“I might afford to wait, that am kept to my work, and little enough time to think, but Lily, Mr. Blythe. Here is Lily alone in the wilderness, as she says. I’m forbidden to see her, forbidden to write to her.”
“Restrictions which ye have broken in both cases.”
“Yes,” cried Ronald. “How could we let ourselves be separated, how could I leave her to languish alone? I tried as long as I could. I did not write to her. I did not come near her, but flesh and blood could not bear it. And then when I saw how glad she was to see me, and how her bonnie countenance changed——” Here he nearly broke down, his voice trembled, so genuine and true was his feeling. “We cannot do it,” he said faintly, “and that’s all that’s to be said. Mr. Blythe, you are the minister, you have the power in your hands——”
“Eh, man! but I’m only the auld minister nowadays,” cried the old gentleman, with a sudden outburst of natural bitterness to which he very seldom gave vent. He was delighted to have nothing to do, but did not love his supplanter any more on that account. “Ye must ask nothing from me; go your ways to my assistant and successor—he is your man.”
“I will go to nobody but you!” cried Ronald, with all the fervor of a temptation resisted. “Mr. Blythe, will you marry Lily to me?”
Mr. Blythe made a long pause. “If ye are rightly cried in the kirk, I have no choice but to marry ye,” he said.
“But I want it done at once, and very private, without any crying in the kirk.”
“That would be very irregular, Mr. Lumsden.”
“I know it would, but not so irregular as calling up Beenie and Dougal and Katrin, and saying before them: ‘This is my wife.’”
“No,” said the minister, “not just so bad as that, but very irregular. Do ye know, young man, I would be subject to censure by the Presbytery, and I canna tell what pains and penalties? And why should I do such a thing, to save you a month or two, or a year or two’s waiting, that is nothing, nothing at your age?”