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This page intentionally left blank
 I N T RO DUCT ION TO THE HI GH- TEMP ERATURE
OXIDATION OF METALS

A straightfoward treatment describing the oxidation processes of metals and alloys

at elevated temperatures. This new edition retains the fundamental theory but incor-
porates advances made in understanding degradation phenomena. Oxidation pro-
cesses in complex systems are dicussed, from reactions in mixed environments
to protective techniques, including coatings and atmosphere control. The authors
provide a logical and expert treatment of the subject, producing a revised book
that will be of use to students studying degradation of high-temperature materials
and an essential guide to researchers requiring an understanding of this elementary
process.

neil birks was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Materials Science and
Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.
gerald h. meier is William Kepler Whiteford Professor in the Department of
Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.
fred s. pettit is Harry S. Tack Professor in the Department of Materials Science
and Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.
 IN T RODUC TI O N TO T HE
HIGH- TE M P ER ATUR E OXIDAT ION
OF M E TAL S

2nd Edition

NEIL BIRKS
Formerly of University of Pittsburgh

GERALD H. MEIER
University of Pittsburgh

FRED S. PETTIT
University of Pittsburgh
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521480420

© N. Birks, G. H. Meier and F. S. Pettit 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of

relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place
without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published in print format 2006

isbn-13 978-0-511-16089-9 eBook (EBL)

isbn-10 0-511-16089-5 eBook (EBL)

isbn-13 978-0-521-48042-0 hardback

isbn-10 0-521-48042-6 hardback

isbn-13 978-0-521-48517-3
isbn-10 0-521-48517-7

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls
for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Professor Neil Birks
This book is dedicated to one of its coauthors, Professor Neil Birks, who passed
away during the preparation of the second edition. Neil was an accomplished
researcher and educator in a number of fields including high-temperature oxidation,
corrosion, erosion, and process metallurgy. He was also a good friend.
Neil’s legacy to science and engineering is well established in his scholarly
publications and the numerous students he mentored. It is our hope that this book
will complete that legacy.
GHM
FSP
 Contents

Acknowledgements page viii

Preface ix
Introduction xi
1 Methods of investigation 1
2 Thermodynamic fundamentals 16
3 Mechanisms of oxidation 39
4 Oxidation of pure metals 75
5 Oxidation of alloys 101
6 Oxidation in oxidants other than oxygen 163
7 Reactions of metals in mixed environments 176
8 Hot corrosion 205
9 Erosion–corrosion of metals in oxidizing atmospheres 253
10 Protective coatings 271
11 Atmosphere control for the protection of metals during production
processes 306
Appendix A. Solution to Fick’s second law for a semi-infinite solid 323
Appendix B. Rigorous derivation of the kinetics of internal oxidation 327
Appendix C. Effects of impurities on oxide defect structures 332
Index 336

vii
 Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the scientific contributions of former and cur-
rent students. Drs. J. M. Rakowski, M. J. Stiger, N. M. Yanar, and M. C. Maris-Sida
are thanked for their assistance in preparing figures for this book.
The authors also greatly appreciate the helpful comments made by Professor J. L.
Beuth (Carnegie Mellon University), Professor H. J. Grabke (Max-Planck Institüt
für Eisenforschung), and Professor R. A. Rapp (Ohio State University) on parts of
the manuscript.

viii
 Preface

Few metals, particularly those in common technological applications, are stable

when exposed to the atmosphere at both high and low temperatures. Consequently,
most metals in service today are subject to deterioration either by corrosion at room
temperature or by oxidation at high temperature. The degree of corrosion varies
widely. Some metals, such as iron, will rust and oxidize very rapidly whereas other
metals, such as nickel and chromium, are attacked relatively slowly. It will be seen
that the nature of the surface layers produced on the metal plays a major role in the
behaviour of these materials in aggressive atmospheres.
The subject of high-temperature oxidation of metals is capable of extensive
investigation and theoretical treatment. It is normally found to be a very satisfying
subject to study. The theoretical treatment covers a wide range of metallurgical,
chemical, and physical principles and can be approached by people of a wide range
of disciplines who, therefore, complement each other’s efforts.
Initially, the subject was studied with the broad aim of preventing the deterio-
ration of metals in service, i.e., as a result of exposing the metal to high tempera-
tures and oxidizing atmospheres. In recent years, a wealth of mechanistic data has
become available. These data cover a broad range of phenomena, e.g., mass transport
through oxide scales, evaporation of oxide or metallic species, the role of mechan-
ical stress in oxidation, growth of scales in complex environments containing more
than one oxidant, and the important relationships between alloy composition and
microstructure and oxidation. Such information is obtained by applying virtually
every physical and chemical investigative technique to the subject.
In this book the intention is to introduce the subject of high-temperature oxi-
dation of metals to students and to professional engineers whose work demands
familiarity with the subject. The emphasis of the book is placed firmly on supplying
an understanding of the basic, or fundamental, processes involved in oxidation.
In order to keep to this objective, there has been no attempt to provide an exhaus-
tive, or even extensive, review of the literature. In our opinion this would increase

ix
 Preface

the factual content without necessarily improving the understanding of the subject
and would, therefore, increase both the size and price of the book without enhanc-
ing its objective as an introduction to the subject. Extensive literature quotation is
already available in books previously published on the subject and in review arti-
cles. Similarly the treatment of techniques of investigation has been restricted to a
level that is sufficient for the reader to understand how the subject is studied with-
out involving an overabundance of experimental details. Such details are available
elsewhere as indicated.
After dealing with the classical situations involving the straightforward oxida-
tion of metals and alloys in the first five chapters, the final chapters extend the
discussion to reactions in mixed environments, i.e., containing more than one oxi-
dant, to reactions involving a condensed phase as in hot corrosion, and the added
complications caused by erosive particles. Finally, some typical coatings for high-
temperature applications and the use of protective atmospheres during processing
are described.

Pittsburgh GHM
2005 FSP

x
 Introduction

The primary purpose of this book is to present an introduction to the fundamental

principles that govern the interaction of reactive gaseous environments (usually
containing oxygen as a component) and solid materials, usually metals, at high
temperatures. These principles are applicable to a variety of applications, which
can include those where oxidation is desirable, such as forming a resistive silica
layer on silicon-based semiconductors or removing surface defects from steel slabs
during processing by rapid surface oxidation. However, most applications deal
with situations where reaction of the component with the gaseous atmosphere is
undesirable and one tries to minimize the rate at which such reactions occur.
The term ‘high-temperature’ requires definition. In contrast to aqueous corrosion,
the temperatures considered in this book will always be high enough that water,
when present in the systems, will be present as the vapour rather than the liquid.
Moreover, when exposed to oxidizing conditions at temperatures between 100
and 500 ◦ C, most metals and alloys form thin corrosion products that grow very
slowly and require transmission electron microscopy for detailed characterization.
While some principles discussed in this book may be applicable to thin films, ‘high
temperature’ is considered to be 500 ◦ C and above.
In designing alloys for use at elevated temperatures, the alloys must not only be as
resistant as possible to the effects produced by reaction with oxygen, but resistance
to attack by other oxidants in the environment is also necessary. In addition, the
environment is not always only a gas since, in practice, the deposition of ash on the
alloys is not uncommon. It is, therefore, more realistic in these cases to speak of
the high-temperature corrosion resistance of materials rather than their oxidation
resistance.
The rate at which the reactions occur is governed by the nature of the reac-
tion product which forms. In the case of materials such as carbon the reaction
product is gaseous (CO and CO2 ), and does not provide a barrier to continued
reaction. The materials that are designed for high-temperature use are protected by

xi
 Introduction

the formation of a solid reaction product (usually an oxide) which separates the
component and atmosphere. The rate of further reaction is controlled by transport
of reactants through this solid layer. The materials designed for use at the high-
est temperatures are ones which form the oxides with the slowest transport rates
for reactants (usually α-Al2 O3 or SiO2 ), i.e., those with the slowest growth rates.
However, other materials are often used at lower temperatures if their oxides have
growth rates which are ‘slow enough’ because they may have better mechanical
properties (strength, creep resistance), may be easier to fabricate into components
(good formability/weldability), or are less expensive.
In some cases, the barriers necessary to develop the desired resistance to corro-
sion can be formed on structural alloys by appropriate composition modification.
In many practical applications for structural alloys, however, the required compo-
sitional changes are not compatible with the required physical properties of the
alloys. In such cases, the necessary compositional modifications are developed
through the use of coatings on the surfaces of the structural alloys and the desired
reaction-product barriers are developed on the surfaces of the coatings.
A rough hierarchy of common engineering alloys with respect to use temperature
would include the following.
r Low-alloy steels, which form M3 O4 (M = Fe, Cr) surface layers, are used to temperatures
of about 500 ◦ C.
r Titanium-base alloys, which form TiO2 , are used to about 600 ◦ C.
r Ferritic stainless steels, which form Cr2 O3 surface layers, are used to about 650 ◦ C. This
temperature limit is based on creep properties rather than oxidation rate.
r Austenitic Fe–Ni–Cr alloys, which form Cr2 O3 surface layers and have higher creep
strength than ferritic alloys, are used to about 850 ◦ C.
r Austenitic Ni–Cr alloys, which form Cr2 O3 surface layers, are used to about 950 ◦ C,
which is the upper limit for oxidation protection by chromia formation.
r Austenitic Ni–Cr–Al alloys, and aluminide and MCrAlY (M = Ni, Co, or Fe) coatings,
which form Al2 O3 surface layers, are used to about 1100 ◦ C.
r Applications above 1100 ◦ C require the use of ceramics or refractory metals. The lat-
ter alloys oxidize catastrophically and must be coated with a more oxidation-resistant
material, which usually forms SiO2 .

The exercise of ‘alloy selection’ for a given application takes all of the above factors
into account. While other properties are mentioned from time to time, the emphasis
of this book is on oxidation and corrosion behaviour.

xii
 1
Methods of investigation

The investigation of high-temperature oxidation takes many forms. Usually one

is interested in the oxidation kinetics. Additionally, one is also interested in the
nature of the oxidation process, i.e., the oxidation mechanism. Figure 1.1 is a
simple schematic of the cross-section of an oxide formed on the surface of a metal
or alloy. Mechanistic studies generally require careful examination of the reaction
products formed with regard to their composition and morphology and often require
examination of the metal or alloy substrate as well. Subsequent sections of this
chapter will deal with the common techniques for measuring oxidation kinetics
and examining reaction-product morphologies.
In measuring the kinetics of degradation and characterizing the correspond-
ing microstructures questions arise as to the conditions to be used. Test condi-
tions should be the same as the application under consideration. Unfortunately, the
application conditions are often not precisely known and, even when known, can
be extremely difficult to establish as a controlled test. Moreover, true simulation
testing is usually impractical because the desired performance period is generally
much longer than the length of time for which laboratory testing is feasible. The
answer to this is accelerated, simulation testing.
Accelerated, simulation testing requires knowledge of microstructure and mor-
phological changes. All materials used in engineering applications exhibit a
microstructural evolution, beginning during fabrication and ending upon termi-
nation of their useful lives. In an accelerated test one must select test conditions
that cause the microstructures to develop that are representative of the application,
but in a much shorter time period. In order to use this approach some knowledge
of the degradation process is necessary.

Measurements of reaction kinetics

In the cases of laboratory studies, the experimental technique is basically simple.
The specimen is placed in a furnace, controlled at the required temperature, and

1
2 Methods of investigation

Oxidizing gas

Oxide

Alloy

Figure 1.1 Schematic diagram of the cross-section of an oxide layer formed on

the surface of a metal or alloy.

allowed to react for the appropriate time. The specimen is then removed, allowed
to cool, and examined.
Although this procedure is simple, one drawback is that the start time for the reac-
tion cannot be accurately established. Several starting procedures are commonly
used.

(1) The specimen may simply be placed in the heated chamber containing the reactive
atmosphere.
(2) The specimen may be placed in the cold chamber containing the atmosphere and then
heated.
(3) The specimen may be placed in the cold chamber, which is then evacuated or flushed
with inert gas, heated and then, at temperature, the reactive gas is admitted.

In all cases the start of the reaction is in doubt either because of the time required
to heat the specimen or the inevitable formation of thin oxide layers, even in inert
gases or under vacuum. This is true especially in the case of more reactive metals,
so that when the reaction is started by admitting the reactive gas an oxide layer
already exists.
Attempts have been made to overcome this by heating initially in hydrogen
which is then flushed out by the reactive gas. This also takes a finite time and thus
introduces uncertainty concerning the start of the reaction.
Thin specimens may be used to minimize the time required to heat the specimen.
In this case care should be taken that they are not so thin and, therefore, of such low
thermal mass that the heat of reaction, released rapidly during the initial oxidation
period, causes severe specimen overheating.
The uncertainty concerning the start of the reactions usually only affects results
for short exposure times up to about ten minutes and becomes less noticeable at
longer times. However, in some cases such as selective oxidation of one element
 Measurements of reaction kinetics 3

from an alloy, these effects can be quite long-lasting. In practice specimens and
procedures must be designed with these factors in mind.
Many early investigations were simply concerned with oxidation rates and not
with oxidation mechanisms. The rate of formation of an oxide in a metal according
to the reaction (1.1),

2M + O2 = 2MO, (1.1)

can be investigated by several methods. The extent of the reaction may be measured
by the following.

(1) The amount of metal consumed.

(2) The amount of oxygen consumed.
(3) The amount of oxide produced.

Of these only (2) can be assessed continuously and directly.

(1) The amount of metal consumed

In practice this may be assessed by observing (a) the weight loss of the specimen or
(b) the residual metal thickness. In both cases the specimen must be removed from the
furnace, thus interrupting the process.
(2) The amount of oxygen consumed
This may be assessed by observing either the weight gain or the amount of oxygen used.
Both of these methods may be used on a continuous and automatic recording basis.
(3) The amount of oxide produced
This may be assessed by observing the weight of oxide formed or by measuring the
oxide thickness. Of course, in the latter case it is necessary to destroy the specimen, as
it is with method (1).

Of the above methods, only those involving measurement of weight gain and
oxygen consumption give the possibility of obtaining continuous results. The
other methods require destruction of the specimen before the measurement can
be achieved and this has the drawback that, in order to obtain a set of kinetic data,
it is necessary to use several specimens. Where the specimen and the methods of
investigation are such that continuous results can be obtained, one specimen will
give the complete kinetic record of the reaction.
When representing oxidation kinetics, any of the variables mentioned above can
be used, and can be measured as a function of time because, of course, they all
result in an assessment of the extent of reaction. Nowadays it is most general to
measure the change in mass of a specimen exposed to oxidizing conditions.
It is found experimentally that several rate laws can be identified. The principal
laws are (1) linear law, (2) parabolic law, and (3) logarithmic law.
4 Methods of investigation

(1) The linear law, for which the rate of reaction is independent of time, is found to refer
predominantly to reactions whose rate is controlled by a surface-reaction step or by
diffusion through the gas phase.
(2) The parabolic law, for which the rate is inversely proportional to the square root of
time, is found to be obeyed when diffusion through the scale is the rate-determining
process.
(3) The logarithmic law is only observed for the formation of very thin films of oxide,
i.e., between 2 and 4 nm, and is generally associated with low temperatures.

Under certain conditions some systems might even show composite kinetics,
for instance niobium oxidizing in air at about 1000 ◦ C initially conforms to the
parabolic law but later becomes linear, i.e., the rate becomes constant at long times.

Discontinuous methods of assessment of reaction kinetics

In this case the specimen is weighed and measured and is then exposed to the con-
ditions of high-temperature oxidation for a given time, removed, and reweighed.
The oxide scale may also be stripped from the surface of the specimen, which is
then weighed. Assessment of the extent of reaction may be carried out quite sim-
ply either by noting the mass gain of the oxidized specimen, which is the mass
of oxygen taken into the scale, or the mass loss of the stripped specimen, which
is equivalent to the amount of metal taken up in scale formation. Alternatively,
the changes in specimen dimensions may be measured. As mentioned before these
techniques yield only one point per specimen with the disadvantages that (a) many
specimens are needed to plot fully the kinetics of the reaction, (b) the results
from each specimen may not be equivalent because of experimental variations, and
(c) the progress of the reaction between the points is not observed. On the other hand
they have the obvious advantage that the techniques, and the apparatus required,
are extremely simple. In addition, metallographic information is obtained for each
data point.

Continuous methods of assessment

These methods fall into two types, those which monitor mass gain and those which
monitor gas consumption.

Mass-gain methods
The simplest method of continuous monitoring is to use a spring balance. In this case
the specimen is suspended from a sensitive spring whose extension is measured,
using a cathetometer, as the specimen mass changes as a result of oxidation, thus
 Measurements of reaction kinetics 5
Gas exit tube
(may be turned, raised, or lowered)

Rigid epoxy resin joint

Serrated edge
(allows point of suspension to be changed)

Pyrex tube

Pyrex or silica
spiral Cathetometer target

Silica or refractory tube with ground joint

Tube furnace
Silica rod suspension

Specimen

Thermocouple

Gas inlet

Figure 1.2 Features of a simple spring balance (for advanced design see ref. 1).

giving a semi-continuous monitoring of the reaction. Apparatus suitable for this

is shown diagrammatically in Figure 1.2 which is self-explanatory.1 An important
feature is the design of the upper suspension point. In Figure 1.2 this is shown
as a hollow glass tube which also acts as a gas outlet. The tube can be twisted,
raised, or lowered to facilitate accurate placing of the specimen and alignment of
the spring. A suspension piece is rigidly fastened to the glass tube and provides
a serrated horizontal support for the spring whose suspension point may thus be
adjusted in the horizontal plane. These refinements are required since alignment
between the glass tube containing the spring and the furnace tube is never perfect
and it is prudent to provide some means of adjustment of the spring position in order
to ensure accurate placing of the specimen. It would be possible of course to equip
a spring balance with a moving transformer, which would enable the mass gain to
6 Methods of investigation

be measured electrically, and automatically recorded. Although the simple spring

balance should be regarded as a semi-continuous method of assessment, it has the
advantage that a complete reaction curve can be obtained from a single specimen.
The disadvantage of the spring balance is that one is faced with a compromise
between accuracy and sensitivity. For accuracy a large specimen is required whereas
for sensitivity one needs to use a relatively fragile spring. It is obviously not possible
to use a fragile spring to carry a large specimen and so the accuracy that is obtained
by this method is a matter of compromise between these two factors.
By far the most popular, most convenient, and, unfortunately, most expensive
method of assessing oxidation reactions is to use the continuous automatic record-
ing balance. Obviously the operator must decide precisely what is needed in terms
of accuracy and sensitivity from the balance. For straightforward oxidation experi-
ments it is generally adequate to choose a balance with a load-carrying ability of up
to about 25 g and an ultimate sensitivity of about 100 µg. This is not a particularly
sensitive balance and it is rather surprising that many investigators use far more
sophisticated, and expensive, semi-micro balances for this sort of work. In fact
many problems arise from the use of very sensitive balances together with small
specimens, to achieve high accuracy. This technique is subject to errors caused
by changes in Archimedean buoyancy when the gas composition is changed or
the temperature is altered. An error is also introduced as a result of a change in
dynamic buoyancy when the gas flow rate over the specimen is altered. For the
most trouble-free operation it is advisable to use a large specimen with a large flat
surface area in conjunction with a balance of moderate accuracy. Figure 1.3 shows
a schematic diagram of a continuously reading thermobalance used in the authors’
laboratory.
Using the automatic recording balance it is possible to get a continuous record
of the reaction kinetics and, in this way, many details come to light that are hidden
by other methods. For instance spalling of small amounts of the oxide layer is
immediately detected as the balance registers the mass loss; separation of the scale
from the metal surface is recorded when the balance shows a slow reduction in rate
well below rates that would be expected from the normal reaction laws; cracking of
the scale is indicated by immediate small increases in the rate of mass gain. These
features are shown in Figure 1.4. The correct interpretation of data yielded by the
automatic recording balance requires skill and patience but, in almost every case,
is well worthwhile.

Gas consumption
Continuous assessment based on measurement of the consumption of gas may be
done in two ways. If the system is held at constant volume then the fall in pressure
may be monitored, continuously or discontinuously. Unfortunately, allowing the
Exploring the Variety of Random
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 “I got him on the pony at last,” said Lily, “and we bound up his foot, and
then we took him to the Manse. It was the nearest, and the doctor just at
their door. But, oh, what a race I had with the pony, leading him, and
sometimes he led me till I had to run; and I put my foot through my skirt,
see? We mended it up a little at the Manse, and drew it out of the gathers.
But look here: a job for you, Beenie. And my hair came down about my
shoulders, and if you had seen the figure I was, running along the road
——”
“But Miss Eelen with ye made a’ right,” said Katrin. “Ah, what a
blessing that Miss Eelen was with ye.”
Lily was getting out of the gig, from the high seat of which she had
hastened to make her first explanations. It was not an easy thing getting out
of a high gig in those days, and “the geeg from the inn” was, naturally,
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said; “if you had seen how she cut open the boot and made him
comfortable! And Rory behaved very well, too,” she said. “I spoke to him
in his ear as you do, Dougal. I said: ‘Rory, Rory, my bonnie man, go canny
to-day; you can throw me to-morrow, if you like, an I’ll never mind, but,
oh, go canny to-day.’ And you did, Rory, you dear little fellow, and dragged
me, with my hair flying like a wild creature, along the road,” she added,
with a laugh, taking the rough and tossing head into her hands, and aiming a
kiss at Rory’s shaggy forehead. But the pony was not used to such dainties
and tossed himself out of her hands.
“You’re awfu’ tired, Miss Lily, though you’re putting so good a face
upon it, and awfu’ shaken with the excitement, and a’ that. And to think o’
you being the one to find him—just the right person, the one that knew him
—and to think of him being here, Maister Lumsden, touring or shooting or
something, I suppose.”
Beenie’s speech ended spasmodically in a fierce grip of the arm with
which Lily checked her as she went upstairs.
“What need have you,” said the young lady in an angry whisper, “to
burden your mind with lies? Say I have to do it, and, oh, I hate it! but you
have no need. Hold your tongue and keep your conscience free.”
 “Eh, Miss Lily,” said Beenie in the same tone, “I’m no wanting to be
better than you. If ye tell a lee, and it’s but an innocent lee, I’ll tell one too.
If you’re punished for it, what am I that I shouldna take my share with my
mistress? But about the spraining o’ the ankle, my bonnie dear: that’s a’
true?”
Lily answered with a laugh to the sudden doubt in Robina’s eyes. She
was very much excited, too much so to feel how tired she was, and capable
of nothing without either laughter or tears. “Oh, yes, it’s quite true; and, oh,
Beenie, he is badly hurt and suffering a great deal of pain. Poor Ronald! But
he will be safe in Helen’s hands. If he were only out of pain! Perhaps it is a
good thing, Beenie. That is what he whispered when I came away. Oh, how
hard it was to come away and leave him there ill, and his foot so bad! but I
am to go down to-morrow, and it will be a duty to stay as long as I can to
cheer him up and to save Helen trouble, who has so many other things to
do. I am not hard-hearted; but he says himself, if he were only out of pain,
perhaps it’s a good thing.”
Here Lily stopped and cried, and murmured among her tears: “If it had
only been me! It’s easier for a girl to bear pain than a man.”
“But if it had been you, Miss Lily, it would have been no advantage. You
can go to him at the Manse, but he could not have come to you here.”
“That is true,” cried Lily, laughing; “you are a clever Beenie to think of
that. But how am I to live till to-morrow, all the long night through, and all
the morning without news?”
“A young gentleman doesna die of a sprained ankle,” said Beenie
sedately, “and if you are a good bairn, and will go early to bed, and take
care of yourself, I’ll see that the boy goes into the toun the first thing in the
morning to hear how he is.”
“You are a kind Beenie,” cried Lily, clasping her arms about her maid’s
neck. But it was a long time before Robina succeeded in quieting the girl’s
excitement. She had to hear the story again half-a-dozen times over, now in
its full reality, now in the form which it had to bear for the outside world,
with all the tears and laughter which accompanied it. “And he grew so
white, so white, I thought he was going to faint,” said Lily, herself growing
pale.
“I’m thankful ye were spared that. It is very distressing to see a person
faint, Miss Lily.”
 “And then he cheered up and gave a grin in the middle of his pain: I will
not call it a smile, for it was no more than a grin, half fun and half torture.
Poor Ronald! oh, my poor lad, my poor lad!”
“He was a lucky lad to get you to do all that for him, Miss Lily.”
“Me! What did it matter if it was me or you or a fishwife,” said Lily,
“when a man is in such dreadful pain?”
They discussed it over and over again from every point of view, until
Lily fell asleep from sheer weariness in the hundredth repetition of the
story. Beenie, for her part, was exceedingly discreet at supper that evening.
Indeed, she was altogether too discreet to be successful with a quick
observer like Katrin, who saw, by the extreme precautions of her friend, and
the close-shut lips with which Beenie minced and bridled, and made little
remarks about nothing in particular, that there was something to conceal.
Katrin was very near to penetrating the mystery even now, but she said
nothing except those somewhat ostentatious congratulations to all parties on
the fact that Miss Eelen was there, which were designed to show the
growing conviction that Miss Eelen was not there at all. Beenie was quite
quick enough to perceive this, but she exercised much control over herself,
and made no signs before Dougal. He was chiefly occupied by the address
to Rory which Lily had made, which struck him as an excellent joke, and
which he repeated to himself from time to time, with a laugh which came
from the depths of his being. “She said till him: ‘Ye can throw me the morn,
and welcome, if ye’ll go canny the day.’ Losh, what a spirit she has, that
lassie, and the fun in her! ‘Go canny the day, and ye can throw me, if ye
like, the morn.’ And Rory to take it a’ in like a Christian!” He laughed till he
held his sides, and then he said feebly: “It’ll be the death of me.”
The joke did not strike the women as so brilliant. “I hope he’ll no take
her at her word,” said Beenie.
“Na, na, he’ll no take her at her word: he’s ower much of a gentleman;
but if he does, you’ll see she’ll stand it and never a word in her head. That’s
what I call real spirit, feared at nothing. ‘Go canny the day, and you can
throw me, if you like, the morn.’ I think I never heard any thing so funny in
a’ my born days.”
“You’re easy pleased,” said his wife, though she was quite inclined to
consider Lily’s speeches as brilliant, and herself as the flower of human
kind, but to let a man suppose that he was the discoverer of all this was not
to be thought of. She communicated, however, some of her suspicions to
Dougal, for want of any other confidant, when they were alone in the
stillness of their chamber. “I have my doubts,” said Katrin, “that it was nae
surprise to her at a’ to find the gentleman, and that it was him that was the
Miss Eelen that met her at the auld brig.”
“Him that was Miss Eelen? And how could he be Miss Eelen, a muckle
man?” said Dougal.
“Oh, ye gowk!” said his wife, and she put back her discoveries into her
bosom, and said no more.
Lily was very restless next day until she was able to get away on her
charitable mission. “I must go now,” she said, “to help to take care of him,
or Helen will have no time for her other business, and she has so much to
do.”
“You maun take care and no find another gentleman with a broken foot,”
said Katrin; “you mightn’t be able to manage Rory so well a second time.”
“Oh, I am not afraid of Rory,” the girl cried. “I just speak to him, as
Dougal does, in his ear.”
“Mind you what you’ve promised him, Miss Lily,” said that authority,
chuckling; “he is to cowp you over his head, if he likes, the day.”
“He’ll not do that!” cried Lily confidently, waving her hand to the
assembled household, who were standing outside the door to see her start.
What a diversion she was, with her comings and goings, her adventures and
mishaps, to that good pair! How dull it must have been for them before Lily
came to excite their curiosity and brighten their sense of humor. Dougal
returned to his work, shaking once more with a laugh that went down to his
boots and thrilled him all over, saying to himself: “He’s ower much of a
gentleman to take her at her word;” while Katrin stood shading her eyes
with her hand, and looking wistfully after the young creature in her
confidence and gayety of youth. “Eh, but I hope the lad’s worthy of her,”
was what Katrin said.
Ronald was lying once more upon the big hair-cloth sofa, as she had left
him. He would not stay in bed, Helen lamented, though it would have been
so much better for him. “But a simple sprain,” she said, “no complication. If
I could have persuaded him to bide quiet in his bed, he would have been
well at the end of the week; but nothing would please him but to be down
here, limping down stairs, at the risk of a fall, with two sticks and only one
foot. My heart was in my mouth at every step.”
“But he is none the worse,” cried Lily, “and I can understand Mr.
Lumsden, Helen. It is far, far more cheery here, where he can see every
thing that is going on, and have you and Mr. Blythe to talk to. A sprain
makes your ankle bad, but not your mind.”
“That is true,” said Ronald, “and what I have been laboring to say, but
had not the wit. My ankle is bad, but not my mind. I am in no such hurry to
get well as Miss Blythe thinks. Don’t you see,” he said, looking up in Lily’s
face, as she stood beside him, “in what clover I am here?”
Lily answered the look, but not the words. A tremulous sense of ease and
happiness arose in her being. The moor was sweet when he was there, and
to look for that hour in the evening had been enough for the first days to
make her happy. But to start out to meet him, nobody knowing, glad as she
had been to do it, cost Lily a pang. There are some people to whom the
stolen joys are the most sweet, but Lily was not one of these. The
clandestine wounded her sense of delicacy, if not her conscience. She was
doing no wrong, she had said to herself, but yet it felt like wrong so long as
it was secret, so long as a certain amount of deception was necessary to
procure it. She was like the house-maid, stealing out to meet her lover. To
the house-maid there was nothing unbecoming in that, but there was to Lily.
She had suffered even while she was happy. But now the clandestine was all
over. The constant presence of the old minister, who regarded them with
eyes in which there was too much insight and satire for Lily’s peace of
mind, was troublesome, but it was protection; it set her heart at rest. The
accident restored all at once the ease of nature. “It is the best thing that
could have happened,” Ronald said, when Helen left them alone, and Mr.
Blythe had hidden himself behind the large, broad sheet of The Scotsman,
the new clever Whig paper which had lately begun to bring the luxury of
news twice a week to the most distant corners of the land. “I don’t mean to
get better at the end of the week. It was a dreadful business yesterday, but I
see the advantage of it now.”
“Was it so dreadful yesterday, poor Ronald?” she said in the voice of a
dove, cooing at his ear.
“It was not delightful yesterday, though I had the sweetest Lily. But now
I warn you, Lily, I mean to keep ill as long as I can. You will come and stay
with me; it is your duty, for nobody knows me at Kinloch-Rugas but only
you, and you are the good Samaritan. You put me on your own beast, and
brought me to the inn.”
“Oh, do not speak like that, do not put me in mind that we are both
deceivers! I have forgotten it, now that we are here.”
“We are no deceivers,” he said. “It is all quite true; you put me on your
own beast. And where did you get all that strength, Lily? You must have
almost lifted me in your arms, you slender little thing, a heavy fellow like
me!”
“Oh, you did very well on your one foot,” said Lily, trying to laugh; but
she shuddered and the tears came into her eyes. She was aching still with
the strain that necessity had put upon her, but he did not think of that—he
only thought how strong she was.
“Here, you two,” said the minister, “I’m going to read you a bit out of
the paper. It is just full of stories, as good as if I had told them myself.”
“Oh, never heed with your stories, father,” said Helen; “keep them till
Lily goes away, for she has a wonderful way with her, and keeps things
going. Our patient will not be dull while Lily is here.”
Was that all she meant, or did Helen, too, suspect something? The two
lovers interchanged a glance, half of alarm, half of laughter, but Helen went
and came, unconscious, sometimes pausing to turn the cushion under the
bad foot, or to suggest a more comfortable position, with nothing but
kindness in her mild eyes.
 CHAPTER XV
Ronald was, as he had prophesied, a long time getting well. Even Helen
was a little puzzled, she who thought no evil, at the persistency of his
suffering; at the end of the second week he could, indeed, stumble about
with his two sticks, but still complained of great pain when he tried to walk.
The prolonged presence of the visitor began at last to become a little
trouble, even to the hospitable Manse, where strangers were entertained so
kindly, but where there was but one maid-of-all-work, with the occasional
services, chiefly outdoors, of the minister’s man; and an invalid of Ronald’s
robust character, whose presence necessitated better fare and gave a great
deal of additional work, was a serious addition both to the expenses and
labors of the house. It would have been much against the traditions of the
Manse to betray this in any way; but there was no doubt that the minister
was a little more sharp in his speeches, and apt to throw a secret dart, in the
disguise of a jest, at the guest whose convalescence was so prolonged. Lily
rode down from Dalrugas every day to help to nurse the patient, that Helen
might not have the whole burden of his helplessness on her shoulders; but
Lily, too, became aware that, delightful though this freedom of meeting
was, and the long hours of intercourse which were made legitimate as being
a form of duty, they were beginning to last too long and awaken uneasy
thoughts. Helen, who was so tender to her at first, became a little wistful as
the days went on. The gentle creature could think no harm, but perhaps it
was her father’s remarks which put it into her head that the two young
people were making a convenience of her hospitality, and that all was not
honest in the tale which had brought so unlooked-for a visitor under the
shelter of her roof. And then the village, as was inevitable, made many
remarks. “Bless me, but the young leddy at Dalrugas is an awfu’ constant
visitor, Miss Eelen. She comes just as if she was coming to her lessons
every morning at the same hour.” “She is the kindest heart in the world,”
said Helen. “You see, this gentleman that sprained his foot is a friend of her
uncle’s, and she could not take him to Dalrugas, where there is nobody but
servants; and she will not let me have all the trouble of him. A man, when
he is ill, takes a great deal of attendance,” said the minister’s daughter, with
a smile.
 “Losh! I would just let him attend upon himsel’,” said one.
“He should send for a sister, or somebody belonging to him,” said
another.
“Oh, not that,” said Helen—“I could not put up a lady, there is but little
room in the Manse—and with Miss Lily’s help we can pull through.”
“He should get an easy post-chaise from Aberdeen—there’s plenty easy
carriages to be got there nowadays—and go back to his ain folk. He’s a son
of Lumsden of Pontalloch, they tell me; that’s not so far but that he might
get there in a day.”
“I have no doubt he will do that as soon as he is well enough,” said
Helen; but all these remarks made her uneasy. Impossible for Scotch
hospitality to give a hint, to intimate a thought, that the visitor had
overstayed his welcome—and a man that had been hurt and was, perhaps,
still suffering! “No, no,” she said, shaking her head. But it troubled her
gentle mind that Lily’s visits should be so remarked, and it was strange—or
was it only the village gossip that made her feel that it was strange? Lily
perceived all this with an uneasy perception of new elements in the air.
“Ronald,” she said one day, when they were alone for a few minutes,
“you could put your foot to the ground without hurting when you try. You
will have to go away.”
“Why should I go away?” he said, with a laugh. “I am very comfortable.
It is not luxury, but it does very well when I see my Lily every day——”
“But, oh,” she cried, the color coming to her cheeks, which had been
growing pale these few days, “there are things of more consequence than
Lily! The Manse people are not rich——”
“You need not tell me that,” he said, looking round at the shabby
furniture with a smile.
“But, oh, Ronald, you don’t see! They try to get nice things for you, they
spend a great deal of trouble upon you, and they were glad at first—but it is
now a fortnight.”
“Lily, my love,” he said quickly, “if you have ceased to care for this
chance of meeting every day—if you want me to go away, of course I will
go.”
“Do you think it likely I should have ceased to care?” she said, with tears
in her eyes. “But we must think of other people, too.”
 “Thinking of other people is generally a mistake. We all know how to
take care of ourselves best—unless it is here and there some one like you, if
there is any one like my Lily. But, dear, I give very little trouble. What is
there to do for me? Another bed to make, another knife and fork—or spoon,
I should say, for we have broth, broth, and nothing but broth—and a little
grouse now and then, sent to them by somebody, and therefore costing
nothing.”
“It is ungenerous to say that!” Lily cried.
“My dearest, you will tell me what present I can send them when at last I
am forced to tear myself away. A good present that will make up to them—a
chest of tea, or a barrel of wine, or—— But I don’t want to go away, Lily; I
would rather stay here and see you every day until I am forced to go back to
my work.”
“Oh, and so would I!” cried Lily; “but,” she added, with a sigh, “we
must think of them. Mr. Blythe sits always, always in this room. It is the
sunny room in the house, and he likes it best. But you see he has gone into
his little study this day or two—which is very dreary—all because we are
here.”
“Very considerate of him,” said Ronald, with a laugh, “if that is a reason
for going away, that they now leave us sometimes alone. I fear it will not
move me, Lily; you must find a better than that.”
“Oh, Ronald, will you not see?” cried Lily in distress. But what could a
girl do? She could not put understanding into his eyes nor consideration
into his heart. He was willing to take advantage of these good people, and
the inducement was strong. She spoke against her own heart when she
urged him to go away, and she was glad to be laughed out of her scruples, to
be told of the “good present” that would make up for every thing, of the
gratitude that he would always feel, and his conviction that he gave very
little trouble, and added next to nothing to their expenses. “Broth is not
expensive,” he said, “and the grouse, you know, Lily, the grouse!” Lily
turned her head away, sick at heart. Oh, it was not how he should speak of
the people who were so kind to him; but still, when she mounted Rory—
now quite docile and accustomed to trot every day into Kinloch-Rugas—in
the afternoon, she could not but be glad to think that she might still come
to-morrow, that there was at least another day.
 One of these afternoons the parlor was full of people, under whose eyes
Lily could not continue to sit by the side of the sofa and minister to the
robust invalid’s wants. There was the doctor, who gave him a little slap on
his leg and said: “I congratulate ye on a perfect cure. You can get up and
walk when you like, like the man in the Bible.” And the school-master’s
wife, who said: “Eh, what a good thing for you, Mr. Lumsden, and you been
on your back so long.” And there was the assistant and successor, Mr.
Douglas, who was visibly anxious to get rid of all interlopers and speak a
word to Helen. Oh, why did he not follow Helen when she went out to open
the door for her visitors, and leave Lily free to say once more to Ronald, but
more energetically: “You must go!”
“I was wanting to say, sir,” said Mr. Douglas, “and I may add that I have
Miss Eelen’s opinion all on my side, that I would like very much if you
would say a parting word to the lads that are going out to Canada. We have
taken a great deal of trouble with them, and a word from the minister——”
“You are the minister yourself, Douglas; they know more of you than
they do of me.”
“Not so, Mr. Blythe. I am your assistant, and Miss Eelen she is your
daughter and the best friend they ever had; but it’s your blessing the callants
want, and a word from you——”
“My blessing!” the old man said, with an uneasy laugh. “You’re
forgetting, my young man, that there’s no sacerdotal pretensions in the auld
Kirk.”
“You blessed them when they were christened, sir, and you blessed them
and gave them the right hand of fellowship when they came to the Lord’s
table. I’m thinking nothing of sacerdotalism. I’m thinking of human nature.
We have no bishops, but while we have ordained ministers we must always
have fathers in God.”
Mr. Blythe had never been of this new-fangled type of devotion. He had
been an old Moderate, very shy of overmuch religion, and relying upon
habit and tradition and a good deal of wholesome neglect. But the young
man’s earnestness, backed as it was by the serious light in Helen’s eyes,
brought a color to his old face. He was a little ashamed of the importance
given to him, and half angry at the young people’s high-flown notions. “I
am not sure,” he said, “that I go with you, Douglas, nor with Eelen either, in
your dealings with these lads. You just cultivate a kind of forced religion in
them, that makes a fine show for a moment; it’s the seed that fell by the
wayside and sprang up quickly, but had no root in itself.”
“We can never tell that, sir,” said the assistant; “it may help them when
they have no ordinances to mind them of their duty. If they remember their
Creator in the days of their youth——”
“ ’Deed,” said the old minister, “it is just as often as not to forget every
thing all the quicker when they come to man’s estate. Solomon knew mainy
things, but not the lads in a parish so near the Highlant line.”
“Anyway, father, it will be kindly like, and them going so far, far away.”
“That is just it,” said Mr. Blythe: “why should they go far, far away?
Why couldn’t ye let them jog on as their fathers did before them? I’m not
an advocate for emigration. There are plenty of things the lads could do
without leaving their own country. Let them go to Glasgow, where there’s
work for every-body, or to the South. You think you can do every thing with
your arrangements and your exhortations, and looking after more than ye
were ever asked to look after. I have never approved of all these meetings
and things, and your classes and your lessons, and all the fyke you make
about a few country callants. Let them alone to their fathers’ advice and
their mothers’. You may be sure the women will all warn them to keep off
the drink—and much good it will do, whatever you may say, either them or
you.”
“But just a word of farewell, sir,” pleaded the assistant; “we ask no
more.”
“And that is just a great deal too much in present circumstances,” cried
the old minister. “Where would ye have me speak to them—a dozen big
country lads, like colts out of the stable? I cannot go out to the cold vestry
at night, me that seldom leaves the house at all. And the dining-room is too
small, and what other room have we free? Eelen, you know that as well as
me. I cannot have them up in my bedchalmer, and the kitchen, with lasses in
it, would be no place for such a ceremonial. No, no; we have no room, that
is true.”
“I hope, sir,” said Ronald from his sofa, “you are not saying this from
consideration for me. I’d like nothing better than to see the boys, and hear
your address to them. It would be good, I am sure, and I am as much in
need of good advice as any of them can be.”
 “You are very considerate, Mr. Lumsden,” said the minister, after a
pause. “It is a great thing to have an inmate that takes so much thought. But
how can I tell that it would not be bad for you in your delicate state, with
your nurses at your side all the day?”
“Delicate! I am not delicate!” cried Ronald, with a flush. “It is only, you
know, this confounded foot.”
“Well, Douglas,” said the minister, “between Mr. Lumsden’s confoondit
foot and your confoondit pertinacity, what am I to do? Since your patient,
Eelen, is so kind and permits the use of our best parlor, have them in, have
ben your callants. I must not be less gracious than my own guest,” the old
man said.
Lily went away trembling after this scene, giving Ronald a beseeching
glance, but she had no opportunity for a word. Next day, still tremulous, she
returned, to find him still there, a little defiant, not to be driven out. But a
short time after, when she was again preparing to go into the “toun”—
without any pleasant looks now from her household, or complaisance on the
part of Dougal, who openly bemoaned his pony—the whole population of
Dalrugas turned out to see the inn “geeg” once more climbing the brae. It
contained Ronald and his portmanteau, speeding off to catch the coach, but
incapable, as he said, in the hearing of every-body, of going away without
thanking and saying farewell to his kind nurse. “Do you know what this
young lady did for me?” he said to the little company, which included Rory,
ready saddled, and the black pony harnessed, with the boy at his head. “She
lifted me, I think, from where I lay, and put me on her own beast, like the
good Samaritan. She was more than the good Samaritan to me. Look at her,
like a fairy princess, and me a heavy lump, almost fainting, and with but
one foot. That is what charity can do.”
“Well, it was a wonderful thing,” Katrin allowed, “but maist more than
that was riding down ance errand to the town to take care of ye every day.”
“Ah, that was for Miss Blythe’s sake and not mine,” he said. “May I
come in, Miss Ramsay, to give you her message? Oh, Robina, I am glad to
see you here. I can carry the last news to Sir Robert, and tell him how both
mistress and maid are thriving on the moor.”
It was all false, false, as false as words that were true enough in
themselves could be. Lily ran up the spiral stair, while Beenie helped him to
follow. The girl’s heart was beating high with more sensations than she
could discriminate. This was the parting, then, after so long a time together;
the farewell, which was more dreadful than words could say—and yet she
was glad he was going. He was her own true-love, and nobody was like him
in the world, and yet Lily’s mind revolted against every word he said.
“Why did you say all that?” she cried, breathless, when they were alone.
“It was not wanted, surely, here!”
“Necessary fibs,” he said. “You are too particular, Lily, for me that am
only carrying out my rôle. You see, I am obeying you and going away at
last.”
“Oh, Ronald, it was not that I wanted you to go away.”
“No, if I could have gone away, yet stayed all the same. But one can’t do
two opposite things at the same time. And, Lily, it must be good-by now—
for a little while. You will look out for me at the New Year.”
“Do you call it just a little while to the New Year?” she cried, with the
tears in her eyes.
“Three months, or a little more. I shall not come to Kinloch-Rugas; I’ll
find a lodging in some little farm. And in the meantime you will write to
me, Lily, and I will write to you.”
“Yes, Ronald,” she said, giving him both her hands. Was this to be all? It
was not for her to ask; it was for him to say:
“My bonnie Lily! If I could but carry you off, never to part more! But if
nothing happens to release you, if Sir Robert does not relent, mind, my
dearest, we must make up our minds and take it into our own hands. He is
not to keep us apart forever. You will let me know all that goes on, and
whether those people down stairs have reported the matter; and I, for my
part, will take my measures. When we meet again, every thing will be
clearer. And, Lily, on your side, you will tell me every thing, that we may
see our way.”
“There will be nothing to tell you, Ronald. There will be no report sent;
Uncle Robert, I think, has forgotten my existence. There will be nothing,
nothing to say but that it is weary living alone here on the moor.”
“Not more weary than my life in Edinburgh, pacing up and down the
Parliament House, and looking out for work. But we’ll see what is going to
happen before the New Year; and I will send the present to those good
Manse folk, and you will keep up with them, for they may be very useful
friends. Is it time for me to go? Well, I will go if I must; and good-by for the
present, my darling, good-by till the New Year!”
Was it possible that he was gone, that it was all over, and Lily left again
alone on the moor? She ran to Beenie’s room, which was on the other side
of the house, to watch the inn “geeg” as long as it was in sight. Nothing is
ever said of what is intended to be said in a hasty last meeting like this. It
was worse than no meeting at all, leaving all the ravelled ends of parting.
And was it true that all was over, and Ronald gone and nothing more to be
done or said?
 CHAPTER XVI
The dead calm into which Lily fell after all the agitations of this
wonderful period was like death itself, she thought, after the tumult and
commotion of a climax of life. Those days during which she had trotted
down to the village on Rory, the mountain breezes in her face, and all the
warmest emotions stirred in her breast, days full of anxiety and expectation,
sometimes of more painful feelings, agitations of all kinds, but threaded
through and through with the consciousness that for hours to come she
would be with her lover, ministering to his wants, hearing him speak, going
over and over with him, in the low-voiced talk to which the old minister
behind his newspaper gave, or was supposed to give, no heed, their own
prospects and hopes, their plans for the future—all those things that are
more engrossing and delightful to talk of than any other subjects in heaven
or earth—were different from all the days that had passed over her before.
Her youthful existence was like a dream, thrown back into the distance by
the superior force and meaning of all that had happened since: both the
loneliness and the society, the bitter time of self-experience and solitude,
the joy of the reunion, the love so crossed and mingled which had grown
with greater intensity with every chance. The little simple Lily who had
“fallen in love,” as she thought, with Ronald Lumsden, as she might have
fallen in love with any one of a half-dozen of young men, was very, very
different from the Lily who had been torn out of her natural life on his
account, who had doubted him and found him wanting, who had been
converted into the faith of an enthusiast in him, and conviction that it was
she, and not he, that was in the wrong. Their stolen meetings on the moor,
which had startled her back into the joy of existence, which had been so
few, yet so sweet; their little meal together, which was like a high ceremony
and sacrament of a deeper love and union; the tremendous excitement of the
accident, and the agitated chapter of constant yet disturbed intercourse
which followed (disturbed at last by a renewed creeping in of the old
doubts, and anxiety to push him forward, to make him act, to make him
think not always of himself, as he was so apt to do)—all these things had
formed an epoch in her life, behind which every thing was childish and
vague. She herself was not the same. It happens often in a woman’s life that
the change from youth and its lighter atmosphere of natural, simple things
comes before the mind is developed, before the character is able to bear that
wonderful transformation. Lily at first had been essentially in this
condition. Her trial came to her before she had strength for it, and every
new point of progress was marked, so to speak, with a new wound, quickly
healed over, as became her youth, yet leaving a scar, as all internal wounds
do. Even when the thrill of happiness had been in her young frame and
mind it had been intensified by a thrill of pain: the pang of secrecy, the
sharp sting of falsehood—falsehood which was abhorrent to Lily’s nature.
She had laughed as other girls laugh at the stratagems of lovers, their
devices to escape the observation of jealous parents, the evils that are said
to be legitimate in love and war. Nobody is so severe as to judge harshly
these aberrations from duty. Even the sternest parent smiles at them when
they are not directed against himself. But when it came to inventing a story
day by day; when it came to deceiving Katrin, with her sharp eyes, at one
end, and Helen’s unsuspicious soul at the other—then Lily could not bear
the tangled web in which she had wound herself. She had to go on; it was
too late to tell the truth now, she had said to herself, day by day, her heart
aching from those thanks which Helen showered upon her for her kind
attendance upon the unexpected guest. “If it had not been for you, Lily,
what could I have done?” the minister’s daughter had said, again and again;
and Lily’s heart had grown sick in the midst of her strained and painful
happiness at Ronald’s side.
Now this was over and another phase come. She had urged him to go,
feeling the position untenable any longer in a way which his robust self-
confidence had not felt; but when suddenly he had taken the step she urged,
Lily felt herself flung back upon herself, the words taken out of her mouth,
and the meaning from her mind. All her little fabric of life tumbled down
about her. Those habits which are formed so quickly, which a few days
suffice to bind upon the soul like iron, dropped from her, and she felt as if
the framework by which she was sustained had broken down, and she could
no longer hold herself erect. Her life seemed suddenly to have lost all its
meaning, all its occupations. There was no sense in going on, no reason for
its continuance merely to eat meals, to take walks, to go to bed and to get
up again. She looked behind her, to the immediate past, with a pang, and
before her, to the immediate future, with a blank sense of vacancy which
was almost despair. When the “geeg” that carried him away was gone quite
out of sight, Lily went slowly back to the drawing-room, and seated herself
at the window from which she had first seen him appearing across the moor.
It had been then all ablaze with the heather, which now had died away into
rustling bunches of dead flowers, all dried like husks upon the stalks, gray
and dreary, like the dull evening of a glowing day. Her heart beat dull with
the reverberation of all those convulsions that had gone through it. And now
they were all over, like the glow of the heather—and what was before her?
The winter creeping on, with its short days and long nights; storm and rain,
when even Rory would not face the keen wind; solitude unbroken for weeks
and months; and beyond that what was there to look forward to? Oh, if it
had been but poverty—the little flat under the roofs in a tall Edinburgh
house, and to work her fingers to the bone! Poor Lily, who knew so little
what working your fingers to the bone meant! who thought that would be
blessedness beside one you loved, and in the world where you were born!
So, no doubt, it would have been; but yet, in all probability, though she did
not intend it so, it would have been Robina’s fingers, not hers, that were
worked to the bone.
I would not have the reader think that, translated into ordinary parlance,
all this meant the vulgar fact that Lily was longing to be married, and would
not accept the counsels of patience and wait, though she was only twenty-
three, and had so many, many years before her. Had Ronald been an eager
lover, ready to brave fortune for her sake, and consider that, for love, the
world were well lost, she would no doubt have taken the other side of the
question, and preached patience to him, and borne her own part of the
burden with a smile. But it is very different when it is the lover who is
prudent, and when the girl, with an unsatisfied heart, has to wait and know
that her happiness, her society, her life, are of less value to him than the
fortune which he hopes, by patience, to secure along with her; also that she
can do nothing to emancipate herself, nothing to escape from whatever
painful circumstances may surround her, till he gives the word, which he
shows no inclination to give, and which womanly pride and feeling forbid
her even to suggest; also, and above all, that in his hesitation, in his
prudence and delay, he is falling short of the ideal which every lover should
fulfil or lose his place and power. This was the worst of all: not only that
Ronald was acting so, but that it was so far, far different from the manner in
which Ronald, had he been the Ronald she thought, would have acted. This
gave the bitterness under which Lily’s heart sank. Again, she did not know
what he meant to do, or if he meant to do any thing, or if she were to remain
as she was, perhaps for long years, consuming her heart in loneliness and
vacancy, diversified by moments of clandestine meeting and unlovely
happiness, bought by deceit. She could not again yield to that, she said to
herself, with passionate tears. Though her heart were to break, she would
not heal it at the cost of lies. It might not have given Lily many
compunctions, perhaps, to have deceived her uncle; but to deceive Helen, to
deceive kind Katrin and Dougal, to give false accounts of the simplest
circumstances—oh! no, no; never again, never again! She said this to
herself, with passionate tears falling like rain, as she sat at her lonely
window on many a dreary day, straining her eyes across the moor, where
the rain so often fell to double the effect of those tears. Let them give each
other up mutually; let them part and be done with it if he chose; but to
deceive every-body and meet secretly, or meet openly upon the falsest of
pretences—oh! no, no, Lily said to herself, never more!
But how these decisions melted when, in the heart of the winter, there
began to dawn the promise of the New Year, it is easy to imagine, and I do
not need to say. Lily, it must be remembered, had no one but Ronald to
represent to her happiness and life. She had never had many people to love.
Her father and mother had both died before she was old enough to know
them. She had no aunt, though that is often an unsatisfactory relation, not
even cousins whom she knew, which is strange to think of in Scotland—
nobody to take her part or whom she could repose her heart upon but
Beenie, her maid, to whom Lily’s concerns were her own sublimated, and
who could only agree in and intensify Lily’s own natural impulses and
thoughts. Ronald was all she had, the only one who could help her, the sole
deliverer possible, and opener to her of the gates of life. To be sure, she
might have renounced him and so returned to her uncle, to be dragged about
in a back seat of his chariot, if not at its wheels; though, indeed, even this
was problematical, for Sir Robert was a selfish old man, who was, on the
whole, very glad to have got rid of the burden of a young woman to take
about with him, and considered that she would do very well at the old
Tower, and might be quite content with such a quiet and comfortable home,
a good cook (which Katrin was), a pony to ride upon, and the run of the
moor. He had half forgotten her existence by this time, as Lily divined, and
was absent “abroad” in that vague and wide world of which stayers at home
in Scotland knew so much less then than every-body knows now. And as
the time approached for Ronald’s return, Lily, in her longing for him, added
to her longing for something, for some one, for society, emancipation,
something that was life, began to forget all her old aches and troubles of
mind; the doubts flew away; she remembered only that Ronald was coming,
that he was coming, that the sun was about to shine again, that there was
happiness in prospect, love and company and talk and sympathy, and all
that is good in youth and life. This time she must manage so that the deceit
of old would be necessary no longer. Helen should know that the two who
had met so often in the Manse parlor had come to love each other. What so
natural, what so fitting, seeing they had spent so much time together under
her own wing and her own mild eyes? And Katrin and Dougal should be
permitted to see what Lily was very sure they had divined already, that the
poor gentleman whom Lily had nursed so faithfully was more to her than
any other gentleman in the world. He should come to Dalrugas to see her,
and be with her openly as her lover in the sight of all men. If Sir Robert
heard of it, why, then she must escape, she must fly; the pair must at last
take it, as Ronald had said, into their own hands—and Lily did not feel that
she would be very sorry if this took place. At all events now every thing
should be open and honest, clandestine no more.
It seemed as if he had come to the same decision when he arrived on the
night which was then called in Scotland, and is perhaps still to some extent,
Hogmanay—why I do not know, nor I believe does any one—the last night
of the year. He came in the early twilight, when the short, dark day was
ending, and the long, cheerful evening about to begin. What a cheerful
evening it was! the fire so bright, the candles twinkling, the curtains drawn,
and from the kitchen the sound of the children singing who had come out in
a band all the way from the village to call upon Katrin:

“Get up, gudewife, and shake your feathers,

And dinna think that we are beggars,
For we are bairns, come out to play;
Get up and gie’s our Hogmanay.”

Lily was about to go down, flying down the spiral stairs, her heart
beating loud with expectation, wondering breathlessly when he would
come, how he would come, who alone could bring the Hogmanay cheer to
her, and in the meantime ready, for pure excitement, and to keep herself
still, to join the women in the kitchen, and fill the children’s wallets with
cakes, cakes par excellence, the oatmeal cakes to wit, which are still what is
meant in Scotland by that word, baked thin and crisp, and fresh from the
girdle, making a pleasant smell; and over and above these with shortbread,
in fine, brown farls, the true New Year’s dainty, and great pieces of bun, the
Scotch bun, which is something between a plum-pudding and the Pan
Giallo of the Romans, a mass of fruit held together by flour and water.
Great provision of these delights was in the kitchen, which was all “redd
up” and shining for the festival, with Katrin in her best cap, and Beenie in a
silk gown and muslin apron, a resplendent figure. A band of “guisards” had
accompanied the children, ready to enact some scene of the primitive drama
of prehistoric tradition. Lily was hastening down to join this party, in a
white dress which she too had put on in honor of the occasion. The kitchen
was very noisy, full of these visitors, and nobody but she heard the
summons at the big hall-door. Lily hesitated for a moment, her heart giving
a bound as loud as the knock—then opened it. And there he stood—the hero
and the centre of all!
“And, eh, what a lucky thing to come this night that Miss Lily may have
her ploy too! You will just stop and eat your bit dinner with her, Maister
Lumsden!” Katrin cried.
“Will it be a ploy for Miss Lily? I would like to be sure of that.”
“Eh, nae need to pit it in words,” said Katrin: “look at her bonnie e’en;
and reason good, seeing that she has never spoken to one of her own kind,
and least of all to a young gentleman, since the day ye gaed away.”
“I am staying at Tam the shepherd’s, on the other side of the moor,” said
Ronald.
“Losh me! at Tam the shepherd’s, for the shootin’?” she asked in a tone
of consternation.
“Well,” he said, with a laugh, “you can judge, Katrin, for yourself.”
“Ay, ay,” she said, brightening all over, “I judge for mysel’, sir, and I see
it’s just the auld story. Tam the shepherd’s an awfu’ haverel, but his wife’s
an honest woman, and clean,” she added, “as far as she kens. But you shall
have a good dinner with Miss Lily, I promise you, for once in a way.”
Lily only half listened, but she heard all that was said. And her heart
danced to see his open look, and the words in which there was no pretence
of shooting, or any reason, save the evident one, for his presence there. The
excuses were all over; there was to be no more deception. Honestly he came
as her lover, endeavoring to throw no dust in the eyes of her humble
guardians. If they had been noble guardians, holding her fate in their hands,
Lily could not have been more happy. They were not to be deceived.
Openness and honesty were to be around her in the house which was her
home. What was wanted but this to make her the happiest girl that ever
piled shortbread into a child’s wallet in honor of Hogmanay, and the New
Year which was coming to-morrow? A new year, a new life, a different
world! Katrin came up to her with half-affected horror and tender kindness,
grasping her arm. “Eh, Miss Lily,” she cried, “you’ll just ruin the family,
and we’ll no have a single farl of shortbread left for our ain use; and the
morn’s the New Year! Ye are giving every thing away. Na, na, we must
mind oursel’s a wee. No more for you, my wee man. Miss Lily’s just ower
good to you. Run up the stairs, my bonnie leddy, for Beenie is setting the
table, and you’ll get your dinner, you and the gentleman, before the guisards
begin.”
“The gentleman!” Lily felt her countenance flame, as she laughed and
turned away. “How kind you are, Katrin,” she said, “to provide me with
company, too, me that never sees any body.”
“Am I no kind,” cried Katrin in triumph, “and him for coming just at the
right moment? I am awfu’ pleased that you have a pairty of your ain to
bring in a good New Year.”
How strange, how delightful it was to sit down opposite to him at the
table, to eat Katrin’s excellent dinner, which, though it was almost
impromptu, was so good—trout and game, the Highland luxuries, which
were, indeed, almost daily bread on the edge of the moor, but not to Ronald,
who amid all their happiness was man enough to like his dinner and praise
it. “This is how we shall sit at our own table, and laugh at all our little
troubles when they are over,” he said.
“Oh, Ronald!” said Lily, with a little cloud in the midst of joy. They
might be little troubles to him, but not to her, all lonely in the wilderness.
“At all events they will soon be over,” he said. His eyes were bright and
his tones assured; there was no longer any doubt in his look, which she
examined in the moments when he was not looking at her with an anxious
criticism. “And tell me about the good folk at the Manse, and kind Miss
Eelen and her assistant and successor. Is he to be her assistant, too, as well
as her father’s? I had a famous letter from the old gentleman about the wine
I sent him. And, Lily, I think that with very little trouble I will get him to do
all we want as soon as you can make up your mind to it. After all this time
we must not have any more delay.”
“To do all we want?” she said, looking up at him with surprise. The
dinner was over by this time, and they had left the table and were standing
by the fire.
“Yes,” he said. “What do we want but to belong to each other, Lily? You
don’t need grand gowns or all the world at your wedding. Oh, yes, I should
have liked to see my Lily with all her friends about her, and none so sweet
as herself. But since we cannot do that, why should we mind it, when the
old minister here can make every thing right in half an hour?”
“Ronald,” she said, with a gasp, “you take away my breath!”
“Why,” he cried, “is not this what has been in our minds for ever so
long? Have you not promised, however poor I was, in whatever straits——”
“Yes, yes, there is no question of that.”
“And why, then, should it take away your breath? My bonnie Lily, is it
not an old bargain now? We have waited and waited, but nothing has come
of waiting. And Providence has put us in a quiet place, with nothing but
friends round, and a good old minister, a kind old fellow, who likes a good
glass of wine and knows what he’s drinking!” He laughed at this as he drew
her closer toward him. “Lily, with every thing in our favor, you will not put
me off and make a hesitation now?”
Oh, this was not quite the way, not the way she looked for! Yet she drew
her breath hard, that breath which fluttered in spite of herself, and put both
her hands in his. No, after so long waiting why should she make a hesitation
now? And then they went down to the kitchen together, arm in arm, Lily
yielding to the delightful consciousness that there was no need for
concealment, to see the guisards act their primitive drama, and to bring in
the New Year.
Oh, the New Year! which was coming in amid that rustic mirth among
those true, kind, humble friends to whom the young pair were as gods in the
glory of their love and youth. Lily trembled in her joy: what bride does not?
What would it bring to them, that New Year?
 CHAPTER XVII
This New Year’s Eve remained, amid all the experiences of Lily, a thing
apart. It became painful to her to think of it in after times, but in the present
it was like a completion and climax of life, still all in the visionary stage,
yet so close on the verge of the real that she became herself like an
instrument, thrilling to every touch, answering every air that blew, every
word that was said, in each and all of which there were meanings hidden of
which none was aware but herself. There was the little dinner first, so
carefully prepared by Katrin, so tenderly served by Beenie, the two young
people sitting on either side of the table as if at their bridal banquet, while
the sound of the festivities going on in the kitchen came up by times when
the door was opened: a squeak of the fiddle, the sound of the stamping of
the guisards as they performed their little archaic drama, adding a franker
note of laughter to the keen supreme pleasure that reigned above. Beenie
went and came, always bringing with her along with every new dish that
little gust of laughter and voices from below, to which she kept open half an
ear, while with the other she attended to what her little mistress said.
“You maun come down, Miss Lily, to do them a grace: they a’ say they’ll
no steer till they’ve seen the young leddy; and they’re decent lads just come
out to play, as the bairns say in their sang, neither beggars nor yet
stravaigers, but lads from the town, to please ye with their bit performance;
and I ken a’ their mothers!” Beenie cried with a little outburst of
affectionate emotion.
When Lily went down accordingly, followed closely by her lover, the
little primitive drama was repeated, with more stamping and shouting than
ever; and then there was an endless reel, to the sound of the squeaking
fiddle, in which Lily danced as long as she could hold out, and Beenie held
out, as it seemed, forever, wearing out all the lads.
“Eh! I was a grand dancer in my time,” she admitted, when she had
breath enough, while the fiddle squeaked on and on.
And then, as was right, Ronald said good-night as the rural band
streamed away from the door. The curious group of the guisards, some of
them in white shirts outside their garments, some in breastplates of tin, with
an iron pot on their heads by way of helmet, “set him home” with much
respectful kindness. “But I wuss ye were coming with us to the toun, for
Tam the shepherd’s is no a howff for a gentleman,” they said.
“Any hole will do for me,” said Ronald in the exhilaration of the
evening; and all the house came out of doors to speed the parting guests.
The moon shone mistily over the long stretch of the moor, throwing up a
sinister gleam here and there from the deep cuttings, and flinging a veil as
of gossamer over the great breadth of the country. The air was fresh, not
over-cold, “saft,” as Dougal called it, with the suggestion of rain, and the
sudden irruption of voices and steps into the supreme and brooding silence
made the strangest effect in the middle of the night. Lily stood watching
them as they streamed away, Ronald so distinct from them all as they
streamed down under the shadow of the bank, to show again, chiefly by
reason of their disguises, upon the road a little way down. Lily lingered
until a speck of white in the distance was all that was visible. She was
wrapped in a plaid which Ronald had put round her, drawing the soft green
and checkered folds closely around her face, and as warm physically as she
was at heart. Now he was himself; he had flung all prudences and fancies to
the wind; he had forgotten Sir Robert and his fortune, and every other
common thing that could come between. Lily danced up the spiral staircase
with a heart that sang still more than her lips did as she “turned” the tune to
which they had been dancing. No one can keep still to whom
“Tullochgoram” is sung or played. She danced up the stairs, keeping time
faster and faster to the mad melody—the essence unadulterated of reckless
fun and drollery.
“Eh, my bonnie leddy!” Beenie cried, who had gone before with the
candles; while Katrin stood looking after her, and Dougal locked and bolted
the great hall-door. Katrin shook her head a little: she was much
experienced. “Eh, if he be but worthy of her!” she sighed.
“It’s late, late at nicht, and the New Year well begun,” said Robina. “Eh,
Miss Lily, you’ll never forget this New Year?”
“Why should I forget it?” said Lily. “You had better wait till it is past
before you say that. But maybe you are right, after all, for there never was a
Hogmanay like this; and to think that the morn will come, and that it will be
no more like the other days than this has been! Beenie, did you ever hear
that folk might be as feared for joy as for trouble? or is it only me that am
so timorsome, and cannot tell which it is going to be?”
“ ’Deed, and I’ve heard o’ that many’s the day. It’s just the common way,
my bonnie dear. Many a bonnie lassie would fain flee to the ends of the
earth the day before her bridal that is just pleased enough when a’s said and
done. You mustna lose heart.”
“I’m not losing heart,” said Lily. “The day before my bridal! Is that what
it is? I will just be happy to-night and never think of the morn; for when I
begin to think, it takes so many things to be satisfied, and I would like to be
satisfied just for once, and take no thought.”
Robina had a great deal to do in Lily’s room that night. She kept moving
to and fro, softly opening and shutting drawers and presses, laying away her
mistress’s things with a care that was scarcely necessary, and meant only
restlessness and excitement and an incapacity to keep still. Long before she
had done moving about the half-lighted room Lily was fast asleep, her
excitement, though presumably greater, not being enough to keep sleep
from the eyes which were dazzled with the sudden gleam of something so
new and strange in her life, as well as tired with an unusual vigil. Lily slept
as soundly as a child till the clear, somewhat shrill daylight, touched with
frost, shone upon her late in the wintry morning and called her up much
more effectually than the wavering call of Beenie, who was hanging over
her in the morning, as she had been at night, the first to meet her eyes.
“Eh, Miss Lily, what a grand sleep ye have had!” Beenie cried. She had
slept but little herself, her head full of the new situation and all the strange
things that might be to come. The house in general had a sense of
excitement breathing through it, not visible, indeed, in Dougal, who was, as
usual, wrestling with the powny outside, but very apparent in Katrin, who
went about her morning work with an extremely serious face, as if all the
cares of the world were on her shoulders. Robina and she had various stolen
moments of communication through the day, indeed, which testified to a
degree of confidence between them, and a mutual preoccupation.
“I’m no to say a word to her; but how am I to keep my tongue in my
head when Dauvit himself says that when he was musin’ the fire burnt!”
“Losh,” cried Katrin, “if it was naething but haudin’ your tongue! but
what I’ve to think of is mair than that. Eh, I’m doing that for Miss Lily I
would do for none of my kin, no, nor Dougal himself; and I wish I was just
clean out of it, for I’m no fond of secrets—they are uncanny things.”
“Eh, woman! ye wouldna betray them?” Beenie cried.
“Betray them? Am I a person to betray what’s trusted to me? But I wish
there were nae secrets in this world. It’s just aye cheating somebody. Ye
canna be straichtforward, do what ye will, when ye’ve got other folks’
secrets to keep, let alone them that are your ain.”
“I’m no sae particular,” said Beenie, with a little toss of her head, “and
there will be no stress upon ye for long. It’s just the ae step.”
“I have my doubts,” said Katrin, shaking her head.
“Ye have your doubts? And what doubts would ye have? It will a’ be
plain when ance it’s done. There are nae mair secrets after that! It’s just as I
said, the ae step. Eh me, I could have likit it far better in Sir Robert’s grand
house in George Square, and a’ Edinburgh there, and the Principal himself
to join their hands thegether, and my bonnie Miss Lily in the white satin,
and the auld lady’s grand necklace about her bonnie white neck. But we
canna have every thing our ain gate. The Manse parlor is just a’ that can be
desired in the circumstances we’re noo in; and when it’s done, it will just be
done and naething more to say.”
But Katrin still shook her head. She was a far-seeing woman. “I’m no
just sure we will be out of it sae easy as that,” she said.
This talk was not completed at once, but came in on various occasions, a
few words here and there, as opportunity secured; and the two women,
though both were excited and disturbed, did no doubt enjoy the rôle of
conspirator, more or less, and felt that those secret consultations added a
zest to life. Beenie, whose lips were sealed in the presence of her mistress,
and Katrin, who had to maintain an aspect of absolute calm in the sight of
Dougal, could not but feel a consciousness of superiority, which consoled
them for much that was uncomfortable. But, indeed, it was exasperatingly
easy to deceive Dougal. He suspected nothing; secrets or mysteries had
never come his way. Life meant to him his daily work, his daily parritch,
the comfort of a crack now and then with his friends, a glass of toddy on an
occasion, and the prevailing consciousness of being well done for at all
times, with a clean hearthstone, and the parritch and the broth both well
boiled and appetizing, more than fell to the lot of ordinary men. If he had
known even that Katrin was keeping a secret from him, it is doubtful
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