for the like of you. But I’ll let him know, I’ll let him know as soon as he comes up among us, which no doubt he will soon do now.”
“Now, papa,” said Helen, “you will just let Sir Robert alone, and no plot with him to carry Lily away from me: for I am counting very much upon her for company, and it will do her no harm to get the air of the moor for a while and forget all the dissipations of Edinburgh. You will have to tell me all about them, Lily, for I’m the country mouse that has never been away from home. Eh,” said Helen, “I have no doubt every thing is far grander when you’re far off from it than when you’re near. I dare say you were tired of the Edinburgh parties, and I would just give a great deal to see one of them. And most likely you thought the Tower would be delightful, while we are only thinking how dull it will be for you. That is aye the way; what we have we think little of, and what we have not we desire.”
“I was not tired,” said Lily, “except sometimes of the grand dinners that Uncle Robert is so fond of, and I cannot say that I expected the Tower to be delightful; but you know I have no father of my own, and I must just do what I am told.”
“My dear,” said the old minister, “I see you have a fine judgment; for if you had a father of your own, like Eelen there, you would just turn him round your little finger; and I’m much surprised you don’t do the same, a fine creature like you, with your uncle too.”
“Whisht, papa,” said Helen; “we’ll have in the tea, which you know you’re always fond of to get a cup when you can, and it’ll be a refreshment to Lily after her ride. And in the meantime you can tell her some of your stories to make her laugh, for a laugh’s a fine thing for a young creature whatsoever it’s about, if it’s only havers.”
“Which my auld stories are, ye think?” said the minister. “Go away, go away and mask your tea. Miss Lily and me will get on very well without you. I’ll tell ye no stories. They are all very old, and the most of them are printed. If I were to entertain ye with my anecdotes of auld ministers and beadles and the like, ye would perhaps find them again in a book, and ye would say to yourself, ‘Eh, there’s the story Mr. Blythe told me, as if it was out of his own head,’ and you would never believe in me more. But for all that it’s no test being in a book; most of mine are in books, and yet they are mine, and it was me that put them together all the same. But I have remarked that our own concerns are more interesting to us than the best of stories, and I’m a kind of spiritual father to you, my dear. If I did not christen you, I christened your father. Tell me, now that Eelen’s out of the way, what is it that brought ye here? Is it something about a bonnie lad, my bonnie young lass? for that’s the commonest cause of banishment, and as it cannot be carried out with the young man, it’s the poor wee lassies that have the brunt to bear–”
“I never said,” cried Lily, angry tears coming to her eyes, “that there was any reason or that it was for punishment. I just came here because—because Uncle Robert wanted me to come,” she added in a little burst of indignation, yet dignity; “and nobody that I know has a right to say a word.”
“Just so,” said Mr. Blythe; “he wanted you, no doubt, to give an eye to Dougal and Katrin, who might be taking in lodgers or shooting the moors for their own profit for any thing that he can tell. He’s an auld-farrant chield, Sir Robert. He would not say a word to you, but he would reckon that you would find out.”
“Mr. Blythe,” cried Lily with fresh indignation, “if you think my uncle sent me here for a spy, to find out things that do not exist–”
“No, my dear, I don’t, I don’t,” said the minister. “I am satisfied he has a mind above that, and you too. But he’s not without a thread of suspicion in him; indeed, he’s like most men of his years and experience, and believes in nobody. No, no, Dougal does not put the moor to profit, which might be a temptation to many men; but he has plenty of sport himself in a canny way, and there’s a great deal of good game just wasted. You may tell Sir Robert that from his old friend. Just a great deal of good game wasted. He should come and bring a few nice lads to divert you, and shoot the moor himself.”
“That’s just one of papa’s crazes,” said Helen, returning with her teapot in her hand, the tray, with all its jingling cups and saucers, having been put on the table in the meantime. “He thinks the gentlemen should come back from wherever they are, or whatever they may be doing, to shoot the moors. It would certainly be far more cheery for the countryside, but very likely Sir Robert cares nothing about the moor, and is just content with the few brace of grouse that Dougal sends him. I believe it’s considered a luxury and something grand to put on the table in other places, but we have just too much of it here. Now draw to the table and take your tea. The scones are just made, and I can recommend the shortbread, and you must be wanting something after your ride. I have told John to give the powny a feed, and you will feel all the better, the two of you, for a little rest and refreshment. Draw in to the table, my bonnie dear.”
These were before the days of afternoon tea; but the institution existed more or less, though not in name, and “the tea” was administered before its proper time or repeated with a sense of guilt in many houses, where the long afternoon was the portion of the day which it was least easy to get through—when life was most languid, and occupation at a lull. Lily ate her shortbread with a girl’s appetite, and took pleasure in her visit. When she mounted Rory again and set forth on her return, she asked herself with great wonder whether it was possible that there could be any thing under that soft aspect of Helen Blythe, her serene countenance and delicate color, which could in any way correspond with the trouble and commotion in her own young bosom? Helen had, indeed, her father to care for, she was at home, and had, no doubt, friends; but was it possible that a thought of some one who was not there lay at the bottom of all?
Lily confessed to Robina when she got home that she had been much enlivened by her visit, and that Helen was coming to see her, and that all would go well; but when Beenie, much cheered, went down stairs to her tea, Lily unconsciously drew once more to that window, that watchtower, from which nobody was ever visible. The moor lay in all the glory of the evening, already beginning to warm and glow with the heather, every bud of which awoke to brightness in the long rays of the setting sun. It was as if it came to life as the summer days wore toward autumn. The mountains stood round, blue and purple, in their unbroken veil of distance and visionary greatness, but the moor was becoming alive and full of color, warming out of all bleakness and grayness into life and light. The corner of the road under the trees showed like a peep into a real world, not a dreary vacancy from which no one came. There was a cart slowly toiling its way up the slope, its homely sound as it came on informing the silence of something moving, neighborly, living. Lily smiled unconsciously as if it had been a friend. And when the cart had passed, there appeared a figure, alone, walking quickly, not with the slow wading, as if among the heather, of the rare, ordinary passer-by. Lily’s interest quickened in spite of herself as she saw the wayfarer breasting the hill. Who could he be, she wondered. Some sportsman, come for the grouse—some gentleman, trained not only to moorland walking, but to quick progress over smoother roads. He skimmed along under the fir-trees at the corner, up the little visible ascent. Lily almost thought she could hear his steps sounding so lightly, like a half-forgotten music that she was glad, glad to hear again; but he disappeared soon under the rising bank, as every thing did, and she was once more alone in the world. The sun sank, the horizon turned gray, the moor became once more a wilderness in which no life or movement was.
No!—what a jump her heart gave!—it was no wilderness: there was the same figure again, stepping out on the moor. It had left the road, it was coming on with springs and leaps over the heather toward the house. Who was it? Who was it? And then he, he! held up his hand and beckoned, beckoned to Lily in the wilderness. Who was he? Nobody—a wandering traveller, a sportsman, a stranger. Her heart beat so wildly that the whole house seemed to shake with it. And there he stood among the heather, his hat off, waving it, and beckoning to her with his hand.
CHAPTER IX
The
