And then, as was right, Ronald said good-night as the rural band streamed away from the door. The curious group of the guisards, some of them in white shirts outside their garments, some in breastplates of tin, with an iron pot on their heads by way of helmet, “set him home” with much respectful kindness. “But I wuss ye were coming with us to the toun, for Tam the shepherd’s is no a howff for a gentleman,” they said.
“Any hole will do for me,” said Ronald in the exhilaration of the evening; and all the house came out of doors to speed the parting guests. The moon shone mistily over the long stretch of the moor, throwing up a sinister gleam here and there from the deep cuttings, and flinging a veil as of gossamer over the great breadth of the country. The air was fresh, not over-cold, “saft,” as Dougal called it, with the suggestion of rain, and the sudden irruption of voices and steps into the supreme and brooding silence made the strangest effect in the middle of the night. Lily stood watching them as they streamed away, Ronald so distinct from them all as they streamed down under the shadow of the bank, to show again, chiefly by reason of their disguises, upon the road a little way down. Lily lingered until a speck of white in the distance was all that was visible. She was wrapped in a plaid which Ronald had put round her, drawing the soft green and checkered folds closely around her face, and as warm physically as she was at heart. Now he was himself; he had flung all prudences and fancies to the wind; he had forgotten Sir Robert and his fortune, and every other common thing that could come between. Lily danced up the spiral staircase with a heart that sang still more than her lips did as she “turned” the tune to which they had been dancing. No one can keep still to whom “Tullochgoram” is sung or played. She danced up the stairs, keeping time faster and faster to the mad melody—the essence unadulterated of reckless fun and drollery.
“Eh, my bonnie leddy!” Beenie cried, who had gone before with the candles; while Katrin stood looking after her, and Dougal locked and bolted the great hall-door. Katrin shook her head a little: she was much experienced. “Eh, if he be but worthy of her!” she sighed.
“It’s late, late at nicht, and the New Year well begun,” said Robina. “Eh, Miss Lily, you’ll never forget this New Year?”
“Why should I forget it?” said Lily. “You had better wait till it is past before you say that. But maybe you are right, after all, for there never was a Hogmanay like this; and to think that the morn will come, and that it will be no more like the other days than this has been! Beenie, did you ever hear that folk might be as feared for joy as for trouble? or is it only me that am so timorsome, and cannot tell which it is going to be?”
“’Deed, and I’ve heard o’ that many’s the day. It’s just the common way, my bonnie dear. Many a bonnie lassie would fain flee to the ends of the earth the day before her bridal that is just pleased enough when a’s said and done. You mustna lose heart.”
“I’m not losing heart,” said Lily. “The day before my bridal! Is that what it is? I will just be happy to-night and never think of the morn; for when I begin to think, it takes so many things to be satisfied, and I would like to be satisfied just for once, and take no thought.”
Robina had a great deal to do in Lily’s room that night. She kept moving to and fro, softly opening and shutting drawers and presses, laying away her mistress’s things with a care that was scarcely necessary, and meant only restlessness and excitement and an incapacity to keep still. Long before she had done moving about the half-lighted room Lily was fast asleep, her excitement, though presumably greater, not being enough to keep sleep from the eyes which were dazzled with the sudden gleam of something so new and strange in her life, as well as tired with an unusual vigil. Lily slept as soundly as a child till the clear, somewhat shrill daylight, touched with frost, shone upon her late in the wintry morning and called her up much more effectually than the wavering call of Beenie, who was hanging over her in the morning, as she had been at night, the first to meet her eyes.
“Eh, Miss Lily, what a grand sleep ye have had!” Beenie cried. She had slept but little herself, her head full of the new situation and all the strange things that might be to come. The house in general had a sense of excitement breathing through it, not visible, indeed, in Dougal, who was, as usual, wrestling with the powny outside, but very apparent in Katrin, who went about her morning work with an extremely serious face, as if all the cares of the world were on her shoulders. Robina and she had various stolen moments of communication through the day, indeed, which testified to a degree of confidence between them, and a mutual preoccupation.
“I’m no to say a word to her; but how am I to keep my tongue in my head when Dauvit himself says that when he was musin’ the fire burnt!”