid to see what it was that was so bye-ordinary in the man he met. He
did not sound like a common man going into the town on common business,
nor look like it when the spectator turned to breathe the softer way of
the wind for a moment and look after the stranger. Neither did Ronald
feel like any one else on that wintry afternoon. He was a bridegroom,
and the thrill of it was in all his veins.
It was nearly dark when he came in sight of the lights, chiefly
twinkling lights in windows, for there was no gas as yet to illuminate
every little place as we have it now. In the Manse, with its larger
windows, it was still light enough, and the soft yellow and pink of the
frosty evening sky lent color, as well as light, to the calm of the
parlor, facing toward the west, where Mr. Blythe sat alone. It was the
minister’s musing time. Sometimes he had a doze; sometimes he sat by
the fire, but with his chair turned to the sunset, and indulged in his
own thoughts. These were confessedly, in many cases, his old stories,
over which he would go from time to time, with a choke of a laugh in the
stillness over this and that: perhaps there were moments in which his
musings were more solemn, but of these history bears no record. The
Manse parlor had no feature of beauty. It was a very humdrum room; but
to the minister it was the abode of comfort and peace. He wanted nothing
more than was to be found within its four walls; life was quite bounded
to him by these walls, and I think he had no wish for any future that
went beyond them: his _Scotsman_, which lasted him from one day to
another, till the next (bi-weekly) number came in; his books, chiefly
volumes of old history or Reminiscences, sometimes a Scots (occasionally
printed Scott’s) novel--but that was a rare treat, and not to be
calculated upon; a bout of story-telling now and then with another
clerical brother or old elder whose memory stretched back to those
cheerful, jovial, legendary days, where all the stories come from: these
filled up existence happily enough for the old minister. His work was
over, and I fear that perhaps he had never put very much of his heart
into that, and he had his daughter to serve him “hand and foot,” as the
maids said. He did not need even to take the trouble of finding his
spectacles (which, like most other people, he was always losing) for
himself. “Eelen, where’s my specs?” he said, without moving. Such was
this old Scotch presbyter and sybarite, and though a paradise of black
hair-cloth and mahogany does not much commend itself to us nowadays, I
think Mr. Blythe would gladly have compounded for the deprivation of
pearly gates and golden streets could he have secured the permanence of
this.
He was very glad to see Ronald, notwithstanding that he had become very
anxious to get rid of him during his stay at the Manse. A visitor of any
kind was a godsend in the middle of winter, and at this time of the
year, and especially a visitor from Edinburgh, with news to tell, and
perhaps a fresh story or two of the humors of the courts and the jokes
of the judges, things that did not get in even to _The Scotsman_. “And
what’s a’ your news, Mr. Lumsden?” he said eagerly. Ronald, who had had
many opportunities of understanding the old minister, had come provided
with a scrap or two piquant enough to please him, and what with the
jokes, and what with the politics, made a very good impression in the
first half-hour of his visit. Then came the turn of more personal
things.
“Yon was a fine glass of wine, Mr. Lumsden,” said the minister, with a
slight smack of his lips.
“I am very glad you liked it, sir; it was chosen by one of my friends
who is learned in such matters. I would not trust it to a poor judge
like myself.”
“Better for you, Mr. Lumsden, better for you at your age not to be too
good a judge. Look not upon the wine when it is red, says the prophet,
which is just when it’s best, many persons think. I am strongly of his
opinion when your blood’s hot in your veins, like the most of you young
lads; but when a man begins to go down the hill, and when he’s well
exercised in moderation, and to use without abusing, then a grand jorum
of wine like yon makes glad the heart, as is to be found in one rather
mysterious scripture, of God and man.”
“I hoped it would give you a charitable thought of one that was rather a
_sorner_, as I remember you said, upon your hospitality.”
“That was never meant, that was never meant,” said the minister, waving
his large flabby hands. Ronald had risen from his seat and was now
standing by the fire, leaning his arm on the mantel-piece. The slow
twilight was waning, and though the daffodil sky still shone in the
window, the fire had begun to tell, especially in the shadow of the
half-lit room.
“You see, sir,” said Ronald, with a leap of his heart into his throat,
and of the voice which accompanied it, coming forth with sudden energy,
“there was more in that than met the eye.”
“Ay, do ye say so?” said Mr. Blythe, also with a quickened throb of
curiosity in his voice.
“Miss Ramsay and I--had met in Edinburgh,” said Ronald, clearing his
throat, “we had seen--a great deal of each other. We had, in short----”
“I always said it, I always said it!” said the minister. “I told Eelen
the very first night. I’ve seen much in my day. ‘These two are
troth-plighted,’ I said to my daughter, before ye had been in my house a
single night.”
“I thought it was vain to attempt deceiving your clever eyes,” said
Ronald; “I told Lily so; but ladies, you know, are never so sure--they
think they can conceal things.”
“Thrust their heads into the sand like the ostriches, silly things, and
think nobody can see them!” said the minister. “I know them well; that’s
just what they all do.”
“Well, so it was, at least,” said Ronald. “You will not, perhaps, wonder
now that I stayed as long as I could, outstaying my welcome, I fear, and
wearing out even your hospitality; but it was a question of seeing Lily,
without exciting any suspicion, in a natural, easy way.”
“I will not say much about that last, for it was more than suspicion on
my part.”
“Ah, but every-body is not like you; neither your experience nor your
powers of observation are common,” said Ronald. He paused a moment, to
let this compliment sink in, and then resumed. “Mr. Blythe, I will admit
to you that Sir Robert is not content, and that, in short, Lily was
banished here to take her away from me.”
“I cannot think it a great banishment to be sent to Dalrugas, which is a
fine house in its way, though maybe old-fashioned, and servants to be at
her call night and day,” said the minister, “but you may easily see it
from another point of view. Proceed, proceed,” he added, with another
wave of his hand.
“Well, sir, I can but repeat: Sir Robert does not think me rich enough
for his niece. She is his only kin; he would like her to marry a rich
man; he would sacrifice her, my bonnie Lily, to an old man with a
yellow face and bags of money.”
“Well, well, that’s no so unnatural as you think. I would like my Eelen
to have a warm down-sitting if I could help her to it, to go no further
than myself.”
“I understand that, sir; my Lily is worthy of a prince, if there could
be a prince that loved her as well as I do. But it is me she has chosen
and nobody else, and she is not one to change if she were shut up in
Dalrugas Tower all her life.”
“Eh, I would not lippen to that,” said the minister; “she is but a young
thing. Keep you out of the gate, and let her neither hear from you or
see you, and her bit heart, at that age, will come round.”
“Thank you for the warning, sir,” said Ronald, with a laugh that was
forced and uncomfortable; “that’s what Sir Robert thought, I suppose.
But you may believe there is no pleasure to me in thinking so. And
besides, it would never happen with Lily, for Lily is true as steel.” He
paused for a moment, with a little access of feeling. It remained to be
seen whether he was true as steel himself, and perhaps he was not quite
assured on that point; yet he was capable, so far, of understanding the
matter that he was sure of it in Lily, and the conviction expanded his
breast with pride and pleasure. He paused with natural sentiment, and
partly with the quickening of his breath, to take the full good of that
sensation; and then he resumed:
“I am not rich, you will easily understand; we are a lot of sons at
home, and my share will not be great. But I have a good profession, and
in a few years, so far as I can see, I may be doing with the best. As
far as family is concerned, there can be no question between any Ramsay
and my name.”
The minister waved his hand soothingly over this contention. It was not
to be gainsaid, nor was any comparison of races to be attempted. He
said: “In that case, my young friend, if it’s but a few years to wait
and you will be doing so well, and both young, with plenty of time
before ye, so far as I can see ye can well afford to wait.”
“I might afford to wait, that am kept to my work, and little enough time
to think, but Lily, Mr. Blythe. Here is Lily alone in the wilderness, as
she says. I’m forbidden to see her, forbidden to write to her.”
“Restrictions which ye have broken in both cases.”
“Yes,” cried Ronald. “How could we let ourselves be separated, how could
I leave her to languish alone? I tried as long as I could. I did not
write to her. I did not come near her, but flesh and blood could not
bear it. And then when I saw how glad she was to see me, and how her
bonnie countenance changed----” Here he nearly broke down, his voice
trembled, so genuine and true was his feeling. “We cannot do it,” he
said faintly, “and that’s all that’s to be said. Mr. Blythe, you are the
minister, you have the power in your hands----”
“Eh, man! but I’m only the auld minister nowadays,” cried the old
gentleman, with a sudden outburst of natural bitterness to which he very
seldom gave vent. He was delighted to have nothing to do, but did not
love his supplanter any more on that account. “Ye must ask nothing from
me; go your ways to my assistant and successor--he is your man.”
“I will go to nobody but you!” cried Ronald, with all the fervor of a
temptation resisted. “Mr. Blythe, will you marry Lily to me?”
Mr. Blythe made a long pause. “If ye are rightly cried in the kirk, I
have no choice but to marry ye,” he said.
“But I want it done at once, and very private, without any crying in the
kirk.”
“That would be very irregular, Mr. Lumsden.”
“I know it would, but not so irregular as calling up Beenie and Dougal
and Katrin, and saying before them: ‘This is my wife.’”
“No,” said the minister, “not just so bad as that, but very irregular.
Do ye know, young man, I would be subject to censure by the Presbytery,
and I canna tell what pains and penalties? And why should I do such a
thing, to save you a month or two, or a year or two’s waiting, that is
nothing, nothing at your age?”
“It is a great deal when people are in our circumstances,” cried Ronald.
“Lily so lonely, not a creature near her, no pleasure in her life, no
certainty about any thing: for Sir Robert might hear I had been seen
about, and might just sweep her away, abroad, to the ends of the earth.
You say she would forget, but she does not want to forget, nor do I, you
may be sure, whereas, if you will just do this for us, you will make us
both sure of each other forever, and I can never be taken from her, nor
she from me.”
“Young man,” said the minister impressively, “I got my kirk from the
Ramsays; they’re patrons o’ this parish, and I was a young man with
little influence. I was tutor to Mr. James, but I had little chance of
any thing grander than a parish school, where I might have just
flourished as a stickit minister all my days, and it was the Ramsays
that made me a placed minister, and set me above them a’: that was the
old laird before Sir Robert’s days. But Sir Robert has been very ceevil
the times he has been here. He has asked me whiles to my dinner, and
other whiles he has sent me just as many grouse and paitricks as I could
set my face to. Would it be a just return, think ye, to marry away his
bonnie niece to a landless lad as ye confess ye are, with nothing but
fees at the best, and not too many of them coming in?”
“Mr. Blythe,” cried Ronald, “if it was Mr. James you were tutor to, it
is to Mr. James you owe all this, and Mr. James, had he been living,
would never have gone against the happiness of his only child!”
“Eh! but who can tell that?” cried the minister. “Little was he thinking
of that or of any kind of child. He was a young fellow, maybe as
heedless, maybe more than ye are yourself. Na, there was no thought
neither of wife nor bairn in his head.”
“But,” cried Ronald, “you must feel you have a double duty to one that
is his child, and his only one, little as he knew of it at the time.”
“A double duty: and what is that?” said the minister, shaking his head.
“The duty to keep her from any rash step, puir young unfriended thing,
or to let her work out her silly will, which, maybe, in a year’s time
she would rather have put her hand in the fire than have done?”
“You give a bonnie character of me,” Ronald said, with a harsh laugh.
“I am giving no character of you. I am thinking nothing of you. I am
thinking of the bit lassie. It is her I am bound to protect, both for
her father’s sake and her own. Most marriages that are made in haste
are, as the proverb says, repented of at leisure. She might be
heart-grieved at me that helped her to her will to-day when she knows
more of life and what it means. Na, na, my young friend, take you your
time and wait. Waiting is aye a salutary process. It brings out many a
hidden virtue, it consolidates the character, and if you are diligent in
your business it brings ye your reward, which ye enjoy more than if you
had snatched it before your time.”
“I tell you, minister,” cried Ronald, “that we cannot wait, that it’s a
matter of life and death to us, both to Lily and me!”
“What is that you are saying? I am hoping there is no meaning in it, but
only words,” the old man said sharply in an altered tone.
The room had grown almost quite dark, the daffodil color had all faded
away, and the heavy curtain of the coming snow was stretching over the
last faint streak of light. The fire was smouldering and added little to
the room, which lay in a ruddy dark, warmed rather than lighted up.
Ronald stood with his elbow on the mantel-piece close to the old
minister, whose face had been suddenly raised toward him with an
expression of keen command and alarm. And who can tell what devil had
stolen in with the dark to put words of shame into the mouth of the
young man who had come down the frosty moorland road like a song of joy
and youth? It was rapid as a dart. He stooped down and said something in
the old minister’s ear.
The shameful lie! the shameful, shameful lie! The temptation, the fall,
was so instantaneous that Ronald himself was scarcely conscious of it,
or of what he had done in his haste. The old gentleman uttered into the
darkness a sort of moan. And then he spoke briefly and sharply, with a
keen tone of scorn in his words which stung his companion even through
the confusion of the time.
“If that’s so, ye’re a disgraceful blackguard! but it’s not my part to
speak. Be here at this house the morn, with her and your witnesses; I
insist upon the witnesses, two of them, to sign the lines. I will send
Eelen out of the way. Come before it’s dark, as ye came to-day; I am
always alone at this hour. That’s enough, man, I hope. What are you
wanting more?”
“I want only to say that you judge me very hastily, Mr. Blythe.”
“It’s a case in which least said is soonest mended,” said the minister.
“To-morrow, just before the darkening, and, thank the Lord, there need
not be another word said between you and me!”