My father shot a sharp glance at me, and addressed my cousin. "The maid would be Marjory Veitch, old Sir John's daughter, at Dawyck. He, poor man, has gone to his account, and her brother is abroad, so the poor girl is lonely enough in that great house. John and she have been friends from the time they were children. She has come here, too, and a pretty, modest lass she is, though she favours her mother rather than her father's folk."
At this intelligence my cousin whistled long and low. "So, so," said he, "my scholar has an eye in his head, has he? And Dawyck is not far off, and--well, no wonder you do not care for the military profession. Though, let me tell you, it is as well for the course of true love that there are few cavaliers in this countryside, else Mistress Marjory might have higher notions."
I answered nothing, for, though I loved Marjory well, and thought that she loved me, I had never spoken to her on the matter; for from childhood we had been comrades and friends. So I did not care to reply on a matter which I regarded as so delicate and uncertain.
My cousin was a man who grew sorely vexed by receiving no answer from the object of his wit; and, perhaps on this account, he went further than he meant in his irritation. "Nay, John," he went on, "you're but a sorry fellow at the best, with your tags from the Latin, and your poor spirit. I am one of the meanest of His Majesty's soldiers, but I can outride you, I can beat you at sword-play, at mark-shooting, at all manly sports. I can hold my head before the highest in the land; I can make the vulgar bow before me to the ground. There are no parts of a gentleman's equipment in which I am not your better."
Now, had we been alone, I should not have scrupled to fling the lie in his teeth, and offer to settle the matter on the spot. But I did not wish to excite my father in his feeble health, so I made no reply beyond saying that events would show the better man. My father, however, took it upon himself to defend me. "Peace, Gilbert," he said. "I will not have my son spoken thus of in my own house. He has as much spirit as you, I'll warrant, though he is less fond of blowing his own trumpet." I saw with annoyance that my father plainly thought my conduct cowardly, and would have been better pleased had I struck my cousin then and there. But I knew how cruelly excited he would be by the matter, and, in his weakness, I feared the result. Also, the man was our guest, and my cousin.