Lilias answered for both. Miss Insches’ last master-stroke had entirely silenced Helen.
Halbert all this time had been alone, or nearly so, and now Lilias perceived him at the other end of the room, patiently listening to Mrs Gray; so there was a general movement to rescue him. Halbert had felt rather de trop this evening; he was almost inclined to chime in at first with the lamentations of the mournful lady; and it was a relief to all parties when Mr Insches changed places with the young heir of Mossgray.
CHAPTER XIX.
Through the earth there runs a sound
Music of green nooks and hills,
For Spring, soft-handed, frees the bound
Rivers and sweet rills;
Trickling, singing, from the fountains,
All day long they cheer the mountains.
So the warm streams of the heart
Sometimes ’neath the ice grow chill,
Till the Spring with kindly art
Wakes the sleeping rill,
And like the brooks, old loves, new flowing,
Stir all fair things to happier growing.
The spring sunshine began to dawn on the waiting world again. The gentle days prolonged themselves, lingering out in long, soft, poetic twilights. Lilias Maxwell had been nearly a year at Mossgray.
And Halbert Graeme began to feel himself in great want of some outlet for his young activity. He said little now about the momentous matter which had brought him to Mossgray, and though he did sometimes complain in his letters to the North that the fortune which it was so very necessary to make was as far in the distance as ever, and that there seemed no prospect of being able to reach even the beginning, Halbert was by no means discontented; this genial country life was natural to him: he only wanted something to do; and after a considerable agitation he attained to that. Mossgray graciously permitted himself to be made an experimental farmer, and with great glee Halbert plunged into the desired labour.
“Nae fears,” said the sagacious Saunders Delvie, Mossgray’s man, as Mrs Mense expressed her fears to him, that the strength of “the young Laird” might be taxed too greatly; “it’s naething but a maggot. I’ll just gie him till he wearies; when he’s dune out, he can aye rest when he likes, and that’s mair than ye can say for mony a hard-working man. Gie him the length o’ his tether; he’ll tire sooner than anybody else.”
“Ay, but Mr Halbert’s an active lad,” said the housekeeper; “and so was his father before him; if the tane had but been as innocent as the tither; but ane canna mend what’s past.”
A frown came darkly over the face of Mossgray’s man.