IT was all like a dream, a scene without light or sound, shadows moving in the faint twilight, at first not a word said. Beenie remained at the door, holding the handle to guard the entrance. Katrin had risen up too, and stood against the wall, trembling very much, but not betraying it in this faint light. These two were in the light side of the room, the half made visible by the window with its fading sunset glimmer. The other two passed into the darker side and were all but lost to sight. A sudden flicker of the fire caught the color of Lily’s dress and revealed her outline for the moment. She had taken off her hat, not knowing why, and the soft beaver with its feather was hanging down by her side in her hand. Katrin made a step forward and relieved her of it, trembling lest some dreadful voice should come to her ears out of the darkness, though not seeing the minister’s eyes, which shot upon her a fiery glance. Then he broke that strange haunted silence, in which so many thoughts and passions were hidden, by his voice suddenly rising harsh, sounding as if it were loud: it was not at all loud, it was, indeed, a soft voice on ordinary occasions, only in the circumstances and in the intense quiet it had a strange tone. To Ronald it sounded menacing, to Lily only half alarming, as she knew no reason why it should be less kind than usual; the women were so awe-stricken already that to them it was as the voice of fate. The brief little ceremony was as simple as could be conceived. The troth was not given, as in other rites, by the individuals themselves, but simply said by the old minister’s deepening voice, which he was at pains to subdue after the shock of the first words, and assented to by the bride and bridegroom, Lily, to the half horror of the two women, who gripped each other wildly in their excitement at the sound, giving an audible murmur of assent, while Ronald bowed, which was the usual form. “Yon’ll be the English way,” Katrin whispered to Beenie. “Oh, whisht, whisht!” said the other. And then in the darkness there ensued a few rolling words of prayer, the long vowels solemnly drawn out, the long words following each other slowly and with a certain grandeur of diction in their absolute simplicity, and the formula common to all: “Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.” And then there was a little stir in the darkness and all was over.
“But there’s just this to say to you, young man,” came out of the gloom from the old voice, quavering a little with feeling or fatigue: “Forasmuch as ye have been wanting before, so much the more are ye pledged now to be all a man ought to be to this young creature that has trusted herself to you. If ever I hear an ill word of your conduct or your care, and me living, you will have one to answer to that will have it in his power to do you an ill turn, and will not refrain. Mind you this: if I am in the land of the living, and know of any hairm to this poor lassie, I will not refrain; and ye know what I mean, and that I am one that will do what I say.”
“If you think I require to be frightened into loving and cherishing my bonnie wife——” said Ronald, confused and alarmed, but attempting to take a high tone.
“Oh, Mr. Blythe!” cried Lily, “how little you know!” She could speak in the dark, where no one could see, though the light would have reduced her to silence and blushes. She put her hand with a pretty gesture within Ronald’s arm.
“I, maybe, know more than I’m thought to do,” he said gruffly; “light that candle that you’ll find on the mantel-piece, and let us get our work done.” The candle brought suddenly to light the confused scene, all the party standing except the figure of the minister, large and shapeless in his big chair. And there was a moment of commotion, while one by one they signed the necessary papers, the young pair quickly, the women with a grotesqueness of awe and difficulty which might have transferred the whole scene at once to the regions of the burlesque. Both to Katrin and Robina it was a very solemn business, slowly accomplished with much contortion both of countenance and figure. “Women, can ye not despatch?” Mr. Blythe said sternly. “My daughter may be here any minute, the time of my supposed rest is over, and this sederunt should be over too. Marget will be in from the kitchen with the lamp.”
“Oh, Beenie, be quick, quick!” murmured Lily. She had feared to be entreated with the constant hospitality of the Manse to wait until Helen came, and to take tea. It gave her a curious wound to feel that this was not likely to be the case, even though she was most anxious to escape. She was indeed a little frightened for Marget and the lamp, and for Helen and the tea; but it hurt her that the minister who had just made her Ronald’s wife should have any hesitation. Feelings are not generally so fine in rural places. A bride is one to be eagerly embraced, not kept out of sight. Though, indeed, she did not want to see Helen or any one, she said almost indignantly to herself.
“And now there are your lines, Mistress Lumsden,” the minister said. “Keep them safe and never let them out of your own hands, and I wish ye all that is good. If it’s been a hasty step or an unconsidered, it’s you that will probably have to bear the wyte of it. I will not deceive you with smooth things; but if there has been error at the beginning——”
“Excuse me,” said Ronald in a low fierce voice, “but there is snow in the sky, and it’s already dark, and I must take my wife away.”
“Don’t you interrupt me,” said the old minister, “or I will, maybe, say more than I meant to say. If there’s been error at the beginning, my poor lassie, take you care to be all the more heedful in time to come. Do nothing ye cannot acknowledge in the face of day. And God bless you and keep you and lift up the light of his countenance upon you,” he said, lifting up his arms. The familiar action, the familiar words, subdued all the group in a moment. He had not meant with these words to bless the bride that had been brought before him as poor Lily had been, but it had been drawn from him phrase by phrase.
And then the door opened, and Lily found herself once more outside in the keen air touched with the foretaste of snow which is so distinct in the North. The sky was heavy with it for half the circle from north to south, but in the west was something of that golden radiance still, and a clear blueness above, and one or two stars sparkling through the frost. She lifted her eyes to these with relief, with a feeling of consolation. Was that the light of His countenance that was to shine upon her? But below all things were dark and dreary. To the hurry of excitement which had possessed her before something vexing, troublous, had come in. She had wished, and was eager to hurry away, to escape Helen, but why had she been hurried away, made to perceive that she was not intended to see Helen? It was more fantastic than could be put into words. And Ronald too was in so great a hurry, eager to get her beyond the observation of the people coming from the market, almost to hide her in a sheltered corner, while he himself went to get the pony. “Nobody will see you here,” he said. She wished that nobody should see her, but yet an uncalled-for tear came to Lily’s eyes as she stood and waited. It looked almost as if it was a path into heaven, the narrow way which was spoken of in the Bible, that strip of golden light with the stars shining above. But it was not to heaven she wanted to go in the joy of her espousals, on her wedding day. She wanted the life that was before her—the human, the natural, the life that other women had; to be taken to the home her husband had made for her, to be free of the bonds of her girlhood and the loneliness of her previous days. But Lily did not know, not even a step of the path before her. It rushed upon her now that he had never said a word, never one definite word. She did not know what was going to happen to-morrow. To-night it was too late, certainly too late, to go further than Dalrugas, but to-morrow! She remembered now suddenly, clearly, that to all her questions and imaginings what they were to do he had never made one distinct reply. He had allowed her to talk and to imagine what was going to be, but he had said not a word. There seemed nothing, nothing clear in all the world but that one golden path leading up into the sky. “Lift up the light of His countenance upon you.” That did not mean, Lily thought, half pagan as the youthful thinker so often is, the blessing that is life and joy, but rather that which is consolation and calm. And it was not consolation or calm she wanted, but happiness and delight. She wanted to be able to go out upon the world with her arm in her husband’s and her head high, and to shape her new life as other young women did—a separate thing, a new thing, individual to themselves, not any repetition or going back. Standing there in the dark corner, hidden till he could find the pony and take her up secretly out of sight, hurrying away not to be seen by any one—Lily’s heart revolted at these precautions, even though it had been to a certain extent her own desire they should be taken. But, oh! it was so different, her own desire! that was only the bridal instinct to hide its shy happiness, its tremor of novelty and wonder. It was not concealment she had wanted, but withdrawal from the gaze of the crowd; but it was concealment that was in Ronald’s thought, a thing always shameful, not modest, not maidenly, but an expedient of guilt.
Perhaps Ronald was just a little too long getting the pony; but he was not very long. He had her safely in the little geeg, with all her wraps carefully round her, before fifteen minutes had passed; but fifteen minutes in some circumstances are more than as many hours in others. Lily was very silent at first, and he had hard ado to rouse her from the reflections that had seized upon her. “What are we going to do?” she said out of the heaviness of these reflections, when all that found its way to his lips was the babble of love at its climax. Was it that she loved him less than he loved her? He whispered this in her ear, with one arm holding her close, while Rory made his way vigorously along the road, scenting his stable, and also the snow that was coming. Lily made no answer to the suggestion. Certainly that murmur of love did not seem to satisfy her. She was overcome by it now and then, and sat silent, feeling the pressure of his arm, and the consciousness that there was nobody but him and herself in the world, with the seductive bewilderment of emotion shared and intensified, yet from time to time awoke sharply to feel the force over again of that question: “What are we going to do?” Oh, why had she not insisted on an answer to it before? The night grew darker, the snow began to fall in large flakes. They were more and more isolated from the world which was invisible round them, nothing but Rory tossing his shaggy ears and snorting at the snow that melted into his nostrils. By the time they reached the Tower, discovering vaguely, all at once, the glimmer of the lights and the voice of Dougal calling to the pony to moderate the impatience of his delight at sight of his own stable, they were so covered with snow that it was difficult for Lily to shake herself clear of it as she stumbled down at the great door. “Bide a moment, bide a moment; just take the plaid off her bodily. It’s mair snaw than plaiden!” cried Dougal. “Ye little deevil, stand still, will ye? Ye’ll get neither bite nor sup till your time comes. Have ye no seen the ithers on the road? Silly taupies to bide so long, and maybe be stormsted in the end!”
“They’re on the road, Dougal,” cried Lily, with humility, remembering that she had never once thought of Katrin and Beenie. “I am sure they’re on the road.”
“They had better be that,” he said angrily. “What keepit them, I’m asking? Sir, if ye’ll be advised by me, ye’ll just bid good-by to the young leddy and make your way to Tam’s as fast as ye can, for every half-hour will make it waur. It’s on for a night and a day, or I have nae knowledge of the weather.”
“Half-an-hour can’t make much difference, Dougal,” said Ronald, with a laugh.
“Oh, can it no? It’s easy to see ye ken little of our moor. And the e’en will be as black as midnicht, and the snaw bewildering, so that ye’ll just turn round and round about, and likely lie down in a whin bush, and never wake more.”
A half shriek came from Lily in the doorway, while Ronald’s laugh rang out into the night. “It will be no worse in half-an-hour,” he said.
“Ay, will it! There’s a wee bit light in the west the noo, but there will be nane then. Heigh! is’t you? Weel, that’s aye something,” Dougal said, as the other little vehicle, with its weight of snow-covered figures, came suddenly into the light; and in the bustle of the second arrival, which was much more complicated than the first, nothing more was said. Katrin and Beenie had shaken off the awe of their conspiracy. They were full of spirits and laughter, and their little cart crowded with parcels of every kind. They had found time to buy half the market, as Dougal said, and they occupied him so completely with their talk, and the bustle of getting them and their cargo safely deposited indoors, that the young couple stole upstairs unnoticed. “Tam may whistle for me to-night,” Ronald said, “and Dougal growl till he’s tired, and the snow fall as much as it pleases. I’m safe of my shelter, Lily. A friend in court is worth many a year’s fee.”
“Who is your friend in court?” she said, shivering a little. The cold and the agitation had been a little too much for Lily. Her teeth chattered, the light swam in her eyes.
It was Katrin who was the Providence of the young people. She it was who ordained peremptorily, not letting Dougal say a word, that to send Mr. Lumsden off to Tam’s cottage on such a night was such a thing as had never been heard of.
“I wouldna turn out a dog,” she cried, “to find its way, poor beast, across the moor.”
“I warned the lad,” said Dougal; “I tell’d him every half-hour would make it waur. It is his ain fault if he is late. What have you and me to do harboring a’ the young callants in the country, or out of it, that may come here after Miss Lily? You’ve just got some nonsense about true love in your head.”
“Am I the person,” said Katrin, “to have true love cast in my face, me that have been married upon you, Dougal, these thirty year? Na, na! I’m no that kind of woman; but I have peety in my heart, and there’s a dozen empty rooms in this house. I think it’s just a shame when I think of the poor bodies that are about, maybe sleepin’ out on the cauld moor. I’ll not take the life of this young lad, turning him away, and neither shall you, my man, if you want to have any comfort in your ain life.”
“I warned him,” said Dougal; “if he didna take my warning, it’s his ain wyte.”
“It shanna be mine nor yours either,” said Katrin, and, indeed, even Dougal, when he looked out, perceived that there was nothing to be said. The snow had fallen so continuously since their arrival that already every trace, either of wheels or hoofs, was filled up. The whiteness lay unbroken in the court-yard and up to the very door, as if no one had come near the house for days. Sandy was in the stable with his lantern, hissing over the little black pony as he rubbed him down; but even Sandy’s steps to the stable were wiped out by the snow-storm. It covered every thing, fair things and foul, and, above all, every trace of a path or road.
“I’m no easy in my mind about what Sir Robert would say,” he muttered, pushing his cap to his other ear.
“And what would Sir Robert say? If it had been a lad on the tramp, a gangrel person or selling prins about the road, he would never have grudged him a bed, or at the worst a pickle straw in the stable, on such a night. And this is a young gentleman of the family of the Lumsdens of Pontalloch, kent folk, and as much thought of as any person. Is’t a pickle straw the laird would have offered to a gentleman’s son like that? He’s just biding here till the storm’s over, if it was a week or a fortnicht, and I’ll answer for it to the laird!” Katrin cried.
Dougal looked at her in consternation. “A week or a fortnight! It’s no decent for the young leddy,” he said.
“It’s just a grand chance for the young lady—company to pass the time till her, and her all her lane. If he will bide—but maybe he will not bide,” said Katrin, with a sigh. Katrin, too, was a little anxious, as Lily was, for what to-morrow would bring forth. She had but taken the bull by the horns, in Dougal’s person, saying the worst that could be said. “But it’s my hope, Beenie,” she said afterward, with an anxious countenance, “that he’ll just take his bonnie wife away to his ain house as soon as the snaw’s awa’.”
“Oh, ay! ye needna have any doubt of that,” said Beenie, with a broad smile of content.
“Then you’ll just take off your grand gown and serve them with their dinner. I have naething but the birds to put to the fire, and that will take little time; and if they never had a good dinner before nor after, they shall have one that any prince might eat, between you and me, Robina, poor things, on their wedding night.”