The Tutor picked it up and looked at it.
'These are the bearings of my great-grandfather!' he exclaimed, much astonished.
'Yes,' said my father; 'and he was also my grandfather.'
'Bless me!' cried the Tutor of Cassillis; 'I knew not that we were so nearly related.'
And all through the remainder of our stay he called my father 'cousin.' And as for Mistress Nell, there was no end to her merriment on the subject.
'Now we shall fight more than ever,' she said, 'for we Kennedies always fight with our cousins. And I must find the handle of the hayrake with which I used to beat my cousin Philip. It will serve excellently for drubbing Launcelot, my new sweet coz!'
At last we rode away, and Nell Kennedy kissed my mother lovingly when we bade farewell, so that my heart warmed more than ever to the lass.
Waeheartedly enough we left the little white housie behind us, sitting blythsome on its brae above the white stones of the burn. And in my imagination to this very day, whenever I am away from the Minnoch for long, rises a clear picture of the water-side as we saw it that morning—a wide valley filled to the brim with sunshine and the stir of breathing airs, the whaups and peesweeps beginning to build, and keeping up all the time above our heads a brave welter of crying and the whistle of eddying wings.
'I wonder not that sometimes you grow homesick,' said Nell Kennedy. 'When you are distracted and morose, I shall now know the reason.'
So we came in due season to the house of Culzean, and there we found all well, with James playing tennis contentedly in the court; and Sandy, up at the stables, acting the big man and giving his orders as large as my lord.