vice 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."

For the elder, judging his son by the impetuosity of his own youthful
temper, expected him to go directly to Van Heemskirk's house. But there
were qualities in Neil which his father forgot to take into
consideration, and their influence was to suggest to the young man how
inappropriate a visit to Katherine would be at that time. Indeed, he did
not much desire it. He was very angry with Katherine. He was sure that
she understood his entire devotion to her. He could not see any
necessity to set it forth as particularly as a legal contract, in
certain set phrases and with conventional ceremonies.

[Illustration: On the steps of the houses]

But his fathe