Lily, at least in her own mind, would admit of no doubt. She was transported in a moment from the depths to the heights. So much the more as it had been impossible yesterday to see any light, there was now such a flushing of the whole horizon that doubt was out of the question. She came toward the house with him with his arm around her, thinking of no precautions. Why should they conceal any thing, this young pair? The man had come to take his wife away. When he withdrew his arm from her waist and drew her hand through it, it did not, however, strike her that there was any thing in that. It was more decorous, like old married people, no longer mere lad and lass. She walked proudly by his side, leaning on his arm. Who cared if Sir Robert himself were there to see? Lily had never cared much for Sir Robert, had always been ready to defy him and vindicate her rights over her own life. As it happened there was nobody but Katrin standing at the door, looking out with her hand over her eyes. Katrin was very quick to make believe that she was dazzled by any little bit of light.
And the lonely moor lighted up and became as paradise to Lily. He brought her all kinds of news, besides the best news of all, which was to see him there. He brought back her old world to her—the world where she had been so happy and so full of friends; her new world, where so soon, in a day or two, she was to find her young companions again, and resume the former life more cordial, more kind, more full of friendship and every gentle affection than ever.
While he sat there thawing, expanding, shaking the cold from him, Lily, who a little while ago had been the fastidious little maiden, courted and served, began to move about the room serving him, eager to get every thing for him he wanted, to undo his muffler, to bring him his slippers. Yes, she would have liked to bring him his slippers as she brought him, like a house-maid, on a little silver salver, not a cup of tea, which probably Ronald would not have appreciated, but something stronger, “to keep out the cauld,” which Katrin recommended and brought upstairs with her own hands to the drawing-room door. “You are not going to serve me, my Lily?” Ronald said. “But I am just going to serve you,” she cried, with a little stamp of her foot, “and who has a better right? and who should wait on my man but me that am bound to take care of him? and him come to take me away.”
Was she afraid to say these words out loud lest they should break the spell? or was he afraid that she might say them and he not be able to ignore them? But between them something was thrown down, a noise was made in which they were inaudible. I do not know if Lily had any little tremor that made her avoid explanation that evening; at all events she had a sort of hunger to be happy, to enjoy it to the utmost. She laid the table with her own hands, shutting the door in the face of the astonished Robina, who hurried up as soon as she came in to have her share. “I can do without you for all so grand as you think yourself,” Lily cried; “I am just going to wait upon my own man!”
“Oh, Miss Lily!” cried Beenie, terrified; but she added to herself: “What a good thing there’s naebody in the house! Dougal will not be in till it’s late, and most likely he’ll be fou when he comes—and be nane the wiser. And naething will need to be said.” I cannot tell whether Katrin made quite the same explanation to herself; but she had taken her precautions in case that should happen to Dougal which happened in these days to many honest men on a market night without much infringement of their character for sobriety. It would make the explanation much simpler about the gentleman upstairs. In short, it would not be necessary to make any explanation at all.
“Get out the boxes, Beenie,” said Lily, at a later hour. “Do not make any fuss or have things lying about, for gentlemen, you know, cannot endure that; but just prepare quietly, without any fuss.”
“Oh, Miss Lily! do you think it has come to that?” Beenie cried, clasping her hands with a start of joyful surprise, but with a countenance full of doubt.
“And what else should it come to?” cried Lily, radiant. “Is this what folk are married for, to live one in Edinburgh and one up far in the Hielands? And what should my man come for but to take me home?”
She must have believed it or she would not have said it with such boldness. She gave Beenie a shake and then a kiss, but cried: “Don’t make a confusion, don’t leave the things lying about, for that is what gentlemen cannot endure,” as she ran away to rejoin her husband. Robina stood immovable, looking after her. “Who has learnt her that?” she said to herself; and then she began to shake her head. “They soon, soon learn what a gentleman canna bide; and set him up! that he should not bide any thing coming from her!” But Beenie did not bring out any boxes. She concluded that at all events it would be time enough for that to-morrow.
Ronald remained for three or four days, during which time Dougal, who had carried out the judicious previsions of the women, and had required no explanations of any kind on the market night, maintained a very sullen countenance and did not welcome the visitor, of whom he was suspicious without well knowing why. During this time there was scarcely any pretence kept up of sending Ronald off to the cottage of Tam Robison or in any way making a stranger of him. He was “the young leddy’s freend.” “Young leddies had nae sic freends in my time,” said Dougal. “They have aye had them in my time,” said Katrin, “and that cannot be far different.” He did not know what to say; but he was very glum, and open to no blandishments on the part of the stranger. And those were days of anxious happiness for Lily. Ronald said nothing upon that one sole subject which she longed to know of. He sounded no note of freedom amid all the litanies he sang to her about her own sweetness, her beauty, her kindness. Lily grew sick of hearing her own praises. “Oh, if he would but say I was an ugly, troublesome thing! and then say: ‘You must be ready, Lily, for we’re going home to-morrow!’” But Lily was very sweet to her husband; this short visit was full of delight to him; he loved to look at her, to take her in his arms, to know she was his. Going away from her was hard to bear. He would have bemoaned his very hard case if he had not feared that she would beseech him to put an end to it, to take her away with him, and that it need be hard no longer. That was not what he wanted. He preferred the moments of rapture and the separations between. At least he preferred them to the loss of many other things which would be otherwise involved.