"Some calls her the one and some the other," said Marjory, shortly. "Never you mind. You'll be telling me now the man that came up and – saved ye was – "
"That is just it," said Jean, "and if you'll tell nobody, Marjory, I'll just whisper in your ear – he's a bonnie lad."
"Mistress Jean!" cried the housekeeper in consternation.
"Well! say he's just a country fellow, and no grand cock to his hat, nor lace on his coat: I am not saying he's a grand gentleman. But I have a pair of sharp eyes in my head, – you are always saying that, – and I cannot but see what's set before them. He is a bonnie lad; and that is just as true as all the rest."
"What do you call a' the rest?"
"You know as well as I do; or maybe you know better," said Jean, with a little indignation; "because he is Peter Oliphant, and because he is the next of kin, that's not to say that he is not a bonnie lad!"
"It might be a good reason, Mistress Jean, for you kenning naething about him, and no going out of your way to make acquaintance with him – "
"Me go out of my way to make acquaintance with him! Neither him nor any man, if it were a prince or a king! It was he that came out of his way to protect a lass he knew nothing of when he saw she was in need. Maybe you would have thought it better had he left me to the trooper?" said the girl, with much indignation.
"Oh, no that, no that," said the old woman; "but it would have been better you had not put yourself in the way of wanting protection, my bonnie leddy – no from him nor from any man!" she said.
"You forget who you are speaking to," cried Mistress Jean, with quick anger, flinging away. But she came back next minute to fling her arms round her old nurse's neck. "And that's true," she said; "I was just thinking so mysel'."
CHAPTER II
While this was going on, Sir Walter was sitting in his warm panelled chamber, pondering by the side of the fire. His old Castle, which was not one of the famous strongholds of the time, but yet an ancient house dating far back into the mist of ages, and standing four-square to all the winds that blew, a house that time could scarcely wear more than the rocks, would soon be a desolate and masterless house. Since the days of Bruce the Oliphants had been there, and the first lord of Kellie had good King Robert's blood in his veins. But now there was no one to come after him in the old home of his race. The gloom of that consciousness had settled down upon his mind, and filled him with an immense and indescribable darkness in which he went tottering, seeking for something to replace what was lost, though by moments he was not very clear as to what it was that was lost, which made it necessary for him to grope in the dark and seek that substitute. And his thoughts were very slow, wandering, and confused, though they always came back with unbroken persistency to the one point. Who should have Kellie after him? Who would replace the heirs who were no more? This had been the preoccupation of many years; it almost seemed as if all his life he had been thinking of it. His own active days had vanished away, and all the adventures and troubles that had filled his house with rejoicing and with wailing. Sometimes while he sat musing on that one sole question he would be surprised by a recollection of himself, as in the days when he rode in Queen Mary's train, or those in which he hung about the ante-chambers at St James's, half proud to feel himself one of the new masters there, half furious to see the dark looks which the Southern lords threw upon King James's train. Was that himself? or one of the former Oliphants who held a larger train at Kellie? or perhaps one of the young ones – the lads, the – , those who ought to have been here to receive Kellie from his hands. Their faces would sometimes flash out from his memory too. Who were they, old heirs of Kellie slain in the wars, or lost in the wildering world, never coming back to claim their heritage? And who was to have it now? Who would keep it safe, and guard all its rights and keep up the auld name? On this subject his thoughts would clear, his mind retained its force. It was the one clear point in the misty universe of dreams that surrounded the old man.
Almost his only visitors were the clergymen of the two neighbouring parishes, each of which claimed Kellie Castle as part of its own. He retained enough of his natural keenness to perceive that each of them took a different side in this great question, and sometimes to play upon their contradictions with something of the pleasure which the quarrels of priests and women between themselves so often afford to a man of the world. The difference between them gave him a vague amusement, or something at least as like amusement as he was capable of. Master Melville of Carnbee was a Reformation minister who had known John Knox, and who, though of a much milder temper, was yet very strong as to his duty of speaking in season and out of season, and letting no man avoid or mistake his duty without full warning of it; but Sir John Low at Pittenweem was no better than a mass priest the country folk said, and loved the great, and to speak smooth things, flattering the old laird and supporting him in taking his own way. Sir Walter listened to what they said on both sides, but he was little moved by their arguments. What he was really doing while he seemed to be listening was slowly settling upon his own plans, and deciding for himself while they talked, which neither of them was at all unwilling to do. It was Mr Melville who was his visitor the day after the incident in the last chapter, a grave man of gentle manners, with a black velvet cap upon a bald head.
"What are ye saying?" said Sir Walter. "Reason gude – ay, I've reason gude for all I say to you. It's no fit that an auld race should die out of the land."
"And yet," said the other, in the heat of argument, "if it's so ordained, it's ill striving with the Will aboon. But ye have heirs in plenty at your hand, and little danger of your name. How often must I be telling ye, Sir Walter Oliphant, there is your ain father's daughter, your ain flesh and blood, the one that has the best right? Where would ye go furder than your ain ingleside? Who could be so near to you? and young and likely and one to raise up heirs – always if it be the Almichty's will – "
"Who's that," said the old knight. "Jean! a bit lassie! how often have I tellt you, minister? just as often as you have tellt me. What would I do with a lassie in my seat, that could neither keep the house nor keep her head, a thing with neither might nor right? Na! that will not do for me."
"She would get a man," said Mr Melville.
"Ay, she would get a man! little doubt of that: and my auld lands would be sweepit up into lands that march with mine, and there would be an Anster of Kellie, or a Dishington, or a Lindsay, or the Lord knows what. No! if I have said it once I have said it a hundred times, nae lass shall reign and rule in my auld house."
"Well-a-well, well-a-well! if ye say so," said the minister, "I have no certain teaching about the heirship of a woman, though the daughters of Zelophehad had a portion with their brethren, as we read in the Book of Numbers; but I would not force the word of the Lord, and that might be a special case. But ye know well, Sir Walter, as well as I do, that failing her, there's one of your blood no far from your door that is as weel capable of keeping his ain house and his ain head as Arthur and a' his knights. And that is Peter Oliphant of Over-Kellie – "
"Pah!" the old man spat vehemently into the smouldering fire. "I will have none of him – a country clown – a callant from the plough. And what was his father but a clown before him, with no more spirit of a gentleman than Neil, my man?"
"Neil," said the minister, "is a decent man now, whatever he may have been; but would pocket a crown-piece and hold his tongue if any grand gallant had need of him: whereas your cousin of Over-Kellie, Sir Walter – "
"Cousin! a hundred times removed!"
"Is it you I hear shaming your own blood?" said the other. "Me, I am maybe a hundred times, as you say, or more, removed from the head of my name; but I have yet to learn," the minister added, raising his head, "that the strain of the younger is less pure than the strain of the elder when it flows in an unbroken and lawful line."