"You have an ill tongue, if you were ten times a priest!" cried Pate, with a clouded brow.
But the controversy was stopped by Master Melville, who came up hastily, quickening his usually sober steps at the sound of Pate's voice raised above its usual tone, and the laughing, scornful attitude of Sir John.
"Your look is not peaceful, Peter," he said, "nor your eye content."
"Did you expect to find me content, Maister Melville," said Pate, "with my rights taken up by others, and myself scorned before my neighbours? I would then be a man not like other men."
"The Lord of Over-Kellie," said Sir John, "was, by my faith, near upon charging me with a cartel of war to that other nobleman the Lord Oliphant; but that I am a man of peace and carry no gage."
"You might moderate your jesting, Brother Low," said Melville, "and so show yourself a man of peace. This is not the time, Peter, to bandy words, with whosoever it may be. You have your duty to do for your kindred and your name."
"It is what I am ready to do at all times," cried Pate, hastily, eager to find in the minister's face the counsel already established in his own.
"We will say good morrow, first," said Melville, "to this reverend brother. It is an evil thing to be overly much concerned with the affairs of this world, Maister Low. Here are you and me, both led away by these heathenish disputes, that should have been in our quiet studies pondering our sermons, and the Lord's Day coming on – "
"I am no man for long sermons," said Sir John, "nor am I liked the less on that account, so far as I can see."
"Well, sermons are my trade," said Melville, passing his brother-clergyman with a bow. He put his arm in Pate's, and led the young man with him, gently forcing his steps. "All he means," said the minister, holding Pate's arm tight and leading him on, "is to make you talk and give forth your foam and nonsense, the whilk he will turn into solid mischief. I hope I am no uncharitable," he added, devoutly; "but come you, Patie, my man, and talk out your souclass="underline" you are safer with me than with him."
"No, minister," said Pate, "I have no need for blethering, as you seem to think: my mind is steady and made up. The young lady is more wronged than I am. She is her father's just heir. She claims me as her first servant, and I allow the claim. I am the man nearest to her. I am fechting, and I will fecht, to the death, for her right and not mine."
"Pate! lad!" said the minister; his voice faltered, and even his step for the moment. Then he cried, "No wonder he did not understand!"
But Pate neither comprehended nor desired to comprehend the meaning of this reply. He was entirely preoccupied with his own thoughts. "That is my solemn determination," he said. "I have had my fancies; but then I kent nothing of her, nor of her just rights. I will get them for her if I can, minister: it is my first duty, as the next of the name."
"She is but a lassie," said the minister, "and a wild one; no training, no mother, grown up just like a blade o' grass on the lee. There is no telling what the like of her may do. She will take your very heart out of your life, and never ken what a gift it is. She may not even thank you. She may think it's only her right and your duty."
"And what is it else?" said Pate. "You are all the professor I ever had: if my lear is poor it is your blame. I think I have heard from your very mouth that if a man does not stand for his ain, specially for them of his own house – "
"Oh, laddie, do not tackle me out of my own mouth!" cried the minister, peevishly; "many a foolish thing I've said. Meantime, you must mind that when the Apostle said yon, he was thinking nought of a man's house, according to your meaning of the word. Little recked that holy man of the Oliphants or any Scots name, with their pride and their clanships. What he meant was the man's wife and his bairns – and no a distant cousin twenty times removed."
"No more than three times, minister," said Pate; "make me not out more loon than laird. And as she's her father's daughter, and he so old a man, she is of the elder generation, my father's second cousin, and no more than second cousin once removed to me. And what could be nearer my own house than that? Nay, the holy man, as you say – I wot not how to call him – would e'en have been of my mind."
"Paul he was, and not always favourable to Peter," said Melville, shaking his head, yet with a tremulous smile on his face. "Pate, I will ask you but one thing. Is it for the hope of this maiden's love that you take up her forlorn cause?"
"Maister Melville," said Pate, "I ken not if I love her; but reason none have I to think that she has ever wared a thought on me. There is clear in my mind the danger, and mostly the certainty, that she will mate with some stranger and carry the auld house into another name, – the whilk would be bitter to me – more bitter than words can say."
"If it is so," said the minister, "then the Lord bless you, my lad, Pate. Laird or no laird, you are a true man, and that's better than rank or high degree."
"You mind, minister," said Pate, with a smile, "Aw toutt pourvoïre– you were the first to learn me what its meaning was."
"I was ever a fool," said Melville, "and ever will be! It is not that kind of lesson that makes a man win lairdship and land."
"But it is maybe the best consolation when he has to bide without them," Peter said.
They had come in their walk within sight of Kellie Castle, which stood square and strong, rising with its turrets to the sky from amid the peaceful fields, as it still stands undismayed by all the progress of the centuries. It is a little grim and grey in the darkness of its stone walls nowadays, all Scotland having been seized since then with that false reserve which discredits colour; but in these days, no doubt, much of the rough mass, especially in its out-buildings, must have shone in white or yellow, the old tints, weather-stained and glorious, which the country then loved. Pate looked towards that home of his fathers, lifting once more the bonnet from his brow. It had been a kind of idol to him throughout his youth, his every hope had centred in it; it had been his ambition, the desire of his heart – not an ignoble one. He looked upon it now with a smile full of sorrow and disappointment, and a thought, had he known it, higher than any other hope that had ever before centred upon Kellie. If it were won for her, then would it be well lost.
"Fare thee weel, auld Kellie," he said with a half laugh to hide that tremor; "thou wilt never be to me or mine; and I have glowered at thee, and longed for thee all my life long: which maybe you will say, minister, is just a judgment on me for a covetous thought."
"You will never hear such a word from me, Pate, my man," said the minister. "I have more opinion, if I dare to say it, of your good Lord and mine."
He, too, lifted his hat in reverence as he spoke, and after a moment both turned away.
"After all," said Master Melville, "this is not the subject on which I sought you in haste, my lad, Pate. I hear that yonder wild lassie, hot with her race and her youth, is for defending the auld Castle by force of arms. She will call out every Oliphant in the Kingdom of Fife, you the captain: she will fill the stores with provender, and furbish up the auld armour, and hold the place against lord and loon. It's over the whole countryside already, and the lads at St Monance all alow. There needs but a spark to fall, and there will be a blaze to light up Fife. Pate, do you think what that would be? Two whole parishes put to the horn. The men, that are the breadwinners, in prison or hounded out of the land. The women helpless with their bairns; the boats all useless on the shore, the plough in the furrow. Ever have I learned you, Pate Oliphant, that a man's first thought should be for them about him that are in want of good guiding and help to do well. You cannot stand against the law. You cannot stand against the chief of your name, that has riches and troopers at his command (though well I wot he is a wastrel, and his son after him). Mistress Jean, she is but a bairn. The right and the wrong have gone to her head, and of the consequences she takes no thought. Vain to, speak till her of ruined houses and men slain or banished. She just thinks of victory and the three silver crescents waving over Kellie, and the tyrant driven away. As if she was a queen fighting for her crown – and, waes me! we have well known in this generation what comes of that."