Sir Robert's Fortune. Маргарет Олифант
hair white. In those days it was not the fashion to wear a beard.
“So that’s Miss Lily from the town,” he said. “Come away ben, come ben. Set a chair by the fire for the young lady, Eelen, for she’ll be cold coming off the moor. It’s always a cold bit, the moor. Many a cough I’ve catched there when I was more about the countryside than I am now. Old age and a meeserable body are sore hindrances to getting about. Ye know neither of them, my young friend, and I hope you’ll never know.”
“Well, papa, it is to be hoped Lily will live to be old, for most folk desires it,” said Helen. Papaw, a harsh reporter would have considered her to say, but it was not so broad as a w; it was more like two a’s—papaa—which she really said. She smiled very benignantly upon the old gentleman and the young creature whom he accosted. The name of gout was never mentioned, was, indeed, considered an unholy thing, the product of port-wine and made dishes, and not to be laid to the account of a clergyman. But Mr. Blythe contemplated with emotion, supported on his footstool, the dimensions of a much swollen toe.
“Well,” said he, “I hope she’ll never live to have the rose in her foot, or any other ailment of the kind. And how’s Sir Robert, my dear? Him and me are neighbor-like; there is not very much between us. Is he coming North this year to have a pop at the birds, or is he thinking like me, I wonder, that a good easy chair by the fire is the best thing for an auld man? and a brace of grouse well cooked and laid upon a toast more admirable than any number of them on the moor?”
“I don’t think he is coming for the shooting,” said Lily, doubtful. Sir Robert was in many respects what was then called a dandy, and any thing more unlike the exquisite arrangements for his comfort, carried out by his valet, than the old clergyman’s black cushion and footstool and smouldering fire could not be.
“You’ll have had an illness yourself,” said the minister, “though you do not look like it, I must say. Does she, now, Eelen, with a color like that? But your uncle would have done better, my dear, to take you travelling, or some place where ye would have seen a little society and young persons like yourself, than to send you here. He’ll maybe have forgotten what a quiet place it is, and no fit for the like of you. But I’ll let him know, I’ll let him know as soon as he comes up among us, which no doubt he will soon do now.”
“Now, papa,” said Helen, “you will just let Sir Robert alone, and no plot with him to carry Lily away from me: for I am counting very much upon her for company, and it will do her no harm to get the air of the moor for a while and forget all the dissipations of Edinburgh. You will have to tell me all about them, Lily, for I’m the country mouse that has never been away from home. Eh,” said Helen, “I have no doubt every thing is far grander when you’re far off from it than when you’re near. I dare say you were tired of the Edinburgh parties, and I would just give a great deal to see one of them. And most likely you thought the Tower would be delightful, while we are only thinking how dull it will be for you. That is aye the way; what we have we think little of, and what we have not we desire.”
“I was not tired,” said Lily, “except sometimes of the grand dinners that Uncle Robert is so fond of, and I cannot say that I expected the Tower to be delightful; but you know I have no father of my own, and I must just do what I am told.”
“My dear,” said the old minister, “I see you have a fine judgment; for if you had a father of your own, like Eelen there, you would just turn him round your little finger; and I’m much surprised you don’t do the same, a fine creature like you, with your uncle too.”
“Whisht, papa,” said Helen; “we’ll have in the tea, which you know you’re always fond of to get a cup when you can, and it’ll be a refreshment to Lily after her ride. And in the meantime you can tell her some of your stories to make her laugh, for a laugh’s a fine thing for a young creature whatsoever it’s about, if it’s only havers.”
“Which my auld stories are, ye think?” said the minister. “Go away, go away and mask your tea. Miss Lily and me will get on very well without you. I’ll tell ye no stories. They are all very old, and the most of them are printed. If I were to entertain ye with my anecdotes of auld ministers and beadles and the like, ye would perhaps find them again in a book, and ye would say to yourself, ‘Eh, there’s the story Mr. Blythe told me, as if it was out of his own head,’ and you would never believe in me more. But for all that it’s no test being in a book; most of mine are in books, and yet they are mine, and it was me that put them together all the same. But I have remarked that our own concerns are more interesting to us than the best of stories, and I’m a kind of spiritual father to you, my dear. If I did not christen you, I christened your father. Tell me, now that Eelen’s out of the way, what is it that brought ye here? Is it something about a bonnie lad, my bonnie young lass? for that’s the commonest cause of banishment, and as it cannot be carried out with the young man, it’s the poor wee lassies that have the brunt to bear–”
“I never said,” cried Lily, angry tears coming to her eyes, “that there was any reason or that it was for punishment. I just came here because—because Uncle Robert wanted me to come,” she added in a little burst of indignation, yet dignity; “and nobody that I know has a right to say a word.”
“Just so,” said Mr. Blythe; “he wanted you, no doubt, to give an eye to Dougal and Katrin, who might be taking in lodgers or shooting the moors for their own profit for any thing that he can tell. He’s an auld-farrant chield, Sir Robert. He would not say a word to you, but he would reckon that you would find out.”
“Mr. Blythe,” cried Lily with fresh indignation, “if you think my uncle sent me here for a spy, to find out things that do not exist–”
“No, my dear, I don’t, I don’t,” said the minister. “I am satisfied he has a mind above that, and you too. But he’s not without a thread of suspicion in him; indeed, he’s like most men of his years and experience, and believes in nobody. No, no, Dougal does not put the moor to profit, which might be a temptation to many men; but he has plenty of sport himself in a canny way, and there’s a great deal of good game just wasted. You may tell Sir Robert that from his old friend. Just a great deal of good game wasted. He should come and bring a few nice lads to divert you, and shoot the moor himself.”
“That’s just one of papa’s crazes,” said Helen, returning with her teapot in her hand, the tray, with all its jingling cups and saucers, having been put on the table in the meantime. “He thinks the gentlemen should come back from wherever they are, or whatever they may be doing, to shoot the moors. It would certainly be far more cheery for the countryside, but very likely Sir Robert cares nothing about the moor, and is just content with the few brace of grouse that Dougal sends him. I believe it’s considered a luxury and something grand to put on the table in other places, but we have just too much of it here. Now draw to the table and take your tea. The scones are just made, and I can recommend the shortbread, and you must be wanting something after your ride. I have told John to give the powny a feed, and you will feel all the better, the two of you, for a little rest and refreshment. Draw in to the table, my bonnie dear.”
These were before the days of afternoon tea; but the institution existed more or less, though not in name, and “the tea” was administered before its proper time or repeated with a sense of guilt in many houses, where the long afternoon was the portion of the day which it was least easy to get through—when life was most languid, and occupation at a lull. Lily ate her shortbread with a girl’s appetite, and took pleasure in her visit. When she mounted Rory again and set forth on her return, she asked herself with great wonder whether it was possible that there could be any thing under that soft aspect of Helen Blythe, her serene countenance and delicate color, which could in any way correspond with the trouble and commotion in her own young bosom? Helen had, indeed, her father to care for, she was at home, and had, no doubt, friends; but was it possible that a thought of some one who was not there lay at the bottom of all?
Lily confessed to Robina when she got home that she had been much enlivened by her visit, and that Helen was coming to see her, and that all would go well; but when Beenie, much cheered, went down stairs to her tea, Lily unconsciously drew once more to that window, that watchtower, from which nobody was ever visible. The moor lay in all the glory of the evening,