The post came seldom to this place at the end of the world. It never indeed came at all. When there were other errands to do in the village, the buoy and the black powny called at the post-office to ask for letters—when they remembered; but very often Sandy did not mind, i. e., recollect, to do this, and it did not matter much. Sir Robert, indeed, had made known his will that there were to be no letters, and correspondence was sluggish in those days. Lily had not bowed her spirit to the point of promising that she would not write to whomsoever she pleased, but she was too proud to be the first to do so, and, save a few girl epistles for which, poor child, she did not care, and which secured her only a succession of disappointments, nothing came to lighten her solitude. No, she would not write first, she would not tell him her address. He could soon find that out if he wanted to find it. Sir Robert Ramsay was not nobody, that there should be any trouble in finding out where his house was, however far off it might be. Poor Lily, when she said this to herself, did not really entertain a doubt that Ronald would manage to write to her. But he did not do so. The post came in at intervals, the powny and the boy went to the town, and minded or did not mind to call for the letters: but what did it matter when no letters ever came? Ah, one from Sir Robert, hoping she found the air of the moor beneficial; one from a light-hearted school-fellow, narrating all the dances there had been since Lily went away, and the last new fashion, and how like Alice Scott it was to be the first to appear in it. But no more. This foolish little epistle, at first dashed on the ground in her disappointment, Lily went over again, through every line, to see whether somewhere in a corner there did not lurk the name which she was sick with longing to see. It might so easily have been here: “I danced with Ronald Lumsden and he was telling me,” or, “Ronald Lumsden called and was asking about you.” Such a crumb of refreshment as that Lily would have been glad of; but it never came.
Yet she struggled bravely to keep up her heart. One of those early days, after sundry attempts on the moor, where she gradually vanquished him, Lily rode Rory into Kinloch-Rugas with only a few controversies on the way. She was light and she was quiet, making no clattering at his heels as the gig did, and by degrees Rory habituated himself to the light burden and the moderate amount of control which she exercised over him. It amused him after a while to see the whisk of her habit, which proved to be no unknown drag or other mechanism, but really a harmless thing, not heavy at all, and as she gave him much of his own way and lumps of sugar and no whip to speak of, he became very soon docile—as docile as his nature permitted—and gave her only as much trouble as amused Lily. They went all the way to the toun together, an incongruous but friendly pair, he pausing occasionally when a very tempting mouthful of emerald-green grass appeared among the bunches of ling, she addressing him with amiable remonstrances as Dougal did, and eventually touching his point of honor or sense of shame, so that he made a little burst of unaccustomed speed, and got over a good deal of ground in the stimulus thus applied. He was not like the trim and glossy steeds on which, with her long habit reaching half-way to the ground, and a careful groom behind, Lily had ridden out with Sir Robert in the days of her grandeur, which already seemed so far off. But she was, perhaps, quite as comfortable in the tweed skirt, in which she could spring unfettered from Rory’s back and move about easily without yards of heavy cloth to carry. The long habit and the sleek steed and the groom turned out to perfection would have been out of place on the moor; but Rory, jogging along with his rough coat, and his young mistress in homespun were entirely appropriate to the landscape.
It required a good many efforts, however, before the final code of amity was established between them, the rule of bearing and forbearing, which encouraged Lily to so long a ride. When she slipped off his back at the Manse door, Rory tossed his shaggy head with an air of relief, and looked as if he might have set off home immediately to save himself further trouble; but he thought better of it after a moment and a few lumps of sugar, and was soon in the careful hands of the minister’s man, who was an old and intimate friend, and on the frankest terms of remonstrance and advice. Lily was not by any means so familiar in the minister’s house. She went through the little ragged shrubbery where the big straggling lilac bushes were all bare and brown, and the berries of the rowan-trees beginning to redden, but every thing unkempt and ungracious, the stems burned, and the leaves blown away before their time by an unfriendly wind. The monthly rose upon the house made a good show with its delicate blossoms, looking far too fragile for such a place, yet triumphant in its weakness over more robust flowers; and a still more fragile-looking but tenacious and indestructible plant, the great white bindweed or wild convolvulus, covered the little porch with its graceful trails of green, and delicate flowers, which last so short a time, yet form so common a decoration of the humblest Highland cottages. Lily paused to look through the light lines of the climbing verdure as she knocked at the Manse door. It was so unlike any thing that could be expected to bloom and flourish in the keen northern air. It gave her a sort of consoling sense that other things as unlike the sternness of the surroundings might be awaiting her, even here, at the end of the world.
And nothing could have been more like the monthly rose on the dark gray wall of the Manse than Helen Blythe, who came out of the homely parlor to greet Lily when she heard who the visitor was. “Miss Eelen” was Lily’s senior by even more than had been supposed, but she did not show any sign of mature years. She was very light of figure and quick of movement, with a clear little morning face extremely delicate in color, mild brown eyes that looked full of dew and freshness, and soft brown hair. She came out eagerly, her “seam” in her hand, a mass of whiteness against her dark dress, saying, “Miss Ramsay, Dalrugas?” with a quick interrogative note, and then Helen threw down her work and held out both her hands. “Oh, my bonnie little Lily,” she cried in sweet familiar tones. “And is it you? and is it really you?”
“I think I should have known you anywhere,” said Lily. “You are not changed, not changed a bit; but I am not little Lily any longer. I am a great deal bigger than you.”
“You always were, I think,” said Helen, “though you were only a bairn and me a little, little woman, nearly a woman, when you were here last. Come ben, my dear, come ben and see papa. He does not move about much or he would have come to welcome you. But wait a moment till I get my seam, and till I find my thimble; it’s fallen off my finger in the fulness of my heart, for I could not bide to think about that when I saw it was you. And, oh, stand still, my dear, or you’ll tramp upon it! and it’s my silver thimble and not another nearer than Aberdeen.”
“I’ve got one,” cried Lily, “and you shall have it, Helen, for I fear, I fear it is not so very much use to me.”
“Oh, whisht, my dear. You must not tell me you don’t like your seam. How would the house go on, and what would folk do without somebody to sew? For my part I could not live without my seam. Canny, canny, my bonnie woman, there it is! They are just dreadful things for running into corners—almost as bad as a ring. But there is a mischief about a ring that is not in a thimble,” said Helen, rising, with her soft cheeks flushed, having rescued the errant thimble from the floor.
“And are you always at your seam,” said Lily, “just as you were when I was little, and you used to come to Dalrugas to play?”
“I don’t think you were ever so little as me,” said Helen with her rustic idiom and accent, her low voice and her sweet look, both as fresh as the air upon the moor. She did not reach much higher than Lily’s shoulder. She had the most serene and smiling face, full, one would have said, of genuine ease of heart. Was this so? or was her mind full, as Katrin had said, of unhappy love and anxious thoughts? But it was impossible to believe so, looking at this soft countenance, the mouth which had not a line, and the eyes which had not a care.
Nowadays the humblest dwelling which boasts two rooms to sit in possesses a dining-room and drawing-room, but at that period drawing-rooms were for grand houses only, and the parlor was the name of the family dwelling-place. It was very dingy, if truth must be told. The furniture was of heavy mahogany, with black hair-cloth. Though it was still high summer, there was a fire in the old-fashioned black grate, and close beside, in his black easy chair, was the minister, a heavy old man with a bad leg, who was no longer able to get about, and indeed did very little save criticise the actions of his assistant and successor, a