"My Lady Jean," said Peter, "you say well it is my just right, as the next man of the blood; but if by Sir Walter's will it should fall to you, as may be – mind you this, whatever happens, I'll stand for you through fire and water, and be your man, and a true kinsman, as long as I live."
"No me!" cried Jean, giving a spring in her excitement. "If it falls to you, I'll fight you every step, and go to the law with you, and never yield while I've breath!"
Peter looked at her with a tender admiration – but that ineffable way of taking the girl's hot words as if they meant nothing, which not even love itself can make palatable to a girl. "Well-a-well," he said gently, "the one thing and the other they mean just about the same."
"But nothing of the kind," she cried, almost with a soft shout of passion, "nothing of the kind! they mean – " here it suddenly struck Jean quite irrelevantly, as he stood before her with a deprecating smile, by every turn of his figure and change of his face recommending himself to her, seeking to please her, asking nothing better than to serve and help her, – suddenly and supremely that he was a bonnie lad, that nobody had ever looked at her like that, nor spoken to her like that before. She stopped and gasped and put out her hand to him, which was as unexpected as any other of her movements. "Cousin Peter," she cried, "there's my hand upon it; we'll be grand enemies! We'll be true as auld Sir William's sword, that he keepit the Castle of Stirling with, that hangs there upon the wall. We'll fight fair, and never say an ill word one of the other. And there's my hand."
She expected nothing but a comrade's grasp; but young Pate of Over-Kellie had the gracious manners of the old chivalry, without knowing whence they came. He stooped low almost to his knee, and kissed the hand held out to him – an unlooked-for homage which altogether overwhelmed the rustic maiden, who was scarcely by her own nature a lady of romance. And at that moment the heavy curtain was drawn, and Mr Melville's head put out calling Peter. The sudden light of a delightful smile shone over the minister's face. "Ah!" he said, with a soft laugh, which was not of ridicule but content. It was enough, however, to send Jean back to her window-seat, all one blush, and to make Peter draw himself up almost to more than his stature, as very red and portentously serious he followed, transported out of all his nervousness about Sir Walter – into the presence of the old knight.
Sir Walter sat by the fire, which smouldered sullenly, as if it felt the inappropriateness of its presence on a warm spring day, as the centre of the scene. But the old Master of Kellie was cold, the blood ran slow in his veins, and all the fires of living were as low in him as the dull glow in the coals. The gown in which he was enveloped was lined with fur, and wrapped closely round him; and his head was so sunk into its soft collar that the effect of his upward look was as if a pair of eyes alone looked over his raised shoulder at the young man who came in. But there was life in the look, which contradicted every other sign of diminished vitality. It seemed almost to strike at Peter like the flash of a blade into the air. The steel-like light quivered, and then suddenly the old man turned his head away. There was a pause, and both of his visitors thought for a moment that the old knight had fallen asleep or lost consciousness – till at last the minister spoke, half alarmed. He touched with a finger the wide sleeve of Sir Walter's coat. "Here is the young lad, Sir Walter. Come in bye, Pate – show yourself – and be not blate. What, man! ye are here in what may be your own house."
Peter took a step forward into the room, opposite to the light which fell full upon him, his somewhat rustic air lost in the temporary exaltation of his look; but Sir Walter had returned to his fire, and looked at him no more. His voice came out of the fur collar of his gown, as out of a cave. "Ay! the young lad, say you? And what is his will, and his errand here?"
"Speak to him, man; speak to him!" said the minster, in an undertone.
"I have no purpose, Sir Walter," said Peter; "but that ye were thought to send for me; and me – I was very willing to come, as your kinsman, and to ask how you did."
"Ay!" said Sir Walter again, "as my kinsman! Blate! I see little sign that he is blate. Let him speak for himself. There are plenty of loons in Fife that will swear themselves my kinsmen, however they came by the name."
Peter was stung by this disdainful speech. "I am no loon," he said, "minister, as you well know; and as for how I got the name, Sir Walter he kens weel, seeing I am but his second cousin, when all is done, twice removed."
"Ah, so! are you all that?" said the old knight: he raised his head, and once more Peter felt himself struck as by a flame. But again the light quivered, and Sir Walter swerved, and his head sank among his furs. Then he added, averting his look, "What is your will of me, young man?"
"Nothing," said Peter. His heart swelled, a sudden sense of pity moved him for the desolate old age before him – so lonely, so void of all the charities and tenderness which ought to encircle the old. "And yet," he said, a remorseful sense of all his own advantages over this solitary, chilled, and suffering old man melting his spirit, "Sir Walter, if there was any pleasure I could do you, for the sake of the drop's blood between us, and because you have none of your own – "
"Eh! eh! what is that he says? – what is that he says?"
"Sir, I would fain, fain do you a pleasure, if that were possible," Peter said.
It was some time before the old knight spoke. "Gramercy for your kindness, lad," he said; "I have plenty to do for me all I want. I seek no service from the like of you."
"Yet it would be given out of a good heart," Peter said.
These words of manly kindness to the weak, given with an insistence of which Peter, blate of nature as the minister had said – that is, proudly shy of expressing emotion, as it is the drawback of his countrymen to be – would not have believed himself capable, made a curious commotion in the still air of that chamber, where all was stagnant, and life and charity were seldom heard. Sir Walter put out a blanched hand with a gesture to the minister, calling him forward, "Ye have tutored the lad what to say."
"I would think shame," said Melville, "to try to tutor what's native to a gentle spirit. And, Sir Walter, you are more understanding than to believe what you say."
The old knight dropped his head again, and was silent once more. Then he said, without raising his face, with his eyes fixed on the low red of the fire, and a voice half buried in his fur collar, "Did I hear ye say Pate?"
"His name is Peter – "
"Pate," repeated the old man, vaguely. "There was once another – but keen, keen as a hawk, and gallant, and fine in every limb. Not like that yeoman from the fields. Take him hence, take him hence! There is that in the turn of his head that goes, that goes" – he made a pause, and gave forth a long slow breath "to my hert!"
And again there was silence. Peter would have stolen away by natural instinct, but did not dare to break the deep stillness by a movement, and the minister stood doubtful, hesitating, afraid to shorten an interview that might have important results, yet afraid at the same time to injure the impression that had been made.
"Ay, Pate," Sir Walter said almost to himself, "Pate – like day to night, like a prince to a churl – but just a turn of the head, a trick of the voice. Eh! ye are still here? is it a service do ye think, young man, to spy on the privacy of one that, kinsman or no kinsman, is the head of your name?" he raised himself, putting his hand upon the table – "in Fife," he added with a faint laugh, "in Fife – saving the rights of my lord. Ay, my lord, that's the question. Well, sir! I thank ye for your coming, and dismiss ye from further attendance. Master Melville, at your leisure I will see you again."