“Oh, my darlin’ leddy! but you’ll get him again, you’ll get him again!” cried Beenie, with streaming eyes.
“I hope in God I shall,” said Lily, tearless, lifting her eyes and clasping her hands. “I hope in God I shall, or else that he’ll let me just lay down my head and die!”
“He has raised you up from the very grave,” said Beenie. “We had nae hope, Katrin and me; we had nae hope at all. Here she is hersel’ that will tell you. There was ae night—oh, come Katrin, come and bear me out—when you and me just stood over her, and kissed the bonnie white face on the white pillow, and wrung each other’s hands, and said: ‘If the baby’s lost and her reason gane, God bless her, she’ll be better away.’”
“Whisht with your nonsense,” said Katrin; “that’s a’ past, and now we have nae such thoughts in our heads. But what will you do, my dear leddy, my bonnie leddy? Will ye bring him back here? A fine thriving bairn like yon you canna hide him. The first day, the first night, and the secret would be parish news. I was frichtened out of my wits the first days for Dougal, who is not a pushing man, to do him justice, or one that asks questions; but with Sir Robert in the house, oh, mem, my bonnie dear, what will ye do?”
“I have never wanted to make any secret, Katrin,” Lily said.
“I ken that; but there will be an awfu’ deal to tell when once you begin. And the bairn he is an awfu’ startling thing to begin with. Do ye no think an auld gentleman like Sir Robert had better be prepared for it? It would give him a shock. It might even hairm him in his health. I would take counsel about it. Oh, I would take counsel! Do naething in a hurry, not to scandalize the country, nor to give our auld maister a fright that might do him harm.”
“To scandalize the country!” said Lily, pale with anger. “Oh! to think it’s me, me that she says that to! Do you think it is better to deceive every-body and be always a lie whatever way you turn?”
“Mem,” said Katrin, “my dear, you’ll excuse me; I must just say the truth. It’s an awfu’ thing to deceive, as you say, and well I ken it was never your wyte. But the worst of it is that when you begin you cannot end. You just have to go on. I’m no saying one thing or another. It’s no my business, if it wasna that I just think more of you than one mortal creature should think of another. Oh! just take thought and take counsel! The maister is an old man. You’ve beguiled him with your winsome ways just as you’ve beguiled us a’. Can I see a thing wrong you do, whatever it is? And yet I have a glimmerin’ o’ sense between whiles. If he’s looking for you back to be his bonnie Lily and his companion, and syne sees you come in with a bairn in your arms and another man’s name, what will the auld man do? Oh, mem, the dear bairn, God bless him, and grant that you may soon have him in your airms! But if you hold by the auld gentleman and his life and comfort, for God’s sake take thought! for that is in it, too.”
“There is nothing, nothing,” cried Lily, “that should keep a mother from her bairn! You are a kind woman, Katrin, but you’ve never had a bairn. When once I get him here, how can I ever give him up again?” she said, straining her arms to her breast as if the child was within them. Beenie wept behind her mistress’s shoulder, overwhelmed with sympathy, but Katrin shook her head.
“When you see Mr. Lumsden there, and go over it all——”