At the very moment Joris made this remark, the elder was speaking for
him. When he arrived at home, he found that his wife was out making
calls with Mrs. Gordon, so he had not the relief of a marital
conversation. He took his solitary tea, and fell into a nap, from which
he awoke in a querulous, uneasy temper. Neil was walking about the
terrace, and he joined him.
"You are stepping in a vera majestic way, Neil; what's in your thoughts,
I wonder?"
"I have a speech to make to-morrow, sir. My thoughts were on the law,
which has a certain majesty of its own."
"You'd better be thinking o' a speech you ought to make to-night, if you
care at a' aboot saving yoursel' wi' Katherine Van Heemskirk; and ma
certie it will be an extraordinar' case that is worth mair, even in the
way o' siller, than she is."
The elder was not in the habit of making unmeaning speeches, and Neil
was instantly alarmed. In his own way, he loved Katherine with all his
soul. "Yes," continued the old man, "you hae a rival, sir. Captain Hyde
asked Van Heemskirk for his daughter this afternoon, and an earldom in
prospect isna a poor bait."
"What a black scoundrel he must be!--to use your hospitality to steal
from your son the woman he loves."
"Tak' your time, Neil, and you won't lose your judgment. How was he to
ken that Katherine was your sweetheart? You made little o' the lassie,
vera little, I may say. Lawyer-like you may be, but nane could call you
lover-like. And while he and his are my guests, and in my house, I'll no
hae you fighting him. Tak' a word o' advice now,--I'll gie it without a
fee,--you are fond enough to plead for others, go and plead an hour for
yoursel'. Certie! When I was your age, I was aye noted for my persuading
way. Your father, sir, never left a spare corner for a rival. And I can
tell you this: a woman isna to be counted your ain, until you hae her
inside a wedding-ring."
"What did the councillor say?"
"To tell the truth, he said 'no,' a vera plain 'no,' too. You ken Van
Heemskirk's 'no' isn't a shilly-shallying kind o' a negative; but for a'
that, if I hae any skill in judging men, Richard Hyde isna one o' the
kind that tak's 'no' from either man or woman."
Neil was intensely angry, and his dark eyes glowed beneath their
dropped lids with a passionate hate. But he left his father with an
assumed coldness and calmness which made him mutter as he watched Neil
down the road, "I needna hae fashed mysel' to warn him against fighting.
He's a prudent lad. It's no right to fight, and it would be a matter for
a kirk session likewise; but Bruce and Wallace! was there ever a
Semple, before Neil, that keepit his hand off his weapon when his love
or his right was touched? And there's his mother out the night, of all
the nights in the year, and me wanting a word o' advice sae bad; not
that Janet has o'er much good sense, but whiles she can make an obsarve
that sets my ain wisdom in a right line o' thought. I wish to patience
she'd bide at home. She never kens when I may be needing her. And, now I
came to think o' things, it will be the warst o' all bad hours for Neil
to seek Katherine the night. She'll be fretting, and the mother pouting,
and the councillor in ane o' his particular Dutch touch-me-not tempers.
I do hope the lad will hae the uncommon sense to let folks cool, and
come to theirsel's a wee."