“And how are you liking your home-coming?” Mr. Blythe said. “It’s a trial and a risk when you have been away all the best of your life. I’m doubting the auld tower looks but small to your eyes by what it did in the old days.”
“Things are changed certainly,” said Sir Robert a little stiffly, “especially among the old neighbors. There used to be plenty of society; now there seems none, or next to none.”
“And that is true. The old folk are dead and gone; the young generation is changed: the lads go away and never come back, the lasses marry into strange houses. It’s very true; but you are just very fortunate. Like me, you have a child to your old age; though you did not, like me, Sir Robert, take the trouble to provide her for yourself.”
Sir Robert stared a little at this speech, and then said: “If you mean my niece Lily, Blythe, you probably know that she’s very ill in bed, and a cause of great anxiety, not of comfort, to me.”
“Ay, ay,” said the minister, “we had heard something, but did not know it was so bad as that. But it will be a thing that will pass by; just some chill she has got out on the moor, or some other bit small matter. She has been very well and blooming, a fine young creature all the time we have had her here.”
“I am by no means sure,” said Sir Robert, with a cloud on his brow, “that I did not make a mistake in sending her here. I had no intention to send her into a desert. My mind was full of the old times, when we were cheerful enough, as you will remember, Blythe, whatever else we might be. There was not much money going—nor perhaps luxury—but there was plenty of company. However, I’m glad you have so good a report to give of her. She’s neither well nor blooming, poor lassie, now.”
The minister cleared his throat two or three times, as if he found it difficult to resume. “Sir Robert,” he said, and then made a pause, “I am not a man that likes to interfere. I have as little liking for that part as you or any man could have—to be meddled with in what you will think your own affairs.”
Sir Robert stiffened visibly, uplifting his throat in the stiff stock, which, in his easiest moment, seemed to hold him within risk of strangulation. “I fail to see,” he said, “what there is in my affairs that would warrant interference from you or any man; but if you’ve got any thing to say, say it out.”
“I meddle with nobody,” said the minister as proudly, “unless it is for the young of the flock. I can scarcely call you one of my flock, Sir Robert.”
“A grewsome auld tup at the best, you’ll be thinking,” said Sir Robert, with a harsh laugh.