to speak of, he became very soon docile—as docile as his nature permitted—and gave her only as much trouble as amused Lily. They went all the way to the toun together, an incongruous but friendly pair, he pausing occasionally when a very tempting mouthful of emerald-green grass appeared among the bunches of ling, she addressing him with amiable remonstrances as Dougal did, and eventually touching his point of honor or sense of shame, so that he made a little burst of unaccustomed speed, and got over a good deal of ground in the stimulus thus applied. He was not like the trim and glossy steeds on which, with her long habit reaching half-way to the ground, and a careful groom behind, Lily had ridden out with Sir Robert in the days of her grandeur, which already seemed so far off. But she was, perhaps, quite as comfortable in the tweed skirt, in which she could spring unfettered from Rory’s back and move about easily without yards of heavy cloth to carry. The long habit and the sleek steed and the groom turned out to perfection would have been out of place on the moor; but Rory, jogging along with his rough coat, and his young mistress in homespun were entirely appropriate to the landscape.
It required a good many efforts, however, before the final code of amity was established between them, the rule of bearing and forbearing, which encouraged Lily to so long a ride. When she slipped off his back at the Manse door, Rory tossed his shaggy head with an air of relief, and looked as if he might have set off home immediately to save himself further trouble; but he thought better of it after a moment and a few lumps of sugar, and was soon in the careful hands of the minister’s man, who was an old and intimate friend, and on the frankest terms of remonstrance and advice. Lily was not by any means so familiar in the minister’s house. She went through the little ragged shrubbery where the big straggling lilac bushes were all bare and brown, and the berries of the rowan-trees beginning to redden, but every thing unkempt and ungracious, the stems burned, and the leaves blown away before their time by an unfriendly wind. The monthly rose upon the house made a good show with its delicate blossoms, looking far too fragile for such a place, yet triumphant in its weakness over more robust flowers; and a still more fragile-looking but tenacious and indestructible plant, the great white bindweed or wild convolvulus, covered the little porch with its graceful trails of green, and delicate flowers, which last so short a time, yet form so common a decoration of the humblest Highland cottages. Lily paused to look through the light lines of the climbing verdure as she knocked at the Manse door. It was so unlike any thing that could be expected to bloom and flourish in the keen northern air. It gave her a sort of consoling sense that other things as unlike the sternness of the surroundings might be awaiting her, even here, at the end of the world.
And nothing could have been more like the monthly rose on the dark gray wall of the Manse than Helen Blythe, who came out of the homely parlor to greet Lily when she heard who the visitor was. “Miss Eelen” was Lily’s senior by even more than had been supposed, but she did not show any sign of mature years. She was very light of figure and quick of movement, with a clear little morning face extremely delicate in color, mild brown eyes that looked full of dew and freshness, and soft brown hair. She came out eagerly, her “seam” in her hand, a mass of whiteness against her dark dress, saying, “Miss Ramsay, Dalrugas?” with a quick interrogative note, and then Helen threw down her work and held out both her hands. “Oh, my bonnie little Lily,” she cried in sweet familiar tones. “And is it you? and is it really you?”
“I think I should have known you anywhere,” said Lily. “You are not changed, not changed a bit; but I am not little Lily any longer. I am a great deal bigger than you.”
“You always were, I think,” said Helen, “though you were only a bairn and me a little, little woman, nearly a woman, when you were here last. Come ben, my dear, come ben and see papa. He does not move about much or he would have come to welcome you. But wait a moment till I get my seam, and till I find my thimble; it’s fallen off my finger in the fulness of my heart, for I could not bide to think about that when I saw it was you. And, oh, stand still, my dear, or you’ll tramp upon it! and it’s my silver thimble and not another nearer than Aberdeen.”
“I’ve got one,” cried Lily, “and you shall have it, Helen, for I fear, I fear it is not so very much use to me.”
“Oh, whisht, my dear. You must not tell me you don’t like your seam. How would the house go on, and what would folk do without somebody to sew? For my part I could not live without my seam. Canny, canny, my bonnie woman, there it is! They are just dreadful things for running into corners—almost as bad as a ring. But there is a mischief about a ring that is not in a thimble,” said Helen, rising, with her soft cheeks flushed, having rescued the errant thimble from the floor.
“And are you always at your seam,” said Lily, “just as you were when I was little, and you used to come to Dalrugas to play?”
“I don’t think you were ever so little as me,” said Helen with her rustic idiom and accent, her low voice and her sweet look, both as fresh as the air upon the moor. She did not reach much higher than Lily’s shoulder. She had the most serene and smiling face, full, one would have said, of genuine ease of heart. Was this so? or was her mind full, as Katrin had said, of unhappy love and anxious thoughts? But it was impossible to believe so, looking at this soft countenance, the mouth which had not a line, and the eyes which had not a care.
Nowadays the humblest dwelling which boasts two rooms to sit in possesses a dining-room and drawing-room, but at that period drawing-rooms were for grand houses only, and the parlor was the name of the family dwelling-place. It was very dingy, if truth must be told. The furniture was of heavy mahogany, with black hair-cloth. Though it was still high summer, there was a fire in the old-fashioned black grate, and close beside, in his black easy chair, was the minister, a heavy old man with a bad leg, who was no longer able to get about, and indeed did very little save criticise the actions of his assistant and successor, a man of new-fangled ways and ideas unlike his own. He had an old plaid over his shoulders, for he was chilly, and a good deal of snuff hanging about the lapels of his coat. His countenance was large and fresh-colored, and his hair white. In those days it was not the fashion to wear a beard.
“So that’s Miss Lily from the town,” he said. “Come away ben, come ben. Set a chair by the fire for the young lady, Eelen, for she’ll be cold coming off the moor. It’s always a cold bit, the moor. Many a cough I’ve catched there when I was more about the countryside than I am now. Old age and a meeserable body are sore hindrances to getting about. Ye know neither of them, my young friend, and I hope you’ll never know.”
“Well, papa, it is to be hoped Lily will live to be old, for most folk desires it,” said Helen. Papaw, a harsh reporter would have considered her to say, but it was not so broad as a w; it was more like two a’s—papaa—which she really said. She smiled very benignantly upon the old gentleman and the young creature whom he accosted. The name of gout was never mentioned, was, indeed, considered an unholy thing, the product of port-wine and made dishes, and not to be laid to the account of a clergyman. But Mr. Blythe contemplated with emotion, supported on his footstool, the dimensions of a much swollen toe.
“Well,” said he, “I hope she’ll never live to have the rose in her foot, or any other ailment of the kind. And how’s Sir Robert, my dear? Him and me are neighbor-like; there is not very much between us. Is he coming North this year to have a pop at the birds, or is he thinking like me, I wonder, that a good easy chair by the fire is the best thing for an auld man? and a brace of grouse well cooked and laid upon a toast more admirable than any number of them on the moor?”
“I don’t think he is coming for the shooting,” said Lily, doubtful. Sir Robert was in many respects what was then called a dandy, and any thing more unlike the exquisite arrangements for his comfort, carried out by his valet, than the old clergyman’s black cushion and footstool and smouldering fire could not be.
“You’ll have had an illness yourself,” said the minister, “though you do not look like it, I must say. Does she, now, Eelen, with a color like that? But your uncle would have done better, my dear, to take you travelling,
