"Ye will acknowledge, John, that I have never hindered you when the call came." As she spoke Jean took his flowing hair in her hand, and he had never seen her so gentle before, for indeed she could not be called a soft or tender woman.
"Ye told me what would be the way of life for us, and it has been what ye said, and I have not complained. But this day I wish to God that ye could have stayed, for when my hour comes, and it is not far off, ye ken I will miss you sairly. Other women have their mothers with them in that strait, but for me there is none; naebody but strangers. If ony evil befall thee, John, it will go ill with me, and I have in my keeping the hope of your house. Can ye no bide quietly here with me and let them that have the power do as they will in Edinburgh? No man of your own party has ever thanked you for anything ye did, and if my mother's people do their will by you, I shall surely die and the child with me. And that will be the end of the House of Dundee. Must ye go and leave me?" And now her arm was round him, and with the other hand she caressed his face, while her warm bosom pressed against his cold, hard cuirass.
"Queensberry, for the liar he always was, said ye would be my Delilah, Jean, but that I knew was not in you," said Dundee, smiling sadly and stroking the proud head, which he had never seen bowed before.
"You are, I believe in my soul, the bravest woman in Scotland, and I wish to God the men on our side had only had the heart of my Lady Dundee. With a hundred men and your spirit in them, Jean, we had driven William of Orange into the sea, or, at the worst, we should certainly save Scotland for the king. Well and bravely have ye stood by me since our marriage day, and if I had ever consulted my own safety or sought after private ends, I believe ye would have been the first to cry shame upon me. Surely ye have been a true soldier's wife, and ye are the same this morning, and braver even than on our wedding day.
"Do not make little of yourself, Jean, because your heart is sore and ye canna keep back the tears. It is not given to a man to understand what a woman feels in your place but I am trying to imagine, and my love is suffering with you, sweetheart. I do pity you, and I could weep with you, but tears are strange to my eyes--God made me soft without and hard within--and I have a better medicine to help you than pity." Still he was caressing her, but she felt his body straightening within the armor.