“Hold your peace, you coof. Do ye think the like of you can faddom a young leddy that is just close kin to every thing that’s bonnie? You, an auld gillie, a Highland tyke, a——”
“Don’t abuse Dougal, though you have paid me the prettiest compliment. Could I have the powny to-morrow, Dougal, to go down the water a bit? and I will take a piece with me, Katrin, in case I should be late; and then you need never fash your heads about me whether I come in to dinner or not.”
“My bonnie leddy, I like every-body to come in to their denner,” said Katrin, with a cloud upon her face.
“So do I, in a usual way. But I have been here a long time. How long, Beenie? A whole month, fancy that! and they tell me there is a very bonnie glen down by the old bridge that people go to see.”
“So there is, a real bonnie bit. I’ll take ye there some day mysel’, and Beenie, she can come in the cairt with the black powny gin she likes. She’ll mind it well; a’ the bairns are keen to gang in the vacance to the Fairy Glen.”
“I’ll not wait for Beenie this time, or you either, Dougal,” said Lily, again with a laugh. “I will just take Rory for my guide and find it out for myself. I think,” she added, with a deeper blush and a faltering voice, “that Miss Helen from the Manse——”
She did not get far enough to tell that faltering fib. “Oh, if you are to be with Miss Eelen! Miss Eelen knows every corner of the Fairy Glen. I will be very easy in my mind,” said Katrin, “if Miss Eelen’s there; and I’ll put up that cold chicken in a basket, and ye shall have a nice lunch as ever two such nice creatures could sit down to. But ye’ll mind not to wet your feet, nor climb up the broken arch of the auld brig yonder. Eh, but that’s an exploit for a stirring boy, and no a diversion for leddies. And ye’ll just give the powny a good feed, and take him out a while in the morning, Dougal, that he mayna be too fresh.”
“I’m just thinking,” said Dougal, “there’s a dale to do the morn; but if ye were to wait till the day after, I could spare the time, Miss Lily, to take you mysel’.”
“And if it’s just preceesely the morn that Miss Eelen’s coming!” cried Katrin, with great and solid effect, while Lily, alarmed, began to explain and deprecate, pleading that she could find the way herself so easily, and would not disturb Dougal for the world. She hurried in after this little episode to avoid any further dangers, to be met by Beenie’s round eyes and troubled face in the dark under the stair. “Oh, Miss Lily!” Beenie cried, putting a hand of remonstrance on her arm, which Lily shook off and flew upstairs, very happy, it must be allowed, in her first attempt at deceit. Robina looked more scared and serious than ever when she appeared with a lighted candle in the drawing-room, shaking her solemn head. Her eyes were so round, and her look so solemn, that she looked not unlike a large white owl in the imperfect light, and so Lily told her with a tremulous laugh, to avert, if possible, the coming storm. But Beenie’s storm, though confused and full of much vague rumble of ineffectual thunder, was not to be averted. She repeated her undefined but powerful remonstrance, “Oh, Miss Lily!” as she set down the one small candle in the midst of the darkness, with much shaking of her head.
“Well, what is it? Stop shaking your head, or you will shake it off, and you and me will break our backs looking for it on the floor, and speak out your mind and be done with it!” cried Lily, stamping her foot upon the carpet. Robina made a solemn pause, before she repeated, still more emphatically, her “Oh, Miss Lily!” again.