CHAPTER I.
Sir Walter Oliphant of Kellie in Fife was a man who had grown old amid many perturbations of the State and of the house. In Mary's stormy and troubled day he had been, as many were, not so certain in his beliefs, either political or religious, as a person of so much consequence in his county ought to have been. He had been the Queen's man, and he had been the King's man, without, however, being either a time-server or a turncoat. He was one of those who would have given his life to prove his Queen's innocence, but who all the time could not but feel that this would be a poor argument, and no evidence at all, against the cold chill of doubt that lingered all the time even in his own heart. And his reason was convinced of the advantages of the English alliance, and that everything must be risked rather than King James's heirship, notwithstanding the strong revolt in his heart against that which was so likely to follow, the abandonment of Scotland, and ebbing away of her dearly-bought glory and the pride of her independence, second to none. But all the active struggles of life had died away from him when he sate in his old hall, in the dreary years after the Court had gone away to London, drawing so many with it; and the change had stricken to the heart of Scotland, as wise men had known it would, although all the country had cheered and shouted when their king assumed the English crown, as if it had been by his prowess and for their greatness that he had won that other kingdom. The land was subdued and troubled in these days, yet did not venture to complain; for had not they desired that which had come to pass? And the Kirk was troubled and uncertain too, alarmed by threatenings of interference, though no great thing had yet been attempted, and the ministers still had dominion more or less, and, though many things were tolerated that had been condemned, still guided most things their own way.
But all the affairs of the world had grown dim to Sir Walter Oliphant, sitting in his little warm chamber—the room of panelled and carved oak, which opened from the hall of Kellie Castle, as all the chief rooms did and do to this day, without any chill of corridors or passages, but one room out of another, after the ancient fashion. He sat by his fire, and his mind was full of thoughts. He was an old man, but not so old in years as in condition. His life, which had been a stirring one, was far off from him, as if it had been a dream. There were times when it came up into his mind like a tale that had been told, with which he had little to do—the time when he was stout and strong, and rode out to feast and to fight, and came back to hear the shouts and the sports of his boys making the rafters ring. He thought of all these things sometimes vaguely, as of things that had been; but at present his occupation was chiefly to keep himself warm, and to think who should be the heir of his Castle and his lands when he should be carried for the last time down the winding stair. He was not much concerned about that, any more than he was concerned for all that had happened to him in the past: but the thought of who should have Kellie after him was still real in his mind. That the natural heirs were gone had caused him bitter sorrow in his day; but even that had grown far away and dim to him, and all his life had shrunk into the routine of getting up from his bed and going back to it—both tiresome processes—and swallowing the food that had no taste, and sitting by the fire that had so little warmth. Only this one thing held him, the great care of making up his mind who was to be the heir of Kellie in the days when he should be there no more.
It was not that he was without kin or heirs-at-law. There was one even at his own hearthstone who might well have ended all difficulties, being its natural inheritress. Though Sir Walter was an old man, he had a sister who was little more than a girl, though that is a strange thing to think of. His father had lived long, and had made a foolish marriage in his old age, and left behind him a child much younger than his grandsons, and who was like a grandchild to her brother. She had grown up in the house, the plaything of everybody, her right to her home never doubted, yet without any position in it. When the others disappeared Jean remained, and it might be that the father bereaved felt in the bottom of his heart some grudge that she of whom no account was made should continue when the loftier heads were laid low. But if this was in his heart he did not betray it. She grew and blossomed out, and came to her full height, which was not small, and was now of an age to be considered the lady of the house. And no doubt, the old knight might easily have given her to a fitting wooer, and thus found himself an heir among the best blood of Fife; but of this he never thought, nor of Jean his little sister as in any sense his successor. It angered him greatly when Master Melville of Carnbee kirk and parish took it upon him to speak a word to this effect. "Her, the heiress!" cried the old knight, with a roar in his throat like a wounded lion. And he would not speak to Master Melville again for many a day.
"And wha but her should be the heir?" said Mistress Marjory, the old nurse, who had long been the housekeeper at Kellie, and to whom Jean was as the light of her eyes. "Waes me for all the bonnie lads that are away! and no an Oliphant left to keep up the honour of the old house. But though she's but a lass she has the blood as well as any one, knight or lord, that ever owned the name. And wherefore should she not get a good man and raise up the race?"
"If she had a good man the morn the race she would raise up would be for his house and no hers," said Neil Morison, who was the head of the other section of the household, and in most things opposed to Mistress Marjory. He gave forth a dry laugh, as was his wont, and added, "For all so grand as ye are, the name never comes from the side of the distaff. That's aye something to our side."
"There's times," said the housekeeper, "when nae less a thing than a crown comes from that side—as is well kent in poor auld Scotland this day."
"Ye may say that," said Neil, forced into sudden sympathy, "and if we had vanquished thae English loons by our swords and our spears, as it is written in Scripture, it would hae been the better way."
"Oh, hold your tongue with your spears and your swords! It would set ye better, Maister Morison, to do what you can with our auld knight and keep sore injustice out of his head—for who should have the lands after him but his ain flesh and blood?"
"It would never do, it would never do," cried Neil. "A lass! that couldna keep her ain heid, and muckle less the old Oliphant lands—that are not what they used to be, lack-a-day, whoever was the heir."
"What are they colloguing about, the two great rulers of the house," said a young voice, bursting in as its owner did, with a sudden gush of fresh air and the fragrance of the outdoor world, "putting each other in mind of the greatness of the Oliphants, now that it's like the Flowers of the Forest, and a' wede away."
"Mistress Jean! and a' in a confusion, your hair about your haffits, and the lace torn off your riding-coat! What has happened to you? Will ye never mind what a' the house tells you, that it sets you not, a lady like you, to ride a powney about the roads like a farmer's lass."
"Or maybe worse things than that," said Neil, who had risen hurriedly to his feet on the young lady's entrance, and shot this Parthian arrow at her as he went away.
"I will shoot that auld carle some day if he looks at me so," she cried, with a sudden gleam of anger, then laughed and clapped her hands, "with my bow and arrows," she added, merrily. "We'll put him against the castle wall, and pin him to't like that bonny saint in the old picture. What's happened, said she? A great deal has happened. I have had a grand adventure, Marjory, simple as I sit here."
"Oh, bairn, bairn!" cried the housekeeper, "you'll just break my heart."
"It's been broken so often, and aye mended again," said the girl. "Wait till I tell you. I was rattling along on the Pittenweem road, my pony and me, very well pleased with the fine day, and just singing to ourselves, for it was too sunny to keep silence; when lo! I was aware of a horse's hoofs coming pelting after me. I thought what you said, never to mind, but just keep the road quietly and pay no attention. I would not even give a look over my shoulder to see if it was one of the Anstruthers or Roland Dishington, till I came to a corner and gave a glint. And it was a muckle trooper on a muckle grey horse, not canny to see, and no another soul within sight."
"Lord bless my soul! ane of the disbanded Greys!" cried Marjory, lifting up her hands and eyes. "Oh, lassie, lassie! will ye never learn?"
"My heart was in my mouth," said Jean, whose eyes were dancing, however, with excitement and triumph, "but I had to keep up my courage. I gave the pony just a touch to speed her on—and you know she cannot thole even a touch, she has such a spirit. And then there came a muckle voice, as muckle as the man, calling to me, Hey, my bonnie lass! and hey, my bonnie bird! The cannaillye! to use such words to me!"
Jean's eyes shone with a momentary gleam of rage and shame. "It is maybe my fault," she said, "as ye are always telling me, to ride alone; but who would I get to come behind? No Maister Morison, the major-domo, nor Jamie Webster, that is everybody's man, nor Jaicque the groom. No, no; there's nobody to follow Jean: so I must either bide in the house or ride my lane."
"My darlin'! and what did he do?"
"Oh, no harm," cried the girl, laughing, "since here I am, and none the worse but for the lace on my cape, that he gave a snatch at as he came up thundering, till I thought it was a real charge of cavalry, and I would be ridden down."
"Lassie! and how did ye escape? For gude sake dinna keep me in my trouble."
"There is no need for trouble," said Jean, "since here you see me: though I allow," she added, with a pleasure in working upon the old lady's fears, "that a minute longer and I cannot tell what I would have done; for he had gripped my cape in his hand, though the pony was just flying, and the muckle grey horse thundering, and my heart bursting out of my throat with fright and fury." She paused, half from the keenness of the recollection and half maliciously, to pile up the agony.
"And then? and then?"
"Then?" said Jean, looking innocently into her old nurse's face. "Why, then! there was just nothing more."
"Oh, bairn! you are enough to drive ten women out of their senses."
"Well," said Jean, "I will admit there were causes for it. But just at that moment there came another galloping, just as muckle a horse and as muckle a man, on the other side. And my man he dropped hold of my cape, and tore the lace off it with his glove, as you see. And the pony, she just set her feet to the ground as if she were riding a race, and the new man and my man they faced each other. I'm thinking nothing happened. I saw with that eye I have in the back of my head that they rode up to each other awfu' civil, like two towers; and then the trooper he took the turn to St Monance, and me I flew up the Carnbee road, and the grand adventure was done. You can see I'm not a prin the worse, except my riding-cape, and Kirsten must just sew on the lace again."
"And that was a'!" cried Mistress Marjory, relieved, but at the same time a little disappointed to hear no more.
"All! was it not enough?" said Jean; "would you have had me assaulted on the king's highway, and put in peril of my purse, that has nothing in it, or maybe of my life, which has not very much——" Jean made a pause, and then, looking up demurely, she said in very quiet tones, "No; it was not all."
"Oh, my hinny,—you just play upon me as if I were a fiddle."
"You are much more like a harpsichord," said Jean, contemplating the housekeeper's ample person reflectively. "Yon man after he had dispersed the trooper never came rushing up as Roland Dishington or one of the Ansters would have done, but just rode steady behind as if he had been my servant." The word has or had two meanings, and probably the second of these flashed over her memory, for she made an almost imperceptible pause and reddened. "I was still a little feared: and what did I do but head the pony for yon house you know, of Over-Kellie, where you never would let me go——"
"And then?" cried Mistress Marjory again, breathless.
"Well, they came fleeing out, and he, he came riding in. And it was who would be the most concerned, and was I hurt and was I frightened, and would I bide and rest? The Leddy—or is she the Gudewife?—for I could not tell——"
"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'.”