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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Catriona, by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Catriona
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+Release Date: May 15, 1996 [eBook #589]
+[Most recently updated: June 6, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: David Price
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CATRIONA ***
+
+
+
+
+Catriona
+
+by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+
+Contents
+
+ PART I. THE LORD ADVOCATE
+ CHAPTER I. A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK
+ CHAPTER II. THE HIGHLAND WRITER
+ CHAPTER III. I GO TO PILRIG
+ CHAPTER IV. LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGRANGE
+ CHAPTER V. IN THE ADVOCATE’S HOUSE
+ CHAPTER VI. UMQUILE THE MASTER OF LOVAT
+ CHAPTER VII. I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR
+ CHAPTER VIII. THE BRAVO
+ CHAPTER IX. THE HEATHER ON FIRE
+ CHAPTER X. THE RED-HEADED MAN
+ CHAPTER XI. THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS
+ CHAPTER XII. ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN
+ CHAPTER XIII. GILLANE SANDS
+ CHAPTER XIV. THE BASS
+ CHAPTER XV. BLACK ANDIE’S TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK
+ CHAPTER XVI. THE MISSING WITNESS
+ CHAPTER XVII. THE MEMORIAL
+ CHAPTER XVIII. THE TEE’D BALL
+ CHAPTER XIX. I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES
+ CHAPTER XX. I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
+
+ PART II. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
+ CHAPTER XXI. THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND
+ CHAPTER XXII. HELVOETSLUYS
+ CHAPTER XXIII. TRAVELS IN HOLLAND
+ CHAPTER XXIV. FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS
+ CHAPTER XXV. THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE
+ CHAPTER XXVI. THE THREESOME
+ CHAPTER XXVII. A TWOSOME
+ CHAPTER XXVIII. IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE
+ CHAPTER XXIX. WE MEET IN DUNKIRK
+ CHAPTER XXX. THE LETTER FROM THE SHIP
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION.
+
+To
+CHARLES BAXTER, _Writer to the Signet_.
+
+My Dear Charles,
+
+It is the fate of sequels to disappoint those who have waited for them;
+and my David, having been left to kick his heels for more than a lustre
+in the British Linen Company’s office, must expect his late
+re-appearance to be greeted with hoots, if not with missiles. Yet, when
+I remember the days of our explorations, I am not without hope. There
+should be left in our native city some seed of the elect; some
+long-legged, hot-headed youth must repeat to-day our dreams and
+wanderings of so many years ago; he will relish the pleasure, which
+should have been ours, to follow among named streets and numbered
+houses the country walks of David Balfour, to identify Dean, and
+Silvermills, and Broughton, and Hope Park, and Pilrig, and poor old
+Lochend—if it still be standing, and the Figgate Whins—if there be any
+of them left; or to push (on a long holiday) so far afield as Gillane
+or the Bass. So, perhaps, his eye shall be opened to behold the series
+of the generations, and he shall weigh with surprise his momentous and
+nugatory gift of life.
+
+You are still—as when first I saw, as when I last addressed you—in the
+venerable city which I must always think of as my home. And I have come
+so far; and the sights and thoughts of my youth pursue me; and I see
+like a vision the youth of my father, and of his father, and the whole
+stream of lives flowing down there far in the north, with the sound of
+laughter and tears, to cast me out in the end, as by a sudden freshet,
+on these ultimate islands. And I admire and bow my head before the
+romance of destiny.
+
+R. L. S.
+
+_Vailima_, _Upolu_,
+_Samoa_, 1892.
+
+
+
+
+CATRIONA
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+THE LORD ADVOCATE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK
+
+
+The 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David
+Balfour, came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter attending me
+with a bag of money, and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me
+from their doors. Two days before, and even so late as yestermorning, I
+was like a beggar-man by the wayside, clad in rags, brought down to my
+last shillings, my companion a condemned traitor, a price set on my own
+head for a crime with the news of which the country rang. To-day I was
+served heir to my position in life, a landed laird, a bank porter by me
+carrying my gold, recommendations in my pocket, and (in the words of
+the saying) the ball directly at my foot.
+
+There were two circumstances that served me as ballast to so much sail.
+The first was the very difficult and deadly business I had still to
+handle; the second, the place that I was in. The tall, black city, and
+the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world
+for me, after the moorland braes, the sea-sands and the still
+country-sides that I had frequented up to then. The throng of the
+citizens in particular abashed me. Rankeillor’s son was short and small
+in the girth; his clothes scarce held on me; and it was plain I was ill
+qualified to strut in the front of a bank-porter. It was plain, if I
+did so, I should but set folk laughing, and (what was worse in my case)
+set them asking questions. So that I behooved to come by some clothes
+of my own, and in the meanwhile to walk by the porter’s side, and put
+my hand on his arm as though we were a pair of friends.
+
+At a merchant’s in the Luckenbooths I had myself fitted out: none too
+fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback; but
+comely and responsible, so that servants should respect me. Thence to
+an armourer’s, where I got a plain sword, to suit with my degree in
+life. I felt safer with the weapon, though (for one so ignorant of
+defence) it might be called an added danger. The porter, who was
+naturally a man of some experience, judged my accoutrement to be well
+chosen.
+
+“Naething kenspeckle,”[1] said he; “plain, dacent claes. As for the
+rapier, nae doubt it sits wi’ your degree; but an I had been you, I
+would has waired my siller better-gates than that.” And he proposed I
+should buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back, that was a
+cousin of his own, and made them “extraordinar endurable.”
+
+But I had other matters on my hand more pressing. Here I was in this
+old, black city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-warren, not
+only by the number of its indwellers, but the complication of its
+passages and holes. It was, indeed, a place where no stranger had a
+chance to find a friend, let be another stranger. Suppose him even to
+hit on the right close, people dwelt so thronged in these tall houses,
+he might very well seek a day before he chanced on the right door. The
+ordinary course was to hire a lad they called a _caddie_, who was like
+a guide or pilot, led you where you had occasion, and (your errands
+being done) brought you again where you were lodging. But these
+caddies, being always employed in the same sort of services, and having
+it for obligation to be well informed of every house and person in the
+city, had grown to form a brotherhood of spies; and I knew from tales
+of Mr. Campbell’s how they communicated one with another, what a rage
+of curiosity they conceived as to their employer’s business, and how
+they were like eyes and fingers to the police. It would be a piece of
+little wisdom, the way I was now placed, to take such a ferret to my
+tails. I had three visits to make, all immediately needful: to my
+kinsman Mr. Balfour of Pilrig, to Stewart the Writer that was Appin’s
+agent, and to William Grant Esquire of Prestongrange, Lord Advocate of
+Scotland. Mr. Balfour’s was a non-committal visit; and besides (Pilrig
+being in the country) I made bold to find the way to it myself, with
+the help of my two legs and a Scots tongue. But the rest were in a
+different case. Not only was the visit to Appin’s agent, in the midst
+of the cry about the Appin murder, dangerous in itself, but it was
+highly inconsistent with the other. I was like to have a bad enough
+time of it with my Lord Advocate Grant, the best of ways; but to go to
+him hot-foot from Appin’s agent, was little likely to mend my own
+affairs, and might prove the mere ruin of friend Alan’s. The whole
+thing, besides, gave me a look of running with the hare and hunting
+with the hounds that was little to my fancy. I determined, therefore,
+to be done at once with Mr. Stewart and the whole Jacobitical side of
+my business, and to profit for that purpose by the guidance of the
+porter at my side. But it chanced I had scarce given him the address,
+when there came a sprinkle of rain—nothing to hurt, only for my new
+clothes—and we took shelter under a pend at the head of a close or
+alley.
+
+Being strange to what I saw, I stepped a little farther in. The narrow
+paved way descended swiftly. Prodigious tall houses sprang upon each
+side and bulged out, one storey beyond another, as they rose. At the
+top only a ribbon of sky showed in. By what I could spy in the windows,
+and by the respectable persons that passed out and in, I saw the houses
+to be very well occupied; and the whole appearance of the place
+interested me like a tale.
+
+I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in
+time and clash of steel behind me. Turning quickly, I was aware of a
+party of armed soldiers, and, in their midst, a tall man in a great
+coat. He walked with a stoop that was like a piece of courtesy, genteel
+and insinuating: he waved his hands plausibly as he went, and his face
+was sly and handsome. I thought his eye took me in, but could not meet
+it. This procession went by to a door in the close, which a serving-man
+in a fine livery set open; and two of the soldier-lads carried the
+prisoner within, the rest lingering with their firelocks by the door.
+
+There can nothing pass in the streets of a city without some following
+of idle folk and children. It was so now; but the more part melted away
+incontinent until but three were left. One was a girl; she was dressed
+like a lady, and had a screen of the Drummond colours on her head; but
+her comrades or (I should say) followers were ragged gillies, such as I
+had seen the matches of by the dozen in my Highland journey. They all
+spoke together earnestly in Gaelic, the sound of which was pleasant in
+my ears for the sake of Alan; and, though the rain was by again, and my
+porter plucked at me to be going, I even drew nearer where they were,
+to listen. The lady scolded sharply, the others making apologies and
+cringeing before her, so that I made sure she was come of a chief’s
+house. All the while the three of them sought in their pockets, and by
+what I could make out, they had the matter of half a farthing among the
+party; which made me smile a little to see all Highland folk alike for
+fine obeisances and empty sporrans.
+
+It chanced the girl turned suddenly about, so that I saw her face for
+the first time. There is no greater wonder than the way the face of a
+young woman fits in a man’s mind, and stays there, and he could never
+tell you why; it just seems it was the thing he wanted. She had
+wonderful bright eyes like stars, and I daresay the eyes had a part in
+it; but what I remember the most clearly was the way her lips were a
+trifle open as she turned. And, whatever was the cause, I stood there
+staring like a fool. On her side, as she had not known there was anyone
+so near, she looked at me a little longer, and perhaps with more
+surprise, than was entirely civil.
+
+It went through my country head she might be wondering at my new
+clothes; with that, I blushed to my hair, and at the sight of my
+colouring it is to be supposed she drew her own conclusions, for she
+moved her gillies farther down the close, and they fell again to this
+dispute, where I could hear no more of it.
+
+I had often admired a lassie before then, if scarce so sudden and
+strong; and it was rather my disposition to withdraw than to come
+forward, for I was much in fear of mockery from the womenkind. You
+would have thought I had now all the more reason to pursue my common
+practice, since I had met this young lady in the city street, seemingly
+following a prisoner, and accompanied with two very ragged
+indecent-like Highlandmen. But there was here a different ingredient;
+it was plain the girl thought I had been prying in her secrets; and
+with my new clothes and sword, and at the top of my new fortunes, this
+was more than I could swallow. The beggar on horseback could not bear
+to be thrust down so low, or, at least of it, not by this young lady.
+
+I followed, accordingly, and took off my new hat to her the best that I
+was able.
+
+“Madam,” said I, “I think it only fair to myself to let you understand
+I have no Gaelic. It is true I was listening, for I have friends of my
+own across the Highland line, and the sound of that tongue comes
+friendly; but for your private affairs, if you had spoken Greek, I
+might have had more guess at them.”
+
+She made me a little, distant curtsey. “There is no harm done,” said
+she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more agreeable).
+“A cat may look at a king.”
+
+“I do not mean to offend,” said I. “I have no skill of city manners; I
+never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh. Take me
+for a country lad—it’s what I am; and I would rather I told you than
+you found it out.”
+
+“Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking
+to each other on the causeway,” she replied. “But if you are landward
+[2] bred it will be different. I am as landward as yourself; I am
+Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther from my home.”
+
+“It is not yet a week since I passed the line,” said I. “Less than a
+week ago I was on the braes of Balwhidder.”
+
+“Balwhither?” she cries. “Come ye from Balwhither! The name of it makes
+all there is of me rejoice. You will not have been long there, and not
+known some of our friends or family?”
+
+“I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren,” I
+replied.
+
+“Well, I know Duncan, and you give him the true name!” she said; “and
+if he is an honest man, his wife is honest indeed.”
+
+“Ay,” said I, “they are fine people, and the place is a bonny place.”
+
+“Where in the great world is such another!” she cries; “I am loving the
+smell of that place and the roots that grow there.”
+
+I was infinitely taken with the spirit of the maid. “I could be wishing
+I had brought you a spray of that heather,” says I. “And, though I did
+ill to speak with you at the first, now it seems we have common
+acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not forget me. David
+Balfour is the name I am known by. This is my lucky day, when I have
+just come into a landed estate, and am not very long out of a deadly
+peril. I wish you would keep my name in mind for the sake of
+Balwhidder,” said I, “and I will yours for the sake of my lucky day.”
+
+“My name is not spoken,” she replied, with a great deal of haughtiness.
+“More than a hundred years it has not gone upon men’s tongues, save for
+a blink. I am nameless, like the Folk of Peace. [3] Catriona Drummond
+is the one I use.”
+
+Now indeed I knew where I was standing. In all broad Scotland there was
+but the one name proscribed, and that was the name of the Macgregors.
+Yet so far from fleeing this undesirable acquaintancy, I plunged the
+deeper in.
+
+“I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with yourself,”
+said I, “and I think he will be one of your friends. They called him
+Robin Oig.”
+
+“Did ye so?” cries she. “Ye met Rob?”
+
+“I passed the night with him,” said I.
+
+“He is a fowl of the night,” said she.
+
+“There was a set of pipes there,” I went on, “so you may judge if the
+time passed.”
+
+“You should be no enemy, at all events,” said she. “That was his
+brother there a moment since, with the red soldiers round him. It is
+him that I call father.”
+
+“Is it so?” cried I. “Are you a daughter of James More’s?”
+
+“All the daughter that he has,” says she: “the daughter of a prisoner;
+that I should forget it so, even for one hour, to talk with strangers!”
+
+Here one of the gillies addressed her in what he had of English, to
+know what “she” (meaning by that himself) was to do about “ta
+sneeshin.” I took some note of him for a short, bandy-legged,
+red-haired, big-headed man, that I was to know more of to my cost.
+
+“There can be none the day, Neil,” she replied. “How will you get
+‘sneeshin,’ wanting siller! It will teach you another time to be more
+careful; and I think James More will not be very well pleased with Neil
+of the Tom.”
+
+“Miss Drummond,” I said, “I told you I was in my lucky day. Here I am,
+and a bank-porter at my tail. And remember I have had the hospitality
+of your own country of Balwhidder.”
+
+“It was not one of my people gave it,” said she.
+
+“Ah, well,” said I, “but I am owing your uncle at least for some
+springs upon the pipes. Besides which, I have offered myself to be your
+friend, and you have been so forgetful that you did not refuse me in
+the proper time.”
+
+“If it had been a great sum, it might have done you honour,” said she;
+“but I will tell you what this is. James More lies shackled in prison;
+but this time past they will be bringing him down here daily to the
+Advocate’s. . . .”
+
+“The Advocate’s!” I cried. “Is that . . . ?”
+
+“It is the house of the Lord Advocate Grant of Prestongrange,” said
+she. “There they bring my father one time and another, for what purpose
+I have no thought in my mind; but it seems there is some hope dawned
+for him. All this same time they will not let me be seeing him, nor yet
+him write; and we wait upon the King’s street to catch him; and now we
+give him his snuff as he goes by, and now something else. And here is
+this son of trouble, Neil, son of Duncan, has lost my four-penny piece
+that was to buy that snuff, and James More must go wanting, and will
+think his daughter has forgotten him.”
+
+I took sixpence from my pocket, gave it to Neil, and bade him go about
+his errand. Then to her, “That sixpence came with me by Balwhidder,”
+said I.
+
+“Ah!” she said, “you are a friend to the Gregara!”
+
+“I would not like to deceive you, either,” said I. “I know very little
+of the Gregara and less of James More and his doings, but since the
+while I have been standing in this close, I seem to know something of
+yourself; and if you will just say ‘a friend to Miss Catriona’ I will
+see you are the less cheated.”
+
+“The one cannot be without the other,” said she.
+
+“I will even try,” said I.
+
+“And what will you be thinking of myself!” she cried, “to be holding my
+hand to the first stranger!”
+
+“I am thinking nothing but that you are a good daughter,” said I.
+
+“I must not be without repaying it,” she said; “where is it you stop!”
+
+“To tell the truth, I am stopping nowhere yet,” said I, “being not full
+three hours in the city; but if you will give me your direction, I will
+be so bold as come seeking my sixpence for myself.”
+
+“Will I can trust you for that?” she asked.
+
+“You need have little fear,” said I.
+
+“James More could not bear it else,” said she. “I stop beyond the
+village of Dean, on the north side of the water, with Mrs.
+Drummond-Ogilvy of Allardyce, who is my near friend and will be glad to
+thank you.”
+
+“You are to see me, then, so soon as what I have to do permits,” said
+I; and, the remembrance of Alan rolling in again upon my mind, I made
+haste to say farewell.
+
+I could not but think, even as I did so, that we had made extraordinary
+free upon short acquaintance, and that a really wise young lady would
+have shown herself more backward. I think it was the bank-porter that
+put me from this ungallant train of thought.
+
+“I thoucht ye had been a lad of some kind o’ sense,” he began, shooting
+out his lips. “Ye’re no likely to gang far this gate. A fule and his
+siller’s shune parted. Eh, but ye’re a green callant!” he cried, “an’ a
+veecious, tae! Cleikin’ up wi’ baubeejoes!”
+
+“If you dare to speak of the young lady. . . ” I began.
+
+“Leddy!” he cried. “Haud us and safe us, whatten leddy? Ca’ _thon_ a
+leddy? The toun’s fu’ o’ them. Leddies! Man, its weel seen ye’re no
+very acquant in Embro!”
+
+A clap of anger took me.
+
+“Here,” said I, “lead me where I told you, and keep your foul mouth
+shut!”
+
+He did not wholly obey me, for, though he no more addressed me
+directly, he very impudent sang at me as he went in a manner of
+innuendo, and with an exceedingly ill voice and ear—
+
+“As Mally Lee cam doun the street, her capuchin did flee,
+She cuist a look ahint her to see her negligee.
+And we’re a’ gaun east and wast, we’re a’ gann ajee,
+We’re a’ gaun east and wast courtin’ Mally Lee.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+THE HIGHLAND WRITER
+
+
+Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer dwelt at the top of the longest stair
+ever mason set a hand to; fifteen flights of it, no less; and when I
+had come to his door, and a clerk had opened it, and told me his master
+was within, I had scarce breath enough to send my porter packing.
+
+“Awa’ east and west wi’ ye!” said I, took the money bag out of his
+hands, and followed the clerk in.
+
+The outer room was an office with the clerk’s chair at a table spread
+with law papers. In the inner chamber, which opened from it, a little
+brisk man sat poring on a deed, from which he scarce raised his eyes on
+my entrance; indeed, he still kept his finger in the place, as though
+prepared to show me out and fall again to his studies. This pleased me
+little enough; and what pleased me less, I thought the clerk was in a
+good posture to overhear what should pass between us.
+
+I asked if he was Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer.
+
+“The same,” says he; “and, if the question is equally fair, who may you
+be yourself?”
+
+“You never heard tell of my name nor of me either,” said I, “but I
+bring you a token from a friend that you know well. That you know
+well,” I repeated, lowering my voice, “but maybe are not just so keen
+to hear from at this present being. And the bits of business that I
+have to propone to you are rather in the nature of being confidential.
+In short, I would like to think we were quite private.”
+
+He rose without more words, casting down his paper like a man
+ill-pleased, sent forth his clerk of an errand, and shut to the
+house-door behind him.
+
+“Now, sir,” said he, returning, “speak out your mind and fear nothing;
+though before you begin,” he cries out, “I tell you mine misgives me! I
+tell you beforehand, ye’re either a Stewart or a Stewart sent ye. A
+good name it is, and one it would ill-become my father’s son to
+lightly. But I begin to grue at the sound of it.”
+
+“My name is called Balfour,” said I, “David Balfour of Shaws. As for
+him that sent me, I will let his token speak.” And I showed the silver
+button.
+
+“Put it in your pocket, sir!” cries he. “Ye need name no names. The
+deevil’s buckie, I ken the button of him! And de’il hae’t! Where is he
+now!”
+
+I told him I knew not where Alan was, but he had some sure place (or
+thought he had) about the north side, where he was to lie until a ship
+was found for him; and how and where he had appointed to be spoken
+with.
+
+“It’s been always my opinion that I would hang in a tow for this family
+of mine,” he cried, “and, dod! I believe the day’s come now! Get a ship
+for him, quot’ he! And who’s to pay for it? The man’s daft!”
+
+“That is my part of the affair, Mr. Stewart,” said I. “Here is a bag of
+good money, and if more be wanted, more is to be had where it came
+from.”
+
+“I needn’t ask your politics,” said he.
+
+“Ye need not,” said I, smiling, “for I’m as big a Whig as grows.”
+
+“Stop a bit, stop a bit,” says Mr. Stewart. “What’s all this? A Whig?
+Then why are you here with Alan’s button? and what kind of a black-foot
+traffic is this that I find ye out in, Mr. Whig? Here is a forfeited
+rebel and an accused murderer, with two hundred pounds on his life, and
+ye ask me to meddle in his business, and then tell me ye’re a Whig! I
+have no mind of any such Whigs before, though I’ve kent plenty of
+them.”
+
+“He’s a forfeited rebel, the more’s the pity,” said I, “for the man’s
+my friend. I can only wish he had been better guided. And an accused
+murderer, that he is too, for his misfortune; but wrongfully accused.”
+
+“I hear you say so,” said Stewart.
+
+“More than you are to hear me say so, before long,” said I. “Alan Breck
+is innocent, and so is James.”
+
+“Oh!” says he, “the two cases hang together. If Alan is out, James can
+never be in.”
+
+Hereupon I told him briefly of my acquaintance with Alan, of the
+accident that brought me present at the Appin murder, and the various
+passages of our escape among the heather, and my recovery of my estate.
+“So, sir, you have now the whole train of these events,” I went on,
+“and can see for yourself how I come to be so much mingled up with the
+affairs of your family and friends, which (for all of our sakes) I wish
+had been plainer and less bloody. You can see for yourself, too, that I
+have certain pieces of business depending, which were scarcely fit to
+lay before a lawyer chosen at random. No more remains, but to ask if
+you will undertake my service?”
+
+“I have no great mind to it; but coming as you do with Alan’s button,
+the choice is scarcely left me,” said he. “What are your instructions?”
+he added, and took up his pen.
+
+“The first point is to smuggle Alan forth of this country,” said I,
+“but I need not be repeating that.”
+
+“I am little likely to forget it,” said Stewart.
+
+“The next thing is the bit money I am owing to Cluny,” I went on. “It
+would be ill for me to find a conveyance, but that should be no stick
+to you. It was two pounds five shillings and three-halfpence farthing
+sterling.”
+
+He noted it.
+
+“Then,” said I, “there’s a Mr. Henderland, a licensed preacher and
+missionary in Ardgour, that I would like well to get some snuff into
+the hands of; and, as I daresay you keep touch with your friends in
+Appin (so near by), it’s a job you could doubtless overtake with the
+other.”
+
+“How much snuff are we to say?” he asked.
+
+“I was thinking of two pounds,” said I.
+
+“Two,” said he.
+
+“Then there’s the lass Alison Hastie, in Lime Kilns,” said I. “Her that
+helped Alan and me across the Forth. I was thinking if I could get her
+a good Sunday gown, such as she could wear with decency in her degree,
+it would be an ease to my conscience; for the mere truth is, we owe her
+our two lives.”
+
+“I am glad so see you are thrifty, Mr. Balfour,” says he, making his
+notes.
+
+“I would think shame to be otherwise the first day of my fortune,” said
+I. “And now, if you will compute the outlay and your own proper
+charges, I would be glad to know if I could get some spending-money
+back. It’s not that I grudge the whole of it to get Alan safe; it’s not
+that I lack more; but having drawn so much the one day, I think it
+would have a very ill appearance if I was back again seeking, the next.
+Only be sure you have enough,” I added, “for I am very undesirous to
+meet with you again.”
+
+“Well, and I’m pleased to see you’re cautious, too,” said the Writer.
+“But I think ye take a risk to lay so considerable a sum at my
+discretion.”
+
+He said this with a plain sneer.
+
+“I’ll have to run the hazard,” I replied. “O, and there’s another
+service I would ask, and that’s to direct me to a lodging, for I have
+no roof to my head. But it must be a lodging I may seem to have hit
+upon by accident, for it would never do if the Lord Advocate were to
+get any jealousy of our acquaintance.”
+
+“Ye may set your weary spirit at rest,” said he. “I will never name
+your name, sir; and it’s my belief the Advocate is still so much to be
+sympathised with that he doesnae ken of your existence.”
+
+I saw I had got to the wrong side of the man.
+
+“There’s a braw day coming for him, then,” said I, “for he’ll have to
+learn of it on the deaf side of his head no later than to-morrow, when
+I call on him.”
+
+“When ye _call_ on him!” repeated Mr. Stewart. “Am I daft, or are you!
+What takes ye near the Advocate!”
+
+“O, just to give myself up,” said I.
+
+“Mr. Balfour,” he cried, “are ye making a mock of me?”
+
+“No, sir,” said I, “though I think you have allowed yourself some such
+freedom with myself. But I give you to understand once and for all that
+I am in no jesting spirit.”
+
+“Nor yet me,” says Stewart. “And I give yon to understand (if that’s to
+be the word) that I like the looks of your behaviour less and less. You
+come here to me with all sorts of propositions, which will put me in a
+train of very doubtful acts and bring me among very undesirable persons
+this many a day to come. And then you tell me you’re going straight out
+of my office to make your peace with the Advocate! Alan’s button here
+or Alan’s button there, the four quarters of Alan wouldnae bribe me
+further in.”
+
+“I would take it with a little more temper,” said I, “and perhaps we
+can avoid what you object to. I can see no way for it but to give
+myself up, but perhaps you can see another; and if you could, I could
+never deny but what I would be rather relieved. For I think my traffic
+with his lordship is little likely to agree with my health. There’s
+just the one thing clear, that I have to give my evidence; for I hope
+it’ll save Alan’s character (what’s left of it), and James’s neck,
+which is the more immediate.”
+
+He was silent for a breathing-space, and then, “My man,” said he,
+“you’ll never be allowed to give such evidence.”
+
+“We’ll have to see about that,” said I; “I’m stiff-necked when I like.”
+
+“Ye muckle ass!” cried Stewart, “it’s James they want; James has got to
+hang—Alan, too, if they could catch him—but James whatever! Go near the
+Advocate with any such business, and you’ll see! he’ll find a way to
+muzzle, ye.”
+
+“I think better of the Advocate than that,” said I.
+
+“The Advocate be dammed!” cries he. “It’s the Campbells, man! You’ll
+have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will the
+Advocate too, poor body! It’s extraordinar ye cannot see where ye
+stand! If there’s no fair way to stop your gab, there’s a foul one
+gaping. They can put ye in the dock, do ye no see that?” he cried, and
+stabbed me with one finger in the leg.
+
+“Ay,” said I, “I was told that same no further back than this morning
+by another lawyer.”
+
+“And who was he?” asked Stewart, “He spoke sense at least.”
+
+I told I must be excused from naming him, for he was a decent stout old
+Whig, and had little mind to be mixed up in such affairs.
+
+“I think all the world seems to be mixed up in it!” cries Stewart. “But
+what said you?”
+
+“I told him what had passed between Rankeillor and myself before the
+house of Shaws.
+
+“Well, and so ye will hang!” said he. “Ye’ll hang beside James Stewart.
+There’s your fortune told.”
+
+“I hope better of it yet than that,” said I; “but I could never deny
+there was a risk.”
+
+“Risk!” says he, and then sat silent again. “I ought to thank you for
+your staunchness to my friends, to whom you show a very good spirit,”
+he says, “if you have the strength to stand by it. But I warn you that
+you’re wading deep. I wouldn’t put myself in your place (me that’s a
+Stewart born!) for all the Stewarts that ever there were since Noah.
+Risk? ay, I take over-many; but to be tried in court before a Campbell
+jury and a Campbell judge, and that in a Campbell country and upon a
+Campbell quarrel—think what you like of me, Balfour, it’s beyond me.”
+
+“It’s a different way of thinking, I suppose,” said I; “I was brought
+up to this one by my father before me.”
+
+“Glory to his bones! he has left a decent son to his name,” says he.
+“Yet I would not have you judge me over-sorely. My case is dooms hard.
+See, sir, ye tell me ye’re a Whig: I wonder what I am. No Whig to be
+sure; I couldnae be just that. But—laigh in your ear, man—I’m maybe no
+very keen on the other side.”
+
+“Is that a fact?” cried I. “It’s what I would think of a man of your
+intelligence.”
+
+“Hut! none of your whillywhas!” [4] cries he. “There’s intelligence
+upon both sides. But for my private part I have no particular desire to
+harm King George; and as for King James, God bless him! he does very
+well for me across the water. I’m a lawyer, ye see: fond of my books
+and my bottle, a good plea, a well-drawn deed, a crack in the
+Parliament House with other lawyer bodies, and perhaps a turn at the
+golf on a Saturday at e’en. Where do ye come in with your Hieland
+plaids and claymores?”
+
+“Well,” said I, “it’s a fact ye have little of the wild Highlandman.”
+
+“Little?” quoth he. “Nothing, man! And yet I’m Hieland born, and when
+the clan pipes, who but me has to dance! The clan and the name, that
+goes by all. It’s just what you said yourself; my father learned it to
+me, and a bonny trade I have of it. Treason and traitors, and the
+smuggling of them out and in; and the French recruiting, weary fall it!
+and the smuggling through of the recruits; and their pleas—a sorrow of
+their pleas! Here have I been moving one for young Ardsheil, my cousin;
+claimed the estate under the marriage contract—a forfeited estate! I
+told them it was nonsense: muckle they cared! And there was I cocking
+behind a yadvocate that liked the business as little as myself, for it
+was fair ruin to the pair of us—a black mark, _disaffected_, branded on
+our hurdies, like folk’s names upon their kye! And what can I do? I’m a
+Stewart, ye see, and must fend for my clan and family. Then no later by
+than yesterday there was one of our Stewart lads carried to the Castle.
+What for? I ken fine: Act of 1736: recruiting for King Lewie. And
+you’ll see, he’ll whistle me in to be his lawyer, and there’ll be
+another black mark on my chara’ter! I tell you fair: if I but kent the
+heid of a Hebrew word from the hurdies of it, be dammed but I would
+fling the whole thing up and turn minister!”
+
+“It’s rather a hard position,” said I.
+
+“Dooms hard!” cries he. “And that’s what makes me think so much of
+ye—you that’s no Stewart—to stick your head so deep in Stewart
+business. And for what, I do not know: unless it was the sense of
+duty.”
+
+“I hope it will be that,” said I.
+
+“Well,” says he, “it’s a grand quality. But here is my clerk back; and,
+by your leave, we’ll pick a bit of dinner, all the three of us. When
+that’s done, I’ll give you the direction of a very decent man, that’ll
+be very fain to have you for a lodger. And I’ll fill your pockets to
+ye, forbye, out of your ain bag. For this business’ll not be near as
+dear as ye suppose—not even the ship part of it.”
+
+I made him a sign that his clerk was within hearing.
+
+“Hoot, ye neednae mind for Robbie,” cries he. “A Stewart, too, puir
+deevil! and has smuggled out more French recruits and trafficking
+Papists than what he has hairs upon his face. Why, it’s Robin that
+manages that branch of my affairs. Who will we have now, Rob, for
+across the water!”
+
+“There’ll be Andie Scougal, in the _Thristle_,” replied Rob. “I saw
+Hoseason the other day, but it seems he’s wanting the ship. Then
+there’ll be Tam Stobo; but I’m none so sure of Tam. I’ve seen him
+colloguing with some gey queer acquaintances; and if was anybody
+important, I would give Tam the go-by.”
+
+“The head’s worth two hundred pounds, Robin,” said Stewart.
+
+“Gosh, that’ll no be Alan Breck!” cried the clerk.
+
+“Just Alan,” said his master.
+
+“Weary winds! that’s sayrious,” cried Robin. “I’ll try Andie, then;
+Andie’ll be the best.”
+
+“It seems it’s quite a big business,” I observed.
+
+“Mr. Balfour, there’s no end to it,” said Stewart.
+
+“There was a name your clerk mentioned,” I went on: “Hoseason. That
+must be my man, I think: Hoseason, of the brig _Covenant_. Would you
+set your trust on him?”
+
+“He didnae behave very well to you and Alan,” said Mr. Stewart; “but my
+mind of the man in general is rather otherwise. If he had taken Alan on
+board his ship on an agreement, it’s my notion he would have proved a
+just dealer. How say ye, Rob?”
+
+“No more honest skipper in the trade than Eli,” said the clerk. “I
+would lippen to [5] Eli’s word—ay, if it was the Chevalier, or Appin
+himsel’,” he added.
+
+“And it was him that brought the doctor, wasnae’t?” asked the master.
+
+“He was the very man,” said the clerk.
+
+“And I think he took the doctor back?” says Stewart.
+
+“Ay, with his sporran full!” cried Robin. “And Eli kent of that!” [6]
+
+“Well, it seems it’s hard to ken folk rightly,” said I.
+
+“That was just what I forgot when ye came in, Mr. Balfour!” says the
+Writer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+I GO TO PILRIG
+
+
+The next morning, I was no sooner awake in my new lodging than I was up
+and into my new clothes; and no sooner the breakfast swallowed, than I
+was forth on my adventurers. Alan, I could hope, was fended for; James
+was like to be a more difficult affair, and I could not but think that
+enterprise might cost me dear, even as everybody said to whom I had
+opened my opinion. It seemed I was come to the top of the mountain only
+to cast myself down; that I had clambered up, through so many and hard
+trials, to be rich, to be recognised, to wear city clothes and a sword
+to my side, all to commit mere suicide at the last end of it, and the
+worst kind of suicide, besides, which is to get hanged at the King’s
+charges.
+
+What was I doing it for? I asked, as I went down the high Street and
+out north by Leith Wynd. First I said it was to save James Stewart; and
+no doubt the memory of his distress, and his wife’s cries, and a word
+or so I had let drop on that occasion worked upon me strongly. At the
+same time I reflected that it was (or ought to be) the most indifferent
+matter to my father’s son, whether James died in his bed or from a
+scaffold. He was Alan’s cousin, to be sure; but so far as regarded
+Alan, the best thing would be to lie low, and let the King, and his
+Grace of Argyll, and the corbie crows, pick the bones of his kinsman
+their own way. Nor could I forget that, while we were all in the pot
+together, James had shown no such particular anxiety whether for Alan
+or me.
+
+Next it came upon me I was acting for the sake of justice: and I
+thought that a fine word, and reasoned it out that (since we dwelt in
+polities, at some discomfort to each one of us) the main thing of all
+must still be justice, and the death of any innocent man a wound upon
+the whole community. Next, again, it was the Accuser of the Brethren
+that gave me a turn of his argument; bade me think shame for pretending
+myself concerned in these high matters, and told me I was but a prating
+vain child, who had spoken big words to Rankeillor and to Stewart, and
+held myself bound upon my vanity to make good that boastfulness. Nay,
+and he hit me with the other end of the stick; for he accused me of a
+kind of artful cowardice, going about at the expense of a little risk
+to purchase greater safety. No doubt, until I had declared and cleared
+myself, I might any day encounter Mungo Campbell or the sheriff’s
+officer, and be recognised, and dragged into the Appin murder by the
+heels; and, no doubt, in case I could manage my declaration with
+success, I should breathe more free for ever after. But when I looked
+this argument full in the face I could see nothing to be ashamed of. As
+for the rest, “Here are the two roads,” I thought, “and both go to the
+same place. It’s unjust that James should hang if I can save him; and
+it would be ridiculous in me to have talked so much and then do
+nothing. It’s lucky for James of the Glens that I have boasted
+beforehand; and none so unlucky for myself, because now I’m committed
+to do right. I have the name of a gentleman and the means of one; it
+would be a poor duty that I was wanting in the essence.” And then I
+thought this was a Pagan spirit, and said a prayer in to myself, asking
+for what courage I might lack, and that I might go straight to my duty
+like a soldier to battle, and come off again scatheless, as so many do.
+
+This train of reasoning brought me to a more resolved complexion;
+though it was far from closing up my sense of the dangers that
+surrounded me, nor of how very apt I was (if I went on) to stumble on
+the ladder of the gallows. It was a plain, fair morning, but the wind
+in the east. The little chill of it sang in my blood, and gave me a
+feeling of the autumn, and the dead leaves, and dead folks’ bodies in
+their graves. It seemed the devil was in it, if I was to die in that
+tide of my fortunes and for other folks’ affairs. On the top of the
+Calton Hill, though it was not the customary time of year for that
+diversion, some children were crying and running with their kites.
+These toys appeared very plain against the sky; I remarked a great one
+soar on the wind to a high altitude and then plump among the whins; and
+I thought to myself at sight of it, “There goes Davie.”
+
+My way lay over Mouter’s Hill, and through an end of a clachan on the
+braeside among fields. There was a whirr of looms in it went from house
+to house; bees bummed in the gardens; the neighbours that I saw at the
+doorsteps talked in a strange tongue; and I found out later that this
+was Picardy, a village where the French weavers wrought for the Linen
+Company. Here I got a fresh direction for Pilrig, my destination; and a
+little beyond, on the wayside, came by a gibbet and two men hanged in
+chains. They were dipped in tar, as the manner is; the wind span them,
+the chains clattered, and the birds hung about the uncanny
+jumping-jacks and cried. The sight coming on me suddenly, like an
+illustration of my fears, I could scarce be done with examining it and
+drinking in discomfort. And, as I thus turned and turned about the
+gibbet, what should I strike on, but a weird old wife, that sat behind
+a leg of it, and nodded, and talked aloud to herself with becks and
+courtesies.
+
+“Who are these two, mother?” I asked, and pointed to the corpses.
+
+“A blessing on your precious face!” she cried. “Twa joes [7] o’mine:
+just two o’ my old joes, my hinny dear.”
+
+“What did they suffer for?” I asked.
+
+“Ou, just for the guid cause,” said she. “Aften I spaed to them the way
+that it would end. Twa shillin’ Scots: no pickle mair; and there are
+twa bonny callants hingin’ for ’t! They took it frae a wean [8]
+belanged to Brouchton.”
+
+“Ay!” said I to myself, and not to the daft limmer, “and did they come
+to such a figure for so poor a business? This is to lose all indeed.”
+
+“Gie’s your loof, [9] hinny,” says she, “and let me spae your weird to
+ye.”
+
+“No, mother,” said I, “I see far enough the way I am. It’s an unco
+thing to see too far in front.”
+
+“I read it in your bree,” she said. “There’s a bonnie lassie that has
+bricht een, and there’s a wee man in a braw coat, and a big man in a
+pouthered wig, and there’s the shadow of the wuddy, [10] joe, that lies
+braid across your path. Gie’s your loof, hinny, and let Auld Merren
+spae it to ye bonny.”
+
+The two chance shots that seemed to point at Alan and the daughter of
+James More struck me hard; and I fled from the eldritch creature,
+casting her a baubee, which she continued to sit and play with under
+the moving shadows of the hanged.
+
+My way down the causeway of Leith Walk would have been more pleasant to
+me but for this encounter. The old rampart ran among fields, the like
+of them I had never seen for artfulness of agriculture; I was pleased,
+besides, to be so far in the still countryside; but the shackles of the
+gibbet clattered in my head; and the mope and mows of the old witch,
+and the thought of the dead men, hag-rode my spirits. To hang on a
+gallows, that seemed a hard case; and whether a man came to hang there
+for two shillings Scots, or (as Mr. Stewart had it) from the sense of
+duty, once he was tarred and shackled and hung up, the difference
+seemed small. There might David Balfour hang, and other lads pass on
+their errands and think light of him; and old daft limmers sit at a
+leg-foot and spae their fortunes; and the clean genty maids go by, and
+look to the other aide, and hold a nose. I saw them plain, and they had
+grey eyes, and their screens upon their heads were of the Drummed
+colours.
+
+I was thus in the poorest of spirits, though still pretty resolved,
+when I came in view of Pilrig, a pleasant gabled house set by the
+walkside among some brave young woods. The laird’s horse was standing
+saddled at the door as I came up, but himself was in the study, where
+he received me in the midst of learned works and musical instruments,
+for he was not only a deep philosopher but much of a musician. He
+greeted me at first pretty well, and when he had read Rankeillor’s
+letter, placed himself obligingly at my disposal.
+
+“And what is it, cousin David!” said he—“since it appears that we are
+cousins—what is this that I can do for you! A word to Prestongrange!
+Doubtless that is easily given. But what should be the word?”
+
+“Mr. Balfour,” said I, “if I were to tell you my whole story the way it
+fell out, it’s my opinion (and it was Rankeillor’s before me) that you
+would be very little made up with it.”
+
+“I am sorry to hear this of you, kinsman,” says he.
+
+“I must not take that at your hands, Mr. Balfour,” said I; “I have
+nothing to my charge to make me sorry, or you for me, but just the
+common infirmities of mankind. ‘The guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want
+of original righteousness, and the corruption of my whole nature,’ so
+much I must answer for, and I hope I have been taught where to look for
+help,” I said; for I judged from the look of the man he would think the
+better of me if I knew my questions. [11] “But in the way of worldly
+honour I have no great stumble to reproach myself with; and my
+difficulties have befallen me very much against my will and (by all
+that I can see) without my fault. My trouble is to have become dipped
+in a political complication, which it is judged you would be blythe to
+avoid a knowledge of.”
+
+“Why, very well, Mr. David,” he replied, “I am pleased to see you are
+all that Rankeillor represented. And for what you say of political
+complications, you do me no more than justice. It is my study to be
+beyond suspicion, and indeed outside the field of it. The question is,”
+says he, “how, if I am to know nothing of the matter, I can very well
+assist you?”
+
+“Why sir,” said I, “I propose you should write to his lordship, that I
+am a young man of reasonable good family and of good means: both of
+which I believe to be the case.”
+
+“I have Rankeillor’s word for it,” said Mr. Balfour, “and I count that
+a warran-dice against all deadly.”
+
+“To which you might add (if you will take my word for so much) that I
+am a good churchman, loyal to King George, and so brought up,” I went
+on.
+
+“None of which will do you any harm,” said Mr. Balfour.
+
+“Then you might go on to say that I sought his lordship on a matter of
+great moment, connected with His Majesty’s service and the
+administration of justice,” I suggested.
+
+“As I am not to hear the matter,” says the laird, “I will not take upon
+myself to qualify its weight. ‘Great moment’ therefore falls, and
+‘moment’ along with it. For the rest I might express myself much as you
+propose.”
+
+“And then, sir,” said I, and rubbed my neck a little with my thumb,
+“then I would be very desirous if you could slip in a word that might
+perhaps tell for my protection.”
+
+“Protection?” says he, “for your protection! Here is a phrase that
+somewhat dampens me. If the matter be so dangerous, I own I would be a
+little loath to move in it blindfold.”
+
+“I believe I could indicate in two words where the thing sticks,” said
+I.
+
+“Perhaps that would be the best,” said he.
+
+“Well, it’s the Appin murder,” said I.
+
+He held up both his hands. “Sirs! sirs!” cried he.
+
+I thought by the expression of his face and voice that I had lost my
+helper.
+
+“Let me explain. . .” I began.
+
+“I thank you kindly, I will hear no more of it,” says he. “I decline
+_in toto_ to hear more of it. For your name’s sake and Rankeillor’s,
+and perhaps a little for your own, I will do what I can to help you;
+but I will hear no more upon the facts. And it is my first clear duty
+to warn you. These are deep waters, Mr. David, and you are a young man.
+Be cautious and think twice.”
+
+“It is to be supposed I will have thought oftener than that, Mr.
+Balfour,” said I, “and I will direct your attention again to
+Rankeillor’s letter, where (I hope and believe) he has registered his
+approval of that which I design.”
+
+“Well, well,” said he; and then again, “Well, well! I will do what I
+can for you.” There with he took a pen and paper, sat a while in
+thought, and began to write with much consideration. “I understand that
+Rankeillor approved of what you have in mind?” he asked presently.
+
+“After some discussion, sir, he bade me to go forward in God’s name,”
+said I.
+
+“That is the name to go in,” said Mr. Balfour, and resumed his writing.
+Presently, he signed, re-read what he had written, and addressed me
+again. “Now here, Mr. David,” said he, “is a letter of introduction,
+which I will seal without closing, and give into your hands open, as
+the form requires. But, since I am acting in the dark, I will just read
+it to you, so that you may see if it will secure your end—
+
+“Pilrig, _August_ 26th, 1751.
+
+
+“My Lord,—This is to bring to your notice my namesake and cousin, David
+Balfour Esquire of Shaws, a young gentleman of unblemished descent and
+good estate. He has enjoyed, besides, the more valuable advantages of a
+godly training, and his political principles are all that your lordship
+can desire. I am not in Mr. Balfour’s confidence, but I understand him
+to have a matter to declare, touching His Majesty’s service and the
+administration of justice; purposes for which your Lordship’s zeal is
+known. I should add that the young gentleman’s intention is known to
+and approved by some of his friends, who will watch with hopeful
+anxiety the event of his success or failure.
+
+
+“Whereupon,” continued Mr. Balfour, “I have subscribed myself with the
+usual compliments. You observe I have said ‘some of your friends’; I
+hope you can justify my plural?”
+
+“Perfectly, sir; my purpose is known and approved by more than one,”
+said I. “And your letter, which I take a pleasure to thank you for, is
+all I could have hoped.”
+
+“It was all I could squeeze out,” said he; “and from what I know of the
+matter you design to meddle in, I can only pray God that it may prove
+sufficient.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGRANGE
+
+
+My kinsman kept me to a meal, “for the honour of the roof,” he said;
+and I believe I made the better speed on my return. I had no thought
+but to be done with the next stage, and have myself fully committed; to
+a person circumstanced as I was, the appearance of closing a door on
+hesitation and temptation was itself extremely tempting; and I was the
+more disappointed, when I came to Prestongrange’s house, to be informed
+he was abroad. I believe it was true at the moment, and for some hours
+after; and then I have no doubt the Advocate came home again, and
+enjoyed himself in a neighbouring chamber among friends, while perhaps
+the very fact of my arrival was forgotten. I would have gone away a
+dozen times, only for this strong drawing to have done with my
+declaration out of hand and be able to lay me down to sleep with a free
+conscience. At first I read, for the little cabinet where I was left
+contained a variety of books. But I fear I read with little profit; and
+the weather falling cloudy, the dusk coming up earlier than usual, and
+my cabinet being lighted with but a loophole of a window, I was at last
+obliged to desist from this diversion (such as it was), and pass the
+rest of my time of waiting in a very burthensome vacuity. The sound of
+people talking in a near chamber, the pleasant note of a harpsichord,
+and once the voice of a lady singing, bore me a kind of company.
+
+I do not know the hour, but the darkness was long come, when the door
+of the cabinet opened, and I was aware, by the light behind him, of a
+tall figure of a man upon the threshold. I rose at once.
+
+“Is anybody there?” he asked. “Who in that?”
+
+“I am bearer of a letter from the laird of Pilrig to the Lord
+Advocate,” said I.
+
+“Have you been here long?” he asked.
+
+“I would not like to hazard an estimate of how many hours,” said I.
+
+“It is the first I hear of it,” he replied, with a chuckle. “The lads
+must have forgotten you. But you are in the bit at last, for I am
+Prestongrange.”
+
+So saying, he passed before me into the next room, whither (upon his
+sign) I followed him, and where he lit a candle and took his place
+before a business-table. It was a long room, of a good proportion,
+wholly lined with books. That small spark of light in a corner struck
+out the man’s handsome person and strong face. He was flushed, his eye
+watered and sparkled, and before he sat down I observed him to sway
+back and forth. No doubt, he had been supping liberally; but his mind
+and tongue were under full control.
+
+“Well, sir, sit ye down,” said he, “and let us see Pilrig’s letter.”
+
+He glanced it through in the beginning carelessly, looking up and
+bowing when he came to my name; but at the last words I thought I
+observed his attention to redouble, and I made sure he read them twice.
+All this while you are to suppose my heart was beating, for I had now
+crossed my Rubicon and was come fairly on the field of battle.
+
+“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Balfour,” he said, when he
+had done. “Let me offer you a glass of claret.”
+
+“Under your favour, my lord, I think it would scarce be fair on me,”
+said I. “I have come here, as the letter will have mentioned, on a
+business of some gravity to myself; and, as I am little used with wine,
+I might be the sooner affected.”
+
+“You shall be the judge,” said he. “But if you will permit, I believe I
+will even have the bottle in myself.”
+
+He touched a bell, and a footman came, as at a signal, bringing wine
+and glasses.
+
+“You are sure you will not join me?” asked the Advocate. “Well, here is
+to our better acquaintance! In what way can I serve you?”
+
+“I should, perhaps, begin by telling you, my lord, that I am here at
+your own pressing invitation,” said I.
+
+“You have the advantage of me somewhere,” said he, “for I profess I
+think I never heard of you before this evening.”
+
+“Right, my lord; the name is, indeed, new to you,” said I. “And yet you
+have been for some time extremely wishful to make my acquaintance, and
+have declared the same in public.”
+
+“I wish you would afford me a clue,” says he. “I am no Daniel.”
+
+“It will perhaps serve for such,” said I, “that if I was in a jesting
+humour—which is far from the case—I believe I might lay a claim on your
+lordship for two hundred pounds.”
+
+“In what sense?” he inquired.
+
+“In the sense of rewards offered for my person,” said I.
+
+He thrust away his glass once and for all, and sat straight up in the
+chair where he had been previously lolling. “What am I to understand?”
+said he.
+
+“_A tall strong lad of about eighteen_,” I quoted, “_speaks like a
+Lowlander and has no beard_.”
+
+“I recognise those words,” said he, “which, if you have come here with
+any ill-judged intention of amusing yourself, are like to prove
+extremely prejudicial to your safety.”
+
+“My purpose in this,” I replied, “is just entirely as serious as life
+and death, and you have understood me perfectly. I am the boy who was
+speaking with Glenure when he was shot.”
+
+“I can only suppose (seeing you here) that you claim to be innocent,”
+said he.
+
+“The inference is clear,” I said. “I am a very loyal subject to King
+George, but if I had anything to reproach myself with, I would have had
+more discretion than to walk into your den.”
+
+“I am glad of that,” said he. “This horrid crime, Mr. Balfour, is of a
+dye which cannot permit any clemency. Blood has been barbarously shed.
+It has been shed in direct opposition to his Majesty and our whole
+frame of laws, by those who are their known and public oppugnants. I
+take a very high sense of this. I will not deny that I consider the
+crime as directly personal to his Majesty.”
+
+“And unfortunately, my lord,” I added, a little drily, “directly
+personal to another great personage who may be nameless.”
+
+“If you mean anything by those words, I must tell you I consider them
+unfit for a good subject; and were they spoke publicly I should make it
+my business to take note of them,” said he. “You do not appear to me to
+recognise the gravity of your situation, or you would be more careful
+not to pejorate the same by words which glance upon the purity of
+justice. Justice, in this country, and in my poor hands, is no
+respecter of persons.”
+
+“You give me too great a share in my own speech, my lord,” said I. “I
+did but repeat the common talk of the country, which I have heard
+everywhere, and from men of all opinions as I came along.”
+
+“When you are come to more discretion you will understand such talk in
+not to be listened to, how much less repeated,” says the Advocate. “But
+I acquit you of an ill intention. That nobleman, whom we all honour,
+and who has indeed been wounded in a near place by the late barbarity,
+sits too high to be reached by these aspersions. The Duke of Argyle—you
+see that I deal plainly with you—takes it to heart as I do, and as we
+are both bound to do by our judicial functions and the service of his
+Majesty; and I could wish that all hands, in this ill age, were equally
+clean of family rancour. But from the accident that this is a Campbell
+who has fallen martyr to his duty—as who else but the Campbells have
+ever put themselves foremost on that path?—I may say it, who am no
+Campbell—and that the chief of that great house happens (for all our
+advantages) to be the present head of the College of Justice, small
+minds and disaffected tongues are set agog in every changehouse in the
+country; and I find a young gentleman like Mr. Balfour so ill-advised
+as to make himself their echo.” So much he spoke with a very oratorical
+delivery, as if in court, and then declined again upon the manner of a
+gentleman. “All this apart,” said he. “It now remains that I should
+learn what I am to do with you.”
+
+“I had thought it was rather I that should learn the same from your
+lordship,” said I.
+
+“Ay, true,” says the Advocate. “But, you see, you come to me well
+recommended. There is a good honest Whig name to this letter,” says he,
+picking it up a moment from the table. “And—extra-judicially, Mr.
+Balfour—there is always the possibility of some arrangement, I tell
+you, and I tell you beforehand that you may be the more upon your
+guard, your fate lies with me singly. In such a matter (be it said with
+reverence) I am more powerful than the King’s Majesty; and should you
+please me—and of course satisfy my conscience—in what remains to be
+held of our interview, I tell you it may remain between ourselves.”
+
+“Meaning how?” I asked.
+
+“Why, I mean it thus, Mr. Balfour,” said he, “that if you give
+satisfaction, no soul need know so much as that you visited my house;
+and you may observe that I do not even call my clerk.”
+
+I saw what way he was driving. “I suppose it is needless anyone should
+be informed upon my visit,” said I, “though the precise nature of my
+gains by that I cannot see. I am not at all ashamed of coming here.”
+
+“And have no cause to be,” says he, encouragingly. “Nor yet (if you are
+careful) to fear the consequences.”
+
+“My lord,” said I, “speaking under your correction, I am not very easy
+to be frightened.”
+
+“And I am sure I do not seek to frighten you,” says he. “But to the
+interrogation; and let me warn you to volunteer nothing beyond the
+questions I shall ask you. It may consist very immediately with your
+safety. I have a great discretion, it is true, but there are bounds to
+it.”
+
+“I shall try to follow your lordship’s advice,” said I.
+
+He spread a sheet of paper on the table and wrote a heading. “It
+appears you were present, by the way, in the wood of Lettermore at the
+moment of the fatal shot,” he began. “Was this by accident?”
+
+“By accident,” said I.
+
+“How came you in speech with Colin Campbell?” he asked.
+
+“I was inquiring my way of him to Aucharn,” I replied.
+
+I observed he did not write this answer down.
+
+“H’m, true,” said he, “I had forgotten that. And do you know, Mr.
+Balfour, I would dwell, if I were you, as little as might be on your
+relations with these Stewarts. It might be found to complicate our
+business. I am not yet inclined to regard these matters as essential.”
+
+“I had thought, my lord, that all points of fact were equally material
+in such a case,” said I.
+
+“You forget we are now trying these Stewarts,” he replied, with great
+significance. “If we should ever come to be trying you, it will be very
+different; and I shall press these very questions that I am now willing
+to glide upon. But to resume: I have it here in Mr. Mungo Campbell’s
+precognition that you ran immediately up the brae. How came that?”
+
+“Not immediately, my lord, and the cause was my seeing of the
+murderer.”
+
+“You saw him, then?”
+
+“As plain as I see your lordship, though not so near hand.”
+
+“You know him?”
+
+“I should know him again.”
+
+“In your pursuit you were not so fortunate, then, as to overtake him?”
+
+“I was not.”
+
+“Was he alone?”
+
+“He was alone.”
+
+“There was no one else in that neighbourhood?”
+
+“Alan Breck Stewart was not far off, in a piece of a wood.”
+
+The Advocate laid his pen down. “I think we are playing at cross
+purposes,” said he, “which you will find to prove a very ill amusement
+for yourself.”
+
+“I content myself with following your lordship’s advice, and answering
+what I am asked,” said I.
+
+“Be so wise as to bethink yourself in time,” said he, “I use you with
+the most anxious tenderness, which you scarce seem to appreciate, and
+which (unless you be more careful) may prove to be in vain.”
+
+“I do appreciate your tenderness, but conceive it to be mistaken,” I
+replied, with something of a falter, for I saw we were come to grips at
+last. “I am here to lay before you certain information, by which I
+shall convince you Alan had no hand whatever in the killing of
+Glenure.”
+
+The Advocate appeared for a moment at a stick, sitting with pursed
+lips, and blinking his eyes upon me like an angry cat. “Mr. Balfour,”
+he said at last, “I tell you pointedly you go an ill way for your own
+interests.”
+
+“My lord,” I said, “I am as free of the charge of considering my own
+interests in this matter as your lordship. As God judges me, I have but
+the one design, and that is to see justice executed and the innocent go
+clear. If in pursuit of that I come to fall under your lordship’s
+displeasure, I must bear it as I may.”
+
+At this he rose from his chair, lit a second candle, and for a while
+gazed upon me steadily. I was surprised to see a great change of
+gravity fallen upon his face, and I could have almost thought he was a
+little pale.
+
+“You are either very simple, or extremely the reverse, and I see that I
+must deal with you more confidentially,” says he. “This is a political
+case—ah, yes, Mr. Balfour! whether we like it or no, the case is
+political—and I tremble when I think what issues may depend from it. To
+a political case, I need scarce tell a young man of your education, we
+approach with very different thoughts from one which is criminal only.
+_Salus populi suprema lex_ is a maxim susceptible of great abuse, but
+it has that force which we find elsewhere only in the laws of nature: I
+mean it has the force of necessity. I will open this out to you, if you
+will allow me, at more length. You would have me believe—”
+
+“Under your pardon, my lord, I would have you to believe nothing but
+that which I can prove,” said I.
+
+“Tut! tut; young gentleman,” says he, “be not so pragmatical, and
+suffer a man who might be your father (if it was nothing more) to
+employ his own imperfect language, and express his own poor thoughts,
+even when they have the misfortune not to coincide with Mr. Balfour’s.
+You would have me to believe Breck innocent. I would think this of
+little account, the more so as we cannot catch our man. But the matter
+of Breck’s innocence shoots beyond itself. Once admitted, it would
+destroy the whole presumptions of our case against another and a very
+different criminal; a man grown old in treason, already twice in arms
+against his king and already twice forgiven; a fomentor of discontent,
+and (whoever may have fired the shot) the unmistakable original of the
+deed in question. I need not tell you that I mean James Stewart.”
+
+“And I can just say plainly that the innocence of Alan and of James is
+what I am here to declare in private to your lordship, and what I am
+prepared to establish at the trial by my testimony,” said I.
+
+“To which I can only answer by an equal plainness, Mr. Balfour,” said
+he, “that (in that case) your testimony will not be called by me, and I
+desire you to withhold it altogether.”
+
+“You are at the head of Justice in this country,” I cried, “and you
+propose to me a crime!”
+
+“I am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country,” he
+replied, “and I press on you a political necessity. Patriotism is not
+always moral in the formal sense. You might be glad of it, I think: it
+is your own protection; the facts are heavy against you; and if I am
+still trying to except you from a very dangerous place, it is in part
+of course because I am not insensible to your honesty in coming here;
+in part because of Pilrig’s letter; but in part, and in chief part,
+because I regard in this matter my political duty first and my judicial
+duty only second. For the same reason—I repeat it to you in the same
+frank words—I do not want your testimony.”
+
+“I desire not to be thought to make a repartee, when I express only the
+plain sense of our position,” said I. “But if your lordship has no need
+of my testimony, I believe the other side would be extremely blythe to
+get it.”
+
+Prestongrange arose and began to pace to and fro in the room. “You are
+not so young,” he said, “but what you must remember very clearly the
+year ’45 and the shock that went about the country. I read in Pilrig’s
+letter that you are sound in Kirk and State. Who saved them in that
+fatal year? I do not refer to His Royal Highness and his ramrods, which
+were extremely useful in their day; but the country had been saved and
+the field won before ever Cumberland came upon Drummossie. Who saved
+it? I repeat; who saved the Protestant religion and the whole frame of
+our civil institutions? The late Lord President Culloden, for one; he
+played a man’s part, and small thanks he got for it—even as I, whom you
+see before you, straining every nerve in the same service, look for no
+reward beyond the conscience of my duties done. After the President,
+who else? You know the answer as well as I do; ’tis partly a scandal,
+and you glanced at it yourself, and I reproved you for it, when you
+first came in. It was the Duke and the great clan of Campbell. Now here
+is a Campbell foully murdered, and that in the King’s service. The Duke
+and I are Highlanders. But we are Highlanders civilised, and it is not
+so with the great mass of our clans and families. They have still
+savage virtues and defects. They are still barbarians, like these
+Stewarts; only the Campbells were barbarians on the right side, and the
+Stewarts were barbarians on the wrong. Now be you the judge. The
+Campbells expect vengeance. If they do not get it—if this man James
+escape—there will be trouble with the Campbells. That means disturbance
+in the Highlands, which are uneasy and very far from being disarmed:
+the disarming is a farce. . .”
+
+“I can bear you out in that,” said I.
+
+“Disturbance in the Highlands makes the hour of our old watchful
+enemy,” pursued his lordship, holding out a finger as he paced; “and I
+give you my word we may have a ’45 again with the Campbells on the
+other side. To protect the life of this man Stewart—which is forfeit
+already on half-a-dozen different counts if not on this—do you propose
+to plunge your country in war, to jeopardise the faith of your fathers,
+and to expose the lives and fortunes of how many thousand innocent
+persons? . . . These are considerations that weigh with me, and that I
+hope will weigh no less with yourself, Mr. Balfour, as a lover of your
+country, good government, and religious truth.”
+
+“You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it,” said I. “I
+will try on my side to be no less honest. I believe your policy to be
+sound. I believe these deep duties may lie upon your lordship; I
+believe you may have laid them on your conscience when you took the
+oath of the high office which you hold. But for me, who am just a plain
+man—or scarce a man yet—the plain duties must suffice. I can think but
+of two things, of a poor soul in the immediate and unjust danger of a
+shameful death, and of the cries and tears of his wife that still
+tingle in my head. I cannot see beyond, my lord. It’s the way that I am
+made. If the country has to fall, it has to fall. And I pray God, if
+this be wilful blindness, that He may enlighten me before too late.”
+
+He had heard me motionless, and stood so a while longer.
+
+“This is an unexpected obstacle,” says he, aloud, but to himself.
+
+“And how is your lordship to dispose of me?” I asked.
+
+“If I wished,” said he, “you know that you might sleep in gaol?”
+
+“My lord,” said I, “I have slept in worse places.”
+
+“Well, my boy,” said he, “there is one thing appears very plainly from
+our interview, that I may rely on your pledged word. Give me your
+honour that you will be wholly secret, not only on what has passed
+to-night, but in the matter of the Appin case, and I let you go free.”
+
+“I will give it till to-morrow or any other near day that you may
+please to set,” said I. “I would not be thought too wily; but if I gave
+the promise without qualification your lordship would have attained his
+end.”
+
+“I had no thought to entrap you,” said he.
+
+“I am sure of that,” said I.
+
+“Let me see,” he continued. “To-morrow is the Sabbath. Come to me on
+Monday by eight in the morning, and give me your promise until then.”
+
+“Freely given, my lord,” said I. “And with regard to what has fallen
+from yourself, I will give it for an long as it shall please God to
+spare your days.”
+
+“You will observe,” he said next, “that I have made no employment of
+menaces.”
+
+“It was like your lordship’s nobility,” said I. “Yet I am not
+altogether so dull but what I can perceive the nature of those you have
+not uttered.”
+
+“Well,” said he, “good-night to you. May you sleep well, for I think it
+is more than I am like to do.”
+
+With that he sighed, took up a candle, and gave me his conveyance as
+far as the street door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+IN THE ADVOCATE’S HOUSE
+
+
+The next day, Sabbath, August 27th, I had the occasion I had long
+looked forward to, to hear some of the famous Edinburgh preachers, all
+well known to me already by the report of Mr Campbell. Alas! and I
+might just as well have been at Essendean, and sitting under Mr.
+Campbell’s worthy self! the turmoil of my thoughts, which dwelt
+continually on the interview with Prestongrange, inhibiting me from all
+attention. I was indeed much less impressed by the reasoning of the
+divines than by the spectacle of the thronged congregation in the
+churches, like what I imagined of a theatre or (in my then disposition)
+of an assize of trial; above all at the West Kirk, with its three tiers
+of galleries, where I went in the vain hope that I might see Miss
+Drummond.
+
+On the Monday I betook me for the first time to a barber’s, and was
+very well pleased with the result. Thence to the Advocate’s, where the
+red coats of the soldiers showed again about his door, making a bright
+place in the close. I looked about for the young lady and her gillies:
+there was never a sign of them. But I was no sooner shown into the
+cabinet or antechamber where I had spent so wearyful a time upon the
+Saturday, than I was aware of the tall figure of James More in a
+corner. He seemed a prey to a painful uneasiness, reaching forth his
+feet and hands, and his eyes speeding here and there without rest about
+the walls of the small chamber, which recalled to me with a sense of
+pity the man’s wretched situation. I suppose it was partly this, and
+partly my strong continuing interest in his daughter, that moved me to
+accost him.
+
+“Give you a good-morning, sir,” said I.
+
+“And a good-morning to you, sir,” said he.
+
+“You bide tryst with Prestongrange?” I asked.
+
+“I do, sir, and I pray your business with that gentleman be more
+agreeable than mine,” was his reply.
+
+“I hope at least that yours will be brief, for I suppose you pass
+before me,” said I.
+
+“All pass before me,” he said, with a shrug and a gesture upward of the
+open hands. “It was not always so, sir, but times change. It was not so
+when the sword was in the scale, young gentleman, and the virtues of
+the soldier might sustain themselves.”
+
+There came a kind of Highland snuffle out of the man that raised my
+dander strangely.
+
+“Well, Mr. Macgregor,” said I, “I understand the main thing for a
+soldier is to be silent, and the first of his virtues never to
+complain.”
+
+“You have my name, I perceive”—he bowed to me with his arms
+crossed—“though it’s one I must not use myself. Well, there is a
+publicity—I have shown my face and told my name too often in the beards
+of my enemies. I must not wonder if both should be known to many that I
+know not.”
+
+“That you know not in the least, sir,” said I, “nor yet anybody else;
+but the name I am called, if you care to hear it, is Balfour.”
+
+“It is a good name,” he replied, civilly; “there are many decent folk
+that use it. And now that I call to mind, there was a young gentleman,
+your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year ’45 with my battalion.”
+
+“I believe that would be a brother to Balfour of Baith,” said I, for I
+was ready for the surgeon now.
+
+“The same, sir,” said James More. “And since I have been fellow-soldier
+with your kinsman, you must suffer me to grasp your hand.”
+
+He shook hands with me long and tenderly, beaming on me the while as
+though he had found a brother.
+
+“Ah!” says he, “these are changed days since your cousin and I heard
+the balls whistle in our lugs.”
+
+“I think he was a very far-away cousin,” said I, drily, “and I ought to
+tell you that I never clapped eyes upon the man.”
+
+“Well, well,” said he, “it makes no change. And you—I do not think you
+were out yourself, sir—I have no clear mind of your face, which is one
+not probable to be forgotten.”
+
+“In the year you refer to, Mr. Macgregor, I was getting skelped in the
+parish school,” said I.
+
+“So young!” cries he. “Ah, then, you will never be able to think what
+this meeting is to me. In the hour of my adversity, and here in the
+house of my enemy, to meet in with the blood of an old
+brother-in-arms—it heartens me, Mr. Balfour, like the skirling of the
+highland pipes! Sir, this is a sad look back that many of us have to
+make: some with falling tears. I have lived in my own country like a
+king; my sword, my mountains, and the faith of my friends and kinsmen
+sufficed for me. Now I lie in a stinking dungeon; and do you know, Mr.
+Balfour,” he went on, taking my arm and beginning to lead me about, “do
+you know, sir, that I lack mere ne_cess_aries? The malice of my foes
+has quite sequestered my resources. I lie, as you know, sir, on a
+trumped-up charge, of which I am as innocent as yourself. They dare not
+bring me to my trial, and in the meanwhile I am held naked in my
+prison. I could have wished it was your cousin I had met, or his
+brother Baith himself. Either would, I know, have been rejoiced to help
+me; while a comparative stranger like yourself—”
+
+I would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this beggarly
+vein, or the very short and grudging answers that I made to him. There
+were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change;
+but whether it was from shame or pride—whether it was for my own sake
+or Catriona’s—whether it was because I thought him no fit father for
+his daughter, or because I resented that grossness of immediate falsity
+that clung about the man himself—the thing was clean beyond me. And I
+was still being wheedled and preached to, and still being marched to
+and fro, three steps and a turn, in that small chamber, and had
+already, by some very short replies, highly incensed, although not
+finally discouraged, my beggar, when Prestongrange appeared in the
+doorway and bade me eagerly into his big chamber.
+
+“I have a moment’s engagements,” said he; “and that you may not sit
+empty-handed I am going to present you to my three braw daughters, of
+whom perhaps you may have heard, for I think they are more famous than
+papa. This way.”
+
+He led me into another long room above, where a dry old lady sat at a
+frame of embroidery, and the three handsomest young women (I suppose)
+in Scotland stood together by a window.
+
+“This is my new friend, Mr Balfour,” said he, presenting me by the arm,
+“David, here is my sister, Miss Grant, who is so good as keep my house
+for me, and will be very pleased if she can help you. And here,” says
+he, turning to the three younger ladies, “here are my _three braw
+dauchters_. A fair question to ye, Mr. Davie: which of the three is the
+best favoured? And I wager he will never have the impudence to propound
+honest Alan Ramsay’s answer!”
+
+Hereupon all three, and the old Miss Grant as well, cried out against
+this sally, which (as I was acquainted with the verses he referred to)
+brought shame into my own check. It seemed to me a citation
+unpardonable in a father, and I was amazed that these ladies could
+laugh even while they reproved, or made believe to.
+
+Under cover of this mirth, Prestongrange got forth of the chamber, and
+I was left, like a fish upon dry land, in that very unsuitable society.
+I could never deny, in looking back upon what followed, that I was
+eminently stockish; and I must say the ladies were well drilled to have
+so long a patience with me. The aunt indeed sat close at her
+embroidery, only looking now and again and smiling; but the misses, and
+especially the eldest, who was besides the most handsome, paid me a
+score of attentions which I was very ill able to repay. It was all in
+vain to tell myself I was a young follow of some worth as well as a
+good estate, and had no call to feel abashed before these lasses, the
+eldest not so much older than myself, and no one of them by any
+probability half as learned. Reasoning would not change the fact; and
+there were times when the colour came into my face to think I was
+shaved that day for the first time.
+
+The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest
+took pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she
+was a passed mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and
+singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more
+at my ease, and being reminded of Alan’s air that he had taught me in
+the hole near Carriden, I made so bold as to whistle a bar or two, and
+ask if she knew that.
+
+She shook her head. “I never heard a note of it,” said she. “Whistle it
+all through. And now once again,” she added, after I had done so.
+
+Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise)
+instantly enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as she
+played, with a very droll expression and broad accent—
+
+“Haenae I got just the lilt of it?
+Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?”
+
+
+“You see,” she says, “I can do the poetry too, only it won’t rhyme. And
+then again:
+
+“I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:
+You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour.”
+
+
+I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.
+
+“And what do you call the name of it?” she asked.
+
+“I do not know the real name,” said I. “I just call it _Alan’s air_.”
+
+She looked at me directly in the face. “I shall call it _David’s air_,”
+said she; “though if it’s the least like what your namesake of Israel
+played to Saul I would never wonder that the king got little good by
+it, for it’s but melancholy music. Your other name I do not like; so if
+you was ever wishing to hear your tune again you are to ask for it by
+mine.”
+
+This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog. “Why that,
+Miss Grant?” I asked.
+
+“Why,” says she, “if ever you should come to get hanged, I will set
+your last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it.”
+
+This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story and
+peril. How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess. It was
+plain she knew there was something of danger in the name of Alan, and
+thus warned me to leave it out of reference; and plain she knew that I
+stood under some criminal suspicion. I judged besides that the
+harshness of her last speech (which besides she had followed up
+immediately with a very noisy piece of music) was to put an end to the
+present conversation. I stood beside her, affecting to listen and
+admire, but truly whirled away by my own thoughts. I have always found
+this young lady to be a lover of the mysterious; and certainly this
+first interview made a mystery that was beyond my plummet. One thing I
+learned long after, the hours of the Sunday had been well employed, the
+bank porter had been found and examined, my visit to Charles Stewart
+was discovered, and the deduction made that I was pretty deep with
+James and Alan, and most likely in a continued correspondence with the
+last. Hence this broad hint that was given me across the harpsichord.
+
+In the midst of the piece of music, one of the younger misses, who was
+at a window over the close, cried on her sisters to come quick, for
+there was “_Grey eyes_ again.” The whole family trooped there at once,
+and crowded one another for a look. The window whither they ran was in
+an odd corner of that room, gave above the entrance door, and flanked
+up the close.
+
+“Come, Mr. Balfour,” they cried, “come and see. She is the most
+beautiful creature! She hangs round the close-head these last days,
+always with some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems quite a lady.”
+
+I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long. I was afraid
+she might have seen me there, looking down upon her from that chamber
+of music, and she without, and her father in the same house, perhaps
+begging for his life with tears, and myself come but newly from
+rejecting his petitions. But even that glance set me in a better
+conceit of myself and much less awe of the young ladies. They were
+beautiful, that was beyond question, but Catriona was beautiful too,
+and had a kind of brightness in her like a coal of fire. As much as the
+others cast me down, she lifted me up. I remembered I had talked easily
+with her. If I could make no hand of it with these fine maids, it was
+perhaps something their own fault. My embarrassment began to be a
+little mingled and lightened with a sense of fun; and when the aunt
+smiled at me from her embroidery, and the three daughters unbent to me
+like a baby, all with “papa’s orders” written on their faces, there
+were times when I could have found it in my heart to smile myself.
+
+Presently papa returned, the same kind, happy-like, pleasant-spoken
+man.
+
+“Now, girls,” said he, “I must take Mr. Balfour away again; but I hope
+you have been able to persuade him to return where I shall be always
+gratified to find him.”
+
+So they each made me a little farthing compliment, and I was led away.
+
+If this visit to the family had been meant to soften my resistance, it
+was the worst of failures. I was no such ass but what I understood how
+poor a figure I had made, and that the girls would be yawning their
+jaws off as soon as my stiff back was turned. I felt I had shown how
+little I had in me of what was soft and graceful; and I longed for a
+chance to prove that I had something of the other stuff, the stern and
+dangerous.
+
+Well, I was to be served to my desire, for the scene to which he was
+conducting me was of a different character.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+UMQUILE THE MASTER OF LOVAT
+
+
+There was a man waiting us in Prestongrange’s study, whom I distasted
+at the first look, as we distaste a ferret or an earwig. He was bitter
+ugly, but seemed very much of a gentleman; had still manners, but
+capable of sudden leaps and violences; and a small voice, which could
+ring out shrill and dangerous when he so desired.
+
+The Advocate presented us in a familiar, friendly way.
+
+“Here, Fraser,” said he, “here is Mr. Balfour whom we talked about. Mr.
+David, this is Mr. Simon Fraser, whom we used to call by another title,
+but that is an old song. Mr. Fraser has an errand to you.”
+
+With that he stepped aside to his book-shelves, and made believe to
+consult a quarto volume in the far end.
+
+I was thus left (in a sense) alone with perhaps the last person in the
+world I had expected. There was no doubt upon the terms of
+introduction; this could be no other than the forfeited Master of Lovat
+and chief of the great clan Fraser. I knew he had led his men in the
+Rebellion; I knew his father’s head—my old lord’s, that grey fox of the
+mountains—to have fallen on the block for that offence, the lands of
+the family to have been seized, and their nobility attainted. I could
+not conceive what he should be doing in Grant’s house; I could not
+conceive that he had been called to the bar, had eaten all his
+principles, and was now currying favour with the Government even to the
+extent of acting Advocate-Depute in the Appin murder.
+
+“Well, Mr. Balfour,” said he, “what is all this I hear of ye?”
+
+“It would not become me to prejudge,” said I, “but if the Advocate was
+your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions.”
+
+“I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case,” he went on; “I am to
+appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of the precognitions I
+can assure you your opinions are erroneous. The guilt of Breck is
+manifest; and your testimony, in which you admit you saw him on the
+hill at the very moment, will certify his hanging.”
+
+“It will be rather ill to hang him till you catch him,” I observed.
+“And for other matters I very willingly leave you to your own
+impressions.”
+
+“The Duke has been informed,” he went on. “I have just come from his
+Grace, and he expressed himself before me with an honest freedom like
+the great nobleman he is. He spoke of you by name, Mr. Balfour, and
+declared his gratitude beforehand in case you would be led by those who
+understand your own interests and those of the country so much better
+than yourself. Gratitude is no empty expression in that mouth:
+_experto-crede_. I daresay you know something of my name and clan, and
+the damnable example and lamented end of my late father, to say nothing
+of my own errata. Well, I have made my peace with that good Duke; he
+has intervened for me with our friend Prestongrange; and here I am with
+my foot in the stirrup again and some of the responsibility shared into
+my hand of prosecuting King George’s enemies and avenging the late
+daring and barefaced insult to his Majesty.”
+
+“Doubtless a proud position for your father’s son,” says I.
+
+He wagged his bald eyebrows at me. “You are pleased to make experiments
+in the ironical, I think,” said he. “But I am here upon duty, I am here
+to discharge my errand in good faith, it is in vain you think to divert
+me. And let me tell you, for a young fellow of spirit and ambition like
+yourself, a good shove in the beginning will do more than ten years’
+drudgery. The shove is now at your command; choose what you will to be
+advanced in, the Duke will watch upon you with the affectionate
+disposition of a father.”
+
+“I am thinking that I lack the docility of the son,” says I.
+
+“And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole policy of this country
+is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill-mannered colt
+of a boy?” he cried. “This has been made a test case, all who would
+prosper in the future must put a shoulder to the wheel. Look at me! Do
+you suppose it is for my pleasure that I put myself in the highly
+invidious position of persecuting a man that I have drawn the sword
+alongside of? The choice is not left me.”
+
+“But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice when you mixed in
+with that unnatural rebellion,” I remarked. “My case is happily
+otherwise; I am a true man, and can look either the Duke or King George
+in the face without concern.”
+
+“Is it so the wind sits?” says he. “I protest you are fallen in the
+worst sort of error. Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil (he tells
+me) as not to combat your allegations; but you must not think they are
+not looked upon with strong suspicion. You say you are innocent. My
+dear sir, the facts declare you guilty.”
+
+“I was waiting for you there,” said I.
+
+“The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion of
+the murder; your long course of secresy—my good young man!” said Mr.
+Simon, “here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be a David
+Balfour! I shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be raised; I shall
+then speak much otherwise from what I do to-day, and far less to your
+gratification, little as you like it now! Ah, you look white!” cries
+he. “I have found the key of your impudent heart. You look pale, your
+eyes waver, Mr. David! You see the grave and the gallows nearer by than
+you had fancied.”
+
+“I own to a natural weakness,” said I. “I think no shame for that.
+Shame. . .” I was going on.
+
+“Shame waits for you on the gibbet,” he broke in.
+
+“Where I shall but be even’d with my lord your father,” said I.
+
+“Aha, but not so!” he cried, “and you do not yet see to the bottom of
+this business. My father suffered in a great cause, and for dealing in
+the affairs of kings. You are to hang for a dirty murder about
+boddle-pieces. Your personal part in it, the treacherous one of holding
+the poor wretch in talk, your accomplices a pack of ragged Highland
+gillies. And it can be shown, my great Mr. Balfour—it can be shown, and
+it _will_ be shown, trust _me_ that has a finger in the pie—it can be
+shown, and shall be shown, that you were paid to do it. I think I can
+see the looks go round the court when I adduce my evidence, and it
+shall appear that you, a young man of education, let yourself be
+corrupted to this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes, a bottle of
+Highland spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in copper money.”
+
+There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like a
+blow: clothes, a bottle of _usquebaugh_, and
+three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in change made up, indeed, the most of
+what Alan and I had carried from Auchurn; and I saw that some of
+James’s people had been blabbing in their dungeons.
+
+“You see I know more than you fancied,” he resumed in triumph. “And as
+for giving it this turn, great Mr. David, you must not suppose the
+Government of Great Britain and Ireland will ever be stuck for want of
+evidence. We have men here in prison who will swear out their lives as
+we direct them; as I direct, if you prefer the phrase. So now you are
+to guess your part of glory if you choose to die. On the one hand,
+life, wine, women, and a duke to be your handgun: on the other, a rope
+to your craig, and a gibbet to clatter your bones on, and the lousiest,
+lowest story to hand down to your namesakes in the future that was ever
+told about a hired assassin. And see here!” he cried, with a formidable
+shrill voice, “see this paper that I pull out of my pocket. Look at the
+name there: it is the name of the great David, I believe, the ink
+scarce dry yet. Can you guess its nature? It is the warrant for your
+arrest, which I have but to touch this bell beside me to have executed
+on the spot. Once in the Tolbooth upon this paper, may God help you,
+for the die is cast!”
+
+I must never deny that I was greatly horrified by so much baseness, and
+much unmanned by the immediacy and ugliness of my danger. Mr. Simon had
+already gloried in the changes of my hue; I make no doubt I was now no
+ruddier than my shirt; my speech besides trembled.
+
+“There is a gentleman in this room,” cried I. “I appeal to him. I put
+my life and credit in his hands.”
+
+Prestongrange shut his book with a snap. “I told you so, Simon,” said
+he; “you have played your hand for all it was worth, and you have lost.
+Mr. David,” he went on, “I wish you to believe it was by no choice of
+mine you were subjected to this proof. I wish you could understand how
+glad I am you should come forth from it with so much credit. You may
+not quite see how, but it is a little of a service to myself. For had
+our friend here been more successful than I was last night, it might
+have appeared that he was a better judge of men than I; it might have
+appeared we were altogether in the wrong situations, Mr. Simon and
+myself. And I know our friend Simon to be ambitious,” says he, striking
+lightly on Fraser’s shoulder. “As for this stage play, it is over; my
+sentiments are very much engaged in your behalf; and whatever issue we
+can find to this unfortunate affair, I shall make it my business to see
+it is adopted with tenderness to you.”
+
+These were very good words, and I could see besides that there was
+little love, and perhaps a spice of genuine ill-will, between these two
+who were opposed to me. For all that, it was unmistakable this
+interview had been designed, perhaps rehearsed, with the consent of
+both; it was plain my adversaries were in earnest to try me by all
+methods; and now (persuasion, flattery, and menaces having been tried
+in vain) I could not but wonder what would be their next expedient. My
+eyes besides were still troubled, and my knees loose under me, with the
+distress of the late ordeal; and I could do no more than stammer the
+same form of words: “I put my life and credit in your hands.”
+
+“Well, well,” said he, “we must try to save them. And in the meanwhile
+let us return to gentler methods. You must not bear any grudge upon my
+friend, Mr. Simon, who did but speak by his brief. And even if you did
+conceive some malice against myself, who stood by and seemed rather to
+hold a candle, I must not let that extend to innocent members of my
+family. These are greatly engaged to see more of you, and I cannot
+consent to have my young womenfolk disappointed. To-morrow they will be
+going to Hope Park, where I think it very proper you should make your
+bow. Call for me first, when I may possibly have something for your
+private hearing; then you shall be turned abroad again under the
+conduct of my misses; and until that time repeat to me your promise of
+secrecy.”
+
+I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was beside
+the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how;
+and when I was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind
+me, was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face. That horrid
+apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Simon rang in my memory, as a
+sudden noise rings after it is over in the ear. Tales of the man’s
+father, of his falseness, of his manifold perpetual treacheries, rose
+before me from all that I had heard and read, and joined on with what I
+had just experienced of himself. Each time it occurred to me, the
+ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon my
+character startled me afresh. The case of the man upon the gibbet by
+Leith Walk appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was now to
+consider as my own. To rob a child of so little more than nothing was
+certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men; but my own tale, as it
+was to be represented in a court by Simon Fraser, appeared a fair
+second in every possible point of view of sordidness and cowardice.
+
+The voices of two of Prestongrange’s liveried men upon his doorstep
+recalled me to myself.
+
+“Ha’e,” said the one, “this billet as fast as ye can link to the
+captain.”
+
+“Is that for the cateran back again?” asked the other.
+
+“It would seem sae,” returned the first. “Him and Simon are seeking
+him.”
+
+“I think Prestongrange is gane gyte,” says the second. “He’ll have
+James More in bed with him next.”
+
+“Weel, it’s neither your affair nor mine’s,” said the first.
+
+And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into the
+house.
+
+This looked as ill as possible. I was scarce gone and they were sending
+already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must have pointed
+when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives by all
+extremities. My scalp curdled among my hair, and the next moment the
+blood leaped in me to remember Catriona. Poor lass! her father stood to
+be hanged for pretty indefensible misconduct. What was yet more
+unpalatable, it now seemed he was prepared to save his four quarters by
+the worst of shame and the most foul of cowardly murders—murder by the
+false oath; and to complete our misfortunes, it seemed myself was
+picked out to be the victim.
+
+I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire for
+movement, air, and the open country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR
+
+
+I came forth, I vow I know not how, on the _Lang Dykes_ [12]. This is a
+rural road which runs on the north side over against the city. Thence I
+could see the whole black length of it tail down, from where the castle
+stands upon its crags above the loch in a long line of spires and gable
+ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the sight my heart swelled in my
+bosom. My youth, as I have told, was already inured to dangers; but
+such danger as I had seen the face of but that morning, in the midst of
+what they call the safety of a town, shook me beyond experience. Peril
+of slavery, peril of shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had stood
+all of these without discredit; but the peril there was in the sharp
+voice and the fat face of Simon, properly Lord Lovat, daunted me
+wholly.
+
+I sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into the
+water, and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples. If I could
+have done so with any remains of self-esteem, I would now have fled
+from my foolhardy enterprise. But (call it courage or cowardice, and I
+believe it was both the one and the other) I decided I was ventured out
+beyond the possibility of a retreat. I had out-faced these men, I would
+continue to out-face them; come what might, I would stand by the word
+spoken.
+
+The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not
+much. At the best of it there was an icy place about my heart, and life
+seemed a black business to be at all engaged in. For two souls in
+particular my pity flowed. The one was myself, to be so friendless and
+lost among dangers. The other was the girl, the daughter of James More.
+I had seen but little of her; yet my view was taken and my judgment
+made. I thought her a lass of a clean honour, like a man’s; I thought
+her one to die of a disgrace; and now I believed her father to be at
+that moment bargaining his vile life for mine. It made a bond in my
+thoughts betwixt the girl and me. I had seen her before only as a
+wayside appearance, though one that pleased me strangely; I saw her now
+in a sudden nearness of relation, as the daughter of my blood foe, and
+I might say, my murderer. I reflected it was hard I should be so
+plagued and persecuted all my days for other folks’ affairs, and have
+no manner of pleasure myself. I got meals and a bed to sleep in when my
+concerns would suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to me.
+If I was to hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not to hang
+but to escape out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me ere I
+was done with them. Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory, the way
+I had first seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness came in my
+bosom and strength into my legs; and I set resolutely forward on the
+way to Dean. If I was to hang to-morrow, and it was sure enough I might
+very likely sleep that night in a dungeon, I determined I should hear
+and speak once more with Catriona.
+
+The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me yet
+more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit. In the village of
+Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I
+inquired my way of a miller’s man, who sent me up the hill upon the
+farther side by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house in a
+garden of lawns and apple-trees. My heart beat high as I stepped inside
+the garden hedge, but it fell low indeed when I came face to face with
+a grim and fierce old lady, walking there in a white mutch with a man’s
+hat strapped upon the top of it.
+
+“What do ye come seeking here?” she asked.
+
+I told her I was after Miss Drummond.
+
+“And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?” says she.
+
+I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to
+render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady’s
+invitation.
+
+“O, so you’re Saxpence!” she cried, with a very sneering manner. “A
+braw gift, a bonny gentleman. And hae ye ony ither name and
+designation, or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?” she asked.
+
+I told my name.
+
+“Preserve me!” she cried. “Has Ebenezer gotten a son?”
+
+“No, ma’am,” said I. “I am a son of Alexander’s. It’s I that am the
+Laird of Shaws.”
+
+“Ye’ll find your work cut out for ye to establish that,” quoth she.
+
+“I perceive you know my uncle,” said I; “and I daresay you may be the
+better pleased to hear that business is arranged.”
+
+“And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?” she pursued.
+
+“I’m come after my saxpence, mem,” said I. “It’s to be thought, being
+my uncle’s nephew, I would be found a careful lad.”
+
+“So ye have a spark of sleeness in ye?” observed the old lady, with
+some approval. “I thought ye had just been a cuif—you and your
+saxpence, and your _lucky day_ and your _sake of Balwhidder_”—from
+which I was gratified to learn that Catriona had not forgotten some of
+our talk. “But all this is by the purpose,” she resumed. “Am I to
+understand that ye come here keeping company?”
+
+“This is surely rather an early question,” said I. “The maid is young,
+so am I, worse fortune. I have but seen her the once. I’ll not deny,” I
+added, making up my mind to try her with some frankness, “I’ll not deny
+but she has run in my head a good deal since I met in with her. That is
+one thing; but it would be quite another, and I think I would look very
+like a fool, to commit myself.”
+
+“You can speak out of your mouth, I see,” said the old lady. “Praise
+God, and so can I! I was fool enough to take charge of this rogue’s
+daughter: a fine charge I have gotten; but it’s mine, and I’ll carry it
+the way I want to. Do ye mean to tell me, Mr. Balfour of Shaws, that
+you would marry James More’s daughter, and him hanged! Well, then,
+where there’s no possible marriage there shall be no manner of
+carryings on, and take that for said. Lasses are bruckle things,” she
+added, with a nod; “and though ye would never think it by my wrunkled
+chafts, I was a lassie mysel’, and a bonny one.”
+
+“Lady Allardyce,” said I, “for that I suppose to be your name, you seem
+to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very poor manner to come
+to an agreement. You give me rather a home thrust when you ask if I
+would marry, at the gallow’s foot, a young lady whom I have seen but
+once. I have told you already I would never be so untenty as to commit
+myself. And yet I’ll go some way with you. If I continue to like the
+lass as well as I have reason to expect, it will be something more than
+her father, or the gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart. As
+for my family, I found it by the wayside like a lost bawbee! I owe less
+than nothing to my uncle and if ever I marry, it will be to please one
+person: that’s myself.”
+
+“I have heard this kind of talk before ye were born,” said Mrs. Ogilvy,
+“which is perhaps the reason that I think of it so little. There’s much
+to be considered. This James More is a kinsman of mine, to my shame be
+it spoken. But the better the family, the mair men hanged or headed,
+that’s always been poor Scotland’s story. And if it was just the
+hanging! For my part I think I would be best pleased with James upon
+the gallows, which would be at least an end to him. Catrine’s a good
+lass enough, and a good-hearted, and lets herself be deaved all day
+with a runt of an auld wife like me. But, ye see, there’s the weak bit.
+She’s daft about that long, false, fleeching beggar of a father of
+hers, and red-mad about the Gregara, and proscribed names, and King
+James, and a wheen blethers. And you might think ye could guide her, ye
+would find yourself sore mista’en. Ye say ye’ve seen her but the once.
+. .”
+
+“Spoke with her but the once, I should have said,” I interrupted. “I
+saw her again this morning from a window at Prestongrange’s.”
+
+This I daresay I put in because it sounded well; but I was properly
+paid for my ostentation on the return.
+
+“What’s this of it?” cries the old lady, with a sudden pucker of her
+face. “I think it was at the Advocate’s door-cheek that ye met her
+first.”
+
+I told her that was so.
+
+“H’m,” she said; and then suddenly, upon rather a scolding tone, “I
+have your bare word for it,” she cries, “as to who and what you are. By
+your way of it, you’re Balfour of the Shaws; but for what I ken you may
+be Balfour of the Deevil’s oxter. It’s possible ye may come here for
+what ye say, and it’s equally possible ye may come here for deil care
+what! I’m good enough Whig to sit quiet, and to have keepit all my
+men-folk’s heads upon their shoulders. But I’m not just a good enough
+Whig to be made a fool of neither. And I tell you fairly, there’s too
+much Advocate’s door and Advocate’s window here for a man that comes
+taigling after a Macgregor’s daughter. Ye can tell that to the Advocate
+that sent ye, with my fond love. And I kiss my loof to ye, Mr.
+Balfour,” says she, suiting the action to the word; “and a braw journey
+to ye back to where ye cam frae.”
+
+“If you think me a spy,” I broke out, and speech stuck in my throat. I
+stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space, then bowed and
+turned away.
+
+“Here! Hoots! The callant’s in a creel!” she cried. “Think ye a spy?
+what else would I think ye—me that kens naething by ye? But I see that
+I was wrong; and as I cannot fight, I’ll have to apologise. A bonny
+figure I would be with a broadsword. Ay! ay!” she went on, “you’re none
+such a bad lad in your way; I think ye’ll have some redeeming vices.
+But, O! Davit Balfour, ye’re damned countryfeed. Ye’ll have to win over
+that, lad; ye’ll have to soople your back-bone, and think a wee pickle
+less of your dainty self; and ye’ll have to try to find out that
+women-folk are nae grenadiers. But that can never be. To your last day
+you’ll ken no more of women-folk than what I do of sow-gelding.”
+
+I had never been used with such expressions from a lady’s tongue, the
+only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being most
+devout and most particular women; and I suppose my amazement must have
+been depicted in my countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst forth suddenly
+in a fit of laughter.
+
+“Keep me!” she cried, struggling with her mirth, “you have the finest
+timber face—and you to marry the daughter of a Hieland cateran! Davie,
+my dear, I think we’ll have to make a match of it—if it was just to see
+the weans. And now,” she went on, “there’s no manner of service in your
+daidling here, for the young woman is from home, and it’s my fear that
+the old woman is no suitable companion for your father’s son. Forbye
+that I have nobody but myself to look after my reputation, and have
+been long enough alone with a sedooctive youth. And come back another
+day for your saxpence!” she cried after me as I left.
+
+My skirmish with this disconcerting lady gave my thoughts a boldness
+they had otherwise wanted. For two days the image of Catriona had mixed
+in all my meditations; she made their background, so that I scarce
+enjoyed my own company without a glint of her in a corner of my mind.
+But now she came immediately near; I seemed to touch her, whom I had
+never touched but the once; I let myself flow out to her in a happy
+weakness, and looking all about, and before and behind, saw the world
+like an undesirable desert, where men go as soldiers on a march,
+following their duty with what constancy they have, and Catriona alone
+there to offer me some pleasure of my days. I wondered at myself that I
+could dwell on such considerations in that time of my peril and
+disgrace; and when I remembered my youth I was ashamed. I had my
+studies to complete: I had to be called into some useful business; I
+had yet to take my part of service in a place where all must serve; I
+had yet to learn, and know, and prove myself a man; and I had so much
+sense as blush that I should be already tempted with these further-on
+and holier delights and duties. My education spoke home to me sharply;
+I was never brought up on sugar biscuits but on the hard food of the
+truth. I knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was not
+prepared to be a father also; and for a boy like me to play the father
+was a mere derision.
+
+When I was in the midst of these thoughts and about half-way back to
+town I saw a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my heart was
+heightened. It seemed I had everything in the world to say to her, but
+nothing to say first; and remembering how tongue-tied I had been that
+morning at the Advocate’s I made sure that I would find myself struck
+dumb. But when she came up my fears fled away; not even the
+consciousness of what I had been privately thinking disconcerted me the
+least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally as I
+might with Alan.
+
+“O!” she cried, “you have been seeking your sixpence; did you get it?”
+
+I told her no; but now I had met with her my walk was not in vain.
+“Though I have seen you to-day already,” said I, and told her where and
+when.
+
+“I did not see you,” she said. “My eyes are big, but there are better
+than mine at seeing far. Only I heard singing in the house.”
+
+“That was Miss Grant,” said I, “the eldest and the bonniest.”
+
+“They say they are all beautiful,” said she.
+
+“They think the same of you, Miss Drummond,” I replied, “and were all
+crowding to the window to observe you.”
+
+“It is a pity about my being so blind,” said she, “or I might have seen
+them too. And you were in the house? You must have been having the fine
+time with the fine music and the pretty ladies.”
+
+“There is just where you are wrong,” said I; “for I was as uncouth as a
+sea-fish upon the brae of a mountain. The truth is that I am better
+fitted to go about with rudas men than pretty ladies.”
+
+“Well, I would think so too, at all events!” said she, at which we both
+of us laughed.
+
+“It is a strange thing, now,” said I. “I am not the least afraid with
+you, yet I could have run from the Miss Grants. And I was afraid of
+your cousin too.”
+
+“O, I think any man will be afraid of her,” she cried. “My father is
+afraid of her himself.”
+
+The name of her father brought me to a stop. I looked at her as she
+walked by my side; I recalled the man, and the little I knew and the
+much I guessed of him; and comparing the one with the other, felt like
+a traitor to be silent.
+
+“Speaking of which,” said I, “I met your father no later than this
+morning.”
+
+“Did you?” she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at me.
+“You saw James More? You will have spoken with him then?”
+
+“I did even that,” said I.
+
+Then I think things went the worst way for me that was humanly
+possible. She gave me a look of mere gratitude. “Ah, thank you for
+that!” says she.
+
+“You thank me for very little,” said I, and then stopped. But it seemed
+when I was holding back so much, something at least had to come out. “I
+spoke rather ill to him,” said I; “I did no like him very much; I spoke
+him rather ill, and he was angry.”
+
+“I think you had little to do then, and less to tell it to his
+daughter!” she cried out. “But those that do not love and cherish him I
+will not know.”
+
+“I will take the freedom of a word yet,” said I, beginning to tremble.
+“Perhaps neither your father nor I are in the best of spirits at
+Prestongrange’s. I daresay we both have anxious business there, for
+it’s a dangerous house. I was sorry for him too, and spoke to him the
+first, if I could but have spoken the wiser. And for one thing, in my
+opinion, you will soon find that his affairs are mending.”
+
+“It will not be through your friendship, I am thinking,” said she; “and
+he is much made up to you for your sorrow.”
+
+“Miss Drummond,” cried I, “I am alone in this world.”
+
+“And I am not wondering at that,” said she.
+
+“O, let me speak!” said I. “I will speak but the once, and then leave
+you, if you will, for ever. I came this day in the hopes of a kind word
+that I am sore in want of. I know that what I said must hurt you, and I
+knew it then. It would have been easy to have spoken smooth, easy to
+lie to you; can you not think how I was tempted to the same? Cannot you
+see the truth of my heart shine out?”
+
+“I think here is a great deal of work, Mr. Balfour,” said she. “I think
+we will have met but the once, and will can part like gentle folk.”
+
+“O, let me have one to believe in me!” I pleaded, “I cannae bear it
+else. The whole world is clanned against me. How am I to go through
+with my dreadful fate? If there’s to be none to believe in me I cannot
+do it. The man must just die, for I cannot do it.”
+
+She had still looked straight in front of her, head in air; but at my
+words or the tone of my voice she came to a stop. “What is this you
+say?” she asked. “What are you talking of?”
+
+“It is my testimony which may save an innocent life,” said I, “and they
+will not suffer me to bear it. What would you do yourself? You know
+what this is, whose father lies in danger. Would you desert the poor
+soul? They have tried all ways with me. They have sought to bribe me;
+they offered me hills and valleys. And to-day that sleuth-hound told me
+how I stood, and to what a length he would go to butcher and disgrace
+me. I am to be brought in a party to the murder; I am to have held
+Glenure in talk for money and old clothes; I am to be killed and
+shamed. If this is the way I am to fall, and me scarce a man—if this is
+the story to be told of me in all Scotland—if you are to believe it
+too, and my name is to be nothing but a by-word—Catriona, how can I go
+through with it? The thing’s not possible; it’s more than a man has in
+his heart.”
+
+I poured my words out in a whirl, one upon the other; and when I
+stopped I found her gazing on me with a startled face.
+
+“Glenure! It is the Appin murder,” she said softly, but with a very
+deep surprise.
+
+I had turned back to bear her company, and we were now come near the
+head of the brae above Dean village. At this word I stepped in front of
+her like one suddenly distracted.
+
+“For God’s sake!” I cried, “for God’s sake, what is this that I have
+done?” and carried my fists to my temples. “What made me do it? Sure, I
+am bewitched to say these things!”
+
+“In the name of heaven, what ails you now!” she cried.
+
+“I gave my honour,” I groaned, “I gave my honour and now I have broke
+it. O, Catriona!”
+
+“I am asking you what it is,” she said; “was it these things you should
+not have spoken? And do you think I have no honour, then? or that I am
+one that would betray a friend? I hold up my right hand to you and
+swear.”
+
+“O, I knew you would be true!” said I. “It’s me—it’s here. I that stood
+but this morning and out-faced them, that risked rather to die
+disgraced upon the gallows than do wrong—and a few hours after I throw
+my honour away by the roadside in common talk! ‘There is one thing
+clear upon our interview,’ says he, ‘that I can rely on your pledged
+word.’ Where is my word now? Who could believe me now? You could not
+believe me. I am clean fallen down; I had best die!” All this I said
+with a weeping voice, but I had no tears in my body.
+
+“My heart is sore for you,” said she, “but be sure you are too nice. I
+would not believe you, do you say? I would trust you with anything. And
+these men? I would not be thinking of them! Men who go about to entrap
+and to destroy you! Fy! this is no time to crouch. Look up! Do you not
+think I will be admiring you like a great hero of the good—and you a
+boy not much older than myself? And because you said a word too much in
+a friend’s ear, that would die ere she betrayed you—to make such a
+matter! It is one thing that we must both forget.”
+
+“Catriona,” said I, looking at her, hang-dog, “is this true of it?
+Would ye trust me yet?”
+
+“Will you not believe the tears upon my face?” she cried. “It is the
+world I am thinking of you, Mr. David Balfour. Let them hang you; I
+will never forget, I will grow old and still remember you. I think it
+is great to die so: I will envy you that gallows.”
+
+“And maybe all this while I am but a child frighted with bogles,” said
+I. “Maybe they but make a mock of me.”
+
+“It is what I must know,” she said. “I must hear the whole. The harm is
+done at all events, and I must hear the whole.”
+
+I had sat down on the wayside, where she took a place beside me, and I
+told her all that matter much as I have written it, my thoughts about
+her father’s dealings being alone omitted.
+
+“Well,” she said, when I had finished, “you are a hero, surely, and I
+never would have thought that same! And I think you are in peril, too.
+O, Simon Fraser! to think upon that man! For his life and the dirty
+money, to be dealing in such traffic!” And just then she called out
+aloud with a queer word that was common with her, and belongs, I
+believe, to her own language. “My torture!” says she, “look at the
+sun!”
+
+Indeed, it was already dipping towards the mountains.
+
+She bid me come again soon, gave me her hand, and left me in a turmoil
+of glad spirits. I delayed to go home to my lodging, for I had a terror
+of immediate arrest; but got some supper at a change house, and the
+better part of that night walked by myself in the barley-fields, and
+had such a sense of Catriona’s presence that I seemed to bear her in my
+arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE BRAVO
+
+
+The next day, August 29th, I kept my appointment at the Advocate’s in a
+coat that I had made to my own measure, and was but newly ready.
+
+“Aha,” says Prestongrange, “you are very fine to-day; my misses are to
+have a fine cavalier. Come, I take that kind of you. I take that kind
+of you, Mr. David. O, we shall do very well yet, and I believe your
+troubles are nearly at an end.”
+
+“You have news for me?” cried I.
+
+“Beyond anticipation,” he replied. “Your testimony is after all to be
+received; and you may go, if you will, in my company to the trial,
+which in to be held at Inverary, Thursday, 21st _proximo_.”
+
+I was too much amazed to find words.
+
+“In the meanwhile,” he continued, “though I will not ask you to renew
+your pledge, I must caution you strictly to be reticent. To-morrow your
+precognition must be taken; and outside of that, do you know, I think
+least said will be soonest mended.”
+
+“I shall try to go discreetly,” said I. “I believe it is yourself that
+I must thank for this crowning mercy, and I do thank you gratefully.
+After yesterday, my lord, this is like the doors of Heaven. I cannot
+find it in my heart to get the thing believed.”
+
+“Ah, but you must try and manage, you must try and manage to believe
+it,” says he, soothing-like, “and I am very glad to hear your
+acknowledgment of obligation, for I think you may be able to repay me
+very shortly”—he coughed—“or even now. The matter is much changed. Your
+testimony, which I shall not trouble you for to-day, will doubtless
+alter the complexion of the case for all concerned, and this makes it
+less delicate for me to enter with you on a side issue.”
+
+“My Lord,” I interrupted, “excuse me for interrupting you, but how has
+this been brought about? The obstacles you told me of on Saturday
+appeared even to me to be quite insurmountable; how has it been
+contrived?”
+
+“My dear Mr. David,” said he, “it would never do for me to divulge
+(even to you, as you say) the councils of the Government; and you must
+content yourself, if you please, with the gross fact.”
+
+He smiled upon me like a father as he spoke, playing the while with a
+new pen; methought it was impossible there could be any shadow of
+deception in the man: yet when he drew to him a sheet of paper, dipped
+his pen among the ink, and began again to address me, I was somehow not
+so certain, and fell instinctively into an attitude of guard.
+
+“There is a point I wish to touch upon,” he began. “I purposely left it
+before upon one side, which need be now no longer necessary. This is
+not, of course, a part of your examination, which is to follow by
+another hand; this is a private interest of my own. You say you
+encountered Alan Breck upon the hill?”
+
+“I did, my lord,” said I.
+
+“This was immediately after the murder?”
+
+“It was.”
+
+“Did you speak to him?”
+
+“I did.”
+
+“You had known him before, I think?” says my lord, carelessly.
+
+“I cannot guess your reason for so thinking, my lord,” I replied, “but
+such in the fact.”
+
+“And when did you part with him again?” said he.
+
+“I reserve my answer,” said I. “The question will be put to me at the
+assize.”
+
+“Mr. Balfour,” said he, “will you not understand that all this is
+without prejudice to yourself? I have promised you life and honour;
+and, believe me, I can keep my word. You are therefore clear of all
+anxiety. Alan, it appears, you suppose you can protect; and you talk to
+me of your gratitude, which I think (if you push me) is not
+ill-deserved. There are a great many different considerations all
+pointing the same way; and I will never be persuaded that you could not
+help us (if you chose) to put salt on Alan’s tail.”
+
+“My lord,” said I, “I give you my word I do not so much as guess where
+Alan is.”
+
+He paused a breath. “Nor how he might be found?” he asked.
+
+I sat before him like a log of wood.
+
+“And so much for your gratitude, Mr. David!” he observed. Again there
+was a piece of silence. “Well,” said he, rising, “I am not fortunate,
+and we are a couple at cross purposes. Let us speak of it no more; you
+will receive notice when, where, and by whom, we are to take your
+precognition. And in the meantime, my misses must be waiting you. They
+will never forgive me if I detain their cavalier.”
+
+Into the hands of these Graces I was accordingly offered up, and found
+them dressed beyond what I had thought possible, and looking fair as a
+posy.
+
+As we went forth from the doors a small circumstance occurred which
+came afterwards to look extremely big. I heard a whistle sound loud and
+brief like a signal, and looking all about, spied for one moment the
+red head of Neil of the Tom, the son of Duncan. The next moment he was
+gone again, nor could I see so much as the skirt-tail of Catriona, upon
+whom I naturally supposed him to be then attending.
+
+My three keepers led me out by Bristo and the Bruntsfield Links; whence
+a path carried us to Hope Park, a beautiful pleasance, laid with
+gravel-walks, furnished with seats and summer-sheds, and warded by a
+keeper. The way there was a little longsome; the two younger misses
+affected an air of genteel weariness that damped me cruelly, the eldest
+considered me with something that at times appeared like mirth; and
+though I thought I did myself more justice than the day before, it was
+not without some effort. Upon our reaching the park I was launched on a
+bevy of eight or ten young gentlemen (some of them cockaded officers,
+the rest chiefly advocates) who crowded to attend upon these beauties;
+and though I was presented to all of them in very good words, it seemed
+I was by all immediately forgotten. Young folk in a company are like to
+savage animals: they fall upon or scorn a stranger without civility, or
+I may say, humanity; and I am sure, if I had been among baboons, they
+would have shown me quite as much of both. Some of the advocates set up
+to be wits, and some of the soldiers to be rattles; and I could not
+tell which of these extremes annoyed me most. All had a manner of
+handling their swords and coat-skirts, for the which (in mere black
+envy) I could have kicked them from the park. I daresay, upon their
+side, they grudged me extremely the fine company in which I had
+arrived; and altogether I had soon fallen behind, and stepped stiffly
+in the rear of all that merriment with my own thoughts.
+
+From these I was recalled by one of the officers, Lieutenant Hector
+Duncansby, a gawky, leering Highland boy, asking if my name was not
+“Palfour.”
+
+I told him it was, not very kindly, for his manner was scant civil.
+
+“Ha, Palfour,” says he, and then, repeating it, “Palfour, Palfour!”
+
+“I am afraid you do not like my name, sir,” says I, annoyed with myself
+to be annoyed with such a rustical fellow.
+
+“No,” says he, “but I wass thinking.”
+
+“I would not advise you to make a practice of that, sir,” says I. “I
+feel sure you would not find it to agree with you.”
+
+“Tit you effer hear where Alan Grigor fand the tangs?” said he.
+
+I asked him what he could possibly mean, and he answered, with a
+heckling laugh, that he thought I must have found the poker in the same
+place and swallowed it.
+
+There could be no mistake about this, and my cheek burned.
+
+“Before I went about to put affronts on gentlemen,” said I, “I think I
+would learn the English language first.”
+
+He took me by the sleeve with a nod and a wink and led me quietly
+outside Hope Park. But no sooner were we beyond the view of the
+promenaders, than the fashion of his countenance changed. “You tam
+lowland scoon’rel!” cries he, and hit me a buffet on the jaw with his
+closed fist.
+
+I paid him as good or better on the return; whereupon he stepped a
+little back and took off his hat to me decorously.
+
+“Enough plows I think,” says he. “I will be the offended shentleman,
+for who effer heard of such suffeeciency as tell a shentlemans that is
+the king’s officer he cannae speak Cot’s English? We have swords at our
+hurdles, and here is the King’s Park at hand. Will ye walk first, or
+let me show ye the way?”
+
+I returned his bow, told him to go first, and followed him. As he went
+I heard him grumble to himself about _Cot’s English_ and the _King’s
+coat_, so that I might have supposed him to be seriously offended. But
+his manner at the beginning of our interview was there to belie him. It
+was manifest he had come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me, right or
+wrong; manifest that I was taken in a fresh contrivance of my enemies;
+and to me (conscious as I was of my deficiencies) manifest enough that
+I should be the one to fall in our encounter.
+
+As we came into that rough rocky desert of the King’s Park I was
+tempted half-a-dozen times to take to my heels and run for it, so loath
+was I to show my ignorance in fencing, and so much averse to die or
+even to be wounded. But I considered if their malice went as far as
+this, it would likely stick at nothing; and that to fall by the sword,
+however ungracefully, was still an improvement on the gallows. I
+considered besides that by the unguarded pertness of my words and the
+quickness of my blow I had put myself quite out of court; and that even
+if I ran, my adversary would probably pursue and catch me, which would
+add disgrace to my misfortune. So that, taking all in all, I continued
+marching behind him, much as a man follows the hangman, and certainly
+with no more hope.
+
+We went about the end of the long craigs, and came into the Hunter’s
+Bog. Here, on a piece of fair turf, my adversary drew. There was nobody
+there to see us but some birds; and no resource for me but to follow
+his example, and stand on guard with the best face I could display. It
+seems it was not good enough for Mr. Dancansby, who spied some flaw in
+my manœuvres, paused, looked upon me sharply, and came off and on, and
+menaced me with his blade in the air. As I had seen no such proceedings
+from Alan, and was besides a good deal affected with the proximity of
+death, I grew quite bewildered, stood helpless, and could have longed
+to run away.
+
+“Fat deil ails her?” cries the lieutenant.
+
+And suddenly engaging, he twitched the sword out of my grasp and sent
+it flying far among the rushes.
+
+Twice was this manœuvre repeated; and the third time when I brought
+back my humiliated weapon, I found he had returned his own to the
+scabbard, and stood awaiting me with a face of some anger, and his
+hands clasped under his skirt.
+
+“Pe tamned if I touch you!” he cried, and asked me bitterly what right
+I had to stand up before “shentlemans” when I did not know the back of
+a sword from the front of it.
+
+I answered that was the fault of my upbringing; and would he do me the
+justice to say I had given him all the satisfaction it was
+unfortunately in my power to offer, and had stood up like a man?
+
+“And that is the truth,” said he. “I am fery prave myself, and pold as
+a lions. But to stand up there—and you ken naething of fence!—the way
+that you did, I declare it was peyond me. And I am sorry for the plow;
+though I declare I pelief your own was the elder brother, and my heid
+still sings with it. And I declare if I had kent what way it wass, I
+would not put a hand to such a piece of pusiness.”
+
+“That is handsomely said,” I replied, “and I am sure you will not stand
+up a second time to be the actor for my private enemies.”
+
+“Indeed, no, Palfour,” said he; “and I think I was used extremely
+suffeeciently myself to be set up to fecht with an auld wife, or all
+the same as a bairn whateffer! And I will tell the Master so, and fecht
+him, by Cot, himself!”
+
+“And if you knew the nature of Mr. Simon’s quarrel with me,” said I,
+“you would be yet the more affronted to be mingled up with such
+affairs.”
+
+He swore he could well believe it; that all the Lovats were made of the
+same meal and the devil was the miller that ground that; then suddenly
+shaking me by the hand, he vowed I was a pretty enough fellow after
+all, that it was a thousand pities I had been neglected, and that if he
+could find the time, he would give an eye himself to have me educated.
+
+“You can do me a better service than even what you propose,” said I;
+and when he had asked its nature—“Come with me to the house of one of
+my enemies, and testify how I have carried myself this day,” I told
+him. “That will be the true service. For though he has sent me a
+gallant adversary for the first, the thought in Mr. Simon’s mind is
+merely murder. There will be a second and then a third; and by what you
+have seen of my cleverness with the cold steel, you can judge for
+yourself what is like to be the upshot.”
+
+“And I would not like it myself, if I was no more of a man than what
+you wass!” he cried. “But I will do you right, Palfour. Lead on!”
+
+If I had walked slowly on the way into that accursed park my heels were
+light enough on the way out. They kept time to a very good old air,
+that is as ancient as the Bible, and the words of it are: “_Surely the
+bitterness of death is passed_.” I mind that I was extremely thirsty,
+and had a drink at Saint Margaret’s well on the road down, and the
+sweetness of that water passed belief. We went through the sanctuary,
+up the Canongate, in by the Netherbow, and straight to Prestongrange’s
+door, talking as we came and arranging the details of our affair. The
+footman owned his master was at home, but declared him engaged with
+other gentlemen on very private business, and his door forbidden.
+
+“My business is but for three minutes, and it cannot wait,” said I.
+“You may say it is by no means private, and I shall be even glad to
+have some witnesses.”
+
+As the man departed unwillingly enough upon this errand, we made so
+bold as to follow him to the ante-chamber, whence I could hear for a
+while the murmuring of several voices in the room within. The truth is,
+they were three at the one table—Prestongrange, Simon Fraser, and Mr.
+Erskine, Sheriff of Perth; and as they were met in consultation on the
+very business of the Appin murder, they were a little disturbed at my
+appearance, but decided to receive me.
+
+“Well, well, Mr. Balfour, and what brings you here again? and who is
+this you bring with you?” says Prestongrange.
+
+As for Fraser, he looked before him on the table.
+
+“He is here to bear a little testimony in my favour, my lord, which I
+think it very needful you should hear,” said I, and turned to
+Duncansby.
+
+“I have only to say this,” said the lieutenant, “that I stood up this
+day with Palfour in the Hunter’s Pog, which I am now fery sorry for,
+and he behaved himself as pretty as a shentlemans could ask it. And I
+have creat respects for Palfour,” he added.
+
+“I thank you for your honest expressions,” said I.
+
+Whereupon Duncansby made his bow to the company, and left the chamber,
+as we had agreed upon before.
+
+“What have I to do with this?” says Prestongrange.
+
+“I will tell your lordship in two words,” said I. “I have brought this
+gentleman, a King’s officer, to do me so much justice. Now I think my
+character is covered, and until a certain date, which your lordship can
+very well supply, it will be quite in vain to despatch against me any
+more officers. I will not consent to fight my way through the garrison
+of the castle.”
+
+The veins swelled on Prestongrange’s brow, and he regarded me with
+fury.
+
+“I think the devil uncoupled this dog of a lad between my legs!” he
+cried; and then, turning fiercely on his neighbour, “This is some of
+your work, Simon,” he said. “I spy your hand in the business, and, let
+me tell you, I resent it. It is disloyal, when we are agreed upon one
+expedient, to follow another in the dark. You are disloyal to me. What!
+you let me send this lad to the place with my very daughters! And
+because I let drop a word to you..... Fy, sir, keep your dishonours to
+yourself!”
+
+Simon was deadly pale. “I will be a kick-ball between you and the Duke
+no longer,” he exclaimed. “Either come to an agreement, or come to a
+differ, and have it out among yourselves. But I will no longer fetch
+and carry, and get your contrary instructions, and be blamed by both.
+For if I were to tell you what I think of all your Hanover business it
+would make your head sing.”
+
+But Sheriff Erskine had preserved his temper, and now intervened
+smoothly. “And in the meantime,” says he, “I think we should tell Mr.
+Balfour that his character for valour is quite established. He may
+sleep in peace. Until the date he was so good as to refer to it shall
+be put to the proof no more.”
+
+His coolness brought the others to their prudence; and they made haste,
+with a somewhat distracted civility, to pack me from the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+THE HEATHER ON FIRE
+
+
+When I left Prestongrange that afternoon I was for the first time
+angry. The Advocate had made a mock of me. He had pretended my
+testimony was to be received and myself respected; and in that very
+hour, not only was Simon practising against my life by the hands of the
+Highland soldier, but (as appeared from his own language) Prestongrange
+himself had some design in operation. I counted my enemies;
+Prestongrange with all the King’s authority behind him; and the Duke
+with the power of the West Highlands; and the Lovat interest by their
+side to help them with so great a force in the north, and the whole
+clan of old Jacobite spies and traffickers. And when I remembered James
+More, and the red head of Neil the son of Duncan, I thought there was
+perhaps a fourth in the confederacy, and what remained of Rob Roy’s old
+desperate sept of caterans would be banded against me with the others.
+One thing was requisite—some strong friend or wise adviser. The country
+must be full of such, both able and eager to support me, or Lovat and
+the Duke and Prestongrange had not been nosing for expedients; and it
+made me rage to think that I might brush against my champions in the
+street and be no wiser.
+
+And just then (like an answer) a gentleman brushed against me going by,
+gave me a meaning look, and turned into a close. I knew him with the
+tail of my eye—it was Stewart the Writer; and, blessing my good
+fortune, turned in to follow him. As soon as I had entered the close I
+saw him standing in the mouth of a stair, where he made me a signal and
+immediately vanished. Seven storeys up, there he was again in a house
+door, the which he looked behind us after we had entered. The house was
+quite dismantled, with not a stick of furniture; indeed, it was one of
+which Stewart had the letting in his hands.
+
+“We’ll have to sit upon the floor,” said he; “but we’re safe here for
+the time being, and I’ve been wearying to see ye, Mr. Balfour.”
+
+“How’s it with Alan?” I asked.
+
+“Brawly,” said he. “Andie picks him up at Gillane sands to-morrow,
+Wednesday. He was keen to say good-bye to ye, but the way that things
+were going, I was feared the pair of ye was maybe best apart. And that
+brings me to the essential: how does your business speed?”
+
+“Why,” said I, “I was told only this morning that my testimony was
+accepted, and I was to travel to Inverary with the Advocate, no less.”
+
+“Hout awa!” cried Stewart. “I’ll never believe that.”
+
+“I have maybe a suspicion of my own,” says I, “but I would like fine to
+hear your reasons.”
+
+“Well, I tell ye fairly, I’m horn-mad,” cries Stewart. “If my one hand
+could pull their Government down I would pluck it like a rotten apple.
+I’m doer for Appin and for James of the Glens; and, of course, it’s my
+duty to defend my kinsman for his life. Hear how it goes with me, and
+I’ll leave the judgment of it to yourself. The first thing they have to
+do is to get rid of Alan. They cannae bring in James as art and part
+until they’ve brought in Alan first as principal; that’s sound law:
+they could never put the cart before the horse.”
+
+“And how are they to bring in Alan till they can catch him?” says I.
+
+“Ah, but there is a way to evite that arrestment,” said he. “Sound law,
+too. It would be a bonny thing if, by the escape of one ill-doer
+another was to go scatheless, and the remeid is to summon the principal
+and put him to outlawry for the non-compearance. Now there’s four
+places where a person can be summoned: at his dwelling-house; at a
+place where he has resided forty days; at the head burgh of the shire
+where he ordinarily resorts; or lastly (if there be ground to think him
+forth of Scotland) _at the cross of Edinburgh_, _and the pier and shore
+of Leith_, _for sixty days_. The purpose of which last provision is
+evident upon its face: being that outgoing ships may have time to carry
+news of the transaction, and the summonsing be something other than a
+form. Now take the case of Alan. He has no dwelling-house that ever I
+could hear of; I would be obliged if anyone would show me where he has
+lived forty days together since the ’45; there is no shire where he
+resorts whether ordinarily or extraordinarily; if he has a domicile at
+all, which I misdoubt, it must be with his regiment in France; and if
+he is not yet forth of Scotland (as we happen to know and they happen
+to guess) it must be evident to the most dull it’s what he’s aiming
+for. Where, then, and what way should he be summoned? I ask it at
+yourself, a layman.”
+
+“You have given the very words,” said I. “Here at the cross, and at the
+pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days.”
+
+“Ye’re a sounder Scots lawyer than Prestongrange, then!” cries the
+Writer. “He has had Alan summoned once; that was on the twenty-fifth,
+the day that we first met. Once, and done with it. And where? Where,
+but at the cross of Inverary, the head burgh of the Campbells? A word
+in your ear, Mr. Balfour—they’re not seeking Alan.”
+
+“What do you mean?” I cried. “Not seeking him?”
+
+“By the best that I can make of it,” said he. “Not wanting to find him,
+in my poor thought. They think perhaps he might set up a fair defence,
+upon the back of which James, the man they’re really after, might climb
+out. This is not a case, ye see, it’s a conspiracy.”
+
+“Yet I can tell you Prestongrange asked after Alan keenly,” said I;
+“though, when I come to think of it, he was something of the easiest
+put by.”
+
+“See that!” says he. “But there! I may be right or wrong, that’s
+guesswork at the best, and let me get to my facts again. It comes to my
+ears that James and the witnesses—the witnesses, Mr. Balfour!—lay in
+close dungeons, and shackled forbye, in the military prison at Fort
+William; none allowed in to them, nor they to write. The witnesses, Mr.
+Balfour; heard ye ever the match of that? I assure ye, no old, crooked
+Stewart of the gang ever out-faced the law more impudently. It’s clean
+in the two eyes of the Act of Parliament of 1700, anent wrongous
+imprisonment. No sooner did I get the news than I petitioned the Lord
+Justice Clerk. I have his word to-day. There’s law for ye! here’s
+justice!”
+
+He put a paper in my hand, that same mealy-mouthed, false-faced paper
+that was printed since in the pamphlet “by a bystander,” for behoof (as
+the title says) of James’s “poor widow and five children.”
+
+“See,” said Stewart, “he couldn’t dare to refuse me access to my
+client, so he _recommends the commanding officer to let me in_.
+Recommends!—the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland recommends. Is not the
+purpose of such language plain? They hope the officer may be so dull,
+or so very much the reverse, as to refuse the recommendation. I would
+have to make the journey back again betwixt here and Fort William. Then
+would follow a fresh delay till I got fresh authority, and they had
+disavowed the officer—military man, notoriously ignorant of the law,
+and that—I ken the cant of it. Then the journey a third time; and there
+we should be on the immediate heels of the trial before I had received
+my first instruction. Am I not right to call this a conspiracy?”
+
+“It will bear that colour,” said I.
+
+“And I’ll go on to prove it you outright,” said he. “They have the
+right to hold James in prison, yet they cannot deny me to visit him.
+They have no right to hold the witnesses; but am I to get a sight of
+them, that should be as free as the Lord Justice Clerk himself!
+See—read: _For the rest_, _refuses to give any orders to keepers of
+prisons who are not accused as having done anything contrary to the
+duties of their office_. Anything contrary! Sirs! And the Act of
+seventeen hunner? Mr. Balfour, this makes my heart to burst; the
+heather is on fire inside my wame.”
+
+“And the plain English of that phrase,” said I, “is that the witnesses
+are still to lie in prison and you are not to see them?”
+
+“And I am not to see them until Inverary, when the court is set!” cries
+he, “and then to hear Prestongrange upon _the anxious responsibilities
+of his office and the great facilities afforded the defence_! But I’ll
+begowk them there, Mr. David. I have a plan to waylay the witnesses
+upon the road, and see if I cannae get I a little harle of justice out
+of the _military man notoriously ignorant of the law_ that shall
+command the party.”
+
+It was actually so—it was actually on the wayside near Tynedrum, and by
+the connivance of a soldier officer, that Mr. Stewart first saw the
+witnesses upon the case.
+
+“There is nothing that would surprise me in this business,” I remarked.
+
+“I’ll surprise you ere I’m done!” cries he. “Do ye see this?”—producing
+a print still wet from the press. “This is the libel: see, there’s
+Prestongrange’s name to the list of witnesses, and I find no word of
+any Balfour. But here is not the question. Who do ye think paid for the
+printing of this paper?”
+
+“I suppose it would likely be King George,” said I.
+
+“But it happens it was me!” he cried. “Not but it was printed by and
+for themselves, for the Grants and the Erskines, and yon thief of the
+black midnight, Simon Fraser. But could _I_ win to get a copy! No! I
+was to go blindfold to my defence; I was to hear the charges for the
+first time in court alongst the jury.”
+
+“Is not this against the law?” I asked.
+
+“I cannot say so much,” he replied. “It was a favour so natural and so
+constantly rendered (till this nonesuch business) that the law has
+never looked to it. And now admire the hand of Providence! A stranger
+is in Fleming’s printing house, spies a proof on the floor, picks it
+up, and carries it to me. Of all things, it was just this libel.
+Whereupon I had it set again—printed at the expense of the defence:
+_sumptibus moesti rei_; heard ever man the like of it?—and here it is
+for anybody, the muckle secret out—all may see it now. But how do you
+think I would enjoy this, that has the life of my kinsman on my
+conscience?”
+
+“Troth, I think you would enjoy it ill,” said I.
+
+“And now you see how it is,” he concluded, “and why, when you tell me
+your evidence is to be let in, I laugh aloud in your face.”
+
+It was now my turn. I laid before him in brief Mr. Simon’s threats and
+offers, and the whole incident of the bravo, with the subsequent scene
+at Prestongrange’s. Of my first talk, according to promise, I said
+nothing, nor indeed was it necessary. All the time I was talking
+Stewart nodded his head like a mechanical figure; and no sooner had my
+voice ceased, than he opened his mouth and gave me his opinion in two
+words, dwelling strong on both of them.
+
+“Disappear yourself,” said he.
+
+“I do not take you,” said I.
+
+“Then I’ll carry you there,” said he. “By my view of it you’re to
+disappear whatever. O, that’s outside debate. The Advocate, who is not
+without some spunks of a remainder decency, has wrung your life-safe
+out of Simon and the Duke. He has refused to put you on your trial, and
+refused to have you killed; and there is the clue to their ill words
+together, for Simon and the Duke can keep faith with neither friend nor
+enemy. Ye’re not to be tried then, and ye’re not to be murdered; but
+I’m in bitter error if ye’re not to be kidnapped and carried away like
+the Lady Grange. Bet me what ye please—there was their _expedient_!”
+
+“You make me think,” said I, and told him of the whistle and the
+red-headed retainer, Neil.
+
+“Wherever James More is there’s one big rogue, never be deceived on
+that,” said he. “His father was none so ill a man, though a kenning on
+the wrong side of the law, and no friend to my family, that I should
+waste my breath to be defending him! But as for James he’s a brock and
+a blagyard. I like the appearance of this red-headed Neil as little as
+yourself. It looks uncanny: fiegh! it smells bad. It was old Lovat that
+managed the Lady Grange affair; if young Lovat is to handle yours,
+it’ll be all in the family. What’s James More in prison for? The same
+offence: abduction. His men have had practice in the business. He’ll be
+to lend them to be Simon’s instruments; and the next thing we’ll be
+hearing, James will have made his peace, or else he’ll have escaped;
+and you’ll be in Benbecula or Applecross.”
+
+“Ye make a strong case,” I admitted.
+
+“And what I want,” he resumed, “is that you should disappear yourself
+ere they can get their hands upon ye. Lie quiet until just before the
+trial, and spring upon them at the last of it when they’ll be looking
+for you least. This is always supposing Mr. Balfour, that your evidence
+is worth so very great a measure of both risk and fash.”
+
+“I will tell you one thing,” said I. “I saw the murderer and it was not
+Alan.”
+
+“Then, by God, my cousin’s saved!” cried Stewart. “You have his life
+upon your tongue; and there’s neither time, risk, nor money to be
+spared to bring you to the trial.” He emptied his pockets on the floor.
+“Here is all that I have by me,” he went on, “Take it, ye’ll want it
+ere ye’re through. Go straight down this close, there’s a way out by
+there to the Lang Dykes, and by my will of it! see no more of Edinburgh
+till the clash is over.”
+
+“Where am I to go, then?” I inquired.
+
+“And I wish that I could tell ye!” says he, “but all the places that I
+could send ye to, would be just the places they would seek. No, ye must
+fend for yourself, and God be your guiding! Five days before the trial,
+September the sixteen, get word to me at the _King’s Arms_ in Stirling;
+and if ye’ve managed for yourself as long as that, I’ll see that ye
+reach Inverary.”
+
+“One thing more,” said I. “Can I no see Alan?”
+
+He seemed boggled. “Hech, I would rather you wouldnae,” said he. “But I
+can never deny that Alan is extremely keen of it, and is to lie this
+night by Silvermills on purpose. If you’re sure that you’re not
+followed, Mr. Balfour—but make sure of that—lie in a good place and
+watch your road for a clear hour before ye risk it. It would be a
+dreadful business if both you and him was to miscarry!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+THE RED-HEADED MAN
+
+
+It was about half-past three when I came forth on the Lang Dykes. Dean
+was where I wanted to go. Since Catriona dwelled there, and her
+kinsfolk the Glengyle Macgregors appeared almost certainly to be
+employed against me, it was just one of the few places I should have
+kept away from; and being a very young man, and beginning to be very
+much in love, I turned my face in that direction without pause. As a
+slave to my conscience and common sense, however, I took a measure of
+precaution. Coming over the crown of a bit of a rise in the road, I
+clapped down suddenly among the barley and lay waiting. After a while,
+a man went by that looked to be a Highlandman, but I had never seen him
+till that hour. Presently after came Neil of the red head. The next to
+go past was a miller’s cart, and after that nothing but manifest
+country people. Here was enough to have turned the most foolhardy from
+his purpose, but my inclination ran too strong the other way. I argued
+it out that if Neil was on that road, it was the right road to find him
+in, leading direct to his chief’s daughter; as for the other
+Highlandman, if I was to be startled off by every Highlandman I saw, I
+would scarce reach anywhere. And having quite satisfied myself with
+this disingenuous debate, I made the better speed of it, and came a
+little after four to Mrs. Drumond-Ogilvy’s.
+
+Both ladies were within the house; and upon my perceiving them together
+by the open door, I plucked off my hat and said, “Here was a lad come
+seeking saxpence,” which I thought might please the dowager.
+
+Catriona ran out to greet me heartily, and, to my surprise, the old
+lady seemed scarce less forward than herself. I learned long afterwards
+that she had despatched a horseman by daylight to Rankeillor at the
+Queensferry, whom she knew to be the doer for Shaws, and had then in
+her pocket a letter from that good friend of mine, presenting, in the
+most favourable view, my character and prospects. But had I read it I
+could scarce have seen more clear in her designs. Maybe I was
+_countryfeed_; at least, I was not so much so as she thought; and it
+was even to my homespun wits, that she was bent to hammer up a match
+between her cousin and a beardless boy that was something of a laird in
+Lothian.
+
+“Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine,” says she. “Run
+and tell the lasses.”
+
+And for the little while we were alone was at a good deal of pains to
+flatter me; always cleverly, always with the appearance of a banter,
+still calling me Saxpence, but with such a turn that should rather
+uplift me in my own opinion. When Catriona returned, the design became
+if possible more obvious; and she showed off the girl’s advantages like
+a horse-couper with a horse. My face flamed that she should think me so
+obtuse. Now I would fancy the girl was being innocently made a show of,
+and then I could have beaten the old carline wife with a cudgel; and
+now, that perhaps these two had set their heads together to entrap me,
+and at that I sat and gloomed betwixt them like the very image of
+ill-will. At last the matchmaker had a better device, which was to
+leave the pair of us alone. When my suspicions are anyway roused it is
+sometimes a little the wrong side of easy to allay them. But though I
+knew what breed she was of, and that was a breed of thieves, I could
+never look in Catriona’s face and disbelieve her.
+
+“I must not ask?” says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left
+alone.
+
+“Ah, but to-day I can talk with a free conscience,” I replied. “I am
+lightened of my pledge, and indeed (after what has come and gone since
+morning) I would not have renewed it were it asked.”
+
+“Tell me,” she said. “My cousin will not be so long.”
+
+So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the
+last of it, making it as mirthful as I could, and, indeed, there was
+matter of mirth in that absurdity.
+
+“And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudas men as for the
+pretty ladies, after all!” says she, when I had done. “But what was
+your father that he could not learn you to draw the sword! It is most
+ungentle; I have not heard the match of that in anyone.”
+
+“It is most misconvenient at least,” said I; “and I think my father
+(honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in the
+place of it. But you see I do the best I can, and just stand up like
+Lot’s wife and let them hammer at me.”
+
+“Do you know what makes me smile?” said she. “Well, it is this. I am
+made this way, that I should have been a man child. In my own thoughts
+it is so I am always; and I go on telling myself about this thing that
+is to befall and that. Then it comes to the place of the fighting, and
+it comes over me that I am only a girl at all events, and cannot hold a
+sword or give one good blow; and then I have to twist my story round
+about, so that the fighting is to stop, and yet me have the best of it,
+just like you and the lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine
+speeches all through, like Mr. David Balfour.”
+
+“You are a bloodthirsty maid,” said I.
+
+“Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers,” she
+said, “but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I think
+you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not that I
+want to kill, I think. Did ever you kill anyone?”
+
+“That I have, as it chances. Two, no less, and me still a lad that
+should be at the college,” said I. “But yet, in the look-back, I take
+no shame for it.”
+
+“But how did you feel, then—after it?” she asked.
+
+‘”Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn,” said I.
+
+“I know that, too,” she cried. “I feel where these tears should come
+from. And at any rate, I would not wish to kill, only to be Catherine
+Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt, where it was
+broken. That is my chief hero. Would you not love to die so—for your
+king?” she asked.
+
+“Troth,” said I, “my affection for my king, God bless the puggy face of
+him, is under more control; and I thought I saw death so near to me
+this day already, that I am rather taken up with the notion of living.”
+
+“Right,” she said, “the right mind of a man! Only you must learn arms;
+I would not like to have a friend that cannot strike. But it will not
+have been with the sword that you killed these two?”
+
+“Indeed, no,” said I, “but with a pair of pistols. And a fortunate
+thing it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I am about as clever
+with the pistols as I am with the sword.”
+
+So then she drew from me the story of our battle in the brig, which I
+had omitted in my first account of my affairs.
+
+“Yes,” said she, “you are brave. And your friend, I admire and love
+him.”
+
+“Well, and I think anyone would!” said I. “He has his faults like other
+folk; but he is brave and staunch and kind, God bless him! That will be
+a strange day when I forget Alan.” And the thought of him, and that it
+was within my choice to speak with him that night, had almost overcome
+me.
+
+“And where will my head be gone that I have not told my news!” she
+cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she might
+visit him to-morrow in the castle whither he was now transferred, and
+that his affairs were mending. “You do not like to hear it,” said she.
+“Will you judge my father and not know him?”
+
+“I am a thousand miles from judging,” I replied. “And I give you my
+word I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened. If my face fell at
+all, as I suppose it must, you will allow this is rather an ill day for
+compositions, and the people in power extremely ill persons to be
+compounding with. I have Simon Fraser extremely heavy on my stomach
+still.”
+
+“Ah!” she cried, “you will not be evening these two; and you should
+bear in mind that Prestongrange and James More, my father, are of the
+one blood.”
+
+“I never heard tell of that,” said I.
+
+“It is rather singular how little you are acquainted with,” said she.
+“One part may call themselves Grant, and one Macgregor, but they are
+still of the same clan. They are all the sons of Alpin, from whom, I
+think, our country has its name.”
+
+“What country is that?” I asked.
+
+“My country and yours,” said she.
+
+“This is my day for discovering I think,” said I, “for I always thought
+the name of it was Scotland.”
+
+“Scotland is the name of what you call Ireland,” she replied. “But the
+old ancient true name of this place that we have our foot-soles on, and
+that our bones are made of, will be Alban. It was Alban they called it
+when our forefathers will be fighting for it against Rome and
+Alexander; and it is called so still in your own tongue that you
+forget.”
+
+“Troth,” said I, “and that I never learned!” For I lacked heart to take
+her up about the Macedonian.
+
+“But your fathers and mothers talked it, one generation with another,”
+said she. “And it was sung about the cradles before you or me were ever
+dreamed of; and your name remembers it still. Ah, if you could talk
+that language you would find me another girl. The heart speaks in that
+tongue.”
+
+I had a meal with the two ladies, all very good, served in fine old
+plate, and the wine excellent, for it seems that Mrs. Ogilvy was rich.
+Our talk, too, was pleasant enough; but as soon as I saw the sun
+decline sharply and the shadows to run out long, I rose to take my
+leave. For my mind was now made up to say farewell to Alan; and it was
+needful I should see the trysting wood, and reconnoitre it, by
+daylight. Catriona came with me as far as to the garden gate.
+
+“It is long till I see you now?” she asked.
+
+“It is beyond my judging,” I replied. “It will be long, it may be
+never.”
+
+“It may be so,” said she. “And you are sorry?”
+
+I bowed my head, looking upon her.
+
+“So am I, at all events,” said she. “I have seen you but a small time,
+but I put you very high. You are true, you are brave; in time I think
+you will be more of a man yet. I will be proud to hear of that. If you
+should speed worse, if it will come to fall as we are afraid—O well!
+think you have the one friend. Long after you are dead and me an old
+wife, I will be telling the bairns about David Balfour, and my tears
+running. I will be telling how we parted, and what I said to you, and
+did to you. _God go with you and guide you_, _prays your little
+friend_: so I said—I will be telling them—and here is what I did.”
+
+She took up my hand and kissed it. This so surprised my spirits that I
+cried out like one hurt. The colour came strong in her face, and she
+looked at me and nodded.
+
+“O yes, Mr. David,” said she, “that is what I think of you. The head
+goes with the lips.”
+
+I could read in her face high spirit, and a chivalry like a brave
+child’s; not anything besides. She kissed my hand, as she had kissed
+Prince Charlie’s, with a higher passion than the common kind of clay
+has any sense of. Nothing before had taught me how deep I was her
+lover, nor how far I had yet to climb to make her think of me in such a
+character. Yet I could tell myself I had advanced some way, and that
+her heart had beat and her blood flowed at thoughts of me.
+
+After that honour she had done me I could offer no more trivial
+civility. It was even hard for me to speak; a certain lifting in her
+voice had knocked directly at the door of my own tears.
+
+“I praise God for your kindness, dear,” said I. “Farewell, my little
+friend!” giving her that name which she had given to herself; with
+which I bowed and left her.
+
+My way was down the glen of the Leith River, towards Stockbridge and
+Silvermills. A path led in the foot of it, the water bickered and sang
+in the midst; the sunbeams overhead struck out of the west among long
+shadows and (as the valley turned) made like a new scene and a new
+world of it at every corner. With Catriona behind and Alan before me, I
+was like one lifted up. The place besides, and the hour, and the
+talking of the water, infinitely pleased me; and I lingered in my steps
+and looked before and behind me as I went. This was the cause, under
+Providence, that I spied a little in my rear a red head among some
+bushes.
+
+Anger sprang in my heart, and I turned straight about and walked at a
+stiff pace to where I came from. The path lay close by the bushes where
+I had remarked the head. The cover came to the wayside, and as I passed
+I was all strung up to meet and to resist an onfall. No such thing
+befell, I went by unmeddled with; and at that fear increased upon me.
+It was still day indeed, but the place exceeding solitary. If my
+haunters had let slip that fair occasion I could but judge they aimed
+at something more than David Balfour. The lives of Alan and James
+weighed upon my spirit with the weight of two grown bullocks.
+
+Catriona was yet in the garden walking by herself.
+
+“Catriona,” said I, “you see me back again.”
+
+“With a changed face,” said she.
+
+“I carry two men’s lives besides my own,” said I. “It would be a sin
+and shame not to walk carefully. I was doubtful whether I did right to
+come here. I would like it ill, if it was by that means we were brought
+to harm.”
+
+“I could tell you one that would be liking it less, and will like
+little enough to hear you talking at this very same time,” she cried.
+“What have I done, at all events?”
+
+“O, you I you are not alone,” I replied. “But since I went off I have
+been dogged again, and I can give you the name of him that follows me.
+It is Neil, son of Duncan, your man or your father’s.”
+
+“To be sure you are mistaken there,” she said, with a white face. “Neil
+is in Edinburgh on errands from my father.”
+
+“It is what I fear,” said I, “the last of it. But for his being in
+Edinburgh I think I can show you another of that. For sure you have
+some signal, a signal of need, such as would bring him to your help, if
+he was anywhere within the reach of ears and legs?”
+
+“Why, how will you know that?” says she.
+
+“By means of a magical talisman God gave to me when I was born, and the
+name they call it by is Common-sense,” said I. “Oblige me so far as
+make your signal, and I will show you the red head of Neil.”
+
+No doubt but I spoke bitter and sharp. My heart was bitter. I blamed
+myself and the girl and hated both of us: her for the vile crew that
+she was come of, myself for my wanton folly to have stuck my head in
+such a byke of wasps.
+
+Catriona set her fingers to her lips and whistled once, with an
+exceeding clear, strong, mounting note, as full as a ploughman’s. A
+while we stood silent; and I was about to ask her to repeat the same,
+when I heard the sound of some one bursting through the bushes below on
+the braeside. I pointed in that direction with a smile, and presently
+Neil leaped into the garden. His eyes burned, and he had a black knife
+(as they call it on the Highland side) naked in his hand; but, seeing
+me beside his mistress, stood like a man struck.
+
+“He has come to your call,” said I; “judge how near he was to
+Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father’s errands. Ask
+himself. If I am to lose my life, or the lives of those that hang by
+me, through the means of your clan, let me go where I have to go with
+my eyes open.”
+
+She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic. Remembering Alan’s anxious
+civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for
+bitterness; here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was the hour
+she should have stuck by English.
+
+Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil
+(for all his obsequiousness) was an angry man.
+
+Then she turned to me. “He swears it is not,” she said.
+
+“Catriona,” said I, “do you believe the man yourself?”
+
+She made a gesture like wringing the hands.
+
+“How will I can know?” she cried.
+
+“But I must find some means to know,” said I. “I cannot continue to go
+dovering round in the black night with two men’s lives at my girdle!
+Catriona, try to put yourself in my place, as I vow to God I try hard
+to put myself in yours. This is no kind of talk that should ever have
+fallen between me and you; no kind of talk; my heart is sick with it.
+See, keep him here till two of the morning, and I care not. Try him
+with that.”
+
+They spoke together once more in the Gaelic.
+
+“He says he has James More my father’s errand,” said she. She was
+whiter than ever, and her voice faltered as she said it.
+
+“It is pretty plain now,” said I, “and may God forgive the wicked!”
+
+She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with the
+same white face.
+
+“This is a fine business,” said I again. “Am I to fall, then, and those
+two along with me?”
+
+“O, what am I to do?” she cried. “Could I go against my father’s
+orders, him in prison, in the danger of his life!”
+
+“But perhaps we go too fast,” said I. “This may be a lie too. He may
+have no right orders; all may be contrived by Simon, and your father
+knowing nothing.”
+
+She burst out weeping between the pair of us; and my heart smote me
+hard, for I thought this girl was in a dreadful situation.
+
+“Here,” said I, “keep him but the one hour; and I’ll chance it, and may
+God bless you.”
+
+She put out her hand to me, “I will he needing one good word,” she
+sobbed.
+
+“The full hour, then?” said I, keeping her hand in mine. “Three lives
+of it, my lass!”
+
+“The full hour!” she said, and cried aloud on her Redeemer to forgive
+her.
+
+I thought it no fit place for me, and fled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS
+
+
+I lost no time, but down through the valley and by Stockbridge and
+Silvermills as hard as I could stave. It was Alan’s tryst to be every
+night between twelve and two “in a bit scrog of wood by east of
+Silvermills and by south the south mill-lade.” This I found easy
+enough, where it grew on a steep brae, with the mill-lade flowing swift
+and deep along the foot of it; and here I began to walk slower and to
+reflect more reasonably on my employment. I saw I had made but a fool’s
+bargain with Catriona. It was not to be supposed that Neil was sent
+alone upon his errand, but perhaps he was the only man belonging to
+James More; in which case I should have done all I could to hang
+Catriona’s father, and nothing the least material to help myself. To
+tell the truth, I fancied neither one of these ideas. Suppose by
+holding back Neil, the girl should have helped to hang her father, I
+thought she would never forgive herself this side of time. And suppose
+there were others pursuing me that moment, what kind of a gift was I
+come bringing to Alan? and how would I like that?
+
+I was up with the west end of that wood when these two considerations
+struck me like a cudgel. My feet stopped of themselves and my heart
+along with them. “What wild game is this that I have been playing?”
+thought I; and turned instantly upon my heels to go elsewhere.
+
+This brought my face to Silvermills; the path came past the village
+with a crook, but all plainly visible; and, Highland or Lowland, there
+was nobody stirring. Here was my advantage, here was just such a
+conjuncture as Stewart had counselled me to profit by, and I ran by the
+side of the mill-lade, fetched about beyond the east corner of the
+wood, threaded through the midst of it, and returned to the west
+selvage, whence I could again command the path, and yet be myself
+unseen. Again it was all empty, and my heart began to rise.
+
+For more than an hour I sat close in the border of the trees, and no
+hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch. When that hour
+began the sun was already set, but the sky still all golden and the
+daylight clear; before the hour was done it had fallen to be half mirk,
+the images and distances of things were mingled, and observation began
+to be difficult. All that time not a foot of man had come east from
+Silvermills, and the few that had gone west were honest countryfolk and
+their wives upon the road to bed. If I were tracked by the most cunning
+spies in Europe, I judged it was beyond the course of nature they could
+have any jealousy of where I was: and going a little further home into
+the wood I lay down to wait for Alan.
+
+The strain of my attention had been great, for I had watched not the
+path only, but every bush and field within my vision. That was now at
+an end. The moon, which was in her first quarter, glinted a little in
+the wood; all round there was a stillness of the country; and as I lay
+there on my back, the next three or four hours, I had a fine occasion
+to review my conduct.
+
+Two things became plain to me first: that I had no right to go that day
+to Dean, and (having gone there) had now no right to be lying where I
+was. This (where Alan was to come) was just the one wood in all broad
+Scotland that was, by every proper feeling, closed against me; I
+admitted that, and yet stayed on, wondering at myself. I thought of the
+measure with which I had meted to Catriona that same night; how I had
+prated of the two lives I carried, and had thus forced her to
+enjeopardy her father’s; and how I was here exposing them again, it
+seemed in wantonness. A good conscience is eight parts of courage. No
+sooner had I lost conceit of my behaviour, than I seemed to stand
+disarmed amidst a throng of terrors. Of a sudden I sat up. How if I
+went now to Prestongrange, caught him (as I still easily might) before
+he slept, and made a full submission? Who could blame me? Not Stewart
+the Writer; I had but to say that I was followed, despaired of getting
+clear, and so gave in. Not Catriona: here, too, I had my answer ready;
+that I could not bear she should expose her father. So, in a moment, I
+could lay all these troubles by, which were after all and truly none of
+mine; swim clear of the Appin Murder; get forth out of hand-stroke of
+all the Stewarts and Campbells, all the Whigs and Tories, in the land;
+and live henceforth to my own mind, and be able to enjoy and to improve
+my fortunes, and devote some hours of my youth to courting Catriona,
+which would be surely a more suitable occupation than to hide and run
+and be followed like a hunted thief, and begin over again the dreadful
+miseries of my escape with Alan.
+
+At first I thought no shame of this capitulation; I was only amazed I
+had not thought upon the thing and done it earlier; and began to
+inquire into the causes of the change. These I traced to my lowness of
+spirits, that back to my late recklessness, and that again to the
+common, old, public, disconsidered sin of self-indulgence. Instantly
+the text came in my head, “_How can Satan cast out Satan_?” What? (I
+thought) I had, by self-indulgence; and the following of pleasant
+paths, and the lure of a young maid, cast myself wholly out of conceit
+with my own character, and jeopardised the lives of James and Alan? And
+I was to seek the way out by the same road as I had entered in? No; the
+hurt that had been caused by self-indulgence must be cured by
+self-denial; the flesh I had pampered must be crucified. I looked about
+me for that course which I least liked to follow: this was to leave the
+wood without waiting to see Alan, and go forth again alone, in the dark
+and in the midst of my perplexed and dangerous fortunes.
+
+I have been the more careful to narrate this passage of my reflections,
+because I think it is of some utility, and may serve as an example to
+young men. But there is reason (they say) in planting kale, and even in
+ethic and religion, room for common sense. It was already close on
+Alan’s hour, and the moon was down. If I left (as I could not very
+decently whistle to my spies to follow me) they might miss me in the
+dark and tack themselves to Alan by mistake. If I stayed, I could at
+the least of it set my friend upon his guard which might prove his mere
+salvation. I had adventured other peoples’ safety in a course of
+self-indulgence; to have endangered them again, and now on a mere
+design of penance, would have been scarce rational. Accordingly, I had
+scarce risen from my place ere I sat down again, but already in a
+different frame of spirits, and equally marvelling at my past weakness
+and rejoicing in my present composure.
+
+Presently after came a crackling in the thicket. Putting my mouth near
+down to the ground, I whistled a note or two, of Alan’s air; an answer
+came in the like guarded tone, and soon we had knocked together in the
+dark.
+
+“Is this you at last, Davie?” he whispered.
+
+“Just myself,” said I.
+
+“God, man, but I’ve been wearying to see ye!” says he. “I’ve had the
+longest kind of a time. A’ day, I’ve had my dwelling into the inside of
+a stack of hay, where I couldnae see the nebs of my ten fingers; and
+then two hours of it waiting here for you, and you never coming! Dod,
+and ye’re none too soon the way it is, with me to sail the morn! The
+morn? what am I saying?—the day, I mean.”
+
+“Ay, Alan, man, the day, sure enough,” said I. “It’s past twelve now,
+surely, and ye sail the day. This’ll be a long road you have before
+you.”
+
+“We’ll have a long crack of it first,” said he.
+
+“Well, indeed, and I have a good deal it will be telling you to hear,”
+said I.
+
+And I told him what behooved, making rather a jumble of it, but clear
+enough when done. He heard me out with very few questions, laughing
+here and there like a man delighted: and the sound of his laughing
+(above all there, in the dark, where neither one of us could see the
+other) was extraordinary friendly to my heart.
+
+“Ay, Davie, ye’re a queer character,” says he, when I had done: “a
+queer bitch after a’, and I have no mind of meeting with the like of
+ye. As for your story, Prestongrange is a Whig like yoursel’, so I’ll
+say the less of him; and, dod! I believe he was the best friend ye had,
+if ye could only trust him. But Simon Fraser and James More are my ain
+kind of cattle, and I’ll give them the name that they deserve. The
+muckle black deil was father to the Frasers, a’body kens that; and as
+for the Gregara, I never could abye the reek of them since I could
+stotter on two feet. I bloodied the nose of one, I mind, when I was
+still so wambly on my legs that I cowped upon the top of him. A proud
+man was my father that day, God rest him! and I think he had the cause.
+I’ll never can deny but what Robin was something of a piper,” he added;
+“but as for James More, the deil guide him for me!”
+
+“One thing we have to consider,” said I. “Was Charles Stewart right or
+wrong? Is it only me they’re after, or the pair of us?”
+
+“And what’s your ain opinion, you that’s a man of so much experience?”
+said he.
+
+“It passes me,” said I.
+
+“And me too,” says Alan. “Do ye think this lass would keep her word to
+ye?” he asked.
+
+“I do that,” said I.
+
+“Well, there’s nae telling,” said he. “And anyway, that’s over and
+done: he’ll be joined to the rest of them lang syne.”
+
+“How many would ye think there would be of them?” I asked.
+
+“That depends,” said Alan. “If it was only you, they would likely send
+two-three lively, brisk young birkies, and if they thought that I was
+to appear in the employ, I daresay ten or twelve,” said he.
+
+It was no use, I gave a little crack of laughter.
+
+“And I think your own two eyes will have seen me drive that number, or
+the double of it, nearer hand!” cries he.
+
+“It matters the less,” said I, “because I am well rid of them for this
+time.”
+
+“Nae doubt that’s your opinion,” said he; “but I wouldnae be the least
+surprised if they were hunkering this wood. Ye see, David man; they’ll
+be Hieland folk. There’ll be some Frasers, I’m thinking, and some of
+the Gregara; and I would never deny but what the both of them, and the
+Gregara in especial, were clever experienced persons. A man kens little
+till he’s driven a spreagh of neat cattle (say) ten miles through a
+throng lowland country and the black soldiers maybe at his tail. It’s
+there that I learned a great part of my penetration. And ye need nae
+tell me: it’s better than war; which is the next best, however, though
+generally rather a bauchle of a business. Now the Gregara have had
+grand practice.”
+
+“No doubt that’s a branch of education that was left out with me,” said
+I.
+
+“And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly,” said Alan. “But
+that’s the strange thing about you folk of the college learning: ye’re
+ignorat, and ye cannae see ’t. Wae’s me for my Greek and Hebrew; but,
+man, I ken that I dinnae ken them—there’s the differ of it. Now, here’s
+you. Ye lie on your wame a bittie in the bield of this wood, and ye
+tell me that ye’ve cuist off these Frasers and Macgregors. Why?
+_Because I couldnae see them_, says you. Ye blockhead, that’s their
+livelihood.”
+
+“Take the worst of it,” said I, “and what are we to do?”
+
+“I am thinking of that same,” said he. “We might twine. It wouldnae be
+greatly to my taste; and forbye that, I see reasons against it. First,
+it’s now unco dark, and it’s just humanly possible we might give them
+the clean slip. If we keep together, we make but the ae line of it; if
+we gang separate, we make twae of them: the more likelihood to stave in
+upon some of these gentry of yours. And then, second, if they keep the
+track of us, it may come to a fecht for it yet, Davie; and then, I’ll
+confess I would be blythe to have you at my oxter, and I think you
+would be none the worse of having me at yours. So, by my way of it, we
+should creep out of this wood no further gone than just the inside of
+next minute, and hold away east for Gillane, where I’m to find my ship.
+It’ll be like old days while it lasts, Davie; and (come the time) we’ll
+have to think what you should be doing. I’m wae to leave ye here,
+wanting me.”
+
+“Have with ye, then!” says I. “Do ye gang back where you were
+stopping?”
+
+“Deil a fear!” said Alan. “They were good folks to me, but I think they
+would be a good deal disappointed if they saw my bonny face again. For
+(the way times go) I am nae just what ye could call a Walcome Guest.
+Which makes me the keener for your company, Mr. David Balfour of the
+Shaws, and set ye up! For, leave aside twa cracks here in the wood with
+Charlie Stewart, I have scarce said black or white since the day we
+parted at Corstorphine.”
+
+With which he rose from his place, and we began to move quietly
+eastward through the wood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN
+
+
+It was likely between one and two; the moon (as I have said) was down;
+a strongish wind, carrying a heavy wrack of cloud, had set in suddenly
+from the west; and we began our movement in as black a night as ever a
+fugitive or a murderer wanted. The whiteness of the path guided us into
+the sleeping town of Broughton, thence through Picardy, and beside my
+old acquaintance the gibbet of the two thieves. A little beyond we made
+a useful beacon, which was a light in an upper window of Lochend.
+Steering by this, but a good deal at random, and with some trampling of
+the harvest, and stumbling and falling down upon the banks, we made our
+way across country, and won forth at last upon the linky, boggy
+muirland that they call the Figgate Whins. Here, under a bush of whin,
+we lay down the remainder of that night and slumbered.
+
+The day called us about five. A beautiful morning it was, the high
+westerly wind still blowing strong, but the clouds all blown away to
+Europe. Alan was already sitting up and smiling to himself. It was my
+first sight of my friend since we were parted, and I looked upon him
+with enjoyment. He had still the same big great-coat on his back; but
+(what was new) he had now a pair of knitted boot-hose drawn above the
+knee. Doubtless these were intended for disguise; but, as the day
+promised to be warm, he made a most unseasonable figure.
+
+“Well, Davie,” said he, “is this no a bonny morning? Here is a day that
+looks the way that a day ought to. This is a great change of it from
+the belly of my haystack; and while you were there sottering and
+sleeping I have done a thing that maybe I do very seldom.”
+
+“And what was that?” said I.
+
+“O, just said my prayers,” said he.
+
+“And where are my gentry, as ye call them?” I asked.
+
+“Gude kens,” says he; “and the short and the long of it is that we must
+take our chance of them. Up with your foot-soles, Davie! Forth,
+Fortune, once again of it! And a bonny walk we are like to have.”
+
+So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans
+were smoking in by the Esk mouth. No doubt there was a by-ordinary
+bonny blink of morning sun on Arthur’s Seat and the green Pentlands;
+and the pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.
+
+“I feel like a gomeral,” says he, “to be leaving Scotland on a day like
+this. It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to stay here
+and hing.”
+
+“Ay, but ye wouldnae, Alan,” said I.
+
+“No, but what France is a good place too,” he explained; “but it’s some
+way no the same. It’s brawer I believe, but it’s no Scotland. I like it
+fine when I’m there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and the
+Scots peat-reek.”
+
+“If that’s all you have to complain of, Alan, it’s no such great
+affair,” said I.
+
+“And it sets me ill to be complaining, whatever,” said he, “and me but
+new out of yon deil’s haystack.”
+
+“And so you were unco weary of your haystack?” I asked.
+
+“Weary’s nae word for it,” said he. “I’m not just precisely a man
+that’s easily cast down; but I do better with caller air and the lift
+above my head. I’m like the auld Black Douglas (wasnae’t?) that likit
+better to hear the laverock sing than the mouse cheep. And yon place,
+ye see, Davie—whilk was a very suitable place to hide in, as I’m free
+to own—was pit mirk from dawn to gloaming. There were days (or nights,
+for how would I tell one from other?) that seemed to me as long as a
+long winter.”
+
+“How did you know the hour to bide your tryst?” I asked.
+
+“The goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle-dowp to
+eat it by, about eleeven,” said he. “So, when I had swallowed a bit, it
+would he time to be getting to the wood. There I lay and wearied for ye
+sore, Davie,” says he, laying his hand on my shoulder “and guessed when
+the two hours would be about by—unless Charlie Stewart would come and
+tell me on his watch—and then back to the dooms haystack. Na, it was a
+driech employ, and praise the Lord that I have warstled through with
+it!”
+
+“What did you do with yourself?” I asked.
+
+“Faith,” said he, “the best I could! Whiles I played at the
+knucklebones. I’m an extraordinar good hand at the knucklebones, but
+it’s a poor piece of business playing with naebody to admire ye. And
+whiles I would make songs.”
+
+“What were they about?” says I.
+
+“O, about the deer and the heather,” says he, “and about the ancient
+old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just about what songs
+are about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set
+of pipes and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought
+I played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of
+them! But the great affair is that it’s done with.”
+
+With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all over
+again with more particularity, and extraordinary approval, swearing at
+intervals that I was “a queer character of a callant.”
+
+“So ye were frich’ened of Sim Fraser?” he asked once.
+
+“In troth was I!” cried I.
+
+“So would I have been, Davie,” said he. “And that is indeed a driedful
+man. But it is only proper to give the deil his due: and I can tell you
+he is a most respectable person on the field of war.”
+
+“Is he so brave?” I asked.
+
+“Brave!” said he. “He is as brave as my steel sword.”
+
+The story of my duel set him beside himself.
+
+“To think of that!” he cried. “I showed ye the trick in Corrynakiegh
+too. And three times—three times disarmed! It’s a disgrace upon my
+character that learned ye! Here, stand up, out with your airn; ye shall
+walk no step beyond this place upon the road till ye can do yoursel’
+and me mair credit.”
+
+“Alan,” said I, “this is midsummer madness. Here is no time for fencing
+lessons.”
+
+“I cannae well say no to that,” he admitted. “But three times, man! And
+you standing there like a straw bogle and rinning to fetch your ain
+sword like a doggie with a pocket-napkin! David, this man Duncansby
+must be something altogether by-ordinar! He maun be extraordinar
+skilly. If I had the time, I would gang straight back and try a turn at
+him mysel’. The man must be a provost.”
+
+“You silly fellow,” said I, “you forget it was just me.”
+
+“Na,” said he, “but three times!”
+
+“When ye ken yourself that I am fair incompetent,” I cried.
+
+“Well, I never heard tell the equal of it,” said he.
+
+“I promise you the one thing, Alan,” said I. “The next time that we
+forgather, I’ll be better learned. You shall not continue to bear the
+disgrace of a friend that cannot strike.”
+
+“Ay, the next time!” says he. “And when will that be, I would like to
+ken?”
+
+“Well, Alan, I have had some thoughts of that, too,” said I; “and my
+plan is this. It’s my opinion to be called an advocate.”
+
+“That’s but a weary trade, Davie,” says Alan, “and rather a blagyard
+one forby. Ye would be better in a king’s coat than that.”
+
+“And no doubt that would be the way to have us meet,” cried I. “But as
+you’ll be in King Lewie’s coat, and I’ll be in King Geordie’s, we’ll
+have a dainty meeting of it.”
+
+“There’s some sense in that,” he admitted.
+
+“An advocate, then, it’ll have to be,” I continued, “and I think it a
+more suitable trade for a gentleman that was _three times_ disarmed.
+But the beauty of the thing is this: that one of the best colleges for
+that kind of learning—and the one where my kinsman, Pilrig, made his
+studies—is the college of Leyden in Holland. Now, what say you, Alan?
+Could not a cadet of _Royal Ecossais_ get a furlough, slip over the
+marches, and call in upon a Leyden student?”
+
+“Well, and I would think he could!” cried he. “Ye see, I stand well in
+with my colonel, Count Drummond-Melfort; and, what’s mair to the
+purpose I have a cousin of mine lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of the
+Scots-Dutch. Naething could be mair proper than what I would get a
+leave to see Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of Halkett’s. And Lord Melfort,
+who is a very scienteefic kind of a man, and writes books like Cæsar,
+would be doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my observes.”
+
+“Is Lord Meloort an author, then?” I asked, for much as Alan thought of
+soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books.
+
+“The very same, Davie,” said he. “One would think a colonel would have
+something better to attend to. But what can I say that make songs?”
+
+“Well, then,” said I, “it only remains you should give me an address to
+write you at in France; and as soon as I am got to Leyden I will send
+you mine.”
+
+“The best will be to write me in the care of my chieftain,” said he,
+“Charles Stewart, of Ardsheil, Esquire, at the town of Melons, in the
+Isle of France. It might take long, or it might take short, but it
+would aye get to my hands at the last of it.”
+
+We had a haddock to our breakfast in Musselburgh, where it amused me
+vastly to hear Alan. His great-coat and boot-hose were extremely
+remarkable this warm morning, and perhaps some hint of an explanation
+had been wise; but Alan went into that matter like a business, or I
+should rather say, like a diversion. He engaged the goodwife of the
+house with some compliments upon the rizzoring of our haddocks; and the
+whole of the rest of our stay held her in talk about a cold he had
+taken on his stomach, gravely relating all manner of symptoms and
+sufferings, and hearing with a vast show of interest all the old wives’
+remedies she could supply him with in return.
+
+We left Musselburgh before the first ninepenny coach was due from
+Edinburgh for (as Alan said) that was a rencounter we might very well
+avoid. The wind although still high, was very mild, the sun shone
+strong, and Alan began to suffer in proportion. From Prestonpans he had
+me aside to the field of Gladsmuir, where he exerted himself a great
+deal more than needful to describe the stages of the battle. Thence, at
+his old round pace, we travelled to Cockenzie. Though they were
+building herring-busses there at Mrs. Cadell’s, it seemed a
+desert-like, back-going town, about half full of ruined houses; but the
+ale-house was clean, and Alan, who was now in a glowing heat, must
+indulge himself with a bottle of ale, and carry on to the new luckie
+with the old story of the cold upon his stomach, only now the symptoms
+were all different.
+
+I sat listening; and it came in my mind that I had scarce ever heard
+him address three serious words to any woman, but he was always
+drolling and fleering and making a private mock of them, and yet
+brought to that business a remarkable degree of energy and interest.
+Something to this effect I remarked to him, when the good-wife (as
+chanced) was called away.
+
+“What do ye want?” says he. “A man should aye put his best foot forrit
+with the womankind; he should aye give them a bit of a story to divert
+them, the poor lambs! It’s what ye should learn to attend to, David; ye
+should get the principles, it’s like a trade. Now, if this had been a
+young lassie, or onyways bonnie, she would never have heard tell of my
+stomach, Davie. But aince they’re too old to be seeking joes, they a’
+set up to be apotecaries. Why? What do I ken? They’ll be just the way
+God made them, I suppose. But I think a man would be a gomeral that
+didnae give his attention to the same.”
+
+And here, the luckie coming back, he turned from me as if with
+impatience to renew their former conversation. The lady had branched
+some while before from Alan’s stomach to the case of a goodbrother of
+her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing
+at extraordinary length. Sometimes it was merely dull, sometimes both
+dull and awful, for she talked with unction. The upshot was that I fell
+in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the road, and scarce
+marking what I saw. Presently had any been looking they might have seen
+me to start.
+
+“We pit a fomentation to his feet,” the good-wife was saying, “and a
+het stane to his wame, and we gied him hyssop and water of pennyroyal,
+and fine, clean balsam of sulphur for the hoast. . . ”
+
+“Sir,” says I, cutting very quietly in, “there’s a friend of mine gone
+by the house.”
+
+“Is that e’en sae?” replies Alan, as though it were a thing of small
+account. And then, “Ye were saying, mem?” says he; and the wearyful
+wife went on.
+
+Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she must
+go forth after the change.
+
+“Was it him with the red head?” asked Alan.
+
+“Ye have it,” said I.
+
+“What did I tell you in the wood?” he cried. “And yet it’s strange he
+should be here too! Was he his lane?”
+
+“His lee-lane for what I could see,” said I.
+
+“Did he gang by?” he asked.
+
+“Straight by,” said I, “and looked neither to the right nor left.”
+
+“And that’s queerer yet,” said Alan. “It sticks in my mind, Davie, that
+we should be stirring. But where to?—deil hae’t! This is like old days
+fairly,” cries he.
+
+“There is one big differ, though,” said I, “that now we have money in
+our pockets.”
+
+“And another big differ, Mr. Balfour,” says he, “that now we have dogs
+at our tail. They’re on the scent; they’re in full cry, David. It’s a
+bad business and be damned to it.” And he sat thinking hard with a look
+of his that I knew well.
+
+“I’m saying, Luckie,” says he, when the goodwife returned, “have ye a
+back road out of this change house?”
+
+She told him there was and where it led to.
+
+“Then, sir,” says he to me, “I think that will be the shortest road for
+us. And here’s good-bye to ye, my braw woman; and I’ll no forget thon
+of the cinnamon water.”
+
+We went out by way of the woman’s kale yard, and up a lane among
+fields. Alan looked sharply to all sides, and seeing we were in a
+little hollow place of the country, out of view of men, sat down.
+
+“Now for a council of war, Davie,” said he. “But first of all, a bit
+lesson to ye. Suppose that I had been like you, what would yon old wife
+have minded of the pair of us! Just that we had gone out by the back
+gate. And what does she mind now? A fine, canty, friendly, cracky man,
+that suffered with the stomach, poor body! and was real ta’en up about
+the goodbrother. O man, David, try and learn to have some kind of
+intelligence!”
+
+“I’ll try, Alan,” said I.
+
+“And now for him of the red head,” says he; “was he gaun fast or slow?”
+
+“Betwixt and between,” said I.
+
+“No kind of a hurry about the man?” he asked.
+
+“Never a sign of it,” said I.
+
+“Nhm!” said Alan, “it looks queer. We saw nothing of them this morning
+on the Whins; he’s passed us by, he doesnae seem to be looking, and yet
+here he is on our road! Dod, Davie, I begin to take a notion. I think
+it’s no you they’re seeking, I think it’s me; and I think they ken fine
+where they’re gaun.”
+
+“They ken?” I asked.
+
+“I think Andie Scougal’s sold me—him or his mate wha kent some part of
+the affair—or else Charlie’s clerk callant, which would be a pity too,”
+says Alan; “and if you askit me for just my inward private conviction,
+I think there’ll be heads cracked on Gillane sands.”
+
+“Alan,” I cried, “if you’re at all right there’ll be folk there and to
+spare. It’ll be small service to crack heads.”
+
+“It would aye be a satisfaction though,” says Alan. “But bide a bit;
+bide a bit; I’m thinking—and thanks to this bonny westland wind, I
+believe I’ve still a chance of it. It’s this way, Davie. I’m no trysted
+with this man Scougal till the gloaming comes. _But_,” says he, “_if I
+can get a bit of a wind out of the west I’ll be there long or that_,”
+he says, “_and lie-to for ye behind the Isle of Fidra_. Now if your
+gentry kens the place, they ken the time forbye. Do ye see me coming,
+Davie? Thanks to Johnnie Cope and other red-coat gomerals, I should ken
+this country like the back of my hand; and if ye’re ready for another
+bit run with Alan Breck, we’ll can cast back inshore, and come to the
+seaside again by Dirleton. If the ship’s there, we’ll try and get on
+board of her. If she’s no there, I’ll just have to get back to my weary
+haystack. But either way of it, I think we will leave your gentry
+whistling on their thumbs.”
+
+“I believe there’s some chance in it,” said I. “Have on with ye, Alan!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+GILLANE SANDS
+
+
+I did not profit by Alan’s pilotage as he had done by his marchings
+under General Cope; for I can scarce tell what way we went. It is my
+excuse that we travelled exceeding fast. Some part we ran, some
+trotted, and the rest walked at a vengeance of a pace. Twice, while we
+were at top speed, we ran against country-folk; but though we plumped
+into the first from round a corner, Alan was as ready as a loaded
+musket.
+
+“Has ye seen my horse?” he gasped.
+
+“Na, man, I haenae seen nae horse the day,” replied the countryman.
+
+And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling
+“ride and tie”; that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he had
+gone home to Linton. Not only that, but he expended some breath (of
+which he had not very much left) to curse his own misfortune and my
+stupidity which was said to be its cause.
+
+“Them that cannae tell the truth,” he observed to myself as we went on
+again, “should be aye mindful to leave an honest, handy lee behind
+them. If folk dinnae ken what ye’re doing, Davie, they’re terrible
+taken up with it; but if they think they ken, they care nae mair for it
+than what I do for pease porridge.”
+
+As we had first made inland, so our road came in the end to lie very
+near due north; the old Kirk of Aberlady for a landmark on the left; on
+the right, the top of the Berwick Law; and it was thus we struck the
+shore again, not far from Dirleton. From north Berwick west to Gillane
+Ness there runs a string of four small islets, Craiglieth, the Lamb,
+Fidra, and Eyebrough, notable by their diversity of size and shape.
+Fidra is the most particular, being a strange grey islet of two humps,
+made the more conspicuous by a piece of ruin; and I mind that (as we
+drew closer to it) by some door or window of these ruins the sea peeped
+through like a man’s eye. Under the lee of Fidra there is a good
+anchorage in westerly winds, and there, from a far way off, we could
+see the _Thistle_ riding.
+
+The shore in face of these islets is altogether waste. Here is no
+dwelling of man, and scarce any passage, or at most of vagabond
+children running at their play. Gillane is a small place on the far
+side of the Ness, the folk of Dirleton go to their business in the
+inland fields, and those of North Berwick straight to the sea-fishing
+from their haven; so that few parts of the coast are lonelier. But I
+mind, as we crawled upon our bellies into that multiplicity of heights
+and hollows, keeping a bright eye upon all sides, and our hearts
+hammering at our ribs, there was such a shining of the sun and the sea,
+such a stir of the wind in the bent grass, and such a bustle of
+down-popping rabbits and up-flying gulls, that the desert seemed to me,
+like a place alive. No doubt it was in all ways well chosen for a
+secret embarcation, if the secret had been kept; and even now that it
+was out, and the place watched, we were able to creep unperceived to
+the front of the sandhills, where they look down immediately on the
+beach and sea.
+
+But here Alan came to a full stop.
+
+“Davie,” said he, “this is a kittle passage! As long as we lie here
+we’re safe; but I’m nane sae muckle nearer to my ship or the coast of
+France. And as soon as we stand up and signal the brig, it’s another
+matter. For where will your gentry be, think ye?”
+
+“Maybe they’re no come yet,” said I. “And even if they are, there’s one
+clear matter in our favour. They’ll be all arranged to take us, that’s
+true. But they’ll have arranged for our coming from the east and here
+we are upon their west.”
+
+“Ay,” says Alan, “I wish we were in some force, and this was a battle,
+we would have bonnily out-manœuvred them! But it isnae, Davit; and the
+way it is, is a wee thing less inspiring to Alan Breck. I swither,
+Davie.”
+
+“Time flies, Alan,” said I.
+
+“I ken that,” said Alan. “I ken naething else, as the French folk say.
+But this is a dreidful case of heids or tails. O! if I could but ken
+where your gentry were!”
+
+“Alan,” said I, “this is no like you. It’s got to be now or never.”
+
+“This is no me, quo’ he,”
+
+
+sang Alan, with a queer face betwixt shame and drollery.
+
+“Neither you nor me, quo’ he, neither you nor me.
+Wow, na, Johnnie man! neither you nor me.”
+
+
+And then of a sudden he stood straight up where he was, and with a
+handkerchief flying in his right hand, marched down upon the beach. I
+stood up myself, but lingered behind him, scanning the sand-hills to
+the east. His appearance was at first unremarked: Scougal not expecting
+him so early, and _my gentry_ watching on the other side. Then they
+awoke on board the _Thistle_, and it seemed they had all in readiness,
+for there was scarce a second’s bustle on the deck before we saw a
+skiff put round her stern and begin to pull lively for the coast.
+Almost at the same moment of time, and perhaps half a mile away towards
+Gillane Ness, the figure of a man appeared for a blink upon a sandhill,
+waving with his arms; and though he was gone again in the same flash,
+the gulls in that part continued a little longer to fly wild.
+
+Alan had not seen this, looking straight to seaward at the ship and
+skiff.
+
+“It maun be as it will!” said he, when I had told him, “Weel may yon
+boatie row, or my craig’ll have to thole a raxing.”
+
+That part of the beach was long and flat, and excellent walking when
+the tide was down; a little cressy burn flowed over it in one place to
+the sea; and the sandhills ran along the head of it like the rampart of
+a town. No eye of ours could spy what was passing behind there in the
+bents, no hurry of ours could mend the speed of the boat’s coming: time
+stood still with us through that uncanny period of waiting.
+
+“There is one thing I would like to ken,” say Alan. “I would like to
+ken these gentry’s orders. We’re worth four hunner pound the pair of
+us: how if they took the guns to us, Davie! They would get a bonny shot
+from the top of that lang sandy bank.”
+
+“Morally impossible,” said I. “The point is that they can have no guns.
+This thing has been gone about too secret; pistols they may have, but
+never guns.”
+
+“I believe ye’ll be in the right,” says Alan. “For all which I am
+wearing a good deal for yon boat.”
+
+And he snapped his fingers and whistled to it like a dog.
+
+It was now perhaps a third of the way in, and we ourselves already hard
+on the margin of the sea, so that the soft sand rose over my shoes.
+There was no more to do whatever but to wait, to look as much as we
+were able at the creeping nearer of the boat, and as little as we could
+manage at the long impenetrable front of the sandhills, over which the
+gulls twinkled and behind which our enemies were doubtless marshalling.
+
+“This is a fine, bright, caller place to get shot in,” says Alan
+suddenly; “and, man, I wish that I had your courage!”
+
+“Alan!” I cried, “what kind of talk is this of it! You’re just made of
+courage; it’s the character of the man, as I could prove myself if
+there was nobody else.”
+
+“And you would be the more mistaken,” said he. “What makes the differ
+with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of affairs. But for
+auld, cauld, dour, deadly courage, I am not fit to hold a candle to
+yourself. Look at us two here upon the sands. Here am I, fair hotching
+to be off; here’s you (for all that I ken) in two minds of it whether
+you’ll no stop. Do you think that I could do that, or would? No me!
+Firstly, because I havenae got the courage and wouldnae daur; and
+secondly, because I am a man of so much penetration and would see ye
+damned first.”
+
+“It’s there ye’re coming, is it?” I cried. “Ah, man Alan, you can wile
+your old wives, but you never can wile me.”
+
+Remembrance of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron.
+
+“I have a tryst to keep,” I continued. “I am trysted with your cousin
+Charlie; I have passed my word.”
+
+“Braw trysts that you’ll can keep,” said Alan. “Ye’ll just mistryst
+aince and for a’ with the gentry in the bents. And what for?” he went
+on with an extreme threatening gravity. “Just tell me that, my mannie!
+Are ye to be speerited away like Lady Grange? Are they to drive a dirk
+in your inside and bury ye in the bents? Or is it to be the other way,
+and are they to bring ye in with James? Are they folk to be trustit?
+Would ye stick your head in the mouth of Sim Fraser and the ither
+Whigs?” he added with extraordinary bitterness.
+
+“Alan,” cried I, “they’re all rogues and liars, and I’m with ye there.
+The more reason there should be one decent man in such a land of
+thieves! My word is passed, and I’ll stick to it. I said long syne to
+your kinswoman that I would stumble at no risk. Do ye mind of that?—the
+night Red Colin fell, it was. No more I will, then. Here I stop.
+Prestongrange promised me my life: if he’s to be mansworn, here I’ll
+have to die.”
+
+“Aweel aweel,” said Alan.
+
+All this time we had seen or heard no more of our pursuers. In truth we
+had caught them unawares; their whole party (as I was to learn
+afterwards) had not yet reached the scene; what there was of them was
+spread among the bents towards Gillane. It was quite an affair to call
+them in and bring them over, and the boat was making speed. They were
+besides but cowardly fellows: a mere leash of Highland cattle-thieves,
+of several clans, no gentleman there to be the captain and the more
+they looked at Alan and me upon the beach, the less (I must suppose)
+they liked the look of us.
+
+Whoever had betrayed Alan it was not the captain: he was in the skiff
+himself, steering and stirring up his oarsmen, like a man with his
+heart in his employ. Already he was near in, and the boat
+securing—already Alan’s face had flamed crimson with the excitement of
+his deliverance, when our friends in the bents, either in their despair
+to see their prey escape them or with some hope of scaring Andie,
+raised suddenly a shrill cry of several voices.
+
+This sound, arising from what appeared to be a quite deserted coast,
+was really very daunting, and the men in the boat held water instantly.
+
+“What’s this of it?” sings out the captain, for he was come within an
+easy hail.
+
+“Freens o’mine,” says Alan, and began immediately to wade forth in the
+shallow water towards the boat. “Davie,” he said, pausing, “Davie, are
+ye no coming? I am swier to leave ye.”
+
+“Not a hair of me,” said I.
+
+“He stood part of a second where he was to his knees in the salt water,
+hesitating.
+
+“He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar,” said he, and swashing in deeper
+than his waist, was hauled into the skiff, which was immediately
+directed for the ship.
+
+I stood where he had left me, with my hands behind my back; Alan sat
+with his head turned watching me; and the boat drew smoothly away. Of a
+sudden I came the nearest hand to shedding tears, and seemed to myself
+the most deserted solitary lad in Scotland. With that I turned my back
+upon the sea and faced the sandhills. There was no sight or sound of
+man; the sun shone on the wet sand and the dry, the wind blew in the
+bents, the gulls made a dreary piping. As I passed higher up the beach,
+the sand-lice were hopping nimbly about the stranded tangles. The devil
+any other sight or sound in that unchancy place. And yet I knew there
+were folk there, observing me, upon some secret purpose. They were no
+soldiers, or they would have fallen on and taken us ere now; doubtless
+they were some common rogues hired for my undoing, perhaps to kidnap,
+perhaps to murder me outright. From the position of those engaged, the
+first was the more likely; from what I knew of their character and
+ardency in this business, I thought the second very possible; and the
+blood ran cold about my heart.
+
+I had a mad idea to loosen my sword in the scabbard; for though I was
+very unfit to stand up like a gentleman blade to blade, I thought I
+could do some scathe in a random combat. But I perceived in time the
+folly of resistance. This was no doubt the joint “expedient” on which
+Prestongrange and Fraser were agreed. The first, I was very sure, had
+done something to secure my life; the second was pretty likely to have
+slipped in some contrary hints into the ears of Neil and his
+companions; and if I were to show bare steel I might play straight into
+the hands of my worst enemy and seal my own doom.
+
+These thoughts brought me to the head of the beach. I cast a look
+behind, the boat was nearing the brig, and Alan flew his handkerchief
+for a farewell, which I replied to with the waving of my hand. But Alan
+himself was shrunk to a small thing in my view, alongside of this pass
+that lay in front of me. I set my hat hard on my head, clenched my
+teeth, and went right before me up the face of the sand-wreath. It made
+a hard climb, being steep, and the sand like water underfoot. But I
+caught hold at last by the long bent-grass on the brae-top, and pulled
+myself to a good footing. The same moment men stirred and stood up here
+and there, six or seven of them, ragged-like knaves, each with a dagger
+in his hand. The fair truth is, I shut my eyes and prayed. When I
+opened them again, the rogues were crept the least thing nearer without
+speech or hurry. Every eye was upon mine, which struck me with a
+strange sensation of their brightness, and of the fear with which they
+continued to approach me. I held out my hands empty; whereupon one
+asked, with a strong Highland brogue, if I surrendered.
+
+“Under protest,” said I, “if ye ken what that means, which I misdoubt.”
+
+At that word, they came all in upon me like a flight of birds upon a
+carrion, seized me, took my sword, and all the money from my pockets,
+bound me hand and foot with some strong line, and cast me on a tussock
+of bent. There they sat about their captive in a part of a circle and
+gazed upon him silently like something dangerous, perhaps a lion or a
+tiger on the spring. Presently this attention was relaxed. They drew
+nearer together, fell to speech in the Gaelic, and very cynically
+divided my property before my eyes. It was my diversion in this time
+that I could watch from my place the progress of my friend’s escape. I
+saw the boat come to the brig and be hoisted in, the sails fill, and
+the ship pass out seaward behind the isles and by North Berwick.
+
+In the course of two hours or so, more and more ragged Highlandmen kept
+collecting. Neil among the first, until the party must have numbered
+near a score. With each new arrival there was a fresh bout of talk,
+that sounded like complaints and explanations; but I observed one
+thing, none of those who came late had any share in the division of my
+spoils. The last discussion was very violent and eager, so that once I
+thought they would have quarrelled; on the heels of which their company
+parted, the bulk of them returning westward in a troop, and only three,
+Neil and two others, remaining sentries on the prisoner.
+
+“I could name one who would be very ill pleased with your day’s work,
+Neil Duncanson,” said I, when the rest had moved away.
+
+He assured me in answer I should be tenderly used, for he knew he was
+“acquent wi’ the leddy.”
+
+This was all our talk, nor did any other son of man appear upon that
+portion of the coast until the sun had gone down among the Highland
+mountains, and the gloaming was beginning to grow dark. At which hour I
+was aware of a long, lean, bony-like Lothian man of a very swarthy
+countenance, that came towards us among the bents on a farm horse.
+
+“Lads,” cried he, “has ye a paper like this?” and held up one in his
+hand. Neil produced a second, which the newcomer studied through a pair
+of horn spectacles, and saying all was right and we were the folk he
+was seeking, immediately dismounted. I was then set in his place, my
+feet tied under the horse’s belly, and we set forth under the guidance
+of the Lowlander. His path must have been very well chosen, for we met
+but one pair—a pair of lovers—the whole way, and these, perhaps taking
+us to be free-traders, fled on our approach. We were at one time close
+at the foot of Berwick Law on the south side; at another, as we passed
+over some open hills, I spied the lights of a clachan and the old tower
+of a church among some trees not far off, but too far to cry for help,
+if I had dreamed of it. At last we came again within sound of the sea.
+There was moonlight, though not much; and by this I could see the three
+huge towers and broken battlements of Tantallon, that old chief place
+of the Red Douglases. The horse was picketed in the bottom of the ditch
+to graze, and I was led within, and forth into the court, and thence
+into the tumble-down stone hall. Here my conductors built a brisk fire
+in the midst of the pavement, for there was a chill in the night. My
+hands were loosed, I was set by the wall in the inner end, and (the
+Lowlander having produced provisions) I was given oatmeal bread and a
+pitcher of French brandy. This done, I was left once more alone with my
+three Highlandmen. They sat close by the fire drinking and talking; the
+wind blew in by the breaches, cast about the smoke and flames, and sang
+in the tops of the towers; I could hear the sea under the cliffs, and,
+my mind being reassured as to my life, and my body and spirits wearied
+with the day’s employment, I turned upon one side and slumbered.
+
+I had no means of guessing at what hour I was wakened, only the moon
+was down and the fire was low. My feet were now loosed, and I was
+carried through the ruins and down the cliff-side by a precipitous path
+to where I found a fisher’s boat in a haven of the rocks. This I was
+had on board of, and we began to put forth from the shore in a fine
+starlight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE BASS
+
+
+I had no thought where they were taking me; only looked here and there
+for the appearance of a ship; and there ran the while in my head a word
+of Ransome’s—the_ twenty-pounders_. If I were to be exposed a second
+time to that same former danger of the plantations, I judged it must
+turn ill with me; there was no second Alan; and no second shipwreck and
+spare yard to be expected now; and I saw myself hoe tobacco under the
+whip’s lash. The thought chilled me; the air was sharp upon the water,
+the stretchers of the boat drenched with a cold dew: and I shivered in
+my place beside the steersman. This was the dark man whom I have called
+hitherto the Lowlander; his name was Dale, ordinarily called Black
+Andie. Feeling the thrill of my shiver, he very kindly handed me a
+rough jacket full of fish-scales, with which I was glad to cover
+myself.
+
+“I thank you for this kindness,” said I, “and will make so free as to
+repay it with a warning. You take a high responsibility in this affair.
+You are not like these ignorant, barbarous Highlanders, but know what
+the law is and the risks of those that break it.”
+
+“I am no just exactly what ye would ca’ an extremist for the law,” says
+he, “at the best of times; but in this business I act with a good
+warranty.”
+
+“What are you going to do with me?” I asked.
+
+“Nae harm,” said he, “nae harm ava’. Ye’ll have strong freens, I’m
+thinking. Ye’ll be richt eneuch yet.”
+
+There began to fall a greyness on the face of the sea; little dabs of
+pink and red, like coals of slow fire, came in the east; and at the
+same time the geese awakened, and began crying about the top of the
+Bass. It is just the one crag of rock, as everybody knows, but great
+enough to carve a city from. The sea was extremely little, but there
+went a hollow plowter round the base of it. With the growing of the
+dawn I could see it clearer and clearer; the straight crags painted
+with sea-birds’ droppings like a morning frost, the sloping top of it
+green with grass, the clan of white geese that cried about the sides,
+and the black, broken buildings of the prison sitting close on the
+sea’s edge.
+
+At the sight the truth came in upon me in a clap.
+
+“It’s there you’re taking me!” I cried.
+
+“Just to the Bass, mannie,” said he: “Whaur the auld saints were afore
+ye, and I misdoubt if ye have come so fairly by your preeson.”
+
+“But none dwells there now,” I cried; “the place is long a ruin.”
+
+“It’ll be the mair pleisand a change for the solan geese, then,” quoth
+Andie dryly.
+
+The day coming slowly brighter I observed on the bilge, among the big
+stones with which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs and
+baskets, and a provision of fuel. All these were discharged upon the
+crag. Andie, myself, and my three Highlanders (I call them mine,
+although it was the other way about), landed along with them. The sun
+was not yet up when the boat moved away again, the noise of the oars on
+the thole-pins echoing from the cliffs, and left us in our singular
+reclusion:
+
+Andie Dale was the Prefect (as I would jocularly call him) of the Bass,
+being at once the shepherd and the gamekeeper of that small and rich
+estate. He had to mind the dozen or so of sheep that fed and fattened
+on the grass of the sloping part of it, like beasts grazing the roof of
+a cathedral. He had charge besides of the solan geese that roosted in
+the crags; and from these an extraordinary income is derived. The young
+are dainty eating, as much as two shillings a-piece being a common
+price, and paid willingly by epicures; even the grown birds are
+valuable for their oil and feathers; and a part of the minister’s
+stipend of North Berwick is paid to this day in solan geese, which
+makes it (in some folks’ eyes) a parish to be coveted. To perform these
+several businesses, as well as to protect the geese from poachers,
+Andie had frequent occasion to sleep and pass days together on the
+crag; and we found the man at home there like a farmer in his steading.
+Bidding us all shoulder some of the packages, a matter in which I made
+haste to bear a hand, he led us in by a locked gate, which was the only
+admission to the island, and through the ruins of the fortress, to the
+governor’s house. There we saw by the ashes in the chimney and a
+standing bed-place in one corner, that he made his usual occupation.
+
+This bed he now offered me to use, saying he supposed I would set up to
+be gentry.
+
+“My gentrice has nothing to do with where I lie,” said I. “I bless God
+I have lain hard ere now, and can do the same again with thankfulness.
+While I am here, Mr. Andie, if that be your name, I will do my part and
+take my place beside the rest of you; and I ask you on the other hand
+to spare me your mockery, which I own I like ill.”
+
+He grumbled a little at this speech, but seemed upon reflection to
+approve it. Indeed, he was a long-headed, sensible man, and a good Whig
+and Presbyterian; read daily in a pocket Bible, and was both able and
+eager to converse seriously on religion, leaning more than a little
+towards the Cameronian extremes. His morals were of a more doubtful
+colour. I found he was deep in the free trade, and used the ruins of
+Tantallon for a magazine of smuggled merchandise. As for a gauger, I do
+not believe he valued the life of one at half-a-farthing. But that part
+of the coast of Lothian is to this day as wild a place, and the commons
+there as rough a crew, as any in Scotland.
+
+One incident of my imprisonment is made memorable by a consequence it
+had long after. There was a warship at this time stationed in the
+Firth, the _Seahorse_, Captain Palliser. It chanced she was cruising in
+the month of September, plying between Fife and Lothian, and sounding
+for sunk dangers. Early one fine morning she was seen about two miles
+to east of us, where she lowered a boat, and seemed to examine the
+Wildfire Rocks and Satan’s Bush, famous dangers of that coast. And
+presently after having got her boat again, she came before the wind and
+was headed directly for the Bass. This was very troublesome to Andie
+and the Highlanders; the whole business of my sequestration was
+designed for privacy, and here, with a navy captain perhaps blundering
+ashore, it looked to become public enough, if it were nothing worse. I
+was in a minority of one, I am no Alan to fall upon so many, and I was
+far from sure that a warship was the least likely to improve my
+condition. All which considered, I gave Andie my parole of good
+behaviour and obedience, and was had briskly to the summit of the rock,
+where we all lay down, at the cliff’s edge, in different places of
+observation and concealment. The _Seahorse_ came straight on till I
+thought she would have struck, and we (looking giddily down) could see
+the ship’s company at their quarters and hear the leadsman singing at
+the lead. Then she suddenly wore and let fly a volley of I know not how
+many great guns. The rock was shaken with the thunder of the sound, the
+smoke flowed over our heads, and the geese rose in number beyond
+computation or belief. To hear their screaming and to see the twinkling
+of their wings, made a most inimitable curiosity; and I suppose it was
+after this somewhat childish pleasure that Captain Palliser had come so
+near the Bass. He was to pay dear for it in time. During his approach I
+had the opportunity to make a remark upon the rigging of that ship by
+which I ever after knew it miles away; and this was a means (under
+Providence) of my averting from a friend a great calamity, and
+inflicting on Captain Palliser himself a sensible disappointment.
+
+All the time of my stay on the rock we lived well. We had small ale and
+brandy, and oatmeal, of which we made our porridge night and morning.
+At times a boat came from the Castleton and brought us a quarter of
+mutton, for the sheep upon the rock we must not touch, these being
+specially fed to market. The geese were unfortunately out of season,
+and we let them be. We fished ourselves, and yet more often made the
+geese to fish for us: observing one when he had made a capture and
+scaring him from his prey ere he had swallowed it.
+
+The strange nature of this place, and the curiosities with which it
+abounded, held me busy and amused. Escape being impossible, I was
+allowed my entire liberty, and continually explored the surface of the
+isle wherever it might support the foot of man. The old garden of the
+prison was still to be observed, with flowers and pot-herbs running
+wild, and some ripe cherries on a bush. A little lower stood a chapel
+or a hermit’s cell; who built or dwelt in it, none may know, and the
+thought of its age made a ground of many meditations. The prison, too,
+where I now bivouacked with Highland cattle-thieves, was a place full
+of history, both human and divine. I thought it strange so many saints
+and martyrs should have gone by there so recently, and left not so much
+as a leaf out of their Bibles, or a name carved upon the wall, while
+the rough soldier lads that mounted guard upon the battlements had
+filled the neighbourhood with their mementoes—broken tobacco-pipes for
+the most part, and that in a surprising plenty, but also metal buttons
+from their coats. There were times when I thought I could have heard
+the pious sound of psalms out of the martyr’s dungeons, and seen the
+soldiers tramp the ramparts with their glinting pipes, and the dawn
+rising behind them out of the North Sea.
+
+No doubt it was a good deal Andie and his tales that put these fancies
+in my head. He was extraordinarily well acquainted with the story of
+the rock in all particulars, down to the names of private soldiers, his
+father having served there in that same capacity. He was gifted besides
+with a natural genius for narration, so that the people seemed to speak
+and the things to be done before your face. This gift of his and my
+assiduity to listen brought us the more close together. I could not
+honestly deny but what I liked him; I soon saw that he liked me; and
+indeed, from the first I had set myself out to capture his good-will.
+An odd circumstance (to be told presently) effected this beyond my
+expectation; but even in early days we made a friendly pair to be a
+prisoner and his gaoler.
+
+I should trifle with my conscience if I pretended my stay upon the Bass
+was wholly disagreeable. It seemed to me a safe place, as though I was
+escaped there out of my troubles. No harm was to be offered me; a
+material impossibility, rock and the deep sea, prevented me from fresh
+attempts; I felt I had my life safe and my honour safe, and there were
+times when I allowed myself to gloat on them like stolen waters. At
+other times my thoughts were very different, I recalled how strong I
+had expressed myself both to Rankeillor and to Stewart; I reflected
+that my captivity upon the Bass, in view of a great part of the coasts
+of Fife and Lothian, was a thing I should be thought more likely to
+have invented than endured; and in the eyes of these two gentlemen, at
+least, I must pass for a boaster and a coward. Now I would take this
+lightly enough; tell myself that so long as I stood well with Catriona
+Drummond, the opinion of the rest of man was but moonshine and spilled
+water; and thence pass off into those meditations of a lover which are
+so delightful to himself and must always appear so surprisingly idle to
+a reader. But anon the fear would take me otherwise; I would be shaken
+with a perfect panic of self-esteem, and these supposed hard judgments
+appear an injustice impossible to be supported. With that another train
+of thought would he presented, and I had scarce begun to be concerned
+about men’s judgments of myself, than I was haunted with the
+remembrance of James Stewart in his dungeon and the lamentations of his
+wife. Then, indeed, passion began to work in me; I could not forgive
+myself to sit there idle: it seemed (if I were a man at all) that I
+could fly or swim out of my place of safety; and it was in such humours
+and to amuse my self-reproaches that I would set the more particularly
+to win the good side of Andie Dale.
+
+At last, when we two were alone on the summit of the rock on a bright
+morning, I put in some hint about a bribe. He looked at me, cast back
+his head, and laughed out loud.
+
+“Ay, you’re funny, Mr. Dale,” said I, “but perhaps if you’ll glance an
+eye upon that paper you may change your note.”
+
+The stupid Highlanders had taken from me at the time of my seizure
+nothing but hard money, and the paper I now showed Andie was an
+acknowledgment from the British Linen Company for a considerable sum.
+
+He read it. “Troth, and ye’re nane sae ill aff,” said he.
+
+“I thought that would maybe vary your opinions,” said I.
+
+“Hout!” said he. “It shows me ye can bribe; but I’m no to be bribit.”
+
+“We’ll see about that yet a while,” says I. “And first, I’ll show you
+that I know what I am talking. You have orders to detain me here till
+after Thursday, 21st September.”
+
+“Ye’re no a’thegether wrong either,” says Andie. “I’m to let you gang,
+bar orders contrair, on Saturday, the 23rd.”
+
+I could not but feel there was something extremely insidious in this
+arrangement. That I was to re-appear precisely in time to be too late
+would cast the more discredit on my tale, if I were minded to tell one;
+and this screwed me to fighting point.
+
+“Now then, Andie, you that kens the world, listen to me, and think
+while ye listen,” said I. “I know there are great folks in the
+business, and I make no doubt you have their names to go upon. I have
+seen some of them myself since this affair began, and said my say into
+their faces too. But what kind of a crime would this be that I had
+committed? or what kind of a process is this that I am fallen under? To
+be apprehended by some ragged John-Hielandman on August 30th, carried
+to a rickle of old stones that is now neither fort nor gaol (whatever
+it once was) but just the gamekeeper’s lodge of the Bass Rock, and set
+free again, September 23rd, as secretly as I was first arrested—does
+that sound like law to you? or does it sound like justice? or does it
+not sound honestly like a piece of some low dirty intrigue, of which
+the very folk that meddle with it are ashamed?”
+
+“I canna gainsay ye, Shaws. It looks unco underhand,” says Andie. “And
+werenae the folk guid sound Whigs and true-blue Presbyterians I would
+has seen them ayont Jordan and Jeroozlem or I would have set hand to
+it.”
+
+“The Master of Lovat’ll be a braw Whig,” says I, “and a grand
+Presbyterian.”
+
+“I ken naething by him,” said he. “I hae nae trokings wi’ Lovats.”
+
+“No, it’ll be Prestongrange that you’ll be dealing with,” said I.
+
+“Ah, but I’ll no tell ye that,” said Andie.
+
+“Little need when I ken,” was my retort.
+
+“There’s just the ae thing ye can be fairly sure of, Shaws,” says
+Andie. “And that is that (try as ye please) I’m no dealing wi’
+yoursel’; nor yet I amnae goin’ to,” he added.
+
+“Well, Andie, I see I’ll have to be speak out plain with you,” I
+replied. And told him so much as I thought needful of the facts.
+
+He heard me out with some serious interest, and when I had done, seemed
+to consider a little with himself.
+
+“Shaws,” said he at last, “I’ll deal with the naked hand. It’s a queer
+tale, and no very creditable, the way you tell it; and I’m far frae
+minting that is other than the way that ye believe it. As for yoursel’,
+ye seem to me rather a dacent-like young man. But me, that’s aulder and
+mair judeecious, see perhaps a wee bit further forrit in the job than
+what ye can dae. And here the maitter clear and plain to ye. There’ll
+be nae skaith to yoursel’ if I keep ye here; far free that, I think
+ye’ll be a hantle better by it. There’ll be nae skaith to the
+kintry—just ae mair Hielantman hangit—Gude kens, a guid riddance! On
+the ither hand, it would be considerable skaith to me if I would let
+you free. Sae, speakin’ as a guid Whig, an honest freen’ to you, and an
+anxious freen’ to my ainsel’, the plain fact is that I think ye’ll just
+have to bide here wi’ Andie an’ the solans.”
+
+“Andie,” said I, laying my hand upon his knee, “this Hielantman’s
+innocent.”
+
+“Ay, it’s a peety about that,” said he. “But ye see, in this warld, the
+way God made it, we cannae just get a’thing that we want.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+BLACK ANDIE’S TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK
+
+
+I have yet said little of the Highlanders. They were all three of the
+followers of James More, which bound the accusation very tight about
+their master’s neck. All understood a word or two of English, but Neil
+was the only one who judged he had enough of it for general converse,
+in which (when once he got embarked) his company was often tempted to
+the contrary opinion. They were tractable, simple creatures; showed
+much more courtesy than might have been expected from their raggedness
+and their uncouth appearance, and fell spontaneously to be like three
+servants for Andie and myself.
+
+Dwelling in that isolated place, in the old falling ruins of a prison,
+and among endless strange sounds of the sea and the sea-birds, I
+thought I perceived in them early the effects of superstitious fear.
+When there was nothing doing they would either lie and sleep, for which
+their appetite appeared insatiable, or Neil would entertain the others
+with stories which seemed always of a terrifying strain. If neither of
+these delights were within reach—if perhaps two were sleeping and the
+third could find no means to follow their example—I would see him sit
+and listen and look about him in a progression of uneasiness, starting,
+his face blenching, his hands clutched, a man strung like a bow. The
+nature of these fears I had never an occasion to find out, but the
+sight of them was catching, and the nature of the place that we were in
+favourable to alarms. I can find no word for it in the English, but
+Andie had an expression for it in the Scots from which he never varied.
+
+“Ay,” he would say, “_it’s an unco place_, _the Bass_.”
+
+It is so I always think of it. It was an unco place by night, unco by
+day; and these were unco sounds, of the calling of the solans, and the
+plash of the sea and the rock echoes, that hung continually in our
+ears. It was chiefly so in moderate weather. When the waves were anyway
+great they roared about the rock like thunder and the drums of armies,
+dreadful but merry to hear; and it was in the calm days that a man
+could daunt himself with listening—not a Highlandman only, as I several
+times experimented on myself, so many still, hollow noises haunted and
+reverberated in the porches of the rock.
+
+This brings me to a story I heard, and a scene I took part in, which
+quite changed our terms of living, and had a great effect on my
+departure. It chanced one night I fell in a muse beside the fire and
+(that little air of Alan’s coming back to my memory) began to whistle.
+A hand was laid upon my arm, and the voice of Neil bade me to stop, for
+it was not “canny musics.”
+
+“Not canny?” I asked. “How can that be?”
+
+“Na,” said he; “it will be made by a bogle and her wanting ta heid upon
+his body.” [13]
+
+“Well,” said I, “there can be no bogles here, Neil; for it’s not likely
+they would fash themselves to frighten geese.”
+
+“Ay?” says Andie, “is that what ye think of it! But I’ll can tell ye
+there’s been waur nor bogles here.”
+
+“What’s waur than bogles, Andie?” said I.
+
+“Warlocks,” said he. “Or a warlock at the least of it. And that’s a
+queer tale, too,” he added. “And if ye would like, I’ll tell it ye.”
+
+To be sure we were all of the one mind, and even the Highlander that
+had the least English of the three set himself to listen with all his
+might.
+
+The Tale of Tod Lapraik
+
+My faither, Tam Dale, peace to his banes, was a wild, sploring lad in
+his young days, wi’ little wisdom and little grace. He was fond of a
+lass and fond of a glass, and fond of a ran-dan; but I could never hear
+tell that he was muckle use for honest employment. Frae ae thing to
+anither, he listed at last for a sodger and was in the garrison of this
+fort, which was the first way that ony of the Dales cam to set foot
+upon the Bass. Sorrow upon that service! The governor brewed his ain
+ale; it seems it was the warst conceivable. The rock was proveesioned
+free the shore with vivers, the thing was ill-guided, and there were
+whiles when they but to fish and shoot solans for their diet. To crown
+a’, thir was the Days of the Persecution. The perishin’ cauld chalmers
+were all occupeed wi’ sants and martyrs, the saut of the yearth, of
+which it wasnae worthy. And though Tam Dale carried a firelock there, a
+single sodger, and liked a lass and a glass, as I was sayin,’ the mind
+of the man was mair just than set with his position. He had glints of
+the glory of the kirk; there were whiles when his dander rase to see
+the Lord’s sants misguided, and shame covered him that he should be
+haulding a can’le (or carrying a firelock) in so black a business.
+There were nights of it when he was here on sentry, the place a’
+wheesht, the frosts o’ winter maybe riving in the wa’s, and he would
+hear ane o’ the prisoners strike up a psalm, and the rest join in, and
+the blessed sounds rising from the different chalmers—or dungeons, I
+would raither say—so that this auld craig in the sea was like a pairt
+of Heev’n. Black shame was on his saul; his sins hove up before him
+muckle as the Bass, and above a’, that chief sin, that he should have a
+hand in hagging and hashing at Christ’s Kirk. But the truth is that he
+resisted the spirit. Day cam, there were the rousing compainions, and
+his guid resolves depairtit.
+
+In thir days, dwalled upon the Bass a man of God, Peden the Prophet was
+his name. Ye’ll have heard tell of Prophet Peden. There was never the
+wale of him sinsyne, and it’s a question wi’ mony if there ever was his
+like afore. He was wild’s a peat-hag, fearsome to look at, fearsome to
+hear, his face like the day of judgment. The voice of him was like a
+solan’s and dinnle’d in folks’ lugs, and the words of him like coals of
+fire.
+
+Now there was a lass on the rock, and I think she had little to do, for
+it was nae place far decent weemen; but it seems she was bonny, and her
+and Tam Dale were very well agreed. It befell that Peden was in the
+gairden his lane at the praying when Tam and the lass cam by; and what
+should the lassie do but mock with laughter at the sant’s devotions? He
+rose and lookit at the twa o’ them, and Tam’s knees knoitered thegether
+at the look of him. But whan he spak, it was mair in sorrow than in
+anger. “Poor thing, poor thing!” says he, and it was the lass he lookit
+at, “I hear you skirl and laugh,” he says, “but the Lord has a deid
+shot prepared for you, and at that surprising judgment ye shall skirl
+but the ae time!” Shortly thereafter she was daundering on the craigs
+wi’ twa-three sodgers, and it was a blawy day. There cam a gowst of
+wind, claught her by the coats, and awa’ wi’ her bag and baggage. And
+it was remarked by the sodgers that she gied but the ae skirl.
+
+Nae doubt this judgment had some weicht upon Tam Dale; but it passed
+again and him none the better. Ae day he was flyting wi’ anither
+sodger-lad. “Deil hae me!” quo’ Tam, for he was a profane swearer. And
+there was Peden glowering at him, gash an’ waefu’; Peden wi’ his lang
+chafts an’ luntin’ een, the maud happed about his kist, and the hand of
+him held out wi’ the black nails upon the finger-nebs—for he had nae
+care of the body. “Fy, fy, poor man!” cries he, “the poor fool man!
+_Deil hae me_, quo’ he; an’ I see the deil at his oxter.” The
+conviction of guilt and grace cam in on Tam like the deep sea; he flang
+doun the pike that was in his hands—“I will nae mair lift arms against
+the cause o’ Christ!” says he, and was as gude’s word. There was a sair
+fyke in the beginning, but the governor, seeing him resolved, gied him
+his discharge, and he went and dwallt and merried in North Berwick, and
+had aye a gude name with honest folk free that day on.
+
+It was in the year seeventeen hunner and sax that the Bass cam in the
+hands o’ the Da’rymples, and there was twa men soucht the chairge of
+it. Baith were weel qualified, for they had baith been sodgers in the
+garrison, and kent the gate to handle solans, and the seasons and
+values of them. Forby that they were baith—or they baith seemed—earnest
+professors and men of comely conversation. The first of them was just
+Tam Dale, my faither. The second was ane Lapraik, whom the folk ca’d
+Tod Lapraik maistly, but whether for his name or his nature I could
+never hear tell. Weel, Tam gaed to see Lapraik upon this business, and
+took me, that was a toddlin’ laddie, by the hand. Tod had his dwallin’
+in the lang loan benorth the kirkyaird. It’s a dark uncanny loan, forby
+that the kirk has aye had an ill name since the days o’ James the Saxt
+and the deevil’s cantrips played therein when the Queen was on the
+seas; and as for Tod’s house, it was in the mirkest end, and was little
+liked by some that kenned the best. The door was on the sneck that day,
+and me and my faither gaed straucht in. Tod was a wabster to his trade;
+his loom stood in the but. There he sat, a muckle fat, white hash of a
+man like creish, wi’ a kind of a holy smile that gart me scunner. The
+hand of him aye cawed the shuttle, but his een was steeked. We cried to
+him by his name, we skirled in the deid lug of him, we shook him by the
+shou’ther. Nae mainner o’ service! There he sat on his dowp, an’ cawed
+the shuttle and smiled like creish.
+
+“God be guid to us,” says Tam Dale, “this is no canny?”
+
+He had jimp said the word, when Tod Lapraik cam to himsel’.
+
+“Is this you, Tam?” says he. “Haith, man! I’m blythe to see ye. I
+whiles fa’ into a bit dwam like this,” he says; “its frae the stamach.”
+
+Weel, they began to crack about the Bass and which of them twa was to
+get the warding o’t, and little by little cam to very ill words, and
+twined in anger. I mind weel that as my faither and me gaed hame again,
+he cam ower and ower the same expression, how little he likit Tod
+Lapraik and his dwams.
+
+“Dwam!” says he. “I think folk hae brunt for dwams like yon.”
+
+Aweel, my faither got the Bass and Tod had to go wantin’. It was
+remembered sinsyne what way he had ta’en the thing. “Tam,” says he, “ye
+hae gotten the better o’ me aince mair, and I hope,” says he, “ye’ll
+find at least a’ that ye expeckit at the Bass.” Which have since been
+thought remarkable expressions. At last the time came for Tam Dale to
+take young solans. This was a business he was weel used wi’, he had
+been a craigsman frae a laddie, and trustit nane but himsel’. So there
+was he hingin’ by a line an’ speldering on the craig face, whaur its
+hieest and steighest. Fower tenty lads were on the tap, hauldin’ the
+line and mindin’ for his signals. But whaur Tam hung there was naething
+but the craig, and the sea belaw, and the solans skirlin and flying. It
+was a braw spring morn, and Tam whustled as he claught in the young
+geese. Mony’s the time I’ve heard him tell of this experience, and aye
+the swat ran upon the man.
+
+It chanced, ye see, that Tam keeked up, and he was awaur of a muckle
+solan, and the solan pyking at the line. He thocht this by-ordinar and
+outside the creature’s habits. He minded that ropes was unco saft
+things, and the solan’s neb and the Bass Rock unco hard, and that twa
+hunner feet were raither mair than he would care to fa’.
+
+“Shoo!” says Tam. “Awa’, bird! Shoo, awa’ wi’ ye!” says he.
+
+The solan keekit doon into Tam’s face, and there was something unco in
+the creature’s ee. Just the ae keek it gied, and back to the rope. But
+now it wroucht and warstl’t like a thing dementit. There never was the
+solan made that wroucht as that solan wroucht; and it seemed to
+understand its employ brawly, birzing the saft rope between the neb of
+it and a crunkled jag o’ stane.
+
+There gaed a cauld stend o’ fear into Tam’s heart. “This thing is nae
+bird,” thinks he. His een turnt backward in his heid and the day gaed
+black aboot him. “If I get a dwam here,” he toucht, “it’s by wi’ Tam
+Dale.” And he signalled for the lads to pu’ him up.
+
+And it seemed the solan understood about signals. For nae sooner was
+the signal made than he let be the rope, spried his wings, squawked out
+loud, took a turn flying, and dashed straucht at Tam Dale’s een. Tam
+had a knife, he gart the cauld steel glitter. And it seemed the solan
+understood about knives, for nae suner did the steel glint in the sun
+than he gied the ae squawk, but laighter, like a body disappointit, and
+flegged aff about the roundness of the craig, and Tam saw him nae mair.
+And as sune as that thing was gane, Tam’s heid drapt upon his shouther,
+and they pu’d him up like a deid corp, dadding on the craig.
+
+A dram of brandy (which he went never without) broucht him to his mind,
+or what was left of it. Up he sat.
+
+“Rin, Geordie, rin to the boat, mak’ sure of the boat, man—rin!” he
+cries, “or yon solan’ll have it awa’,” says he.
+
+The fower lads stared at ither, an’ tried to whilly-wha him to be
+quiet. But naething would satisfy Tam Dale, till ane o’ them had
+startit on aheid to stand sentry on the boat. The ithers askit if he
+was for down again.
+
+“Na,” says he, “and niether you nor me,” says he, “and as sune as I can
+win to stand on my twa feet we’ll be aff frae this craig o’ Sawtan.”
+
+Sure eneuch, nae time was lost, and that was ower muckle; for before
+they won to North Berwick Tam was in a crying fever. He lay a’ the
+simmer; and wha was sae kind as come speiring for him, but Tod Lapraik!
+Folk thocht afterwards that ilka time Tod cam near the house the fever
+had worsened. I kenna for that; but what I ken the best, that was the
+end of it.
+
+It was about this time o’ the year; my grandfaither was out at the
+white fishing; and like a bairn, I but to gang wi’ him. We had a grand
+take, I mind, and the way that the fish lay broucht us near in by the
+Bass, whaur we foregaithered wi’ anither boat that belanged to a man
+Sandie Fletcher in Castleton. He’s no lang deid neither, or ye could
+speir at himsel’. Weel, Sandie hailed.
+
+“What’s yon on the Bass?” says he.
+
+“On the Bass?” says grandfaither.
+
+“Ay,” says Sandie, “on the green side o’t.”
+
+“Whatten kind of a thing?” says grandfaither. “There cannae be naething
+on the Bass but just the sheep.”
+
+“It looks unco like a body,” quo’ Sandie, who was nearer in.
+
+“A body!” says we, and we none of us likit that. For there was nae boat
+that could have brought a man, and the key o’ the prison yett hung ower
+my faither’s at hame in the press bed.
+
+We keept the twa boats close for company, and crap in nearer hand.
+Grandfaither had a gless, for he had been a sailor, and the captain of
+a smack, and had lost her on the sands of Tay. And when we took the
+glass to it, sure eneuch there was a man. He was in a crunkle o’ green
+brae, a wee below the chaipel, a’ by his lee lane, and lowped and flang
+and danced like a daft quean at a waddin’.
+
+“It’s Tod,” says grandfather, and passed the gless to Sandie.
+
+“Ay, it’s him,” says Sandie.
+
+“Or ane in the likeness o’ him,” says grandfaither.
+
+“Sma’ is the differ,” quo’ Sandie. “De’il or warlock, I’ll try the gun
+at him,” quo’ he, and broucht up a fowling-piece that he aye carried,
+for Sandie was a notable famous shot in all that country.
+
+“Haud your hand, Sandie,” says grandfaither; “we maun see clearer
+first,” says he, “or this may be a dear day’s wark to the baith of us.”
+
+“Hout!” says Sandie, “this is the Lord’s judgment surely, and be damned
+to it,” says he.
+
+“Maybe ay, and maybe no,” says my grandfaither, worthy man! “But have
+you a mind of the Procurator Fiscal, that I think ye’ll have
+foregaithered wi’ before,” says he.
+
+This was ower true, and Sandie was a wee thing set ajee. “Aweel, Edie,”
+says he, “and what would be your way of it?”
+
+“Ou, just this,” says grandfaither. “Let me that has the fastest boat
+gang back to North Berwick, and let you bide here and keep an eye on
+Thon. If I cannae find Lapraik, I’ll join ye and the twa of us’ll have
+a crack wi’ him. But if Lapraik’s at hame, I’ll rin up the flag at the
+harbour, and ye can try Thon Thing wi’ the gun.”
+
+Aweel, so it was agreed between them twa. I was just a bairn, an’ clum
+in Sandie’s boat, whaur I thoucht I would see the best of the employ.
+My grandsire gied Sandie a siller tester to pit in his gun wi’ the leid
+draps, bein mair deidly again bogles. And then the as boat set aff for
+North Berwick, an’ the tither lay whaur it was and watched the
+wanchancy thing on the brae-side.
+
+A’ the time we lay there it lowped and flang and capered and span like
+a teetotum, and whiles we could hear it skelloch as it span. I hae seen
+lassies, the daft queans, that would lowp and dance a winter’s nicht,
+and still be lowping and dancing when the winter’s day cam in. But
+there would be fowk there to hauld them company, and the lads to egg
+them on; and this thing was its lee-lane. And there would be a fiddler
+diddling his elbock in the chimney-side; and this thing had nae music
+but the skirling of the solans. And the lassies were bits o’ young
+things wi’ the reid life dinnling and stending in their members; and
+this was a muckle, fat, creishy man, and him fa’n in the vale o’ years.
+Say what ye like, I maun say what I believe. It was joy was in the
+creature’s heart, the joy o’ hell, I daursay: joy whatever. Mony a time
+I have askit mysel’ why witches and warlocks should sell their sauls
+(whilk are their maist dear possessions) and be auld, duddy, wrunkl’t
+wives or auld, feckless, doddered men; and then I mind upon Tod Lapraik
+dancing a’ the hours by his lane in the black glory of his heart. Nae
+doubt they burn for it muckle in hell, but they have a grand time here
+of it, whatever!—and the Lord forgie us!
+
+Weel, at the hinder end, we saw the wee flag yirk up to the mast-heid
+upon the harbour rocks. That was a’ Sandie waited for. He up wi’ the
+gun, took a deleeberate aim, an’ pu’d the trigger. There cam’ a bang
+and then ae waefu’ skirl frae the Bass. And there were we rubbin’ our
+een and lookin’ at ither like daft folk. For wi’ the bang and the skirl
+the thing had clean disappeared. The sun glintit, the wund blew, and
+there was the bare yaird whaur the Wonder had been lowping and flinging
+but ae second syne.
+
+The hale way hame I roared and grat wi’ the terror o’ that
+dispensation. The grawn folk were nane sae muckle better; there was
+little said in Sandie’s boat but just the name of God; and when we won
+in by the pier, the harbour rocks were fair black wi’ the folk waitin’
+us. It seems they had fund Lapraik in ane of his dwams, cawing the
+shuttle and smiling. Ae lad they sent to hoist the flag, and the rest
+abode there in the wabster’s house. You may be sure they liked it
+little; but it was a means of grace to severals that stood there
+praying in to themsel’s (for nane cared to pray out loud) and looking
+on thon awesome thing as it cawed the shuttle. Syne, upon a suddenty,
+and wi’ the ae dreidfu’ skelloch, Tod sprang up frae his hinderlands
+and fell forrit on the wab, a bluidy corp.
+
+When the corp was examined the leid draps hadnae played buff upon the
+warlock’s body; sorrow a leid drap was to be fund! but there was
+grandfaither’s siller tester in the puddock’s heart of him.
+
+
+Andie had scarce done when there befell a mighty silly affair that had
+its consequence. Neil, as I have said, was himself a great narrator. I
+have heard since that he knew all the stories in the Highlands; and
+thought much of himself, and was thought much of by others on the
+strength of it. Now Andie’s tale reminded him of one he had already
+heard.
+
+“She would ken that story afore,” he said. “She was the story of
+Uistean More M’Gillie Phadrig and the Gavar Vore.”
+
+“It is no sic a thing,” cried Andie. “It is the story of my faither
+(now wi’ God) and Tod Lapraik. And the same in your beard,” says he;
+“and keep the tongue of ye inside your Hielant chafts!”
+
+In dealing with Highlanders it will be found, and has been shown in
+history, how well it goes with Lowland gentlefolk; but the thing
+appears scarce feasible for Lowland commons. I had already remarked
+that Andie was continually on the point of quarrelling with our three
+MacGregors, and now, sure enough, it was to come.
+
+“Thir will be no words to use to shentlemans,” says Neil.
+
+“Shentlemans!” cries Andie. “Shentlemans, ye hielant stot! If God would
+give ye the grace to see yoursel’ the way that ithers see ye, ye would
+throw your denner up.”
+
+There came some kind of a Gaelic oath from Neil, and the black knife
+was in his hand that moment.
+
+There was no time to think; and I caught the Highlander by the leg, and
+had him down, and his armed hand pinned out, before I knew what I was
+doing. His comrades sprang to rescue him, Andie and I were without
+weapons, the Gregara three to two. It seemed we were beyond salvation,
+when Neil screamed in his own tongue, ordering the others back, and
+made his submission to myself in a manner the most abject, even giving
+me up his knife which (upon a repetition of his promises) I returned to
+him on the morrow.
+
+Two things I saw plain: the first, that I must not build too high on
+Andie, who had shrunk against the wall and stood there, as pale as
+death, till the affair was over; the second, the strength of my own
+position with the Highlanders, who must have received extraordinary
+charges to be tender of my safety. But if I thought Andie came not very
+well out in courage, I had no fault to find with him upon the account
+of gratitude. It was not so much that he troubled me with thanks, as
+that his whole mind and manner appeared changed; and as he preserved
+ever after a great timidity of our companions, he and I were yet more
+constantly together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+THE MISSING WITNESS
+
+
+On the seventeenth, the day I was trysted with the Writer, I had much
+rebellion against fate. The thought of him waiting in the _King’s
+Arms_, and of what he would think, and what he would say when next we
+met, tormented and oppressed me. The truth was unbelievable, so much I
+had to grant, and it seemed cruel hard I should be posted as a liar and
+a coward, and have never consciously omitted what it was possible that
+I should do. I repeated this form of words with a kind of bitter
+relish, and re-examined in that light the steps of my behaviour. It
+seemed I had behaved to James Stewart as a brother might; all the past
+was a picture that I could be proud of, and there was only the present
+to consider. I could not swim the sea, nor yet fly in the air, but
+there was always Andie. I had done him a service, he liked me; I had a
+lever there to work on; if it were just for decency, I must try once
+more with Andie.
+
+It was late afternoon; there was no sound in all the Bass but the lap
+and bubble of a very quiet sea; and my four companions were all crept
+apart, the three Macgregors higher on the rock, and Andie with his
+Bible to a sunny place among the ruins; there I found him in deep
+sleep, and, as soon as he was awake, appealed to him with some fervour
+of manner and a good show of argument.
+
+“If I thoucht it was to do guid to ye, Shaws!” said he, staring at me
+over his spectacles.
+
+“It’s to save another,” said I, “and to redeem my word. What would be
+more good than that? Do ye no mind the scripture, Andie? And you with
+the Book upon your lap! _What shall it profit a man if he gain the
+whole world_?”
+
+“Ay,” said he, “that’s grand for you. But where do I come in! I have my
+word to redeem the same’s yoursel’. And what are ye asking me to do,
+but just to sell it ye for siller?”
+
+“Andie! have I named the name of siller?” cried I.
+
+“Ou, the name’s naething”, said he; “the thing is there, whatever. It
+just comes to this; if I am to service ye the way that you propose,
+I’ll lose my lifelihood. Then it’s clear ye’ll have to make it up to
+me, and a pickle mair, for your ain credit like. And what’s that but
+just a bribe? And if even I was certain of the bribe! But by a’ that I
+can learn, it’s far frae that; and if _you_ were to hang, where would
+_I_ be? Na: the thing’s no possible. And just awa’ wi’ ye like a bonny
+lad! and let Andie read his chapter.”
+
+I remember I was at bottom a good deal gratified with this result; and
+the next humour I fell into was one (I had near said) of gratitude to
+Prestongrange, who had saved me, in this violent, illegal manner, out
+of the midst of my dangers, temptations, and perplexities. But this was
+both too flimsy and too cowardly to last me long, and the remembrance
+of James began to succeed to the possession of my spirits. The 21st,
+the day set for the trial, I passed in such misery of mind as I can
+scarce recall to have endured, save perhaps upon Isle Earraid only.
+Much of the time I lay on a brae-side betwixt sleep and waking, my body
+motionless, my mind full of violent thoughts. Sometimes I slept indeed;
+but the court-house of Inverary and the prisoner glancing on all sides
+to find his missing witness, followed me in slumber; and I would wake
+again with a start to darkness of spirit and distress of body. I
+thought Andie seemed to observe me, but I paid him little heed. Verily,
+my bread was bitter to me, and my days a burthen.
+
+Early the next morning (Friday, 22nd) a boat came with provisions, and
+Andie placed a packet in my hand. The cover was without address but
+sealed with a Government seal. It enclosed two notes. “Mr. Balfour can
+now see for himself it is too late to meddle. His conduct will be
+observed and his discretion rewarded.” So ran the first, which seemed
+to be laboriously writ with the left hand. There was certainly nothing
+in these expressions to compromise the writer, even if that person
+could be found; the seal, which formidably served instead of signature,
+was affixed to a separate sheet on which there was no scratch of
+writing; and I had to confess that (so far) my adversaries knew what
+they were doing, and to digest as well as I was able the threat that
+peeped under the promise.
+
+But the second enclosure was by far the more surprising. It was in a
+lady’s hand of writ. “_Maister Dauvit Balfour is informed a friend was
+speiring for him and her eyes were of the grey_,” it ran—and seemed so
+extraordinary a piece to come to my hands at such a moment and under
+cover of a Government seal, that I stood stupid. Catriona’s grey eyes
+shone in my remembrance. I thought, with a bound of pleasure, she must
+be the friend. But who should the writer be, to have her billet thus
+enclosed with Prestongrange’s? And of all wonders, why was it thought
+needful to give me this pleasing but most inconsequent intelligence
+upon the Bass? For the writer, I could hit upon none possible except
+Miss Grant. Her family, I remembered, had remarked on Catriona’s eyes
+and even named her for their colour; and she herself had been much in
+the habit to address me with a broad pronunciation, by way of a sniff,
+I supposed, at my rusticity. No doubt, besides, but she lived in the
+same house as this letter came from. So there remained but one step to
+be accounted for; and that was how Prestongrange should have permitted
+her at all in an affair so secret, or let her daft-like billet go in
+the same cover with his own. But even here I had a glimmering. For,
+first of all, there was something rather alarming about the young lady,
+and papa might be more under her domination than I knew. And, second,
+there was the man’s continual policy to be remembered, how his conduct
+had been continually mingled with caresses, and he had scarce ever, in
+the midst of so much contention, laid aside a mask of friendship. He
+must conceive that my imprisonment had incensed me. Perhaps this little
+jesting, friendly message was intended to disarm my rancour?
+
+I will be honest—and I think it did. I felt a sudden warmth towards
+that beautiful Miss Grant, that she should stoop to so much interest in
+my affairs. The summoning up of Catriona moved me of itself to milder
+and more cowardly counsels. If the Advocate knew of her and our
+acquaintance—if I should please him by some of that “discretion” at
+which his letter pointed—to what might not this lead! _In vain is the
+net prepared in the sight of any fowl_, the Scripture says. Well, fowls
+must be wiser than folk! For I thought I perceived the policy, and yet
+fell in with it.
+
+I was in this frame, my heart beating, the grey eyes plain before me
+like two stars, when Andie broke in upon my musing.
+
+“I see ye has gotten guid news,” said he.
+
+I found him looking curiously in my face; with that there came before
+me like a vision of James Stewart and the court of Inverary; and my
+mind turned at once like a door upon its hinges. Trials, I reflected,
+sometimes draw out longer than is looked for. Even if I came to
+Inverary just too late, something might yet be attempted in the
+interests of James—and in those of my own character, the best would be
+accomplished. In a moment, it seemed without thought, I had a plan
+devised.
+
+“Andie,” said I, “is it still to be to-morrow?”
+
+He told me nothing was changed.
+
+“Was anything said about the hour?” I asked.
+
+He told me it was to be two o’clock afternoon.
+
+“And about the place?” I pursued.
+
+“Whatten place?” says Andie.
+
+“The place I am to be landed at?” said I.
+
+He owned there was nothing as to that.
+
+“Very well, then,” I said, “this shall be mine to arrange. The wind is
+in the east, my road lies westward: keep your boat, I hire it; let us
+work up the Forth all day; and land me at two o’clock to-morrow at the
+westmost we’ll can have reached.”
+
+“Ye daft callant!” he cried; “ye would try for Inverary after a’!”
+
+“Just that, Andie,” says I.
+
+“Weel, ye’re ill to beat!” says he. “And I was a kind o’ sorry for ye
+a’ day yesterday,” he added. “Ye see, I was never entirely sure till
+then, which way of it ye really wantit.”
+
+Here was a spur to a lame horse!
+
+“A word in your ear, Andie,” said I. “This plan of mine has another
+advantage yet. We can leave these Hielandman behind us on the rock, and
+one of your boats from the Castleton can bring them off to-morrow. Yon
+Neil has a queer eye when he regards you; maybe, if I was once out of
+the gate there might be knives again; these red-shanks are unco
+grudgeful. And if there should come to be any question, here is your
+excuse. Our lives were in danger by these savages; being answerable for
+my safety, you chose the part to bring me from their neighbourhood and
+detain me the rest of the time on board your boat: and do you know,
+Andie?” says I, with a smile, “I think it was very wisely chosen.”
+
+“The truth is I have nae goo for Neil,” says Andie, “nor he for me, I’m
+thinking; and I would like ill to come to my hands wi’ the man. Tam
+Anster will make a better hand of it with the cattle onyway.” (For this
+man, Anster, came from Fife, where the Gaelic is still spoken.) “Ay,
+ay!” says Andie, “Tam’ll can deal with them the best. And troth! the
+mair I think of it, the less I see we would be required. The place—ay,
+feggs! they had forgot the place. Eh, Shaws, ye’re a lang-heided chield
+when ye like! Forby that I’m awing ye my life,” he added, with more
+solemnity, and offered me his hand upon the bargain.
+
+Whereupon, with scarce more words, we stepped suddenly on board the
+boat, cast off, and set the lug. The Gregara were then busy upon
+breakfast, for the cookery was their usual part; but, one of them
+stepping to the battlements, our flight was observed before we were
+twenty fathoms from the rock; and the three of them ran about the ruins
+and the landing-shelf, for all the world like ants about a broken nest,
+hailing and crying on us to return. We were still in both the lee and
+the shadow of the rock, which last lay broad upon the waters, but
+presently came forth in almost the same moment into the wind and
+sunshine; the sail filled, the boat heeled to the gunwale, and we swept
+immediately beyond sound of the men’s voices. To what terrors they
+endured upon the rock, where they were now deserted without the
+countenance of any civilised person or so much as the protection of a
+Bible, no limit can be set; nor had they any brandy left to be their
+consolation, for even in the haste and secrecy of our departure Andie
+had managed to remove it.
+
+It was our first care to set Anster ashore in a cove by the Glenteithy
+Rocks, so that the deliverance of our maroons might be duly seen to the
+next day. Thence we kept away up Firth. The breeze, which was then so
+spirited, swiftly declined, but never wholly failed us. All day we kept
+moving, though often not much more; and it was after dark ere we were
+up with the Queensferry. To keep the letter of Andie’s engagement (or
+what was left of it) I must remain on board, but I thought no harm to
+communicate with the shore in writing. On Prestongrange’s cover, where
+the Government seal must have a good deal surprised my correspondent, I
+writ, by the boat’s lantern, a few necessary words, aboard and Andie
+carried them to Rankeillor. In about an hour he came again, with a
+purse of money and the assurance that a good horse should be standing
+saddled for me by two to-morrow at Clackmannan Pool. This done, and the
+boat riding by her stone anchor, we lay down to sleep under the sail.
+
+We were in the Pool the next day long ere two; and there was nothing
+left for me but to sit and wait. I felt little alacrity upon my errand.
+I would have been glad of any passable excuse to lay it down; but none
+being to be found, my uneasiness was no less great than if I had been
+running to some desired pleasure. By shortly after one the horse was at
+the waterside, and I could see a man walking it to and fro till I
+should land, which vastly swelled my impatience. Andie ran the moment
+of my liberation very fine, showing himself a man of his bare word, but
+scarce serving his employers with a heaped measure; and by about fifty
+seconds after two I was in the saddle and on the full stretch for
+Stirling. In a little more than an hour I had passed that town, and was
+already mounting Alan Water side, when the weather broke in a small
+tempest. The rain blinded me, the wind had nearly beat me from the
+saddle, and the first darkness of the night surprised me in a
+wilderness still some way east of Balwhidder, not very sure of my
+direction and mounted on a horse that began already to be weary.
+
+In the press of my hurry, and to be spared the delay and annoyance of a
+guide, I had followed (so far as it was possible for any horseman) the
+line of my journey with Alan. This I did with open eyes, foreseeing a
+great risk in it, which the tempest had now brought to a reality. The
+last that I knew of where I was, I think it must have been about Uam
+Var; the hour perhaps six at night. I must still think it great good
+fortune that I got about eleven to my destination, the house of Duncan
+Dhu. Where I had wandered in the interval perhaps the horse could tell.
+I know we were twice down, and once over the saddle and for a moment
+carried away in a roaring burn. Steed and rider were bemired up to the
+eyes.
+
+From Duncan I had news of the trial. It was followed in all these
+Highland regions with religious interest; news of it spread from
+Inverary as swift as men could travel; and I was rejoiced to learn
+that, up to a late hour that Saturday it was not yet concluded; and all
+men began to suppose it must spread over the Monday. Under the spur of
+this intelligence I would not sit to eat; but, Duncan having agreed to
+be my guide, took the road again on foot, with the piece in my hand and
+munching as I went. Duncan brought with him a flask of usquebaugh and a
+hand-lantern; which last enlightened us just so long as we could find
+houses where to rekindle it, for the thing leaked outrageously and blew
+out with every gust. The more part of the night we walked blindfold
+among sheets of rain, and day found us aimless on the mountains. Hard
+by we struck a hut on a burn-side, where we got bite and a direction;
+and, a little before the end of the sermon, came to the kirk doors of
+Inverary.
+
+The rain had somewhat washed the upper parts of me, but I was still
+bogged as high as to the knees; I streamed water; I was so weary I
+could hardly limp, and my face was like a ghost’s. I stood certainly
+more in need of a change of raiment and a bed to lie on, than of all
+the benefits in Christianity. For all which (being persuaded the chief
+point for me was to make myself immediately public) I set the door of
+the church with the dirty Duncan at my tails, and finding a vacant
+place sat down.
+
+“Thirteently, my brethren, and in parenthesis, the law itself must be
+regarded as a means of grace,” the minister was saying, in the voice of
+one delighting to pursue an argument.
+
+The sermon was in English on account of the assize. The judges were
+present with their armed attendants, the halberts glittered in a corner
+by the door, and the seats were thronged beyond custom with the array
+of lawyers. The text was in Romans 5th and 13th—the minister a skilled
+hand; and the whole of that able churchful—from Argyle, and my Lords
+Elchies and Kilkerran, down to the halbertmen that came in their
+attendance—was sunk with gathered brows in a profound critical
+attention. The minister himself and a sprinkling of those about the
+door observed our entrance at the moment and immediately forgot the
+same; the rest either did not hear or would not hear or would not be
+heard; and I sat amongst my friends and enemies unremarked.
+
+The first that I singled out was Prestongrange. He sat well forward,
+like an eager horseman in the saddle, his lips moving with relish, his
+eyes glued on the minister; the doctrine was clearly to his mind.
+Charles Stewart, on the other hand, was half asleep, and looked
+harassed and pale. As for Simon Fraser, he appeared like a blot, and
+almost a scandal, in the midst of that attentive congregation, digging
+his hands in his pockets, shifting his legs, clearing his throat, and
+rolling up his bald eyebrows and shooting out his eyes to right and
+left, now with a yawn, now with a secret smile. At times, too, he would
+take the Bible in front of him, run it through, seem to read a bit, run
+it through again, and stop and yawn prodigiously: the whole as if for
+exercise.
+
+In the course of this restlessness his eye alighted on myself. He sat a
+second stupefied, then tore a half-leaf out of the Bible, scrawled upon
+it with a pencil, and passed it with a whispered word to his next
+neighbour. The note came to Prestongrange, who gave me but the one
+look; thence it voyaged to the hands of Mr. Erskine; thence again to
+Argyle, where he sat between the other two lords of session, and his
+Grace turned and fixed me with an arrogant eye. The last of those
+interested in my presence was Charlie Stewart, and he too began to
+pencil and hand about dispatches, none of which I was able to trace to
+their destination in the crowd.
+
+But the passage of these notes had aroused notice; all who were in the
+secret (or supposed themselves to be so) were whispering
+information—the rest questions; and the minister himself seemed quite
+discountenanced by the flutter in the church and sudden stir and
+whispering. His voice changed, he plainly faltered, nor did he again
+recover the easy conviction and full tones of his delivery. It would be
+a puzzle to him till his dying day, why a sermon that had gone with
+triumph through four parts, should thus miscarry in the fifth.
+
+As for me, I continued to sit there, very wet and weary, and a good
+deal anxious as to what should happen next, but greatly exulting in my
+success.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+THE MEMORIAL
+
+
+The last word of the blessing was scarce out of the minister’s mouth
+before Stewart had me by the arm. We were the first to be forth of the
+church, and he made such extraordinary expedition that we were safe
+within the four walls of a house before the street had begun to be
+thronged with the home-going congregation.
+
+“Am I yet in time?” I asked.
+
+“Ay and no,” said he. “The case is over; the jury is enclosed, and will
+so kind as let us ken their view of it to-morrow in the morning, the
+same as I could have told it my own self three days ago before the play
+began. The thing has been public from the start. The panel kent it,
+‘_Ye may do what ye will for me_,’ whispers he two days ago. ‘_Ye ken
+my fate by what the Duke of Argyle has just said to Mr. Macintosh_.’ O,
+it’s been a scandal!
+
+“The great Agyle he gaed before,
+He gart the cannons and guns to roar,”
+
+
+and the very macer cried ‘Cruachan!’ But now that I have got you again
+I’ll never despair. The oak shall go over the myrtle yet; we’ll ding
+the Campbells yet in their own town. Praise God that I should see the
+day!”
+
+He was leaping with excitement, emptied out his mails upon the floor
+that I might have a change of clothes, and incommoded me with his
+assistance as I changed. What remained to be done, or how I was to do
+it, was what he never told me nor, I believe, so much as thought of.
+“We’ll ding the Campbells yet!” that was still his overcome. And it was
+forced home upon my mind how this, that had the externals of a sober
+process of law, was in its essence a clan battle between savage clans.
+I thought my friend the Writer none of the least savage. Who that had
+only seen him at a counsel’s back before the Lord Ordinary or following
+a golf ball and laying down his clubs on Bruntsfield links, could have
+recognised for the same person this voluble and violent clansman?
+
+James Stewart’s counsel were four in number—Sheriffs Brown of Colstoun
+and Miller, Mr. Robert Macintosh, and Mr. Stewart younger of Stewart
+Hall. These were covenanted to dine with the Writer after sermon, and I
+was very obligingly included of the party. No sooner the cloth lifted,
+and the first bowl very artfully compounded by Sheriff Miller, than we
+fell to the subject in hand. I made a short narration of my seizure and
+captivity, and was then examined and re-examined upon the circumstances
+of the murder. It will be remembered this was the first time I had had
+my say out, or the matter at all handled, among lawyers; and the
+consequence was very dispiriting to the others and (I must own)
+disappointing to myself.
+
+“To sum up,” said Colstoun, “you prove that Alan was on the spot; you
+have heard him proffer menaces against Glenure; and though you assure
+us he was not the man who fired, you leave a strong impression that he
+was in league with him, and consenting, perhaps immediately assisting,
+in the act. You show him besides, at the risk of his own liberty,
+actively furthering the criminal’s escape. And the rest of your
+testimony (so far as the least material) depends on the bare word of
+Alan or of James, the two accused. In short, you do not at all break,
+but only lengthen by one personage, the chain that binds our client to
+the murderer; and I need scarcely say that the introduction of a third
+accomplice rather aggravates that appearance of a conspiracy which has
+been our stumbling block from the beginning.”
+
+“I am of the same opinion,” said Sheriff Miller. “I think we may all be
+very much obliged to Prestongrange for taking a most uncomfortable
+witness out of our way. And chiefly, I think, Mr. Balfour himself might
+be obliged. For you talk of a third accomplice, but Mr. Balfour (in my
+view) has very much the appearance of a fourth.”
+
+“Allow me, sirs!” interposed Stewart the Writer. “There is another
+view. Here we have a witness—never fash whether material or not—a
+witness in this cause, kidnapped by that old, lawless, bandit crew of
+the Glengyle Macgregors, and sequestered for near upon a month in a
+bourock of old ruins on the Bass. Move that and see what dirt you fling
+on the proceedings! Sirs, this is a tale to make the world ring with!
+It would be strange, with such a grip as this, if we couldnae squeeze
+out a pardon for my client.”
+
+“And suppose we took up Mr. Balfour’s cause to-morrow?” said Stewart
+Hall. “I am much deceived or we should find so many impediments thrown
+in our path, as that James should have been hanged before we had found
+a court to hear us. This is a great scandal, but I suppose we have none
+of us forgot a greater still, I mean the matter of the Lady Grange. The
+woman was still in durance; my friend Mr. Hope of Rankeillor did what
+was humanly possible; and how did he speed? He never got a warrant!
+Well, it’ll be the same now; the same weapons will be used. This is a
+scene, gentleman, of clan animosity. The hatred of the name which I
+have the honour to bear, rages in high quarters. There is nothing here
+to be viewed but naked Campbell spite and scurvy Campbell intrigue.”
+
+You may be sure this was to touch a welcome topic, and I sat for some
+time in the midst of my learned counsel, almost deaved with their talk
+but extremely little the wiser for its purport. The Writer was led into
+some hot expressions; Colstoun must take him up and set him right; the
+rest joined in on different sides, but all pretty noisy; the Duke of
+Argyle was beaten like a blanket; King George came in for a few digs in
+the by-going and a great deal of rather elaborate defence; and there
+was only one person that seemed to be forgotten, and that was James of
+the Glens.
+
+Through all this Mr. Miller sat quiet. He was a slip of an oldish
+gentleman, ruddy and twinkling; he spoke in a smooth rich voice, with
+an infinite effect of pawkiness, dealing out each word the way an actor
+does, to give the most expression possible; and even now, when he was
+silent, and sat there with his wig laid aside, his glass in both hands,
+his mouth funnily pursed, and his chin out, he seemed the mere picture
+of a merry slyness. It was plain he had a word to say, and waited for
+the fit occasion.
+
+It came presently. Colstoun had wound up one of his speeches with some
+expression of their duty to their client. His brother sheriff was
+pleased, I suppose, with the transition. He took the table in his
+confidence with a gesture and a look.
+
+“That suggests to me a consideration which seems overlooked,” said he.
+“The interest of our client goes certainly before all, but the world
+does not come to an end with James Stewart.” Whereat he cocked his eye.
+“I might condescend, _exempli gratia_, upon a Mr. George Brown, a Mr.
+Thomas Miller, and a Mr. David Balfour. Mr. David Balfour has a very
+good ground of complaint, and I think, gentlemen—if his story was
+properly redd out—I think there would be a number of wigs on the
+green.”
+
+The whole table turned to him with a common movement.
+
+“Properly handled and carefully redd out, his is a story that could
+scarcely fail to have some consequence,” he continued. “The whole
+administration of justice, from its highest officer downward, would be
+totally discredited; and it looks to me as if they would need to be
+replaced.” He seemed to shine with cunning as he said it. “And I need
+not point out to ye that this of Mr. Balfour’s would be a remarkable
+bonny cause to appear in,” he added.
+
+Well, there they all were started on another hare; Mr. Balfour’s cause,
+and what kind of speeches could be there delivered, and what officials
+could be thus turned out, and who would succeed to their positions. I
+shall give but the two specimens. It was proposed to approach Simon
+Fraser, whose testimony, if it could be obtained, would prove certainly
+fatal to Argyle and to Prestongrange. Miller highly approved of the
+attempt. “We have here before us a dreeping roast,” said he, “here is
+cut-and-come-again for all.” And methought all licked their lips. The
+other was already near the end. Stewart the Writer was out of the body
+with delight, smelling vengeance on his chief enemy, the Duke.
+
+“Gentlemen,” cried he, charging his glass, “here is to Sheriff Miller.
+His legal abilities are known to all. His culinary, this bowl in front
+of us is here to speak for. But when it comes to the poleetical!”—cries
+he, and drains the glass.
+
+“Ay, but it will hardly prove politics in your meaning, my friend,”
+said the gratified Miller. “A revolution, if you like, and I think I
+can promise you that historical writers shall date from Mr. Balfour’s
+cause. But properly guided, Mr. Stewart, tenderly guided, it shall
+prove a peaceful revolution.”
+
+“And if the damned Campbells get their ears rubbed, what care I?” cries
+Stewart, smiting down his fist.
+
+It will be thought I was not very well pleased with all this, though I
+could scarce forbear smiling at a kind of innocency in these old
+intriguers. But it was not my view to have undergone so many sorrows
+for the advancement of Sheriff Miller or to make a revolution in the
+Parliament House: and I interposed accordingly with as much simplicity
+of manner as I could assume.
+
+“I have to thank you, gentlemen, for your advice,” said I. “And now I
+would like, by your leave, to set you two or three questions. There is
+one thing that has fallen rather on one aide, for instance: Will this
+cause do any good to our friend James of the Glens?”
+
+They seemed all a hair set back, and gave various answers, but
+concurring practically in one point, that James had now no hope but in
+the King’s mercy.
+
+“To proceed, then,” said I, “will it do any good to Scotland? We have a
+saying that it is an ill bird that fouls his own nest. I remember
+hearing we had a riot in Edinburgh when I was an infant child, which
+gave occasion to the late Queen to call this country barbarous; and I
+always understood that we had rather lost than gained by that. Then
+came the year ’Forty-five, which made Scotland to be talked of
+everywhere; but I never heard it said we had anyway gained by the
+’Forty-five. And now we come to this cause of Mr. Balfour’s, as you
+call it. Sheriff Miller tells us historical writers are to date from
+it, and I would not wonder. It is only my fear they would date from it
+as a period of calamity and public reproach.”
+
+The nimble-witted Miller had already smelt where I was travelling to,
+and made haste to get on the same road. “Forcibly put, Mr. Balfour,”
+says he. “A weighty observe, sir.”
+
+“We have next to ask ourselves if it will be good for King George,” I
+pursued. “Sheriff Miller appears pretty easy upon this; but I doubt you
+will scarce be able to pull down the house from under him, without his
+Majesty coming by a knock or two, one of which might easily prove
+fatal.”
+
+I gave them a chance to answer, but none volunteered.
+
+“Of those for whom the case was to be profitable,” I went on, “Sheriff
+Miller gave us the names of several, among the which he was good enough
+to mention mine. I hope he will pardon me if I think otherwise. I
+believe I hung not the least back in this affair while there was life
+to be saved; but I own I thought myself extremely hazarded, and I own I
+think it would be a pity for a young man, with some idea of coming to
+the Bar, to ingrain upon himself the character of a turbulent, factious
+fellow before he was yet twenty. As for James, it seems—at this date of
+the proceedings, with the sentence as good as pronounced—he has no hope
+but in the King’s mercy. May not his Majesty, then, be more pointedly
+addressed, the characters of these high officers sheltered from the
+public, and myself kept out of a position which I think spells ruin for
+me?”
+
+They all sat and gazed into their glasses, and I could see they found
+my attitude on the affair unpalatable. But Miller was ready at all
+events.
+
+“If I may be allowed to put my young friend’s notion in more formal
+shape,” says he, “I understand him to propose that we should embody the
+fact of his sequestration, and perhaps some heads of the testimony he
+was prepared to offer, in a memorial to the Crown. This plan has
+elements of success. It is as likely as any other (and perhaps
+likelier) to help our client. Perhaps his Majesty would have the
+goodness to feel a certain gratitude to all concerned in such a
+memorial, which might be construed into an expression of a very
+delicate loyalty; and I think, in the drafting of the same, this view
+might be brought forward.”
+
+They all nodded to each other, not without sighs, for the former
+alternative was doubtless more after their inclination.
+
+“Paper, then, Mr. Stewart, if you please,” pursued Miller; “and I think
+it might very fittingly be signed by the five of us here present, as
+procurators for the condemned man.”’
+
+“It can do none of us any harm, at least,” says Colstoun, heaving
+another sigh, for he had seen himself Lord Advocate the last ten
+minutes.
+
+Thereupon they set themselves, not very enthusiastically, to draft the
+memorial—a process in the course of which they soon caught fire; and I
+had no more ado but to sit looking on and answer an occasional
+question. The paper was very well expressed; beginning with a
+recitation of the facts about myself, the reward offered for my
+apprehension, my surrender, the pressure brought to bear upon me; my
+sequestration; and my arrival at Inverary in time to be too late; going
+on to explain the reasons of loyalty and public interest for which it
+was agreed to waive any right of action; and winding up with a forcible
+appeal to the King’s mercy on behalf of James.
+
+Methought I was a good deal sacrificed, and rather represented in the
+light of a firebrand of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had
+restrained with difficulty from extremes. But I let it pass, and made
+but the one suggestion, that I should be described as ready to deliver
+my own evidence and adduce that of others before any commission of
+inquiry—and the one demand, that I should be immediately furnished with
+a copy.
+
+Colstoun hummed and hawed. “This is a very confidential document,” said
+he.
+
+“And my position towards Prestongrange is highly peculiar,” I replied.
+“No question but I must have touched his heart at our first interview,
+so that he has since stood my friend consistently. But for him,
+gentlemen, I must now be lying dead or awaiting my sentence alongside
+poor James. For which reason I choose to communicate to him the fact of
+this memorial as soon as it is copied. You are to consider also that
+this step will make for my protection. I have enemies here accustomed
+to drive hard; his Grace is in his own country, Lovat by his side; and
+if there should hang any ambiguity over our proceedings I think I might
+very well awake in gaol.”
+
+Not finding any very ready answer to these considerations, my company
+of advisers were at the last persuaded to consent, and made only this
+condition that I was to lay the paper before Prestongrange with the
+express compliments of all concerned.
+
+The Advocate was at the castle dining with his Grace. By the hand of
+one of Colstoun’s servants I sent him a billet asking for an interview,
+and received a summons to meet him at once in a private house of the
+town. Here I found him alone in a chamber; from his face there was
+nothing to be gleaned; yet I was not so unobservant but what I spied
+some halberts in the hall, and not so stupid but what I could gather he
+was prepared to arrest me there and then, should it appear advisable.
+
+“So, Mr. David, this is you?” said he.
+
+“Where I fear I am not overly welcome, my lord,” said I. “And I would
+like before I go further to express my sense of your lordship’s good
+offices, even should they now cease.”
+
+“I have heard of your gratitude before,” he replied drily, “and I think
+this can scarce be the matter you called me from my wine to listen to.
+I would remember also, if I were you, that you still stand on a very
+boggy foundation.”
+
+“Not now, my lord, I think,” said I; “and if your lordship will but
+glance an eye along this, you will perhaps think as I do.”
+
+He read it sedulously through, frowning heavily; then turned back to
+one part and another which he seemed to weigh and compare the effect
+of. His face a little lightened.
+
+“This is not so bad but what it might be worse,” said he; “though I am
+still likely to pay dear for my acquaintance with Mr. David Balfour.”
+
+“Rather for your indulgence to that unlucky young man, my lord,” said
+I.
+
+He still skimmed the paper, and all the while his spirits seemed to
+mend.
+
+“And to whom am I indebted for this?” he asked presently. “Other
+counsels must have been discussed, I think. Who was it proposed this
+private method? Was it Miller?”
+
+“My lord, it was myself,” said I. “These gentlemen have shown me no
+such consideration, as that I should deny myself any credit I can
+fairly claim, or spare them any responsibility they should properly
+bear. And the mere truth is, that they were all in favour of a process
+which should have remarkable consequences in the Parliament House, and
+prove for them (in one of their own expressions) a dripping roast.
+Before I intervened, I think they were on the point of sharing out the
+different law appointments. Our friend Mr. Simon was to be taken in
+upon some composition.”
+
+Prestongrange smiled. “These are our friends,” said he. “And what were
+your reasons for dissenting, Mr. David?”
+
+I told them without concealment, expressing, however, with more force
+and volume those which regarded Prestongrange himself.
+
+“You do me no more than justice,” said he. “I have fought as hard in
+your interest as you have fought against mine. And how came you here
+to-day?” he asked. “As the case drew out, I began to grow uneasy that I
+had clipped the period so fine, and I was even expecting you to-morrow.
+But to-day—I never dreamed of it.”
+
+I was not of course, going to betray Andie.
+
+“I suspect there is some very weary cattle by the road,” said I.
+
+“If I had known you were such a mosstrooper you should have tasted
+longer of the Bass,” says he.
+
+“Speaking of which, my lord, I return your letter.” And I gave him the
+enclosure in the counterfeit hand.
+
+“There was the cover also with the seal,” said he.
+
+“I have it not,” said I. “It bore not even an address, and could not
+compromise a cat. The second enclosure I have, and with your
+permission, I desire to keep it.”
+
+I thought he winced a little, but he said nothing to the point.
+“To-morrow,” he resumed, “our business here is to be finished, and I
+proceed by Glasgow. I would be very glad to have you of my party, Mr
+David.”
+
+“My lord . . .” I began.
+
+“I do not deny it will be of service to me,” he interrupted. “I desire
+even that, when we shall come to Edinburgh, you should alight at my
+house. You have very warm friends in the Miss Grants, who will be
+overjoyed to have you to themselves. If you think I have been of use to
+you, you can thus easily repay me, and so far from losing, may reap
+some advantage by the way. It is not every strange young man who is
+presented in society by the King’s Advocate.”
+
+Often enough already (in our brief relations) this gentleman had caused
+my head to spin; no doubt but what for a moment he did so again now.
+Here was the old fiction still maintained of my particular favour with
+his daughters, one of whom had been so good as to laugh at me, while
+the other two had scarce deigned to remark the fact of my existence.
+And now I was to ride with my lord to Glasgow; I was to dwell with him
+in Edinburgh; I was to be brought into society under his protection!
+That he should have so much good-nature as to forgive me was surprising
+enough; that he could wish to take me up and serve me seemed
+impossible; and I began to seek some ulterior meaning. One was plain.
+If I became his guest, repentance was excluded; I could never think
+better of my present design and bring any action. And besides, would
+not my presence in his house draw out the whole pungency of the
+memorial? For that complaint could not be very seriously regarded, if
+the person chiefly injured was the guest of the official most
+incriminated. As I thought upon this I could not quite refrain from
+smiling.
+
+“This is in the nature of a countercheck to the memorial?” said I.
+
+“You are cunning, Mr. David,” said he, “and you do not wholly guess
+wrong the fact will be of use to me in my defence. Perhaps, however,
+you underrate friendly sentiments, which are perfectly genuine. I have
+a respect for you, David, mingled with awe,” says he, smiling.
+
+“I am more than willing, I am earnestly desirous to meet your wishes,”
+said I. “It is my design to be called to the Bar, where your lordship’s
+countenance would be invaluable; and I am besides sincerely grateful to
+yourself and family for different marks of interest and of indulgence.
+The difficulty is here. There is one point in which we pull two ways.
+You are trying to hang James Stewart, I am trying to save him. In so
+far as my riding with you would better your lordship’s defence, I am at
+your lordships orders; but in so far as it would help to hang James
+Stewart, you see me at a stick.”
+
+I thought he swore to himself. “You should certainly be called; the Bar
+is the true scene for your talents,” says he, bitterly, and then fell a
+while silent. “I will tell you,” he presently resumed, “there is no
+question of James Stewart, for or against, James is a dead man; his
+life is given and taken—bought (if you like it better) and sold; no
+memorial can help—no defalcation of a faithful Mr. David hurt him. Blow
+high, blow low, there will be no pardon for James Stewart: and take
+that for said! The question is now of myself: am I to stand or fall?
+and I do not deny to you that I am in some danger. But will Mr. David
+Balfour consider why? It is not because I pushed the case unduly
+against James; for that, I am sure of condonation. And it is not
+because I have sequestered Mr. David on a rock, though it will pass
+under that colour; but because I did not take the ready and plain path,
+to which I was pressed repeatedly, and send Mr. David to his grave or
+to the gallows. Hence the scandal—hence this damned memorial,” striking
+the paper on his leg. “My tenderness for you has brought me in this
+difficulty. I wish to know if your tenderness to your own conscience is
+too great to let you help me out of it.”
+
+No doubt but there was much of the truth in what he said; if James was
+past helping, whom was it more natural that I should turn to help than
+just the man before me, who had helped myself so often, and was even
+now setting me a pattern of patience? I was besides not only weary, but
+beginning to be ashamed, of my perpetual attitude of suspicion and
+refusal.
+
+“If you will name the time and place, I will be punctually ready to
+attend your lordship,” said I.
+
+He shook hands with me. “And I think my misses have some news for you,”
+says he, dismissing me.
+
+I came away, vastly pleased to have my peace made, yet a little
+concerned in conscience; nor could I help wondering, as I went back,
+whether, perhaps, I had not been a scruple too good-natured. But there
+was the fact, that this was a man that might have been my father, an
+able man, a great dignitary, and one that, in the hour of my need, had
+reached a hand to my assistance. I was in the better humour to enjoy
+the remainder of that evening, which I passed with the advocates, in
+excellent company no doubt, but perhaps with rather more than a
+sufficiency of punch: for though I went early to bed I have no clear
+mind of how I got there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+THE TEE’D BALL
+
+
+On the morrow, from the justices’ private room, where none could see
+me, I heard the verdict given in and judgment rendered upon James. The
+Duke’s words I am quite sure I have correctly; and since that famous
+passage has been made a subject of dispute, I may as well commemorate
+my version. Having referred to the year ’45, the chief of the
+Campbells, sitting as Justice-General upon the bench, thus addressed
+the unfortunate Stewart before him: “If you had been successful in that
+rebellion, you might have been giving the law where you have now
+received the judgment of it; we, who are this day your judges, might
+have been tried before one of your mock courts of judicature; and then
+you might have been satiated with the blood of any name or clan to
+which you had an aversion.”
+
+“This is to let the cat out of the bag, indeed,” thought I. And that
+was the general impression. It was extraordinary how the young advocate
+lads took hold and made a mock of this speech, and how scarce a meal
+passed but what someone would get in the words: “And then you might
+have been satiated.” Many songs were made in time for the hour’s
+diversion, and are near all forgot. I remember one began:
+
+“What do ye want the bluid of, bluid of?
+Is it a name, or is it a clan,
+Or is it an aefauld Hielandman,
+That ye want the bluid of, bluid of?”
+
+
+Another went to my old favourite air, _The House of Airlie_, and began
+thus:
+
+“It fell on a day when Argyle was on the bench,
+That they served him a Stewart for his denner.”
+
+
+And one of the verses ran:
+
+“Then up and spak’ the Duke, and flyted on his cook,
+I regard it as a sensible aspersion,
+That I would sup ava’, an’ satiate my maw,
+With the bluid of ony clan of my aversion.”
+
+
+James was as fairly murdered as though the Duke had got a fowling-piece
+and stalked him. So much of course I knew: but others knew not so much,
+and were more affected by the items of scandal that came to light in
+the progress of the cause. One of the chief was certainly this sally of
+the justice’s. It was run hard by another of a juryman, who had struck
+into the midst of Coulston’s speech for the defence with a “Pray, sir,
+cut it short, we are quite weary,” which seemed the very excess of
+impudence and simplicity. But some of my new lawyer friends were still
+more staggered with an innovation that had disgraced and even vitiated
+the proceedings. One witness was never called. His name, indeed, was
+printed, where it may still be seen on the fourth page of the list:
+“James Drummond, _alias_ Macgregor, _alias_ James More, late tenant in
+Inveronachile”; and his precognition had been taken, as the manner is,
+in writing. He had remembered or invented (God help him) matter which
+was lead in James Stewart’s shoes, and I saw was like to prove wings to
+his own. This testimony it was highly desirable to bring to the notice
+of the jury, without exposing the man himself to the perils of
+cross-examination; and the way it was brought about was a matter of
+surprise to all. For the paper was handed round (like a curiosity) in
+court; passed through the jury-box, where it did its work; and
+disappeared again (as though by accident) before it reached the counsel
+for the prisoner. This was counted a most insidious device; and that
+the name of James More should be mingled up with it filled me with
+shame for Catriona and concern for myself.
+
+The following day, Prestongrange and I, with a considerable company,
+set out for Glasgow, where (to my impatience) we continued to linger
+some time in a mixture of pleasure and affairs. I lodged with my lord,
+with whom I was encouraged to familiarity; had my place at
+entertainments; was presented to the chief guests; and altogether made
+more of than I thought accorded either with my parts or station; so
+that, on strangers being present, I would often blush for
+Prestongrange. It must be owned the view I had taken of the world in
+these last months was fit to cast a gloom upon my character. I had met
+many men, some of them leaders in Israel whether by their birth or
+talents; and who among them all had shown clean hands? As for the
+Browns and Millers, I had seen their self-seeking, I could never again
+respect them. Prestongrange was the best yet; he had saved me, spared
+me rather, when others had it in their minds to murder me outright; but
+the blood of James lay at his door; and I thought his present
+dissimulation with myself a thing below pardon. That he should affect
+to find pleasure in my discourse almost surprised me out of my
+patience. I would sit and watch him with a kind of a slow fire of anger
+in my bowels. “Ah, friend, friend,” I would think to myself, “if you
+were but through with this affair of the memorial, would you not kick
+me in the streets?” Here I did him, as events have proved, the most
+grave injustice; and I think he was at once far more sincere, and a far
+more artful performer, than I supposed.
+
+But I had some warrant for my incredulity in the behaviour of that
+court of young advocates that hung about in the hope of patronage. The
+sudden favour of a lad not previously heard of troubled them at first
+out of measure; but two days were not gone by before I found myself
+surrounded with flattery and attention. I was the same young man, and
+neither better nor bonnier, that they had rejected a month before; and
+now there was no civility too fine for me! The same, do I say? It was
+not so; and the by-name by which I went behind my back confirmed it.
+Seeing me so firm with the Advocate, and persuaded that I was to fly
+high and far, they had taken a word from the golfing green, and called
+me _the Tee’d Ball_. [14] I was told I was now “one of themselves”; I
+was to taste of their soft lining, who had already made my own
+experience of the roughness of the outer husk; and one, to whom I had
+been presented in Hope Park, was so aspired as even to remind me of
+that meeting. I told him I had not the pleasure of remembering it.
+
+“Why” says he, “it was Miss Grant herself presented me! My name is
+so-and-so.”
+
+“It may very well be, sir,” said I; “but I have kept no mind of it.”
+
+At which he desisted; and in the midst of the disgust that commonly
+overflowed my spirits I had a glisk of pleasure.
+
+But I have not patience to dwell upon that time at length. When I was
+in company with these young politics I was borne down with shame for
+myself and my own plain ways, and scorn for them and their duplicity.
+Of the two evils, I thought Prestongrange to be the least; and while I
+was always as stiff as buckram to the young bloods, I made rather a
+dissimulation of my hard feelings towards the Advocate, and was (in old
+Mr. Campbell’s word) “soople to the laird.” Himself commented on the
+difference, and bid me be more of my age, and make friends with my
+young comrades.
+
+I told him I was slow of making friends.
+
+“I will take the word back,” said he. “But there is such a thing as
+_Fair gude s’en and fair gude day_, Mr. David. These are the same young
+men with whom you are to pass your days and get through life: your
+backwardness has a look of arrogance; and unless you can assume a
+little more lightness of manner, I fear you will meet difficulties in
+the path.”
+
+“It will be an ill job to make a silk purse of a sow’s ear,” said I.
+
+On the morning of October 1st I was awakened by the clattering in of an
+express; and getting to my window almost before he had dismounted, I
+saw the messenger had ridden hard. Somewhile after I was called to
+Prestongrange, where he was sitting in his bedgown and nightcap, with
+his letters round him.
+
+“Mr. David,” add he, “I have a piece of news for you. It concerns some
+friends of yours, of whom I sometimes think you are a little ashamed,
+for you have never referred to their existence.”
+
+I suppose I blushed.
+
+“See you understand, since you make the answering signal,” said he.
+“And I must compliment you on your excellent taste in beauty. But do
+you know, Mr. David? this seems to me a very enterprising lass. She
+crops up from every side. The Government of Scotland appears unable to
+proceed for Mistress Katrine Drummond, which was somewhat the case (no
+great while back) with a certain Mr. David Balfour. Should not these
+make a good match? Her first intromission in politics—but I must not
+tell you that story, the authorities have decided you are to hear it
+otherwise and from a livelier narrator. This new example is more
+serious, however; and I am afraid I must alarm you with the
+intelligence that she is now in prison.”
+
+I cried out.
+
+“Yes,” said he, “the little lady is in prison. But I would not have you
+to despair. Unless you (with your friends and memorials) shall procure
+my downfall, she is to suffer nothing.”
+
+“But what has she done? What is her offence?” I cried.
+
+“It might be almost construed a high treason,” he returned, “for she
+has broke the king’s Castle of Edinburgh.”
+
+“The lady is much my friend,” I said. “I know you would not mock me if
+the thing were serious.”
+
+“And yet it is serious in a sense,” said he; “for this rogue of a
+Katrine—or Cateran, as we may call her—has set adrift again upon the
+world that very doubtful character, her papa.”
+
+Here was one of my previsions justified: James More was once again at
+liberty. He had lent his men to keep me a prisoner; he had volunteered
+his testimony in the Appin case, and the same (no matter by what
+subterfuge) had been employed to influence the jury. Now came his
+reward, and he was free. It might please the authorities to give to it
+the colour of an escape; but I knew better—I knew it must be the
+fulfilment of a bargain. The same course of thought relieved me of the
+least alarm for Catriona. She might be thought to have broke prison for
+her father; she might have believed so herself. But the chief hand in
+the whole business was that of Prestongrange; and I was sure, so far
+from letting her come to punishment, he would not suffer her to be even
+tried. Whereupon thus came out of me the not very politic ejaculation:
+
+“Ah! I was expecting that!”
+
+“You have at times a great deal of discretion, too!” says
+Prestongrange.
+
+“And what is my lord pleased to mean by that?” I asked.
+
+“I was just marvelling”, he replied, “that being so clever as to draw
+these inferences, you should not be clever enough to keep them to
+yourself. But I think you would like to hear the details of the affair.
+I have received two versions: and the least official is the more full
+and far the more entertaining, being from the lively pen of my eldest
+daughter. ‘Here is all the town bizzing with a fine piece of work,’ she
+writes, ‘and what would make the thing more noted (if it were only
+known) the malefactor is a _protégée_ of his lordship my papa. I am
+sure your heart is too much in your duty (if it were nothing else) to
+have forgotten Grey Eyes. What does she do, but get a broad hat with
+the flaps open, a long hairy-like man’s greatcoat, and a big gravatt;
+kilt her coats up to _Gude kens whaur_, clap two pair of boot-hose upon
+her legs, take a pair of _clouted brogues_ [15] in her hand, and off to
+the Castle! Here she gives herself out to be a soutar [16] in the
+employ of James More, and gets admitted to his cell, the lieutenant
+(who seems to have been full of pleasantry) making sport among his
+soldiers of the soutar’s greatcoat. Presently they hear disputation and
+the sound of blows inside. Out flies the cobbler, his coat flying, the
+flaps of his hat beat about his face, and the lieutenant and his
+soldiers mock at him as he runs off. They laughed no so hearty the next
+time they had occasion to visit the cell and found nobody but a tall,
+pretty, grey-eyed lass in the female habit! As for the cobbler, he was
+‘over the hills ayout Dumblane,’ and it’s thought that poor Scotland
+will have to console herself without him. I drank Catriona’s health
+this night in public. Indeed, the whole town admires her; and I think
+the beaux would wear bits of her garters in their button-holes if they
+could only get them. I would have gone to visit her in prison too, only
+I remembered in time I was papa’s daughter; so I wrote her a billet
+instead, which I entrusted to the faithful Doig, and I hope you will
+admit I can be political when I please. The same faithful gomeral is to
+despatch this letter by the express along with those of the wiseacres,
+so that you may hear Tom Fool in company with Solomon. Talking of
+_gomerals_, do tell _Dauvit Balfour_. I would I could see the face of
+him at the thought of a long-legged lass in such a predicament; to say
+nothing of the levities of your affectionate daughter, and his
+respectful friend.’ So my rascal signs herself!” continued
+Prestongrange. “And you see, Mr. David, it is quite true what I tell
+you, that my daughters regard you with the most affectionate
+playfulness.”
+
+“The gomeral is much obliged,” said I.
+
+“And was not this prettily done!” he went on. “Is not this Highland
+maid a piece of a heroine?”
+
+“I was always sure she had a great heart,” said I. “And I wager she
+guessed nothing . . . But I beg your pardon, this is to tread upon
+forbidden subjects.”
+
+“I will go bail she did not,” he returned, quite openly. “I will go
+bail she thought she was flying straight into King George’s face.”
+
+Remembrance of Catriona and the thought of her lying in captivity,
+moved me strangely. I could see that even Prestongrange admired, and
+could not withhold his lips from smiling when he considered her
+behaviour. As for Miss Grant, for all her ill habit of mockery, her
+admiration shone out plain. A kind of a heat came on me.
+
+“I am not your lordship’s daughter. . . ” I began.
+
+“That I know of!” he put in, smiling.
+
+“I speak like a fool,” said I; “or rather I began wrong. It would
+doubtless be unwise in Mistress Grant to go to her in prison; but for
+me, I think I would look like a half-hearted friend if I did not fly
+there instantly.”
+
+“So-ho, Mr. David,” says he; “I thought that you and I were in a
+bargain?”
+
+“My lord,” I said, “when I made that bargain I was a good deal affected
+by your goodness, but I’ll never can deny that I was moved besides by
+my own interest. There was self-seeking in my heart, and I think shame
+of it now. It may be for your lordship’s safety to say this fashious
+Davie Balfour is your friend and housemate. Say it then; I’ll never
+contradict you. But as for your patronage, I give it all back. I ask
+but the one thing—let me go, and give me a pass to see her in her
+prison.”
+
+He looked at me with a hard eye. “You put the cart before the horse, I
+think,” says he. “That which I had given was a portion of my liking,
+which your thankless nature does not seem to have remarked. But for my
+patronage, it is not given, nor (to be exact) is it yet offered.” He
+paused a bit. “And I warn you, you do not know yourself,” he added.
+“Youth is a hasty season; you will think better of all this before a
+year.”
+
+“Well, and I would like to be that kind of youth!” I cried. “I have
+seen too much of the other party in these young advocates that fawn
+upon your lordship and are even at the pains to fawn on me. And I have
+seen it in the old ones also. They are all for by-ends, the whole clan
+of them! It’s this that makes me seem to misdoubt your lordship’s
+liking. Why would I think that you would like me? But ye told me
+yourself ye had an interest!”
+
+I stopped at this, confounded that I had run so far; he was observing
+me with an unfathomable face.
+
+“My lord, I ask your pardon,” I resumed. “I have nothing in my chafts
+but a rough country tongue. I think it would be only decent-like if I
+would go to see my friend in her captivity; but I’m owing you my
+life—I’ll never forget that; and if it’s for your lordship’s good, here
+I’ll stay. That’s barely gratitude.”
+
+“This might have been reached in fewer words,” says Prestongrange
+grimly. “It is easy, and it is at times gracious, to say a plain Scots
+‘ay’.”
+
+“Ah, but, my lord, I think ye take me not yet entirely!” cried I. “For
+_your_ sake, for my life-safe, and the kindness that ye say ye bear to
+me—for these, I’ll consent; but not for any good that might be coming
+to myself. If I stand aside when this young maid is in her trial, it’s
+a thing I will be noways advantaged by; I will lose by it, I will never
+gain. I would rather make a shipwreck wholly than to build on that
+foundation.”
+
+He was a minute serious, then smiled. “You mind me of the man with the
+long nose,” said he; “was you to see the moon by a telescope you would
+see David Balfour there! But you shall have your way of it. I will ask
+at you one service, and then set you free: My clerks are overdriven; be
+so good as copy me these few pages, and when that is done, I shall bid
+you God speed! I would never charge myself with Mr. David’s conscience;
+and if you could cast some part of it (as you went by) in a moss hag,
+you would find yourself to ride much easier without it.”
+
+“Perhaps not just entirely in the same direction though, my lord!” says
+I.
+
+“And you shall have the last word, too!” cries he gaily.
+
+Indeed, he had some cause for gaiety, having now found the means to
+gain his purpose. To lessen the weight of the memorial, or to have a
+readier answer at his hand, he desired I should appear publicly in the
+character of his intimate. But if I were to appear with the same
+publicity as a visitor to Catriona in her prison the world would scarce
+stint to draw conclusions, and the true nature of James More’s escape
+must become evident to all. This was the little problem I had to set
+him of a sudden, and to which he had so briskly found an answer. I was
+to be tethered in Glasgow by that job of copying, which in mere outward
+decency I could not well refuse; and during these hours of employment
+Catriona was privately got rid of. I think shame to write of this man
+that loaded me with so many goodnesses. He was kind to me as any
+father, yet I ever thought him as false as a cracked bell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES
+
+
+The copying was a weary business, the more so as I perceived very early
+there was no sort of urgency in the matters treated, and began very
+early to consider my employment a pretext. I had no sooner finished
+than I got to horse, used what remained of daylight to the best
+purpose, and being at last fairly benighted, slept in a house by
+Almond-Water side. I was in the saddle again before the day, and the
+Edinburgh booths were just opening when I clattered in by the West Bow
+and drew up a smoking horse at my lord Advocate’s door. I had a written
+word for Doig, my lord’s private hand that was thought to be in all his
+secrets—a worthy little plain man, all fat and snuff and
+self-sufficiency. Him I found already at his desk and already bedabbled
+with maccabaw, in the same anteroom where I rencountered with James
+More. He read the note scrupulously through like a chapter in his
+Bible.
+
+“H’m,” says he; “ye come a wee thing ahint-hand, Mr. Balfour. The
+bird’s flaen—we hae letten her out.”
+
+“Miss Drummond is set free?” I cried.
+
+“Achy!” said he. “What would we keep her for, ye ken? To hae made a
+steer about the bairn would has pleased naebody.”
+
+“And where’ll she be now?” says I.
+
+“Gude kens!” says Doig, with a shrug.
+
+“She’ll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I’m thinking,” said I.
+
+“That’ll be it,” said he.
+
+“Then I’ll gang there straight,” says I.
+
+“But ye’ll be for a bite or ye go?” said he.
+
+“Neither bite nor sup,” said I. “I had a good wauch of milk in by
+Ratho.”
+
+“Aweel, aweel,” says Doig. “But ye’ll can leave your horse here and
+your bags, for it seems we’re to have your up-put.”
+
+“Na, na”, said I. “Tamson’s mear [17] would never be the thing for me
+this day of all days.”
+
+Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an
+accent much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect a
+good deal broader, indeed, than I have written it down; and I was the
+more ashamed when another voice joined in behind me with a scrap of a
+ballad:
+
+“Gae saddle me the bonny black,
+Gae saddle sune and mak’ him ready
+For I will down the Gatehope-slack,
+And a’ to see my bonny leddy.”
+
+
+The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and her
+hands muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance. Yet I could
+not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she saw me.
+
+“My best respects to you, Mistress Grant,” said I, bowing.
+
+“The like to yourself, Mr. David,” she replied with a deep courtesy.
+“And I beg to remind you of an old musty saw, that meat and mass never
+hindered man. The mass I cannot afford you, for we are all good
+Protestants. But the meat I press on your attention. And I would not
+wonder but I could find something for your private ear that would be
+worth the stopping for.”
+
+“Mistress Grant,” said I, “I believe I am already your debtor for some
+merry words—and I think they were kind too—on a piece of unsigned
+paper.”
+
+“Unsigned paper?” says she, and made a droll face, which was likewise
+wondrous beautiful, as of one trying to remember.
+
+“Or else I am the more deceived,” I went on. “But to be sure, we shall
+have the time to speak of these, since your father is so good as to
+make me for a while your inmate; and the _gomeral_ begs you at this
+time only for the favour of his liberty.”
+
+“You give yourself hard names,” said she.
+
+“Mr. Doig and I would be blythe to take harder at your clever pen,”
+says I.
+
+“Once more I have to admire the discretion of all men-folk,” she
+replied. “But if you will not eat, off with you at once; you will be
+back the sooner, for you go on a fool’s errand. Off with you, Mr.
+David,” she continued, opening the door.
+
+“He has lowpen on his bonny grey,
+He rade the richt gate and the ready
+I trow he would neither stint nor stay,
+For he was seeking his bonny leddy.”
+
+
+I did not wait to be twice bidden, and did justice to Miss Grant’s
+citation on the way to Dean.
+
+Old Lady Allardyce walked there alone in the garden, in her hat and
+mutch, and having a silver-mounted staff of some black wood to lean
+upon. As I alighted from my horse, and drew near to her with _congees_,
+I could see the blood come in her face, and her head fling into the air
+like what I had conceived of empresses.
+
+“What brings you to my poor door?” she cried, speaking high through her
+nose. “I cannot bar it. The males of my house are dead and buried; I
+have neither son nor husband to stand in the gate for me; any beggar
+can pluck me by the baird [18]—and a baird there is, and that’s the
+worst of it yet!” she added partly to herself.
+
+I was extremely put out at this reception, and the last remark, which
+seemed like a daft wife’s, left me near hand speechless.
+
+“I see I have fallen under your displeasure, ma’am,” said I. “Yet I
+will still be so bold as ask after Mistress Drummond.”
+
+She considered me with a burning eye, her lips pressed close together
+into twenty creases, her hand shaking on her staff. “This cows all!”
+she cried. “Ye come to me to speir for her? Would God I knew!”
+
+“She is not here?” I cried.
+
+She threw up her chin and made a step and a cry at me, so that I fell
+back incontinent.
+
+“Out upon your leeing throat!” she cried. “What! ye come and speir at
+me! She’s in jyle, whaur ye took her to—that’s all there is to it. And
+of a’ the beings ever I beheld in breeks, to think it should be to you!
+Ye timmer scoun’rel, if I had a male left to my name I would have your
+jaicket dustit till ye raired.”
+
+I thought it not good to delay longer in that place, because I remarked
+her passion to be rising. As I turned to the horse-post she even
+followed me; and I make no shame to confess that I rode away with the
+one stirrup on and scrambling for the other.
+
+As I knew no other quarter where I could push my inquiries, there was
+nothing left me but to return to the Advocate’s. I was well received by
+the four ladies, who were now in company together, and must give the
+news of Prestongrange and what word went in the west country, at the
+most inordinate length and with great weariness to myself; while all
+the time that young lady, with whom I so much desired to be alone
+again, observed me quizzically and seemed to find pleasure in the sight
+of my impatience. At last, after I had endured a meal with them, and
+was come very near the point of appealing for an interview before her
+aunt, she went and stood by the music-case, and picking out a tune,
+sang to it on a high key—“He that will not when he may, When he will he
+shall have nay.” But this was the end of her rigours, and presently,
+after making some excuse of which I have no mind, she carried me away
+in private to her father’s library. I should not fail to say she was
+dressed to the nines, and appeared extraordinary handsome.
+
+“Now, Mr. David, sit ye down here and let us have a two-handed crack,”
+said she. “For I have much to tell you, and it appears besides that I
+have been grossly unjust to your good taste.”
+
+“In what manner, Mistress Grant?” I asked. “I trust I have never seemed
+to fail in due respect.”
+
+“I will be your surety, Mr. David,” said she. “Your respect, whether to
+yourself or your poor neighbours, has been always and most fortunately
+beyond imitation. But that is by the question. You got a note from me?”
+she asked.
+
+“I was so bold as to suppose so upon inference,” said I, “and it was
+kindly thought upon.”
+
+“It must have prodigiously surprised you,” said she. “But let us begin
+with the beginning. You have not perhaps forgot a day when you were so
+kind as to escort three very tedious misses to Hope Park? I have the
+less cause to forget it myself, because you was so particular obliging
+as to introduce me to some of the principles of the Latin grammar, a
+thing which wrote itself profoundly on my gratitude.”
+
+“I fear I was sadly pedantical,” said I, overcome with confusion at the
+memory. “You are only to consider I am quite unused with the society of
+ladies.”
+
+“I will say the less about the grammar then,” she replied. “But how
+came you to desert your charge? ‘He has thrown her out, overboard, his
+ain dear Annie!’” she hummed; “and his ain dear Annie and her two
+sisters had to taigle home by theirselves like a string of green geese!
+It seems you returned to my papa’s, where you showed yourself
+excessively martial, and then on to realms unknown, with an eye (it
+appears) to the Bass Rock; solan geese being perhaps more to your mind
+than bonny lasses.”
+
+Through all this raillery there was something indulgent in the lady’s
+eye which made me suppose there might be better coming.
+
+“You take a pleasure to torment me,” said I, “and I make a very
+feckless plaything; but let me ask you to be more merciful. At this
+time there is but the one thing that I care to hear of, and that will
+be news of Catriona.”
+
+“Do you call her by that name to her face, Mr. Balfour?” she asked.
+
+“In troth, and I am not very sure,” I stammered.
+
+“I would not do so in any case to strangers,” said Miss Grant. “And why
+are you so much immersed in the affairs of this young lady?”
+
+“I heard she was in prison,” said I.
+
+“Well, and now you hear that she is out of it,” she replied, “and what
+more would you have? She has no need of any further champion.”
+
+“I may have the greater need of her, ma’am,” said I.
+
+“Come, this is better!” says Miss Grant. “But look me fairly in the
+face; am I not bonnier than she?”
+
+“I would be the last to be denying it,” said I. “There is not your
+marrow in all Scotland.”
+
+“Well, here you have the pick of the two at your hand, and must needs
+speak of the other,” said she. “This is never the way to please the
+ladies, Mr. Balfour.”
+
+“But, mistress,” said I, “there are surely other things besides mere
+beauty.”
+
+“By which I am to understand that I am no better than I should be,
+perhaps?” she asked.
+
+“By which you will please understand that I am like the cock in the
+midden in the fable book,” said I. “I see the braw jewel—and I like
+fine to see it too—but I have more need of the pickle corn.”
+
+“Bravissimo!” she cried. “There is a word well said at last, and I will
+reward you for it with my story. That same night of your desertion I
+came late from a friend’s house—where I was excessively admired,
+whatever you may think of it—and what should I hear but that a lass in
+a tartan screen desired to speak with me? She had been there an hour or
+better, said the servant-lass, and she grat in to herself as she sat
+waiting. I went to her direct; she rose as I came in, and I knew her at
+a look. ‘_Grey Eyes_!’ says I to myself, but was more wise than to let
+on. _You will be Miss Grant at last_? she says, rising and looking at
+me hard and pitiful. _Ay_, _it was true he said_, _you are bonny at all
+events_.—_The way God made me_, _my dear_, I said, _but I would be gey
+and obliged if you could tell me what brought you here at such a time
+of the night_.—_Lady_, she said, _we are kinsfolk_, _we are both come
+of the blood of the sons of Alpin_.—_My dear_, I replied, _I think no
+more of Alpin or his sons than what I do of a kalestock_. _You have a
+better argument in these tears upon your bonny face_. And at that I was
+so weak-minded as to kiss her, which is what you would like to do
+dearly, and I wager will never find the courage of. I say it was
+weak-minded of me, for I knew no more of her than the outside; but it
+was the wisest stroke I could have hit upon. She is a very staunch,
+brave nature, but I think she has been little used with tenderness; and
+at that caress (though to say the truth, it was but lightly given) her
+heart went out to me. I will never betray the secrets of my sex, Mr.
+Davie; I will never tell you the way she turned me round her thumb,
+because it is the same she will use to twist yourself. Ay, it is a fine
+lass! She is as clean as hill well water.”
+
+“She is e’en’t!” I cried.
+
+“Well, then, she told me her concerns,” pursued Miss Grant, “and in
+what a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking about
+yourself, with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she had
+found herself after you was gone away. _And then I minded at long
+last_, says she, _that we were kinswomen_, _and that Mr. David should
+have given you the name of the bonniest of the bonny_, _and I was
+thinking to myself_ ‘_If she is so bonny she will be good at all
+events_’; _and I took up my foot soles out of that_. That was when I
+forgave yourself, Mr. Davie. When you was in my society, you seemed
+upon hot iron: by all marks, if ever I saw a young man that wanted to
+be gone, it was yourself, and I and my two sisters were the ladies you
+were so desirous to be gone from; and now it appeared you had given me
+some notice in the by-going, and was so kind as to comment on my
+attractions! From that hour you may date our friendship, and I began to
+think with tenderness upon the Latin grammar.”
+
+“You will have many hours to rally me in,” said I; “and I think besides
+you do yourself injustice. I think it was Catriona turned your heart in
+my direction. She is too simple to perceive as you do the stiffness of
+her friend.”
+
+“I would not like to wager upon that, Mr. David,” said she. “The lasses
+have clear eyes. But at least she is your friend entirely, as I was to
+see. I carried her in to his lordship my papa; and his Advocacy being
+in a favourable stage of claret, was so good as to receive the pair of
+us. _Here is Grey Eyes that you have been deaved with these days past_,
+said I, _she is come to prove that we spoke true_, _and I lay the
+prettiest lass in the three Lothians at your feet_—making a papistical
+reservation of myself. She suited her action to my words: down she went
+upon her knees to him—I would not like to swear but he saw two of her,
+which doubtless made her appeal the more irresistible, for you are all
+a pack of Mahomedans—told him what had passed that night, and how she
+had withheld her father’s man from following of you, and what a case
+she was in about her father, and what a flutter for yourself; and
+begged with weeping for the lives of both of you (neither of which was
+in the slightest danger), till I vow I was proud of my sex because it
+was done so pretty, and ashamed for it because of the smallness of the
+occasion. She had not gone far, I assure you, before the Advocate was
+wholly sober, to see his inmost politics ravelled out by a young lass
+and discovered to the most unruly of his daughters. But we took him in
+hand, the pair of us, and brought that matter straight. Properly
+managed—and that means managed by me—there is no one to compare with my
+papa.”
+
+“He has been a good man to me,” said I.
+
+“Well, he was a good man to Katrine, and I was there to see to it,”
+said she.
+
+“And she pled for me?” say I.
+
+“She did that, and very movingly,” said Miss Grant. “I would not like
+to tell you what she said—I find you vain enough already.”
+
+“God reward her for it!” cried I.
+
+“With Mr. David Balfour, I suppose?” says she.
+
+“You do me too much injustice at the last!” I cried. “I would tremble
+to think of her in such hard hands. Do you think I would presume,
+because she begged my life? She would do that for a new whelped puppy!
+I have had more than that to set me up, if you but ken’d. She kissed
+that hand of mine. Ay, but she did. And why? because she thought I was
+playing a brave part and might be going to my death. It was not for my
+sake—but I need not be telling that to you, that cannot look at me
+without laughter. It was for the love of what she thought was bravery.
+I believe there is none but me and poor Prince Charlie had that honour
+done them. Was this not to make a god of me? and do you not think my
+heart would quake when I remember it?”
+
+“I do laugh at you a good deal, and a good deal more than is quite
+civil,” said she; “but I will tell you one thing: if you speak to her
+like that, you have some glimmerings of a chance.”
+
+“Me?” I cried, “I would never dare. I can speak to you, Miss Grant,
+because it’s a matter of indifference what ye think of me. But her? no
+fear!” said I.
+
+“I think you have the largest feet in all broad Scotland,” says she.
+
+“Troth they are no very small,” said I, looking down.
+
+“Ah, poor Catriona!” cries Miss Grant.
+
+And I could but stare upon her; for though I now see very well what she
+was driving at (and perhaps some justification for the same), I was
+never swift at the uptake in such flimsy talk.
+
+“Ah well, Mr. David,” she said, “it goes sore against my conscience,
+but I see I shall have to be your speaking board. She shall know you
+came to her straight upon the news of her imprisonment; she shall know
+you would not pause to eat; and of our conversation she shall hear just
+so much as I think convenient for a maid of her age and inexperience.
+Believe me, you will be in that way much better served than you could
+serve yourself, for I will keep the big feet out of the platter.”
+
+“You know where she is, then?” I exclaimed.
+
+“That I do, Mr. David, and will never tell,” said she.
+
+“Why that?” I asked.
+
+“Well,” she said, “I am a good friend, as you will soon discover; and
+the chief of those that I am friend to is my papa. I assure you, you
+will never heat nor melt me out of that, so you may spare me your
+sheep’s eyes; and adieu to your David-Balfourship for the now.”
+
+“But there is yet one thing more,” I cried. “There is one thing that
+must be stopped, being mere ruin to herself, and to me too.”
+
+“Well,” she said, “be brief; I have spent half the day on you already.”
+
+“My Lady Allardyce believes,” I began—“she supposes—she thinks that I
+abducted her.”
+
+The colour came into Miss Grant’s face, so that at first I was quite
+abashed to find her ear so delicate, till I bethought me she was
+struggling rather with mirth, a notion in which I was altogether
+confirmed by the shaking of her voice as she replied—
+
+“I will take up the defence of your reputation,” she said. “You may
+leave it in my hands.”
+
+And with that she withdrew out of the library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
+
+
+For about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange’s
+family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar, and
+the flower of Edinburgh company. You are not to suppose my education
+was neglected; on the contrary, I was kept extremely busy. I studied
+the French, so as to be more prepared to go to Leyden; I set myself to
+the fencing, and wrought hard, sometimes three hours in the day, with
+notable advancement; at the suggestion of my cousin, Pilrig, who was an
+apt musician, I was put to a singing class; and by the orders of my
+Miss Grant, to one for the dancing, at which I must say I proved far
+from ornamental. However, all were good enough to say it gave me an
+address a little more genteel; and there is no question but I learned
+to manage my coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and to stand in
+a room as though the same belonged to me. My clothes themselves were
+all earnestly re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance, such as
+where I should tie my hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated among
+the three misses like a thing of weight. One way with another, no doubt
+I was a good deal improved to look at, and acquired a bit of modest air
+that would have surprised the good folks at Essendean.
+
+The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my
+habiliment, because that was in the line of their chief thoughts. I
+cannot say that they appeared any other way conscious of my presence;
+and though always more than civil, with a kind of heartless cordiality,
+could not hide how much I wearied them. As for the aunt, she was a
+wonderful still woman; and I think she gave me much the same attention
+as she gave the rest of the family, which was little enough. The eldest
+daughter and the Advocate himself were thus my principal friends, and
+our familiarity was much increased by a pleasure that we took in
+common. Before the court met we spent a day or two at the house of
+Grange, living very nobly with an open table, and here it was that we
+three began to ride out together in the fields, a practice afterwards
+maintained in Edinburgh, so far as the Advocate’s continual affairs
+permitted. When we were put in a good frame by the briskness of the
+exercise, the difficulties of the way, or the accidents of bad weather,
+my shyness wore entirely off; we forgot that we were strangers, and
+speech not being required, it flowed the more naturally on. Then it was
+that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the time that I left
+Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the _Covenant_, wanderings in
+the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found in my adventures
+sprung the circumstance of a jaunt we made a little later on, on a day
+when the courts were not sitting, and of which I will tell a trifle
+more at length.
+
+We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where it
+stood smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet early
+in the day. Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his horse, an
+proceeded alone to visit my uncle. My heart, I remember, swelled up
+bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the thought of the
+old miser sitting chittering within in the cold kitchen!
+
+“There is my home,” said I; “and my family.”
+
+“Poor David Balfour!” said Miss Grant.
+
+What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would doubtless
+not be very agreeable to Ebenezer, for when the Advocate came forth
+again his face was dark.
+
+“I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr. Davie,” says he,
+turning half about with the one foot in the stirrup.
+
+“I will never pretend sorrow,” said I; and, to say the truth, during
+his absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place in fancy
+with plantations, parterres, and a terrace—much as I have since carried
+out in fact.
+
+Thence we pushed to the Queensferry, where Rankeillor gave us a good
+welcome, being indeed out of the body to receive so great a visitor.
+Here the Advocate was so unaffectedly good as to go quite fully over my
+affairs, sitting perhaps two hours with the Writer in his study, and
+expressing (I was told) a great esteem for myself and concern for my
+fortunes. To while this time, Miss Grant and I and young Rankeillor
+took boat and passed the Hope to Limekilns. Rankeillor made himself
+very ridiculous (and, I thought, offensive) with his admiration for the
+young lady, and to my wonder (only it is so common a weakness of her
+sex) she seemed, if anything, to be a little gratified. One use it had:
+for when we were come to the other side, she laid her commands on him
+to mind the boat, while she and I passed a little further to the
+alehouse. This was her own thought, for she had been taken with my
+account of Alison Hastie, and desired to see the lass herself. We found
+her once more alone—indeed, I believe her father wrought all day in the
+fields—and she curtsied dutifully to the gentry-folk and the beautiful
+young lady in the riding-coat.
+
+“Is this all the welcome I am to get?” said I, holding out my hand.
+“And have you no more memory of old friends?”
+
+“Keep me! wha’s this of it?” she cried, and then, “God’s truth, it’s
+the tautit [19] laddie!”
+
+“The very same,” says I.
+
+“Mony’s the time I’ve thocht upon you and your freen, and blythe am I
+to see in your braws,” [20] she cried. “Though I kent ye were come to
+your ain folk by the grand present that ye sent me and that I thank ye
+for with a’ my heart.”
+
+“There,” said Miss Grant to me, “run out by with ye, like a guid bairn.
+I didnae come here to stand and haud a candle; it’s her and me that are
+to crack.”
+
+I suppose she stayed ten minutes in the house, but when she came forth
+I observed two things—that her eyes were reddened, and a silver brooch
+was gone out of her bosom. This very much affected me.
+
+“I never saw you so well adorned,” said I.
+
+“O Davie man, dinna be a pompous gowk!” said she, and was more than
+usually sharp to me the remainder of the day.
+
+About candlelight we came home from this excursion.
+
+For a good while I heard nothing further of Catriona—my Miss Grant
+remaining quite impenetrable, and stopping my mouth with pleasantries.
+At last, one day that she returned from walking and found me alone in
+the parlour over my French, I thought there was something unusual in
+her looks; the colour heightened, the eyes sparkling high, and a bit of
+a smile continually bitten in as she regarded me. She seemed indeed
+like the very spirit of mischief, and, walking briskly in the room, had
+soon involved me in a kind of quarrel over nothing and (at the least)
+with nothing intended on my side. I was like Christian in the
+slough—the more I tried to clamber out upon the side, the deeper I
+became involved; until at last I heard her declare, with a great deal
+of passion, that she would take that answer from the hands of none, and
+I must down upon my knees for pardon.
+
+The causelessness of all this fuff stirred my own bile. “I have said
+nothing you can properly object to,” said I, “and as for my knees, that
+is an attitude I keep for God.”
+
+“And as a goddess I am to be served!” she cried, shaking her brown
+locks at me and with a bright colour. “Every man that comes within waft
+of my petticoats shall use me so!”
+
+“I will go so far as ask your pardon for the fashion’s sake, although I
+vow I know not why,” I replied. “But for these play-acting postures,
+you can go to others.”
+
+“O Davie!” she said. “Not if I was to beg you?”
+
+I bethought me I was fighting with a woman, which is the same as to say
+a child, and that upon a point entirely formal.
+
+“I think it a bairnly thing,” I said, “not worthy in you to ask, or me
+to render. Yet I will not refuse you, neither,” said I; “and the stain,
+if there be any, rests with yourself.” And at that I kneeled fairly
+down.
+
+“There!” she cried. “There is the proper station, there is where I have
+been manoeuvring to bring you.” And then, suddenly, “Kep,” [21] said
+she, flung me a folded billet, and ran from the apartment laughing.
+
+The billet had neither place nor date. “Dear Mr. David,” it began, “I
+get your news continually by my cousin, Miss Grant, and it is a
+pleisand hearing. I am very well, in a good place, among good folk, but
+necessitated to be quite private, though I am hoping that at long last
+we may meet again. All your friendships have been told me by my loving
+cousin, who loves us both. She bids me to send you this writing, and
+oversees the same. I will be asking you to do all her commands, and
+rest your affectionate friend, Catriona Macgregor-Drummond. P.S.—Will
+you not see my cousin, Allardyce?”
+
+I think it not the least brave of my campaigns (as the soldiers say)
+that I should have done as I was here bidden and gone forthright to the
+house by Dean. But the old lady was now entirely changed and supple as
+a glove. By what means Miss Grant had brought this round I could never
+guess; I am sure, at least, she dared not to appear openly in the
+affair, for her papa was compromised in it pretty deep. It was he,
+indeed, who had persuaded Catriona to leave, or rather, not to return,
+to her cousin’s, placing her instead with a family of Gregorys—decent
+people, quite at the Advocate’s disposition, and in whom she might have
+the more confidence because they were of his own clan and family. These
+kept her private till all was ripe, heated and helped her to attempt
+her father’s rescue, and after she was discharged from prison received
+her again into the same secrecy. Thus Prestongrange obtained and used
+his instrument; nor did there leak out the smallest word of his
+acquaintance with the daughter of James More. There was some
+whispering, of course, upon the escape of that discredited person; but
+the Government replied by a show of rigour, one of the cell porters was
+flogged, the lieutenant of the guard (my poor friend, Duncansby) was
+broken of his rank, and as for Catriona, all men were well enough
+pleased that her fault should be passed by in silence.
+
+I could never induce Miss Grant to carry back an answer. “No,” she
+would say, when I persisted, “I am going to keep the big feet out of
+the platter.” This was the more hard to bear, as I was aware she saw my
+little friend many times in the week, and carried her my news whenever
+(as she said) I “had behaved myself.” At last she treated me to what
+she called an indulgence, and I thought rather more of a banter. She
+was certainly a strong, almost a violent, friend to all she liked,
+chief among whom was a certain frail old gentlewoman, very blind and
+very witty, who dwelt on the top of a tall land on a strait close, with
+a nest of linnets in a cage, and thronged all day with visitors. Miss
+Grant was very fond to carry me there and put me to entertain her
+friend with the narrative of my misfortunes: and Miss Tibbie Ramsay
+(that was her name) was particular kind, and told me a great deal that
+was worth knowledge of old folks and past affairs in Scotland. I should
+say that from her chamber window, and not three feet away, such is the
+straitness of that close, it was possible to look into a barred
+loophole lighting the stairway of the opposite house.
+
+Here, upon some pretext, Miss Grant left me one day alone with Miss
+Ramsay. I mind I thought that lady inattentive and like one
+preoccupied. I was besides very uncomfortable, for the window, contrary
+to custom, was left open and the day was cold. All at once the voice of
+Miss Grant sounded in my ears as from a distance.
+
+“Here, Shaws!” she cried, “keek out of the window and see what I have
+broughten you.”
+
+I think it was the prettiest sight that ever I beheld. The well of the
+close was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly, the
+walls very black and dingy; and there from the barred loophole I saw
+two faces smiling across at me—Miss Grant’s and Catriona’s.
+
+“There!” says Miss Grant, “I wanted her to see you in your braws like
+the lass of Limekilns. I wanted her to see what I could make of you,
+when I buckled to the job in earnest!”
+
+It came in my mind that she had been more than common particular that
+day upon my dress; and I think that some of the same care had been
+bestowed upon Catriona. For so merry and sensible a lady, Miss Grant
+was certainly wonderful taken up with duds.
+
+“Catriona!” was all I could get out.
+
+As for her, she said nothing in the world, but only waved her hand and
+smiled to me, and was suddenly carried away again from before the
+loophole.
+
+That vision was no sooner lost than I ran to the house door, where I
+found I was locked in; thence back to Miss Ramsay, crying for the key,
+but might as well have cried upon the castle rock. She had passed her
+word, she said, and I must be a good lad. It was impossible to burst
+the door, even if it had been mannerly; it was impossible I should leap
+from the window, being seven storeys above ground. All I could do was
+to crane over the close and watch for their reappearance from the
+stair. It was little to see, being no more than the tops of their two
+heads each on a ridiculous bobbin of skirts, like to a pair of
+pincushions. Nor did Catriona so much as look up for a farewell; being
+prevented (as I heard afterwards) by Miss Grant, who told her folk were
+never seen to less advantage than from above downward.
+
+On the way home, as soon as I was set free, I upbraided Miss Grant with
+her cruelty.
+
+“I am sorry you was disappointed,” says she demurely. “For my part I
+was very pleased. You looked better than I dreaded; you looked—if it
+will not make you vain—a mighty pretty young man when you appeared in
+the window. You are to remember that she could not see your feet,” says
+she, with the manner of one reassuring me.
+
+“O!” cried I, “leave my feet be—they are no bigger than my
+neighbours’.”
+
+“They are even smaller than some,” said she, “but I speak in parables
+like a Hebrew prophet.”
+
+“I marvel little they were sometimes stoned!” says I. “But, you
+miserable girl, how could you do it? Why should you care to tantalise
+me with a moment?”
+
+“Love is like folk,” says she; “it needs some kind of vivers.” [22]
+
+“Oh, Barbara, let me see her properly!” I pleaded. “_You_ can—you see
+her when you please; let me have half an hour.”
+
+“Who is it that is managing this love affair! You! Or me?” she asked,
+and as I continued to press her with my instances, fell back upon a
+deadly expedient: that of imitating the tones of my voice when I called
+on Catriona by name; with which, indeed, she held me in subjection for
+some days to follow.
+
+There was never the least word heard of the memorial, or none by me.
+Prestongrange and his grace the Lord President may have heard of it
+(for what I know) on the deafest sides of their heads; they kept it to
+themselves, at least—the public was none the wiser; and in course of
+time, on November 8th, and in the midst of a prodigious storm of wind
+and rain, poor James of the Glens was duly hanged at Lettermore by
+Ballachulish.
+
+So there was the final upshot of my politics! Innocent men have
+perished before James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite of
+all our wisdom) till the end of time. And till the end of time young
+folk (who are not yet used with the duplicity of life and men) will
+struggle as I did, and make heroical resolves, and take long risks; and
+the course of events will push them upon the one side and go on like a
+marching army. James was hanged; and here was I dwelling in the house
+of Prestongrange, and grateful to him for his fatherly attention. He
+was hanged; and behold! when I met Mr. Simon in the causeway, I was
+fain to pull off my beaver to him like a good little boy before his
+dominie. He had been hanged by fraud and violence, and the world wagged
+along, and there was not a pennyweight of difference; and the villains
+of that horrid plot were decent, kind, respectable fathers of families,
+who went to kirk and took the sacrament!
+
+But I had had my view of that detestable business they call politics—I
+had seen it from behind, when it is all bones and blackness; and I was
+cured for life of any temptations to take part in it again. A plain,
+quiet, private path was that which I was ambitious to walk in, when I
+might keep my head out of the way of dangers and my conscience out of
+the road of temptation. For, upon a retrospect, it appeared I had not
+done so grandly, after all; but with the greatest possible amount of
+big speech and preparation, had accomplished nothing.
+
+The 25th of the same month a ship was advertised to sail from Leith;
+and I was suddenly recommended to make up my mails for Leyden. To
+Prestongrange I could, of course, say nothing; for I had already been a
+long while sorning on his house and table. But with his daughter I was
+more open, bewailing my fate that I should be sent out of the country,
+and assuring her, unless she should bring me to farewell with Catriona,
+I would refuse at the last hour.
+
+“Have I not given you my advice?” she asked.
+
+“I know you have,” said I, “and I know how much I am beholden to you
+already, and that I am bidden to obey your orders. But you must confess
+you are something too merry a lass at times to lippen [23] to
+entirely.”
+
+“I will tell you, then,” said she. “Be you on board by nine o’clock
+forenoon; the ship does not sail before one; keep your boat alongside;
+and if you are not pleased with my farewells when I shall send them,
+you can come ashore again and seek Katrine for yourself.”
+
+Since I could make no more of her, I was fain to be content with this.
+
+The day came round at last when she and I were to separate. We had been
+extremely intimate and familiar; I was much in her debt; and what way
+we were to part was a thing that put me from my sleep, like the vails I
+was to give to the domestic servants. I knew she considered me too
+backward, and rather desired to rise in her opinion on that head.
+Besides which, after so much affection shown and (I believe) felt upon
+both sides, it would have looked cold-like to be anyways stiff.
+Accordingly, I got my courage up and my words ready, and the last
+chance we were like to be alone, asked pretty boldly to be allowed to
+salute her in farewell.
+
+“You forget yourself strangely, Mr. Balfour,” said she. “I cannot call
+to mind that I have given you any right to presume on our
+acquaintancy.”
+
+I stood before her like a stopped clock, and knew not what to think,
+far less to say, when of a sudden she cast her arms about my neck and
+kissed me with the best will in the world.
+
+“You inimitable bairn!” she cried. “Did you think that I would let us
+part like strangers? Because I can never keep my gravity at you five
+minutes on end, you must not dream I do not love you very well: I am
+all love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you! And now I will
+give you an advice to conclude your education, which you will have need
+of before it’s very long. Never _ask_ womenfolk. They’re bound to
+answer ‘No’; God never made the lass that could resist the temptation.
+It’s supposed by divines to be the curse of Eve: because she did not
+say it when the devil offered her the apple, her daughters can say
+nothing else.”
+
+“Since I am so soon to lose my bonny professor,” I began.
+
+“This is gallant, indeed,” says she curtseying.
+
+“I would put the one question,” I went on. “May I ask a lass to marry
+to me?”
+
+“You think you could not marry her without!” she asked. “Or else get
+her to offer?”
+
+“You see you cannot be serious,” said I.
+
+“I shall be very serious in one thing, David,” said she: “I shall
+always be your friend.”
+
+As I got to my horse the next morning, the four ladies were all at that
+same window whence we had once looked down on Catriona, and all cried
+farewell and waved their pocket napkins as I rode away. One out of the
+four I knew was truly sorry; and at the thought of that, and how I had
+come to the door three months ago for the first time, sorrow and
+gratitude made a confusion in my mind.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND
+
+
+The ship lay at a single anchor, well outside the pier of Leith, so
+that all we passengers must come to it by the means of skiffs. This was
+very little troublesome, for the reason that the day was a flat calm,
+very frosty and cloudy, and with a low shifting fog upon the water. The
+body of the vessel was thus quite hid as I drew near, but the tall
+spars of her stood high and bright in a sunshine like the flickering of
+a fire. She proved to be a very roomy, commodious merchant, but
+somewhat blunt in the bows, and loaden extraordinary deep with salt,
+salted salmon, and fine white linen stockings for the Dutch. Upon my
+coming on board, the captain welcomed me—one Sang (out of Lesmahago, I
+believe), a very hearty, friendly tarpaulin of a man, but at the moment
+in rather of a bustle. There had no other of the passengers yet
+appeared, so that I was left to walk about upon the deck, viewing the
+prospect and wondering a good deal what these farewells should be which
+I was promised.
+
+All Edinburgh and the Pentland Hills glinted above me in a kind of
+smuisty brightness, now and again overcome with blots of cloud; of
+Leith there was no more than the tops of chimneys visible, and on the
+face of the water, where the haar [24] lay, nothing at all. Out of this
+I was presently aware of a sound of oars pulling, and a little after
+(as if out of the smoke of a fire) a boat issued. There sat a grave man
+in the stern sheets, well muffled from the cold, and by his side a
+tall, pretty, tender figure of a maid that brought my heart to a stand.
+I had scarce the time to catch my breath in, and be ready to meet her,
+as she stepped upon the deck, smiling, and making my best bow, which
+was now vastly finer than some months before, when first I made it to
+her ladyship. No doubt we were both a good deal changed: she seemed to
+have shot up like a young, comely tree. She had now a kind of pretty
+backwardness that became her well as of one that regarded herself more
+highly and was fairly woman; and for another thing, the hand of the
+same magician had been at work upon the pair of us, and Miss Grant had
+made us both _braw_, if she could make but the one _bonny_.
+
+The same cry, in words not very different, came from both of us, that
+the other was come in compliment to say farewell, and then we perceived
+in a flash we were to ship together.
+
+“O, why will not Baby have been telling me!” she cried; and then
+remembered a letter she had been given, on the condition of not opening
+it till she was well on board. Within was an enclosure for myself, and
+ran thus:
+
+“Dear Davie,—What do you think of my farewell? and what do you say to
+your fellow passenger? Did you kiss, or did you ask? I was about to
+have signed here, but that would leave the purport of my question
+doubtful, and in my own case _I ken the answer_. So fill up here with
+good advice. Do not be too blate, [25] and for God’s sake do not try to
+be too forward; nothing acts you worse. I am
+
+
+“Your affectionate friend and governess,
+“Barbara Grant.”
+
+
+I wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my pocketbook,
+put it in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed the whole with my
+new signet of the Balfour arms, and despatched it by the hand of
+Prestongrange’s servant that still waited in my boat.
+
+Then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure, which we had
+not done for a piece of a minute before (upon a common impulse) we
+shook hands again.
+
+“Catriona?” said I. It seemed that was the first and last word of my
+eloquence.
+
+“You will be glad to see me again?” says she.
+
+“And I think that is an idle word,” said I. “We are too deep friends to
+make speech upon such trifles.”
+
+“Is she not the girl of all the world?” she cried again. “I was never
+knowing such a girl so honest and so beautiful.”
+
+“And yet she cared no more for Alpin than what she did for a
+kale-stock,” said I.
+
+“Ah, she will say so indeed!” cries Catriona. “Yet it was for the name
+and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and was so good to me.”
+
+“Well, I will tell you why it was,” said I. “There are all sorts of
+people’s faces in this world. There is Barbara’s face, that everyone
+must look at and admire, and think her a fine, brave, merry girl. And
+then there is your face, which is quite different—I never knew how
+different till to-day. You cannot see yourself, and that is why you do
+not understand; but it was for the love of your face that she took you
+up and was so good to you. And everybody in the world would do the
+same.”
+
+“Everybody?” says she.
+
+“Every living soul!” said I.
+
+“Ah, then, that will be why the soldiers at the castle took me up!” she
+cried.
+
+“Barbara has been teaching you to catch me,” said I.
+
+“She will have taught me more than that at all events. She will have
+taught me a great deal about Mr. David—all the ill of him, and a little
+that was not so ill either, now and then,” she said, smiling. “She will
+have told me all there was of Mr. David, only just that he would sail
+upon this very same ship. And why it is you go?”
+
+I told her.
+
+“Ah, well,” said she, “we will be some days in company and then (I
+suppose) good-bye for altogether! I go to meet my father at a place of
+the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be exiles by the
+side of our chieftain.”
+
+I could say no more than just “O!” the name of James More always drying
+up my very voice.
+
+She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my thought.
+
+“There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David,” said
+she. “I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you altogether
+very well. And the one of them two is James More, my father, and the
+other is the Laird of Prestongrange. Prestongrange will have spoken by
+himself, or his daughter in the place of him. But for James More, my
+father, I have this much to say: he lay shackled in a prison; he is a
+plain honest soldier and a plain Highland gentleman; what they would be
+after he would never be guessing; but if he had understood it was to be
+some prejudice to a young gentleman like yourself, he would have died
+first. And for the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you
+to pardon my father and family for that same mistake.”
+
+“Catriona,” said I, “what that mistake was I do not care to know. I
+know but the one thing—that you went to Prestongrange and begged my
+life upon your knees. O, I ken well enough it was for your father that
+you went, but when you were there you pleaded for me also. It is a
+thing I cannot speak of. There are two things I cannot think of into
+myself: and the one is your good words when you called yourself my
+little friend, and the other that you pleaded for my life. Let us never
+speak more, we two, of pardon or offence.”
+
+We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on her;
+and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up in the
+nor’-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in upon the
+anchor.
+
+There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it a
+full cabin. Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkcaldy, and
+Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany. One was a
+Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants’ wives, to the charge of
+one of whom Catriona was recommended. Mrs. Gebbie (for that was her
+name) was by great good fortune heavily incommoded by the sea, and lay
+day and night on the broad of her back. We were besides the only
+creatures at all young on board the _Rose_, except a white-faced boy
+that did my old duty to attend upon the table; and it came about that
+Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves. We had the next
+seats together at the table, where I waited on her with extraordinary
+pleasure. On deck, I made her a soft place with my cloak; and the
+weather being singularly fine for that season, with bright frosty days
+and nights, a steady, gentle wind, and scarce a sheet started all the
+way through the North Sea, we sat there (only now and again walking to
+and fro for warmth) from the first blink of the sun till eight or nine
+at night under the clear stars. The merchants or Captain Sang would
+sometimes glance and smile upon us, or pass a merry word or two and
+give us the go-by again; but the most part of the time they were deep
+in herring and chintzes and linen, or in computations of the slowness
+of the passage, and left us to our own concerns, which were very little
+important to any but ourselves.
+
+At the first, we had a great deal to say, and thought ourselves pretty
+witty; and I was at a little pains to be the _beau_, and she (I
+believe) to play the young lady of experience. But soon we grew plainer
+with each other. I laid aside my high, clipped English (what little
+there was left of it) and forgot to make my Edinburgh bows and scrapes;
+she, upon her side, fell into a sort of kind familiarity; and we dwelt
+together like those of the same household, only (upon my side) with a
+more deep emotion. About the same time the bottom seemed to fall out of
+our conversation, and neither one of us the less pleased. Whiles she
+would tell me old wives’ tales, of which she had a wonderful variety,
+many of them from my friend red-headed Niel. She told them very pretty,
+and they were pretty enough childish tales; but the pleasure to myself
+was in the sound of her voice, and the thought that she was telling and
+I listening. Whiles, again, we would sit entirely silent, not
+communicating even with a look, and tasting pleasure enough in the
+sweetness of that neighbourhood. I speak here only for myself. Of what
+was in the maid’s mind, I am not very sure that ever I asked myself;
+and what was in my own, I was afraid to consider. I need make no secret
+of it now, either to myself or to the reader; I was fallen totally in
+love. She came between me and the sun. She had grown suddenly taller,
+as I say, but with a wholesome growth; she seemed all health, and
+lightness, and brave spirits; and I thought she walked like a young
+deer, and stood like a birch upon the mountains. It was enough for me
+to sit near by her on the deck; and I declare I scarce spent two
+thoughts upon the future, and was so well content with what I then
+enjoyed that I was never at the pains to imagine any further step;
+unless perhaps that I would be sometimes tempted to take her hand in
+mine and hold it there. But I was too like a miser of what joys I had,
+and would venture nothing on a hazard.
+
+What we spoke was usually of ourselves or of each other, so that if
+anyone had been at so much pains as overhear us, he must have supposed
+us the most egotistical persons in the world. It befell one day when we
+were at this practice, that we came on a discourse of friends and
+friendship, and I think now that we were sailing near the wind. We said
+what a fine thing friendship was, and how little we had guessed of it,
+and how it made life a new thing, and a thousand covered things of the
+same kind that will have been said, since the foundation of the world,
+by young folk in the same predicament. Then we remarked upon the
+strangeness of that circumstance, that friends came together in the
+beginning as if they were there for the first time, and yet each had
+been alive a good while, losing time with other people.
+
+“It is not much that I have done,” said she, “and I could be telling
+you the five-fifths of it in two-three words. It is only a girl I am,
+and what can befall a girl, at all events? But I went with the clan in
+the year ’45. The men marched with swords and fire-locks, and some of
+them in brigades in the same set of tartan; they were not backward at
+the marching, I can tell you. And there were gentlemen from the Low
+Country, with their tenants mounted and trumpets to sound, and there
+was a grand skirling of war-pipes. I rode on a little Highland horse on
+the right hand of my father, James More, and of Glengyle himself. And
+here is one fine thing that I remember, that Glengyle kissed me in the
+face, because (says he) ‘my kinswoman, you are the only lady of the
+clan that has come out,’ and me a little maid of maybe twelve years
+old! I saw Prince Charlie too, and the blue eyes of him; he was pretty
+indeed! I had his hand to kiss in front of the army. O, well, these
+were the good days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and
+then awakened. It went what way you very well know; and these were the
+worst days of all, when the red-coat soldiers were out, and my father
+and uncles lay in the hill, and I was to be carrying them their meat in
+the middle night, or at the short sight of day when the cocks crow.
+Yes, I have walked in the night, many’s the time, and my heart great in
+me for terror of the darkness. It is a strange thing I will never have
+been meddled with by a bogle; but they say a maid goes safe. Next there
+was my uncle’s marriage, and that was a dreadful affair beyond all.
+Jean Kay was that woman’s name; and she had me in the room with her
+that night at Inversnaid, the night we took her from her friends in the
+old, ancient manner. She would and she wouldn’t; she was for marrying
+Rob the one minute, and the next she would be for none of him. I will
+never have seen such a feckless creature of a woman; surely all there
+was of her would tell her ay or no. Well, she was a widow; and I can
+never be thinking a widow a good woman.”
+
+“Catriona!” says I, “how do you make out that?”
+
+“I do not know,” said she; “I am only telling you the seeming in my
+heart. And then to marry a new man! Fy! But that was her; and she was
+married again upon my Uncle Robin, and went with him awhile to kirk and
+market; and then wearied, or else her friends got claught of her and
+talked her round, or maybe she turned ashamed; at the least of it, she
+ran away, and went back to her own folk, and said we had held her in
+the lake, and I will never tell you all what. I have never thought much
+of any females since that day. And so in the end my father, James More,
+came to be cast in prison, and you know the rest of it an well as me.”
+
+“And through all you had no friends?” said I.
+
+“No,” said she; “I have been pretty chief with two-three lasses on the
+braes, but not to call it friends.”
+
+“Well, mine is a plain tale,” said I. “I never had a friend to my name
+till I met in with you.”
+
+“And that brave Mr. Stewart?” she asked.
+
+“O, yes, I was forgetting him,” I said. “But he is a man, and that is
+very different.”
+
+“I would think so,” said she. “O, yes, it is quite different.”
+
+“And then there was one other,” said I. “I once thought I had a friend,
+but it proved a disappointment.”
+
+She asked me who she was?
+
+“It was a he, then,” said I. “We were the two best lads at my father’s
+school, and we thought we loved each other dearly. Well, the time came
+when he went to Glasgow to a merchant’s house, that was his second
+cousin once removed; and wrote me two-three times by the carrier; and
+then he found new friends, and I might write till I was tired, he took
+no notice. Eh, Catriona, it took me a long while to forgive the world.
+There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend.”
+
+Then she began to question me close upon his looks and character, for
+we were each a great deal concerned in all that touched the other; till
+at last, in a very evil hour, I minded of his letters and went and
+fetched the bundle from the cabin.
+
+“Here are his letters,” said I, “and all the letters that ever I got.
+That will be the last I’ll can tell of myself; ye know the lave [26] as
+well as I do.”
+
+“Will you let me read them, then?” says she.
+
+I told her, _if she would be at the pains_; and she bade me go away and
+she would read them from the one end to the other. Now, in this bundle
+that I gave her, there were packed together not only all the letters of
+my false friend, but one or two of Mr. Campbell’s when he was in town
+at the Assembly, and to make a complete roll of all that ever was
+written to me, Catriona’s little word, and the two I had received from
+Miss Grant, one when I was on the Bass and one on board that ship. But
+of these last I had no particular mind at the moment.
+
+I was in that state of subjection to the thought of my friend that it
+mattered not what I did, nor scarce whether I was in her presence or
+out of it; I had caught her like some kind of a noble fever that lived
+continually in my bosom, by night and by day, and whether I was waking
+or asleep. So it befell that after I was come into the fore-part of the
+ship where the broad bows splashed into the billows, I was in no such
+hurry to return as you might fancy; rather prolonged my absence like a
+variety in pleasure. I do not think I am by nature much of an
+Epicurean: and there had come till then so small a share of pleasure in
+my way that I might be excused perhaps to dwell on it unduly.
+
+When I returned to her again, I had a faint, painful impression as of a
+buckle slipped, so coldly she returned the packet.
+
+“You have read them?” said I; and I thought my voice sounded not wholly
+natural, for I was turning in my mind for what could ail her.
+
+“Did you mean me to read all?” she asked.
+
+I told her “Yes,” with a drooping voice.
+
+“The last of them as well?” said she.
+
+I knew where we were now; yet I would not lie to her either. “I gave
+them all without afterthought,” I said, “as I supposed that you would
+read them. I see no harm in any.”
+
+“I will be differently made,” said she. “I thank God I am differently
+made. It was not a fit letter to be shown me. It was not fit to be
+written.”
+
+“I think you are speaking of your own friend, Barbara Grant?” said I.
+
+“There will not be anything as bitter as to lose a fancied friend,”
+said she, quoting my own expression.
+
+“I think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied!” I cried.
+“What kind of justice do you call this, to blame me for some words that
+a tomfool of a madcap lass has written down upon a piece of paper? You
+know yourself with what respect I have behaved—and would do always.”
+
+“Yet you would show me that same letter!” says she. “I want no such
+friends. I can be doing very well, Mr. Balfour, without her—or you.”
+
+“This is your fine gratitude!” says I.
+
+“I am very much obliged to you,” said she. “I will be asking you to
+take away your—letters.” She seemed to choke upon the word, so that it
+sounded like an oath.
+
+“You shall never ask twice,” said I; picked up that bundle, walked a
+little way forward and cast them as far as possible into the sea. For a
+very little more I could have cast myself after them.
+
+The rest of the day I walked up and down raging. There were few names
+so ill but what I gave her them in my own mind before the sun went
+down. All that I had ever heard of Highland pride seemed quite outdone;
+that a girl (scarce grown) should resent so trifling an allusion, and
+that from her next friend, that she had near wearied me with praising
+of! I had bitter, sharp, hard thoughts of her, like an angry boy’s. If
+I had kissed her indeed (I thought), perhaps she would have taken it
+pretty well; and only because it had been written down, and with a
+spice of jocularity, up she must fuff in this ridiculous passion. It
+seemed to me there was a want of penetration in the female sex, to make
+angels weep over the case of the poor men.
+
+We were side by side again at supper, and what a change was there! She
+was like curdled milk to me; her face was like a wooden doll’s; I could
+have indifferently smitten her or grovelled at her feet, but she gave
+me not the least occasion to do either. No sooner the meal done than
+she betook herself to attend on Mrs. Gebbie, which I think she had a
+little neglected heretofore. But she was to make up for lost time, and
+in what remained of the passage was extraordinary assiduous with the
+old lady, and on deck began to make a great deal more than I thought
+wise of Captain Sang. Not but what the Captain seemed a worthy,
+fatherly man; but I hated to behold her in the least familiarity with
+anyone except myself.
+
+Altogether, she was so quick to avoid me, and so constant to keep
+herself surrounded with others, that I must watch a long while before I
+could find my opportunity; and after it was found, I made not much of
+it, as you are now to hear.
+
+“I have no guess how I have offended,” said I; “it should scarce be
+beyond pardon, then. O, try if you can pardon me.”
+
+“I have no pardon to give,” said she; and the words seemed to come out
+of her throat like marbles. “I will be very much obliged for all your
+friendships.” And she made me an eighth part of a curtsey.
+
+But I had schooled myself beforehand to say more, and I was going to
+say it too.
+
+“There is one thing,” said I. “If I have shocked your particularity by
+the showing of that letter, it cannot touch Miss Grant. She wrote not
+to you, but to a poor, common, ordinary lad, who might have had more
+sense than show it. If you are to blame me—”
+
+“I will advise you to say no more about that girl, at all events!” said
+Catriona. “It is her I will never look the road of, not if she lay
+dying.” She turned away from me, and suddenly back. “Will you swear you
+will have no more to deal with her?” she cried.
+
+“Indeed, and I will never be so unjust then,” said I; “nor yet so
+ungrateful.”
+
+And now it was I that turned away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+HELVOETSLUYS
+
+
+The weather in the end considerably worsened; the wind sang in the
+shrouds, the sea swelled higher, and the ship began to labour and cry
+out among the billows. The song of the leadsman in the chains was now
+scarce ceasing, for we thrid all the way among shoals. About nine in
+the morning, in a burst of wintry sun between two squalls of hail, I
+had my first look of Holland—a line of windmills birling in the breeze.
+It was besides my first knowledge of these daft-like contrivances,
+which gave me a near sense of foreign travel and a new world and life.
+We came to an anchor about half-past eleven, outside the harbour of
+Helvoetsluys, in a place where the sea sometimes broke and the ship
+pitched outrageously. You may be sure we were all on deck save Mrs.
+Gebbie, some of us in cloaks, others mantled in the ship’s tarpaulins,
+all clinging on by ropes, and jesting the most like old sailor-folk
+that we could imitate.
+
+Presently a boat, that was backed like a partancrab, came gingerly
+alongside, and the skipper of it hailed our master in the Dutch. Thence
+Captain Sang turned, very troubled-like, to Catriona; and the rest of
+us crowding about, the nature of the difficulty was made plain to all.
+The _Rose_ was bound to the port of Rotterdam, whither the other
+passengers were in a great impatience to arrive, in view of a
+conveyance due to leave that very evening in the direction of the Upper
+Germany. This, with the present half-gale of wind, the captain (if no
+time were lost) declared himself still capable to save. Now James More
+had trysted in Helvoet with his daughter, and the captain had engaged
+to call before the port and place her (according to the custom) in a
+shore boat. There was the boat, to be sure, and here was Catriona
+ready: but both our master and the patroon of the boat scrupled at the
+risk, and the first was in no humour to delay.
+
+“Your father,” said he, “would be gey an little pleased if we was to
+break a leg to ye, Miss Drummond, let-a-be drowning of you. Take my way
+of it,” says he, “and come on-by with the rest of us here to Rotterdam.
+Ye can get a passage down the Maes in a sailing scoot as far as to the
+Brill, and thence on again, by a place in a rattel-waggon, back to
+Helvoet.”
+
+But Catriona would hear of no change. She looked white-like as she
+beheld the bursting of the sprays, the green seas that sometimes poured
+upon the fore-castle, and the perpetual bounding and swooping of the
+boat among the billows; but she stood firmly by her father’s orders.
+“My father, James More, will have arranged it so,” was her first word
+and her last. I thought it very idle and indeed wanton in the girl to
+be so literal and stand opposite to so much kind advice; but the fact
+is she had a very good reason, if she would have told us. Sailing
+scoots and rattel-waggons are excellent things; only the use of them
+must first be paid for, and all she was possessed of in the world was
+just two shillings and a penny halfpenny sterling. So it fell out that
+captain and passengers, not knowing of her destitution—and she being
+too proud to tell them—spoke in vain.
+
+“But you ken nae French and nae Dutch neither,” said one.
+
+“It is very true,” says she, “but since the year ’46 there are so many
+of the honest Scotch abroad that I will be doing very well. I thank
+you.”
+
+There was a pretty country simplicity in this that made some laugh,
+others looked the more sorry, and Mr. Gebbie fall outright in a
+passion. I believe he knew it was his duty (his wife having accepted
+charge of the girl) to have gone ashore with her and seen her safe:
+nothing would have induced him to have done so, since it must have
+involved the lose of his conveyance; and I think he made it up to his
+conscience by the loudness of his voice. At least he broke out upon
+Captain Sang, raging and saying the thing was a disgrace; that it was
+mere death to try to leave the ship, and at any event we could not cast
+down an innocent maid in a boatful of nasty Holland fishers, and leave
+her to her fate. I was thinking something of the same; took the mate
+upon one side, arranged with him to send on my chests by track-scoot to
+an address I had in Leyden, and stood up and signalled to the fishers.
+
+“I will go ashore with the young lady, Captain Sang,” said I. “It is
+all one what way I go to Leyden;” and leaped at the same time into the
+boat, which I managed not so elegantly but what I fell with two of the
+fishers in the bilge.
+
+From the boat the business appeared yet more precarious than from the
+ship, she stood so high over us, swung down so swift, and menaced us so
+perpetually with her plunging and passaging upon the anchor cable. I
+began to think I had made a fool’s bargain, that it was merely
+impossible Catriona should be got on board to me, and that I stood to
+be set ashore at Helvoet all by myself and with no hope of any reward
+but the pleasure of embracing James More, if I should want to. But this
+was to reckon without the lass’s courage. She had seen me leap with
+very little appearance (however much reality) of hesitation; to be
+sure, she was not to be beat by her discarded friend. Up she stood on
+the bulwarks and held by a stay, the wind blowing in her petticoats,
+which made the enterprise more dangerous, and gave us rather more of a
+view of her stockings than would be thought genteel in cities. There
+was no minute lost, and scarce time given for any to interfere if they
+had wished the same. I stood up on the other side and spread my arms;
+the ship swung down on us, the patroon humoured his boat nearer in than
+was perhaps wholly safe, and Catriona leaped into the air. I was so
+happy as to catch her, and the fishers readily supporting us, escaped a
+fall. She held to me a moment very tight, breathing quick and deep;
+thence (she still clinging to me with both hands) we were passed aft to
+our places by the steersman; and Captain Sang and all the crew and
+passengers cheering and crying farewell, the boat was put about for
+shore.
+
+As soon as Catriona came a little to herself she unhanded me suddenly,
+but said no word. No more did I; and indeed the whistling of the wind
+and the breaching of the sprays made it no time for speech; and our
+crew not only toiled excessively but made extremely little way, so that
+the _Rose_ had got her anchor and was off again before we had
+approached the harbour mouth.
+
+We were no sooner in smooth water than the patroon, according to their
+beastly Hollands custom, stopped his boat and required of us our fares.
+Two guilders was the man’s demand—between three and four shillings
+English money—for each passenger. But at this Catriona began to cry out
+with a vast deal of agitation. She had asked of Captain Sang, she said,
+and the fare was but an English shilling. “Do you think I will have
+come on board and not ask first?” cries she. The patroon scolded back
+upon her in a lingo where the oaths were English and the rest right
+Hollands; till at last (seeing her near tears) I privately slipped in
+the rogue’s hand six shillings, whereupon he was obliging enough to
+receive from her the other shilling without more complaint. No doubt I
+was a good deal nettled and ashamed. I like to see folk thrifty, but
+not with so much passion; and I daresay it would be rather coldly that
+I asked her, as the boat moved on again for shore, where it was that
+she was trysted with her father.
+
+“He is to be inquired of at the house of one Sprott, an honest Scotch
+merchant,” says she; and then with the same breath, “I am wishing to
+thank you very much—you are a brave friend to me.”
+
+“It will be time enough when I get you to your father,” said I, little
+thinking that I spoke so true. “I can tell him a fine tale of a loyal
+daughter.”
+
+“O, I do not think I will be a loyal girl, at all events,” she cried,
+with a great deal of painfulness in the expression. “I do not think my
+heart is true.”
+
+“Yet there are very few that would have made that leap, and all to obey
+a father’s orders,” I observed.
+
+“I cannot have you to be thinking of me so,” she cried again. “When you
+had done that same, how would I stop behind? And at all events that was
+not all the reasons.” Whereupon, with a burning face, she told me the
+plain truth upon her poverty.
+
+“Good guide us!” cried I, “what kind of daft-like proceeding is this,
+to let yourself be launched on the continent of Europe with an empty
+purse—I count it hardly decent—scant decent!” I cried.
+
+“You forget James More, my father, is a poor gentleman,” said she. “He
+is a hunted exile.”
+
+“But I think not all your friends are hunted exiles,” I exclaimed. “And
+was this fair to them that care for you? Was it fair to me? was it fair
+to Miss Grant that counselled you to go, and would be driven fair
+horn-mad if she could hear of it? Was it even fair to these Gregory
+folk that you were living with, and used you lovingly? It’s a blessing
+you have fallen in my hands! Suppose your father hindered by an
+accident, what would become of you here, and you your lee-lone in a
+strange place? The thought of the thing frightens me,” I said.
+
+“I will have lied to all of them,” she replied. “I will have told them
+all that I had plenty. I told _her_ too. I could not be lowering James
+More to them.”
+
+I found out later on that she must have lowered him in the very dust,
+for the lie was originally the father’s, not the daughter’s, and she
+thus obliged to persevere in it for the man’s reputation. But at the
+time I was ignorant of this, and the mere thought of her destitution
+and the perils in which see must have fallen, had ruffled me almost
+beyond reason.
+
+“Well, well, well,” said I, “you will have to learn more sense.”
+
+I left her mails for the moment in an inn upon the shore, where I got a
+direction for Sprott’s house in my new French, and we walked there—it
+was some little way—beholding the place with wonder as we went. Indeed,
+there was much for Scots folk to admire: canals and trees being
+intermingled with the houses; the houses, each within itself, of a
+brave red brick, the colour of a rose, with steps and benches of blue
+marble at the cheek of every door, and the whole town so clean you
+might have dined upon the causeway. Sprott was within, upon his
+ledgers, in a low parlour, very neat and clean, and set out with china
+and pictures, and a globe of the earth in a brass frame. He was a
+big-chafted, ruddy, lusty man, with a crooked hard look to him; and he
+made us not that much civility as offer us a seat.
+
+“Is James More Macgregor now in Helvoet, sir?” says I.
+
+“I ken nobody by such a name,” says he, impatient-like.
+
+“Since you are so particular,” says I, “I will amend my question, and
+ask you where we are to find in Helvoet one James Drummond, _alias_
+Macgregor, _alias_ James More, late tenant in Inveronachile?”
+
+“Sir,” says he, “he may be in Hell for what I ken, and for my part I
+wish he was.”
+
+“The young lady is that gentleman’s daughter, sir,” said I, “before
+whom, I think you will agree with me, it is not very becoming to
+discuss his character.”
+
+“I have nothing to make either with him, or her, or you!” cries he in
+his gross voice.
+
+“Under your favour, Mr. Sprott,” said I, “this young lady is come from
+Scotland seeking him, and by whatever mistake, was given the name of
+your house for a direction. An error it seems to have been, but I think
+this places both you and me—who am but her fellow-traveller by
+accident—under a strong obligation to help our countrywoman.”
+
+“Will you ding me daft?” he cries. “I tell ye I ken naething and care
+less either for him or his breed. I tell ye the man owes me money.”
+
+“That may very well be, sir,” said I, who was now rather more angry
+than himself. “At least, I owe you nothing; the young lady is under my
+protection; and I am neither at all used with these manners, nor in the
+least content with them.”
+
+As I said this, and without particularly thinking what I did, I drew a
+step or two nearer to his table; thus striking, by mere good fortune,
+on the only argument that could at all affect the man. The blood left
+his lusty countenance.
+
+“For the Lord’s sake dinna be hasty, sir!” he cried. “I am truly
+wishfu’ no to be offensive. But ye ken, sir, I’m like a wheen
+guid-natured, honest, canty auld fellows—my bark is waur nor my bite.
+To hear me, ye micht whiles fancy I was a wee thing dour; but na, na!
+it’s a kind auld fallow at heart, Sandie Sprott! And ye could never
+imagine the fyke and fash this man has been to me.”
+
+“Very good, sir,” said I. “Then I will make that much freedom with your
+kindness as trouble you for your last news of Mr. Drummond.”
+
+“You’re welcome, sir!” said he. “As for the young leddy (my respects to
+her!), he’ll just have clean forgotten her. I ken the man, ye see; I
+have lost siller by him ere now. He thinks of naebody but just himsel’;
+clan, king, or dauchter, if he can get his wameful, he would give them
+a’ the go-by! ay, or his correspondent either. For there is a sense in
+whilk I may be nearly almost said to be his correspondent. The fact is,
+we are employed thegether in a business affair, and I think it’s like
+to turn out a dear affair for Sandie Sprott. The man’s as guid’s my
+pairtner, and I give ye my mere word I ken naething by where he is. He
+micht be coming here to Helvoet; he micht come here the morn, he
+michtnae come for a twalmouth; I would wonder at naething—or just at
+the ae thing, and that’s if he was to pay me my siller. Ye see what way
+I stand with it; and it’s clear I’m no very likely to meddle up with
+the young leddy, as ye ca’ her. She cannae stop here, that’s ae thing
+certain sure. Dod, sir, I’m a lone man! If I was to tak her in, its
+highly possible the hellicat would try and gar me marry her when he
+turned up.”
+
+“Enough of this talk,” said I. “I will take the young leddy among
+better friends. Give me, pen, ink, and paper, and I will leave here for
+James More the address of my correspondent in Leyden. He can inquire
+from me where he is to seek his daughter.”
+
+This word I wrote and sealed; which while I was doing, Sprott of his
+own motion made a welcome offer, to charge himself with Miss Drummond’s
+mails, and even send a porter for them to the inn. I advanced him to
+that effect a dollar or two to be a cover, and he gave me an
+acknowledgment in writing of the sum.
+
+Whereupon (I giving my arm to Catriona) we left the house of this
+unpalatable rascal. She had said no word throughout, leaving me to
+judge and speak in her place; I, upon my side, had been careful not to
+embarrass her by a glance; and even now, although my heart still glowed
+inside of me with shame and anger, I made it my affair to seem quite
+easy.
+
+“Now,” said I, “let us get back to yon same inn where they can speak
+the French, have a piece of dinner, and inquire for conveyances to
+Rotterdam. I will never be easy till I have you safe again in the hands
+of Mrs. Gebbie.”
+
+“I suppose it will have to be,” said Catriona, “though whoever will be
+pleased, I do not think it will be her. And I will remind you this once
+again that I have but one shilling, and three baubees.”
+
+“And just this once again,” said I, “I will remind you it was a
+blessing that I came alongst with you.”
+
+“What else would I be thinking all this time?” says she, and I thought
+weighed a little on my arm. “It is you that are the good friend to me.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+TRAVELS IN HOLLAND
+
+
+The rattel-waggon, which is a kind of a long waggon set with benches,
+carried us in four hours of travel to the great city of Rotterdam. It
+was long past dark by then, but the streets were pretty brightly
+lighted and thronged with wild-like, outlandish characters—bearded
+Hebrews, black men, and the hordes of courtesans, most indecently
+adorned with finery and stopping seamen by their very sleeves; the
+clash of talk about us made our heads to whirl; and what was the most
+unexpected of all, we appeared to be no more struck with all these
+foreigners than they with us. I made the best face I could, for the
+lass’s sake and my own credit; but the truth is I felt like a lost
+sheep, and my heart beat in my bosom with anxiety. Once or twice I
+inquired after the harbour or the berth of the ship _Rose_: but either
+fell on some who spoke only Hollands, or my own French failed me.
+Trying a street at a venture, I came upon a lane of lighted houses, the
+doors and windows thronged with wauf-like painted women; these jostled
+and mocked upon us as we passed, and I was thankful we had nothing of
+their language. A little after we issued forth upon an open place along
+the harbour.
+
+“We shall be doing now,” cries I, as soon as I spied masts. “Let us
+walk here by the harbour. We are sure to meet some that has the
+English, and at the best of it we may light upon that very ship.”
+
+We did the next best, as happened; for, about nine of the evening, whom
+should we walk into the arms of but Captain Sang? He told us they had
+made their run in the most incredible brief time, the wind holding
+strong till they reached port; by which means his passengers were all
+gone already on their further travels. It was impossible to chase after
+the Gebbies into the High Germany, and we had no other acquaintance to
+fall back upon but Captain Sang himself. It was the more gratifying to
+find the man friendly and wishful to assist. He made it a small affair
+to find some good plain family of merchants, where Catriona might
+harbour till the _Rose_ was loaden; declared he would then blithely
+carry her back to Leith for nothing and see her safe in the hands of
+Mr. Gregory; and in the meanwhile carried us to a late ordinary for the
+meal we stood in need of. He seemed extremely friendly, as I say, but
+what surprised me a good deal, rather boisterous in the bargain; and
+the cause of this was soon to appear. For at the ordinary, calling for
+Rhenish wine and drinking of it deep, he soon became unutterably tipsy.
+In this case, as too common with all men, but especially with those of
+his rough trade, what little sense or manners he possessed deserted
+him; and he behaved himself so scandalous to the young lady, jesting
+most ill-favouredly at the figure she had made on the ship’s rail, that
+I had no resource but carry her suddenly away.
+
+She came out of the ordinary clinging to me close. “Take me away,
+David,” she said. “_You_ keep me. I am not afraid with you.”
+
+“And have no cause, my little friend!” cried I, and could have found it
+in my heart to weep.
+
+“Where will you be taking me?” she said again. “Don’t leave me at all
+events—never leave me.”
+
+“Where am I taking you to?” says I stopping, for I had been staving on
+ahead in mere blindness. “I must stop and think. But I’ll not leave
+you, Catriona; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I should fail or
+fash you.”
+
+She crept close into me by way of a reply.
+
+“Here,” I said, “is the stillest place we have hit on yet in this busy
+byke of a city. Let us sit down here under yon tree and consider of our
+course.”
+
+That tree (which I am little like to forget) stood hard by the harbour
+side. It was like a black night, but lights were in the houses, and
+nearer hand in the quiet ships; there was a shining of the city on the
+one hand, and a buzz hung over it of many thousands walking and
+talking; on the other, it was dark and the water bubbled on the sides.
+I spread my cloak upon a builder’s stone, and made her sit there; she
+would have kept her hold upon me, for she still shook with the late
+affronts; but I wanted to think clear, disengaged myself, and paced to
+and fro before her, in the manner of what we call a smuggler’s walk,
+belabouring my brains for any remedy. By the course of these scattering
+thoughts I was brought suddenly face to face with a remembrance that,
+in the heat and haste of our departure, I had left Captain Sang to pay
+the ordinary. At this I began to laugh out loud, for I thought the man
+well served; and at the same time, by an instinctive movement, carried
+my hand to the pocket where my money was. I suppose it was in the lane
+where the women jostled us; but there is only the one thing certain,
+that my purse was gone.
+
+“You will have thought of something good,” said she, observing me to
+pause.
+
+At the pinch we were in, my mind became suddenly clear as a perspective
+glass, and I saw there was no choice of methods. I had not one doit of
+coin, but in my pocket-book I had still my letter on the Leyden
+merchant; and there was now but the one way to get to Leyden, and that
+was to walk on our two feet.
+
+“Catriona,” said I, “I know you’re brave and I believe you’re strong—do
+you think you could walk thirty miles on a plain road?” We found it, I
+believe, scarce the two-thirds of that, but such was my notion of the
+distance.
+
+“David,” she said, “if you will just keep near, I will go anywhere and
+do anything. The courage of my heart, it is all broken. Do not be
+leaving me in this horrible country by myself, and I will do all else.”
+
+“Can you start now and march all night?” said I.
+
+“I will do all that you can ask of me,” she said, “and never ask you
+why. I have been a bad ungrateful girl to you; and do what you please
+with me now! And I think Miss Barbara Grant is the best lady in the
+world,” she added, “and I do not see what she would deny you for at all
+events.”
+
+This was Greek and Hebrew to me; but I had other matters to consider,
+and the first of these was to get clear of that city on the Leyden
+road. It proved a cruel problem; and it may have been one or two at
+night ere we had solved it. Once beyond the houses, there was neither
+moon nor stars to guide us; only the whiteness of the way in the midst
+and a blackness of an alley on both hands. The walking was besides made
+most extraordinary difficult by a plain black frost that fell suddenly
+in the small hours and turned that highway into one long slide.
+
+“Well, Catriona,” said I, “here we are like the king’s sons and the old
+wives’ daughters in your daft-like Highland tales. Soon we’ll be going
+over the ‘_seven Bens_, _the seven glens and the seven mountain
+moors_’.” Which was a common byword or overcome in those tales of hers
+that had stuck in my memory.
+
+“Ah,” says she, “but here are no glens or mountains! Though I will
+never be denying but what the trees and some of the plain places
+hereabouts are very pretty. But our country is the best yet.”
+
+“I wish we could say as much for our own folk,” says I, recalling
+Sprott and Sang, and perhaps James More himself.
+
+“I will never complain of the country of my friend,” said she, and
+spoke it out with an accent so particular that I seemed to see the look
+upon her face.
+
+I caught in my breath sharp and came near falling (for my pains) on the
+black ice.
+
+“I do not know what _you_ think, Catriona,” said I, when I was a little
+recovered, “but this has been the best day yet! I think shame to say
+it, when you have met in with such misfortunes and disfavours; but for
+me, it has been the best day yet.”
+
+“It was a good day when you showed me so much love,” said she.
+
+“And yet I think shame to be happy too,” I went on, “and you here on
+the road in the black night.”
+
+“Where in the great world would I be else?” she cried. “I am thinking I
+am safest where I am with you.”
+
+“I am quite forgiven, then?” I asked.
+
+“Will you not forgive me that time so much as not to take it in your
+mouth again?” she cried. “There is nothing in this heart to you but
+thanks. But I will be honest too,” she added, with a kind of
+suddenness, “and I’ll never can forgive that girl.”
+
+“Is this Miss Grant again?” said I. “You said yourself she was the best
+lady in the world.”
+
+“So she will be, indeed!” says Catriona. “But I will never forgive her
+for all that. I will never, never forgive her, and let me hear tell of
+her no more.”
+
+“Well,” said I, “this beats all that ever came to my knowledge; and I
+wonder that you can indulge yourself in such bairnly whims. Here is a
+young lady that was the best friend in the world to the both of us,
+that learned us how to dress ourselves, and in a great manner how to
+behave, as anyone can see that knew us both before and after.”
+
+But Catriona stopped square in the midst of the highway.
+
+“It is this way of it,” said she. “Either you will go on to speak of
+her, and I will go back to yon town, and let come of it what God
+pleases! Or else you will do me that politeness to talk of other
+things.”
+
+I was the most nonplussed person in this world; but I bethought me that
+she depended altogether on my help, that she was of the frail sex and
+not so much beyond a child, and it was for me to be wise for the pair
+of us.
+
+“My dear girl,” said I, “I can make neither head nor tails of this; but
+God forbid that I should do anything to set you on the jee. As for
+talking of Miss Grant, I have no such a mind to it, and I believe it
+was yourself began it. My only design (if I took you up at all) was for
+your own improvement, for I hate the very look of injustice. Not that I
+do not wish you to have a good pride and a nice female delicacy; they
+become you well; but here you show them to excess.”
+
+“Well, then, have you done?” said she.
+
+“I have done,” said I.
+
+“A very good thing,” said she, and we went on again, but now in
+silence.
+
+It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding only
+shadows and hearing nought but our own steps. At first, I believe our
+hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity; but the
+darkness and the cold, and the silence, which only the cocks sometimes
+interrupted, or sometimes the farmyard dogs, had pretty soon brought
+down our pride to the dust; and for my own particular, I would have
+jumped at any decent opening for speech.
+
+Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was all
+wiped away from among our feet. I took my cloak to her and sought to
+hap her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to keep it.
+
+“Indeed and I will do no such thing,” said I. “Here am I, a great, ugly
+lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here are you a tender,
+pretty maid! My dear, you would not put me to a shame?”
+
+Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in the
+darkness, I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost like an
+embrace.
+
+“You must try to be more patient of your friend,” said I.
+
+I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against my
+bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.
+
+“There will be no end to your goodness,” said she.
+
+And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the
+happiness that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.
+
+The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came into
+the town of Delft. The red gabled houses made a handsome show on either
+hand of a canal; the servant lassies were out slestering and scrubbing
+at the very stones upon the public highway; smoke rose from a hundred
+kitchens; and it came in upon me strongly it was time to break our
+fasts.
+
+“Catriona,” said I, “I believe you have yet a shilling and three
+baubees?”
+
+“Are you wanting it?” said she, and passed me her purse. “I am wishing
+it was five pounds! What will you want it for?”
+
+“And what have we been walking for all night, like a pair of waif
+Egyptians!” says I. “Just because I was robbed of my purse and all I
+possessed in that unchancy town of Rotterdam. I will tell you of it
+now, because I think the worst is over, but we have still a good tramp
+before us till we get to where my money is, and if you would not buy me
+a piece of bread, I were like to go fasting.”
+
+She looked at me with open eyes. By the light of the new day she was
+all black and pale for weariness, so that my heart smote me for her.
+But as for her, she broke out laughing.
+
+“My torture! are we beggars then!” she cried. “You too? O, I could have
+wished for this same thing! And I am glad to buy your breakfast to you.
+But it would be pleisand if I would have had to dance to get a meal to
+you! For I believe they are not very well acquainted with our manner of
+dancing over here, and might be paying for the curiosity of that
+sight.”
+
+I could have kissed her for that word, not with a lover’s mind, but in
+a heat of admiration. For it always warms a man to see a woman brave.
+
+We got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the town,
+and in a baker’s, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling bread,
+which we ate upon the road as we went on. That road from Delft to the
+Hague is just five miles of a fine avenue shaded with trees, a canal on
+the one hand, on the other excellent pastures of cattle. It was
+pleasant here indeed.
+
+“And now, Davie,” said she, “what will you do with me at all events?”
+
+“It is what we have to speak of,” said I, “and the sooner yet the
+better. I can come by money in Leyden; that will be all well. But the
+trouble is how to dispose of you until your father come. I thought last
+night you seemed a little sweir to part from me?”
+
+“It will be more than seeming then,” said she.
+
+“You are a very young maid,” said I, “and I am but a very young
+callant. This is a great piece of difficulty. What way are we to
+manage? Unless indeed, you could pass to be my sister?”
+
+“And what for no?” said she, “if you would let me!”
+
+“I wish you were so, indeed,” I cried. “I would be a fine man if I had
+such a sister. But the rub is that you are Catriona Drummond.”
+
+“And now I will be Catriona Balfour,” she said. “And who is to ken?
+They are all strange folk here.”
+
+“If you think that it would do,” says I. “I own it troubles me. I would
+like it very ill, if I advised you at all wrong.”
+
+“David, I have no friend here but you,” she said.
+
+“The mere truth is, I am too young to be your friend,” said I. “I am
+too young to advise you, or you to be advised. I see not what else we
+are to do, and yet I ought to warn you.”
+
+“I will have no choice left,” said she. “My father James More has not
+used me very well, and it is not the first time, I am cast upon your
+hands like a sack of barley meal, and have nothing else to think of but
+your pleasure. If you will have me, good and well. If you will not”—she
+turned and touched her hand upon my arm—“David, I am afraid,” said she.
+
+“No, but I ought to warn you,” I began; and then bethought me I was the
+bearer of the purse, and it would never do to seem too churlish.
+“Catriona,” said I, “don’t misunderstand me: I am just trying to do my
+duty by you, girl! Here am I going alone to this strange city, to be a
+solitary student there; and here is this chance arisen that you might
+dwell with me a bit, and be like my sister; you can surely understand
+this much, my dear, that I would just love to have you?”
+
+“Well, and here I am,” said she. “So that’s soon settled.”
+
+I know I was in duty bounden to have spoke more plain. I know this was
+a great blot on my character, for which I was lucky that I did not pay
+more dear. But I minded how easy her delicacy had been startled with a
+word of kissing her in Barbara’s letter; now that she depended on me,
+how was I to be more bold? Besides, the truth is, I could see no other
+feasible method to dispose of her. And I daresay inclination pulled me
+very strong.
+
+A little beyond the Hague she fell very lame and made the rest of the
+distance heavily enough. Twice she must rest by the wayside, which she
+did with pretty apologies, calling herself a shame to the Highlands and
+the race she came of, and nothing but a hindrance to myself. It was her
+excuse, she said, that she was not much used with walking shod. I would
+have had her strip off her shoes and stockings and go barefoot. But she
+pointed out to me that the women of that country, even in the landward
+roads, appeared to be all shod.
+
+“I must not be disgracing my brother,” said she, and was very merry
+with it all, although her face told tales of her.
+
+There is a garden in that city we were bound to, sanded below with
+clean sand, the trees meeting overhead, some of them trimmed, some
+preached, and the whole place beautified with alleys and arbours. Here
+I left Catriona, and went forward by myself to find my correspondent.
+There I drew on my credit, and asked to be recommended to some decent,
+retired lodging. My baggage being not yet arrived, I told him I
+supposed I should require his caution with the people of the house; and
+explained that, my sister being come for a while to keep house with me,
+I should be wanting two chambers. This was all very well; but the
+trouble was that Mr. Balfour in his letter of recommendation had
+condescended on a great deal of particulars, and never a word of any
+sister in the case. I could see my Dutchman was extremely suspicious;
+and viewing me over the rims of a great pair of spectacles—he was a
+poor, frail body, and reminded me of an infirm rabbit—he began to
+question me close.
+
+Here I fell in a panic. Suppose he accept my tale (thinks I), suppose
+he invite my sister to his house, and that I bring her. I shall have a
+fine ravelled pirn to unwind, and may end by disgracing both the lassie
+and myself. Thereupon I began hastily to expound to him my sister’s
+character. She was of a bashful disposition, it appeared, and be
+extremely fearful of meeting strangers that I had left her at that
+moment sitting in a public place alone. And then, being launched upon
+the stream of falsehood, I must do like all the rest of the world in
+the same circumstance, and plunge in deeper than was any service;
+adding some altogether needless particulars of Miss Balfour’s
+ill-health and retirement during childhood. In the midst of which I
+awoke to a sense of my behaviour, and was turned to one blush.
+
+The old gentleman was not so much deceived but what he discovered a
+willingness to be quit of me. But he was first of all a man of
+business; and knowing that my money was good enough, however it might
+be with my conduct, he was so far obliging as to send his son to be my
+guide and caution in the matter of a lodging. This implied my
+presenting of the young man to Catriona. The poor, pretty child was
+much recovered with resting, looked and behaved to perfection, and took
+my arm and gave me the name of brother more easily than I could answer
+her. But there was one misfortune: thinking to help, she was rather
+towardly than otherwise to my Dutchman. And I could not but reflect
+that Miss Balfour had rather suddenly outgrown her bashfulness. And
+there was another thing, the difference of our speech. I had the Low
+Country tongue and dwelled upon my words; she had a hill voice, spoke
+with something of an English accent, only far more delightful, and was
+scarce quite fit to be called a deacon in the craft of talking English
+grammar; so that, for a brother and sister, we made a most uneven pair.
+But the young Hollander was a heavy dog, without so much spirit in his
+belly as to remark her prettiness, for which I scorned him. And as soon
+as he had found a cover to our heads, he left us alone, which was the
+greater service of the two.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS
+
+
+The place found was in the upper part of a house backed on a canal. We
+had two rooms, the second entering from the first; each had a chimney
+built out into the floor in the Dutch manner; and being alongside, each
+had the same prospect from the window of the top of a tree below us in
+a little court, of a piece of the canal, and of houses in the Hollands
+architecture and a church spire upon the further side. A full set of
+bells hung in that spire and made delightful music; and when there was
+any sun at all, it shone direct in our two chambers. From a tavern hard
+by we had good meals sent in.
+
+The first night we were both pretty weary, and she extremely so. There
+was little talk between us, and I packed her off to her bed as soon as
+she had eaten. The first thing in the morning I wrote word to Sprott to
+have her mails sent on, together with a line to Alan at his chief’s;
+and had the same despatched, and her breakfast ready, ere I waked her.
+I was a little abashed when she came forth in her one habit, and the
+mud of the way upon her stockings. By what inquiries I had made, it
+seemed a good few days must pass before her mails could come to hand in
+Leyden, and it was plainly needful she must have a shift of things. She
+was unwilling at first that I should go to that expense; but I reminded
+her she was now a rich man’s sister and must appear suitably in the
+part, and we had not got to the second merchant’s before she was
+entirely charmed into the spirit of the thing, and her eyes shining. It
+pleased me to see her so innocent and thorough in this pleasure. What
+was more extraordinary was the passion into which I fell on it myself;
+being never satisfied that I had bought her enough or fine enough, and
+never weary of beholding her in different attires. Indeed, I began to
+understand some little of Miss Grant’s immersion in the interest of
+clothes; for the truth is, when you have the ground of a beautiful
+person to adorn, the whole business becomes beautiful. The Dutch
+chintzes I should say were extraordinary cheap and fine; but I would be
+ashamed to set down what I paid for stockings to her. Altogether I
+spent so great a sum upon this pleasuring (as I may call it) that I was
+ashamed for a great while to spend more; and by way of a set-off, I
+left our chambers pretty bare. If we had beds, if Catriona was a little
+braw, and I had light to see her by, we were richly enough lodged for
+me.
+
+By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the door
+with all our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which to read
+myself a lecture. Here had I taken under my roof, and as good as to my
+bosom, a young lass extremely beautiful, and whose innocence was her
+peril. My talk with the old Dutchman, and the lies to which I was
+constrained, had already given me a sense of how my conduct must appear
+to others; and now, after the strong admiration I had just experienced
+and the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain purchases, I
+began to think of it myself as very hazarded. I bethought me, if I had
+a sister indeed, whether I would so expose her; then, judging the case
+too problematical, I varied my question into this, whether I would so
+trust Catriona in the hands of any other Christian being; the answer to
+which made my face to burn. The more cause, since I had been entrapped
+and had entrapped the girl into an undue situation, that I should
+behave in it with scrupulous nicety. She depended on me wholly for her
+bread and shelter; in case I should alarm her delicacy, she had no
+retreat. Besides I was her host and her protector; and the more
+irregularly I had fallen in these positions, the less excuse for me if
+I should profit by the same to forward even the most honest suit; for
+with the opportunities that I enjoyed, and which no wise parent would
+have suffered for a moment, even the most honest suit would be unfair.
+I saw I must be extremely hold-off in my relations; and yet not too
+much so neither; for if I had no right to appear at all in the
+character of a suitor, I must yet appear continually, and if possible
+agreeably, in that of host. It was plain I should require a great deal
+of tact and conduct, perhaps more than my years afforded. But I had
+rushed in where angels might have feared to tread, and there was no way
+out of that position save by behaving right while I was in it. I made a
+set of rules for my guidance; prayed for strength to be enabled to
+observe them, and as a more human aid to the same end purchased a
+study-book in law. This being all that I could think of, I relaxed from
+these grave considerations; whereupon my mind bubbled at once into an
+effervescency of pleasing spirits, and it was like one treading on air
+that I turned homeward. As I thought that name of home, and recalled
+the image of that figure awaiting me between four walls, my heart beat
+upon my bosom.
+
+My troubles began with my return. She ran to greet me with an obvious
+and affecting pleasure. She was clad, besides, entirely in the new
+clothes that I had bought for her; looked in them beyond expression
+well; and must walk about and drop me curtseys to display them and to
+be admired. I am sure I did it with an ill grace, for I thought to have
+choked upon the words.
+
+“Well,” she said, “if you will not be caring for my pretty clothes, see
+what I have done with our two chambers.” And she showed me the place
+all very finely swept, and the fires glowing in the two chimneys.
+
+I was glad of a chance to seem a little more severe than I quite felt.
+“Catriona,” said I, “I am very much displeased with you, and you must
+never again lay a hand upon my room. One of us two must have the rule
+while we are here together; it is most fit it should be I who am both
+the man and the elder; and I give you that for my command.”
+
+She dropped me one of her curtseys; which were extraordinary taking.
+“If you will be cross,” said she, “I must be making pretty manners at
+you, Davie. I will be very obedient, as I should be when every stitch
+upon all there is of me belongs to you. But you will not be very cross
+either, because now I have not anyone else.”
+
+This struck me hard, and I made haste, in a kind of penitence, to blot
+out all the good effect of my last speech. In this direction progress
+was more easy, being down hill; she led me forward, smiling; at the
+sight of her, in the brightness of the fire and with her pretty becks
+and looks, my heart was altogether melted. We made our meal with
+infinite mirth and tenderness; and the two seemed to be commingled into
+one, so that our very laughter sounded like a kindness.
+
+In the midst of which I awoke to better recollections, made a lame word
+of excuse, and set myself boorishly to my studies. It was a
+substantial, instructive book that I had bought, by the late Dr.
+Heineccius, in which I was to do a great deal reading these next few
+days, and often very glad that I had no one to question me of what I
+read. Methought she bit her lip at me a little, and that cut me. Indeed
+it left her wholly solitary, the more as she was very little of a
+reader, and had never a book. But what was I to do?
+
+So the rest of the evening flowed by almost without speech.
+
+I could have beat myself. I could not lie in my bed that night for rage
+and repentance, but walked to and fro on my bare feet till I was nearly
+perished, for the chimney was gone out and the frost keen. The thought
+of her in the next room, the thought that she might even hear me as I
+walked, the remembrance of my churlishness and that I must continue to
+practise the same ungrateful course or be dishonoured, put me beside my
+reason. I stood like a man between Scylla and Charybdis: _What must she
+think of me_? was my one thought that softened me continually into
+weakness. _What is to become of us_? the other which steeled me again
+to resolution. This was my first night of wakefulness and divided
+counsels, of which I was now to pass many, pacing like a madman,
+sometimes weeping like a childish boy, sometimes praying (I fain would
+hope) like a Christian.
+
+But prayer is not very difficult, and the hitch comes in practice. In
+her presence, and above all if I allowed any beginning of familiarity,
+I found I had very little command of what should follow. But to sit all
+day in the same room with her, and feign to be engaged upon Heineccius,
+surpassed my strength. So that I fell instead upon the expedient of
+absenting myself so much as I was able; taking out classes and sitting
+there regularly, often with small attention, the test of which I found
+the other day in a note-book of that period, where I had left off to
+follow an edifying lecture and actually scribbled in my book some very
+ill verses, though the Latinity is rather better than I thought that I
+could ever have compassed. The evil of this course was unhappily near
+as great as its advantage. I had the less time of trial, but I believe,
+while the time lasted, I was tried the more extremely. For she being so
+much left to solitude, she came to greet my return with an increasing
+fervour that came nigh to overmaster me. These friendly offers I must
+barbarously cast back; and my rejection sometimes wounded her so
+cruelly that I must unbend and seek to make it up to her in kindness.
+So that our time passed in ups and downs, tiffs and disappointments,
+upon the which I could almost say (if it may be said with reverence)
+that I was crucified.
+
+The base of my trouble was Catriona’s extraordinary innocence, at which
+I was not so much surprised as filled with pity and admiration. She
+seemed to have no thought of our position, no sense of my struggles;
+welcomed any mark of my weakness with responsive joy; and when I was
+drove again to my retrenchments, did not always dissemble her chagrin.
+There were times when I have thought to myself, “If she were over head
+in love, and set her cap to catch me, she would scarce behave much
+otherwise;” and then I would fall again into wonder at the simplicity
+of woman, from whom I felt (in these moments) that I was not worthy to
+be descended.
+
+There was one point in particular on which our warfare turned, and of
+all things, this was the question of her clothes. My baggage had soon
+followed me from Rotterdam, and hers from Helvoet. She had now, as it
+were, two wardrobes; and it grew to be understood between us (I could
+never tell how) that when she was friendly she would wear my clothes,
+and when otherwise her own. It was meant for a buffet, and (as it were)
+the renunciation of her gratitude; and I felt it so in my bosom, but
+was generally more wise than to appear to have observed the
+circumstance.
+
+Once, indeed, I was betrayed into a childishness greater than her own;
+it fell in this way. On my return from classes, thinking upon her
+devoutly with a great deal of love and a good deal of annoyance in the
+bargain, the annoyance began to fade away out of my mind; and spying in
+a window one of those forced flowers, of which the Hollanders are so
+skilled in the artifice, I gave way to an impulse and bought it for
+Catriona. I do not know the name of that flower, but it was of the pink
+colour, and I thought she would admire the same, and carried it home to
+her with a wonderful soft heart. I had left her in my clothes, and when
+I returned to find her all changed and a face to match, I cast but the
+one look at her from head to foot, ground my teeth together, flung the
+window open, and my flower into the court, and then (between rage and
+prudence) myself out of that room again, of which I slammed she door as
+I went out.
+
+On the steep stair I came near falling, and this brought me to myself,
+so that I began at once to see the folly of my conduct. I went, not
+into the street as I had purposed, but to the house court, which was
+always a solitary place, and where I saw my flower (that had cost me
+vastly more than it was worth) hanging in the leafless tree. I stood by
+the side of the canal, and looked upon the ice. Country people went by
+on their skates, and I envied them. I could see no way out of the
+pickle I was in no way so much as to return to the room I had just
+left. No doubt was in my mind but I had now betrayed the secret of my
+feelings; and to make things worse, I had shown at the same time (and
+that with wretched boyishness) incivility to my helpless guest.
+
+I suppose she must have seen me from the open window. It did not seem
+to me that I had stood there very long before I heard the crunching of
+footsteps on the frozen snow, and turning somewhat angrily (for I was
+in no spirit to be interrupted) saw Catriona drawing near. She was all
+changed again, to the clocked stockings.
+
+“Are we not to have our walk to-day?” said she.
+
+I was looking at her in a maze. “Where is your brooch?” says I.
+
+She carried her hand to her bosom and coloured high. “I will have
+forgotten it,” said she. “I will run upstairs for it quick, and then
+surely we’ll can have our walk?”
+
+There was a note of pleading in that last that staggered me; I had
+neither words nor voice to utter them; I could do no more than nod by
+way of answer; and the moment she had left me, climbed into the tree
+and recovered my flower, which on her return I offered her.
+
+“I bought it for you, Catriona,” said I.
+
+She fixed it in the midst of her bosom with the brooch, I could have
+thought tenderly.
+
+“It is none the better of my handling,” said I again, and blushed.
+
+“I will be liking it none the worse, you may be sure of that,” said
+she.
+
+We did not speak so much that day; she seemed a thought on the reserve,
+though not unkindly. As for me, all the time of our walking, and after
+we came home, and I had seen her put my flower into a pot of water, I
+was thinking to myself what puzzles women were. I was thinking, the one
+moment, it was the most stupid thing on earth she should not have
+perceived my love; and the next, that she had certainly perceived it
+long ago, and (being a wise girl with the fine female instinct of
+propriety) concealed her knowledge.
+
+We had our walk daily. Out in the streets I felt more safe; I relaxed a
+little in my guardedness; and for one thing, there was no Heineccius.
+This made these periods not only a relief to myself, but a particular
+pleasure to my poor child. When I came back about the hour appointed, I
+would generally find her ready dressed, and glowing with anticipation.
+She would prolong their duration to the extreme, seeming to dread (as I
+did myself) the hour of the return; and there is scarce a field or
+waterside near Leyden, scarce a street or lane there, where we have not
+lingered. Outside of these, I bade her confine herself entirely to our
+lodgings; this in the fear of her encountering any acquaintance, which
+would have rendered our position very difficult. From the same
+apprehension I would never suffer her to attend church, nor even go
+myself; but made some kind of shift to hold worship privately in our
+own chamber—I hope with an honest, but I am quite sure with a very much
+divided mind. Indeed, there was scarce anything that more affected me,
+than thus to kneel down alone with her before God like man and wife.
+
+One day it was snowing downright hard. I had thought it not possible
+that we should venture forth, and was surprised to find her waiting for
+me ready dressed.
+
+“I will not be doing without my walk,” she cried. “You are never a good
+boy, Davie, in the house; I will never be caring for you only in the
+open air. I think we two will better turn Egyptian and dwell by the
+roadside.”
+
+That was the best walk yet of all of them; she clung near to me in the
+falling snow; it beat about and melted on us, and the drops stood upon
+her bright cheeks like tears and ran into her smiling mouth. Strength
+seemed to come upon me with the sight like a giant’s; I thought I could
+have caught her up and run with her into the uttermost places in the
+earth; and we spoke together all that time beyond belief for freedom
+and sweetness.
+
+It was the dark night when we came to the house door. She pressed my
+arm upon her bosom. “Thank you kindly for these same good hours,” said
+she, on a deep note of her voice.
+
+The concern in which I fell instantly on this address, put me with the
+same swiftness on my guard; and we were no sooner in the chamber, and
+the light made, than she beheld the old, dour, stubborn countenance of
+the student of Heineccius. Doubtless she was more than usually hurt;
+and I know for myself, I found it more than usually difficult to
+maintain any strangeness. Even at the meal, I durst scarce unbuckle and
+scarce lift my eyes to her; and it was no sooner over than I fell again
+to my civilian, with more seeming abstraction and less understanding
+than before. Methought, as I read, I could hear my heart strike like an
+eight-day clock. Hard as I feigned to study, there was still some of my
+eyesight that spilled beyond the book upon Catriona. She sat on the
+floor by the side of my great mail, and the chimney lighted her up, and
+shone and blinked upon her, and made her glow and darken through a
+wonder of fine hues. Now she would be gazing in the fire, and then
+again at me; and at that I would be plunged in a terror of myself, and
+turn the pages of Heineccius like a man looking for the text in church.
+
+Suddenly she called out aloud. “O, why does not my father come?” she
+cried, and fell at once into a storm of tears.
+
+I leaped up, flung Heineccius fairly in the fire, ran to her side, and
+cast an arm around her sobbing body.
+
+She put me from her sharply, “You do not love your friend,” says she.
+“I could be so happy too, if you would let me!” And then, “O, what will
+I have done that you should hate me so?”
+
+“Hate you!” cries I, and held her firm. “You blind less, can you not
+see a little in my wretched heart? Do you not think when I sit there,
+reading in that fool-book that I have just burned and be damned to it,
+I take ever the least thought of any stricken thing but just yourself?
+Night after night I could have grat to see you sitting there your lone.
+And what was I to do? You are here under my honour; would you punish me
+for that? Is it for that that you would spurn a loving servant?”
+
+At the word, with a small, sudden motion, she clung near to me. I
+raised her face to mine, I kissed it, and she bowed her brow upon my
+bosom, clasping me tight. I saw in a mere whirl like a man drunken.
+Then I heard her voice sound very small and muffled in my clothes.
+
+“Did you kiss her truly?” she asked.
+
+There went through me so great a heave of surprise that I was all shook
+with it.
+
+“Miss Grant?” I cried, all in a disorder. “Yes, I asked her to kiss me
+good-bye, the which she did.”
+
+“Ah, well!” said she, “you have kissed me too, at all events.”
+
+At the strangeness and sweetness of that word, I saw where we had
+fallen; rose, and set her on her feet.
+
+“This will never do,” said I. “This will never, never do. O Catrine,
+Catrine!” Then there came a pause in which I was debarred from any
+speaking. And then, “Go away to your bed,” said I. “Go away to your bed
+and leave me.”
+
+She turned to obey me like a child, and the next I knew of it, had
+stopped in the very doorway.
+
+“Good night, Davie!” said she.
+
+“And O, good night, my love!” I cried, with a great outbreak of my
+soul, and caught her to me again, so that it seemed I must have broken
+her. The next moment I had thrust her from the room, shut to the door
+even with violence, and stood alone.
+
+The milk was spilt now, the word was out and the truth told. I had
+crept like an untrusty man into the poor maid’s affections; she was in
+my hand like any frail, innocent thing to make or mar; and what weapon
+of defence was left me? It seemed like a symbol that Heineccius, my old
+protection, was now burned. I repented, yet could not find it in my
+heart to blame myself for that great failure. It seemed not possible to
+have resisted the boldness of her innocence or that last temptation of
+her weeping. And all that I had to excuse me did but make my sin appear
+the greater—it was upon a nature so defenceless, and with such
+advantages of the position, that I seemed to have practised.
+
+What was to become of us now? It seemed we could no longer dwell in the
+one place. But where was I to go? or where she? Without either choice
+or fault of ours, life had conspired to wall us together in that narrow
+place. I had a wild thought of marrying out of hand; and the next
+moment put it from me with revolt. She was a child, she could not tell
+her own heart; I had surprised her weakness, I must never go on to
+build on that surprisal; I must keep her not only clear of reproach,
+but free as she had come to me.
+
+Down I sat before the fire, and reflected, and repented, and beat my
+brains in vain for any means of escape. About two of the morning, there
+were three red embers left and the house and all the city was asleep,
+when I was aware of a small sound of weeping in the next room. She
+thought that I slept, the poor soul; she regretted her weakness—and
+what perhaps (God help her!) she called her forwardness—and in the dead
+of the night solaced herself with tears. Tender and bitter feelings,
+love and penitence and pity, struggled in my soul; it seemed I was
+under bond to heal that weeping.
+
+“O, try to forgive me!” I cried out, “try, try to forgive me. Let us
+forget it all, let us try if we’ll no can forget it!”
+
+There came no answer, but the sobbing ceased. I stood a long while with
+my hands still clasped as I had spoken; then the cold of the night laid
+hold upon me with a shudder, and I think my reason reawakened.
+
+“You can make no hand of this, Davie,” thinks I. “To bed with you like
+a wise lad, and try if you can sleep. To-morrow you may see your way.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE
+
+
+I was called on the morrow out of a late and troubled slumber by a
+knocking on my door, ran to open it, and had almost swooned with the
+contrariety of my feelings, mostly painful; for on the threshold, in a
+rough wraprascal and an extraordinary big laced hat, there stood James
+More.
+
+I ought to have been glad perhaps without admixture, for there was a
+sense in which the man came like an answer to prayer. I had been saying
+till my head was weary that Catriona and I must separate, and looking
+till my head ached for any possible means of separation. Here were the
+means come to me upon two legs, and joy was the hindmost of my
+thoughts. It is to be considered, however, that even if the weight of
+the future were lifted off me by the man’s arrival, the present heaved
+up the more black and menacing; so that, as I first stood before him in
+my shirt and breeches, I believe I took a leaping step backward like a
+person shot.
+
+“Ah,” said he, “I have found you, Mr. Balfour.” And offered me his
+large, fine hand, the which (recovering at the same time my post in the
+doorway, as if with some thought of resistance) I took him by
+doubtfully. “It is a remarkable circumstance how our affairs appear to
+intermingle,” he continued. “I am owing you an apology for an
+unfortunate intrusion upon yours, which I suffered myself to be
+entrapped into by my confidence in that false-face, Prestongrange; I
+think shame to own to you that I was ever trusting to a lawyer.” He
+shrugged his shoulders with a very French air. “But indeed the man is
+very plausible,” says he. “And now it seems that you have busied
+yourself handsomely in the matter of my daughter, for whose direction I
+was remitted to yourself.”
+
+“I think, sir,” said I, with a very painful air, “that it will be
+necessary we two should have an explanation.”
+
+“There is nothing amiss?” he asked. “My agent, Mr. Sprott—”
+
+“For God’s sake moderate your voice!” I cried. “She must not hear till
+we have had an explanation.”
+
+“She is in this place?” cries he.
+
+“That is her chamber door,” said I.
+
+“You are here with her alone?” he asked.
+
+“And who else would I have got to stay with us?” cries I.
+
+I will do him the justice to admit that he turned pale.
+
+“This is very unusual,” said he. “This is a very unusual circumstance.
+You are right, we must hold an explanation.”
+
+So saying he passed me by, and I must own the tall old rogue appeared
+at that moment extraordinary dignified. He had now, for the first time,
+the view of my chamber, which I scanned (I may say) with his eyes. A
+bit of morning sun glinted in by the window pane, and showed it off; my
+bed, my mails, and washing dish, with some disorder of my clothes, and
+the unlighted chimney, made the only plenishing; no mistake but it
+looked bare and cold, and the most unsuitable, beggarly place
+conceivable to harbour a young lady. At the same time came in on my
+mind the recollection of the clothes that I had bought for her; and I
+thought this contrast of poverty and prodigality bore an ill
+appearance.
+
+He looked all about the chamber for a seat, and finding nothing else to
+his purpose except my bed, took a place upon the side of it; where,
+after I had closed the door, I could not very well avoid joining him.
+For however this extraordinary interview might end, it must pass if
+possible without waking Catriona; and the one thing needful was that we
+should sit close and talk low. But I can scarce picture what a pair we
+made; he in his great coat which the coldness of my chamber made
+extremely suitable; I shivering in my shirt and breeks; he with very
+much the air of a judge; and I (whatever I looked) with very much the
+feelings of a man who has heard the last trumpet.
+
+“Well?” says he.
+
+And “Well,” I began, but found myself unable to go further.
+
+“You tell me she is here?” said he again, but now with a spice of
+impatience that seemed to brace me up.
+
+“She is in this house,” said I, “and I knew the circumstance would be
+called unusual. But you are to consider how very unusual the whole
+business was from the beginning. Here is a young lady landed on the
+coast of Europe with two shillings and a penny halfpenny. She is
+directed to yon man Sprott in Helvoet. I hear you call him your agent.
+All I can say is he could do nothing but damn and swear at the mere
+mention of your name, and I must fee him out of my own pocket even to
+receive the custody of her effects. You speak of unusual circumstances,
+Mr. Drummond, if that be the name you prefer. Here was a circumstance,
+if you like, to which it was barbarity to have exposed her.”
+
+“But this is what I cannot understand the least,” said James. “My
+daughter was placed into the charge of some responsible persons, whose
+names I have forgot.”
+
+“Gebbie was the name,” said I; “and there is no doubt that Mr. Gebbie
+should have gone ashore with her at Helvoet. But he did not, Mr.
+Drummond; and I think you might praise God that I was there to offer in
+his place.”
+
+“I shall have a word to say to Mr. Gebbie before long,” said he. “As
+for yourself, I think it might have occurred that you were somewhat
+young for such a post.”
+
+“But the choice was not between me and somebody else, it was between me
+and nobody,” cried I. “Nobody offered in my place, and I must say I
+think you show a very small degree of gratitude to me that did.”
+
+“I shall wait until I understand my obligation a little more in the
+particular,” says he.
+
+“Indeed, and I think it stares you in the face, then,” said I. “Your
+child was deserted, she was clean flung away in the midst of Europe,
+with scarce two shillings, and not two words of any language spoken
+there: I must say, a bonny business! I brought her to this place. I
+gave her the name and the tenderness due to a sister. All this has not
+gone without expense, but that I scarce need to hint at. They were
+services due to the young lady’s character which I respect; and I think
+it would be a bonny business too, if I was to be singing her praises to
+her father.”
+
+“You are a young man,” he began.
+
+“So I hear you tell me,” said I, with a good deal of heat.
+
+“You are a very young man,” he repeated, “or you would have understood
+the significancy of the step.”
+
+“I think you speak very much at your ease,” cried I. “What else was I
+to do? It is a fact I might have hired some decent, poor woman to be a
+third to us, and I declare I never thought of it until this moment! But
+where was I to find her, that am a foreigner myself? And let me point
+out to your observation, Mr. Drummond, that it would have cost me money
+out of my pocket. For here is just what it comes to, that I had to pay
+through the nose for your neglect; and there is only the one story to
+it, just that you were so unloving and so careless as to have lost your
+daughter.”
+
+“He that lives in a glass house should not be casting stones,” says he;
+“and we will finish inquiring into the behaviour of Miss Drummond
+before we go on to sit in judgment on her father.”
+
+“But I will be entrapped into no such attitude,” said I. “The character
+of Miss Drummond is far above inquiry, as her father ought to know. So
+is mine, and I am telling you that. There are but the two ways of it
+open. The one is to express your thanks to me as one gentleman to
+another, and to say no more. The other (if you are so difficult as to
+be still dissatisfied) is to pay me, that which I have expended and be
+done.”
+
+He seemed to soothe me with a hand in the air. “There, there,” said he.
+“You go too fast, you go too fast, Mr. Balfour. It is a good thing that
+I have learned to be more patient. And I believe you forget that I have
+yet to see my daughter.”
+
+I began to be a little relieved upon this speech and a change in the
+man’s manner that I spied in him as soon as the name of money fell
+between us.
+
+“I was thinking it would be more fit—if you will excuse the plainness
+of my dressing in your presence—that I should go forth and leave you to
+encounter her alone?” said I.
+
+“What I would have looked for at your hands!” says he; and there was no
+mistake but what he said it civilly.
+
+I thought this better and better still, and as I began to pull on my
+hose, recalling the man’s impudent mendicancy at Prestongrange’s, I
+determined to pursue what seemed to be my victory.
+
+“If you have any mind to stay some while in Leyden,” said I, “this room
+is very much at your disposal, and I can easy find another for myself:
+in which way we shall have the least amount of flitting possible, there
+being only one to change.”
+
+“Why, sir,” said he, making his bosom big, “I think no shame of a
+poverty I have come by in the service of my king; I make no secret that
+my affairs are quite involved; and for the moment, it would be even
+impossible for me to undertake a journey.”
+
+“Until you have occasion to communicate with your friends,” said I,
+“perhaps it might be convenient for you (as of course it would be
+honourable to myself) if you were to regard yourself in the light of my
+guest?”
+
+“Sir,” said he, “when an offer is frankly made, I think I honour myself
+most to imitate that frankness. Your hand, Mr. David; you have the
+character that I respect the most; you are one of those from whom a
+gentleman can take a favour and no more words about it. I am an old
+soldier,” he went on, looking rather disgusted-like around my chamber,
+“and you need not fear I shall prove burthensome. I have ate too often
+at a dyke-side, drank of the ditch, and had no roof but the rain.”
+
+“I should be telling you,” said I, “that our breakfasts are sent
+customarily in about this time of morning. I propose I should go now to
+the tavern, and bid them add a cover for yourself and delay the meal
+the matter of an hour, which will give you an interval to meet your
+daughter in.”
+
+Methought his nostrils wagged at this. “O, an hour?” says he. “That is
+perhaps superfluous. Half an hour, Mr. David, or say twenty minutes; I
+shall do very well in that. And by the way,” he adds, detaining me by
+the coat, “what is it you drink in the morning, whether ale or wine?”
+
+“To be frank with you, sir,” says I, “I drink nothing else but spare,
+cold water.”
+
+“Tut-tut,” says he, “that is fair destruction to the stomach, take an
+old campaigner’s word for it. Our country spirit at home is perhaps the
+most entirely wholesome; but as that is not come-at-able, Rhenish or a
+white wine of Burgundy will be next best.”
+
+“I shall make it my business to see you are supplied,” said I.
+
+“Why, very good,” said he, “and we shall make a man of you yet, Mr.
+David.”
+
+By this time, I can hardly say that I was minding him at all, beyond an
+odd thought of the kind of father-in-law that he was like to prove; and
+all my cares centred about the lass his daughter, to whom I determined
+to convey some warning of her visitor. I stepped to the door
+accordingly, and cried through the panels, knocking thereon at the same
+time: “Miss Drummond, here is your father come at last.”
+
+With that I went forth upon my errand, having (by two words)
+extraordinarily damaged my affairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+THE THREESOME
+
+
+Whether or not I was to be so much blamed, or rather perhaps pitied, I
+must leave others to judge. My shrewdness (of which I have a good deal,
+too) seems not so great with the ladies. No doubt, at the moment when I
+awaked her, I was thinking a good deal of the effect upon James More;
+and similarly when I returned and we were all sat down to breakfast, I
+continued to behave to the young lady with deference and distance; as I
+still think to have been most wise. Her father had cast doubts upon the
+innocence of my friendship; and these, it was my first business to
+allay. But there is a kind of an excuse for Catriona also. We had
+shared in a scene of some tenderness and passion, and given and
+received caresses: I had thrust her from me with violence; I had called
+aloud upon her in the night from the one room to the other; she had
+passed hours of wakefulness and weeping; and it is not to be supposed I
+had been absent from her pillow thoughts. Upon the back of this, to be
+awaked, with unaccustomed formality, under the name of Miss Drummond,
+and to be thenceforth used with a great deal of distance and respect,
+led her entirely in error on my private sentiments; and she was indeed
+so incredibly abused as to imagine me repentant and trying to draw off!
+
+The trouble betwixt us seems to have been this: that whereas I (since I
+had first set eyes on his great hat) thought singly of James More, his
+return and suspicions, she made so little of these that I may say she
+scarce remarked them, and all her troubles and doings regarded what had
+passed between us in the night before. This is partly to be explained
+by the innocence and boldness of her character; and partly because
+James More, having sped so ill in his interview with me, or had his
+mouth closed by my invitation, said no word to her upon the subject. At
+the breakfast, accordingly, it soon appeared we were at cross purposes.
+I had looked to find her in clothes of her own: I found her (as if her
+father were forgotten) wearing some of the best that I had bought for
+her, and which she knew (or thought) that I admired her in. I had
+looked to find her imitate my affectation of distance, and be most
+precise and formal; instead I found her flushed and wild-like, with
+eyes extraordinary bright, and a painful and varying expression,
+calling me by name with a sort of appeal of tenderness, and referring
+and deferring to my thoughts and wishes like an anxious or a suspected
+wife.
+
+But this was not for long. As I behold her so regardless of her own
+interests, which I had jeopardised and was now endeavouring to recover,
+I redoubled my own coldness in the manner of a lesson to the girl. The
+more she came forward, the farther I drew back; the more she betrayed
+the closeness of our intimacy, the more pointedly civil I became, until
+even her father (if he had not been so engrossed with eating) might
+have observed the opposition. In the midst of which, of a sudden, she
+became wholly changed, and I told myself, with a good deal of relief,
+that she had took the hint at last.
+
+All day I was at my classes or in quest of my new lodging; and though
+the hour of our customary walk hung miserably on my hands, I cannot say
+but I was happy on the whole to find my way cleared, the girl again in
+proper keeping, the father satisfied or at least acquiescent, and
+myself free to prosecute my love with honour. At supper, as at all our
+meals, it was James More that did the talking. No doubt but he talked
+well if anyone could have believed him. But I will speak of him
+presently more at large. The meal at an end, he rose, got his great
+coat, and looking (as I thought) at me, observed he had affairs abroad.
+I took this for a hint that I was to be going also, and got up;
+whereupon the girl, who had scarce given me greeting at my entrance,
+turned her eyes upon me wide open with a look that bade me stay. I
+stood between them like a fish out of water, turning from one to the
+other; neither seemed to observe me, she gazing on the floor, he
+buttoning his coat: which vastly swelled my embarrassment. This
+appearance of indifference argued, upon her side, a good deal of anger
+very near to burst out. Upon his, I thought it horribly alarming; I
+made sure there was a tempest brewing there; and considering that to be
+the chief peril, turned towards him and put myself (so to speak) in the
+man’s hands.
+
+“Can I do anything for _you_, Mr. Drummond?” says I.
+
+He stifled a yawn, which again I thought to be duplicity. “Why, Mr.
+David,” said he, “since you are so obliging as to propose it, you might
+show me the way to a certain tavern” (of which he gave the name) “where
+I hope to fall in with some old companions in arms.”
+
+There was no more to say, and I got my hat and cloak to bear him
+company.
+
+“And as for you,” say he to his daughter, “you had best go to your bed.
+I shall be late home, and _Early to bed and early to rise_, _gars bonny
+lasses have bright eyes_.”
+
+Whereupon he kissed her with a good deal of tenderness, and ushered me
+before him from the door. This was so done (I thought on purpose) that
+it was scarce possible there should be any parting salutation; but I
+observed she did not look at me, and set it down to terror of James
+More.
+
+It was some distance to that tavern. He talked all the way of matters
+which did not interest me the smallest, and at the door dismissed me
+with empty manners. Thence I walked to my new lodging, where I had not
+so much as a chimney to hold me warm, and no society but my own
+thoughts. These were still bright enough; I did not so much as dream
+that Catriona was turned against me; I thought we were like folk
+pledged; I thought we had been too near and spoke too warmly to be
+severed, least of all by what were only steps in a most needful policy.
+And the chief of my concern was only the kind of father-in-law that I
+was getting, which was not at all the kind I would have chosen: and the
+matter of how soon I ought to speak to him, which was a delicate point
+on several sides. In the first place, when I thought how young I was I
+blushed all over, and could almost have found it in my heart to have
+desisted; only that if once I let them go from Leyden without
+explanation, I might lose her altogether. And in the second place,
+there was our very irregular situation to be kept in view, and the
+rather scant measure of satisfaction I had given James More that
+morning. I concluded, on the whole, that delay would not hurt anything,
+yet I would not delay too long neither; and got to my cold bed with a
+full heart.
+
+The next day, as James More seemed a little on the complaining hand in
+the matter of my chamber, I offered to have in more furniture; and
+coming in the afternoon, with porters bringing chairs and tables, found
+the girl once more left to herself. She greeted me on my admission
+civilly, but withdrew at once to her own room, of which she shut the
+door. I made my disposition, and paid and dismissed the men so that she
+might hear them go, when I supposed she would at once come forth again
+to speak to me. I waited yet awhile, then knocked upon her door.
+
+“Catriona!” said I.
+
+The door was opened so quickly, even before I had the word out, that I
+thought she must have stood behind it listening. She remained there in
+the interval quite still; but she had a look that I cannot put a name
+on, as of one in a bitter trouble.
+
+“Are we not to have our walk to-day either?” so I faltered.
+
+“I am thanking you,” said she. “I will not be caring much to walk, now
+that my father is come home.”
+
+“But I think he has gone out himself and left you here alone,” said I.
+
+“And do you think that was very kindly said?” she asked.
+
+“It was not unkindly meant,” I replied. “What ails you, Catriona? What
+have I done to you that you should turn from me like this?”
+
+“I do not turn from you at all,” she said, speaking very carefully. “I
+will ever be grateful to my friend that was good to me; I will ever be
+his friend in all that I am able. But now that my father James More is
+come again, there is a difference to be made, and I think there are
+some things said and done that would be better to be forgotten. But I
+will ever be your friend in all that I am able, and if that is not all
+that . . . . if it is not so much . . . . Not that you will be caring!
+But I would not have you think of me too hard. It was true what you
+said to me, that I was too young to be advised, and I am hoping you
+will remember I was just a child. I would not like to lose your
+friendship, at all events.”
+
+She began this very pale; but before she was done, the blood was in her
+face like scarlet, so that not her words only, but her face and the
+trembling of her very hands, besought me to be gentle. I saw, for the
+first time, how very wrong I had done to place the child in that
+position, where she had been entrapped into a moment’s weakness, and
+now stood before me like a person shamed.
+
+“Miss Drummond,” I said, and stuck, and made the same beginning once
+again, “I wish you could see into my heart,” I cried. “You would read
+there that my respect is undiminished. If that were possible, I should
+say it was increased. This is but the result of the mistake we made;
+and had to come; and the less said of it now the better. Of all of our
+life here, I promise you it shall never pass my lips; I would like to
+promise you too that I would never think of it, but it’s a memory that
+will be always dear to me. And as for a friend, you have one here that
+would die for you.”
+
+“I am thanking you,” said she.
+
+We stood awhile silent, and my sorrow for myself began to get the upper
+hand; for here were all my dreams come to a sad tumble, and my love
+lost, and myself alone again in the world as at the beginning.
+
+“Well,” said I, “we shall be friends always, that’s a certain thing.
+But this is a kind of farewell, too: it’s a kind of a farewell after
+all; I shall always ken Miss Drummond, but this is a farewell to my
+Catriona.”
+
+I looked at her; I could hardly say I saw her, but she seemed to grow
+great and brighten in my eyes; and with that I suppose I must have lost
+my head, for I called out her name again and made a step at her with my
+hands reached forth.
+
+She shrank back like a person struck, her face flamed; but the blood
+sprang no faster up into her cheeks, than what it flowed back upon my
+own heart, at sight of it, with penitence and concern. I found no words
+to excuse myself, but bowed before her very deep, and went my ways out
+of the house with death in my bosom.
+
+I think it was about five days that followed without any change. I saw
+her scarce ever but at meals, and then of course in the company of
+James More. If we were alone even for a moment, I made it my devoir to
+behave the more distantly and to multiply respectful attentions, having
+always in my mind’s eye that picture of the girl shrinking and flaming
+in a blush, and in my heart more pity for her than I could depict in
+words. I was sorry enough for myself, I need not dwell on that, having
+fallen all my length and more than all my height in a few seconds; but,
+indeed, I was near as sorry for the girl, and sorry enough to be scarce
+angry with her save by fits and starts. Her plea was good; she had been
+placed in an unfair position; if she had deceived herself and me, it
+was no more than was to have been looked for.
+
+And for another thing she was now very much alone. Her father, when he
+was by, was rather a caressing parent; but he was very easy led away by
+his affairs and pleasures, neglected her without compunction or remark,
+spent his nights in taverns when he had the money, which was more often
+than I could at all account for; and even in the course of these few
+days, failed once to come to a meal, which Catriona and I were at last
+compelled to partake of without him. It was the evening meal, and I
+left immediately that I had eaten, observing I supposed she would
+prefer to be alone; to which she agreed and (strange as it may seem) I
+quite believed her. Indeed, I thought myself but an eyesore to the
+girl, and a reminder of a moment’s weakness that she now abhorred to
+think of. So she must sit alone in that room where she and I had been
+so merry, and in the blink of that chimney whose light had shone upon
+our many difficult and tender moments. There she must sit alone, and
+think of herself as of a maid who had most unmaidenly proffered her
+affections and had the same rejected. And in the meanwhile I would be
+alone some other place, and reading myself (whenever I was tempted to
+be angry) lessons upon human frailty and female delicacy. And
+altogether I suppose there were never two poor fools made themselves
+more unhappy in a greater misconception.
+
+As for James, he paid not so much heed to us, or to anything in nature
+but his pocket, and his belly, and his own prating talk. Before twelve
+hours were gone he had raised a small loan of me; before thirty, he had
+asked for a second and been refused. Money and refusal he took with the
+same kind of high good nature. Indeed, he had an outside air of
+magnanimity that was very well fitted to impose upon a daughter; and
+the light in which he was constantly presented in his talk, and the
+man’s fine presence and great ways went together pretty harmoniously.
+So that a man that had no business with him, and either very little
+penetration or a furious deal of prejudice, might almost have been
+taken in. To me, after my first two interviews, he was as plain as
+print; I saw him to be perfectly selfish, with a perfect innocency in
+the same; and I would hearken to his swaggering talk (of arms, and “an
+old soldier,” and “a poor Highland gentleman,” and “the strength of my
+country and my friends”) as I might to the babbling of a parrot.
+
+The odd thing was that I fancy he believed some part of it himself, or
+did at times; I think he was so false all through that he scarce knew
+when he was lying; and for one thing, his moments of dejection must
+have been wholly genuine. There were times when he would be the most
+silent, affectionate, clinging creature possible, holding Catriona’s
+hand like a big baby, and begging of me not to leave if I had any love
+to him; of which, indeed, I had none, but all the more to his daughter.
+He would press and indeed beseech us to entertain him with our talk, a
+thing very difficult in the state of our relations; and again break
+forth in pitiable regrets for his own land and friends, or into Gaelic
+singing.
+
+“This is one of the melancholy airs of my native land,” he would say.
+“You may think it strange to see a soldier weep, and indeed it is to
+make a near friend of you,” says he. “But the notes of this singing are
+in my blood, and the words come out of my heart. And when I mind upon
+my red mountains and the wild birds calling there, and the brave
+streams of water running down, I would scarce think shame to weep
+before my enemies.” Then he would sing again, and translate to me
+pieces of the song, with a great deal of boggling and much expressed
+contempt against the English language. “It says here,” he would say,
+“that the sun is gone down, and the battle is at an end, and the brave
+chiefs are defeated. And it tells here how the stars see them fleeing
+into strange countries or lying dead on the red mountain; and they will
+never more shout the call of battle or wash their feet in the streams
+of the valley. But if you had only some of this language, you would
+weep also because the words of it are beyond all expression, and it is
+mere mockery to tell you it in English.”
+
+Well, I thought there was a good deal of mockery in the business, one
+way and another; and yet, there was some feeling too, for which I hated
+him, I think, the worst of all. And it used to cut me to the quick to
+see Catriona so much concerned for the old rogue, and weeping herself
+to see him weep, when I was sure one half of his distress flowed from
+his last night’s drinking in some tavern. There were times when I was
+tempted to lend him a round sum, and see the last of him for good; but
+this would have been to see the last of Catriona as well, for which I
+was scarcely so prepared; and besides, it went against my conscience to
+squander my good money on one who was so little of a husband.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+A TWOSOME
+
+
+I believe it was about the fifth day, and I know at least that James
+was in one of his fits of gloom, when I received three letters. The
+first was from Alan, offering to visit me in Leyden; the other two were
+out of Scotland and prompted by the same affair, which was the death of
+my uncle and my own complete accession to my rights. Rankeillor’s was,
+of course, wholly in the business view; Miss Grant’s was like herself,
+a little more witty than wise, full of blame to me for not having
+written (though how was I to write with such intelligence?) and of
+rallying talk about Catriona, which it cut me to the quick to read in
+her very presence.
+
+For it was of course in my own rooms that I found them, when I came to
+dinner, so that I was surprised out of my news in the very first moment
+of reading it. This made a welcome diversion for all three of us, nor
+could any have foreseen the ill consequences that ensued. It was
+accident that brought the three letters the same day, and that gave
+them into my hand in the same room with James More; and of all the
+events that flowed from that accident, and which I might have prevented
+if I had held my tongue, the truth is that they were preordained before
+Agricola came into Scotland or Abraham set out upon his travels.
+
+The first that I opened was naturally Alan’s; and what more natural
+than that I should comment on his design to visit me? but I observed
+James to sit up with an air of immediate attention.
+
+“Is that not Alan Breck that was suspected of the Appin accident?” he
+inquired.
+
+I told him, “Ay,” it was the same; and he withheld me some time from my
+other letters, asking of our acquaintance, of Alan’s manner of life in
+France, of which I knew very little, and further of his visit as now
+proposed.
+
+“All we forfeited folk hang a little together,” he explained, “and
+besides I know the gentleman: and though his descent is not the thing,
+and indeed he has no true right to use the name of Stewart, he was very
+much admired in the day of Drummossie. He did there like a soldier; if
+some that need not be named had done as well, the upshot need not have
+been so melancholy to remember. There were two that did their best that
+day, and it makes a bond between the pair of us,” says he.
+
+I could scarce refrain from shooting out my tongue at him, and could
+almost have wished that Alan had been there to have inquired a little
+further into that mention of his birth. Though, they tell me, the same
+was indeed not wholly regular.
+
+Meanwhile, I had opened Miss Grant’s, and could not withhold an
+exclamation.
+
+“Catriona,” I cried, forgetting, the first time since her father was
+arrived, to address her by a handle, “I am come into my kingdom fairly,
+I am the laird of Shaws indeed—my uncle is dead at last.”
+
+She clapped her hands together leaping from her seat. The next moment
+it must have come over both of us at once what little cause of joy was
+left to either, and we stood opposite, staring on each other sadly.
+
+But James showed himself a ready hypocrite. “My daughter,” says he, “is
+this how my cousin learned you to behave? Mr. David has lost a new
+friend, and we should first condole with him on his bereavement.”
+
+“Troth, sir,” said I, turning to him in a kind of anger, “I can make no
+such great faces. His death is as blithe news as ever I got.”
+
+“It’s a good soldier’s philosophy,” says James. “’Tis the way of flesh,
+we must all go, all go. And if the gentleman was so far from your
+favour, why, very well! But we may at least congratulate you on your
+accession to your estates.”
+
+“Nor can I say that either,” I replied, with the same heat. “It is a
+good estate; what matters that to a lone man that has enough already? I
+had a good revenue before in my frugality; and but for the man’s
+death—which gratifies me, shame to me that must confess it!—I see not
+how anyone is to be bettered by this change.”
+
+“Come, come,” said he, “you are more affected than you let on, or you
+would never make yourself out so lonely. Here are three letters; that
+means three that wish you well; and I could name two more, here in this
+very chamber. I have known you not so very long, but Catriona, when we
+are alone, is never done with the singing of your praises.”
+
+She looked up at him, a little wild at that; and he slid off at once
+into another matter, the extent of my estate, which (during the most of
+the dinner time) he continued to dwell upon with interest. But it was
+to no purpose he dissembled; he had touched the matter with too gross a
+hand: and I knew what to expect. Dinner was scarce ate when he plainly
+discovered his designs. He reminded Catriona of an errand, and bid her
+attend to it. “I do not see you should be one beyond the hour,” he
+added, “and friend David will be good enough to bear me company till
+you return.” She made haste to obey him without words. I do not know if
+she understood, I believe not; but I was completely satisfied, and sat
+strengthening my mind for what should follow.
+
+The door had scarce closed behind her departure, when the man leaned
+back in his chair and addressed me with a good affectation of easiness.
+Only the one thing betrayed him, and that was his face; which suddenly
+shone all over with fine points of sweat.
+
+“I am rather glad to have a word alone with you,” says he, “because in
+our first interview there were some expressions you misapprehended and
+I have long meant to set you right upon. My daughter stands beyond
+doubt. So do you, and I would make that good with my sword against all
+gainsayers. But, my dear David, this world is a censorious place—as who
+should know it better than myself, who have lived ever since the days
+of my late departed father, God sain him! in a perfect spate of
+calumnies? We have to face to that; you and me have to consider of
+that; we have to consider of that.” And he wagged his head like a
+minister in a pulpit.
+
+“To what effect, Mr. Drummond?” said I. “I would be obliged to you if
+you would approach your point.”
+
+“Ay, ay,” said he, laughing, “like your character, indeed! and what I
+most admire in it. But the point, my worthy fellow, is sometimes in a
+kittle bit.” He filled a glass of wine. “Though between you and me,
+that are such fast friends, it need not bother us long. The point, I
+need scarcely tell you, is my daughter. And the first thing is that I
+have no thought in my mind of blaming you. In the unfortunate
+circumstances, what could you do else? ’Deed, and I cannot tell.”
+
+“I thank you for that,” said I, pretty close upon my guard.
+
+“I have besides studied your character,” he went on; “your talents are
+fair; you seem to have a moderate competence, which does no harm; and
+one thing with another, I am very happy to have to announce to you that
+I have decided on the latter of the two ways open.”
+
+“I am afraid I am dull,” said I. “What ways are these?”
+
+He bent his brows upon me formidably and uncrossed his legs. “Why,
+sir,” says he, “I think I need scarce describe them to a gentleman of
+your condition; either that I should cut your throat or that you should
+marry my daughter.”
+
+“You are pleased to be quite plain at last,” said I.
+
+“And I believe I have been plain from the beginning!” cries he
+robustiously. “I am a careful parent, Mr. Balfour; but I thank God, a
+patient and deleeborate man. There is many a father, sir, that would
+have hirsled you at once either to the altar or the field. My esteem
+for your character—”
+
+“Mr. Drummond,” I interrupted, “if you have any esteem for me at all, I
+will beg of you to moderate your voice. It is quite needless to rowt at
+a gentleman in the same chamber with yourself and lending you his best
+attention.”
+
+“Why, very true,” says he, with an immediate change. “And you must
+excuse the agitations of a parent.”
+
+“I understand you then,” I continued—“for I will take no note of your
+other alternative, which perhaps it was a pity you let fall—I
+understand you rather to offer me encouragement in case I should desire
+to apply for your daughter’s hand?”
+
+“It is not possible to express my meaning better,” said he, “and I see
+we shall do well together.”
+
+“That remains to be yet seen,” said I. “But so much I need make no
+secret of, that I bear the lady you refer to the most tender affection,
+and I could not fancy, even in a dream, a better fortune than to get
+her.”
+
+“I was sure of it, I felt certain of you, David,” he cried, and reached
+out his hand to me.
+
+I put it by. “You go too fast, Mr. Drummond,” said I. “There are
+conditions to be made; and there is a difficulty in the path, which I
+see not entirely how we shall come over. I have told you that, upon my
+side, there is no objection to the marriage, but I have good reason to
+believe there will be much on the young lady’s.”
+
+“This is all beside the mark,” says he. “I will engage for her
+acceptance.”
+
+“I think you forget, Mr. Drummond,” said I, “that, even in dealing with
+myself, you have been betrayed into two-three unpalatable expressions.
+I will have none such employed to the young lady. I am here to speak
+and think for the two of us; and I give you to understand that I would
+no more let a wife be forced upon myself, than what I would let a
+husband be forced on the young lady.”
+
+He sat and glowered at me like one in doubt and a good deal of temper.
+
+“So that is to be the way of it,” I concluded. “I will marry Miss
+Drummond, and that blithely, if she is entirely willing. But if there
+be the least unwillingness, as I have reason to fear—marry her will I
+never.”
+
+“Well well,” said he, “this is a small affair. As soon as she returns I
+will sound her a bit, and hope to reassure you—”
+
+But I cut in again. “Not a finger of you, Mr. Drummond, or I cry off,
+and you can seek a husband to your daughter somewhere else,” said I.
+“It is I that am to be the only dealer and the only judge. I shall
+satisfy myself exactly; and none else shall anyways meddle—you the
+least of all.”
+
+“Upon my word, sir!” he exclaimed, “and who are you to be the judge?”
+
+“The bridegroom, I believe,” said I.
+
+“This is to quibble,” he cried. “You turn your back upon the fact. The
+girl, my daughter, has no choice left to exercise. Her character is
+gone.”
+
+“And I ask your pardon,” said I, “but while this matter lies between
+her and you and me, that is not so.”
+
+“What security have I!” he cried. “Am I to let my daughter’s reputation
+depend upon a chance?”
+
+“You should have thought of all this long ago,” said I, “before you
+were so misguided as to lose her; and not afterwards when it is quite
+too late. I refuse to regard myself as any way accountable for your
+neglect, and I will be browbeat by no man living. My mind is quite made
+up, and come what may, I will not depart from it a hair’s breadth. You
+and me are to sit here in company till her return: upon which, without
+either word or look from you, she and I are to go forth again to hold
+our talk. If she can satisfy me that she is willing to this step, I
+will then make it; and if she cannot, I will not.”
+
+He leaped out of his chair like a man stung. “I can spy your manœuvre,”
+he cried; “you would work upon her to refuse!”
+
+“Maybe ay, and maybe no,” said I. “That is the way it is to be,
+whatever.”
+
+“And if I refuse?” cries he.
+
+“Then, Mr. Drummond, it will have to come to the throat-cutting,” said
+I.
+
+What with the size of the man, his great length of arm in which he came
+near rivalling his father, and his reputed skill at weapons, I did not
+use this word without trepidation, to say nothing at all of the
+circumstance that he was Catriona’s father. But I might have spared
+myself alarms. From the poorness of my lodging—he does not seem to have
+remarked his daughter’s dresses, which were indeed all equally new to
+him—and from the fact that I had shown myself averse to lend, he had
+embraced a strong idea of my poverty. The sudden news of my estate
+convinced him of his error, and he had made but the one bound of it on
+this fresh venture, to which he was now so wedded, that I believe he
+would have suffered anything rather than fall to the alternative of
+fighting.
+
+A little while longer he continued to dispute with me, until I hit upon
+a word that silenced him.
+
+“If I find you so averse to let me see the lady by herself,” said I, “I
+must suppose you have very good grounds to think me in the right about
+her unwillingness.”
+
+He gabbled some kind of an excuse.
+
+“But all this is very exhausting to both of our tempers,” I added, “and
+I think we would do better to preserve a judicious silence.”
+
+The which we did until the girl returned, and I must suppose would have
+cut a very ridiculous figure had there been any there to view us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE
+
+
+I opened the door to Catriona and stopped her on the threshold.
+
+“Your father wishes us to take our walk,” said I.
+
+She looked to James More, who nodded, and at that, like a trained
+soldier, she turned to go with me.
+
+We took one of our old ways, where we had gone often together, and been
+more happy than I can tell of in the past. I came a half a step behind,
+so that I could watch her unobserved. The knocking of her little shoes
+upon the way sounded extraordinary pretty and sad; and I thought it a
+strange moment that I should be so near both ends of it at once, and
+walk in the midst between two destinies, and could not tell whether I
+was hearing these steps for the last time, or whether the sound of them
+was to go in and out with me till death should part us.
+
+She avoided even to look at me, only walked before her, like one who
+had a guess of what was coming. I saw I must speak soon before my
+courage was run out, but where to begin I knew not. In this painful
+situation, when the girl was as good as forced into my arms and had
+already besought my forbearance, any excess of pressure must have
+seemed indecent; yet to avoid it wholly would have a very cold-like
+appearance. Between these extremes I stood helpless, and could have bit
+my fingers; so that, when at last I managed to speak at all, it may be
+said I spoke at random.
+
+“Catriona,” said I, “I am in a very painful situation; or rather, so we
+are both; and I would be a good deal obliged to you if you would
+promise to let me speak through first of all, and not to interrupt me
+till I have done.”
+
+She promised me that simply.
+
+“Well,” said I, “this that I have got to say is very difficult, and I
+know very well I have no right to be saying it. After what passed
+between the two of us last Friday, I have no manner of right. We have
+got so ravelled up (and all by my fault) that I know very well the
+least I could do is just to hold my tongue, which was what I intended
+fully, and there was nothing further from my thoughts than to have
+troubled you again. But, my dear, it has become merely necessary, and
+no way by it. You see, this estate of mine has fallen in, which makes
+of me rather a better match; and the—the business would not have quite
+the same ridiculous-like appearance that it would before. Besides
+which, it’s supposed that our affairs have got so much ravelled up (as
+I was saying) that it would be better to let them be the way they are.
+In my view, this part of the thing is vastly exagerate, and if I were
+you I would not wear two thoughts on it. Only it’s right I should
+mention the same, because there’s no doubt it has some influence on
+James More. Then I think we were none so unhappy when we dwelt together
+in this town before. I think we did pretty well together. If you would
+look back, my dear—”
+
+“I will look neither back nor forward,” she interrupted. “Tell me the
+one thing: this is my father’s doing?”
+
+“He approves of it,” said I. “He approved I that I should ask your hand
+in marriage,” and was going on again with somewhat more of an appeal
+upon her feelings; but she marked me not, and struck into the midst.
+
+“He told you to!” she cried. “It is no sense denying it, you said
+yourself that there was nothing farther from your thoughts. He told you
+to.”
+
+“He spoke of it the first, if that is what you mean,” I began.
+
+She was walking ever the faster, and looking fain in front of her; but
+at this she made a little noise in her head, and I thought she would
+have run.
+
+“Without which,” I went on, “after what you said last Friday, I would
+never have been so troublesome as make the offer. But when he as good
+as asked me, what was I to do?”
+
+She stopped and turned round upon me.
+
+“Well, it is refused at all events,” she cried, “and there will be an
+end of that.”
+
+And she began again to walk forward.
+
+“I suppose I could expect no better,” said I, “but I think you might
+try to be a little kind to me for the last end of it. I see not why you
+should be harsh. I have loved you very well, Catriona—no harm that I
+should call you so for the last time. I have done the best that I could
+manage, I am trying the same still, and only vexed that I can do no
+better. It is a strange thing to me that you can take any pleasure to
+be hard to me.”
+
+“I am not thinking of you,” she said, “I am thinking of that man, my
+father.”
+
+“Well, and that way, too!” said I. “I can be of use to you that way,
+too; I will have to be. It is very needful, my dear, that we should
+consult about your father; for the way this talk has gone, an angry man
+will be James More.”
+
+She stopped again. “It is because I am disgraced?” she asked.
+
+“That is what he is thinking,” I replied, “but I have told you already
+to make nought of it.”
+
+“It will be all one to me,” she cried. “I prefer to be disgraced!”
+
+I did not know very well what to answer, and stood silent.
+
+There seemed to be something working in her bosom after that last cry;
+presently she broke out, “And what is the meaning of all this? Why is
+all this shame loundered on my head? How could you dare it, David
+Balfour?”
+
+“My dear,” said I, “what else was I to do?”
+
+“I am not your dear,” she said, “and I defy you to be calling me these
+words.”
+
+“I am not thinking of my words,” said I. “My heart bleeds for you, Miss
+Drummond. Whatever I may say, be sure you have my pity in your
+difficult position. But there is just the one thing that I wish you
+would bear in view, if it was only long enough to discuss it quietly;
+for there is going to be a collieshangie when we two get home. Take my
+word for it, it will need the two of us to make this matter end in
+peace.”
+
+“Ay,” said she. There sprang a patch of red in either of her cheeks.
+“Was he for fighting you?” said she.
+
+“Well, he was that,” said I.
+
+She gave a dreadful kind of laugh. “At all events, it is complete!” she
+cried. And then turning on me. “My father and I are a fine pair,” said
+she, “but I am thanking the good God there will be somebody worse than
+what we are. I am thanking the good God that he has let me see you so.
+There will never be the girl made that will not scorn you.”
+
+I had borne a good deal pretty patiently, but this was over the mark.
+
+“You have no right to speak to me like that,” said I. “What have I done
+but to be good to you, or try to be? And here is my repayment! O, it is
+too much.”
+
+She kept looking at me with a hateful smile. “Coward!” said she.
+
+“The word in your throat and in your father’s!” I cried. “I have dared
+him this day already in your interest. I will dare him again, the nasty
+pole-cat; little I care which of us should fall! Come,” said I, “back
+to the house with us; let us be done with it, let me be done with the
+whole Hieland crew of you! You will see what you think when I am dead.”
+
+She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck her
+for.
+
+“O, smile away!” I cried. “I have seen your bonny father smile on the
+wrong side this day. Not that I mean he was afraid, of course,” I added
+hastily, “but he preferred the other way of it.”
+
+“What is this?” she asked.
+
+“When I offered to draw with him,” said I.
+
+“You offered to draw upon James More!” she cried.
+
+“And I did so,” said I, “and found him backward enough, or how would we
+be here?”
+
+“There is a meaning upon this,” said she. “What is it you are meaning?”
+
+“He was to make you take me,” I replied, “and I would not have it. I
+said you should be free, and I must speak with you alone; little I
+supposed it would be such a speaking! ‘_And what if I refuse_?’ said
+he.—‘_Then it must come to the throat-cutting_,’ says I, ‘_for I will
+no more have a husband forced on that young lady_, _than what I would
+have a wife forced upon myself_.’ These were my words, they were a
+friend’s words; bonnily have I paid for them! Now you have refused me
+of your own clear free will, and there lives no father in the
+Highlands, or out of them, that can force on this marriage. I will see
+that your wishes are respected; I will make the same my business, as I
+have all through. But I think you might have that decency as to affect
+some gratitude. ’Deed, and I thought you knew me better! I have not
+behaved quite well to you, but that was weakness. And to think me a
+coward, and such a coward as that—O, my lass, there was a stab for the
+last of it!”
+
+“Davie, how would I guess?” she cried. “O, this is a dreadful business!
+Me and mine,”—she gave a kind of a wretched cry at the word—“me and
+mine are not fit to speak to you. O, I could be kneeling down to you in
+the street, I could be kissing your hands for forgiveness!”
+
+“I will keep the kisses I have got from you already,” cried I. “I will
+keep the ones I wanted and that were something worth; I will not be
+kissed in penitence.”
+
+“What can you be thinking of this miserable girl?” says she.
+
+“What I am trying to tell you all this while!” said I, “that you had
+best leave me alone, whom you can make no more unhappy if you tried,
+and turn your attention to James More, your father, with whom you are
+like to have a queer pirn to wind.”
+
+“O, that I must be going out into the world alone with such a man!” she
+cried, and seemed to catch herself in with a great effort. “But trouble
+yourself no more for that,” said she. “He does not know what kind of
+nature is in my heart. He will pay me dear for this day of it; dear,
+dear, will he pay.”
+
+She turned, and began to go home and I to accompany her. At which she
+stopped.
+
+“I will be going alone,” she said. “It is alone I must be seeing him.”
+
+Some little time I raged about the streets, and told myself I was the
+worst used lad in Christendom. Anger choked me; it was all very well
+for me to breathe deep; it seemed there was not air enough about Leyden
+to supply me, and I thought I would have burst like a man at the bottom
+of the sea. I stopped and laughed at myself at a street corner a minute
+together, laughing out loud, so that a passenger looked at me, which
+brought me to myself.
+
+“Well,” I thought, “I have been a gull and a ninny and a soft Tommy
+long enough. Time it was done. Here is a good lesson to have nothing to
+do with that accursed sex, that was the ruin of the man in the
+beginning and will be so to the end. God knows I was happy enough
+before ever I saw her; God knows I can be happy enough again when I
+have seen the last of her.”
+
+That seemed to me the chief affair: to see them go. I dwelled upon the
+idea fiercely; and presently slipped on, in a kind of malevolence, to
+consider how very poorly they were likely to fare when Davie Balfour
+was no longer by to be their milk-cow; at which, to my very own great
+surprise, the disposition of my mind turned bottom up. I was still
+angry; I still hated her; and yet I thought I owed it to myself that
+she should suffer nothing.
+
+This carried me home again at once, where I found the mails drawn out
+and ready fastened by the door, and the father and daughter with every
+mark upon them of a recent disagreement. Catriona was like a wooden
+doll; James More breathed hard, his face was dotted with white spots,
+and his nose upon one side. As soon as I came in, the girl looked at
+him with a steady, clear, dark look that might have been followed by a
+blow. It was a hint that was more contemptuous than a command, and I
+was surprised to see James More accept it. It was plain he had had a
+master talking-to; and I could see there must be more of the devil in
+the girl than I had guessed, and more good humour about the man than I
+had given him the credit of.
+
+He began, at least, calling me Mr. Balfour, and plainly speaking from a
+lesson; but he got not very far, for at the first pompous swell of his
+voice, Catriona cut in.
+
+“I will tell you what James More is meaning,” said she. “He means we
+have come to you, beggar-folk, and have not behaved to you very well,
+and we are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill-behaviour. Now we are
+wanting to go away and be forgotten; and my father will have guided his
+gear so ill, that we cannot even do that unless you will give us some
+more alms. For that is what we are, at an events, beggar-folk and
+sorners.”
+
+“By your leave, Miss Drummond,” said I, “I must speak to your father by
+myself.”
+
+She went into her own room and shut the door, without a word or a look.
+
+“You must excuse her, Mr. Balfour,” says James More. “She has no
+delicacy.”
+
+“I am not here to discuss that with you,” said I, “but to be quit of
+you. And to that end I must talk of your position. Now, Mr. Drummond, I
+have kept the run of your affairs more closely than you bargained for.
+I know you had money of your own when you were borrowing mine. I know
+you have had more since you were here in Leyden, though you concealed
+it even from your daughter.”
+
+“I bid you beware. I will stand no more baiting,” he broke out. “I am
+sick of her and you. What kind of a damned trade is this to be a
+parent! I have had expressions used to me—” There he broke off. “Sir,
+this is the heart of a soldier and a parent,” he went on again, laying
+his hand on his bosom, “outraged in both characters—and I bid you
+beware.”
+
+“If you would have let me finish,” says I, “you would have found I
+spoke for your advantage.”
+
+“My dear friend,” he cried, “I know I might have relied upon the
+generosity of your character.”
+
+“Man! will you let me speak?” said I. “The fact is that I cannot win to
+find out if you are rich or poor. But it is my idea that your means, as
+they are mysterious in their source, so they are something insufficient
+in amount; and I do not choose your daughter to be lacking. If I durst
+speak to herself, you may be certain I would never dream of trusting it
+to you; because I know you like the back of my hand, and all your
+blustering talk is that much wind to me. However, I believe in your way
+you do still care something for your daughter after all; and I must
+just be doing with that ground of confidence, such as it is.”
+
+Whereupon, I arranged with him that he was to communicate with me, as
+to his whereabouts and Catriona’s welfare, in consideration of which I
+was to serve him a small stipend.
+
+He heard the business out with a great deal of eagerness; and when it
+was done, “My dear fellow, my dear son,” he cried out, “this is more
+like yourself than any of it yet! I will serve you with a soldier’s
+faithfulness—”
+
+“Let me hear no more of it!” says I. “You have got me to that pitch
+that the bare name of soldier rises on my stomach. Our traffic is
+settled; I am now going forth and will return in one half-hour, when I
+expect to find my chambers purged of you.”
+
+I gave them good measure of time; it was my one fear that I might see
+Catriona again, because tears and weakness were ready in my heart, and
+I cherished my anger like a piece of dignity. Perhaps an hour went by;
+the sun had gone down, a little wisp of a new moon was following it
+across a scarlet sunset; already there were stars in the east, and in
+my chambers, when at last I entered them, the night lay blue. I lit a
+taper and reviewed the rooms; in the first there remained nothing so
+much as to awake a memory of those who were gone; but in the second, in
+a corner of the floor, I spied a little heap that brought my heart into
+my mouth. She had left behind at her departure all that she had ever
+had of me. It was the blow that I felt sorest, perhaps because it was
+the last; and I fell upon that pile of clothing and behaved myself more
+foolish than I care to tell of.
+
+Late in the night, in a strict frost, and my teeth chattering, I came
+again by some portion of my manhood and considered with myself. The
+sight of these poor frocks and ribbons, and her shifts, and the clocked
+stockings, was not to be endured; and if I were to recover any
+constancy of mind, I saw I must be rid of them ere the morning. It was
+my first thought to have made a fire and burned them; but my
+disposition has always been opposed to wastery, for one thing; and for
+another, to have burned these things that she had worn so close upon
+her body seemed in the nature of a cruelty. There was a corner cupboard
+in that chamber; there I determined to bestow them. The which I did and
+made it a long business, folding them with very little skill indeed but
+the more care; and sometimes dropping them with my tears. All the heart
+was gone out of me, I was weary as though I had run miles, and sore
+like one beaten; when, as I was folding a kerchief that she wore often
+at her neck, I observed there was a corner neatly cut from it. It was a
+kerchief of a very pretty hue, on which I had frequently remarked; and
+once that she had it on, I remembered telling her (by way of a banter)
+that she wore my colours. There came a glow of hope and like a tide of
+sweetness in my bosom; and the next moment I was plunged back in a
+fresh despair. For there was the corner crumpled in a knot and cast
+down by itself in another part of the floor.
+
+But when I argued with myself, I grew more hopeful. She had cut that
+corner off in some childish freak that was manifestly tender; that she
+had cast it away again was little to be wondered at; and I was inclined
+to dwell more upon the first than upon the second, and to be more
+pleased that she had ever conceived the idea of that keepsake, than
+concerned because she had flung it from her in an hour of natural
+resentment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+WE MEET IN DUNKIRK
+
+
+Altogether, then, I was scare so miserable the next days but what I had
+many hopeful and happy snatches; threw myself with a good deal of
+constancy upon my studies; and made out to endure the time till Alan
+should arrive, or I might hear word of Catriona by the means of James
+More. I had altogether three letters in the time of our separation. One
+was to announce their arrival in the town of Dunkirk in France, from
+which place James shortly after started alone upon a private mission.
+This was to England and to see Lord Holderness; and it has always been
+a bitter thought that my good money helped to pay the charges of the
+same. But he has need of a long spoon who soups with the de’il, or
+James More either. During this absence, the time was to fall due for
+another letter; and as the letter was the condition of his stipend, he
+had been so careful as to prepare it beforehand and leave it with
+Catriona to be despatched. The fact of our correspondence aroused her
+suspicions, and he was no sooner gone than she had burst the seal. What
+I received began accordingly in the writing of James More:
+
+“My dear Sir,—Your esteemed favour came to hand duly, and I have to
+acknowledge the inclosure according to agreement. It shall be all
+faithfully expended on my daughter, who is well, and desires to be
+remembered to her dear friend. I find her in rather a melancholy
+disposition, but trust in the mercy of God to see her re-established.
+Our manner of life is very much alone, but we solace ourselves with the
+melancholy tunes of our native mountains, and by walking up the margin
+of the sea that lies next to Scotland. It was better days with me when
+I lay with five wounds upon my body on the field of Gladsmuir. I have
+found employment here in the _haras_ of a French nobleman, where my
+experience is valued. But, my dear Sir, the wages are so exceedingly
+unsuitable that I would be ashamed to mention them, which makes your
+remittances the more necessary to my daughter’s comfort, though I
+daresay the sight of old friends would be still better.
+
+
+“My dear Sir,
+“Your affectionate, obedient servant,
+“James Macgregor Drummond.”
+
+
+Below it began again in the hand of Catriona:—
+
+“Do not be believing him, it is all lies together,—C. M. D.”
+
+
+Not only did she add this postscript, but I think she must have come
+near suppressing the letter; for it came long after date, and was
+closely followed by the third. In the time betwixt them, Alan had
+arrived, and made another life to me with his merry conversation; I had
+been presented to his cousin of the Scots-Dutch, a man that drank more
+than I could have thought possible and was not otherwise of interest; I
+had been entertained to many jovial dinners and given some myself, all
+with no great change upon my sorrow; and we two (by which I mean Alan
+and myself, and not at all the cousin) had discussed a good deal the
+nature of my relations with James More and his daughter. I was
+naturally diffident to give particulars; and this disposition was not
+anyway lessened by the nature of Alan’s commentary upon those I gave.
+
+“I cannae make heed nor tail of it,” he would say, “but it sticks in my
+mind ye’ve made a gowk of yourself. There’s few people that has had
+more experience than Alan Breck: and I can never call to mind to have
+heard tell of a lassie like this one of yours. The way that you tell
+it, the thing’s fair impossible. Ye must have made a terrible hash of
+the business, David.”
+
+“There are whiles that I am of the same mind,” said I.
+
+“The strange thing is that ye seem to have a kind of fancy for her
+too!” said Alan.
+
+“The biggest kind, Alan,” said I, “and I think I’ll take it to my grave
+with me.”
+
+“Well, ye beat me, whatever!” he would conclude.
+
+I showed him the letter with Catriona’s postscript. “And here again!”
+he cried. “Impossible to deny a kind of decency to this Catriona, and
+sense forby! As for James More, the man’s as boss as a drum; he’s just
+a wame and a wheen words; though I’ll can never deny that he fought
+reasonably well at Gladsmuir, and it’s true what he says here about the
+five wounds. But the loss of him is that the man’s boss.”
+
+“Ye see, Alan,” said I, “it goes against the grain with me to leave the
+maid in such poor hands.”
+
+“Ye couldnae weel find poorer,” he admitted. “But what are ye to do
+with it? It’s this way about a man and a woman, ye see, Davie: The
+weemenfolk have got no kind of reason to them. Either they like the
+man, and then a’ goes fine; or else they just detest him, and ye may
+spare your breath—ye can do naething. There’s just the two sets of
+them—them that would sell their coats for ye, and them that never look
+the road ye’re on. That’s a’ that there is to women; and you seem to be
+such a gomeral that ye cannae tell the tane frae the tither.”
+
+“Well, and I’m afraid that’s true for me,” said I.
+
+“And yet there’s naething easier!” cried Alan. “I could easy learn ye
+the science of the thing; but ye seem to me to be born blind, and
+there’s where the deefficulty comes in.”
+
+“And can _you_ no help me?” I asked, “you that are so clever at the
+trade?”
+
+“Ye see, David, I wasnae here,” said he. “I’m like a field officer that
+has naebody but blind men for scouts and _éclaireurs_; and what would
+he ken? But it sticks in my mind that ye’ll have made some kind of
+bauchle; and if I was you I would have a try at her again.”
+
+“Would ye so, man Alan?” said I.
+
+“I would e’en’t,” says he.
+
+The third letter came to my hand while we were deep in some such talk:
+and it will be seen how pat it fell to the occasion. James professed to
+be in some concern upon his daughter’s health, which I believe was
+never better; abounded in kind expressions to myself; and finally
+proposed that I should visit them at Dunkirk.
+
+“You will now be enjoying the society of my old comrade Mr. Stewart,”
+he wrote. “Why not accompany him so far in his return to France? I have
+something very particular for Mr. Stewart’s ear; and, at any rate, I
+would be pleased to meet in with an old fellow-soldier and one so
+mettle as himself. As for you, my dear sir, my daughter and I would be
+proud to receive our benefactor, whom we regard as a brother and a son.
+The French nobleman has proved a person of the most filthy avarice of
+character, and I have been necessitate to leave the _haras_. You will
+find us in consequence a little poorly lodged in the _auberge_ of a man
+Bazin on the dunes; but the situation is caller, and I make no doubt
+but we might spend some very pleasant days, when Mr. Stewart and I
+could recall our services, and you and my daughter divert yourselves in
+a manner more befitting your age. I beg at least that Mr. Stewart would
+come here; my business with him opens a very wide door.”
+
+“What does the man want with me?” cried Alan, when he had read. “What
+he wants with you is clear enough—it’s siller. But what can he want
+with Alan Breck?”
+
+“O, it’ll be just an excuse,” said I. “He is still after this marriage,
+which I wish from my heart that we could bring about. And he asks you
+because he thinks I would be less likely to come wanting you.”
+
+“Well, I wish that I kent,” says Alan. “Him and me were never onyways
+pack; we used to girn at ither like a pair of pipers. ‘Something for my
+ear,’ quo’ he! I’ll maybe have something for his hinder-end, before
+we’re through with it. Dod, I’m thinking it would be a kind of
+divertisement to gang and see what he’ll be after! Forby that I could
+see your lassie then. What say ye, Davie? Will ye ride with Alan?”
+
+You may be sure I was not backward, and Alan’s furlough running towards
+an end, we set forth presently upon this joint adventure.
+
+It was near dark of a January day when we rode at last into the town of
+Dunkirk. We left our horses at the post, and found a guide to Bazin’s
+Inn, which lay beyond the walls. Night was quite fallen, so that we
+were the last to leave that fortress, and heard the doors of it close
+behind us as we passed the bridge. On the other side there lay a
+lighted suburb, which we thridded for a while, then turned into a dark
+lane, and presently found ourselves wading in the night among deep sand
+where we could hear a bullering of the sea. We travelled in this
+fashion for some while, following our conductor mostly by the sound of
+his voice; and I had begun to think he was perhaps misleading us, when
+we came to the top of a small brae, and there appeared out of the
+darkness a dim light in a window.
+
+“_Voilà l’auberge à Bazin_,” says the guide.
+
+Alan smacked his lips. “An unco lonely bit,” said he, and I thought by
+his tone he was not wholly pleased.
+
+A little after, and we stood in the lower storey of that house, which
+was all in the one apartment, with a stairs leading to the chambers at
+the side, benches and tables by the wall, the cooking fire at the one
+end of it, and shelves of bottles and the cellar-trap at the other.
+Here Bazin, who was an ill-looking, big man, told us the Scottish
+gentleman was gone abroad he knew not where, but the young lady was
+above, and he would call her down to us.
+
+I took from my breast that kerchief wanting the corner, and knotted it
+about my throat. I could hear my heart go; and Alan patting me on the
+shoulder with some of his laughable expressions, I could scarce refrain
+from a sharp word. But the time was not long to wait. I heard her step
+pass overhead, and saw her on the stair. This she descended very
+quietly, and greeted me with a pale face and a certain seeming of
+earnestness, or uneasiness, in her manner that extremely dashed me.
+
+“My father, James More, will be here soon. He will be very pleased to
+see you,” she said. And then of a sudden her face flamed, her eyes
+lightened, the speech stopped upon her lips; and I made sure she had
+observed the kerchief. It was only for a breath that she was
+discomposed; but methought it was with a new animation that she turned
+to welcome Alan. “And you will be his friend, Alan Breck?” she cried.
+“Many is the dozen times I will have heard him tell of you; and I love
+you already for all your bravery and goodness.”
+
+“Well, well,” says Alan, holding her hand in his and viewing her, “and
+so this is the young lady at the last of it! David, ye’re an awful poor
+hand of a description.”
+
+I do not know that ever I heard him speak so straight to people’s
+hearts; the sound of his voice was like song.
+
+“What? will he have been describing me?” she cried.
+
+“Little else of it since I ever came out of France!” says he, “forby a
+bit of a speciment one night in Scotland in a shaw of wood by
+Silvermills. But cheer up, my dear! ye’re bonnier than what he said.
+And now there’s one thing sure; you and me are to be a pair of friends.
+I’m a kind of a henchman to Davie here; I’m like a tyke at his heels;
+and whatever he cares for, I’ve got to care for too—and by the holy
+airn! they’ve got to care for me! So now you can see what way you stand
+with Alan Breck, and ye’ll find ye’ll hardly lose on the transaction.
+He’s no very bonnie, my dear, but he’s leal to them he loves.”
+
+“I thank you from my heart for your good words,” said she. “I have that
+honour for a brave, honest man that I cannot find any to be answering
+with.”
+
+Using travellers’ freedom, we spared to wait for James More, and sat
+down to meat, we threesome. Alan had Catriona sit by him and wait upon
+his wants: he made her drink first out of his glass, he surrounded her
+with continual kind gallantries, and yet never gave me the most small
+occasion to be jealous; and he kept the talk so much in his own hand,
+and that in so merry a note, that neither she nor I remembered to be
+embarrassed. If any had seen us there, it must have been supposed that
+Alan was the old friend and I the stranger. Indeed, I had often cause
+to love and to admire the man, but I never loved or admired him better
+than that night; and I could not help remarking to myself (what I was
+sometimes rather in danger of forgetting) that he had not only much
+experience of life, but in his own way a great deal of natural ability
+besides. As for Catriona, she seemed quite carried away; her laugh was
+like a peal of bells, her face gay as a May morning; and I own,
+although I was well pleased, yet I was a little sad also, and thought
+myself a dull, stockish character in comparison of my friend, and very
+unfit to come into a young maid’s life, and perhaps ding down her
+gaiety.
+
+But if that was like to be my part, I found that at least I was not
+alone in it; for, James More returning suddenly, the girl was changed
+into a piece of stone. Through the rest of that evening, until she made
+an excuse and slipped to bed, I kept an eye upon her without cease; and
+I can bear testimony that she never smiled, scarce spoke, and looked
+mostly on the board in front of her. So that I really marvelled to see
+so much devotion (as it used to be) changed into the very sickness of
+hate.
+
+Of James More it is unnecessary to say much; you know the man already,
+what there was to know of him; and I am weary of writing out his lies.
+Enough that he drank a great deal, and told us very little that was to
+any possible purpose. As for the business with Alan, that was to be
+reserved for the morrow and his private hearing.
+
+It was the more easy to be put off, because Alan and I were pretty
+weary with four day’s ride, and sat not very late after Catriona.
+
+We were soon alone in a chamber where we were to make-shift with a
+single bed. Alan looked on me with a queer smile.
+
+“Ye muckle ass!” said he.
+
+“What do ye mean by that?” I cried.
+
+“Mean? What do I mean! It’s extraordinar, David man,” say he, “that you
+should be so mortal stupit.”
+
+Again I begged him to speak out.
+
+“Well, it’s this of it,” said he. “I told ye there were the two kinds
+of women—them that would sell their shifts for ye, and the others. Just
+you try for yoursel, my bonny man! But what’s that neepkin at your
+craig?”
+
+I told him.
+
+“I thocht it was something thereabout,” said he.
+
+Nor would he say another word though I besieged him long with
+importunities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+THE LETTER FROM THE SHIP
+
+
+Daylight showed us how solitary the inn stood. It was plainly hard upon
+the sea, yet out of all view of it, and beset on every side with
+scabbit hills of sand. There was, indeed, only one thing in the nature
+of a prospect, where there stood out over a brae the two sails of a
+windmill, like an ass’s ears, but with the ass quite hidden. It was
+strange (after the wind rose, for at first it was dead calm) to see the
+turning and following of each other of these great sails behind the
+hillock. Scarce any road came by there; but a number of footways
+travelled among the bents in all directions up to Mr. Bazin’s door. The
+truth is, he was a man of many trades, not any one of them honest, and
+the position of his inn was the best of his livelihood. Smugglers
+frequented it; political agents and forfeited persons bound across the
+water came there to await their passages; and I daresay there was worse
+behind, for a whole family might have been butchered in that house and
+nobody the wiser.
+
+I slept little and ill. Long ere it was day, I had slipped from beside
+my bedfellow, and was warming myself at the fire or walking to and fro
+before the door. Dawn broke mighty sullen; but a little after, sprang
+up a wind out of the west, which burst the clouds, let through the sun,
+and set the mill to the turning. There was something of spring in the
+sunshine, or else it was in my heart; and the appearing of the great
+sails one after another from behind the hill, diverted me extremely. At
+times I could hear a creak of the machinery; and by half-past eight of
+the day, and I thought this dreary, desert place was like a paradise.
+
+For all which, as the day drew on and nobody came near, I began to be
+aware of an uneasiness that I could scarce explain. It seemed there was
+trouble afoot; the sails of the windmill, as they came up and went down
+over the hill, were like persons spying; and outside of all fancy, it
+was surely a strange neighbourhood and house for a young lady to be
+brought to dwell in.
+
+At breakfast, which we took late, it was manifest that James More was
+in some danger or perplexity; manifest that Alan was alive to the same,
+and watched him close; and this appearance of duplicity upon the one
+side, and vigilance upon the other, held me on live coals. The meal was
+no sooner over than James seemed to come began to make apologies. He
+had an appointment of a private nature in the town (it was with the
+French nobleman, he told me), and we would please excuse him till about
+noon. Meanwhile he carried his daughter aside to the far end of the
+room, where he seemed to speak rather earnestly and she to listen with
+much inclination.
+
+“I am caring less and less about this man James,” said Alan. “There’s
+something no right with the man James, and I shouldnae wonder but what
+Alan Breck would give an eye to him this day. I would like fine to see
+yon French nobleman, Davie; and I daresay you could find an employ to
+yoursel, and that would be to speir at the lassie for some news o’ your
+affair. Just tell it to her plainly—tell her ye’re a muckle ass at the
+off-set; and then, if I were you, and ye could do it naitural, I would
+just mint to her I was in some kind of a danger; a’ weemenfolk likes
+that.”
+
+“I cannae lee, Alan, I cannae do it naitural,” says I, mocking him.
+
+“The more fool you!” says he. “Then ye’ll can tell her that I
+recommended it; that’ll set her to the laughing; and I wouldnae wonder
+but what that was the next best. But see to the pair of them! If I
+didnae feel just sure of the lassie, and that she was awful pleased and
+chief with Alan, I would think there was some kind of hocus-pocus about
+you.”
+
+“And is she so pleased with ye, then, Alan?” I asked.
+
+“She thinks a heap of me,” says he. “And I’m no like you: I’m one that
+can tell. That she does—she thinks a heap of Alan. And troth! I’m
+thinking a good deal of him mysel; and with your permission, Shaws,
+I’ll be getting a wee yont amang the bents, so that I can see what way
+James goes.”
+
+One after another went, till I was left alone beside the breakfast
+table; James to Dunkirk, Alan dogging him, Catriona up the stairs to
+her own chamber. I could very well understand how she should avoid to
+be alone with me; yet was none the better pleased with it for that, and
+bent my mind to entrap her to an interview before the men returned.
+Upon the whole, the best appeared to me to do like Alan. If I was out
+of view among the sandhills, the fine morning would decoy her forth;
+and once I had her in the open, I could please myself.
+
+No sooner said than done; nor was I long under the bield of a hillock
+before she appeared at the inn door, looked here and there, and (seeing
+nobody) set out by a path that led directly seaward, and by which I
+followed her. I was in no haste to make my presence known; the further
+she went I made sure of the longer hearing to my suit; and the ground
+being all sandy it was easy to follow her unheard. The path rose and
+came at last to the head of a knowe. Thence I had a picture for the
+first time of what a desolate wilderness that inn stood hidden in;
+where was no man to be seen, nor any house of man, except just Bazin’s
+and the windmill. Only a little further on, the sea appeared and two or
+three ships upon it, pretty as a drawing. One of these was extremely
+close in to be so great a vessel; and I was aware of a shock of new
+suspicion, when I recognised the trim of the _Seahorse_. What should an
+English ship be doing so near in to France? Why was Alan brought into
+her neighbourhood, and that in a place so far from any hope of rescue?
+and was it by accident, or by design, that the daughter of James More
+should walk that day to the seaside?
+
+Presently I came forth behind her in the front of the sandhills and
+above the beach. It was here long and solitary; with a man-o’-war’s
+boat drawn up about the middle of the prospect, and an officer in
+charge and pacing the sands like one who waited. I sat down where the
+rough grass a good deal covered me, and looked for what should follow.
+Catriona went straight to the boat; the officer met her with
+civilities; they had ten words together; I saw a letter changing hands;
+and there was Catriona returning. At the same time, as if this were all
+her business on the Continent, the boat shoved off and was headed for
+the _Seahorse_. But I observed the officer to remain behind and
+disappear among the bents.
+
+I liked the business little; and the more I considered of it, liked it
+less. Was it Alan the officer was seeking? or Catriona? She drew near
+with her head down, looking constantly on the sand, and made so tender
+a picture that I could not bear to doubt her innocence. The next, she
+raised her face and recognised me; seemed to hesitate, and then came on
+again, but more slowly, and I thought with a changed colour. And at
+that thought, all else that was upon my bosom—fears, suspicions, the
+care of my friend’s life—was clean swallowed up; and I rose to my feet
+and stood waiting her in a drunkenness of hope.
+
+I gave her “good morning” as she came up, which she returned with a
+good deal of composure.
+
+“Will you forgive my having followed you?” said I.
+
+“I know you are always meaning kindly,” she replied; and then, with a
+little outburst, “but why will you be sending money to that man! It
+must not be.”
+
+“I never sent it for him,” said I, “but for you, as you know well.”
+
+“And you have no right to be sending it to either one of us,” she said.
+“David, it is not right.”
+
+“It is not, it is all wrong,” said I, “and I pray God he will help this
+dull fellow (if it be at all possible) to make it better. Catriona,
+this is no kind of life for you to lead; and I ask your pardon for the
+word, but yon man is no fit father to take care of you.”
+
+“Do not be speaking of him, even!” was her cry.
+
+“And I need speak of him no more; it is not of him that I am thinking,
+O, be sure of that!” says I. “I think of the one thing. I have been
+alone now this long time in Leyden; and when I was by way of at my
+studies, still I was thinking of that. Next Alan came, and I went among
+soldier-men to their big dinners; and still I had the same thought. And
+it was the same before, when I had her there beside me. Catriona, do
+you see this napkin at my throat! You cut a corner from it once and
+then cast it from you. They’re _your_ colours now; I wear them in my
+heart. My dear, I cannot be wanting you. O, try to put up with me!”
+
+I stepped before her so as to intercept her walking on.
+
+“Try to put up with me,” I was saying, “try and bear me with a little.”
+
+Still she had never the word, and a fear began to rise in me like a
+fear of death.
+
+“Catriona,” I cried, gazing on her hard, “is it a mistake again? Am I
+quite lost?”
+
+She raised her face to me, breathless.
+
+“Do you want me, Davie, truly?” said she, and I scarce could hear her
+say it.
+
+“I do that,” said I. “O, sure you know it—I do that.”
+
+“I have nothing left to give or to keep back,” said she. “I was all
+yours from the first day, if you would have had a gift of me!” she
+said.
+
+This was on the summit of a brae; the place was windy and conspicuous,
+we were to be seen there even from the English ship; but I kneeled down
+before her in the sand, and embraced her knees, and burst into that
+storm of weeping that I thought it must have broken me. All thought was
+wholly beaten from my mind by the vehemency of my discomposure. I knew
+not where I was. I had forgot why I was happy; only I knew she stooped,
+and I felt her cherish me to her face and bosom, and heard her words
+out of a whirl.
+
+“Davie,” she was saying, “O, Davie, is this what you think of me! Is it
+so that you were caring for poor me! O, Davie, Davie!”
+
+With that she wept also, and our tears were commingled in a perfect
+gladness.
+
+It might have been ten in the day before I came to a clear sense of
+what a mercy had befallen me; and sitting over against her, with her
+hands in mine, gazed in her face, and laughed out loud for pleasure
+like a child, and called her foolish and kind names. I have never seen
+the place that looked so pretty as those bents by Dunkirk; and the
+windmill sails, as they bobbed over the knowe, were like a tune of
+music.
+
+I know not how much longer we might have continued to forget all else
+besides ourselves, had I not chanced upon a reference to her father,
+which brought us to reality.
+
+“My little friend,” I was calling her again and again, rejoicing to
+summon up the past by the sound of it, and to gaze across on her, and
+to be a little distant—“My little friend, now you are mine altogether;
+mine for good, my little friend and that man’s no longer at all.”
+
+There came a sudden whiteness in her face, she plucked her hands from
+mine.
+
+“Davie, take me away from him!” she cried. “There’s something wrong;
+he’s not true. There will be something wrong; I have a dreadful terror
+here at my heart. What will he be wanting at all events with that
+King’s ship? What will this word be saying?” And she held the letter
+forth. “My mind misgives me, it will be some ill to Alan. Open it,
+Davie—open it and see.”
+
+I took it, and looked at it, and shook my head.
+
+“No,” said I, “it goes against me, I cannot open a man’s letter.”
+
+“Not to save your friend?” she cried.
+
+“I cannae tell,” said I. “I think not. If I was only sure!”
+
+“And you have but to break the seal!” said she.
+
+“I know it,” said I, “but the thing goes against me.”
+
+“Give it here,” said she, “and I will open it myself.”
+
+“Nor you neither,” said I. “You least of all. It concerns your father,
+and his honour, dear, which we are both misdoubting. No question but
+the place is dangerous-like, and the English ship being here, and your
+father having word from it, and yon officer that stayed ashore. He
+would not be alone either; there must be more along with him; I daresay
+we are spied upon this minute. Ay, no doubt, the letter should be
+opened; but somehow, not by you nor me.”
+
+I was about thus far with it, and my spirit very much overcome with a
+sense of danger and hidden enemies, when I spied Alan, come back again
+from following James and walking by himself among the sand-hills. He
+was in his soldier’s coat, of course, and mighty fine; but I could not
+avoid to shudder when I thought how little that jacket would avail him,
+if he were once caught and flung in a skiff, and carried on board of
+the _Seahorse_, a deserter, a rebel, and now a condemned murderer.
+
+“There,” said I, “there is the man that has the best right to open it:
+or not, as he thinks fit.”
+
+With which I called upon his name, and we both stood up to be a mark
+for him.
+
+“If it is so—if it be more disgrace—will you can bear it?” she asked,
+looking upon me with a burning eye.
+
+“I was asked something of the same question when I had seen you but the
+once,” said I. “What do you think I answered? That if I liked you as I
+thought I did—and O, but I like you better!—I would marry you at his
+gallows’ foot.”
+
+The blood rose in her face; she came close up and pressed upon me,
+holding my hand: and it was so that we awaited Alan.
+
+He came with one of his queer smiles. “What was I telling ye, David?”
+says he.
+
+“There is a time for all things, Alan,” said I, “and this time is
+serious. How have you sped? You can speak out plain before this friend
+of ours.”
+
+“I have been upon a fool’s errand,” said he.
+
+“I doubt we have done better than you, then,” said I; “and, at least,
+here is a great deal of matter that you must judge of. Do you see
+that?” I went on, pointing to the ship. “That is the _Seahorse_,
+Captain Palliser.”
+
+“I should ken her, too,” says Alan. “I had fyke enough with her when
+she was stationed in the Forth. But what ails the man to come so
+close?”
+
+“I will tell you why he came there first,” said I. “It was to bring
+this letter to James More. Why he stops here now that it’s delivered,
+what it’s likely to be about, why there’s an officer hiding in the
+bents, and whether or not it’s probable that he’s alone—I would rather
+you considered for yourself.”
+
+“A letter to James More?” said he.
+
+“The same,” said I.
+
+“Well, and I can tell ye more than that,” said Alan. “For the last
+night, when you were fast asleep, I heard the man colloguing with some
+one in the French, and then the door of that inn to be opened and
+shut.”
+
+“Alan!” cried I, “you slept all night, and I am here to prove it.”
+
+“Ay, but I would never trust Alan whether he was asleep or waking!”
+says he. “But the business looks bad. Let’s see the letter.”
+
+I gave it him.
+
+“Catriona,” said he, “you have to excuse me, my dear; but there’s
+nothing less than my fine bones upon the cast of it, and I’ll have to
+break this seal.”
+
+“It is my wish,” said Catriona.
+
+He opened it, glanced it through, and flung his hand in the air.
+
+“The stinking brock!” says he, and crammed the paper in his pocket.
+“Here, let’s get our things together. This place is fair death to me.”
+And he began to walk towards the inn.
+
+It was Catriona that spoke the first. “He has sold you?” she asked.
+
+“Sold me, my dear,” said Alan. “But thanks to you and Davie, I’ll can
+jink him yet. Just let me win upon my horse,” he added.
+
+“Catriona must come with us,” said I. “She can have no more traffic
+with that man. She and I are to be married.” At which she pressed my
+hand to her side.
+
+“Are ye there with it?” says Alan, looking back. “The best day’s work
+that ever either of you did yet! And I’m bound to say, my dawtie, ye
+make a real, bonny couple.”
+
+The way that he was following brought us close in by the windmill,
+where I was aware of a man in seaman’s trousers, who seemed to be
+spying from behind it. Only, of course, we took him in the rear.
+
+“See, Alan!”
+
+“Wheesht!” said, he, “this is my affairs.”
+
+The man was, no doubt, a little deafened by the clattering of the mill,
+and we got up close before he noticed. Then he turned, and we saw he
+was a big fellow with a mahogany face.
+
+“I think, sir,” says Alan, “that you speak the English?”
+
+“_Non_, _monsieur_,” says he, with an incredible bad accent.
+
+“_Non_, _monsieur_,” cries Alan, mocking him. “Is that how they learn
+you French on the _Seahorse_? Ye muckle, gutsey hash, here’s a Scots
+boot to your English hurdies!”
+
+And bounding on him before he could escape, he dealt the man a kick
+that laid him on his nose. Then he stood, with a savage smile, and
+watched him scramble to his feet and scamper off into the sand-hills.
+
+“But it’s high time I was clear of these empty bents!” said Alan; and
+continued his way at top speed, and we still following, to the backdoor
+of Bazin’s inn.
+
+It chanced that as we entered by the one door we came face to face with
+James More entering by the other.
+
+“Here!” said I to Catriona, “quick! upstairs with you and make your
+packets; this is no fit scene for you.”
+
+In the meanwhile James and Alan had met in the midst of the long room.
+She passed them close by to reach the stairs; and after she was some
+way up I saw her turn and glance at them again, though without pausing.
+Indeed, they were worth looking at. Alan wore as they met one of his
+best appearances of courtesy and friendliness, yet with something
+eminently warlike, so that James smelled danger off the man, as folk
+smell fire in a house, and stood prepared for accidents.
+
+Time pressed. Alan’s situation in that solitary place, and his enemies
+about him, might have daunted Cæsar. It made no change in him; and it
+was in his old spirit of mockery and daffing that he began the
+interview.
+
+“A braw good day to ye again, Mr. Drummond,” said he. “What’ll yon
+business of yours be just about?”
+
+“Why, the thing being private, and rather of a long story,” says James,
+“I think it will keep very well till we have eaten.”
+
+“I’m none so sure of that,” said Alan. “It sticks in my mind it’s
+either now or never; for the fact is me and Mr. Balfour here have
+gotten a line, and we’re thinking of the road.”
+
+I saw a little surprise in James’s eye; but he held himself stoutly.
+
+“I have but the one word to say to cure you of that,” said he, “and
+that is the name of my business.”
+
+“Say it then,” says Alan. “Hout! wha minds for Davie?”
+
+“It is a matter that would make us both rich men,” said James.
+
+“Do you tell me that?” cries Alan.
+
+“I do, sir,” said James. “The plain fact is that it is Cluny’s
+Treasure.”
+
+“No!” cried Alan. “Have ye got word of it?”
+
+“I ken the place, Mr. Stewart, and can take you there,” said James.
+
+“This crowns all!” says Alan. “Well, and I’m glad I came to Dunkirk.
+And so this was your business, was it? Halvers, I’m thinking?”
+
+“That is the business, sir,” said James.
+
+“Well, well,” said Alan; and then in the same tone of childlike
+interest, “it has naething to do with the _Seahorse_, then?” he asked.
+
+“With what?” says James.
+
+“Or the lad that I have just kicked the bottom of behind yon windmill?”
+pursued Alan. “Hut, man! have done with your lees! I have Palliser’s
+letter here in my pouch. You’re by with it, James More. You can never
+show your face again with dacent folk.”
+
+James was taken all aback with it. He stood a second, motionless and
+white, then swelled with the living anger.
+
+“Do you talk to me, you bastard?” he roared out.
+
+“Ye glee’d swine!” cried Alan, and hit him a sounding buffet on the
+mouth, and the next wink of time their blades clashed together.
+
+At the first sound of the bare steel I instinctively leaped back from
+the collision. The next I saw, James parried a thrust so nearly that I
+thought him killed; and it lowed up in my mind that this was the girl’s
+father, and in a manner almost my own, and I drew and ran in to sever
+them.
+
+“Keep back, Davie! Are ye daft! Damn ye, keep back!” roared Alan. “Your
+blood be on your ain heid then!”
+
+I beat their blades down twice. I was knocked reeling against the wall;
+I was back again betwixt them. They took no heed of me, thrusting at
+each other like two furies. I can never think how I avoided being
+stabbed myself or stabbing one of these two Rodomonts, and the whole
+business turned about me like a piece of a dream; in the midst of which
+I heard a great cry from the stair, and Catriona sprang before her
+father. In the same moment the point of my sword encountered some thing
+yielding. It came back to me reddened. I saw the blood flow on the
+girl’s kerchief, and stood sick.
+
+“Will you be killing him before my eyes, and me his daughter after
+all!” she cried.
+
+“My dear, I have done with him,” said Alan, and went, and sat on a
+table, with his arms crossed and the sword naked in his hand.
+
+Awhile she stood before the man, panting, with big eyes, then swung
+suddenly about and faced him.
+
+“Begone!” was her word, “take your shame out of my sight; leave me with
+clean folk. I am a daughter of Alpin! Shame of the sons of Alpin,
+begone!”
+
+It was said with so much passion as awoke me from the horror of my own
+bloodied sword. The two stood facing, she with the red stain on her
+kerchief, he white as a rag. I knew him well enough—I knew it must have
+pierced him in the quick place of his soul; but he betook himself to a
+bravado air.
+
+“Why,” says he, sheathing his sword, though still with a bright eye on
+Alan, “if this brawl is over I will but get my portmanteau—”
+
+“There goes no pockmantie out of this place except with me,” says Alan.
+
+“Sir!” cries James.
+
+“James More,” says Alan, “this lady daughter of yours is to marry my
+friend Davie, upon the which account I let you pack with a hale
+carcase. But take you my advice of it and get that carcase out of
+harm’s way or ower late. Little as you suppose it, there are leemits to
+my temper.”
+
+“Be damned, sir, but my money’s there!” said James.
+
+“I’m vexed about that, too,” says Alan, with his funny face, “but now,
+ye see, it’s mines.” And then with more gravity, “Be you advised, James
+More, you leave this house.”
+
+James seemed to cast about for a moment in his mind; but it’s to be
+thought he had enough of Alan’s swordsmanship, for he suddenly put off
+his hat to us and (with a face like one of the damned) bade us farewell
+in a series. With which he was gone.
+
+At the same time a spell was lifted from me.
+
+“Catriona,” I cried, “it was me—it was my sword. O, are you much hurt?”
+
+“I know it, Davie, I am loving you for the pain of it; it was done
+defending that bad man, my father. See!” she said, and showed me a
+bleeding scratch, “see, you have made a man of me now. I will carry a
+wound like an old soldier.”
+
+Joy that she should be so little hurt, and the love of her brave
+nature, supported me. I embraced her, I kissed the wound.
+
+“And am I to be out of the kissing, me that never lost a chance?” says
+Alan; and putting me aside and taking Catriona by either shoulder, “My
+dear,” he said, “you’re a true daughter of Alpin. By all accounts, he
+was a very fine man, and he may weel be proud of you. If ever I was to
+get married, it’s the marrow of you I would be seeking for a mother to
+my sons. And I bear’s a king’s name and speak the truth.”
+
+He said it with a serious heat of admiration that was honey to the
+girl, and through her, to me. It seemed to wipe us clean of all James
+More’s disgraces. And the next moment he was just himself again.
+
+“And now by your leave, my dawties,” said he, “this is a’ very bonny;
+but Alan Breck’ll be a wee thing nearer to the gallows than he’s caring
+for; and Dod! I think this is a grand place to be leaving.”
+
+The word recalled us to some wisdom. Alan ran upstairs and returned
+with our saddle-bags and James More’s portmanteau; I picked up
+Catriona’s bundle where she had dropped it on the stair; and we were
+setting forth out of that dangerous house, when Bazin stopped the way
+with cries and gesticulations. He had whipped under a table when the
+swords were drawn, but now he was as bold as a lion. There was his bill
+to be settled, there was a chair broken, Alan had sat among his dinner
+things, James More had fled.
+
+“Here,” I cried, “pay yourself,” and flung him down some Lewie d’ors;
+for I thought it was no time to be accounting.
+
+He sprang upon that money, and we passed him by, and ran forth into the
+open. Upon three sides of the house were seamen hasting and closing in;
+a little nearer to us James More waved his hat as if to hurry them; and
+right behind him, like some foolish person holding up his hands, were
+the sails of the windmill turning.
+
+Alan gave but one glance, and laid himself down to run. He carried a
+great weight in James More’s portmanteau; but I think he would as soon
+have lost his life as cast away that booty which was his revenge; and
+he ran so that I was distressed to follow him, and marvelled and
+exulted to see the girl bounding at my side.
+
+As soon as we appeared, they cast off all disguise upon the other side;
+and the seamen pursued us with shouts and view-hullohs. We had a start
+of some two hundred yards, and they were but bandy-legged tarpaulins
+after all, that could not hope to better us at such an exercise. I
+suppose they were armed, but did not care to use their pistols on
+French ground. And as soon as I perceived that we not only held our
+advantage but drew a little away, I began to feel quite easy of the
+issue. For all which, it was a hot, brisk bit of work, so long as it
+lasted; Dunkirk was still far off; and when we popped over a knowe, and
+found a company of the garrison marching on the other side on some
+manœuvre, I could very well understand the word that Alan had.
+
+He stopped running at once; and mopping at his brow, “They’re a real
+bonny folk, the French nation,” says he.
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+No sooner were we safe within the walls of Dunkirk than we held a very
+necessary council-of-war on our position. We had taken a daughter from
+her father at the sword’s point; any judge would give her back to him
+at once, and by all likelihood clap me and Alan into jail; and though
+we had an argument upon our side in Captain Palliser’s letter, neither
+Catriona nor I were very keen to be using it in public. Upon all
+accounts it seemed the most prudent to carry the girl to Paris to the
+hands of her own chieftain, Macgregor of Bohaldie, who would be very
+willing to help his kinswoman, on the one hand, and not at all anxious
+to dishonour James upon other.
+
+We made but a slow journey of it up, for Catriona was not so good at
+the riding as the running, and had scarce sat in the saddle since the
+’Forty-five. But we made it out at last, reached Paris early of a
+Sabbath morning, and made all speed, under Alan’s guidance, to find
+Bohaldie. He was finely lodged, and lived in a good style, having a
+pension on the Scots Fund, as well as private means; greeted Catriona
+like one of his own house, and seemed altogether very civil and
+discreet, but not particularly open. We asked of the news of James
+More. “Poor James!” said he, and shook his head and smiled, so that I
+thought he knew further than he meant to tell. Then we showed him
+Palliser’s letter, and he drew a long face at that.
+
+“Poor James!” said he again. “Well, there are worse folk than James
+More, too. But this is dreadful bad. Tut, tut, he must have forgot
+himself entirely! This is a most undesirable letter. But, for all that,
+gentlemen, I cannot see what we would want to make it public for. It’s
+an ill bird that fouls his own nest, and we are all Scots folk and all
+Hieland.”
+
+Upon this we all agreed, save perhaps Alan; and still more upon the
+question of our marriage, which Bohaldie took in his own hands, as
+though there had been no such person as James More, and gave Catriona
+away with very pretty manners and agreeable compliments in French. It
+was not till all was over, and our healths drunk, that he told us James
+was in that city, whither he had preceded us some days, and where he
+now lay sick, and like to die. I thought I saw by my wife’s face what
+way her inclination pointed.
+
+“And let us go see him, then,” said I.
+
+“If it is your pleasure,” said Catriona. These were early days.
+
+He was lodged in the same quarter of the city with his chief, in a
+great house upon a corner; and we were guided up to the garret where he
+lay by the sound of Highland piping. It seemed he had just borrowed a
+set of them from Bohaldie to amuse his sickness; though he was no such
+hand as was his brother Rob, he made good music of the kind; and it was
+strange to observe the French folk crowding on the stairs, and some of
+them laughing. He lay propped in a pallet. The first look of him I saw
+he was upon his last business; and, doubtless, this was a strange place
+for him to die in. But even now I find I can scarce dwell upon his end
+with patience. Doubtless, Bohaldie had prepared him; he seemed to know
+we were married, complimented us on the event, and gave us a
+benediction like a patriarch.
+
+“I have been never understood,” said he. “I forgive you both without an
+afterthought;” after which he spoke for all the world in his old
+manner, was so obliging as to play us a tune or two upon his pipes, and
+borrowed a small sum before I left.
+
+I could not trace even a hint of shame in any part of his behaviour;
+but he was great upon forgiveness; it seemed always fresh to him. I
+think he forgave me every time we met; and when after some four days he
+passed away in a kind of odour of affectionate sanctity, I could have
+torn my hair out for exasperation. I had him buried; but what to put
+upon his tomb was quite beyond me, till at last I considered the date
+would look best alone.
+
+I thought it wiser to resign all thoughts of Leyden, where we had
+appeared once as brother and sister, and it would certainly look
+strange to return in a new character. Scotland would be doing for us;
+and thither, after I had recovered that which I had left behind, we
+sailed in a Low Country ship.
+
+
+And now, Miss Barbara Balfour (to set the ladies first), and Mr. Alan
+Balfour younger of Shaws, here is the story brought fairly to an end. A
+great many of the folk that took a part in it, you will find (if you
+think well) that you have seen and spoken with. Alison Hastie in
+Limekilns was the lass that rocked your cradle when you were too small
+to know of it, and walked abroad with you in the policy when you were
+bigger. That very fine great lady that is Miss Barbara’s name-mamma is
+no other than the same Miss Grant that made so much a fool of David
+Balfour in the house of the Lord Advocate. And I wonder whether you
+remember a little, lean, lively gentleman in a scratch-wig and a
+wraprascal, that came to Shaws very late of a dark night, and whom you
+were awakened out of your beds and brought down to the dining-hall to
+be presented to, by the name of Mr. Jamieson? Or has Alan forgotten
+what he did at Mr. Jamieson’s request—a most disloyal act—for which, by
+the letter of the law, he might be hanged—no less than drinking the
+king’s health _across the water_? These were strange doings in a good
+Whig house! But Mr. Jamieson is a man privileged, and might set fire to
+my corn-barn; and the name they know him by now in France is the
+Chevalier Stewart.
+
+As for Davie and Catriona, I shall watch you pretty close in the next
+days, and see if you are so bold as to be laughing at papa and mamma.
+It is true we were not so wise as we might have been, and made a great
+deal of sorrow out of nothing; but you will find as you grow up that
+even the artful Miss Barbara, and even the valiant Mr. Alan, will be
+not so very much wiser than their parents. For the life of man upon
+this world of ours is a funny business. They talk of the angels
+weeping; but I think they must more often be holding their sides as
+they look on; and there was one thing I determined to do when I began
+this long story, and that was to tell out everything as it befell.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes
+
+[1] Conspicuous.
+
+[2] Country.
+
+[3] The Fairies.
+
+[4] Flatteries.
+
+[5] Trust to.
+
+[6] This must have reference to Dr. Cameron on his first visit.—D. B.
+
+[7] Sweetheart.
+
+[8] Child.
+
+[9] Palm.
+
+[10] Gallows.
+
+[11] My Catechism.
+
+[12] Now Prince’s Street.
+
+[13] A learned folklorist of my acquaintance hereby identifies Alan’s
+air. It has been printed (it seems) in Campbell’s _Tales of the West
+Highlands_, Vol. II., p. 91. Upon examination it would really seem as
+if Miss Grant’s unrhymed doggrel (see Chapter V.) would fit with little
+humouring to the notes in question.
+
+[14] A ball placed upon a little mound for convenience of striking.
+
+[15] Patched shoes.
+
+[16] Shoemaker.
+
+[17] Tamson’s mere—to go afoot.
+
+[18] Beard.
+
+[19] Ragged.
+
+[20] Fine things.
+
+[21] Catch.
+
+[22] Victuals.
+
+[23] Trust.
+
+[24] Sea fog.
+
+[25] Bashful.
+
+[26] Rest.
+
+
+
+
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+
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Catriona, by Robert Louis Stevenson</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Catriona</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Robert Louis Stevenson</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: May 15, 1996 [eBook #589]<br />
+[Most recently updated: June 6, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CATRIONA ***</div>
+
+<h4>There are several editions of this ebook in the Project Gutenberg collection. Various characteristics of each ebook are listed to aid in selecting the preferred file.<br />Click on any of the filenumbers below to quickly view each ebook.
+</h4>
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+
+<tr><td>
+ <b><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/589/589-h/589-h.htm">
+589</a></b></td><td>(No illustrations)
+</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>
+ <b><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14133/14133-h/14133-h.htm">
+14133</a></b> </td><td>(An illustrated HTML file)
+</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>
+ <b><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30870/30870-h/30870-h.htm">
+30870</a> </b> </td><td>(No illustrations)
+</td></tr>
+
+</table>
+<h1>Catriona</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by Robert Louis Stevenson</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#part01"><b>PART I. THE LORD ADVOCATE</b></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. THE HIGHLAND WRITER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. I GO TO PILRIG</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGRANGE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. IN THE ADVOCATE&rsquo;S HOUSE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. UMQUILE THE MASTER OF LOVAT</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. THE BRAVO</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. THE HEATHER ON FIRE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. THE RED-HEADED MAN</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. GILLANE SANDS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. THE BASS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. BLACK ANDIE&rsquo;S TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. THE MISSING WITNESS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. THE MEMORIAL</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. THE TEE&rsquo;D BALL</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX. I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY</a><br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#part02"><b>PART II. FATHER AND DAUGHTER</b></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI. THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII. HELVOETSLUYS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII. TRAVELS IN HOLLAND</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV. FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV. THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI. THE THREESOME</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII. A TWOSOME</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII. IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER XXIX. WE MEET IN DUNKIRK</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER XXX. THE LETTER FROM THE SHIP</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>DEDICATION.</h2>
+
+<p style="text-align: center">
+To<br />
+CHARLES BAXTER, <i>Writer to the Signet</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">My Dear Charles</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is the fate of sequels to disappoint those who have waited for them; and my
+David, having been left to kick his heels for more than a lustre in the British
+Linen Company&rsquo;s office, must expect his late re-appearance to be greeted
+with hoots, if not with missiles. Yet, when I remember the days of our
+explorations, I am not without hope. There should be left in our native city
+some seed of the elect; some long-legged, hot-headed youth must repeat to-day
+our dreams and wanderings of so many years ago; he will relish the pleasure,
+which should have been ours, to follow among named streets and numbered houses
+the country walks of David Balfour, to identify Dean, and Silvermills, and
+Broughton, and Hope Park, and Pilrig, and poor old Lochend&mdash;if it still be
+standing, and the Figgate Whins&mdash;if there be any of them left; or to push
+(on a long holiday) so far afield as Gillane or the Bass. So, perhaps, his eye
+shall be opened to behold the series of the generations, and he shall weigh
+with surprise his momentous and nugatory gift of life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You are still&mdash;as when first I saw, as when I last addressed you&mdash;in
+the venerable city which I must always think of as my home. And I have come so
+far; and the sights and thoughts of my youth pursue me; and I see like a vision
+the youth of my father, and of his father, and the whole stream of lives
+flowing down there far in the north, with the sound of laughter and tears, to
+cast me out in the end, as by a sudden freshet, on these ultimate islands. And
+I admire and bow my head before the romance of destiny.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+R. L. S.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Vailima</i>, <i>Upolu</i>,<br />
+<i>Samoa</i>, 1892.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>CATRIONA</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="part01"></a>PART I.<br />
+THE LORD ADVOCATE</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br />
+A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK</h2>
+
+<p>
+The 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David Balfour,
+came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter attending me with a bag of
+money, and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me from their doors. Two
+days before, and even so late as yestermorning, I was like a beggar-man by the
+wayside, clad in rags, brought down to my last shillings, my companion a
+condemned traitor, a price set on my own head for a crime with the news of
+which the country rang. To-day I was served heir to my position in life, a
+landed laird, a bank porter by me carrying my gold, recommendations in my
+pocket, and (in the words of the saying) the ball directly at my foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were two circumstances that served me as ballast to so much sail. The
+first was the very difficult and deadly business I had still to handle; the
+second, the place that I was in. The tall, black city, and the numbers and
+movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world for me, after the moorland
+braes, the sea-sands and the still country-sides that I had frequented up to
+then. The throng of the citizens in particular abashed me. Rankeillor&rsquo;s
+son was short and small in the girth; his clothes scarce held on me; and it was
+plain I was ill qualified to strut in the front of a bank-porter. It was plain,
+if I did so, I should but set folk laughing, and (what was worse in my case)
+set them asking questions. So that I behooved to come by some clothes of my
+own, and in the meanwhile to walk by the porter&rsquo;s side, and put my hand
+on his arm as though we were a pair of friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At a merchant&rsquo;s in the Luckenbooths I had myself fitted out: none too
+fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback; but comely and
+responsible, so that servants should respect me. Thence to an armourer&rsquo;s,
+where I got a plain sword, to suit with my degree in life. I felt safer with
+the weapon, though (for one so ignorant of defence) it might be called an added
+danger. The porter, who was naturally a man of some experience, judged my
+accoutrement to be well chosen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Naething kenspeckle,&rdquo;<a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1"><sup>[1]</sup></a>
+said he; &ldquo;plain, dacent claes. As for the rapier, nae doubt it sits
+wi&rsquo; your degree; but an I had been you, I would has waired my siller
+better-gates than that.&rdquo; And he proposed I should buy winter-hosen from a
+wife in the Cowgate-back, that was a cousin of his own, and made them
+&ldquo;extraordinar endurable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I had other matters on my hand more pressing. Here I was in this old, black
+city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-warren, not only by the number
+of its indwellers, but the complication of its passages and holes. It was,
+indeed, a place where no stranger had a chance to find a friend, let be another
+stranger. Suppose him even to hit on the right close, people dwelt so thronged
+in these tall houses, he might very well seek a day before he chanced on the
+right door. The ordinary course was to hire a lad they called a <i>caddie</i>,
+who was like a guide or pilot, led you where you had occasion, and (your
+errands being done) brought you again where you were lodging. But these
+caddies, being always employed in the same sort of services, and having it for
+obligation to be well informed of every house and person in the city, had grown
+to form a brotherhood of spies; and I knew from tales of Mr. Campbell&rsquo;s
+how they communicated one with another, what a rage of curiosity they conceived
+as to their employer&rsquo;s business, and how they were like eyes and fingers
+to the police. It would be a piece of little wisdom, the way I was now placed,
+to take such a ferret to my tails. I had three visits to make, all immediately
+needful: to my kinsman Mr. Balfour of Pilrig, to Stewart the Writer that was
+Appin&rsquo;s agent, and to William Grant Esquire of Prestongrange, Lord
+Advocate of Scotland. Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s was a non-committal visit; and
+besides (Pilrig being in the country) I made bold to find the way to it myself,
+with the help of my two legs and a Scots tongue. But the rest were in a
+different case. Not only was the visit to Appin&rsquo;s agent, in the midst of
+the cry about the Appin murder, dangerous in itself, but it was highly
+inconsistent with the other. I was like to have a bad enough time of it with my
+Lord Advocate Grant, the best of ways; but to go to him hot-foot from
+Appin&rsquo;s agent, was little likely to mend my own affairs, and might prove
+the mere ruin of friend Alan&rsquo;s. The whole thing, besides, gave me a look
+of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds that was little to my
+fancy. I determined, therefore, to be done at once with Mr. Stewart and the
+whole Jacobitical side of my business, and to profit for that purpose by the
+guidance of the porter at my side. But it chanced I had scarce given him the
+address, when there came a sprinkle of rain&mdash;nothing to hurt, only for my
+new clothes&mdash;and we took shelter under a pend at the head of a close or
+alley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Being strange to what I saw, I stepped a little farther in. The narrow paved
+way descended swiftly. Prodigious tall houses sprang upon each side and bulged
+out, one storey beyond another, as they rose. At the top only a ribbon of sky
+showed in. By what I could spy in the windows, and by the respectable persons
+that passed out and in, I saw the houses to be very well occupied; and the
+whole appearance of the place interested me like a tale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in time and
+clash of steel behind me. Turning quickly, I was aware of a party of armed
+soldiers, and, in their midst, a tall man in a great coat. He walked with a
+stoop that was like a piece of courtesy, genteel and insinuating: he waved his
+hands plausibly as he went, and his face was sly and handsome. I thought his
+eye took me in, but could not meet it. This procession went by to a door in the
+close, which a serving-man in a fine livery set open; and two of the
+soldier-lads carried the prisoner within, the rest lingering with their
+firelocks by the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There can nothing pass in the streets of a city without some following of idle
+folk and children. It was so now; but the more part melted away incontinent
+until but three were left. One was a girl; she was dressed like a lady, and had
+a screen of the Drummond colours on her head; but her comrades or (I should
+say) followers were ragged gillies, such as I had seen the matches of by the
+dozen in my Highland journey. They all spoke together earnestly in Gaelic, the
+sound of which was pleasant in my ears for the sake of Alan; and, though the
+rain was by again, and my porter plucked at me to be going, I even drew nearer
+where they were, to listen. The lady scolded sharply, the others making
+apologies and cringeing before her, so that I made sure she was come of a
+chief&rsquo;s house. All the while the three of them sought in their pockets,
+and by what I could make out, they had the matter of half a farthing among the
+party; which made me smile a little to see all Highland folk alike for fine
+obeisances and empty sporrans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It chanced the girl turned suddenly about, so that I saw her face for the first
+time. There is no greater wonder than the way the face of a young woman fits in
+a man&rsquo;s mind, and stays there, and he could never tell you why; it just
+seems it was the thing he wanted. She had wonderful bright eyes like stars, and
+I daresay the eyes had a part in it; but what I remember the most clearly was
+the way her lips were a trifle open as she turned. And, whatever was the cause,
+I stood there staring like a fool. On her side, as she had not known there was
+anyone so near, she looked at me a little longer, and perhaps with more
+surprise, than was entirely civil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It went through my country head she might be wondering at my new clothes; with
+that, I blushed to my hair, and at the sight of my colouring it is to be
+supposed she drew her own conclusions, for she moved her gillies farther down
+the close, and they fell again to this dispute, where I could hear no more of
+it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had often admired a lassie before then, if scarce so sudden and strong; and
+it was rather my disposition to withdraw than to come forward, for I was much
+in fear of mockery from the womenkind. You would have thought I had now all the
+more reason to pursue my common practice, since I had met this young lady in
+the city street, seemingly following a prisoner, and accompanied with two very
+ragged indecent-like Highlandmen. But there was here a different ingredient; it
+was plain the girl thought I had been prying in her secrets; and with my new
+clothes and sword, and at the top of my new fortunes, this was more than I
+could swallow. The beggar on horseback could not bear to be thrust down so low,
+or, at least of it, not by this young lady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I followed, accordingly, and took off my new hat to her the best that I was
+able.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I think it only fair to myself to let you
+understand I have no Gaelic. It is true I was listening, for I have friends of
+my own across the Highland line, and the sound of that tongue comes friendly;
+but for your private affairs, if you had spoken Greek, I might have had more
+guess at them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made me a little, distant curtsey. &ldquo;There is no harm done,&rdquo;
+said she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more agreeable).
+&ldquo;A cat may look at a king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not mean to offend,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I have no skill of city
+manners; I never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh. Take
+me for a country lad&mdash;it&rsquo;s what I am; and I would rather I told you
+than you found it out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking to
+each other on the causeway,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;But if you are landward
+<a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> bred it will be
+different. I am as landward as yourself; I am Highland, as you see, and think
+myself the farther from my home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not yet a week since I passed the line,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Less
+than a week ago I was on the braes of Balwhidder.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Balwhither?&rdquo; she cries. &ldquo;Come ye from Balwhither! The name
+of it makes all there is of me rejoice. You will not have been long there, and
+not known some of our friends or family?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren,&rdquo;
+I replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I know Duncan, and you give him the true name!&rdquo; she said;
+&ldquo;and if he is an honest man, his wife is honest indeed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;they are fine people, and the place is a bonny
+place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where in the great world is such another!&rdquo; she cries; &ldquo;I am
+loving the smell of that place and the roots that grow there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was infinitely taken with the spirit of the maid. &ldquo;I could be wishing I
+had brought you a spray of that heather,&rdquo; says I. &ldquo;And, though I
+did ill to speak with you at the first, now it seems we have common
+acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not forget me. David Balfour is
+the name I am known by. This is my lucky day, when I have just come into a
+landed estate, and am not very long out of a deadly peril. I wish you would
+keep my name in mind for the sake of Balwhidder,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I
+will yours for the sake of my lucky day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My name is not spoken,&rdquo; she replied, with a great deal of
+haughtiness. &ldquo;More than a hundred years it has not gone upon men&rsquo;s
+tongues, save for a blink. I am nameless, like the Folk of Peace. <a
+name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> Catriona Drummond
+is the one I use.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now indeed I knew where I was standing. In all broad Scotland there was but the
+one name proscribed, and that was the name of the Macgregors. Yet so far from
+fleeing this undesirable acquaintancy, I plunged the deeper in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with
+yourself,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I think he will be one of your friends.
+They called him Robin Oig.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did ye so?&rdquo; cries she. &ldquo;Ye met Rob?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I passed the night with him,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is a fowl of the night,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was a set of pipes there,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;so you may
+judge if the time passed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You should be no enemy, at all events,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;That was
+his brother there a moment since, with the red soldiers round him. It is him
+that I call father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it so?&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;Are you a daughter of James
+More&rsquo;s?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All the daughter that he has,&rdquo; says she: &ldquo;the daughter of a
+prisoner; that I should forget it so, even for one hour, to talk with
+strangers!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here one of the gillies addressed her in what he had of English, to know what
+&ldquo;she&rdquo; (meaning by that himself) was to do about &ldquo;ta
+sneeshin.&rdquo; I took some note of him for a short, bandy-legged, red-haired,
+big-headed man, that I was to know more of to my cost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There can be none the day, Neil,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;How will you
+get &lsquo;sneeshin,&rsquo; wanting siller! It will teach you another time to
+be more careful; and I think James More will not be very well pleased with Neil
+of the Tom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Drummond,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I told you I was in my lucky day.
+Here I am, and a bank-porter at my tail. And remember I have had the
+hospitality of your own country of Balwhidder.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was not one of my people gave it,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but I am owing your uncle at least for
+some springs upon the pipes. Besides which, I have offered myself to be your
+friend, and you have been so forgetful that you did not refuse me in the proper
+time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it had been a great sum, it might have done you honour,&rdquo; said
+she; &ldquo;but I will tell you what this is. James More lies shackled in
+prison; but this time past they will be bringing him down here daily to the
+Advocate&rsquo;s. . . .&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Advocate&rsquo;s!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Is that . . . ?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is the house of the Lord Advocate Grant of Prestongrange,&rdquo; said
+she. &ldquo;There they bring my father one time and another, for what purpose I
+have no thought in my mind; but it seems there is some hope dawned for him. All
+this same time they will not let me be seeing him, nor yet him write; and we
+wait upon the King&rsquo;s street to catch him; and now we give him his snuff
+as he goes by, and now something else. And here is this son of trouble, Neil,
+son of Duncan, has lost my four-penny piece that was to buy that snuff, and
+James More must go wanting, and will think his daughter has forgotten
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took sixpence from my pocket, gave it to Neil, and bade him go about his
+errand. Then to her, &ldquo;That sixpence came with me by Balwhidder,&rdquo;
+said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you are a friend to the Gregara!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would not like to deceive you, either,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I know
+very little of the Gregara and less of James More and his doings, but since the
+while I have been standing in this close, I seem to know something of yourself;
+and if you will just say &lsquo;a friend to Miss Catriona&rsquo; I will see you
+are the less cheated.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The one cannot be without the other,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will even try,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what will you be thinking of myself!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;to be
+holding my hand to the first stranger!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am thinking nothing but that you are a good daughter,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must not be without repaying it,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;where is it
+you stop!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To tell the truth, I am stopping nowhere yet,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;being not full three hours in the city; but if you will give me your
+direction, I will be so bold as come seeking my sixpence for myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will I can trust you for that?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need have little fear,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;James More could not bear it else,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I stop beyond
+the village of Dean, on the north side of the water, with Mrs. Drummond-Ogilvy
+of Allardyce, who is my near friend and will be glad to thank you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are to see me, then, so soon as what I have to do permits,&rdquo;
+said I; and, the remembrance of Alan rolling in again upon my mind, I made
+haste to say farewell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could not but think, even as I did so, that we had made extraordinary free
+upon short acquaintance, and that a really wise young lady would have shown
+herself more backward. I think it was the bank-porter that put me from this
+ungallant train of thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thoucht ye had been a lad of some kind o&rsquo; sense,&rdquo; he
+began, shooting out his lips. &ldquo;Ye&rsquo;re no likely to gang far this
+gate. A fule and his siller&rsquo;s shune parted. Eh, but ye&rsquo;re a green
+callant!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;an&rsquo; a veecious, tae! Cleikin&rsquo; up
+wi&rsquo; baubeejoes!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you dare to speak of the young lady. . . &rdquo; I began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leddy!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Haud us and safe us, whatten leddy?
+Ca&rsquo; <i>thon</i> a leddy? The toun&rsquo;s fu&rsquo; o&rsquo; them.
+Leddies! Man, its weel seen ye&rsquo;re no very acquant in Embro!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A clap of anger took me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;lead me where I told you, and keep your foul
+mouth shut!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not wholly obey me, for, though he no more addressed me directly, he
+very impudent sang at me as he went in a manner of innuendo, and with an
+exceedingly ill voice and ear&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;As Mally Lee cam doun the street, her capuchin did flee,<br />
+She cuist a look ahint her to see her negligee.<br />
+And we&rsquo;re a&rsquo; gaun east and wast, we&rsquo;re a&rsquo; gann
+ajee,<br />
+We&rsquo;re a&rsquo; gaun east and wast courtin&rsquo; Mally Lee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br />
+THE HIGHLAND WRITER</h2>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer dwelt at the top of the longest stair ever mason
+set a hand to; fifteen flights of it, no less; and when I had come to his door,
+and a clerk had opened it, and told me his master was within, I had scarce
+breath enough to send my porter packing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Awa&rsquo; east and west wi&rsquo; ye!&rdquo; said I, took the money bag
+out of his hands, and followed the clerk in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The outer room was an office with the clerk&rsquo;s chair at a table spread
+with law papers. In the inner chamber, which opened from it, a little brisk man
+sat poring on a deed, from which he scarce raised his eyes on my entrance;
+indeed, he still kept his finger in the place, as though prepared to show me
+out and fall again to his studies. This pleased me little enough; and what
+pleased me less, I thought the clerk was in a good posture to overhear what
+should pass between us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I asked if he was Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The same,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;and, if the question is equally fair,
+who may you be yourself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You never heard tell of my name nor of me either,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;but I bring you a token from a friend that you know well. That you know
+well,&rdquo; I repeated, lowering my voice, &ldquo;but maybe are not just so
+keen to hear from at this present being. And the bits of business that I have
+to propone to you are rather in the nature of being confidential. In short, I
+would like to think we were quite private.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He rose without more words, casting down his paper like a man ill-pleased, sent
+forth his clerk of an errand, and shut to the house-door behind him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, sir,&rdquo; said he, returning, &ldquo;speak out your mind and fear
+nothing; though before you begin,&rdquo; he cries out, &ldquo;I tell you mine
+misgives me! I tell you beforehand, ye&rsquo;re either a Stewart or a Stewart
+sent ye. A good name it is, and one it would ill-become my father&rsquo;s son
+to lightly. But I begin to grue at the sound of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My name is called Balfour,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;David Balfour of Shaws.
+As for him that sent me, I will let his token speak.&rdquo; And I showed the
+silver button.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Put it in your pocket, sir!&rdquo; cries he. &ldquo;Ye need name no
+names. The deevil&rsquo;s buckie, I ken the button of him! And de&rsquo;il
+hae&rsquo;t! Where is he now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told him I knew not where Alan was, but he had some sure place (or thought he
+had) about the north side, where he was to lie until a ship was found for him;
+and how and where he had appointed to be spoken with.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been always my opinion that I would hang in a tow for this
+family of mine,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;and, dod! I believe the day&rsquo;s
+come now! Get a ship for him, quot&rsquo; he! And who&rsquo;s to pay for it?
+The man&rsquo;s daft!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is my part of the affair, Mr. Stewart,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Here
+is a bag of good money, and if more be wanted, more is to be had where it came
+from.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I needn&rsquo;t ask your politics,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye need not,&rdquo; said I, smiling, &ldquo;for I&rsquo;m as big a Whig
+as grows.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop a bit, stop a bit,&rdquo; says Mr. Stewart. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s all
+this? A Whig? Then why are you here with Alan&rsquo;s button? and what kind of
+a black-foot traffic is this that I find ye out in, Mr. Whig? Here is a
+forfeited rebel and an accused murderer, with two hundred pounds on his life,
+and ye ask me to meddle in his business, and then tell me ye&rsquo;re a Whig! I
+have no mind of any such Whigs before, though I&rsquo;ve kent plenty of
+them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a forfeited rebel, the more&rsquo;s the pity,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;for the man&rsquo;s my friend. I can only wish he had been better
+guided. And an accused murderer, that he is too, for his misfortune; but
+wrongfully accused.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear you say so,&rdquo; said Stewart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;More than you are to hear me say so, before long,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;Alan Breck is innocent, and so is James.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;the two cases hang together. If Alan is out,
+James can never be in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hereupon I told him briefly of my acquaintance with Alan, of the accident that
+brought me present at the Appin murder, and the various passages of our escape
+among the heather, and my recovery of my estate. &ldquo;So, sir, you have now
+the whole train of these events,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;and can see for
+yourself how I come to be so much mingled up with the affairs of your family
+and friends, which (for all of our sakes) I wish had been plainer and less
+bloody. You can see for yourself, too, that I have certain pieces of business
+depending, which were scarcely fit to lay before a lawyer chosen at random. No
+more remains, but to ask if you will undertake my service?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no great mind to it; but coming as you do with Alan&rsquo;s
+button, the choice is scarcely left me,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;What are your
+instructions?&rdquo; he added, and took up his pen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The first point is to smuggle Alan forth of this country,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;but I need not be repeating that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am little likely to forget it,&rdquo; said Stewart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The next thing is the bit money I am owing to Cluny,&rdquo; I went on.
+&ldquo;It would be ill for me to find a conveyance, but that should be no stick
+to you. It was two pounds five shillings and three-halfpence farthing
+sterling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He noted it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a Mr. Henderland, a licensed
+preacher and missionary in Ardgour, that I would like well to get some snuff
+into the hands of; and, as I daresay you keep touch with your friends in Appin
+(so near by), it&rsquo;s a job you could doubtless overtake with the
+other.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How much snuff are we to say?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was thinking of two pounds,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then there&rsquo;s the lass Alison Hastie, in Lime Kilns,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;Her that helped Alan and me across the Forth. I was thinking if I could
+get her a good Sunday gown, such as she could wear with decency in her degree,
+it would be an ease to my conscience; for the mere truth is, we owe her our two
+lives.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am glad so see you are thrifty, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; says he, making
+his notes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would think shame to be otherwise the first day of my fortune,&rdquo;
+said I. &ldquo;And now, if you will compute the outlay and your own proper
+charges, I would be glad to know if I could get some spending-money back.
+It&rsquo;s not that I grudge the whole of it to get Alan safe; it&rsquo;s not
+that I lack more; but having drawn so much the one day, I think it would have a
+very ill appearance if I was back again seeking, the next. Only be sure you
+have enough,&rdquo; I added, &ldquo;for I am very undesirous to meet with you
+again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and I&rsquo;m pleased to see you&rsquo;re cautious, too,&rdquo;
+said the Writer. &ldquo;But I think ye take a risk to lay so considerable a sum
+at my discretion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said this with a plain sneer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll have to run the hazard,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;O, and
+there&rsquo;s another service I would ask, and that&rsquo;s to direct me to a
+lodging, for I have no roof to my head. But it must be a lodging I may seem to
+have hit upon by accident, for it would never do if the Lord Advocate were to
+get any jealousy of our acquaintance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye may set your weary spirit at rest,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I will
+never name your name, sir; and it&rsquo;s my belief the Advocate is still so
+much to be sympathised with that he doesnae ken of your existence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw I had got to the wrong side of the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a braw day coming for him, then,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;for
+he&rsquo;ll have to learn of it on the deaf side of his head no later than
+to-morrow, when I call on him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When ye <i>call</i> on him!&rdquo; repeated Mr. Stewart. &ldquo;Am I
+daft, or are you! What takes ye near the Advocate!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, just to give myself up,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;are ye making a mock of me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;though I think you have allowed yourself
+some such freedom with myself. But I give you to understand once and for all
+that I am in no jesting spirit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor yet me,&rdquo; says Stewart. &ldquo;And I give yon to understand (if
+that&rsquo;s to be the word) that I like the looks of your behaviour less and
+less. You come here to me with all sorts of propositions, which will put me in
+a train of very doubtful acts and bring me among very undesirable persons this
+many a day to come. And then you tell me you&rsquo;re going straight out of my
+office to make your peace with the Advocate! Alan&rsquo;s button here or
+Alan&rsquo;s button there, the four quarters of Alan wouldnae bribe me further
+in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would take it with a little more temper,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and
+perhaps we can avoid what you object to. I can see no way for it but to give
+myself up, but perhaps you can see another; and if you could, I could never
+deny but what I would be rather relieved. For I think my traffic with his
+lordship is little likely to agree with my health. There&rsquo;s just the one
+thing clear, that I have to give my evidence; for I hope it&rsquo;ll save
+Alan&rsquo;s character (what&rsquo;s left of it), and James&rsquo;s neck, which
+is the more immediate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was silent for a breathing-space, and then, &ldquo;My man,&rdquo; said he,
+&ldquo;you&rsquo;ll never be allowed to give such evidence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have to see about that,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+stiff-necked when I like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye muckle ass!&rdquo; cried Stewart, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s James they want;
+James has got to hang&mdash;Alan, too, if they could catch him&mdash;but James
+whatever! Go near the Advocate with any such business, and you&rsquo;ll see!
+he&rsquo;ll find a way to muzzle, ye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think better of the Advocate than that,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Advocate be dammed!&rdquo; cries he. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the
+Campbells, man! You&rsquo;ll have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back;
+and so will the Advocate too, poor body! It&rsquo;s extraordinar ye cannot see
+where ye stand! If there&rsquo;s no fair way to stop your gab, there&rsquo;s a
+foul one gaping. They can put ye in the dock, do ye no see that?&rdquo; he
+cried, and stabbed me with one finger in the leg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I was told that same no further back than this
+morning by another lawyer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who was he?&rdquo; asked Stewart, &ldquo;He spoke sense at
+least.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told I must be excused from naming him, for he was a decent stout old Whig,
+and had little mind to be mixed up in such affairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think all the world seems to be mixed up in it!&rdquo; cries Stewart.
+&ldquo;But what said you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told him what had passed between Rankeillor and myself before the
+house of Shaws.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and so ye will hang!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Ye&rsquo;ll hang
+beside James Stewart. There&rsquo;s your fortune told.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope better of it yet than that,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;but I could
+never deny there was a risk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Risk!&rdquo; says he, and then sat silent again. &ldquo;I ought to thank
+you for your staunchness to my friends, to whom you show a very good
+spirit,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;if you have the strength to stand by it. But I
+warn you that you&rsquo;re wading deep. I wouldn&rsquo;t put myself in your
+place (me that&rsquo;s a Stewart born!) for all the Stewarts that ever there
+were since Noah. Risk? ay, I take over-many; but to be tried in court before a
+Campbell jury and a Campbell judge, and that in a Campbell country and upon a
+Campbell quarrel&mdash;think what you like of me, Balfour, it&rsquo;s beyond
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a different way of thinking, I suppose,&rdquo; said I;
+&ldquo;I was brought up to this one by my father before me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glory to his bones! he has left a decent son to his name,&rdquo; says
+he. &ldquo;Yet I would not have you judge me over-sorely. My case is dooms
+hard. See, sir, ye tell me ye&rsquo;re a Whig: I wonder what I am. No Whig to
+be sure; I couldnae be just that. But&mdash;laigh in your ear,
+man&mdash;I&rsquo;m maybe no very keen on the other side.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that a fact?&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s what I would think of
+a man of your intelligence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hut! none of your whillywhas!&rdquo; <a name="citation4"></a><a
+href="#footnote4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> cries he. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+intelligence upon both sides. But for my private part I have no particular
+desire to harm King George; and as for King James, God bless him! he does very
+well for me across the water. I&rsquo;m a lawyer, ye see: fond of my books and
+my bottle, a good plea, a well-drawn deed, a crack in the Parliament House with
+other lawyer bodies, and perhaps a turn at the golf on a Saturday at
+e&rsquo;en. Where do ye come in with your Hieland plaids and claymores?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a fact ye have little of the wild
+Highlandman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Little?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Nothing, man! And yet I&rsquo;m Hieland
+born, and when the clan pipes, who but me has to dance! The clan and the name,
+that goes by all. It&rsquo;s just what you said yourself; my father learned it
+to me, and a bonny trade I have of it. Treason and traitors, and the smuggling
+of them out and in; and the French recruiting, weary fall it! and the smuggling
+through of the recruits; and their pleas&mdash;a sorrow of their pleas! Here
+have I been moving one for young Ardsheil, my cousin; claimed the estate under
+the marriage contract&mdash;a forfeited estate! I told them it was nonsense:
+muckle they cared! And there was I cocking behind a yadvocate that liked the
+business as little as myself, for it was fair ruin to the pair of us&mdash;a
+black mark, <i>disaffected</i>, branded on our hurdies, like folk&rsquo;s names
+upon their kye! And what can I do? I&rsquo;m a Stewart, ye see, and must fend
+for my clan and family. Then no later by than yesterday there was one of our
+Stewart lads carried to the Castle. What for? I ken fine: Act of 1736:
+recruiting for King Lewie. And you&rsquo;ll see, he&rsquo;ll whistle me in to
+be his lawyer, and there&rsquo;ll be another black mark on my chara&rsquo;ter!
+I tell you fair: if I but kent the heid of a Hebrew word from the hurdies of
+it, be dammed but I would fling the whole thing up and turn minister!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s rather a hard position,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dooms hard!&rdquo; cries he. &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s what makes me think
+so much of ye&mdash;you that&rsquo;s no Stewart&mdash;to stick your head so
+deep in Stewart business. And for what, I do not know: unless it was the sense
+of duty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope it will be that,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a grand quality. But here is my
+clerk back; and, by your leave, we&rsquo;ll pick a bit of dinner, all the three
+of us. When that&rsquo;s done, I&rsquo;ll give you the direction of a very
+decent man, that&rsquo;ll be very fain to have you for a lodger. And I&rsquo;ll
+fill your pockets to ye, forbye, out of your ain bag. For this
+business&rsquo;ll not be near as dear as ye suppose&mdash;not even the ship
+part of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I made him a sign that his clerk was within hearing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hoot, ye neednae mind for Robbie,&rdquo; cries he. &ldquo;A Stewart,
+too, puir deevil! and has smuggled out more French recruits and trafficking
+Papists than what he has hairs upon his face. Why, it&rsquo;s Robin that
+manages that branch of my affairs. Who will we have now, Rob, for across the
+water!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;ll be Andie Scougal, in the <i>Thristle</i>,&rdquo; replied
+Rob. &ldquo;I saw Hoseason the other day, but it seems he&rsquo;s wanting the
+ship. Then there&rsquo;ll be Tam Stobo; but I&rsquo;m none so sure of Tam.
+I&rsquo;ve seen him colloguing with some gey queer acquaintances; and if was
+anybody important, I would give Tam the go-by.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The head&rsquo;s worth two hundred pounds, Robin,&rdquo; said Stewart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gosh, that&rsquo;ll no be Alan Breck!&rdquo; cried the clerk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just Alan,&rdquo; said his master.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Weary winds! that&rsquo;s sayrious,&rdquo; cried Robin.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll try Andie, then; Andie&rsquo;ll be the best.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seems it&rsquo;s quite a big business,&rdquo; I observed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Balfour, there&rsquo;s no end to it,&rdquo; said Stewart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was a name your clerk mentioned,&rdquo; I went on:
+&ldquo;Hoseason. That must be my man, I think: Hoseason, of the brig
+<i>Covenant</i>. Would you set your trust on him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He didnae behave very well to you and Alan,&rdquo; said Mr. Stewart;
+&ldquo;but my mind of the man in general is rather otherwise. If he had taken
+Alan on board his ship on an agreement, it&rsquo;s my notion he would have
+proved a just dealer. How say ye, Rob?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more honest skipper in the trade than Eli,&rdquo; said the clerk.
+&ldquo;I would lippen to <a name="citation5"></a><a
+href="#footnote5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> Eli&rsquo;s word&mdash;ay, if it was the
+Chevalier, or Appin himsel&rsquo;,&rdquo; he added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it was him that brought the doctor, wasnae&rsquo;t?&rdquo; asked the
+master.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was the very man,&rdquo; said the clerk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I think he took the doctor back?&rdquo; says Stewart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, with his sporran full!&rdquo; cried Robin. &ldquo;And Eli kent of
+that!&rdquo; <a name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6"><sup>[6]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it seems it&rsquo;s hard to ken folk rightly,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was just what I forgot when ye came in, Mr. Balfour!&rdquo; says
+the Writer.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br />
+I GO TO PILRIG</h2>
+
+<p>
+The next morning, I was no sooner awake in my new lodging than I was up and
+into my new clothes; and no sooner the breakfast swallowed, than I was forth on
+my adventurers. Alan, I could hope, was fended for; James was like to be a more
+difficult affair, and I could not but think that enterprise might cost me dear,
+even as everybody said to whom I had opened my opinion. It seemed I was come to
+the top of the mountain only to cast myself down; that I had clambered up,
+through so many and hard trials, to be rich, to be recognised, to wear city
+clothes and a sword to my side, all to commit mere suicide at the last end of
+it, and the worst kind of suicide, besides, which is to get hanged at the
+King&rsquo;s charges.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What was I doing it for? I asked, as I went down the high Street and out north
+by Leith Wynd. First I said it was to save James Stewart; and no doubt the
+memory of his distress, and his wife&rsquo;s cries, and a word or so I had let
+drop on that occasion worked upon me strongly. At the same time I reflected
+that it was (or ought to be) the most indifferent matter to my father&rsquo;s
+son, whether James died in his bed or from a scaffold. He was Alan&rsquo;s
+cousin, to be sure; but so far as regarded Alan, the best thing would be to lie
+low, and let the King, and his Grace of Argyll, and the corbie crows, pick the
+bones of his kinsman their own way. Nor could I forget that, while we were all
+in the pot together, James had shown no such particular anxiety whether for
+Alan or me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next it came upon me I was acting for the sake of justice: and I thought that a
+fine word, and reasoned it out that (since we dwelt in polities, at some
+discomfort to each one of us) the main thing of all must still be justice, and
+the death of any innocent man a wound upon the whole community. Next, again, it
+was the Accuser of the Brethren that gave me a turn of his argument; bade me
+think shame for pretending myself concerned in these high matters, and told me
+I was but a prating vain child, who had spoken big words to Rankeillor and to
+Stewart, and held myself bound upon my vanity to make good that boastfulness.
+Nay, and he hit me with the other end of the stick; for he accused me of a kind
+of artful cowardice, going about at the expense of a little risk to purchase
+greater safety. No doubt, until I had declared and cleared myself, I might any
+day encounter Mungo Campbell or the sheriff&rsquo;s officer, and be recognised,
+and dragged into the Appin murder by the heels; and, no doubt, in case I could
+manage my declaration with success, I should breathe more free for ever after.
+But when I looked this argument full in the face I could see nothing to be
+ashamed of. As for the rest, &ldquo;Here are the two roads,&rdquo; I thought,
+&ldquo;and both go to the same place. It&rsquo;s unjust that James should hang
+if I can save him; and it would be ridiculous in me to have talked so much and
+then do nothing. It&rsquo;s lucky for James of the Glens that I have boasted
+beforehand; and none so unlucky for myself, because now I&rsquo;m committed to
+do right. I have the name of a gentleman and the means of one; it would be a
+poor duty that I was wanting in the essence.&rdquo; And then I thought this was
+a Pagan spirit, and said a prayer in to myself, asking for what courage I might
+lack, and that I might go straight to my duty like a soldier to battle, and
+come off again scatheless, as so many do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This train of reasoning brought me to a more resolved complexion; though it was
+far from closing up my sense of the dangers that surrounded me, nor of how very
+apt I was (if I went on) to stumble on the ladder of the gallows. It was a
+plain, fair morning, but the wind in the east. The little chill of it sang in
+my blood, and gave me a feeling of the autumn, and the dead leaves, and dead
+folks&rsquo; bodies in their graves. It seemed the devil was in it, if I was to
+die in that tide of my fortunes and for other folks&rsquo; affairs. On the top
+of the Calton Hill, though it was not the customary time of year for that
+diversion, some children were crying and running with their kites. These toys
+appeared very plain against the sky; I remarked a great one soar on the wind to
+a high altitude and then plump among the whins; and I thought to myself at
+sight of it, &ldquo;There goes Davie.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My way lay over Mouter&rsquo;s Hill, and through an end of a clachan on the
+braeside among fields. There was a whirr of looms in it went from house to
+house; bees bummed in the gardens; the neighbours that I saw at the doorsteps
+talked in a strange tongue; and I found out later that this was Picardy, a
+village where the French weavers wrought for the Linen Company. Here I got a
+fresh direction for Pilrig, my destination; and a little beyond, on the
+wayside, came by a gibbet and two men hanged in chains. They were dipped in
+tar, as the manner is; the wind span them, the chains clattered, and the birds
+hung about the uncanny jumping-jacks and cried. The sight coming on me
+suddenly, like an illustration of my fears, I could scarce be done with
+examining it and drinking in discomfort. And, as I thus turned and turned about
+the gibbet, what should I strike on, but a weird old wife, that sat behind a
+leg of it, and nodded, and talked aloud to herself with becks and courtesies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are these two, mother?&rdquo; I asked, and pointed to the corpses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A blessing on your precious face!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Twa joes <a
+name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> o&rsquo;mine: just
+two o&rsquo; my old joes, my hinny dear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did they suffer for?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ou, just for the guid cause,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Aften I spaed to
+them the way that it would end. Twa shillin&rsquo; Scots: no pickle mair; and
+there are twa bonny callants hingin&rsquo; for &rsquo;t! They took it frae a
+wean <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> belanged
+to Brouchton.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay!&rdquo; said I to myself, and not to the daft limmer, &ldquo;and did
+they come to such a figure for so poor a business? This is to lose all
+indeed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gie&rsquo;s your loof, <a name="citation9"></a><a
+href="#footnote9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> hinny,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;and let me
+spae your weird to ye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, mother,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I see far enough the way I am.
+It&rsquo;s an unco thing to see too far in front.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I read it in your bree,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a bonnie
+lassie that has bricht een, and there&rsquo;s a wee man in a braw coat, and a
+big man in a pouthered wig, and there&rsquo;s the shadow of the wuddy, <a
+name="citation10"></a><a href="#footnote10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> joe, that lies
+braid across your path. Gie&rsquo;s your loof, hinny, and let Auld Merren spae
+it to ye bonny.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two chance shots that seemed to point at Alan and the daughter of James
+More struck me hard; and I fled from the eldritch creature, casting her a
+baubee, which she continued to sit and play with under the moving shadows of
+the hanged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My way down the causeway of Leith Walk would have been more pleasant to me but
+for this encounter. The old rampart ran among fields, the like of them I had
+never seen for artfulness of agriculture; I was pleased, besides, to be so far
+in the still countryside; but the shackles of the gibbet clattered in my head;
+and the mope and mows of the old witch, and the thought of the dead men,
+hag-rode my spirits. To hang on a gallows, that seemed a hard case; and whether
+a man came to hang there for two shillings Scots, or (as Mr. Stewart had it)
+from the sense of duty, once he was tarred and shackled and hung up, the
+difference seemed small. There might David Balfour hang, and other lads pass on
+their errands and think light of him; and old daft limmers sit at a leg-foot
+and spae their fortunes; and the clean genty maids go by, and look to the other
+aide, and hold a nose. I saw them plain, and they had grey eyes, and their
+screens upon their heads were of the Drummed colours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was thus in the poorest of spirits, though still pretty resolved, when I came
+in view of Pilrig, a pleasant gabled house set by the walkside among some brave
+young woods. The laird&rsquo;s horse was standing saddled at the door as I came
+up, but himself was in the study, where he received me in the midst of learned
+works and musical instruments, for he was not only a deep philosopher but much
+of a musician. He greeted me at first pretty well, and when he had read
+Rankeillor&rsquo;s letter, placed himself obligingly at my disposal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what is it, cousin David!&rdquo; said he&mdash;&ldquo;since it
+appears that we are cousins&mdash;what is this that I can do for you! A word to
+Prestongrange! Doubtless that is easily given. But what should be the
+word?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;if I were to tell you my whole story
+the way it fell out, it&rsquo;s my opinion (and it was Rankeillor&rsquo;s
+before me) that you would be very little made up with it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sorry to hear this of you, kinsman,&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must not take that at your hands, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;I
+have nothing to my charge to make me sorry, or you for me, but just the common
+infirmities of mankind. &lsquo;The guilt of Adam&rsquo;s first sin, the want of
+original righteousness, and the corruption of my whole nature,&rsquo; so much I
+must answer for, and I hope I have been taught where to look for help,&rdquo; I
+said; for I judged from the look of the man he would think the better of me if
+I knew my questions. <a name="citation11"></a><a
+href="#footnote11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> &ldquo;But in the way of worldly honour
+I have no great stumble to reproach myself with; and my difficulties have
+befallen me very much against my will and (by all that I can see) without my
+fault. My trouble is to have become dipped in a political complication, which
+it is judged you would be blythe to avoid a knowledge of.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, very well, Mr. David,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;I am pleased to see
+you are all that Rankeillor represented. And for what you say of political
+complications, you do me no more than justice. It is my study to be beyond
+suspicion, and indeed outside the field of it. The question is,&rdquo; says he,
+&ldquo;how, if I am to know nothing of the matter, I can very well assist
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why sir,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I propose you should write to his
+lordship, that I am a young man of reasonable good family and of good means:
+both of which I believe to be the case.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have Rankeillor&rsquo;s word for it,&rdquo; said Mr. Balfour,
+&ldquo;and I count that a warran-dice against all deadly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To which you might add (if you will take my word for so much) that I am
+a good churchman, loyal to King George, and so brought up,&rdquo; I went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None of which will do you any harm,&rdquo; said Mr. Balfour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you might go on to say that I sought his lordship on a matter of
+great moment, connected with His Majesty&rsquo;s service and the administration
+of justice,&rdquo; I suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As I am not to hear the matter,&rdquo; says the laird, &ldquo;I will not
+take upon myself to qualify its weight. &lsquo;Great moment&rsquo; therefore
+falls, and &lsquo;moment&rsquo; along with it. For the rest I might express
+myself much as you propose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then, sir,&rdquo; said I, and rubbed my neck a little with my thumb,
+&ldquo;then I would be very desirous if you could slip in a word that might
+perhaps tell for my protection.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Protection?&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;for your protection! Here is a phrase
+that somewhat dampens me. If the matter be so dangerous, I own I would be a
+little loath to move in it blindfold.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe I could indicate in two words where the thing sticks,&rdquo;
+said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps that would be the best,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s the Appin murder,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He held up both his hands. &ldquo;Sirs! sirs!&rdquo; cried he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought by the expression of his face and voice that I had lost my helper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me explain. . .&rdquo; I began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thank you kindly, I will hear no more of it,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;I
+decline <i>in toto</i> to hear more of it. For your name&rsquo;s sake and
+Rankeillor&rsquo;s, and perhaps a little for your own, I will do what I can to
+help you; but I will hear no more upon the facts. And it is my first clear duty
+to warn you. These are deep waters, Mr. David, and you are a young man. Be
+cautious and think twice.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is to be supposed I will have thought oftener than that, Mr.
+Balfour,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I will direct your attention again to
+Rankeillor&rsquo;s letter, where (I hope and believe) he has registered his
+approval of that which I design.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said he; and then again, &ldquo;Well, well! I will do
+what I can for you.&rdquo; There with he took a pen and paper, sat a while in
+thought, and began to write with much consideration. &ldquo;I understand that
+Rankeillor approved of what you have in mind?&rdquo; he asked presently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After some discussion, sir, he bade me to go forward in God&rsquo;s
+name,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is the name to go in,&rdquo; said Mr. Balfour, and resumed his
+writing. Presently, he signed, re-read what he had written, and addressed me
+again. &ldquo;Now here, Mr. David,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;is a letter of
+introduction, which I will seal without closing, and give into your hands open,
+as the form requires. But, since I am acting in the dark, I will just read it
+to you, so that you may see if it will secure your end&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Pilrig</span>, <i>August</i> 26th, 1751.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;My Lord,&mdash;This is to bring to your notice my namesake and cousin,
+David Balfour Esquire of Shaws, a young gentleman of unblemished descent and
+good estate. He has enjoyed, besides, the more valuable advantages of a godly
+training, and his political principles are all that your lordship can desire. I
+am not in Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s confidence, but I understand him to have a matter
+to declare, touching His Majesty&rsquo;s service and the administration of
+justice; purposes for which your Lordship&rsquo;s zeal is known. I should add
+that the young gentleman&rsquo;s intention is known to and approved by some of
+his friends, who will watch with hopeful anxiety the event of his success or
+failure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whereupon,&rdquo; continued Mr. Balfour, &ldquo;I have subscribed myself
+with the usual compliments. You observe I have said &lsquo;some of your
+friends&rsquo;; I hope you can justify my plural?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perfectly, sir; my purpose is known and approved by more than
+one,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;And your letter, which I take a pleasure to thank
+you for, is all I could have hoped.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was all I could squeeze out,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and from what I
+know of the matter you design to meddle in, I can only pray God that it may
+prove sufficient.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br />
+LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGRANGE</h2>
+
+<p>
+My kinsman kept me to a meal, &ldquo;for the honour of the roof,&rdquo; he
+said; and I believe I made the better speed on my return. I had no thought but
+to be done with the next stage, and have myself fully committed; to a person
+circumstanced as I was, the appearance of closing a door on hesitation and
+temptation was itself extremely tempting; and I was the more disappointed, when
+I came to Prestongrange&rsquo;s house, to be informed he was abroad. I believe
+it was true at the moment, and for some hours after; and then I have no doubt
+the Advocate came home again, and enjoyed himself in a neighbouring chamber
+among friends, while perhaps the very fact of my arrival was forgotten. I would
+have gone away a dozen times, only for this strong drawing to have done with my
+declaration out of hand and be able to lay me down to sleep with a free
+conscience. At first I read, for the little cabinet where I was left contained
+a variety of books. But I fear I read with little profit; and the weather
+falling cloudy, the dusk coming up earlier than usual, and my cabinet being
+lighted with but a loophole of a window, I was at last obliged to desist from
+this diversion (such as it was), and pass the rest of my time of waiting in a
+very burthensome vacuity. The sound of people talking in a near chamber, the
+pleasant note of a harpsichord, and once the voice of a lady singing, bore me a
+kind of company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I do not know the hour, but the darkness was long come, when the door of the
+cabinet opened, and I was aware, by the light behind him, of a tall figure of a
+man upon the threshold. I rose at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is anybody there?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Who in that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am bearer of a letter from the laird of Pilrig to the Lord
+Advocate,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you been here long?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would not like to hazard an estimate of how many hours,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is the first I hear of it,&rdquo; he replied, with a chuckle.
+&ldquo;The lads must have forgotten you. But you are in the bit at last, for I
+am Prestongrange.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So saying, he passed before me into the next room, whither (upon his sign) I
+followed him, and where he lit a candle and took his place before a
+business-table. It was a long room, of a good proportion, wholly lined with
+books. That small spark of light in a corner struck out the man&rsquo;s
+handsome person and strong face. He was flushed, his eye watered and sparkled,
+and before he sat down I observed him to sway back and forth. No doubt, he had
+been supping liberally; but his mind and tongue were under full control.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, sit ye down,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and let us see
+Pilrig&rsquo;s letter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He glanced it through in the beginning carelessly, looking up and bowing when
+he came to my name; but at the last words I thought I observed his attention to
+redouble, and I made sure he read them twice. All this while you are to suppose
+my heart was beating, for I had now crossed my Rubicon and was come fairly on
+the field of battle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; he said,
+when he had done. &ldquo;Let me offer you a glass of claret.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Under your favour, my lord, I think it would scarce be fair on
+me,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I have come here, as the letter will have mentioned,
+on a business of some gravity to myself; and, as I am little used with wine, I
+might be the sooner affected.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall be the judge,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But if you will permit, I
+believe I will even have the bottle in myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He touched a bell, and a footman came, as at a signal, bringing wine and
+glasses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are sure you will not join me?&rdquo; asked the Advocate.
+&ldquo;Well, here is to our better acquaintance! In what way can I serve
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should, perhaps, begin by telling you, my lord, that I am here at your
+own pressing invitation,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have the advantage of me somewhere,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;for I
+profess I think I never heard of you before this evening.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right, my lord; the name is, indeed, new to you,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;And yet you have been for some time extremely wishful to make my
+acquaintance, and have declared the same in public.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish you would afford me a clue,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;I am no
+Daniel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will perhaps serve for such,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that if I was in a
+jesting humour&mdash;which is far from the case&mdash;I believe I might lay a
+claim on your lordship for two hundred pounds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In what sense?&rdquo; he inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the sense of rewards offered for my person,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He thrust away his glass once and for all, and sat straight up in the chair
+where he had been previously lolling. &ldquo;What am I to understand?&rdquo;
+said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>A tall strong lad of about eighteen</i>,&rdquo; I quoted,
+&ldquo;<i>speaks like a Lowlander and has no beard</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I recognise those words,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;which, if you have come
+here with any ill-judged intention of amusing yourself, are like to prove
+extremely prejudicial to your safety.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My purpose in this,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;is just entirely as serious
+as life and death, and you have understood me perfectly. I am the boy who was
+speaking with Glenure when he was shot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can only suppose (seeing you here) that you claim to be
+innocent,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The inference is clear,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I am a very loyal subject
+to King George, but if I had anything to reproach myself with, I would have had
+more discretion than to walk into your den.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am glad of that,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;This horrid crime, Mr.
+Balfour, is of a dye which cannot permit any clemency. Blood has been
+barbarously shed. It has been shed in direct opposition to his Majesty and our
+whole frame of laws, by those who are their known and public oppugnants. I take
+a very high sense of this. I will not deny that I consider the crime as
+directly personal to his Majesty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And unfortunately, my lord,&rdquo; I added, a little drily,
+&ldquo;directly personal to another great personage who may be nameless.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you mean anything by those words, I must tell you I consider them
+unfit for a good subject; and were they spoke publicly I should make it my
+business to take note of them,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;You do not appear to me
+to recognise the gravity of your situation, or you would be more careful not to
+pejorate the same by words which glance upon the purity of justice. Justice, in
+this country, and in my poor hands, is no respecter of persons.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You give me too great a share in my own speech, my lord,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;I did but repeat the common talk of the country, which I have heard
+everywhere, and from men of all opinions as I came along.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When you are come to more discretion you will understand such talk in
+not to be listened to, how much less repeated,&rdquo; says the Advocate.
+&ldquo;But I acquit you of an ill intention. That nobleman, whom we all honour,
+and who has indeed been wounded in a near place by the late barbarity, sits too
+high to be reached by these aspersions. The Duke of Argyle&mdash;you see that I
+deal plainly with you&mdash;takes it to heart as I do, and as we are both bound
+to do by our judicial functions and the service of his Majesty; and I could
+wish that all hands, in this ill age, were equally clean of family rancour. But
+from the accident that this is a Campbell who has fallen martyr to his
+duty&mdash;as who else but the Campbells have ever put themselves foremost on
+that path?&mdash;I may say it, who am no Campbell&mdash;and that the chief of
+that great house happens (for all our advantages) to be the present head of the
+College of Justice, small minds and disaffected tongues are set agog in every
+changehouse in the country; and I find a young gentleman like Mr. Balfour so
+ill-advised as to make himself their echo.&rdquo; So much he spoke with a very
+oratorical delivery, as if in court, and then declined again upon the manner of
+a gentleman. &ldquo;All this apart,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It now remains that
+I should learn what I am to do with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had thought it was rather I that should learn the same from your
+lordship,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, true,&rdquo; says the Advocate. &ldquo;But, you see, you come to me
+well recommended. There is a good honest Whig name to this letter,&rdquo; says
+he, picking it up a moment from the table. &ldquo;And&mdash;extra-judicially,
+Mr. Balfour&mdash;there is always the possibility of some arrangement, I tell
+you, and I tell you beforehand that you may be the more upon your guard, your
+fate lies with me singly. In such a matter (be it said with reverence) I am
+more powerful than the King&rsquo;s Majesty; and should you please me&mdash;and
+of course satisfy my conscience&mdash;in what remains to be held of our
+interview, I tell you it may remain between ourselves.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Meaning how?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, I mean it thus, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that if you
+give satisfaction, no soul need know so much as that you visited my house; and
+you may observe that I do not even call my clerk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw what way he was driving. &ldquo;I suppose it is needless anyone should be
+informed upon my visit,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;though the precise nature of my
+gains by that I cannot see. I am not at all ashamed of coming here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And have no cause to be,&rdquo; says he, encouragingly. &ldquo;Nor yet
+(if you are careful) to fear the consequences.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;speaking under your correction, I am not
+very easy to be frightened.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I am sure I do not seek to frighten you,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;But
+to the interrogation; and let me warn you to volunteer nothing beyond the
+questions I shall ask you. It may consist very immediately with your safety. I
+have a great discretion, it is true, but there are bounds to it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall try to follow your lordship&rsquo;s advice,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He spread a sheet of paper on the table and wrote a heading. &ldquo;It appears
+you were present, by the way, in the wood of Lettermore at the moment of the
+fatal shot,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;Was this by accident?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By accident,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How came you in speech with Colin Campbell?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was inquiring my way of him to Aucharn,&rdquo; I replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I observed he did not write this answer down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m, true,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I had forgotten that. And do you
+know, Mr. Balfour, I would dwell, if I were you, as little as might be on your
+relations with these Stewarts. It might be found to complicate our business. I
+am not yet inclined to regard these matters as essential.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had thought, my lord, that all points of fact were equally material in
+such a case,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You forget we are now trying these Stewarts,&rdquo; he replied, with
+great significance. &ldquo;If we should ever come to be trying you, it will be
+very different; and I shall press these very questions that I am now willing to
+glide upon. But to resume: I have it here in Mr. Mungo Campbell&rsquo;s
+precognition that you ran immediately up the brae. How came that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not immediately, my lord, and the cause was my seeing of the
+murderer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You saw him, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As plain as I see your lordship, though not so near hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should know him again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In your pursuit you were not so fortunate, then, as to overtake
+him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was he alone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was no one else in that neighbourhood?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alan Breck Stewart was not far off, in a piece of a wood.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Advocate laid his pen down. &ldquo;I think we are playing at cross
+purposes,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;which you will find to prove a very ill
+amusement for yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I content myself with following your lordship&rsquo;s advice, and
+answering what I am asked,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be so wise as to bethink yourself in time,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I use
+you with the most anxious tenderness, which you scarce seem to appreciate, and
+which (unless you be more careful) may prove to be in vain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do appreciate your tenderness, but conceive it to be mistaken,&rdquo;
+I replied, with something of a falter, for I saw we were come to grips at last.
+&ldquo;I am here to lay before you certain information, by which I shall
+convince you Alan had no hand whatever in the killing of Glenure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Advocate appeared for a moment at a stick, sitting with pursed lips, and
+blinking his eyes upon me like an angry cat. &ldquo;Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; he said
+at last, &ldquo;I tell you pointedly you go an ill way for your own
+interests.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I am as free of the charge of considering
+my own interests in this matter as your lordship. As God judges me, I have but
+the one design, and that is to see justice executed and the innocent go clear.
+If in pursuit of that I come to fall under your lordship&rsquo;s displeasure, I
+must bear it as I may.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this he rose from his chair, lit a second candle, and for a while gazed upon
+me steadily. I was surprised to see a great change of gravity fallen upon his
+face, and I could have almost thought he was a little pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are either very simple, or extremely the reverse, and I see that I
+must deal with you more confidentially,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;This is a
+political case&mdash;ah, yes, Mr. Balfour! whether we like it or no, the case
+is political&mdash;and I tremble when I think what issues may depend from it.
+To a political case, I need scarce tell a young man of your education, we
+approach with very different thoughts from one which is criminal only. <i>Salus
+populi suprema lex</i> is a maxim susceptible of great abuse, but it has that
+force which we find elsewhere only in the laws of nature: I mean it has the
+force of necessity. I will open this out to you, if you will allow me, at more
+length. You would have me believe&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Under your pardon, my lord, I would have you to believe nothing but that
+which I can prove,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tut! tut; young gentleman,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;be not so pragmatical,
+and suffer a man who might be your father (if it was nothing more) to employ
+his own imperfect language, and express his own poor thoughts, even when they
+have the misfortune not to coincide with Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s. You would have me
+to believe Breck innocent. I would think this of little account, the more so as
+we cannot catch our man. But the matter of Breck&rsquo;s innocence shoots
+beyond itself. Once admitted, it would destroy the whole presumptions of our
+case against another and a very different criminal; a man grown old in treason,
+already twice in arms against his king and already twice forgiven; a fomentor
+of discontent, and (whoever may have fired the shot) the unmistakable original
+of the deed in question. I need not tell you that I mean James Stewart.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I can just say plainly that the innocence of Alan and of James is
+what I am here to declare in private to your lordship, and what I am prepared
+to establish at the trial by my testimony,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To which I can only answer by an equal plainness, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo;
+said he, &ldquo;that (in that case) your testimony will not be called by me,
+and I desire you to withhold it altogether.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are at the head of Justice in this country,&rdquo; I cried,
+&ldquo;and you propose to me a crime!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country,&rdquo;
+he replied, &ldquo;and I press on you a political necessity. Patriotism is not
+always moral in the formal sense. You might be glad of it, I think: it is your
+own protection; the facts are heavy against you; and if I am still trying to
+except you from a very dangerous place, it is in part of course because I am
+not insensible to your honesty in coming here; in part because of
+Pilrig&rsquo;s letter; but in part, and in chief part, because I regard in this
+matter my political duty first and my judicial duty only second. For the same
+reason&mdash;I repeat it to you in the same frank words&mdash;I do not want
+your testimony.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I desire not to be thought to make a repartee, when I express only the
+plain sense of our position,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;But if your lordship has no
+need of my testimony, I believe the other side would be extremely blythe to get
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prestongrange arose and began to pace to and fro in the room. &ldquo;You are
+not so young,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but what you must remember very clearly
+the year &rsquo;45 and the shock that went about the country. I read in
+Pilrig&rsquo;s letter that you are sound in Kirk and State. Who saved them in
+that fatal year? I do not refer to His Royal Highness and his ramrods, which
+were extremely useful in their day; but the country had been saved and the
+field won before ever Cumberland came upon Drummossie. Who saved it? I repeat;
+who saved the Protestant religion and the whole frame of our civil
+institutions? The late Lord President Culloden, for one; he played a
+man&rsquo;s part, and small thanks he got for it&mdash;even as I, whom you see
+before you, straining every nerve in the same service, look for no reward
+beyond the conscience of my duties done. After the President, who else? You
+know the answer as well as I do; &rsquo;tis partly a scandal, and you glanced
+at it yourself, and I reproved you for it, when you first came in. It was the
+Duke and the great clan of Campbell. Now here is a Campbell foully murdered,
+and that in the King&rsquo;s service. The Duke and I are Highlanders. But we
+are Highlanders civilised, and it is not so with the great mass of our clans
+and families. They have still savage virtues and defects. They are still
+barbarians, like these Stewarts; only the Campbells were barbarians on the
+right side, and the Stewarts were barbarians on the wrong. Now be you the
+judge. The Campbells expect vengeance. If they do not get it&mdash;if this man
+James escape&mdash;there will be trouble with the Campbells. That means
+disturbance in the Highlands, which are uneasy and very far from being
+disarmed: the disarming is a farce. . .&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can bear you out in that,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Disturbance in the Highlands makes the hour of our old watchful
+enemy,&rdquo; pursued his lordship, holding out a finger as he paced;
+&ldquo;and I give you my word we may have a &rsquo;45 again with the Campbells
+on the other side. To protect the life of this man Stewart&mdash;which is
+forfeit already on half-a-dozen different counts if not on this&mdash;do you
+propose to plunge your country in war, to jeopardise the faith of your fathers,
+and to expose the lives and fortunes of how many thousand innocent persons? . .
+. These are considerations that weigh with me, and that I hope will weigh no
+less with yourself, Mr. Balfour, as a lover of your country, good government,
+and religious truth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;I will try on my side to be no less honest. I believe your policy to be
+sound. I believe these deep duties may lie upon your lordship; I believe you
+may have laid them on your conscience when you took the oath of the high office
+which you hold. But for me, who am just a plain man&mdash;or scarce a man
+yet&mdash;the plain duties must suffice. I can think but of two things, of a
+poor soul in the immediate and unjust danger of a shameful death, and of the
+cries and tears of his wife that still tingle in my head. I cannot see beyond,
+my lord. It&rsquo;s the way that I am made. If the country has to fall, it has
+to fall. And I pray God, if this be wilful blindness, that He may enlighten me
+before too late.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had heard me motionless, and stood so a while longer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is an unexpected obstacle,&rdquo; says he, aloud, but to himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how is your lordship to dispose of me?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I wished,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you know that you might sleep in
+gaol?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have slept in worse places.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, my boy,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;there is one thing appears very
+plainly from our interview, that I may rely on your pledged word. Give me your
+honour that you will be wholly secret, not only on what has passed to-night,
+but in the matter of the Appin case, and I let you go free.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will give it till to-morrow or any other near day that you may please
+to set,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I would not be thought too wily; but if I gave
+the promise without qualification your lordship would have attained his
+end.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had no thought to entrap you,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sure of that,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me see,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;To-morrow is the Sabbath. Come
+to me on Monday by eight in the morning, and give me your promise until
+then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Freely given, my lord,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;And with regard to what has
+fallen from yourself, I will give it for an long as it shall please God to
+spare your days.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will observe,&rdquo; he said next, &ldquo;that I have made no
+employment of menaces.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was like your lordship&rsquo;s nobility,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Yet I
+am not altogether so dull but what I can perceive the nature of those you have
+not uttered.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;good-night to you. May you sleep well, for
+I think it is more than I am like to do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With that he sighed, took up a candle, and gave me his conveyance as far as the
+street door.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br />
+IN THE ADVOCATE&rsquo;S HOUSE</h2>
+
+<p>
+The next day, Sabbath, August 27th, I had the occasion I had long looked
+forward to, to hear some of the famous Edinburgh preachers, all well known to
+me already by the report of Mr Campbell. Alas! and I might just as well have
+been at Essendean, and sitting under Mr. Campbell&rsquo;s worthy self! the
+turmoil of my thoughts, which dwelt continually on the interview with
+Prestongrange, inhibiting me from all attention. I was indeed much less
+impressed by the reasoning of the divines than by the spectacle of the thronged
+congregation in the churches, like what I imagined of a theatre or (in my then
+disposition) of an assize of trial; above all at the West Kirk, with its three
+tiers of galleries, where I went in the vain hope that I might see Miss
+Drummond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the Monday I betook me for the first time to a barber&rsquo;s, and was very
+well pleased with the result. Thence to the Advocate&rsquo;s, where the red
+coats of the soldiers showed again about his door, making a bright place in the
+close. I looked about for the young lady and her gillies: there was never a
+sign of them. But I was no sooner shown into the cabinet or antechamber where I
+had spent so wearyful a time upon the Saturday, than I was aware of the tall
+figure of James More in a corner. He seemed a prey to a painful uneasiness,
+reaching forth his feet and hands, and his eyes speeding here and there without
+rest about the walls of the small chamber, which recalled to me with a sense of
+pity the man&rsquo;s wretched situation. I suppose it was partly this, and
+partly my strong continuing interest in his daughter, that moved me to accost
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give you a good-morning, sir,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And a good-morning to you, sir,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You bide tryst with Prestongrange?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, sir, and I pray your business with that gentleman be more
+agreeable than mine,&rdquo; was his reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope at least that yours will be brief, for I suppose you pass before
+me,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All pass before me,&rdquo; he said, with a shrug and a gesture upward of
+the open hands. &ldquo;It was not always so, sir, but times change. It was not
+so when the sword was in the scale, young gentleman, and the virtues of the
+soldier might sustain themselves.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There came a kind of Highland snuffle out of the man that raised my dander
+strangely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Mr. Macgregor,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I understand the main thing
+for a soldier is to be silent, and the first of his virtues never to
+complain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have my name, I perceive&rdquo;&mdash;he bowed to me with his arms
+crossed&mdash;&ldquo;though it&rsquo;s one I must not use myself. Well, there
+is a publicity&mdash;I have shown my face and told my name too often in the
+beards of my enemies. I must not wonder if both should be known to many that I
+know not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you know not in the least, sir,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;nor yet
+anybody else; but the name I am called, if you care to hear it, is
+Balfour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a good name,&rdquo; he replied, civilly; &ldquo;there are many
+decent folk that use it. And now that I call to mind, there was a young
+gentleman, your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year &rsquo;45 with my
+battalion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe that would be a brother to Balfour of Baith,&rdquo; said I,
+for I was ready for the surgeon now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The same, sir,&rdquo; said James More. &ldquo;And since I have been
+fellow-soldier with your kinsman, you must suffer me to grasp your hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook hands with me long and tenderly, beaming on me the while as though he
+had found a brother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;these are changed days since your cousin and
+I heard the balls whistle in our lugs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think he was a very far-away cousin,&rdquo; said I, drily, &ldquo;and
+I ought to tell you that I never clapped eyes upon the man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;it makes no change. And you&mdash;I
+do not think you were out yourself, sir&mdash;I have no clear mind of your
+face, which is one not probable to be forgotten.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the year you refer to, Mr. Macgregor, I was getting skelped in the
+parish school,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So young!&rdquo; cries he. &ldquo;Ah, then, you will never be able to
+think what this meeting is to me. In the hour of my adversity, and here in the
+house of my enemy, to meet in with the blood of an old brother-in-arms&mdash;it
+heartens me, Mr. Balfour, like the skirling of the highland pipes! Sir, this is
+a sad look back that many of us have to make: some with falling tears. I have
+lived in my own country like a king; my sword, my mountains, and the faith of
+my friends and kinsmen sufficed for me. Now I lie in a stinking dungeon; and do
+you know, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; he went on, taking my arm and beginning to lead
+me about, &ldquo;do you know, sir, that I lack mere ne<i>cess</i>aries? The
+malice of my foes has quite sequestered my resources. I lie, as you know, sir,
+on a trumped-up charge, of which I am as innocent as yourself. They dare not
+bring me to my trial, and in the meanwhile I am held naked in my prison. I
+could have wished it was your cousin I had met, or his brother Baith himself.
+Either would, I know, have been rejoiced to help me; while a comparative
+stranger like yourself&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this beggarly vein,
+or the very short and grudging answers that I made to him. There were times
+when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change; but whether it was
+from shame or pride&mdash;whether it was for my own sake or
+Catriona&rsquo;s&mdash;whether it was because I thought him no fit father for
+his daughter, or because I resented that grossness of immediate falsity that
+clung about the man himself&mdash;the thing was clean beyond me. And I was
+still being wheedled and preached to, and still being marched to and fro, three
+steps and a turn, in that small chamber, and had already, by some very short
+replies, highly incensed, although not finally discouraged, my beggar, when
+Prestongrange appeared in the doorway and bade me eagerly into his big chamber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have a moment&rsquo;s engagements,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and that you
+may not sit empty-handed I am going to present you to my three braw daughters,
+of whom perhaps you may have heard, for I think they are more famous than papa.
+This way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He led me into another long room above, where a dry old lady sat at a frame of
+embroidery, and the three handsomest young women (I suppose) in Scotland stood
+together by a window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is my new friend, Mr Balfour,&rdquo; said he, presenting me by the
+arm, &ldquo;David, here is my sister, Miss Grant, who is so good as keep my
+house for me, and will be very pleased if she can help you. And here,&rdquo;
+says he, turning to the three younger ladies, &ldquo;here are my <i>three braw
+dauchters</i>. A fair question to ye, Mr. Davie: which of the three is the best
+favoured? And I wager he will never have the impudence to propound honest Alan
+Ramsay&rsquo;s answer!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hereupon all three, and the old Miss Grant as well, cried out against this
+sally, which (as I was acquainted with the verses he referred to) brought shame
+into my own check. It seemed to me a citation unpardonable in a father, and I
+was amazed that these ladies could laugh even while they reproved, or made
+believe to.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under cover of this mirth, Prestongrange got forth of the chamber, and I was
+left, like a fish upon dry land, in that very unsuitable society. I could never
+deny, in looking back upon what followed, that I was eminently stockish; and I
+must say the ladies were well drilled to have so long a patience with me. The
+aunt indeed sat close at her embroidery, only looking now and again and
+smiling; but the misses, and especially the eldest, who was besides the most
+handsome, paid me a score of attentions which I was very ill able to repay. It
+was all in vain to tell myself I was a young follow of some worth as well as a
+good estate, and had no call to feel abashed before these lasses, the eldest
+not so much older than myself, and no one of them by any probability half as
+learned. Reasoning would not change the fact; and there were times when the
+colour came into my face to think I was shaved that day for the first time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest took pity
+on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she was a passed
+mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and singing, both in the
+Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more at my ease, and being
+reminded of Alan&rsquo;s air that he had taught me in the hole near Carriden, I
+made so bold as to whistle a bar or two, and ask if she knew that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head. &ldquo;I never heard a note of it,&rdquo; said she.
+&ldquo;Whistle it all through. And now once again,&rdquo; she added, after I
+had done so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise) instantly
+enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as she played, with a
+very droll expression and broad accent&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Haenae I got just the lilt of it?<br />
+Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;I can do the poetry too, only it
+won&rsquo;t rhyme. And then again:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:<br />
+You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what do you call the name of it?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not know the real name,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I just call it
+<i>Alan&rsquo;s air</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at me directly in the face. &ldquo;I shall call it <i>David&rsquo;s
+air</i>,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;though if it&rsquo;s the least like what your
+namesake of Israel played to Saul I would never wonder that the king got little
+good by it, for it&rsquo;s but melancholy music. Your other name I do not like;
+so if you was ever wishing to hear your tune again you are to ask for it by
+mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog. &ldquo;Why that,
+Miss Grant?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;if ever you should come to get hanged, I
+will set your last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story and peril.
+How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess. It was plain she knew
+there was something of danger in the name of Alan, and thus warned me to leave
+it out of reference; and plain she knew that I stood under some criminal
+suspicion. I judged besides that the harshness of her last speech (which
+besides she had followed up immediately with a very noisy piece of music) was
+to put an end to the present conversation. I stood beside her, affecting to
+listen and admire, but truly whirled away by my own thoughts. I have always
+found this young lady to be a lover of the mysterious; and certainly this first
+interview made a mystery that was beyond my plummet. One thing I learned long
+after, the hours of the Sunday had been well employed, the bank porter had been
+found and examined, my visit to Charles Stewart was discovered, and the
+deduction made that I was pretty deep with James and Alan, and most likely in a
+continued correspondence with the last. Hence this broad hint that was given me
+across the harpsichord.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the midst of the piece of music, one of the younger misses, who was at a
+window over the close, cried on her sisters to come quick, for there was
+&ldquo;<i>Grey eyes</i> again.&rdquo; The whole family trooped there at once,
+and crowded one another for a look. The window whither they ran was in an odd
+corner of that room, gave above the entrance door, and flanked up the close.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; they cried, &ldquo;come and see. She is the
+most beautiful creature! She hangs round the close-head these last days, always
+with some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems quite a lady.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long. I was afraid she
+might have seen me there, looking down upon her from that chamber of music, and
+she without, and her father in the same house, perhaps begging for his life
+with tears, and myself come but newly from rejecting his petitions. But even
+that glance set me in a better conceit of myself and much less awe of the young
+ladies. They were beautiful, that was beyond question, but Catriona was
+beautiful too, and had a kind of brightness in her like a coal of fire. As much
+as the others cast me down, she lifted me up. I remembered I had talked easily
+with her. If I could make no hand of it with these fine maids, it was perhaps
+something their own fault. My embarrassment began to be a little mingled and
+lightened with a sense of fun; and when the aunt smiled at me from her
+embroidery, and the three daughters unbent to me like a baby, all with
+&ldquo;papa&rsquo;s orders&rdquo; written on their faces, there were times when
+I could have found it in my heart to smile myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently papa returned, the same kind, happy-like, pleasant-spoken man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, girls,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I must take Mr. Balfour away again;
+but I hope you have been able to persuade him to return where I shall be always
+gratified to find him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So they each made me a little farthing compliment, and I was led away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If this visit to the family had been meant to soften my resistance, it was the
+worst of failures. I was no such ass but what I understood how poor a figure I
+had made, and that the girls would be yawning their jaws off as soon as my
+stiff back was turned. I felt I had shown how little I had in me of what was
+soft and graceful; and I longed for a chance to prove that I had something of
+the other stuff, the stern and dangerous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, I was to be served to my desire, for the scene to which he was conducting
+me was of a different character.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br />
+UMQUILE THE MASTER OF LOVAT</h2>
+
+<p>
+There was a man waiting us in Prestongrange&rsquo;s study, whom I distasted at
+the first look, as we distaste a ferret or an earwig. He was bitter ugly, but
+seemed very much of a gentleman; had still manners, but capable of sudden leaps
+and violences; and a small voice, which could ring out shrill and dangerous
+when he so desired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Advocate presented us in a familiar, friendly way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, Fraser,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;here is Mr. Balfour whom we talked
+about. Mr. David, this is Mr. Simon Fraser, whom we used to call by another
+title, but that is an old song. Mr. Fraser has an errand to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With that he stepped aside to his book-shelves, and made believe to consult a
+quarto volume in the far end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was thus left (in a sense) alone with perhaps the last person in the world I
+had expected. There was no doubt upon the terms of introduction; this could be
+no other than the forfeited Master of Lovat and chief of the great clan Fraser.
+I knew he had led his men in the Rebellion; I knew his father&rsquo;s
+head&mdash;my old lord&rsquo;s, that grey fox of the mountains&mdash;to have
+fallen on the block for that offence, the lands of the family to have been
+seized, and their nobility attainted. I could not conceive what he should be
+doing in Grant&rsquo;s house; I could not conceive that he had been called to
+the bar, had eaten all his principles, and was now currying favour with the
+Government even to the extent of acting Advocate-Depute in the Appin murder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;what is all this I hear of
+ye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would not become me to prejudge,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but if the
+Advocate was your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case,&rdquo; he went on;
+&ldquo;I am to appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of the
+precognitions I can assure you your opinions are erroneous. The guilt of Breck
+is manifest; and your testimony, in which you admit you saw him on the hill at
+the very moment, will certify his hanging.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will be rather ill to hang him till you catch him,&rdquo; I observed.
+&ldquo;And for other matters I very willingly leave you to your own
+impressions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Duke has been informed,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;I have just come
+from his Grace, and he expressed himself before me with an honest freedom like
+the great nobleman he is. He spoke of you by name, Mr. Balfour, and declared
+his gratitude beforehand in case you would be led by those who understand your
+own interests and those of the country so much better than yourself. Gratitude
+is no empty expression in that mouth: <i>experto-crede</i>. I daresay you know
+something of my name and clan, and the damnable example and lamented end of my
+late father, to say nothing of my own errata. Well, I have made my peace with
+that good Duke; he has intervened for me with our friend Prestongrange; and
+here I am with my foot in the stirrup again and some of the responsibility
+shared into my hand of prosecuting King George&rsquo;s enemies and avenging the
+late daring and barefaced insult to his Majesty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Doubtless a proud position for your father&rsquo;s son,&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He wagged his bald eyebrows at me. &ldquo;You are pleased to make experiments
+in the ironical, I think,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But I am here upon duty, I am
+here to discharge my errand in good faith, it is in vain you think to divert
+me. And let me tell you, for a young fellow of spirit and ambition like
+yourself, a good shove in the beginning will do more than ten years&rsquo;
+drudgery. The shove is now at your command; choose what you will to be advanced
+in, the Duke will watch upon you with the affectionate disposition of a
+father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am thinking that I lack the docility of the son,&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole policy of this country is
+to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill-mannered colt of a
+boy?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;This has been made a test case, all who would
+prosper in the future must put a shoulder to the wheel. Look at me! Do you
+suppose it is for my pleasure that I put myself in the highly invidious
+position of persecuting a man that I have drawn the sword alongside of? The
+choice is not left me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice when you mixed in with
+that unnatural rebellion,&rdquo; I remarked. &ldquo;My case is happily
+otherwise; I am a true man, and can look either the Duke or King George in the
+face without concern.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it so the wind sits?&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;I protest you are fallen
+in the worst sort of error. Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil (he tells
+me) as not to combat your allegations; but you must not think they are not
+looked upon with strong suspicion. You say you are innocent. My dear sir, the
+facts declare you guilty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was waiting for you there,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion of the
+murder; your long course of secresy&mdash;my good young man!&rdquo; said Mr.
+Simon, &ldquo;here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be a David
+Balfour! I shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be raised; I shall then
+speak much otherwise from what I do to-day, and far less to your gratification,
+little as you like it now! Ah, you look white!&rdquo; cries he. &ldquo;I have
+found the key of your impudent heart. You look pale, your eyes waver, Mr.
+David! You see the grave and the gallows nearer by than you had fancied.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I own to a natural weakness,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I think no shame for
+that. Shame. . .&rdquo; I was going on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shame waits for you on the gibbet,&rdquo; he broke in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where I shall but be even&rsquo;d with my lord your father,&rdquo; said
+I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aha, but not so!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;and you do not yet see to the
+bottom of this business. My father suffered in a great cause, and for dealing
+in the affairs of kings. You are to hang for a dirty murder about
+boddle-pieces. Your personal part in it, the treacherous one of holding the
+poor wretch in talk, your accomplices a pack of ragged Highland gillies. And it
+can be shown, my great Mr. Balfour&mdash;it can be shown, and it <i>will</i> be
+shown, trust <i>me</i> that has a finger in the pie&mdash;it can be shown, and
+shall be shown, that you were paid to do it. I think I can see the looks go
+round the court when I adduce my evidence, and it shall appear that you, a
+young man of education, let yourself be corrupted to this shocking act for a
+suit of cast clothes, a bottle of Highland spirits, and
+three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in copper money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like a blow:
+clothes, a bottle of <i>usquebaugh</i>, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in
+change made up, indeed, the most of what Alan and I had carried from Auchurn;
+and I saw that some of James&rsquo;s people had been blabbing in their
+dungeons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see I know more than you fancied,&rdquo; he resumed in triumph.
+&ldquo;And as for giving it this turn, great Mr. David, you must not suppose
+the Government of Great Britain and Ireland will ever be stuck for want of
+evidence. We have men here in prison who will swear out their lives as we
+direct them; as I direct, if you prefer the phrase. So now you are to guess
+your part of glory if you choose to die. On the one hand, life, wine, women,
+and a duke to be your handgun: on the other, a rope to your craig, and a gibbet
+to clatter your bones on, and the lousiest, lowest story to hand down to your
+namesakes in the future that was ever told about a hired assassin. And see
+here!&rdquo; he cried, with a formidable shrill voice, &ldquo;see this paper
+that I pull out of my pocket. Look at the name there: it is the name of the
+great David, I believe, the ink scarce dry yet. Can you guess its nature? It is
+the warrant for your arrest, which I have but to touch this bell beside me to
+have executed on the spot. Once in the Tolbooth upon this paper, may God help
+you, for the die is cast!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I must never deny that I was greatly horrified by so much baseness, and much
+unmanned by the immediacy and ugliness of my danger. Mr. Simon had already
+gloried in the changes of my hue; I make no doubt I was now no ruddier than my
+shirt; my speech besides trembled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a gentleman in this room,&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;I appeal to
+him. I put my life and credit in his hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prestongrange shut his book with a snap. &ldquo;I told you so, Simon,&rdquo;
+said he; &ldquo;you have played your hand for all it was worth, and you have
+lost. Mr. David,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;I wish you to believe it was by no
+choice of mine you were subjected to this proof. I wish you could understand
+how glad I am you should come forth from it with so much credit. You may not
+quite see how, but it is a little of a service to myself. For had our friend
+here been more successful than I was last night, it might have appeared that he
+was a better judge of men than I; it might have appeared we were altogether in
+the wrong situations, Mr. Simon and myself. And I know our friend Simon to be
+ambitious,&rdquo; says he, striking lightly on Fraser&rsquo;s shoulder.
+&ldquo;As for this stage play, it is over; my sentiments are very much engaged
+in your behalf; and whatever issue we can find to this unfortunate affair, I
+shall make it my business to see it is adopted with tenderness to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These were very good words, and I could see besides that there was little love,
+and perhaps a spice of genuine ill-will, between these two who were opposed to
+me. For all that, it was unmistakable this interview had been designed, perhaps
+rehearsed, with the consent of both; it was plain my adversaries were in
+earnest to try me by all methods; and now (persuasion, flattery, and menaces
+having been tried in vain) I could not but wonder what would be their next
+expedient. My eyes besides were still troubled, and my knees loose under me,
+with the distress of the late ordeal; and I could do no more than stammer the
+same form of words: &ldquo;I put my life and credit in your hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;we must try to save them. And in the
+meanwhile let us return to gentler methods. You must not bear any grudge upon
+my friend, Mr. Simon, who did but speak by his brief. And even if you did
+conceive some malice against myself, who stood by and seemed rather to hold a
+candle, I must not let that extend to innocent members of my family. These are
+greatly engaged to see more of you, and I cannot consent to have my young
+womenfolk disappointed. To-morrow they will be going to Hope Park, where I
+think it very proper you should make your bow. Call for me first, when I may
+possibly have something for your private hearing; then you shall be turned
+abroad again under the conduct of my misses; and until that time repeat to me
+your promise of secrecy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was beside the
+power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how; and when I
+was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind me, was glad to lean
+on a house wall and wipe my face. That horrid apparition (as I may call it) of
+Mr. Simon rang in my memory, as a sudden noise rings after it is over in the
+ear. Tales of the man&rsquo;s father, of his falseness, of his manifold
+perpetual treacheries, rose before me from all that I had heard and read, and
+joined on with what I had just experienced of himself. Each time it occurred to
+me, the ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon my
+character startled me afresh. The case of the man upon the gibbet by Leith Walk
+appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was now to consider as my own. To
+rob a child of so little more than nothing was certainly a paltry enterprise
+for two grown men; but my own tale, as it was to be represented in a court by
+Simon Fraser, appeared a fair second in every possible point of view of
+sordidness and cowardice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The voices of two of Prestongrange&rsquo;s liveried men upon his doorstep
+recalled me to myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha&rsquo;e,&rdquo; said the one, &ldquo;this billet as fast as ye can
+link to the captain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that for the cateran back again?&rdquo; asked the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would seem sae,&rdquo; returned the first. &ldquo;Him and Simon are
+seeking him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think Prestongrange is gane gyte,&rdquo; says the second.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll have James More in bed with him next.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Weel, it&rsquo;s neither your affair nor mine&rsquo;s,&rdquo; said the
+first.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This looked as ill as possible. I was scarce gone and they were sending already
+for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must have pointed when he spoke of
+men in prison and ready to redeem their lives by all extremities. My scalp
+curdled among my hair, and the next moment the blood leaped in me to remember
+Catriona. Poor lass! her father stood to be hanged for pretty indefensible
+misconduct. What was yet more unpalatable, it now seemed he was prepared to
+save his four quarters by the worst of shame and the most foul of cowardly
+murders&mdash;murder by the false oath; and to complete our misfortunes, it
+seemed myself was picked out to be the victim.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire for movement,
+air, and the open country.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br />
+I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR</h2>
+
+<p>
+I came forth, I vow I know not how, on the <i>Lang Dykes</i> <a
+name="citation12"></a><a href="#footnote12"><sup>[12]</sup></a>. This is a
+rural road which runs on the north side over against the city. Thence I could
+see the whole black length of it tail down, from where the castle stands upon
+its crags above the loch in a long line of spires and gable ends, and smoking
+chimneys, and at the sight my heart swelled in my bosom. My youth, as I have
+told, was already inured to dangers; but such danger as I had seen the face of
+but that morning, in the midst of what they call the safety of a town, shook me
+beyond experience. Peril of slavery, peril of shipwreck, peril of sword and
+shot, I had stood all of these without discredit; but the peril there was in
+the sharp voice and the fat face of Simon, properly Lord Lovat, daunted me
+wholly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into the water,
+and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples. If I could have done so with
+any remains of self-esteem, I would now have fled from my foolhardy enterprise.
+But (call it courage or cowardice, and I believe it was both the one and the
+other) I decided I was ventured out beyond the possibility of a retreat. I had
+out-faced these men, I would continue to out-face them; come what might, I
+would stand by the word spoken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not much. At
+the best of it there was an icy place about my heart, and life seemed a black
+business to be at all engaged in. For two souls in particular my pity flowed.
+The one was myself, to be so friendless and lost among dangers. The other was
+the girl, the daughter of James More. I had seen but little of her; yet my view
+was taken and my judgment made. I thought her a lass of a clean honour, like a
+man&rsquo;s; I thought her one to die of a disgrace; and now I believed her
+father to be at that moment bargaining his vile life for mine. It made a bond
+in my thoughts betwixt the girl and me. I had seen her before only as a wayside
+appearance, though one that pleased me strangely; I saw her now in a sudden
+nearness of relation, as the daughter of my blood foe, and I might say, my
+murderer. I reflected it was hard I should be so plagued and persecuted all my
+days for other folks&rsquo; affairs, and have no manner of pleasure myself. I
+got meals and a bed to sleep in when my concerns would suffer it; beyond that
+my wealth was of no help to me. If I was to hang, my days were like to be
+short; if I was not to hang but to escape out of this trouble, they might yet
+seem long to me ere I was done with them. Of a sudden her face appeared in my
+memory, the way I had first seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness
+came in my bosom and strength into my legs; and I set resolutely forward on the
+way to Dean. If I was to hang to-morrow, and it was sure enough I might very
+likely sleep that night in a dungeon, I determined I should hear and speak once
+more with Catriona.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me yet more,
+so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit. In the village of Dean, where it
+sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I inquired my way of a
+miller&rsquo;s man, who sent me up the hill upon the farther side by a plain
+path, and so to a decent-like small house in a garden of lawns and apple-trees.
+My heart beat high as I stepped inside the garden hedge, but it fell low indeed
+when I came face to face with a grim and fierce old lady, walking there in a
+white mutch with a man&rsquo;s hat strapped upon the top of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do ye come seeking here?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told her I was after Miss Drummond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?&rdquo; says she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to render
+her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady&rsquo;s invitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, so you&rsquo;re Saxpence!&rdquo; she cried, with a very sneering
+manner. &ldquo;A braw gift, a bonny gentleman. And hae ye ony ither name and
+designation, or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told my name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Preserve me!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Has Ebenezer gotten a son?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I am a son of Alexander&rsquo;s.
+It&rsquo;s I that am the Laird of Shaws.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;ll find your work cut out for ye to establish that,&rdquo;
+quoth she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I perceive you know my uncle,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and I daresay you
+may be the better pleased to hear that business is arranged.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?&rdquo; she pursued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m come after my saxpence, mem,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+to be thought, being my uncle&rsquo;s nephew, I would be found a careful
+lad.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So ye have a spark of sleeness in ye?&rdquo; observed the old lady, with
+some approval. &ldquo;I thought ye had just been a cuif&mdash;you and your
+saxpence, and your <i>lucky day</i> and your <i>sake of
+Balwhidder</i>&rdquo;&mdash;from which I was gratified to learn that Catriona
+had not forgotten some of our talk. &ldquo;But all this is by the
+purpose,&rdquo; she resumed. &ldquo;Am I to understand that ye come here
+keeping company?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is surely rather an early question,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;The maid
+is young, so am I, worse fortune. I have but seen her the once. I&rsquo;ll not
+deny,&rdquo; I added, making up my mind to try her with some frankness,
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll not deny but she has run in my head a good deal since I met
+in with her. That is one thing; but it would be quite another, and I think I
+would look very like a fool, to commit myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can speak out of your mouth, I see,&rdquo; said the old lady.
+&ldquo;Praise God, and so can I! I was fool enough to take charge of this
+rogue&rsquo;s daughter: a fine charge I have gotten; but it&rsquo;s mine, and
+I&rsquo;ll carry it the way I want to. Do ye mean to tell me, Mr. Balfour of
+Shaws, that you would marry James More&rsquo;s daughter, and him hanged! Well,
+then, where there&rsquo;s no possible marriage there shall be no manner of
+carryings on, and take that for said. Lasses are bruckle things,&rdquo; she
+added, with a nod; &ldquo;and though ye would never think it by my wrunkled
+chafts, I was a lassie mysel&rsquo;, and a bonny one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lady Allardyce,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;for that I suppose to be your
+name, you seem to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very poor manner
+to come to an agreement. You give me rather a home thrust when you ask if I
+would marry, at the gallow&rsquo;s foot, a young lady whom I have seen but
+once. I have told you already I would never be so untenty as to commit myself.
+And yet I&rsquo;ll go some way with you. If I continue to like the lass as well
+as I have reason to expect, it will be something more than her father, or the
+gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart. As for my family, I found it by
+the wayside like a lost bawbee! I owe less than nothing to my uncle and if ever
+I marry, it will be to please one person: that&rsquo;s myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard this kind of talk before ye were born,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Ogilvy, &ldquo;which is perhaps the reason that I think of it so little.
+There&rsquo;s much to be considered. This James More is a kinsman of mine, to
+my shame be it spoken. But the better the family, the mair men hanged or
+headed, that&rsquo;s always been poor Scotland&rsquo;s story. And if it was
+just the hanging! For my part I think I would be best pleased with James upon
+the gallows, which would be at least an end to him. Catrine&rsquo;s a good lass
+enough, and a good-hearted, and lets herself be deaved all day with a runt of
+an auld wife like me. But, ye see, there&rsquo;s the weak bit. She&rsquo;s daft
+about that long, false, fleeching beggar of a father of hers, and red-mad about
+the Gregara, and proscribed names, and King James, and a wheen blethers. And
+you might think ye could guide her, ye would find yourself sore mista&rsquo;en.
+Ye say ye&rsquo;ve seen her but the once. . .&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spoke with her but the once, I should have said,&rdquo; I interrupted.
+&ldquo;I saw her again this morning from a window at
+Prestongrange&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This I daresay I put in because it sounded well; but I was properly paid for my
+ostentation on the return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this of it?&rdquo; cries the old lady, with a sudden pucker
+of her face. &ldquo;I think it was at the Advocate&rsquo;s door-cheek that ye
+met her first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told her that was so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m,&rdquo; she said; and then suddenly, upon rather a scolding
+tone, &ldquo;I have your bare word for it,&rdquo; she cries, &ldquo;as to who
+and what you are. By your way of it, you&rsquo;re Balfour of the Shaws; but for
+what I ken you may be Balfour of the Deevil&rsquo;s oxter. It&rsquo;s possible
+ye may come here for what ye say, and it&rsquo;s equally possible ye may come
+here for deil care what! I&rsquo;m good enough Whig to sit quiet, and to have
+keepit all my men-folk&rsquo;s heads upon their shoulders. But I&rsquo;m not
+just a good enough Whig to be made a fool of neither. And I tell you fairly,
+there&rsquo;s too much Advocate&rsquo;s door and Advocate&rsquo;s window here
+for a man that comes taigling after a Macgregor&rsquo;s daughter. Ye can tell
+that to the Advocate that sent ye, with my fond love. And I kiss my loof to ye,
+Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; says she, suiting the action to the word; &ldquo;and a braw
+journey to ye back to where ye cam frae.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you think me a spy,&rdquo; I broke out, and speech stuck in my
+throat. I stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space, then bowed and
+turned away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here! Hoots! The callant&rsquo;s in a creel!&rdquo; she cried.
+&ldquo;Think ye a spy? what else would I think ye&mdash;me that kens naething
+by ye? But I see that I was wrong; and as I cannot fight, I&rsquo;ll have to
+apologise. A bonny figure I would be with a broadsword. Ay! ay!&rdquo; she went
+on, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re none such a bad lad in your way; I think ye&rsquo;ll
+have some redeeming vices. But, O! Davit Balfour, ye&rsquo;re damned
+countryfeed. Ye&rsquo;ll have to win over that, lad; ye&rsquo;ll have to soople
+your back-bone, and think a wee pickle less of your dainty self; and
+ye&rsquo;ll have to try to find out that women-folk are nae grenadiers. But
+that can never be. To your last day you&rsquo;ll ken no more of women-folk than
+what I do of sow-gelding.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had never been used with such expressions from a lady&rsquo;s tongue, the
+only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being most devout and
+most particular women; and I suppose my amazement must have been depicted in my
+countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst forth suddenly in a fit of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep me!&rdquo; she cried, struggling with her mirth, &ldquo;you have
+the finest timber face&mdash;and you to marry the daughter of a Hieland
+cateran! Davie, my dear, I think we&rsquo;ll have to make a match of
+it&mdash;if it was just to see the weans. And now,&rdquo; she went on,
+&ldquo;there&rsquo;s no manner of service in your daidling here, for the young
+woman is from home, and it&rsquo;s my fear that the old woman is no suitable
+companion for your father&rsquo;s son. Forbye that I have nobody but myself to
+look after my reputation, and have been long enough alone with a sedooctive
+youth. And come back another day for your saxpence!&rdquo; she cried after me
+as I left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My skirmish with this disconcerting lady gave my thoughts a boldness they had
+otherwise wanted. For two days the image of Catriona had mixed in all my
+meditations; she made their background, so that I scarce enjoyed my own company
+without a glint of her in a corner of my mind. But now she came immediately
+near; I seemed to touch her, whom I had never touched but the once; I let
+myself flow out to her in a happy weakness, and looking all about, and before
+and behind, saw the world like an undesirable desert, where men go as soldiers
+on a march, following their duty with what constancy they have, and Catriona
+alone there to offer me some pleasure of my days. I wondered at myself that I
+could dwell on such considerations in that time of my peril and disgrace; and
+when I remembered my youth I was ashamed. I had my studies to complete: I had
+to be called into some useful business; I had yet to take my part of service in
+a place where all must serve; I had yet to learn, and know, and prove myself a
+man; and I had so much sense as blush that I should be already tempted with
+these further-on and holier delights and duties. My education spoke home to me
+sharply; I was never brought up on sugar biscuits but on the hard food of the
+truth. I knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was not prepared to
+be a father also; and for a boy like me to play the father was a mere derision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I was in the midst of these thoughts and about half-way back to town I saw
+a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my heart was heightened. It
+seemed I had everything in the world to say to her, but nothing to say first;
+and remembering how tongue-tied I had been that morning at the Advocate&rsquo;s
+I made sure that I would find myself struck dumb. But when she came up my fears
+fled away; not even the consciousness of what I had been privately thinking
+disconcerted me the least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and
+rationally as I might with Alan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;you have been seeking your sixpence; did you
+get it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told her no; but now I had met with her my walk was not in vain.
+&ldquo;Though I have seen you to-day already,&rdquo; said I, and told her where
+and when.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not see you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My eyes are big, but there
+are better than mine at seeing far. Only I heard singing in the house.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was Miss Grant,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;the eldest and the
+bonniest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say they are all beautiful,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They think the same of you, Miss Drummond,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;and
+were all crowding to the window to observe you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a pity about my being so blind,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;or I might
+have seen them too. And you were in the house? You must have been having the
+fine time with the fine music and the pretty ladies.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is just where you are wrong,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;for I was as
+uncouth as a sea-fish upon the brae of a mountain. The truth is that I am
+better fitted to go about with rudas men than pretty ladies.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I would think so too, at all events!&rdquo; said she, at which we
+both of us laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a strange thing, now,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I am not the least
+afraid with you, yet I could have run from the Miss Grants. And I was afraid of
+your cousin too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, I think any man will be afraid of her,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;My
+father is afraid of her himself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The name of her father brought me to a stop. I looked at her as she walked by
+my side; I recalled the man, and the little I knew and the much I guessed of
+him; and comparing the one with the other, felt like a traitor to be silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Speaking of which,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I met your father no later than
+this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you?&rdquo; she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at
+me. &ldquo;You saw James More? You will have spoken with him then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did even that,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I think things went the worst way for me that was humanly possible. She
+gave me a look of mere gratitude. &ldquo;Ah, thank you for that!&rdquo; says
+she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You thank me for very little,&rdquo; said I, and then stopped. But it
+seemed when I was holding back so much, something at least had to come out.
+&ldquo;I spoke rather ill to him,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;I did no like him very
+much; I spoke him rather ill, and he was angry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you had little to do then, and less to tell it to his
+daughter!&rdquo; she cried out. &ldquo;But those that do not love and cherish
+him I will not know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will take the freedom of a word yet,&rdquo; said I, beginning to
+tremble. &ldquo;Perhaps neither your father nor I are in the best of spirits at
+Prestongrange&rsquo;s. I daresay we both have anxious business there, for
+it&rsquo;s a dangerous house. I was sorry for him too, and spoke to him the
+first, if I could but have spoken the wiser. And for one thing, in my opinion,
+you will soon find that his affairs are mending.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will not be through your friendship, I am thinking,&rdquo; said she;
+&ldquo;and he is much made up to you for your sorrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Drummond,&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;I am alone in this world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I am not wondering at that,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, let me speak!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I will speak but the once, and
+then leave you, if you will, for ever. I came this day in the hopes of a kind
+word that I am sore in want of. I know that what I said must hurt you, and I
+knew it then. It would have been easy to have spoken smooth, easy to lie to
+you; can you not think how I was tempted to the same? Cannot you see the truth
+of my heart shine out?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think here is a great deal of work, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said she.
+&ldquo;I think we will have met but the once, and will can part like gentle
+folk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, let me have one to believe in me!&rdquo; I pleaded, &ldquo;I cannae
+bear it else. The whole world is clanned against me. How am I to go through
+with my dreadful fate? If there&rsquo;s to be none to believe in me I cannot do
+it. The man must just die, for I cannot do it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had still looked straight in front of her, head in air; but at my words or
+the tone of my voice she came to a stop. &ldquo;What is this you say?&rdquo;
+she asked. &ldquo;What are you talking of?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is my testimony which may save an innocent life,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;and they will not suffer me to bear it. What would you do yourself? You
+know what this is, whose father lies in danger. Would you desert the poor soul?
+They have tried all ways with me. They have sought to bribe me; they offered me
+hills and valleys. And to-day that sleuth-hound told me how I stood, and to
+what a length he would go to butcher and disgrace me. I am to be brought in a
+party to the murder; I am to have held Glenure in talk for money and old
+clothes; I am to be killed and shamed. If this is the way I am to fall, and me
+scarce a man&mdash;if this is the story to be told of me in all
+Scotland&mdash;if you are to believe it too, and my name is to be nothing but a
+by-word&mdash;Catriona, how can I go through with it? The thing&rsquo;s not
+possible; it&rsquo;s more than a man has in his heart.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I poured my words out in a whirl, one upon the other; and when I stopped I
+found her gazing on me with a startled face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glenure! It is the Appin murder,&rdquo; she said softly, but with a very
+deep surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had turned back to bear her company, and we were now come near the head of
+the brae above Dean village. At this word I stepped in front of her like one
+suddenly distracted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake!&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;for God&rsquo;s sake, what
+is this that I have done?&rdquo; and carried my fists to my temples.
+&ldquo;What made me do it? Sure, I am bewitched to say these things!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the name of heaven, what ails you now!&rdquo; she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I gave my honour,&rdquo; I groaned, &ldquo;I gave my honour and now I
+have broke it. O, Catriona!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am asking you what it is,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;was it these things
+you should not have spoken? And do you think I have no honour, then? or that I
+am one that would betray a friend? I hold up my right hand to you and
+swear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, I knew you would be true!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+me&mdash;it&rsquo;s here. I that stood but this morning and out-faced them,
+that risked rather to die disgraced upon the gallows than do wrong&mdash;and a
+few hours after I throw my honour away by the roadside in common talk!
+&lsquo;There is one thing clear upon our interview,&rsquo; says he, &lsquo;that
+I can rely on your pledged word.&rsquo; Where is my word now? Who could believe
+me now? You could not believe me. I am clean fallen down; I had best
+die!&rdquo; All this I said with a weeping voice, but I had no tears in my
+body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My heart is sore for you,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;but be sure you are
+too nice. I would not believe you, do you say? I would trust you with anything.
+And these men? I would not be thinking of them! Men who go about to entrap and
+to destroy you! Fy! this is no time to crouch. Look up! Do you not think I will
+be admiring you like a great hero of the good&mdash;and you a boy not much
+older than myself? And because you said a word too much in a friend&rsquo;s
+ear, that would die ere she betrayed you&mdash;to make such a matter! It is one
+thing that we must both forget.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, looking at her, hang-dog, &ldquo;is this true
+of it? Would ye trust me yet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you not believe the tears upon my face?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;It
+is the world I am thinking of you, Mr. David Balfour. Let them hang you; I will
+never forget, I will grow old and still remember you. I think it is great to
+die so: I will envy you that gallows.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And maybe all this while I am but a child frighted with bogles,&rdquo;
+said I. &ldquo;Maybe they but make a mock of me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is what I must know,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I must hear the whole.
+The harm is done at all events, and I must hear the whole.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had sat down on the wayside, where she took a place beside me, and I told her
+all that matter much as I have written it, my thoughts about her father&rsquo;s
+dealings being alone omitted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, when I had finished, &ldquo;you are a hero,
+surely, and I never would have thought that same! And I think you are in peril,
+too. O, Simon Fraser! to think upon that man! For his life and the dirty money,
+to be dealing in such traffic!&rdquo; And just then she called out aloud with a
+queer word that was common with her, and belongs, I believe, to her own
+language. &ldquo;My torture!&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;look at the sun!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, it was already dipping towards the mountains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She bid me come again soon, gave me her hand, and left me in a turmoil of glad
+spirits. I delayed to go home to my lodging, for I had a terror of immediate
+arrest; but got some supper at a change house, and the better part of that
+night walked by myself in the barley-fields, and had such a sense of
+Catriona&rsquo;s presence that I seemed to bear her in my arms.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br />
+THE BRAVO</h2>
+
+<p>
+The next day, August 29th, I kept my appointment at the Advocate&rsquo;s in a
+coat that I had made to my own measure, and was but newly ready.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aha,&rdquo; says Prestongrange, &ldquo;you are very fine to-day; my
+misses are to have a fine cavalier. Come, I take that kind of you. I take that
+kind of you, Mr. David. O, we shall do very well yet, and I believe your
+troubles are nearly at an end.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have news for me?&rdquo; cried I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Beyond anticipation,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Your testimony is after
+all to be received; and you may go, if you will, in my company to the trial,
+which in to be held at Inverary, Thursday, 21st <i>proximo</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was too much amazed to find words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the meanwhile,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;though I will not ask you
+to renew your pledge, I must caution you strictly to be reticent. To-morrow
+your precognition must be taken; and outside of that, do you know, I think
+least said will be soonest mended.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall try to go discreetly,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I believe it is
+yourself that I must thank for this crowning mercy, and I do thank you
+gratefully. After yesterday, my lord, this is like the doors of Heaven. I
+cannot find it in my heart to get the thing believed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, but you must try and manage, you must try and manage to believe
+it,&rdquo; says he, soothing-like, &ldquo;and I am very glad to hear your
+acknowledgment of obligation, for I think you may be able to repay me very
+shortly&rdquo;&mdash;he coughed&mdash;&ldquo;or even now. The matter is much
+changed. Your testimony, which I shall not trouble you for to-day, will
+doubtless alter the complexion of the case for all concerned, and this makes it
+less delicate for me to enter with you on a side issue.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My Lord,&rdquo; I interrupted, &ldquo;excuse me for interrupting you,
+but how has this been brought about? The obstacles you told me of on Saturday
+appeared even to me to be quite insurmountable; how has it been
+contrived?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear Mr. David,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;it would never do for me to
+divulge (even to you, as you say) the councils of the Government; and you must
+content yourself, if you please, with the gross fact.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He smiled upon me like a father as he spoke, playing the while with a new pen;
+methought it was impossible there could be any shadow of deception in the man:
+yet when he drew to him a sheet of paper, dipped his pen among the ink, and
+began again to address me, I was somehow not so certain, and fell instinctively
+into an attitude of guard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a point I wish to touch upon,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;I
+purposely left it before upon one side, which need be now no longer necessary.
+This is not, of course, a part of your examination, which is to follow by
+another hand; this is a private interest of my own. You say you encountered
+Alan Breck upon the hill?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did, my lord,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This was immediately after the murder?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you speak to him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You had known him before, I think?&rdquo; says my lord, carelessly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot guess your reason for so thinking, my lord,&rdquo; I replied,
+&ldquo;but such in the fact.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And when did you part with him again?&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I reserve my answer,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;The question will be put to
+me at the assize.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will you not understand that all
+this is without prejudice to yourself? I have promised you life and honour;
+and, believe me, I can keep my word. You are therefore clear of all anxiety.
+Alan, it appears, you suppose you can protect; and you talk to me of your
+gratitude, which I think (if you push me) is not ill-deserved. There are a
+great many different considerations all pointing the same way; and I will never
+be persuaded that you could not help us (if you chose) to put salt on
+Alan&rsquo;s tail.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I give you my word I do not so much as
+guess where Alan is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused a breath. &ldquo;Nor how he might be found?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sat before him like a log of wood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so much for your gratitude, Mr. David!&rdquo; he observed. Again
+there was a piece of silence. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he, rising, &ldquo;I am
+not fortunate, and we are a couple at cross purposes. Let us speak of it no
+more; you will receive notice when, where, and by whom, we are to take your
+precognition. And in the meantime, my misses must be waiting you. They will
+never forgive me if I detain their cavalier.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Into the hands of these Graces I was accordingly offered up, and found them
+dressed beyond what I had thought possible, and looking fair as a posy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we went forth from the doors a small circumstance occurred which came
+afterwards to look extremely big. I heard a whistle sound loud and brief like a
+signal, and looking all about, spied for one moment the red head of Neil of the
+Tom, the son of Duncan. The next moment he was gone again, nor could I see so
+much as the skirt-tail of Catriona, upon whom I naturally supposed him to be
+then attending.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My three keepers led me out by Bristo and the Bruntsfield Links; whence a path
+carried us to Hope Park, a beautiful pleasance, laid with gravel-walks,
+furnished with seats and summer-sheds, and warded by a keeper. The way there
+was a little longsome; the two younger misses affected an air of genteel
+weariness that damped me cruelly, the eldest considered me with something that
+at times appeared like mirth; and though I thought I did myself more justice
+than the day before, it was not without some effort. Upon our reaching the park
+I was launched on a bevy of eight or ten young gentlemen (some of them cockaded
+officers, the rest chiefly advocates) who crowded to attend upon these
+beauties; and though I was presented to all of them in very good words, it
+seemed I was by all immediately forgotten. Young folk in a company are like to
+savage animals: they fall upon or scorn a stranger without civility, or I may
+say, humanity; and I am sure, if I had been among baboons, they would have
+shown me quite as much of both. Some of the advocates set up to be wits, and
+some of the soldiers to be rattles; and I could not tell which of these
+extremes annoyed me most. All had a manner of handling their swords and
+coat-skirts, for the which (in mere black envy) I could have kicked them from
+the park. I daresay, upon their side, they grudged me extremely the fine
+company in which I had arrived; and altogether I had soon fallen behind, and
+stepped stiffly in the rear of all that merriment with my own thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From these I was recalled by one of the officers, Lieutenant Hector Duncansby,
+a gawky, leering Highland boy, asking if my name was not &ldquo;Palfour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told him it was, not very kindly, for his manner was scant civil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha, Palfour,&rdquo; says he, and then, repeating it, &ldquo;Palfour,
+Palfour!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid you do not like my name, sir,&rdquo; says I, annoyed with
+myself to be annoyed with such a rustical fellow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;but I wass thinking.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would not advise you to make a practice of that, sir,&rdquo; says I.
+&ldquo;I feel sure you would not find it to agree with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tit you effer hear where Alan Grigor fand the tangs?&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I asked him what he could possibly mean, and he answered, with a heckling
+laugh, that he thought I must have found the poker in the same place and
+swallowed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There could be no mistake about this, and my cheek burned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Before I went about to put affronts on gentlemen,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;I think I would learn the English language first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took me by the sleeve with a nod and a wink and led me quietly outside Hope
+Park. But no sooner were we beyond the view of the promenaders, than the
+fashion of his countenance changed. &ldquo;You tam lowland
+scoon&rsquo;rel!&rdquo; cries he, and hit me a buffet on the jaw with his
+closed fist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I paid him as good or better on the return; whereupon he stepped a little back
+and took off his hat to me decorously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enough plows I think,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;I will be the offended
+shentleman, for who effer heard of such suffeeciency as tell a shentlemans that
+is the king&rsquo;s officer he cannae speak Cot&rsquo;s English? We have swords
+at our hurdles, and here is the King&rsquo;s Park at hand. Will ye walk first,
+or let me show ye the way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I returned his bow, told him to go first, and followed him. As he went I heard
+him grumble to himself about <i>Cot&rsquo;s English</i> and the <i>King&rsquo;s
+coat</i>, so that I might have supposed him to be seriously offended. But his
+manner at the beginning of our interview was there to belie him. It was
+manifest he had come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me, right or wrong;
+manifest that I was taken in a fresh contrivance of my enemies; and to me
+(conscious as I was of my deficiencies) manifest enough that I should be the
+one to fall in our encounter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we came into that rough rocky desert of the King&rsquo;s Park I was tempted
+half-a-dozen times to take to my heels and run for it, so loath was I to show
+my ignorance in fencing, and so much averse to die or even to be wounded. But I
+considered if their malice went as far as this, it would likely stick at
+nothing; and that to fall by the sword, however ungracefully, was still an
+improvement on the gallows. I considered besides that by the unguarded pertness
+of my words and the quickness of my blow I had put myself quite out of court;
+and that even if I ran, my adversary would probably pursue and catch me, which
+would add disgrace to my misfortune. So that, taking all in all, I continued
+marching behind him, much as a man follows the hangman, and certainly with no
+more hope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We went about the end of the long craigs, and came into the Hunter&rsquo;s Bog.
+Here, on a piece of fair turf, my adversary drew. There was nobody there to see
+us but some birds; and no resource for me but to follow his example, and stand
+on guard with the best face I could display. It seems it was not good enough
+for Mr. Dancansby, who spied some flaw in my man&oelig;uvres, paused, looked
+upon me sharply, and came off and on, and menaced me with his blade in the air.
+As I had seen no such proceedings from Alan, and was besides a good deal
+affected with the proximity of death, I grew quite bewildered, stood helpless,
+and could have longed to run away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fat deil ails her?&rdquo; cries the lieutenant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And suddenly engaging, he twitched the sword out of my grasp and sent it flying
+far among the rushes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice was this man&oelig;uvre repeated; and the third time when I brought back
+my humiliated weapon, I found he had returned his own to the scabbard, and
+stood awaiting me with a face of some anger, and his hands clasped under his
+skirt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pe tamned if I touch you!&rdquo; he cried, and asked me bitterly what
+right I had to stand up before &ldquo;shentlemans&rdquo; when I did not know
+the back of a sword from the front of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I answered that was the fault of my upbringing; and would he do me the justice
+to say I had given him all the satisfaction it was unfortunately in my power to
+offer, and had stood up like a man?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that is the truth,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I am fery prave myself,
+and pold as a lions. But to stand up there&mdash;and you ken naething of
+fence!&mdash;the way that you did, I declare it was peyond me. And I am sorry
+for the plow; though I declare I pelief your own was the elder brother, and my
+heid still sings with it. And I declare if I had kent what way it wass, I would
+not put a hand to such a piece of pusiness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is handsomely said,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;and I am sure you will
+not stand up a second time to be the actor for my private enemies.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, no, Palfour,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and I think I was used
+extremely suffeeciently myself to be set up to fecht with an auld wife, or all
+the same as a bairn whateffer! And I will tell the Master so, and fecht him, by
+Cot, himself!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if you knew the nature of Mr. Simon&rsquo;s quarrel with me,&rdquo;
+said I, &ldquo;you would be yet the more affronted to be mingled up with such
+affairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He swore he could well believe it; that all the Lovats were made of the same
+meal and the devil was the miller that ground that; then suddenly shaking me by
+the hand, he vowed I was a pretty enough fellow after all, that it was a
+thousand pities I had been neglected, and that if he could find the time, he
+would give an eye himself to have me educated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can do me a better service than even what you propose,&rdquo; said
+I; and when he had asked its nature&mdash;&ldquo;Come with me to the house of
+one of my enemies, and testify how I have carried myself this day,&rdquo; I
+told him. &ldquo;That will be the true service. For though he has sent me a
+gallant adversary for the first, the thought in Mr. Simon&rsquo;s mind is
+merely murder. There will be a second and then a third; and by what you have
+seen of my cleverness with the cold steel, you can judge for yourself what is
+like to be the upshot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I would not like it myself, if I was no more of a man than what you
+wass!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;But I will do you right, Palfour. Lead on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If I had walked slowly on the way into that accursed park my heels were light
+enough on the way out. They kept time to a very good old air, that is as
+ancient as the Bible, and the words of it are: &ldquo;<i>Surely the bitterness
+of death is passed</i>.&rdquo; I mind that I was extremely thirsty, and had a
+drink at Saint Margaret&rsquo;s well on the road down, and the sweetness of
+that water passed belief. We went through the sanctuary, up the Canongate, in
+by the Netherbow, and straight to Prestongrange&rsquo;s door, talking as we
+came and arranging the details of our affair. The footman owned his master was
+at home, but declared him engaged with other gentlemen on very private
+business, and his door forbidden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My business is but for three minutes, and it cannot wait,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;You may say it is by no means private, and I shall be even glad to have
+some witnesses.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the man departed unwillingly enough upon this errand, we made so bold as to
+follow him to the ante-chamber, whence I could hear for a while the murmuring
+of several voices in the room within. The truth is, they were three at the one
+table&mdash;Prestongrange, Simon Fraser, and Mr. Erskine, Sheriff of Perth; and
+as they were met in consultation on the very business of the Appin murder, they
+were a little disturbed at my appearance, but decided to receive me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, Mr. Balfour, and what brings you here again? and who is this
+you bring with you?&rdquo; says Prestongrange.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Fraser, he looked before him on the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is here to bear a little testimony in my favour, my lord, which I
+think it very needful you should hear,&rdquo; said I, and turned to Duncansby.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have only to say this,&rdquo; said the lieutenant, &ldquo;that I stood
+up this day with Palfour in the Hunter&rsquo;s Pog, which I am now fery sorry
+for, and he behaved himself as pretty as a shentlemans could ask it. And I have
+creat respects for Palfour,&rdquo; he added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thank you for your honest expressions,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon Duncansby made his bow to the company, and left the chamber, as we
+had agreed upon before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have I to do with this?&rdquo; says Prestongrange.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will tell your lordship in two words,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I have
+brought this gentleman, a King&rsquo;s officer, to do me so much justice. Now I
+think my character is covered, and until a certain date, which your lordship
+can very well supply, it will be quite in vain to despatch against me any more
+officers. I will not consent to fight my way through the garrison of the
+castle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The veins swelled on Prestongrange&rsquo;s brow, and he regarded me with fury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think the devil uncoupled this dog of a lad between my legs!&rdquo; he
+cried; and then, turning fiercely on his neighbour, &ldquo;This is some of your
+work, Simon,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I spy your hand in the business, and, let
+me tell you, I resent it. It is disloyal, when we are agreed upon one
+expedient, to follow another in the dark. You are disloyal to me. What! you let
+me send this lad to the place with my very daughters! And because I let drop a
+word to you..... Fy, sir, keep your dishonours to yourself!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon was deadly pale. &ldquo;I will be a kick-ball between you and the Duke no
+longer,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Either come to an agreement, or come to a
+differ, and have it out among yourselves. But I will no longer fetch and carry,
+and get your contrary instructions, and be blamed by both. For if I were to
+tell you what I think of all your Hanover business it would make your head
+sing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Sheriff Erskine had preserved his temper, and now intervened smoothly.
+&ldquo;And in the meantime,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I think we should tell Mr.
+Balfour that his character for valour is quite established. He may sleep in
+peace. Until the date he was so good as to refer to it shall be put to the
+proof no more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His coolness brought the others to their prudence; and they made haste, with a
+somewhat distracted civility, to pack me from the house.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br />
+THE HEATHER ON FIRE</h2>
+
+<p>
+When I left Prestongrange that afternoon I was for the first time angry. The
+Advocate had made a mock of me. He had pretended my testimony was to be
+received and myself respected; and in that very hour, not only was Simon
+practising against my life by the hands of the Highland soldier, but (as
+appeared from his own language) Prestongrange himself had some design in
+operation. I counted my enemies; Prestongrange with all the King&rsquo;s
+authority behind him; and the Duke with the power of the West Highlands; and
+the Lovat interest by their side to help them with so great a force in the
+north, and the whole clan of old Jacobite spies and traffickers. And when I
+remembered James More, and the red head of Neil the son of Duncan, I thought
+there was perhaps a fourth in the confederacy, and what remained of Rob
+Roy&rsquo;s old desperate sept of caterans would be banded against me with the
+others. One thing was requisite&mdash;some strong friend or wise adviser. The
+country must be full of such, both able and eager to support me, or Lovat and
+the Duke and Prestongrange had not been nosing for expedients; and it made me
+rage to think that I might brush against my champions in the street and be no
+wiser.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And just then (like an answer) a gentleman brushed against me going by, gave me
+a meaning look, and turned into a close. I knew him with the tail of my
+eye&mdash;it was Stewart the Writer; and, blessing my good fortune, turned in
+to follow him. As soon as I had entered the close I saw him standing in the
+mouth of a stair, where he made me a signal and immediately vanished. Seven
+storeys up, there he was again in a house door, the which he looked behind us
+after we had entered. The house was quite dismantled, with not a stick of
+furniture; indeed, it was one of which Stewart had the letting in his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have to sit upon the floor,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;but
+we&rsquo;re safe here for the time being, and I&rsquo;ve been wearying to see
+ye, Mr. Balfour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How&rsquo;s it with Alan?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Brawly,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Andie picks him up at Gillane sands
+to-morrow, Wednesday. He was keen to say good-bye to ye, but the way that
+things were going, I was feared the pair of ye was maybe best apart. And that
+brings me to the essential: how does your business speed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I was told only this morning that my
+testimony was accepted, and I was to travel to Inverary with the Advocate, no
+less.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hout awa!&rdquo; cried Stewart. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll never believe
+that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have maybe a suspicion of my own,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;but I would
+like fine to hear your reasons.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I tell ye fairly, I&rsquo;m horn-mad,&rdquo; cries Stewart.
+&ldquo;If my one hand could pull their Government down I would pluck it like a
+rotten apple. I&rsquo;m doer for Appin and for James of the Glens; and, of
+course, it&rsquo;s my duty to defend my kinsman for his life. Hear how it goes
+with me, and I&rsquo;ll leave the judgment of it to yourself. The first thing
+they have to do is to get rid of Alan. They cannae bring in James as art and
+part until they&rsquo;ve brought in Alan first as principal; that&rsquo;s sound
+law: they could never put the cart before the horse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And how are they to bring in Alan till they can catch him?&rdquo; says
+I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, but there is a way to evite that arrestment,&rdquo; said he.
+&ldquo;Sound law, too. It would be a bonny thing if, by the escape of one
+ill-doer another was to go scatheless, and the remeid is to summon the
+principal and put him to outlawry for the non-compearance. Now there&rsquo;s
+four places where a person can be summoned: at his dwelling-house; at a place
+where he has resided forty days; at the head burgh of the shire where he
+ordinarily resorts; or lastly (if there be ground to think him forth of
+Scotland) <i>at the cross of Edinburgh</i>, <i>and the pier and shore of
+Leith</i>, <i>for sixty days</i>. The purpose of which last provision is
+evident upon its face: being that outgoing ships may have time to carry news of
+the transaction, and the summonsing be something other than a form. Now take
+the case of Alan. He has no dwelling-house that ever I could hear of; I would
+be obliged if anyone would show me where he has lived forty days together since
+the &rsquo;45; there is no shire where he resorts whether ordinarily or
+extraordinarily; if he has a domicile at all, which I misdoubt, it must be with
+his regiment in France; and if he is not yet forth of Scotland (as we happen to
+know and they happen to guess) it must be evident to the most dull it&rsquo;s
+what he&rsquo;s aiming for. Where, then, and what way should he be summoned? I
+ask it at yourself, a layman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have given the very words,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Here at the cross,
+and at the pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;re a sounder Scots lawyer than Prestongrange, then!&rdquo;
+cries the Writer. &ldquo;He has had Alan summoned once; that was on the
+twenty-fifth, the day that we first met. Once, and done with it. And where?
+Where, but at the cross of Inverary, the head burgh of the Campbells? A word in
+your ear, Mr. Balfour&mdash;they&rsquo;re not seeking Alan.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Not seeking him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the best that I can make of it,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Not wanting to
+find him, in my poor thought. They think perhaps he might set up a fair
+defence, upon the back of which James, the man they&rsquo;re really after,
+might climb out. This is not a case, ye see, it&rsquo;s a conspiracy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yet I can tell you Prestongrange asked after Alan keenly,&rdquo; said I;
+&ldquo;though, when I come to think of it, he was something of the easiest put
+by.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See that!&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;But there! I may be right or wrong,
+that&rsquo;s guesswork at the best, and let me get to my facts again. It comes
+to my ears that James and the witnesses&mdash;the witnesses, Mr.
+Balfour!&mdash;lay in close dungeons, and shackled forbye, in the military
+prison at Fort William; none allowed in to them, nor they to write. The
+witnesses, Mr. Balfour; heard ye ever the match of that? I assure ye, no old,
+crooked Stewart of the gang ever out-faced the law more impudently. It&rsquo;s
+clean in the two eyes of the Act of Parliament of 1700, anent wrongous
+imprisonment. No sooner did I get the news than I petitioned the Lord Justice
+Clerk. I have his word to-day. There&rsquo;s law for ye! here&rsquo;s
+justice!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He put a paper in my hand, that same mealy-mouthed, false-faced paper that was
+printed since in the pamphlet &ldquo;by a bystander,&rdquo; for behoof (as the
+title says) of James&rsquo;s &ldquo;poor widow and five children.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See,&rdquo; said Stewart, &ldquo;he couldn&rsquo;t dare to refuse me
+access to my client, so he <i>recommends the commanding officer to let me
+in</i>. Recommends!&mdash;the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland recommends. Is not
+the purpose of such language plain? They hope the officer may be so dull, or so
+very much the reverse, as to refuse the recommendation. I would have to make
+the journey back again betwixt here and Fort William. Then would follow a fresh
+delay till I got fresh authority, and they had disavowed the
+officer&mdash;military man, notoriously ignorant of the law, and that&mdash;I
+ken the cant of it. Then the journey a third time; and there we should be on
+the immediate heels of the trial before I had received my first instruction. Am
+I not right to call this a conspiracy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will bear that colour,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll go on to prove it you outright,&rdquo; said he.
+&ldquo;They have the right to hold James in prison, yet they cannot deny me to
+visit him. They have no right to hold the witnesses; but am I to get a sight of
+them, that should be as free as the Lord Justice Clerk himself! See&mdash;read:
+<i>For the rest</i>, <i>refuses to give any orders to keepers of prisons who
+are not accused as having done anything contrary to the duties of their
+office</i>. Anything contrary! Sirs! And the Act of seventeen hunner? Mr.
+Balfour, this makes my heart to burst; the heather is on fire inside my
+wame.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the plain English of that phrase,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;is that the
+witnesses are still to lie in prison and you are not to see them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I am not to see them until Inverary, when the court is set!&rdquo;
+cries he, &ldquo;and then to hear Prestongrange upon <i>the anxious
+responsibilities of his office and the great facilities afforded the
+defence</i>! But I&rsquo;ll begowk them there, Mr. David. I have a plan to
+waylay the witnesses upon the road, and see if I cannae get I a little harle of
+justice out of the <i>military man notoriously ignorant of the law</i> that
+shall command the party.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was actually so&mdash;it was actually on the wayside near Tynedrum, and by
+the connivance of a soldier officer, that Mr. Stewart first saw the witnesses
+upon the case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is nothing that would surprise me in this business,&rdquo; I
+remarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll surprise you ere I&rsquo;m done!&rdquo; cries he. &ldquo;Do
+ye see this?&rdquo;&mdash;producing a print still wet from the press.
+&ldquo;This is the libel: see, there&rsquo;s Prestongrange&rsquo;s name to the
+list of witnesses, and I find no word of any Balfour. But here is not the
+question. Who do ye think paid for the printing of this paper?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose it would likely be King George,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But it happens it was me!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Not but it was printed
+by and for themselves, for the Grants and the Erskines, and yon thief of the
+black midnight, Simon Fraser. But could <i>I</i> win to get a copy! No! I was
+to go blindfold to my defence; I was to hear the charges for the first time in
+court alongst the jury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is not this against the law?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot say so much,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;It was a favour so
+natural and so constantly rendered (till this nonesuch business) that the law
+has never looked to it. And now admire the hand of Providence! A stranger is in
+Fleming&rsquo;s printing house, spies a proof on the floor, picks it up, and
+carries it to me. Of all things, it was just this libel. Whereupon I had it set
+again&mdash;printed at the expense of the defence: <i>sumptibus moesti rei</i>;
+heard ever man the like of it?&mdash;and here it is for anybody, the muckle
+secret out&mdash;all may see it now. But how do you think I would enjoy this,
+that has the life of my kinsman on my conscience?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Troth, I think you would enjoy it ill,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now you see how it is,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;and why, when you
+tell me your evidence is to be let in, I laugh aloud in your face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was now my turn. I laid before him in brief Mr. Simon&rsquo;s threats and
+offers, and the whole incident of the bravo, with the subsequent scene at
+Prestongrange&rsquo;s. Of my first talk, according to promise, I said nothing,
+nor indeed was it necessary. All the time I was talking Stewart nodded his head
+like a mechanical figure; and no sooner had my voice ceased, than he opened his
+mouth and gave me his opinion in two words, dwelling strong on both of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Disappear yourself,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not take you,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll carry you there,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;By my view of it
+you&rsquo;re to disappear whatever. O, that&rsquo;s outside debate. The
+Advocate, who is not without some spunks of a remainder decency, has wrung your
+life-safe out of Simon and the Duke. He has refused to put you on your trial,
+and refused to have you killed; and there is the clue to their ill words
+together, for Simon and the Duke can keep faith with neither friend nor enemy.
+Ye&rsquo;re not to be tried then, and ye&rsquo;re not to be murdered; but
+I&rsquo;m in bitter error if ye&rsquo;re not to be kidnapped and carried away
+like the Lady Grange. Bet me what ye please&mdash;there was their
+<i>expedient</i>!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You make me think,&rdquo; said I, and told him of the whistle and the
+red-headed retainer, Neil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wherever James More is there&rsquo;s one big rogue, never be deceived on
+that,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;His father was none so ill a man, though a kenning
+on the wrong side of the law, and no friend to my family, that I should waste
+my breath to be defending him! But as for James he&rsquo;s a brock and a
+blagyard. I like the appearance of this red-headed Neil as little as yourself.
+It looks uncanny: fiegh! it smells bad. It was old Lovat that managed the Lady
+Grange affair; if young Lovat is to handle yours, it&rsquo;ll be all in the
+family. What&rsquo;s James More in prison for? The same offence: abduction. His
+men have had practice in the business. He&rsquo;ll be to lend them to be
+Simon&rsquo;s instruments; and the next thing we&rsquo;ll be hearing, James
+will have made his peace, or else he&rsquo;ll have escaped; and you&rsquo;ll be
+in Benbecula or Applecross.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye make a strong case,&rdquo; I admitted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what I want,&rdquo; he resumed, &ldquo;is that you should disappear
+yourself ere they can get their hands upon ye. Lie quiet until just before the
+trial, and spring upon them at the last of it when they&rsquo;ll be looking for
+you least. This is always supposing Mr. Balfour, that your evidence is worth so
+very great a measure of both risk and fash.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will tell you one thing,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I saw the murderer and
+it was not Alan.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, by God, my cousin&rsquo;s saved!&rdquo; cried Stewart. &ldquo;You
+have his life upon your tongue; and there&rsquo;s neither time, risk, nor money
+to be spared to bring you to the trial.&rdquo; He emptied his pockets on the
+floor. &ldquo;Here is all that I have by me,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;Take it,
+ye&rsquo;ll want it ere ye&rsquo;re through. Go straight down this close,
+there&rsquo;s a way out by there to the Lang Dykes, and by my will of it! see
+no more of Edinburgh till the clash is over.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where am I to go, then?&rdquo; I inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I wish that I could tell ye!&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;but all the
+places that I could send ye to, would be just the places they would seek. No,
+ye must fend for yourself, and God be your guiding! Five days before the trial,
+September the sixteen, get word to me at the <i>King&rsquo;s Arms</i> in
+Stirling; and if ye&rsquo;ve managed for yourself as long as that, I&rsquo;ll
+see that ye reach Inverary.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One thing more,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Can I no see Alan?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He seemed boggled. &ldquo;Hech, I would rather you wouldnae,&rdquo; said he.
+&ldquo;But I can never deny that Alan is extremely keen of it, and is to lie
+this night by Silvermills on purpose. If you&rsquo;re sure that you&rsquo;re
+not followed, Mr. Balfour&mdash;but make sure of that&mdash;lie in a good place
+and watch your road for a clear hour before ye risk it. It would be a dreadful
+business if both you and him was to miscarry!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br />
+THE RED-HEADED MAN</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was about half-past three when I came forth on the Lang Dykes. Dean was
+where I wanted to go. Since Catriona dwelled there, and her kinsfolk the
+Glengyle Macgregors appeared almost certainly to be employed against me, it was
+just one of the few places I should have kept away from; and being a very young
+man, and beginning to be very much in love, I turned my face in that direction
+without pause. As a slave to my conscience and common sense, however, I took a
+measure of precaution. Coming over the crown of a bit of a rise in the road, I
+clapped down suddenly among the barley and lay waiting. After a while, a man
+went by that looked to be a Highlandman, but I had never seen him till that
+hour. Presently after came Neil of the red head. The next to go past was a
+miller&rsquo;s cart, and after that nothing but manifest country people. Here
+was enough to have turned the most foolhardy from his purpose, but my
+inclination ran too strong the other way. I argued it out that if Neil was on
+that road, it was the right road to find him in, leading direct to his
+chief&rsquo;s daughter; as for the other Highlandman, if I was to be startled
+off by every Highlandman I saw, I would scarce reach anywhere. And having quite
+satisfied myself with this disingenuous debate, I made the better speed of it,
+and came a little after four to Mrs. Drumond-Ogilvy&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both ladies were within the house; and upon my perceiving them together by the
+open door, I plucked off my hat and said, &ldquo;Here was a lad come seeking
+saxpence,&rdquo; which I thought might please the dowager.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Catriona ran out to greet me heartily, and, to my surprise, the old lady seemed
+scarce less forward than herself. I learned long afterwards that she had
+despatched a horseman by daylight to Rankeillor at the Queensferry, whom she
+knew to be the doer for Shaws, and had then in her pocket a letter from that
+good friend of mine, presenting, in the most favourable view, my character and
+prospects. But had I read it I could scarce have seen more clear in her
+designs. Maybe I was <i>countryfeed</i>; at least, I was not so much so as she
+thought; and it was even to my homespun wits, that she was bent to hammer up a
+match between her cousin and a beardless boy that was something of a laird in
+Lothian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine,&rdquo; says she.
+&ldquo;Run and tell the lasses.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And for the little while we were alone was at a good deal of pains to flatter
+me; always cleverly, always with the appearance of a banter, still calling me
+Saxpence, but with such a turn that should rather uplift me in my own opinion.
+When Catriona returned, the design became if possible more obvious; and she
+showed off the girl&rsquo;s advantages like a horse-couper with a horse. My
+face flamed that she should think me so obtuse. Now I would fancy the girl was
+being innocently made a show of, and then I could have beaten the old carline
+wife with a cudgel; and now, that perhaps these two had set their heads
+together to entrap me, and at that I sat and gloomed betwixt them like the very
+image of ill-will. At last the matchmaker had a better device, which was to
+leave the pair of us alone. When my suspicions are anyway roused it is
+sometimes a little the wrong side of easy to allay them. But though I knew what
+breed she was of, and that was a breed of thieves, I could never look in
+Catriona&rsquo;s face and disbelieve her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must not ask?&rdquo; says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left
+alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, but to-day I can talk with a free conscience,&rdquo; I replied.
+&ldquo;I am lightened of my pledge, and indeed (after what has come and gone
+since morning) I would not have renewed it were it asked.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My cousin will not be so long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the last of it,
+making it as mirthful as I could, and, indeed, there was matter of mirth in
+that absurdity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudas men as for the
+pretty ladies, after all!&rdquo; says she, when I had done. &ldquo;But what was
+your father that he could not learn you to draw the sword! It is most ungentle;
+I have not heard the match of that in anyone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is most misconvenient at least,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and I think my
+father (honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in the
+place of it. But you see I do the best I can, and just stand up like
+Lot&rsquo;s wife and let them hammer at me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know what makes me smile?&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Well, it is
+this. I am made this way, that I should have been a man child. In my own
+thoughts it is so I am always; and I go on telling myself about this thing that
+is to befall and that. Then it comes to the place of the fighting, and it comes
+over me that I am only a girl at all events, and cannot hold a sword or give
+one good blow; and then I have to twist my story round about, so that the
+fighting is to stop, and yet me have the best of it, just like you and the
+lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine speeches all through, like Mr.
+David Balfour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a bloodthirsty maid,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers,&rdquo;
+she said, &ldquo;but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I think
+you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not that I want to
+kill, I think. Did ever you kill anyone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I have, as it chances. Two, no less, and me still a lad that should
+be at the college,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;But yet, in the look-back, I take no
+shame for it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how did you feel, then&mdash;after it?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&lsquo;&rdquo;Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know that, too,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I feel where these tears
+should come from. And at any rate, I would not wish to kill, only to be
+Catherine Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt, where it
+was broken. That is my chief hero. Would you not love to die so&mdash;for your
+king?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Troth,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;my affection for my king, God bless the
+puggy face of him, is under more control; and I thought I saw death so near to
+me this day already, that I am rather taken up with the notion of
+living.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;the right mind of a man! Only you must
+learn arms; I would not like to have a friend that cannot strike. But it will
+not have been with the sword that you killed these two?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, no,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but with a pair of pistols. And a
+fortunate thing it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I am about as
+clever with the pistols as I am with the sword.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So then she drew from me the story of our battle in the brig, which I had
+omitted in my first account of my affairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;you are brave. And your friend, I admire
+and love him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and I think anyone would!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;He has his faults
+like other folk; but he is brave and staunch and kind, God bless him! That will
+be a strange day when I forget Alan.&rdquo; And the thought of him, and that it
+was within my choice to speak with him that night, had almost overcome me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And where will my head be gone that I have not told my news!&rdquo; she
+cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she might visit him
+to-morrow in the castle whither he was now transferred, and that his affairs
+were mending. &ldquo;You do not like to hear it,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Will
+you judge my father and not know him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am a thousand miles from judging,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;And I give
+you my word I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened. If my face fell at
+all, as I suppose it must, you will allow this is rather an ill day for
+compositions, and the people in power extremely ill persons to be compounding
+with. I have Simon Fraser extremely heavy on my stomach still.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;you will not be evening these two; and you
+should bear in mind that Prestongrange and James More, my father, are of the
+one blood.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never heard tell of that,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is rather singular how little you are acquainted with,&rdquo; said
+she. &ldquo;One part may call themselves Grant, and one Macgregor, but they are
+still of the same clan. They are all the sons of Alpin, from whom, I think, our
+country has its name.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What country is that?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My country and yours,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is my day for discovering I think,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;for I
+always thought the name of it was Scotland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scotland is the name of what you call Ireland,&rdquo; she replied.
+&ldquo;But the old ancient true name of this place that we have our foot-soles
+on, and that our bones are made of, will be Alban. It was Alban they called it
+when our forefathers will be fighting for it against Rome and Alexander; and it
+is called so still in your own tongue that you forget.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Troth,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and that I never learned!&rdquo; For I
+lacked heart to take her up about the Macedonian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But your fathers and mothers talked it, one generation with
+another,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;And it was sung about the cradles before you
+or me were ever dreamed of; and your name remembers it still. Ah, if you could
+talk that language you would find me another girl. The heart speaks in that
+tongue.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had a meal with the two ladies, all very good, served in fine old plate, and
+the wine excellent, for it seems that Mrs. Ogilvy was rich. Our talk, too, was
+pleasant enough; but as soon as I saw the sun decline sharply and the shadows
+to run out long, I rose to take my leave. For my mind was now made up to say
+farewell to Alan; and it was needful I should see the trysting wood, and
+reconnoitre it, by daylight. Catriona came with me as far as to the garden
+gate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is long till I see you now?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is beyond my judging,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;It will be long, it
+may be never.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It may be so,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;And you are sorry?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I bowed my head, looking upon her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So am I, at all events,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I have seen you but a
+small time, but I put you very high. You are true, you are brave; in time I
+think you will be more of a man yet. I will be proud to hear of that. If you
+should speed worse, if it will come to fall as we are afraid&mdash;O well!
+think you have the one friend. Long after you are dead and me an old wife, I
+will be telling the bairns about David Balfour, and my tears running. I will be
+telling how we parted, and what I said to you, and did to you. <i>God go with
+you and guide you</i>, <i>prays your little friend</i>: so I said&mdash;I will
+be telling them&mdash;and here is what I did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She took up my hand and kissed it. This so surprised my spirits that I cried
+out like one hurt. The colour came strong in her face, and she looked at me and
+nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes, Mr. David,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;that is what I think of you.
+The head goes with the lips.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could read in her face high spirit, and a chivalry like a brave
+child&rsquo;s; not anything besides. She kissed my hand, as she had kissed
+Prince Charlie&rsquo;s, with a higher passion than the common kind of clay has
+any sense of. Nothing before had taught me how deep I was her lover, nor how
+far I had yet to climb to make her think of me in such a character. Yet I could
+tell myself I had advanced some way, and that her heart had beat and her blood
+flowed at thoughts of me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After that honour she had done me I could offer no more trivial civility. It
+was even hard for me to speak; a certain lifting in her voice had knocked
+directly at the door of my own tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I praise God for your kindness, dear,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Farewell, my
+little friend!&rdquo; giving her that name which she had given to herself; with
+which I bowed and left her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My way was down the glen of the Leith River, towards Stockbridge and
+Silvermills. A path led in the foot of it, the water bickered and sang in the
+midst; the sunbeams overhead struck out of the west among long shadows and (as
+the valley turned) made like a new scene and a new world of it at every corner.
+With Catriona behind and Alan before me, I was like one lifted up. The place
+besides, and the hour, and the talking of the water, infinitely pleased me; and
+I lingered in my steps and looked before and behind me as I went. This was the
+cause, under Providence, that I spied a little in my rear a red head among some
+bushes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anger sprang in my heart, and I turned straight about and walked at a stiff
+pace to where I came from. The path lay close by the bushes where I had
+remarked the head. The cover came to the wayside, and as I passed I was all
+strung up to meet and to resist an onfall. No such thing befell, I went by
+unmeddled with; and at that fear increased upon me. It was still day indeed,
+but the place exceeding solitary. If my haunters had let slip that fair
+occasion I could but judge they aimed at something more than David Balfour. The
+lives of Alan and James weighed upon my spirit with the weight of two grown
+bullocks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Catriona was yet in the garden walking by herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you see me back again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With a changed face,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I carry two men&rsquo;s lives besides my own,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It
+would be a sin and shame not to walk carefully. I was doubtful whether I did
+right to come here. I would like it ill, if it was by that means we were
+brought to harm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could tell you one that would be liking it less, and will like little
+enough to hear you talking at this very same time,&rdquo; she cried.
+&ldquo;What have I done, at all events?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, you I you are not alone,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;But since I went
+off I have been dogged again, and I can give you the name of him that follows
+me. It is Neil, son of Duncan, your man or your father&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure you are mistaken there,&rdquo; she said, with a white face.
+&ldquo;Neil is in Edinburgh on errands from my father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is what I fear,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;the last of it. But for his
+being in Edinburgh I think I can show you another of that. For sure you have
+some signal, a signal of need, such as would bring him to your help, if he was
+anywhere within the reach of ears and legs?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, how will you know that?&rdquo; says she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By means of a magical talisman God gave to me when I was born, and the
+name they call it by is Common-sense,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Oblige me so far as
+make your signal, and I will show you the red head of Neil.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No doubt but I spoke bitter and sharp. My heart was bitter. I blamed myself and
+the girl and hated both of us: her for the vile crew that she was come of,
+myself for my wanton folly to have stuck my head in such a byke of wasps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Catriona set her fingers to her lips and whistled once, with an exceeding
+clear, strong, mounting note, as full as a ploughman&rsquo;s. A while we stood
+silent; and I was about to ask her to repeat the same, when I heard the sound
+of some one bursting through the bushes below on the braeside. I pointed in
+that direction with a smile, and presently Neil leaped into the garden. His
+eyes burned, and he had a black knife (as they call it on the Highland side)
+naked in his hand; but, seeing me beside his mistress, stood like a man struck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has come to your call,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;judge how near he was to
+Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father&rsquo;s errands. Ask himself.
+If I am to lose my life, or the lives of those that hang by me, through the
+means of your clan, let me go where I have to go with my eyes open.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic. Remembering Alan&rsquo;s anxious
+civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for bitterness;
+here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was the hour she should have
+stuck by English.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil (for all
+his obsequiousness) was an angry man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she turned to me. &ldquo;He swears it is not,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;do you believe the man yourself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She made a gesture like wringing the hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How will I can know?&rdquo; she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I must find some means to know,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I cannot
+continue to go dovering round in the black night with two men&rsquo;s lives at
+my girdle! Catriona, try to put yourself in my place, as I vow to God I try
+hard to put myself in yours. This is no kind of talk that should ever have
+fallen between me and you; no kind of talk; my heart is sick with it. See, keep
+him here till two of the morning, and I care not. Try him with that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They spoke together once more in the Gaelic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He says he has James More my father&rsquo;s errand,&rdquo; said she. She
+was whiter than ever, and her voice faltered as she said it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is pretty plain now,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and may God forgive the
+wicked!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with the same white
+face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is a fine business,&rdquo; said I again. &ldquo;Am I to fall, then,
+and those two along with me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, what am I to do?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Could I go against my
+father&rsquo;s orders, him in prison, in the danger of his life!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But perhaps we go too fast,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;This may be a lie too.
+He may have no right orders; all may be contrived by Simon, and your father
+knowing nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She burst out weeping between the pair of us; and my heart smote me hard, for I
+thought this girl was in a dreadful situation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;keep him but the one hour; and I&rsquo;ll
+chance it, and may God bless you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She put out her hand to me, &ldquo;I will he needing one good word,&rdquo; she
+sobbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The full hour, then?&rdquo; said I, keeping her hand in mine.
+&ldquo;Three lives of it, my lass!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The full hour!&rdquo; she said, and cried aloud on her Redeemer to
+forgive her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought it no fit place for me, and fled.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br />
+THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS</h2>
+
+<p>
+I lost no time, but down through the valley and by Stockbridge and Silvermills
+as hard as I could stave. It was Alan&rsquo;s tryst to be every night between
+twelve and two &ldquo;in a bit scrog of wood by east of Silvermills and by
+south the south mill-lade.&rdquo; This I found easy enough, where it grew on a
+steep brae, with the mill-lade flowing swift and deep along the foot of it; and
+here I began to walk slower and to reflect more reasonably on my employment. I
+saw I had made but a fool&rsquo;s bargain with Catriona. It was not to be
+supposed that Neil was sent alone upon his errand, but perhaps he was the only
+man belonging to James More; in which case I should have done all I could to
+hang Catriona&rsquo;s father, and nothing the least material to help myself. To
+tell the truth, I fancied neither one of these ideas. Suppose by holding back
+Neil, the girl should have helped to hang her father, I thought she would never
+forgive herself this side of time. And suppose there were others pursuing me
+that moment, what kind of a gift was I come bringing to Alan? and how would I
+like that?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was up with the west end of that wood when these two considerations struck me
+like a cudgel. My feet stopped of themselves and my heart along with them.
+&ldquo;What wild game is this that I have been playing?&rdquo; thought I; and
+turned instantly upon my heels to go elsewhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This brought my face to Silvermills; the path came past the village with a
+crook, but all plainly visible; and, Highland or Lowland, there was nobody
+stirring. Here was my advantage, here was just such a conjuncture as Stewart
+had counselled me to profit by, and I ran by the side of the mill-lade, fetched
+about beyond the east corner of the wood, threaded through the midst of it, and
+returned to the west selvage, whence I could again command the path, and yet be
+myself unseen. Again it was all empty, and my heart began to rise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For more than an hour I sat close in the border of the trees, and no hare or
+eagle could have kept a more particular watch. When that hour began the sun was
+already set, but the sky still all golden and the daylight clear; before the
+hour was done it had fallen to be half mirk, the images and distances of things
+were mingled, and observation began to be difficult. All that time not a foot
+of man had come east from Silvermills, and the few that had gone west were
+honest countryfolk and their wives upon the road to bed. If I were tracked by
+the most cunning spies in Europe, I judged it was beyond the course of nature
+they could have any jealousy of where I was: and going a little further home
+into the wood I lay down to wait for Alan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The strain of my attention had been great, for I had watched not the path only,
+but every bush and field within my vision. That was now at an end. The moon,
+which was in her first quarter, glinted a little in the wood; all round there
+was a stillness of the country; and as I lay there on my back, the next three
+or four hours, I had a fine occasion to review my conduct.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two things became plain to me first: that I had no right to go that day to
+Dean, and (having gone there) had now no right to be lying where I was. This
+(where Alan was to come) was just the one wood in all broad Scotland that was,
+by every proper feeling, closed against me; I admitted that, and yet stayed on,
+wondering at myself. I thought of the measure with which I had meted to
+Catriona that same night; how I had prated of the two lives I carried, and had
+thus forced her to enjeopardy her father&rsquo;s; and how I was here exposing
+them again, it seemed in wantonness. A good conscience is eight parts of
+courage. No sooner had I lost conceit of my behaviour, than I seemed to stand
+disarmed amidst a throng of terrors. Of a sudden I sat up. How if I went now to
+Prestongrange, caught him (as I still easily might) before he slept, and made a
+full submission? Who could blame me? Not Stewart the Writer; I had but to say
+that I was followed, despaired of getting clear, and so gave in. Not Catriona:
+here, too, I had my answer ready; that I could not bear she should expose her
+father. So, in a moment, I could lay all these troubles by, which were after
+all and truly none of mine; swim clear of the Appin Murder; get forth out of
+hand-stroke of all the Stewarts and Campbells, all the Whigs and Tories, in the
+land; and live henceforth to my own mind, and be able to enjoy and to improve
+my fortunes, and devote some hours of my youth to courting Catriona, which
+would be surely a more suitable occupation than to hide and run and be followed
+like a hunted thief, and begin over again the dreadful miseries of my escape
+with Alan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first I thought no shame of this capitulation; I was only amazed I had not
+thought upon the thing and done it earlier; and began to inquire into the
+causes of the change. These I traced to my lowness of spirits, that back to my
+late recklessness, and that again to the common, old, public, disconsidered sin
+of self-indulgence. Instantly the text came in my head, &ldquo;<i>How can Satan
+cast out Satan</i>?&rdquo; What? (I thought) I had, by self-indulgence; and the
+following of pleasant paths, and the lure of a young maid, cast myself wholly
+out of conceit with my own character, and jeopardised the lives of James and
+Alan? And I was to seek the way out by the same road as I had entered in? No;
+the hurt that had been caused by self-indulgence must be cured by self-denial;
+the flesh I had pampered must be crucified. I looked about me for that course
+which I least liked to follow: this was to leave the wood without waiting to
+see Alan, and go forth again alone, in the dark and in the midst of my
+perplexed and dangerous fortunes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have been the more careful to narrate this passage of my reflections, because
+I think it is of some utility, and may serve as an example to young men. But
+there is reason (they say) in planting kale, and even in ethic and religion,
+room for common sense. It was already close on Alan&rsquo;s hour, and the moon
+was down. If I left (as I could not very decently whistle to my spies to follow
+me) they might miss me in the dark and tack themselves to Alan by mistake. If I
+stayed, I could at the least of it set my friend upon his guard which might
+prove his mere salvation. I had adventured other peoples&rsquo; safety in a
+course of self-indulgence; to have endangered them again, and now on a mere
+design of penance, would have been scarce rational. Accordingly, I had scarce
+risen from my place ere I sat down again, but already in a different frame of
+spirits, and equally marvelling at my past weakness and rejoicing in my present
+composure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently after came a crackling in the thicket. Putting my mouth near down to
+the ground, I whistled a note or two, of Alan&rsquo;s air; an answer came in
+the like guarded tone, and soon we had knocked together in the dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this you at last, Davie?&rdquo; he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just myself,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God, man, but I&rsquo;ve been wearying to see ye!&rdquo; says he.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had the longest kind of a time. A&rsquo; day, I&rsquo;ve had
+my dwelling into the inside of a stack of hay, where I couldnae see the nebs of
+my ten fingers; and then two hours of it waiting here for you, and you never
+coming! Dod, and ye&rsquo;re none too soon the way it is, with me to sail the
+morn! The morn? what am I saying?&mdash;the day, I mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, Alan, man, the day, sure enough,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+past twelve now, surely, and ye sail the day. This&rsquo;ll be a long road you
+have before you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have a long crack of it first,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, indeed, and I have a good deal it will be telling you to
+hear,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And I told him what behooved, making rather a jumble of it, but clear enough
+when done. He heard me out with very few questions, laughing here and there
+like a man delighted: and the sound of his laughing (above all there, in the
+dark, where neither one of us could see the other) was extraordinary friendly
+to my heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, Davie, ye&rsquo;re a queer character,&rdquo; says he, when I had
+done: &ldquo;a queer bitch after a&rsquo;, and I have no mind of meeting with
+the like of ye. As for your story, Prestongrange is a Whig like yoursel&rsquo;,
+so I&rsquo;ll say the less of him; and, dod! I believe he was the best friend
+ye had, if ye could only trust him. But Simon Fraser and James More are my ain
+kind of cattle, and I&rsquo;ll give them the name that they deserve. The muckle
+black deil was father to the Frasers, a&rsquo;body kens that; and as for the
+Gregara, I never could abye the reek of them since I could stotter on two feet.
+I bloodied the nose of one, I mind, when I was still so wambly on my legs that
+I cowped upon the top of him. A proud man was my father that day, God rest him!
+and I think he had the cause. I&rsquo;ll never can deny but what Robin was
+something of a piper,&rdquo; he added; &ldquo;but as for James More, the deil
+guide him for me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One thing we have to consider,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Was Charles Stewart
+right or wrong? Is it only me they&rsquo;re after, or the pair of us?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what&rsquo;s your ain opinion, you that&rsquo;s a man of so much
+experience?&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It passes me,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And me too,&rdquo; says Alan. &ldquo;Do ye think this lass would keep
+her word to ye?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do that,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there&rsquo;s nae telling,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;And anyway,
+that&rsquo;s over and done: he&rsquo;ll be joined to the rest of them lang
+syne.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How many would ye think there would be of them?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That depends,&rdquo; said Alan. &ldquo;If it was only you, they would
+likely send two-three lively, brisk young birkies, and if they thought that I
+was to appear in the employ, I daresay ten or twelve,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was no use, I gave a little crack of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I think your own two eyes will have seen me drive that number, or
+the double of it, nearer hand!&rdquo; cries he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It matters the less,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;because I am well rid of them
+for this time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nae doubt that&rsquo;s your opinion,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;but I
+wouldnae be the least surprised if they were hunkering this wood. Ye see, David
+man; they&rsquo;ll be Hieland folk. There&rsquo;ll be some Frasers, I&rsquo;m
+thinking, and some of the Gregara; and I would never deny but what the both of
+them, and the Gregara in especial, were clever experienced persons. A man kens
+little till he&rsquo;s driven a spreagh of neat cattle (say) ten miles through
+a throng lowland country and the black soldiers maybe at his tail. It&rsquo;s
+there that I learned a great part of my penetration. And ye need nae tell me:
+it&rsquo;s better than war; which is the next best, however, though generally
+rather a bauchle of a business. Now the Gregara have had grand practice.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No doubt that&rsquo;s a branch of education that was left out with
+me,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly,&rdquo; said Alan.
+&ldquo;But that&rsquo;s the strange thing about you folk of the college
+learning: ye&rsquo;re ignorat, and ye cannae see &rsquo;t. Wae&rsquo;s me for
+my Greek and Hebrew; but, man, I ken that I dinnae ken them&mdash;there&rsquo;s
+the differ of it. Now, here&rsquo;s you. Ye lie on your wame a bittie in the
+bield of this wood, and ye tell me that ye&rsquo;ve cuist off these Frasers and
+Macgregors. Why? <i>Because I couldnae see them</i>, says you. Ye blockhead,
+that&rsquo;s their livelihood.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take the worst of it,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and what are we to
+do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am thinking of that same,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We might twine. It
+wouldnae be greatly to my taste; and forbye that, I see reasons against it.
+First, it&rsquo;s now unco dark, and it&rsquo;s just humanly possible we might
+give them the clean slip. If we keep together, we make but the ae line of it;
+if we gang separate, we make twae of them: the more likelihood to stave in upon
+some of these gentry of yours. And then, second, if they keep the track of us,
+it may come to a fecht for it yet, Davie; and then, I&rsquo;ll confess I would
+be blythe to have you at my oxter, and I think you would be none the worse of
+having me at yours. So, by my way of it, we should creep out of this wood no
+further gone than just the inside of next minute, and hold away east for
+Gillane, where I&rsquo;m to find my ship. It&rsquo;ll be like old days while it
+lasts, Davie; and (come the time) we&rsquo;ll have to think what you should be
+doing. I&rsquo;m wae to leave ye here, wanting me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have with ye, then!&rdquo; says I. &ldquo;Do ye gang back where you were
+stopping?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Deil a fear!&rdquo; said Alan. &ldquo;They were good folks to me, but I
+think they would be a good deal disappointed if they saw my bonny face again.
+For (the way times go) I am nae just what ye could call a Walcome Guest. Which
+makes me the keener for your company, Mr. David Balfour of the Shaws, and set
+ye up! For, leave aside twa cracks here in the wood with Charlie Stewart, I
+have scarce said black or white since the day we parted at Corstorphine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With which he rose from his place, and we began to move quietly eastward
+through the wood.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br />
+ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was likely between one and two; the moon (as I have said) was down; a
+strongish wind, carrying a heavy wrack of cloud, had set in suddenly from the
+west; and we began our movement in as black a night as ever a fugitive or a
+murderer wanted. The whiteness of the path guided us into the sleeping town of
+Broughton, thence through Picardy, and beside my old acquaintance the gibbet of
+the two thieves. A little beyond we made a useful beacon, which was a light in
+an upper window of Lochend. Steering by this, but a good deal at random, and
+with some trampling of the harvest, and stumbling and falling down upon the
+banks, we made our way across country, and won forth at last upon the linky,
+boggy muirland that they call the Figgate Whins. Here, under a bush of whin, we
+lay down the remainder of that night and slumbered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The day called us about five. A beautiful morning it was, the high westerly
+wind still blowing strong, but the clouds all blown away to Europe. Alan was
+already sitting up and smiling to himself. It was my first sight of my friend
+since we were parted, and I looked upon him with enjoyment. He had still the
+same big great-coat on his back; but (what was new) he had now a pair of
+knitted boot-hose drawn above the knee. Doubtless these were intended for
+disguise; but, as the day promised to be warm, he made a most unseasonable
+figure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Davie,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;is this no a bonny morning? Here is
+a day that looks the way that a day ought to. This is a great change of it from
+the belly of my haystack; and while you were there sottering and sleeping I
+have done a thing that maybe I do very seldom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what was that?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, just said my prayers,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And where are my gentry, as ye call them?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gude kens,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;and the short and the long of it is
+that we must take our chance of them. Up with your foot-soles, Davie! Forth,
+Fortune, once again of it! And a bonny walk we are like to have.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans were
+smoking in by the Esk mouth. No doubt there was a by-ordinary bonny blink of
+morning sun on Arthur&rsquo;s Seat and the green Pentlands; and the
+pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I feel like a gomeral,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;to be leaving Scotland on
+a day like this. It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to stay
+here and hing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, but ye wouldnae, Alan,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, but what France is a good place too,&rdquo; he explained; &ldquo;but
+it&rsquo;s some way no the same. It&rsquo;s brawer I believe, but it&rsquo;s no
+Scotland. I like it fine when I&rsquo;m there, man; yet I kind of weary for
+Scots divots and the Scots peat-reek.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s all you have to complain of, Alan, it&rsquo;s no such
+great affair,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it sets me ill to be complaining, whatever,&rdquo; said he,
+&ldquo;and me but new out of yon deil&rsquo;s haystack.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so you were unco weary of your haystack?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Weary&rsquo;s nae word for it,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not just
+precisely a man that&rsquo;s easily cast down; but I do better with caller air
+and the lift above my head. I&rsquo;m like the auld Black Douglas
+(wasnae&rsquo;t?) that likit better to hear the laverock sing than the mouse
+cheep. And yon place, ye see, Davie&mdash;whilk was a very suitable place to
+hide in, as I&rsquo;m free to own&mdash;was pit mirk from dawn to gloaming.
+There were days (or nights, for how would I tell one from other?) that seemed
+to me as long as a long winter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How did you know the hour to bide your tryst?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle-dowp to
+eat it by, about eleeven,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;So, when I had swallowed a
+bit, it would he time to be getting to the wood. There I lay and wearied for ye
+sore, Davie,&rdquo; says he, laying his hand on my shoulder &ldquo;and guessed
+when the two hours would be about by&mdash;unless Charlie Stewart would come
+and tell me on his watch&mdash;and then back to the dooms haystack. Na, it was
+a driech employ, and praise the Lord that I have warstled through with
+it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did you do with yourself?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;the best I could! Whiles I played at the
+knucklebones. I&rsquo;m an extraordinar good hand at the knucklebones, but
+it&rsquo;s a poor piece of business playing with naebody to admire ye. And
+whiles I would make songs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What were they about?&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, about the deer and the heather,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and about the
+ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just about what songs
+are about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set of pipes
+and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought I played them
+awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of them! But the great
+affair is that it&rsquo;s done with.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all over again
+with more particularity, and extraordinary approval, swearing at intervals that
+I was &ldquo;a queer character of a callant.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So ye were frich&rsquo;ened of Sim Fraser?&rdquo; he asked once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In troth was I!&rdquo; cried I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So would I have been, Davie,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;And that is indeed a
+driedful man. But it is only proper to give the deil his due: and I can tell
+you he is a most respectable person on the field of war.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he so brave?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Brave!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;He is as brave as my steel sword.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The story of my duel set him beside himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To think of that!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I showed ye the trick in
+Corrynakiegh too. And three times&mdash;three times disarmed! It&rsquo;s a
+disgrace upon my character that learned ye! Here, stand up, out with your airn;
+ye shall walk no step beyond this place upon the road till ye can do
+yoursel&rsquo; and me mair credit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alan,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this is midsummer madness. Here is no time
+for fencing lessons.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannae well say no to that,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;But three
+times, man! And you standing there like a straw bogle and rinning to fetch your
+ain sword like a doggie with a pocket-napkin! David, this man Duncansby must be
+something altogether by-ordinar! He maun be extraordinar skilly. If I had the
+time, I would gang straight back and try a turn at him mysel&rsquo;. The man
+must be a provost.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You silly fellow,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you forget it was just
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Na,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;but three times!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When ye ken yourself that I am fair incompetent,&rdquo; I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I never heard tell the equal of it,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I promise you the one thing, Alan,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;The next time
+that we forgather, I&rsquo;ll be better learned. You shall not continue to bear
+the disgrace of a friend that cannot strike.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, the next time!&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;And when will that be, I would
+like to ken?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Alan, I have had some thoughts of that, too,&rdquo; said I;
+&ldquo;and my plan is this. It&rsquo;s my opinion to be called an
+advocate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s but a weary trade, Davie,&rdquo; says Alan, &ldquo;and
+rather a blagyard one forby. Ye would be better in a king&rsquo;s coat than
+that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And no doubt that would be the way to have us meet,&rdquo; cried I.
+&ldquo;But as you&rsquo;ll be in King Lewie&rsquo;s coat, and I&rsquo;ll be in
+King Geordie&rsquo;s, we&rsquo;ll have a dainty meeting of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s some sense in that,&rdquo; he admitted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An advocate, then, it&rsquo;ll have to be,&rdquo; I continued,
+&ldquo;and I think it a more suitable trade for a gentleman that was <i>three
+times</i> disarmed. But the beauty of the thing is this: that one of the best
+colleges for that kind of learning&mdash;and the one where my kinsman, Pilrig,
+made his studies&mdash;is the college of Leyden in Holland. Now, what say you,
+Alan? Could not a cadet of <i>Royal Ecossais</i> get a furlough, slip over the
+marches, and call in upon a Leyden student?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and I would think he could!&rdquo; cried he. &ldquo;Ye see, I
+stand well in with my colonel, Count Drummond-Melfort; and, what&rsquo;s mair
+to the purpose I have a cousin of mine lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of the
+Scots-Dutch. Naething could be mair proper than what I would get a leave to see
+Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of Halkett&rsquo;s. And Lord Melfort, who is a very
+scienteefic kind of a man, and writes books like C&aelig;sar, would be
+doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my observes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is Lord Meloort an author, then?&rdquo; I asked, for much as Alan
+thought of soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The very same, Davie,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;One would think a colonel
+would have something better to attend to. But what can I say that make
+songs?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;it only remains you should give me an
+address to write you at in France; and as soon as I am got to Leyden I will
+send you mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The best will be to write me in the care of my chieftain,&rdquo; said
+he, &ldquo;Charles Stewart, of Ardsheil, Esquire, at the town of Melons, in the
+Isle of France. It might take long, or it might take short, but it would aye
+get to my hands at the last of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had a haddock to our breakfast in Musselburgh, where it amused me vastly to
+hear Alan. His great-coat and boot-hose were extremely remarkable this warm
+morning, and perhaps some hint of an explanation had been wise; but Alan went
+into that matter like a business, or I should rather say, like a diversion. He
+engaged the goodwife of the house with some compliments upon the rizzoring of
+our haddocks; and the whole of the rest of our stay held her in talk about a
+cold he had taken on his stomach, gravely relating all manner of symptoms and
+sufferings, and hearing with a vast show of interest all the old wives&rsquo;
+remedies she could supply him with in return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We left Musselburgh before the first ninepenny coach was due from Edinburgh for
+(as Alan said) that was a rencounter we might very well avoid. The wind
+although still high, was very mild, the sun shone strong, and Alan began to
+suffer in proportion. From Prestonpans he had me aside to the field of
+Gladsmuir, where he exerted himself a great deal more than needful to describe
+the stages of the battle. Thence, at his old round pace, we travelled to
+Cockenzie. Though they were building herring-busses there at Mrs.
+Cadell&rsquo;s, it seemed a desert-like, back-going town, about half full of
+ruined houses; but the ale-house was clean, and Alan, who was now in a glowing
+heat, must indulge himself with a bottle of ale, and carry on to the new luckie
+with the old story of the cold upon his stomach, only now the symptoms were all
+different.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sat listening; and it came in my mind that I had scarce ever heard him
+address three serious words to any woman, but he was always drolling and
+fleering and making a private mock of them, and yet brought to that business a
+remarkable degree of energy and interest. Something to this effect I remarked
+to him, when the good-wife (as chanced) was called away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do ye want?&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;A man should aye put his best
+foot forrit with the womankind; he should aye give them a bit of a story to
+divert them, the poor lambs! It&rsquo;s what ye should learn to attend to,
+David; ye should get the principles, it&rsquo;s like a trade. Now, if this had
+been a young lassie, or onyways bonnie, she would never have heard tell of my
+stomach, Davie. But aince they&rsquo;re too old to be seeking joes, they
+a&rsquo; set up to be apotecaries. Why? What do I ken? They&rsquo;ll be just
+the way God made them, I suppose. But I think a man would be a gomeral that
+didnae give his attention to the same.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here, the luckie coming back, he turned from me as if with impatience to
+renew their former conversation. The lady had branched some while before from
+Alan&rsquo;s stomach to the case of a goodbrother of her own in Aberlady, whose
+last sickness and demise she was describing at extraordinary length. Sometimes
+it was merely dull, sometimes both dull and awful, for she talked with unction.
+The upshot was that I fell in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the
+road, and scarce marking what I saw. Presently had any been looking they might
+have seen me to start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We pit a fomentation to his feet,&rdquo; the good-wife was saying,
+&ldquo;and a het stane to his wame, and we gied him hyssop and water of
+pennyroyal, and fine, clean balsam of sulphur for the hoast. . . &rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; says I, cutting very quietly in, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a
+friend of mine gone by the house.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that e&rsquo;en sae?&rdquo; replies Alan, as though it were a thing
+of small account. And then, &ldquo;Ye were saying, mem?&rdquo; says he; and the
+wearyful wife went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she must go forth
+after the change.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was it him with the red head?&rdquo; asked Alan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye have it,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did I tell you in the wood?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;And yet
+it&rsquo;s strange he should be here too! Was he his lane?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His lee-lane for what I could see,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he gang by?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Straight by,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and looked neither to the right nor
+left.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that&rsquo;s queerer yet,&rdquo; said Alan. &ldquo;It sticks in my
+mind, Davie, that we should be stirring. But where to?&mdash;deil hae&rsquo;t!
+This is like old days fairly,&rdquo; cries he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is one big differ, though,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that now we have
+money in our pockets.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And another big differ, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;that now we
+have dogs at our tail. They&rsquo;re on the scent; they&rsquo;re in full cry,
+David. It&rsquo;s a bad business and be damned to it.&rdquo; And he sat
+thinking hard with a look of his that I knew well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m saying, Luckie,&rdquo; says he, when the goodwife returned,
+&ldquo;have ye a back road out of this change house?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She told him there was and where it led to.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, sir,&rdquo; says he to me, &ldquo;I think that will be the
+shortest road for us. And here&rsquo;s good-bye to ye, my braw woman; and
+I&rsquo;ll no forget thon of the cinnamon water.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We went out by way of the woman&rsquo;s kale yard, and up a lane among fields.
+Alan looked sharply to all sides, and seeing we were in a little hollow place
+of the country, out of view of men, sat down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now for a council of war, Davie,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But first of
+all, a bit lesson to ye. Suppose that I had been like you, what would yon old
+wife have minded of the pair of us! Just that we had gone out by the back gate.
+And what does she mind now? A fine, canty, friendly, cracky man, that suffered
+with the stomach, poor body! and was real ta&rsquo;en up about the goodbrother.
+O man, David, try and learn to have some kind of intelligence!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll try, Alan,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now for him of the red head,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;was he gaun fast
+or slow?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Betwixt and between,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No kind of a hurry about the man?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never a sign of it,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nhm!&rdquo; said Alan, &ldquo;it looks queer. We saw nothing of them
+this morning on the Whins; he&rsquo;s passed us by, he doesnae seem to be
+looking, and yet here he is on our road! Dod, Davie, I begin to take a notion.
+I think it&rsquo;s no you they&rsquo;re seeking, I think it&rsquo;s me; and I
+think they ken fine where they&rsquo;re gaun.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They ken?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think Andie Scougal&rsquo;s sold me&mdash;him or his mate wha kent
+some part of the affair&mdash;or else Charlie&rsquo;s clerk callant, which
+would be a pity too,&rdquo; says Alan; &ldquo;and if you askit me for just my
+inward private conviction, I think there&rsquo;ll be heads cracked on Gillane
+sands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alan,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;if you&rsquo;re at all right there&rsquo;ll
+be folk there and to spare. It&rsquo;ll be small service to crack heads.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It would aye be a satisfaction though,&rdquo; says Alan. &ldquo;But bide
+a bit; bide a bit; I&rsquo;m thinking&mdash;and thanks to this bonny westland
+wind, I believe I&rsquo;ve still a chance of it. It&rsquo;s this way, Davie.
+I&rsquo;m no trysted with this man Scougal till the gloaming comes.
+<i>But</i>,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;<i>if I can get a bit of a wind out of the
+west I&rsquo;ll be there long or that</i>,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;<i>and lie-to
+for ye behind the Isle of Fidra</i>. Now if your gentry kens the place, they
+ken the time forbye. Do ye see me coming, Davie? Thanks to Johnnie Cope and
+other red-coat gomerals, I should ken this country like the back of my hand;
+and if ye&rsquo;re ready for another bit run with Alan Breck, we&rsquo;ll can
+cast back inshore, and come to the seaside again by Dirleton. If the
+ship&rsquo;s there, we&rsquo;ll try and get on board of her. If she&rsquo;s no
+there, I&rsquo;ll just have to get back to my weary haystack. But either way of
+it, I think we will leave your gentry whistling on their thumbs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe there&rsquo;s some chance in it,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Have on
+with ye, Alan!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br />
+GILLANE SANDS</h2>
+
+<p>
+I did not profit by Alan&rsquo;s pilotage as he had done by his marchings under
+General Cope; for I can scarce tell what way we went. It is my excuse that we
+travelled exceeding fast. Some part we ran, some trotted, and the rest walked
+at a vengeance of a pace. Twice, while we were at top speed, we ran against
+country-folk; but though we plumped into the first from round a corner, Alan
+was as ready as a loaded musket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Has ye seen my horse?&rdquo; he gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Na, man, I haenae seen nae horse the day,&rdquo; replied the countryman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling &ldquo;ride
+and tie&rdquo;; that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he had gone
+home to Linton. Not only that, but he expended some breath (of which he had not
+very much left) to curse his own misfortune and my stupidity which was said to
+be its cause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Them that cannae tell the truth,&rdquo; he observed to myself as we went
+on again, &ldquo;should be aye mindful to leave an honest, handy lee behind
+them. If folk dinnae ken what ye&rsquo;re doing, Davie, they&rsquo;re terrible
+taken up with it; but if they think they ken, they care nae mair for it than
+what I do for pease porridge.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we had first made inland, so our road came in the end to lie very near due
+north; the old Kirk of Aberlady for a landmark on the left; on the right, the
+top of the Berwick Law; and it was thus we struck the shore again, not far from
+Dirleton. From north Berwick west to Gillane Ness there runs a string of four
+small islets, Craiglieth, the Lamb, Fidra, and Eyebrough, notable by their
+diversity of size and shape. Fidra is the most particular, being a strange grey
+islet of two humps, made the more conspicuous by a piece of ruin; and I mind
+that (as we drew closer to it) by some door or window of these ruins the sea
+peeped through like a man&rsquo;s eye. Under the lee of Fidra there is a good
+anchorage in westerly winds, and there, from a far way off, we could see the
+<i>Thistle</i> riding.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The shore in face of these islets is altogether waste. Here is no dwelling of
+man, and scarce any passage, or at most of vagabond children running at their
+play. Gillane is a small place on the far side of the Ness, the folk of
+Dirleton go to their business in the inland fields, and those of North Berwick
+straight to the sea-fishing from their haven; so that few parts of the coast
+are lonelier. But I mind, as we crawled upon our bellies into that multiplicity
+of heights and hollows, keeping a bright eye upon all sides, and our hearts
+hammering at our ribs, there was such a shining of the sun and the sea, such a
+stir of the wind in the bent grass, and such a bustle of down-popping rabbits
+and up-flying gulls, that the desert seemed to me, like a place alive. No doubt
+it was in all ways well chosen for a secret embarcation, if the secret had been
+kept; and even now that it was out, and the place watched, we were able to
+creep unperceived to the front of the sandhills, where they look down
+immediately on the beach and sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But here Alan came to a full stop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Davie,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this is a kittle passage! As long as we
+lie here we&rsquo;re safe; but I&rsquo;m nane sae muckle nearer to my ship or
+the coast of France. And as soon as we stand up and signal the brig, it&rsquo;s
+another matter. For where will your gentry be, think ye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe they&rsquo;re no come yet,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;And even if they
+are, there&rsquo;s one clear matter in our favour. They&rsquo;ll be all
+arranged to take us, that&rsquo;s true. But they&rsquo;ll have arranged for our
+coming from the east and here we are upon their west.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; says Alan, &ldquo;I wish we were in some force, and this was
+a battle, we would have bonnily out-man&oelig;uvred them! But it isnae, Davit;
+and the way it is, is a wee thing less inspiring to Alan Breck. I swither,
+Davie.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Time flies, Alan,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ken that,&rdquo; said Alan. &ldquo;I ken naething else, as the French
+folk say. But this is a dreidful case of heids or tails. O! if I could but ken
+where your gentry were!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alan,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this is no like you. It&rsquo;s got to be
+now or never.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;This is no me, quo&rsquo; he,&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+sang Alan, with a queer face betwixt shame and drollery.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Neither you nor me, quo&rsquo; he, neither you nor me.<br />
+Wow, na, Johnnie man! neither you nor me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And then of a sudden he stood straight up where he was, and with a handkerchief
+flying in his right hand, marched down upon the beach. I stood up myself, but
+lingered behind him, scanning the sand-hills to the east. His appearance was at
+first unremarked: Scougal not expecting him so early, and <i>my gentry</i>
+watching on the other side. Then they awoke on board the <i>Thistle</i>, and it
+seemed they had all in readiness, for there was scarce a second&rsquo;s bustle
+on the deck before we saw a skiff put round her stern and begin to pull lively
+for the coast. Almost at the same moment of time, and perhaps half a mile away
+towards Gillane Ness, the figure of a man appeared for a blink upon a sandhill,
+waving with his arms; and though he was gone again in the same flash, the gulls
+in that part continued a little longer to fly wild.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alan had not seen this, looking straight to seaward at the ship and skiff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It maun be as it will!&rdquo; said he, when I had told him, &ldquo;Weel
+may yon boatie row, or my craig&rsquo;ll have to thole a raxing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That part of the beach was long and flat, and excellent walking when the tide
+was down; a little cressy burn flowed over it in one place to the sea; and the
+sandhills ran along the head of it like the rampart of a town. No eye of ours
+could spy what was passing behind there in the bents, no hurry of ours could
+mend the speed of the boat&rsquo;s coming: time stood still with us through
+that uncanny period of waiting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is one thing I would like to ken,&rdquo; say Alan. &ldquo;I would
+like to ken these gentry&rsquo;s orders. We&rsquo;re worth four hunner pound
+the pair of us: how if they took the guns to us, Davie! They would get a bonny
+shot from the top of that lang sandy bank.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Morally impossible,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;The point is that they can
+have no guns. This thing has been gone about too secret; pistols they may have,
+but never guns.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe ye&rsquo;ll be in the right,&rdquo; says Alan. &ldquo;For all
+which I am wearing a good deal for yon boat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he snapped his fingers and whistled to it like a dog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was now perhaps a third of the way in, and we ourselves already hard on the
+margin of the sea, so that the soft sand rose over my shoes. There was no more
+to do whatever but to wait, to look as much as we were able at the creeping
+nearer of the boat, and as little as we could manage at the long impenetrable
+front of the sandhills, over which the gulls twinkled and behind which our
+enemies were doubtless marshalling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is a fine, bright, caller place to get shot in,&rdquo; says Alan
+suddenly; &ldquo;and, man, I wish that I had your courage!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alan!&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;what kind of talk is this of it!
+You&rsquo;re just made of courage; it&rsquo;s the character of the man, as I
+could prove myself if there was nobody else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you would be the more mistaken,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;What makes
+the differ with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of affairs. But
+for auld, cauld, dour, deadly courage, I am not fit to hold a candle to
+yourself. Look at us two here upon the sands. Here am I, fair hotching to be
+off; here&rsquo;s you (for all that I ken) in two minds of it whether
+you&rsquo;ll no stop. Do you think that I could do that, or would? No me!
+Firstly, because I havenae got the courage and wouldnae daur; and secondly,
+because I am a man of so much penetration and would see ye damned first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s there ye&rsquo;re coming, is it?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Ah,
+man Alan, you can wile your old wives, but you never can wile me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Remembrance of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have a tryst to keep,&rdquo; I continued. &ldquo;I am trysted with
+your cousin Charlie; I have passed my word.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Braw trysts that you&rsquo;ll can keep,&rdquo; said Alan.
+&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;ll just mistryst aince and for a&rsquo; with the gentry in the
+bents. And what for?&rdquo; he went on with an extreme threatening gravity.
+&ldquo;Just tell me that, my mannie! Are ye to be speerited away like Lady
+Grange? Are they to drive a dirk in your inside and bury ye in the bents? Or is
+it to be the other way, and are they to bring ye in with James? Are they folk
+to be trustit? Would ye stick your head in the mouth of Sim Fraser and the
+ither Whigs?&rdquo; he added with extraordinary bitterness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alan,&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;they&rsquo;re all rogues and liars, and
+I&rsquo;m with ye there. The more reason there should be one decent man in such
+a land of thieves! My word is passed, and I&rsquo;ll stick to it. I said long
+syne to your kinswoman that I would stumble at no risk. Do ye mind of
+that?&mdash;the night Red Colin fell, it was. No more I will, then. Here I
+stop. Prestongrange promised me my life: if he&rsquo;s to be mansworn, here
+I&rsquo;ll have to die.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aweel aweel,&rdquo; said Alan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this time we had seen or heard no more of our pursuers. In truth we had
+caught them unawares; their whole party (as I was to learn afterwards) had not
+yet reached the scene; what there was of them was spread among the bents
+towards Gillane. It was quite an affair to call them in and bring them over,
+and the boat was making speed. They were besides but cowardly fellows: a mere
+leash of Highland cattle-thieves, of several clans, no gentleman there to be
+the captain and the more they looked at Alan and me upon the beach, the less (I
+must suppose) they liked the look of us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whoever had betrayed Alan it was not the captain: he was in the skiff himself,
+steering and stirring up his oarsmen, like a man with his heart in his employ.
+Already he was near in, and the boat securing&mdash;already Alan&rsquo;s face
+had flamed crimson with the excitement of his deliverance, when our friends in
+the bents, either in their despair to see their prey escape them or with some
+hope of scaring Andie, raised suddenly a shrill cry of several voices.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This sound, arising from what appeared to be a quite deserted coast, was really
+very daunting, and the men in the boat held water instantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this of it?&rdquo; sings out the captain, for he was come
+within an easy hail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Freens o&rsquo;mine,&rdquo; says Alan, and began immediately to wade
+forth in the shallow water towards the boat. &ldquo;Davie,&rdquo; he said,
+pausing, &ldquo;Davie, are ye no coming? I am swier to leave ye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not a hair of me,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He stood part of a second where he was to his knees in the salt water,
+hesitating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar,&rdquo; said he, and swashing in
+deeper than his waist, was hauled into the skiff, which was immediately
+directed for the ship.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stood where he had left me, with my hands behind my back; Alan sat with his
+head turned watching me; and the boat drew smoothly away. Of a sudden I came
+the nearest hand to shedding tears, and seemed to myself the most deserted
+solitary lad in Scotland. With that I turned my back upon the sea and faced the
+sandhills. There was no sight or sound of man; the sun shone on the wet sand
+and the dry, the wind blew in the bents, the gulls made a dreary piping. As I
+passed higher up the beach, the sand-lice were hopping nimbly about the
+stranded tangles. The devil any other sight or sound in that unchancy place.
+And yet I knew there were folk there, observing me, upon some secret purpose.
+They were no soldiers, or they would have fallen on and taken us ere now;
+doubtless they were some common rogues hired for my undoing, perhaps to kidnap,
+perhaps to murder me outright. From the position of those engaged, the first
+was the more likely; from what I knew of their character and ardency in this
+business, I thought the second very possible; and the blood ran cold about my
+heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had a mad idea to loosen my sword in the scabbard; for though I was very
+unfit to stand up like a gentleman blade to blade, I thought I could do some
+scathe in a random combat. But I perceived in time the folly of resistance.
+This was no doubt the joint &ldquo;expedient&rdquo; on which Prestongrange and
+Fraser were agreed. The first, I was very sure, had done something to secure my
+life; the second was pretty likely to have slipped in some contrary hints into
+the ears of Neil and his companions; and if I were to show bare steel I might
+play straight into the hands of my worst enemy and seal my own doom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These thoughts brought me to the head of the beach. I cast a look behind, the
+boat was nearing the brig, and Alan flew his handkerchief for a farewell, which
+I replied to with the waving of my hand. But Alan himself was shrunk to a small
+thing in my view, alongside of this pass that lay in front of me. I set my hat
+hard on my head, clenched my teeth, and went right before me up the face of the
+sand-wreath. It made a hard climb, being steep, and the sand like water
+underfoot. But I caught hold at last by the long bent-grass on the brae-top,
+and pulled myself to a good footing. The same moment men stirred and stood up
+here and there, six or seven of them, ragged-like knaves, each with a dagger in
+his hand. The fair truth is, I shut my eyes and prayed. When I opened them
+again, the rogues were crept the least thing nearer without speech or hurry.
+Every eye was upon mine, which struck me with a strange sensation of their
+brightness, and of the fear with which they continued to approach me. I held
+out my hands empty; whereupon one asked, with a strong Highland brogue, if I
+surrendered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Under protest,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;if ye ken what that means, which I
+misdoubt.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that word, they came all in upon me like a flight of birds upon a carrion,
+seized me, took my sword, and all the money from my pockets, bound me hand and
+foot with some strong line, and cast me on a tussock of bent. There they sat
+about their captive in a part of a circle and gazed upon him silently like
+something dangerous, perhaps a lion or a tiger on the spring. Presently this
+attention was relaxed. They drew nearer together, fell to speech in the Gaelic,
+and very cynically divided my property before my eyes. It was my diversion in
+this time that I could watch from my place the progress of my friend&rsquo;s
+escape. I saw the boat come to the brig and be hoisted in, the sails fill, and
+the ship pass out seaward behind the isles and by North Berwick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the course of two hours or so, more and more ragged Highlandmen kept
+collecting. Neil among the first, until the party must have numbered near a
+score. With each new arrival there was a fresh bout of talk, that sounded like
+complaints and explanations; but I observed one thing, none of those who came
+late had any share in the division of my spoils. The last discussion was very
+violent and eager, so that once I thought they would have quarrelled; on the
+heels of which their company parted, the bulk of them returning westward in a
+troop, and only three, Neil and two others, remaining sentries on the prisoner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could name one who would be very ill pleased with your day&rsquo;s
+work, Neil Duncanson,&rdquo; said I, when the rest had moved away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He assured me in answer I should be tenderly used, for he knew he was
+&ldquo;acquent wi&rsquo; the leddy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was all our talk, nor did any other son of man appear upon that portion of
+the coast until the sun had gone down among the Highland mountains, and the
+gloaming was beginning to grow dark. At which hour I was aware of a long, lean,
+bony-like Lothian man of a very swarthy countenance, that came towards us among
+the bents on a farm horse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lads,&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;has ye a paper like this?&rdquo; and held
+up one in his hand. Neil produced a second, which the newcomer studied through
+a pair of horn spectacles, and saying all was right and we were the folk he was
+seeking, immediately dismounted. I was then set in his place, my feet tied
+under the horse&rsquo;s belly, and we set forth under the guidance of the
+Lowlander. His path must have been very well chosen, for we met but one
+pair&mdash;a pair of lovers&mdash;the whole way, and these, perhaps taking us
+to be free-traders, fled on our approach. We were at one time close at the foot
+of Berwick Law on the south side; at another, as we passed over some open
+hills, I spied the lights of a clachan and the old tower of a church among some
+trees not far off, but too far to cry for help, if I had dreamed of it. At last
+we came again within sound of the sea. There was moonlight, though not much;
+and by this I could see the three huge towers and broken battlements of
+Tantallon, that old chief place of the Red Douglases. The horse was picketed in
+the bottom of the ditch to graze, and I was led within, and forth into the
+court, and thence into the tumble-down stone hall. Here my conductors built a
+brisk fire in the midst of the pavement, for there was a chill in the night. My
+hands were loosed, I was set by the wall in the inner end, and (the Lowlander
+having produced provisions) I was given oatmeal bread and a pitcher of French
+brandy. This done, I was left once more alone with my three Highlandmen. They
+sat close by the fire drinking and talking; the wind blew in by the breaches,
+cast about the smoke and flames, and sang in the tops of the towers; I could
+hear the sea under the cliffs, and, my mind being reassured as to my life, and
+my body and spirits wearied with the day&rsquo;s employment, I turned upon one
+side and slumbered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had no means of guessing at what hour I was wakened, only the moon was down
+and the fire was low. My feet were now loosed, and I was carried through the
+ruins and down the cliff-side by a precipitous path to where I found a
+fisher&rsquo;s boat in a haven of the rocks. This I was had on board of, and we
+began to put forth from the shore in a fine starlight.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br />
+THE BASS</h2>
+
+<p>
+I had no thought where they were taking me; only looked here and there for the
+appearance of a ship; and there ran the while in my head a word of
+Ransome&rsquo;s&mdash;the<i> twenty-pounders</i>. If I were to be exposed a
+second time to that same former danger of the plantations, I judged it must
+turn ill with me; there was no second Alan; and no second shipwreck and spare
+yard to be expected now; and I saw myself hoe tobacco under the whip&rsquo;s
+lash. The thought chilled me; the air was sharp upon the water, the stretchers
+of the boat drenched with a cold dew: and I shivered in my place beside the
+steersman. This was the dark man whom I have called hitherto the Lowlander; his
+name was Dale, ordinarily called Black Andie. Feeling the thrill of my shiver,
+he very kindly handed me a rough jacket full of fish-scales, with which I was
+glad to cover myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thank you for this kindness,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and will make so
+free as to repay it with a warning. You take a high responsibility in this
+affair. You are not like these ignorant, barbarous Highlanders, but know what
+the law is and the risks of those that break it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am no just exactly what ye would ca&rsquo; an extremist for the
+law,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;at the best of times; but in this business I act
+with a good warranty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you going to do with me?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nae harm,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;nae harm ava&rsquo;. Ye&rsquo;ll have
+strong freens, I&rsquo;m thinking. Ye&rsquo;ll be richt eneuch yet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There began to fall a greyness on the face of the sea; little dabs of pink and
+red, like coals of slow fire, came in the east; and at the same time the geese
+awakened, and began crying about the top of the Bass. It is just the one crag
+of rock, as everybody knows, but great enough to carve a city from. The sea was
+extremely little, but there went a hollow plowter round the base of it. With
+the growing of the dawn I could see it clearer and clearer; the straight crags
+painted with sea-birds&rsquo; droppings like a morning frost, the sloping top
+of it green with grass, the clan of white geese that cried about the sides, and
+the black, broken buildings of the prison sitting close on the sea&rsquo;s
+edge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the sight the truth came in upon me in a clap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s there you&rsquo;re taking me!&rdquo; I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just to the Bass, mannie,&rdquo; said he: &ldquo;Whaur the auld saints
+were afore ye, and I misdoubt if ye have come so fairly by your preeson.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But none dwells there now,&rdquo; I cried; &ldquo;the place is long a
+ruin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be the mair pleisand a change for the solan geese,
+then,&rdquo; quoth Andie dryly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The day coming slowly brighter I observed on the bilge, among the big stones
+with which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs and baskets, and a
+provision of fuel. All these were discharged upon the crag. Andie, myself, and
+my three Highlanders (I call them mine, although it was the other way about),
+landed along with them. The sun was not yet up when the boat moved away again,
+the noise of the oars on the thole-pins echoing from the cliffs, and left us in
+our singular reclusion:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Andie Dale was the Prefect (as I would jocularly call him) of the Bass, being
+at once the shepherd and the gamekeeper of that small and rich estate. He had
+to mind the dozen or so of sheep that fed and fattened on the grass of the
+sloping part of it, like beasts grazing the roof of a cathedral. He had charge
+besides of the solan geese that roosted in the crags; and from these an
+extraordinary income is derived. The young are dainty eating, as much as two
+shillings a-piece being a common price, and paid willingly by epicures; even
+the grown birds are valuable for their oil and feathers; and a part of the
+minister&rsquo;s stipend of North Berwick is paid to this day in solan geese,
+which makes it (in some folks&rsquo; eyes) a parish to be coveted. To perform
+these several businesses, as well as to protect the geese from poachers, Andie
+had frequent occasion to sleep and pass days together on the crag; and we found
+the man at home there like a farmer in his steading. Bidding us all shoulder
+some of the packages, a matter in which I made haste to bear a hand, he led us
+in by a locked gate, which was the only admission to the island, and through
+the ruins of the fortress, to the governor&rsquo;s house. There we saw by the
+ashes in the chimney and a standing bed-place in one corner, that he made his
+usual occupation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This bed he now offered me to use, saying he supposed I would set up to be
+gentry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My gentrice has nothing to do with where I lie,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I
+bless God I have lain hard ere now, and can do the same again with
+thankfulness. While I am here, Mr. Andie, if that be your name, I will do my
+part and take my place beside the rest of you; and I ask you on the other hand
+to spare me your mockery, which I own I like ill.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He grumbled a little at this speech, but seemed upon reflection to approve it.
+Indeed, he was a long-headed, sensible man, and a good Whig and Presbyterian;
+read daily in a pocket Bible, and was both able and eager to converse seriously
+on religion, leaning more than a little towards the Cameronian extremes. His
+morals were of a more doubtful colour. I found he was deep in the free trade,
+and used the ruins of Tantallon for a magazine of smuggled merchandise. As for
+a gauger, I do not believe he valued the life of one at half-a-farthing. But
+that part of the coast of Lothian is to this day as wild a place, and the
+commons there as rough a crew, as any in Scotland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One incident of my imprisonment is made memorable by a consequence it had long
+after. There was a warship at this time stationed in the Firth, the
+<i>Seahorse</i>, Captain Palliser. It chanced she was cruising in the month of
+September, plying between Fife and Lothian, and sounding for sunk dangers.
+Early one fine morning she was seen about two miles to east of us, where she
+lowered a boat, and seemed to examine the Wildfire Rocks and Satan&rsquo;s
+Bush, famous dangers of that coast. And presently after having got her boat
+again, she came before the wind and was headed directly for the Bass. This was
+very troublesome to Andie and the Highlanders; the whole business of my
+sequestration was designed for privacy, and here, with a navy captain perhaps
+blundering ashore, it looked to become public enough, if it were nothing worse.
+I was in a minority of one, I am no Alan to fall upon so many, and I was far
+from sure that a warship was the least likely to improve my condition. All
+which considered, I gave Andie my parole of good behaviour and obedience, and
+was had briskly to the summit of the rock, where we all lay down, at the
+cliff&rsquo;s edge, in different places of observation and concealment. The
+<i>Seahorse</i> came straight on till I thought she would have struck, and we
+(looking giddily down) could see the ship&rsquo;s company at their quarters and
+hear the leadsman singing at the lead. Then she suddenly wore and let fly a
+volley of I know not how many great guns. The rock was shaken with the thunder
+of the sound, the smoke flowed over our heads, and the geese rose in number
+beyond computation or belief. To hear their screaming and to see the twinkling
+of their wings, made a most inimitable curiosity; and I suppose it was after
+this somewhat childish pleasure that Captain Palliser had come so near the
+Bass. He was to pay dear for it in time. During his approach I had the
+opportunity to make a remark upon the rigging of that ship by which I ever
+after knew it miles away; and this was a means (under Providence) of my
+averting from a friend a great calamity, and inflicting on Captain Palliser
+himself a sensible disappointment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the time of my stay on the rock we lived well. We had small ale and brandy,
+and oatmeal, of which we made our porridge night and morning. At times a boat
+came from the Castleton and brought us a quarter of mutton, for the sheep upon
+the rock we must not touch, these being specially fed to market. The geese were
+unfortunately out of season, and we let them be. We fished ourselves, and yet
+more often made the geese to fish for us: observing one when he had made a
+capture and scaring him from his prey ere he had swallowed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The strange nature of this place, and the curiosities with which it abounded,
+held me busy and amused. Escape being impossible, I was allowed my entire
+liberty, and continually explored the surface of the isle wherever it might
+support the foot of man. The old garden of the prison was still to be observed,
+with flowers and pot-herbs running wild, and some ripe cherries on a bush. A
+little lower stood a chapel or a hermit&rsquo;s cell; who built or dwelt in it,
+none may know, and the thought of its age made a ground of many meditations.
+The prison, too, where I now bivouacked with Highland cattle-thieves, was a
+place full of history, both human and divine. I thought it strange so many
+saints and martyrs should have gone by there so recently, and left not so much
+as a leaf out of their Bibles, or a name carved upon the wall, while the rough
+soldier lads that mounted guard upon the battlements had filled the
+neighbourhood with their mementoes&mdash;broken tobacco-pipes for the most
+part, and that in a surprising plenty, but also metal buttons from their coats.
+There were times when I thought I could have heard the pious sound of psalms
+out of the martyr&rsquo;s dungeons, and seen the soldiers tramp the ramparts
+with their glinting pipes, and the dawn rising behind them out of the North
+Sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No doubt it was a good deal Andie and his tales that put these fancies in my
+head. He was extraordinarily well acquainted with the story of the rock in all
+particulars, down to the names of private soldiers, his father having served
+there in that same capacity. He was gifted besides with a natural genius for
+narration, so that the people seemed to speak and the things to be done before
+your face. This gift of his and my assiduity to listen brought us the more
+close together. I could not honestly deny but what I liked him; I soon saw that
+he liked me; and indeed, from the first I had set myself out to capture his
+good-will. An odd circumstance (to be told presently) effected this beyond my
+expectation; but even in early days we made a friendly pair to be a prisoner
+and his gaoler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I should trifle with my conscience if I pretended my stay upon the Bass was
+wholly disagreeable. It seemed to me a safe place, as though I was escaped
+there out of my troubles. No harm was to be offered me; a material
+impossibility, rock and the deep sea, prevented me from fresh attempts; I felt
+I had my life safe and my honour safe, and there were times when I allowed
+myself to gloat on them like stolen waters. At other times my thoughts were
+very different, I recalled how strong I had expressed myself both to Rankeillor
+and to Stewart; I reflected that my captivity upon the Bass, in view of a great
+part of the coasts of Fife and Lothian, was a thing I should be thought more
+likely to have invented than endured; and in the eyes of these two gentlemen,
+at least, I must pass for a boaster and a coward. Now I would take this lightly
+enough; tell myself that so long as I stood well with Catriona Drummond, the
+opinion of the rest of man was but moonshine and spilled water; and thence pass
+off into those meditations of a lover which are so delightful to himself and
+must always appear so surprisingly idle to a reader. But anon the fear would
+take me otherwise; I would be shaken with a perfect panic of self-esteem, and
+these supposed hard judgments appear an injustice impossible to be supported.
+With that another train of thought would he presented, and I had scarce begun
+to be concerned about men&rsquo;s judgments of myself, than I was haunted with
+the remembrance of James Stewart in his dungeon and the lamentations of his
+wife. Then, indeed, passion began to work in me; I could not forgive myself to
+sit there idle: it seemed (if I were a man at all) that I could fly or swim out
+of my place of safety; and it was in such humours and to amuse my
+self-reproaches that I would set the more particularly to win the good side of
+Andie Dale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, when we two were alone on the summit of the rock on a bright morning,
+I put in some hint about a bribe. He looked at me, cast back his head, and
+laughed out loud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, you&rsquo;re funny, Mr. Dale,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but perhaps if
+you&rsquo;ll glance an eye upon that paper you may change your note.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stupid Highlanders had taken from me at the time of my seizure nothing but
+hard money, and the paper I now showed Andie was an acknowledgment from the
+British Linen Company for a considerable sum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He read it. &ldquo;Troth, and ye&rsquo;re nane sae ill aff,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought that would maybe vary your opinions,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hout!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It shows me ye can bribe; but I&rsquo;m no
+to be bribit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see about that yet a while,&rdquo; says I. &ldquo;And first,
+I&rsquo;ll show you that I know what I am talking. You have orders to detain me
+here till after Thursday, 21st September.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;re no a&rsquo;thegether wrong either,&rdquo; says Andie.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m to let you gang, bar orders contrair, on Saturday, the
+23rd.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could not but feel there was something extremely insidious in this
+arrangement. That I was to re-appear precisely in time to be too late would
+cast the more discredit on my tale, if I were minded to tell one; and this
+screwed me to fighting point.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now then, Andie, you that kens the world, listen to me, and think while
+ye listen,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I know there are great folks in the business,
+and I make no doubt you have their names to go upon. I have seen some of them
+myself since this affair began, and said my say into their faces too. But what
+kind of a crime would this be that I had committed? or what kind of a process
+is this that I am fallen under? To be apprehended by some ragged
+John-Hielandman on August 30th, carried to a rickle of old stones that is now
+neither fort nor gaol (whatever it once was) but just the gamekeeper&rsquo;s
+lodge of the Bass Rock, and set free again, September 23rd, as secretly as I
+was first arrested&mdash;does that sound like law to you? or does it sound like
+justice? or does it not sound honestly like a piece of some low dirty intrigue,
+of which the very folk that meddle with it are ashamed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I canna gainsay ye, Shaws. It looks unco underhand,&rdquo; says Andie.
+&ldquo;And werenae the folk guid sound Whigs and true-blue Presbyterians I
+would has seen them ayont Jordan and Jeroozlem or I would have set hand to
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Master of Lovat&rsquo;ll be a braw Whig,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;and a
+grand Presbyterian.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ken naething by him,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I hae nae trokings
+wi&rsquo; Lovats.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, it&rsquo;ll be Prestongrange that you&rsquo;ll be dealing
+with,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, but I&rsquo;ll no tell ye that,&rdquo; said Andie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Little need when I ken,&rdquo; was my retort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s just the ae thing ye can be fairly sure of, Shaws,&rdquo;
+says Andie. &ldquo;And that is that (try as ye please) I&rsquo;m no dealing
+wi&rsquo; yoursel&rsquo;; nor yet I amnae goin&rsquo; to,&rdquo; he added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Andie, I see I&rsquo;ll have to be speak out plain with
+you,&rdquo; I replied. And told him so much as I thought needful of the facts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He heard me out with some serious interest, and when I had done, seemed to
+consider a little with himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shaws,&rdquo; said he at last, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll deal with the naked
+hand. It&rsquo;s a queer tale, and no very creditable, the way you tell it; and
+I&rsquo;m far frae minting that is other than the way that ye believe it. As
+for yoursel&rsquo;, ye seem to me rather a dacent-like young man. But me,
+that&rsquo;s aulder and mair judeecious, see perhaps a wee bit further forrit
+in the job than what ye can dae. And here the maitter clear and plain to ye.
+There&rsquo;ll be nae skaith to yoursel&rsquo; if I keep ye here; far free
+that, I think ye&rsquo;ll be a hantle better by it. There&rsquo;ll be nae
+skaith to the kintry&mdash;just ae mair Hielantman hangit&mdash;Gude kens, a
+guid riddance! On the ither hand, it would be considerable skaith to me if I
+would let you free. Sae, speakin&rsquo; as a guid Whig, an honest freen&rsquo;
+to you, and an anxious freen&rsquo; to my ainsel&rsquo;, the plain fact is that
+I think ye&rsquo;ll just have to bide here wi&rsquo; Andie an&rsquo; the
+solans.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Andie,&rdquo; said I, laying my hand upon his knee, &ldquo;this
+Hielantman&rsquo;s innocent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, it&rsquo;s a peety about that,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But ye see, in
+this warld, the way God made it, we cannae just get a&rsquo;thing that we
+want.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br />
+BLACK ANDIE&rsquo;S TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK</h2>
+
+<p>
+I have yet said little of the Highlanders. They were all three of the followers
+of James More, which bound the accusation very tight about their master&rsquo;s
+neck. All understood a word or two of English, but Neil was the only one who
+judged he had enough of it for general converse, in which (when once he got
+embarked) his company was often tempted to the contrary opinion. They were
+tractable, simple creatures; showed much more courtesy than might have been
+expected from their raggedness and their uncouth appearance, and fell
+spontaneously to be like three servants for Andie and myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dwelling in that isolated place, in the old falling ruins of a prison, and
+among endless strange sounds of the sea and the sea-birds, I thought I
+perceived in them early the effects of superstitious fear. When there was
+nothing doing they would either lie and sleep, for which their appetite
+appeared insatiable, or Neil would entertain the others with stories which
+seemed always of a terrifying strain. If neither of these delights were within
+reach&mdash;if perhaps two were sleeping and the third could find no means to
+follow their example&mdash;I would see him sit and listen and look about him in
+a progression of uneasiness, starting, his face blenching, his hands clutched,
+a man strung like a bow. The nature of these fears I had never an occasion to
+find out, but the sight of them was catching, and the nature of the place that
+we were in favourable to alarms. I can find no word for it in the English, but
+Andie had an expression for it in the Scots from which he never varied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; he would say, &ldquo;<i>it&rsquo;s an unco place</i>, <i>the
+Bass</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is so I always think of it. It was an unco place by night, unco by day; and
+these were unco sounds, of the calling of the solans, and the plash of the sea
+and the rock echoes, that hung continually in our ears. It was chiefly so in
+moderate weather. When the waves were anyway great they roared about the rock
+like thunder and the drums of armies, dreadful but merry to hear; and it was in
+the calm days that a man could daunt himself with listening&mdash;not a
+Highlandman only, as I several times experimented on myself, so many still,
+hollow noises haunted and reverberated in the porches of the rock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This brings me to a story I heard, and a scene I took part in, which quite
+changed our terms of living, and had a great effect on my departure. It chanced
+one night I fell in a muse beside the fire and (that little air of Alan&rsquo;s
+coming back to my memory) began to whistle. A hand was laid upon my arm, and
+the voice of Neil bade me to stop, for it was not &ldquo;canny musics.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not canny?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;How can that be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Na,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;it will be made by a bogle and her wanting ta
+heid upon his body.&rdquo; <a name="citation13"></a><a
+href="#footnote13"><sup>[13]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;there can be no bogles here, Neil; for
+it&rsquo;s not likely they would fash themselves to frighten geese.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay?&rdquo; says Andie, &ldquo;is that what ye think of it! But
+I&rsquo;ll can tell ye there&rsquo;s been waur nor bogles here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s waur than bogles, Andie?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Warlocks,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Or a warlock at the least of it. And
+that&rsquo;s a queer tale, too,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;And if ye would like,
+I&rsquo;ll tell it ye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To be sure we were all of the one mind, and even the Highlander that had the
+least English of the three set himself to listen with all his might.
+</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">The Tale of Tod Lapraik</span></h4>
+
+<p>
+<span class="smcap">My</span> faither, Tam Dale, peace to his banes, was a
+wild, sploring lad in his young days, wi&rsquo; little wisdom and little grace.
+He was fond of a lass and fond of a glass, and fond of a ran-dan; but I could
+never hear tell that he was muckle use for honest employment. Frae ae thing to
+anither, he listed at last for a sodger and was in the garrison of this fort,
+which was the first way that ony of the Dales cam to set foot upon the Bass.
+Sorrow upon that service! The governor brewed his ain ale; it seems it was the
+warst conceivable. The rock was proveesioned free the shore with vivers, the
+thing was ill-guided, and there were whiles when they but to fish and shoot
+solans for their diet. To crown a&rsquo;, thir was the Days of the Persecution.
+The perishin&rsquo; cauld chalmers were all occupeed wi&rsquo; sants and
+martyrs, the saut of the yearth, of which it wasnae worthy. And though Tam Dale
+carried a firelock there, a single sodger, and liked a lass and a glass, as I
+was sayin,&rsquo; the mind of the man was mair just than set with his position.
+He had glints of the glory of the kirk; there were whiles when his dander rase
+to see the Lord&rsquo;s sants misguided, and shame covered him that he should
+be haulding a can&rsquo;le (or carrying a firelock) in so black a business.
+There were nights of it when he was here on sentry, the place a&rsquo; wheesht,
+the frosts o&rsquo; winter maybe riving in the wa&rsquo;s, and he would hear
+ane o&rsquo; the prisoners strike up a psalm, and the rest join in, and the
+blessed sounds rising from the different chalmers&mdash;or dungeons, I would
+raither say&mdash;so that this auld craig in the sea was like a pairt of
+Heev&rsquo;n. Black shame was on his saul; his sins hove up before him muckle
+as the Bass, and above a&rsquo;, that chief sin, that he should have a hand in
+hagging and hashing at Christ&rsquo;s Kirk. But the truth is that he resisted
+the spirit. Day cam, there were the rousing compainions, and his guid resolves
+depairtit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In thir days, dwalled upon the Bass a man of God, Peden the Prophet was his
+name. Ye&rsquo;ll have heard tell of Prophet Peden. There was never the wale of
+him sinsyne, and it&rsquo;s a question wi&rsquo; mony if there ever was his
+like afore. He was wild&rsquo;s a peat-hag, fearsome to look at, fearsome to
+hear, his face like the day of judgment. The voice of him was like a
+solan&rsquo;s and dinnle&rsquo;d in folks&rsquo; lugs, and the words of him
+like coals of fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now there was a lass on the rock, and I think she had little to do, for it was
+nae place far decent weemen; but it seems she was bonny, and her and Tam Dale
+were very well agreed. It befell that Peden was in the gairden his lane at the
+praying when Tam and the lass cam by; and what should the lassie do but mock
+with laughter at the sant&rsquo;s devotions? He rose and lookit at the twa
+o&rsquo; them, and Tam&rsquo;s knees knoitered thegether at the look of him.
+But whan he spak, it was mair in sorrow than in anger. &ldquo;Poor thing, poor
+thing!&rdquo; says he, and it was the lass he lookit at, &ldquo;I hear you
+skirl and laugh,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but the Lord has a deid shot prepared
+for you, and at that surprising judgment ye shall skirl but the ae time!&rdquo;
+Shortly thereafter she was daundering on the craigs wi&rsquo; twa-three
+sodgers, and it was a blawy day. There cam a gowst of wind, claught her by the
+coats, and awa&rsquo; wi&rsquo; her bag and baggage. And it was remarked by the
+sodgers that she gied but the ae skirl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nae doubt this judgment had some weicht upon Tam Dale; but it passed again and
+him none the better. Ae day he was flyting wi&rsquo; anither sodger-lad.
+&ldquo;Deil hae me!&rdquo; quo&rsquo; Tam, for he was a profane swearer. And
+there was Peden glowering at him, gash an&rsquo; waefu&rsquo;; Peden wi&rsquo;
+his lang chafts an&rsquo; luntin&rsquo; een, the maud happed about his kist,
+and the hand of him held out wi&rsquo; the black nails upon the
+finger-nebs&mdash;for he had nae care of the body. &ldquo;Fy, fy, poor
+man!&rdquo; cries he, &ldquo;the poor fool man! <i>Deil hae me</i>, quo&rsquo;
+he; an&rsquo; I see the deil at his oxter.&rdquo; The conviction of guilt and
+grace cam in on Tam like the deep sea; he flang doun the pike that was in his
+hands&mdash;&ldquo;I will nae mair lift arms against the cause o&rsquo;
+Christ!&rdquo; says he, and was as gude&rsquo;s word. There was a sair fyke in
+the beginning, but the governor, seeing him resolved, gied him his discharge,
+and he went and dwallt and merried in North Berwick, and had aye a gude name
+with honest folk free that day on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was in the year seeventeen hunner and sax that the Bass cam in the hands
+o&rsquo; the Da&rsquo;rymples, and there was twa men soucht the chairge of it.
+Baith were weel qualified, for they had baith been sodgers in the garrison, and
+kent the gate to handle solans, and the seasons and values of them. Forby that
+they were baith&mdash;or they baith seemed&mdash;earnest professors and men of
+comely conversation. The first of them was just Tam Dale, my faither. The
+second was ane Lapraik, whom the folk ca&rsquo;d Tod Lapraik maistly, but
+whether for his name or his nature I could never hear tell. Weel, Tam gaed to
+see Lapraik upon this business, and took me, that was a toddlin&rsquo; laddie,
+by the hand. Tod had his dwallin&rsquo; in the lang loan benorth the kirkyaird.
+It&rsquo;s a dark uncanny loan, forby that the kirk has aye had an ill name
+since the days o&rsquo; James the Saxt and the deevil&rsquo;s cantrips played
+therein when the Queen was on the seas; and as for Tod&rsquo;s house, it was in
+the mirkest end, and was little liked by some that kenned the best. The door
+was on the sneck that day, and me and my faither gaed straucht in. Tod was a
+wabster to his trade; his loom stood in the but. There he sat, a muckle fat,
+white hash of a man like creish, wi&rsquo; a kind of a holy smile that gart me
+scunner. The hand of him aye cawed the shuttle, but his een was steeked. We
+cried to him by his name, we skirled in the deid lug of him, we shook him by
+the shou&rsquo;ther. Nae mainner o&rsquo; service! There he sat on his dowp,
+an&rsquo; cawed the shuttle and smiled like creish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God be guid to us,&rdquo; says Tam Dale, &ldquo;this is no canny?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had jimp said the word, when Tod Lapraik cam to himsel&rsquo;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this you, Tam?&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;Haith, man! I&rsquo;m blythe to
+see ye. I whiles fa&rsquo; into a bit dwam like this,&rdquo; he says;
+&ldquo;its frae the stamach.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Weel, they began to crack about the Bass and which of them twa was to get the
+warding o&rsquo;t, and little by little cam to very ill words, and twined in
+anger. I mind weel that as my faither and me gaed hame again, he cam ower and
+ower the same expression, how little he likit Tod Lapraik and his dwams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dwam!&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;I think folk hae brunt for dwams like
+yon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aweel, my faither got the Bass and Tod had to go wantin&rsquo;. It was
+remembered sinsyne what way he had ta&rsquo;en the thing. &ldquo;Tam,&rdquo;
+says he, &ldquo;ye hae gotten the better o&rsquo; me aince mair, and I
+hope,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;ye&rsquo;ll find at least a&rsquo; that ye
+expeckit at the Bass.&rdquo; Which have since been thought remarkable
+expressions. At last the time came for Tam Dale to take young solans. This was
+a business he was weel used wi&rsquo;, he had been a craigsman frae a laddie,
+and trustit nane but himsel&rsquo;. So there was he hingin&rsquo; by a line
+an&rsquo; speldering on the craig face, whaur its hieest and steighest. Fower
+tenty lads were on the tap, hauldin&rsquo; the line and mindin&rsquo; for his
+signals. But whaur Tam hung there was naething but the craig, and the sea
+belaw, and the solans skirlin and flying. It was a braw spring morn, and Tam
+whustled as he claught in the young geese. Mony&rsquo;s the time I&rsquo;ve
+heard him tell of this experience, and aye the swat ran upon the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It chanced, ye see, that Tam keeked up, and he was awaur of a muckle solan, and
+the solan pyking at the line. He thocht this by-ordinar and outside the
+creature&rsquo;s habits. He minded that ropes was unco saft things, and the
+solan&rsquo;s neb and the Bass Rock unco hard, and that twa hunner feet were
+raither mair than he would care to fa&rsquo;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shoo!&rdquo; says Tam. &ldquo;Awa&rsquo;, bird! Shoo, awa&rsquo;
+wi&rsquo; ye!&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The solan keekit doon into Tam&rsquo;s face, and there was something unco in
+the creature&rsquo;s ee. Just the ae keek it gied, and back to the rope. But
+now it wroucht and warstl&rsquo;t like a thing dementit. There never was the
+solan made that wroucht as that solan wroucht; and it seemed to understand its
+employ brawly, birzing the saft rope between the neb of it and a crunkled jag
+o&rsquo; stane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There gaed a cauld stend o&rsquo; fear into Tam&rsquo;s heart. &ldquo;This
+thing is nae bird,&rdquo; thinks he. His een turnt backward in his heid and the
+day gaed black aboot him. &ldquo;If I get a dwam here,&rdquo; he toucht,
+&ldquo;it&rsquo;s by wi&rsquo; Tam Dale.&rdquo; And he signalled for the lads
+to pu&rsquo; him up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And it seemed the solan understood about signals. For nae sooner was the signal
+made than he let be the rope, spried his wings, squawked out loud, took a turn
+flying, and dashed straucht at Tam Dale&rsquo;s een. Tam had a knife, he gart
+the cauld steel glitter. And it seemed the solan understood about knives, for
+nae suner did the steel glint in the sun than he gied the ae squawk, but
+laighter, like a body disappointit, and flegged aff about the roundness of the
+craig, and Tam saw him nae mair. And as sune as that thing was gane,
+Tam&rsquo;s heid drapt upon his shouther, and they pu&rsquo;d him up like a
+deid corp, dadding on the craig.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A dram of brandy (which he went never without) broucht him to his mind, or what
+was left of it. Up he sat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rin, Geordie, rin to the boat, mak&rsquo; sure of the boat,
+man&mdash;rin!&rdquo; he cries, &ldquo;or yon solan&rsquo;ll have it
+awa&rsquo;,&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fower lads stared at ither, an&rsquo; tried to whilly-wha him to be quiet.
+But naething would satisfy Tam Dale, till ane o&rsquo; them had startit on
+aheid to stand sentry on the boat. The ithers askit if he was for down again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Na,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and niether you nor me,&rdquo; says he,
+&ldquo;and as sune as I can win to stand on my twa feet we&rsquo;ll be aff frae
+this craig o&rsquo; Sawtan.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sure eneuch, nae time was lost, and that was ower muckle; for before they won
+to North Berwick Tam was in a crying fever. He lay a&rsquo; the simmer; and wha
+was sae kind as come speiring for him, but Tod Lapraik! Folk thocht afterwards
+that ilka time Tod cam near the house the fever had worsened. I kenna for that;
+but what I ken the best, that was the end of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was about this time o&rsquo; the year; my grandfaither was out at the white
+fishing; and like a bairn, I but to gang wi&rsquo; him. We had a grand take, I
+mind, and the way that the fish lay broucht us near in by the Bass, whaur we
+foregaithered wi&rsquo; anither boat that belanged to a man Sandie Fletcher in
+Castleton. He&rsquo;s no lang deid neither, or ye could speir at himsel&rsquo;.
+Weel, Sandie hailed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s yon on the Bass?&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On the Bass?&rdquo; says grandfaither.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; says Sandie, &ldquo;on the green side o&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whatten kind of a thing?&rdquo; says grandfaither. &ldquo;There cannae
+be naething on the Bass but just the sheep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It looks unco like a body,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; Sandie, who was nearer in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A body!&rdquo; says we, and we none of us likit that. For there was nae
+boat that could have brought a man, and the key o&rsquo; the prison yett hung
+ower my faither&rsquo;s at hame in the press bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We keept the twa boats close for company, and crap in nearer hand. Grandfaither
+had a gless, for he had been a sailor, and the captain of a smack, and had lost
+her on the sands of Tay. And when we took the glass to it, sure eneuch there
+was a man. He was in a crunkle o&rsquo; green brae, a wee below the chaipel,
+a&rsquo; by his lee lane, and lowped and flang and danced like a daft quean at
+a waddin&rsquo;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s Tod,&rdquo; says grandfather, and passed the gless to Sandie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, it&rsquo;s him,&rdquo; says Sandie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or ane in the likeness o&rsquo; him,&rdquo; says grandfaither.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sma&rsquo; is the differ,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; Sandie. &ldquo;De&rsquo;il
+or warlock, I&rsquo;ll try the gun at him,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; he, and broucht up
+a fowling-piece that he aye carried, for Sandie was a notable famous shot in
+all that country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Haud your hand, Sandie,&rdquo; says grandfaither; &ldquo;we maun see
+clearer first,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;or this may be a dear day&rsquo;s wark to
+the baith of us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hout!&rdquo; says Sandie, &ldquo;this is the Lord&rsquo;s judgment
+surely, and be damned to it,&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe ay, and maybe no,&rdquo; says my grandfaither, worthy man!
+&ldquo;But have you a mind of the Procurator Fiscal, that I think ye&rsquo;ll
+have foregaithered wi&rsquo; before,&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was ower true, and Sandie was a wee thing set ajee. &ldquo;Aweel,
+Edie,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and what would be your way of it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ou, just this,&rdquo; says grandfaither. &ldquo;Let me that has the
+fastest boat gang back to North Berwick, and let you bide here and keep an eye
+on Thon. If I cannae find Lapraik, I&rsquo;ll join ye and the twa of
+us&rsquo;ll have a crack wi&rsquo; him. But if Lapraik&rsquo;s at hame,
+I&rsquo;ll rin up the flag at the harbour, and ye can try Thon Thing wi&rsquo;
+the gun.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aweel, so it was agreed between them twa. I was just a bairn, an&rsquo; clum in
+Sandie&rsquo;s boat, whaur I thoucht I would see the best of the employ. My
+grandsire gied Sandie a siller tester to pit in his gun wi&rsquo; the leid
+draps, bein mair deidly again bogles. And then the as boat set aff for North
+Berwick, an&rsquo; the tither lay whaur it was and watched the wanchancy thing
+on the brae-side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A&rsquo; the time we lay there it lowped and flang and capered and span like a
+teetotum, and whiles we could hear it skelloch as it span. I hae seen lassies,
+the daft queans, that would lowp and dance a winter&rsquo;s nicht, and still be
+lowping and dancing when the winter&rsquo;s day cam in. But there would be fowk
+there to hauld them company, and the lads to egg them on; and this thing was
+its lee-lane. And there would be a fiddler diddling his elbock in the
+chimney-side; and this thing had nae music but the skirling of the solans. And
+the lassies were bits o&rsquo; young things wi&rsquo; the reid life dinnling
+and stending in their members; and this was a muckle, fat, creishy man, and him
+fa&rsquo;n in the vale o&rsquo; years. Say what ye like, I maun say what I
+believe. It was joy was in the creature&rsquo;s heart, the joy o&rsquo; hell, I
+daursay: joy whatever. Mony a time I have askit mysel&rsquo; why witches and
+warlocks should sell their sauls (whilk are their maist dear possessions) and
+be auld, duddy, wrunkl&rsquo;t wives or auld, feckless, doddered men; and then
+I mind upon Tod Lapraik dancing a&rsquo; the hours by his lane in the black
+glory of his heart. Nae doubt they burn for it muckle in hell, but they have a
+grand time here of it, whatever!&mdash;and the Lord forgie us!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Weel, at the hinder end, we saw the wee flag yirk up to the mast-heid upon the
+harbour rocks. That was a&rsquo; Sandie waited for. He up wi&rsquo; the gun,
+took a deleeberate aim, an&rsquo; pu&rsquo;d the trigger. There cam&rsquo; a
+bang and then ae waefu&rsquo; skirl frae the Bass. And there were we
+rubbin&rsquo; our een and lookin&rsquo; at ither like daft folk. For wi&rsquo;
+the bang and the skirl the thing had clean disappeared. The sun glintit, the
+wund blew, and there was the bare yaird whaur the Wonder had been lowping and
+flinging but ae second syne.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hale way hame I roared and grat wi&rsquo; the terror o&rsquo; that
+dispensation. The grawn folk were nane sae muckle better; there was little said
+in Sandie&rsquo;s boat but just the name of God; and when we won in by the
+pier, the harbour rocks were fair black wi&rsquo; the folk waitin&rsquo; us. It
+seems they had fund Lapraik in ane of his dwams, cawing the shuttle and
+smiling. Ae lad they sent to hoist the flag, and the rest abode there in the
+wabster&rsquo;s house. You may be sure they liked it little; but it was a means
+of grace to severals that stood there praying in to themsel&rsquo;s (for nane
+cared to pray out loud) and looking on thon awesome thing as it cawed the
+shuttle. Syne, upon a suddenty, and wi&rsquo; the ae dreidfu&rsquo; skelloch,
+Tod sprang up frae his hinderlands and fell forrit on the wab, a bluidy corp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the corp was examined the leid draps hadnae played buff upon the
+warlock&rsquo;s body; sorrow a leid drap was to be fund! but there was
+grandfaither&rsquo;s siller tester in the puddock&rsquo;s heart of him.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+
+Andie had scarce done when there befell a mighty silly affair that had its
+consequence. Neil, as I have said, was himself a great narrator. I have heard
+since that he knew all the stories in the Highlands; and thought much of
+himself, and was thought much of by others on the strength of it. Now
+Andie&rsquo;s tale reminded him of one he had already heard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She would ken that story afore,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She was the story
+of Uistean More M&rsquo;Gillie Phadrig and the Gavar Vore.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is no sic a thing,&rdquo; cried Andie. &ldquo;It is the story of my
+faither (now wi&rsquo; God) and Tod Lapraik. And the same in your beard,&rdquo;
+says he; &ldquo;and keep the tongue of ye inside your Hielant chafts!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In dealing with Highlanders it will be found, and has been shown in history,
+how well it goes with Lowland gentlefolk; but the thing appears scarce feasible
+for Lowland commons. I had already remarked that Andie was continually on the
+point of quarrelling with our three MacGregors, and now, sure enough, it was to
+come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thir will be no words to use to shentlemans,&rdquo; says Neil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shentlemans!&rdquo; cries Andie. &ldquo;Shentlemans, ye hielant stot! If
+God would give ye the grace to see yoursel&rsquo; the way that ithers see ye,
+ye would throw your denner up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There came some kind of a Gaelic oath from Neil, and the black knife was in his
+hand that moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no time to think; and I caught the Highlander by the leg, and had him
+down, and his armed hand pinned out, before I knew what I was doing. His
+comrades sprang to rescue him, Andie and I were without weapons, the Gregara
+three to two. It seemed we were beyond salvation, when Neil screamed in his own
+tongue, ordering the others back, and made his submission to myself in a manner
+the most abject, even giving me up his knife which (upon a repetition of his
+promises) I returned to him on the morrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two things I saw plain: the first, that I must not build too high on Andie, who
+had shrunk against the wall and stood there, as pale as death, till the affair
+was over; the second, the strength of my own position with the Highlanders, who
+must have received extraordinary charges to be tender of my safety. But if I
+thought Andie came not very well out in courage, I had no fault to find with
+him upon the account of gratitude. It was not so much that he troubled me with
+thanks, as that his whole mind and manner appeared changed; and as he preserved
+ever after a great timidity of our companions, he and I were yet more
+constantly together.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br />
+THE MISSING WITNESS</h2>
+
+<p>
+On the seventeenth, the day I was trysted with the Writer, I had much rebellion
+against fate. The thought of him waiting in the <i>King&rsquo;s Arms</i>, and
+of what he would think, and what he would say when next we met, tormented and
+oppressed me. The truth was unbelievable, so much I had to grant, and it seemed
+cruel hard I should be posted as a liar and a coward, and have never
+consciously omitted what it was possible that I should do. I repeated this form
+of words with a kind of bitter relish, and re-examined in that light the steps
+of my behaviour. It seemed I had behaved to James Stewart as a brother might;
+all the past was a picture that I could be proud of, and there was only the
+present to consider. I could not swim the sea, nor yet fly in the air, but
+there was always Andie. I had done him a service, he liked me; I had a lever
+there to work on; if it were just for decency, I must try once more with Andie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was late afternoon; there was no sound in all the Bass but the lap and
+bubble of a very quiet sea; and my four companions were all crept apart, the
+three Macgregors higher on the rock, and Andie with his Bible to a sunny place
+among the ruins; there I found him in deep sleep, and, as soon as he was awake,
+appealed to him with some fervour of manner and a good show of argument.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I thoucht it was to do guid to ye, Shaws!&rdquo; said he, staring at
+me over his spectacles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s to save another,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and to redeem my word.
+What would be more good than that? Do ye no mind the scripture, Andie? And you
+with the Book upon your lap! <i>What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole
+world</i>?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s grand for you. But where do I
+come in! I have my word to redeem the same&rsquo;s yoursel&rsquo;. And what are
+ye asking me to do, but just to sell it ye for siller?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Andie! have I named the name of siller?&rdquo; cried I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ou, the name&rsquo;s naething&rdquo;, said he; &ldquo;the thing is
+there, whatever. It just comes to this; if I am to service ye the way that you
+propose, I&rsquo;ll lose my lifelihood. Then it&rsquo;s clear ye&rsquo;ll have
+to make it up to me, and a pickle mair, for your ain credit like. And
+what&rsquo;s that but just a bribe? And if even I was certain of the bribe! But
+by a&rsquo; that I can learn, it&rsquo;s far frae that; and if <i>you</i> were
+to hang, where would <i>I</i> be? Na: the thing&rsquo;s no possible. And just
+awa&rsquo; wi&rsquo; ye like a bonny lad! and let Andie read his
+chapter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I remember I was at bottom a good deal gratified with this result; and the next
+humour I fell into was one (I had near said) of gratitude to Prestongrange, who
+had saved me, in this violent, illegal manner, out of the midst of my dangers,
+temptations, and perplexities. But this was both too flimsy and too cowardly to
+last me long, and the remembrance of James began to succeed to the possession
+of my spirits. The 21st, the day set for the trial, I passed in such misery of
+mind as I can scarce recall to have endured, save perhaps upon Isle Earraid
+only. Much of the time I lay on a brae-side betwixt sleep and waking, my body
+motionless, my mind full of violent thoughts. Sometimes I slept indeed; but the
+court-house of Inverary and the prisoner glancing on all sides to find his
+missing witness, followed me in slumber; and I would wake again with a start to
+darkness of spirit and distress of body. I thought Andie seemed to observe me,
+but I paid him little heed. Verily, my bread was bitter to me, and my days a
+burthen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Early the next morning (Friday, 22nd) a boat came with provisions, and Andie
+placed a packet in my hand. The cover was without address but sealed with a
+Government seal. It enclosed two notes. &ldquo;Mr. Balfour can now see for
+himself it is too late to meddle. His conduct will be observed and his
+discretion rewarded.&rdquo; So ran the first, which seemed to be laboriously
+writ with the left hand. There was certainly nothing in these expressions to
+compromise the writer, even if that person could be found; the seal, which
+formidably served instead of signature, was affixed to a separate sheet on
+which there was no scratch of writing; and I had to confess that (so far) my
+adversaries knew what they were doing, and to digest as well as I was able the
+threat that peeped under the promise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the second enclosure was by far the more surprising. It was in a
+lady&rsquo;s hand of writ. &ldquo;<i>Maister Dauvit Balfour is informed a
+friend was speiring for him and her eyes were of the grey</i>,&rdquo; it
+ran&mdash;and seemed so extraordinary a piece to come to my hands at such a
+moment and under cover of a Government seal, that I stood stupid.
+Catriona&rsquo;s grey eyes shone in my remembrance. I thought, with a bound of
+pleasure, she must be the friend. But who should the writer be, to have her
+billet thus enclosed with Prestongrange&rsquo;s? And of all wonders, why was it
+thought needful to give me this pleasing but most inconsequent intelligence
+upon the Bass? For the writer, I could hit upon none possible except Miss
+Grant. Her family, I remembered, had remarked on Catriona&rsquo;s eyes and even
+named her for their colour; and she herself had been much in the habit to
+address me with a broad pronunciation, by way of a sniff, I supposed, at my
+rusticity. No doubt, besides, but she lived in the same house as this letter
+came from. So there remained but one step to be accounted for; and that was how
+Prestongrange should have permitted her at all in an affair so secret, or let
+her daft-like billet go in the same cover with his own. But even here I had a
+glimmering. For, first of all, there was something rather alarming about the
+young lady, and papa might be more under her domination than I knew. And,
+second, there was the man&rsquo;s continual policy to be remembered, how his
+conduct had been continually mingled with caresses, and he had scarce ever, in
+the midst of so much contention, laid aside a mask of friendship. He must
+conceive that my imprisonment had incensed me. Perhaps this little jesting,
+friendly message was intended to disarm my rancour?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I will be honest&mdash;and I think it did. I felt a sudden warmth towards that
+beautiful Miss Grant, that she should stoop to so much interest in my affairs.
+The summoning up of Catriona moved me of itself to milder and more cowardly
+counsels. If the Advocate knew of her and our acquaintance&mdash;if I should
+please him by some of that &ldquo;discretion&rdquo; at which his letter
+pointed&mdash;to what might not this lead! <i>In vain is the net prepared in
+the sight of any fowl</i>, the Scripture says. Well, fowls must be wiser than
+folk! For I thought I perceived the policy, and yet fell in with it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was in this frame, my heart beating, the grey eyes plain before me like two
+stars, when Andie broke in upon my musing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see ye has gotten guid news,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I found him looking curiously in my face; with that there came before me like a
+vision of James Stewart and the court of Inverary; and my mind turned at once
+like a door upon its hinges. Trials, I reflected, sometimes draw out longer
+than is looked for. Even if I came to Inverary just too late, something might
+yet be attempted in the interests of James&mdash;and in those of my own
+character, the best would be accomplished. In a moment, it seemed without
+thought, I had a plan devised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Andie,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;is it still to be to-morrow?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He told me nothing was changed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was anything said about the hour?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He told me it was to be two o&rsquo;clock afternoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And about the place?&rdquo; I pursued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whatten place?&rdquo; says Andie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The place I am to be landed at?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He owned there was nothing as to that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;this shall be mine to arrange.
+The wind is in the east, my road lies westward: keep your boat, I hire it; let
+us work up the Forth all day; and land me at two o&rsquo;clock to-morrow at the
+westmost we&rsquo;ll can have reached.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye daft callant!&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;ye would try for Inverary after
+a&rsquo;!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just that, Andie,&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Weel, ye&rsquo;re ill to beat!&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;And I was a kind
+o&rsquo; sorry for ye a&rsquo; day yesterday,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Ye see, I
+was never entirely sure till then, which way of it ye really wantit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here was a spur to a lame horse!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A word in your ear, Andie,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;This plan of mine has
+another advantage yet. We can leave these Hielandman behind us on the rock, and
+one of your boats from the Castleton can bring them off to-morrow. Yon Neil has
+a queer eye when he regards you; maybe, if I was once out of the gate there
+might be knives again; these red-shanks are unco grudgeful. And if there should
+come to be any question, here is your excuse. Our lives were in danger by these
+savages; being answerable for my safety, you chose the part to bring me from
+their neighbourhood and detain me the rest of the time on board your boat: and
+do you know, Andie?&rdquo; says I, with a smile, &ldquo;I think it was very
+wisely chosen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The truth is I have nae goo for Neil,&rdquo; says Andie, &ldquo;nor he
+for me, I&rsquo;m thinking; and I would like ill to come to my hands wi&rsquo;
+the man. Tam Anster will make a better hand of it with the cattle
+onyway.&rdquo; (For this man, Anster, came from Fife, where the Gaelic is still
+spoken.) &ldquo;Ay, ay!&rdquo; says Andie, &ldquo;Tam&rsquo;ll can deal with
+them the best. And troth! the mair I think of it, the less I see we would be
+required. The place&mdash;ay, feggs! they had forgot the place. Eh, Shaws,
+ye&rsquo;re a lang-heided chield when ye like! Forby that I&rsquo;m awing ye my
+life,&rdquo; he added, with more solemnity, and offered me his hand upon the
+bargain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon, with scarce more words, we stepped suddenly on board the boat, cast
+off, and set the lug. The Gregara were then busy upon breakfast, for the
+cookery was their usual part; but, one of them stepping to the battlements, our
+flight was observed before we were twenty fathoms from the rock; and the three
+of them ran about the ruins and the landing-shelf, for all the world like ants
+about a broken nest, hailing and crying on us to return. We were still in both
+the lee and the shadow of the rock, which last lay broad upon the waters, but
+presently came forth in almost the same moment into the wind and sunshine; the
+sail filled, the boat heeled to the gunwale, and we swept immediately beyond
+sound of the men&rsquo;s voices. To what terrors they endured upon the rock,
+where they were now deserted without the countenance of any civilised person or
+so much as the protection of a Bible, no limit can be set; nor had they any
+brandy left to be their consolation, for even in the haste and secrecy of our
+departure Andie had managed to remove it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was our first care to set Anster ashore in a cove by the Glenteithy Rocks,
+so that the deliverance of our maroons might be duly seen to the next day.
+Thence we kept away up Firth. The breeze, which was then so spirited, swiftly
+declined, but never wholly failed us. All day we kept moving, though often not
+much more; and it was after dark ere we were up with the Queensferry. To keep
+the letter of Andie&rsquo;s engagement (or what was left of it) I must remain
+on board, but I thought no harm to communicate with the shore in writing. On
+Prestongrange&rsquo;s cover, where the Government seal must have a good deal
+surprised my correspondent, I writ, by the boat&rsquo;s lantern, a few
+necessary words, aboard and Andie carried them to Rankeillor. In about an hour
+he came again, with a purse of money and the assurance that a good horse should
+be standing saddled for me by two to-morrow at Clackmannan Pool. This done, and
+the boat riding by her stone anchor, we lay down to sleep under the sail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were in the Pool the next day long ere two; and there was nothing left for
+me but to sit and wait. I felt little alacrity upon my errand. I would have
+been glad of any passable excuse to lay it down; but none being to be found, my
+uneasiness was no less great than if I had been running to some desired
+pleasure. By shortly after one the horse was at the waterside, and I could see
+a man walking it to and fro till I should land, which vastly swelled my
+impatience. Andie ran the moment of my liberation very fine, showing himself a
+man of his bare word, but scarce serving his employers with a heaped measure;
+and by about fifty seconds after two I was in the saddle and on the full
+stretch for Stirling. In a little more than an hour I had passed that town, and
+was already mounting Alan Water side, when the weather broke in a small
+tempest. The rain blinded me, the wind had nearly beat me from the saddle, and
+the first darkness of the night surprised me in a wilderness still some way
+east of Balwhidder, not very sure of my direction and mounted on a horse that
+began already to be weary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the press of my hurry, and to be spared the delay and annoyance of a guide,
+I had followed (so far as it was possible for any horseman) the line of my
+journey with Alan. This I did with open eyes, foreseeing a great risk in it,
+which the tempest had now brought to a reality. The last that I knew of where I
+was, I think it must have been about Uam Var; the hour perhaps six at night. I
+must still think it great good fortune that I got about eleven to my
+destination, the house of Duncan Dhu. Where I had wandered in the interval
+perhaps the horse could tell. I know we were twice down, and once over the
+saddle and for a moment carried away in a roaring burn. Steed and rider were
+bemired up to the eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Duncan I had news of the trial. It was followed in all these Highland
+regions with religious interest; news of it spread from Inverary as swift as
+men could travel; and I was rejoiced to learn that, up to a late hour that
+Saturday it was not yet concluded; and all men began to suppose it must spread
+over the Monday. Under the spur of this intelligence I would not sit to eat;
+but, Duncan having agreed to be my guide, took the road again on foot, with the
+piece in my hand and munching as I went. Duncan brought with him a flask of
+usquebaugh and a hand-lantern; which last enlightened us just so long as we
+could find houses where to rekindle it, for the thing leaked outrageously and
+blew out with every gust. The more part of the night we walked blindfold among
+sheets of rain, and day found us aimless on the mountains. Hard by we struck a
+hut on a burn-side, where we got bite and a direction; and, a little before the
+end of the sermon, came to the kirk doors of Inverary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rain had somewhat washed the upper parts of me, but I was still bogged as
+high as to the knees; I streamed water; I was so weary I could hardly limp, and
+my face was like a ghost&rsquo;s. I stood certainly more in need of a change of
+raiment and a bed to lie on, than of all the benefits in Christianity. For all
+which (being persuaded the chief point for me was to make myself immediately
+public) I set the door of the church with the dirty Duncan at my tails, and
+finding a vacant place sat down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thirteently, my brethren, and in parenthesis, the law itself must be
+regarded as a means of grace,&rdquo; the minister was saying, in the voice of
+one delighting to pursue an argument.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sermon was in English on account of the assize. The judges were present
+with their armed attendants, the halberts glittered in a corner by the door,
+and the seats were thronged beyond custom with the array of lawyers. The text
+was in Romans 5th and 13th&mdash;the minister a skilled hand; and the whole of
+that able churchful&mdash;from Argyle, and my Lords Elchies and Kilkerran, down
+to the halbertmen that came in their attendance&mdash;was sunk with gathered
+brows in a profound critical attention. The minister himself and a sprinkling
+of those about the door observed our entrance at the moment and immediately
+forgot the same; the rest either did not hear or would not hear or would not be
+heard; and I sat amongst my friends and enemies unremarked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first that I singled out was Prestongrange. He sat well forward, like an
+eager horseman in the saddle, his lips moving with relish, his eyes glued on
+the minister; the doctrine was clearly to his mind. Charles Stewart, on the
+other hand, was half asleep, and looked harassed and pale. As for Simon Fraser,
+he appeared like a blot, and almost a scandal, in the midst of that attentive
+congregation, digging his hands in his pockets, shifting his legs, clearing his
+throat, and rolling up his bald eyebrows and shooting out his eyes to right and
+left, now with a yawn, now with a secret smile. At times, too, he would take
+the Bible in front of him, run it through, seem to read a bit, run it through
+again, and stop and yawn prodigiously: the whole as if for exercise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the course of this restlessness his eye alighted on myself. He sat a second
+stupefied, then tore a half-leaf out of the Bible, scrawled upon it with a
+pencil, and passed it with a whispered word to his next neighbour. The note
+came to Prestongrange, who gave me but the one look; thence it voyaged to the
+hands of Mr. Erskine; thence again to Argyle, where he sat between the other
+two lords of session, and his Grace turned and fixed me with an arrogant eye.
+The last of those interested in my presence was Charlie Stewart, and he too
+began to pencil and hand about dispatches, none of which I was able to trace to
+their destination in the crowd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the passage of these notes had aroused notice; all who were in the secret
+(or supposed themselves to be so) were whispering information&mdash;the rest
+questions; and the minister himself seemed quite discountenanced by the flutter
+in the church and sudden stir and whispering. His voice changed, he plainly
+faltered, nor did he again recover the easy conviction and full tones of his
+delivery. It would be a puzzle to him till his dying day, why a sermon that had
+gone with triumph through four parts, should thus miscarry in the fifth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for me, I continued to sit there, very wet and weary, and a good deal
+anxious as to what should happen next, but greatly exulting in my success.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br />
+THE MEMORIAL</h2>
+
+<p>
+The last word of the blessing was scarce out of the minister&rsquo;s mouth
+before Stewart had me by the arm. We were the first to be forth of the church,
+and he made such extraordinary expedition that we were safe within the four
+walls of a house before the street had begun to be thronged with the home-going
+congregation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Am I yet in time?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay and no,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;The case is over; the jury is
+enclosed, and will so kind as let us ken their view of it to-morrow in the
+morning, the same as I could have told it my own self three days ago before the
+play began. The thing has been public from the start. The panel kent it,
+&lsquo;<i>Ye may do what ye will for me</i>,&rsquo; whispers he two days ago.
+&lsquo;<i>Ye ken my fate by what the Duke of Argyle has just said to Mr.
+Macintosh</i>.&rsquo; O, it&rsquo;s been a scandal!
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;The great Agyle he gaed before,<br />
+He gart the cannons and guns to roar,&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+and the very macer cried &lsquo;Cruachan!&rsquo; But now that I have got you
+again I&rsquo;ll never despair. The oak shall go over the myrtle yet;
+we&rsquo;ll ding the Campbells yet in their own town. Praise God that I should
+see the day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was leaping with excitement, emptied out his mails upon the floor that I
+might have a change of clothes, and incommoded me with his assistance as I
+changed. What remained to be done, or how I was to do it, was what he never
+told me nor, I believe, so much as thought of. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll ding the
+Campbells yet!&rdquo; that was still his overcome. And it was forced home upon
+my mind how this, that had the externals of a sober process of law, was in its
+essence a clan battle between savage clans. I thought my friend the Writer none
+of the least savage. Who that had only seen him at a counsel&rsquo;s back
+before the Lord Ordinary or following a golf ball and laying down his clubs on
+Bruntsfield links, could have recognised for the same person this voluble and
+violent clansman?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+James Stewart&rsquo;s counsel were four in number&mdash;Sheriffs Brown of
+Colstoun and Miller, Mr. Robert Macintosh, and Mr. Stewart younger of Stewart
+Hall. These were covenanted to dine with the Writer after sermon, and I was
+very obligingly included of the party. No sooner the cloth lifted, and the
+first bowl very artfully compounded by Sheriff Miller, than we fell to the
+subject in hand. I made a short narration of my seizure and captivity, and was
+then examined and re-examined upon the circumstances of the murder. It will be
+remembered this was the first time I had had my say out, or the matter at all
+handled, among lawyers; and the consequence was very dispiriting to the others
+and (I must own) disappointing to myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To sum up,&rdquo; said Colstoun, &ldquo;you prove that Alan was on the
+spot; you have heard him proffer menaces against Glenure; and though you assure
+us he was not the man who fired, you leave a strong impression that he was in
+league with him, and consenting, perhaps immediately assisting, in the act. You
+show him besides, at the risk of his own liberty, actively furthering the
+criminal&rsquo;s escape. And the rest of your testimony (so far as the least
+material) depends on the bare word of Alan or of James, the two accused. In
+short, you do not at all break, but only lengthen by one personage, the chain
+that binds our client to the murderer; and I need scarcely say that the
+introduction of a third accomplice rather aggravates that appearance of a
+conspiracy which has been our stumbling block from the beginning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am of the same opinion,&rdquo; said Sheriff Miller. &ldquo;I think we
+may all be very much obliged to Prestongrange for taking a most uncomfortable
+witness out of our way. And chiefly, I think, Mr. Balfour himself might be
+obliged. For you talk of a third accomplice, but Mr. Balfour (in my view) has
+very much the appearance of a fourth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Allow me, sirs!&rdquo; interposed Stewart the Writer. &ldquo;There is
+another view. Here we have a witness&mdash;never fash whether material or
+not&mdash;a witness in this cause, kidnapped by that old, lawless, bandit crew
+of the Glengyle Macgregors, and sequestered for near upon a month in a bourock
+of old ruins on the Bass. Move that and see what dirt you fling on the
+proceedings! Sirs, this is a tale to make the world ring with! It would be
+strange, with such a grip as this, if we couldnae squeeze out a pardon for my
+client.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And suppose we took up Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s cause to-morrow?&rdquo; said
+Stewart Hall. &ldquo;I am much deceived or we should find so many impediments
+thrown in our path, as that James should have been hanged before we had found a
+court to hear us. This is a great scandal, but I suppose we have none of us
+forgot a greater still, I mean the matter of the Lady Grange. The woman was
+still in durance; my friend Mr. Hope of Rankeillor did what was humanly
+possible; and how did he speed? He never got a warrant! Well, it&rsquo;ll be
+the same now; the same weapons will be used. This is a scene, gentleman, of
+clan animosity. The hatred of the name which I have the honour to bear, rages
+in high quarters. There is nothing here to be viewed but naked Campbell spite
+and scurvy Campbell intrigue.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You may be sure this was to touch a welcome topic, and I sat for some time in
+the midst of my learned counsel, almost deaved with their talk but extremely
+little the wiser for its purport. The Writer was led into some hot expressions;
+Colstoun must take him up and set him right; the rest joined in on different
+sides, but all pretty noisy; the Duke of Argyle was beaten like a blanket; King
+George came in for a few digs in the by-going and a great deal of rather
+elaborate defence; and there was only one person that seemed to be forgotten,
+and that was James of the Glens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through all this Mr. Miller sat quiet. He was a slip of an oldish gentleman,
+ruddy and twinkling; he spoke in a smooth rich voice, with an infinite effect
+of pawkiness, dealing out each word the way an actor does, to give the most
+expression possible; and even now, when he was silent, and sat there with his
+wig laid aside, his glass in both hands, his mouth funnily pursed, and his chin
+out, he seemed the mere picture of a merry slyness. It was plain he had a word
+to say, and waited for the fit occasion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It came presently. Colstoun had wound up one of his speeches with some
+expression of their duty to their client. His brother sheriff was pleased, I
+suppose, with the transition. He took the table in his confidence with a
+gesture and a look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That suggests to me a consideration which seems overlooked,&rdquo; said
+he. &ldquo;The interest of our client goes certainly before all, but the world
+does not come to an end with James Stewart.&rdquo; Whereat he cocked his eye.
+&ldquo;I might condescend, <i>exempli gratia</i>, upon a Mr. George Brown, a
+Mr. Thomas Miller, and a Mr. David Balfour. Mr. David Balfour has a very good
+ground of complaint, and I think, gentlemen&mdash;if his story was properly
+redd out&mdash;I think there would be a number of wigs on the green.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The whole table turned to him with a common movement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Properly handled and carefully redd out, his is a story that could
+scarcely fail to have some consequence,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;The whole
+administration of justice, from its highest officer downward, would be totally
+discredited; and it looks to me as if they would need to be replaced.&rdquo; He
+seemed to shine with cunning as he said it. &ldquo;And I need not point out to
+ye that this of Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s would be a remarkable bonny cause to appear
+in,&rdquo; he added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, there they all were started on another hare; Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s cause,
+and what kind of speeches could be there delivered, and what officials could be
+thus turned out, and who would succeed to their positions. I shall give but the
+two specimens. It was proposed to approach Simon Fraser, whose testimony, if it
+could be obtained, would prove certainly fatal to Argyle and to Prestongrange.
+Miller highly approved of the attempt. &ldquo;We have here before us a dreeping
+roast,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;here is cut-and-come-again for all.&rdquo; And
+methought all licked their lips. The other was already near the end. Stewart
+the Writer was out of the body with delight, smelling vengeance on his chief
+enemy, the Duke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; cried he, charging his glass, &ldquo;here is to
+Sheriff Miller. His legal abilities are known to all. His culinary, this bowl
+in front of us is here to speak for. But when it comes to the
+poleetical!&rdquo;&mdash;cries he, and drains the glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, but it will hardly prove politics in your meaning, my friend,&rdquo;
+said the gratified Miller. &ldquo;A revolution, if you like, and I think I can
+promise you that historical writers shall date from Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s cause.
+But properly guided, Mr. Stewart, tenderly guided, it shall prove a peaceful
+revolution.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if the damned Campbells get their ears rubbed, what care I?&rdquo;
+cries Stewart, smiting down his fist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It will be thought I was not very well pleased with all this, though I could
+scarce forbear smiling at a kind of innocency in these old intriguers. But it
+was not my view to have undergone so many sorrows for the advancement of
+Sheriff Miller or to make a revolution in the Parliament House: and I
+interposed accordingly with as much simplicity of manner as I could assume.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have to thank you, gentlemen, for your advice,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;And now I would like, by your leave, to set you two or three questions.
+There is one thing that has fallen rather on one aide, for instance: Will this
+cause do any good to our friend James of the Glens?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They seemed all a hair set back, and gave various answers, but concurring
+practically in one point, that James had now no hope but in the King&rsquo;s
+mercy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To proceed, then,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;will it do any good to Scotland?
+We have a saying that it is an ill bird that fouls his own nest. I remember
+hearing we had a riot in Edinburgh when I was an infant child, which gave
+occasion to the late Queen to call this country barbarous; and I always
+understood that we had rather lost than gained by that. Then came the year
+&rsquo;Forty-five, which made Scotland to be talked of everywhere; but I never
+heard it said we had anyway gained by the &rsquo;Forty-five. And now we come to
+this cause of Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s, as you call it. Sheriff Miller tells us
+historical writers are to date from it, and I would not wonder. It is only my
+fear they would date from it as a period of calamity and public
+reproach.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The nimble-witted Miller had already smelt where I was travelling to, and made
+haste to get on the same road. &ldquo;Forcibly put, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; says
+he. &ldquo;A weighty observe, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have next to ask ourselves if it will be good for King George,&rdquo;
+I pursued. &ldquo;Sheriff Miller appears pretty easy upon this; but I doubt you
+will scarce be able to pull down the house from under him, without his Majesty
+coming by a knock or two, one of which might easily prove fatal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I gave them a chance to answer, but none volunteered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of those for whom the case was to be profitable,&rdquo; I went on,
+&ldquo;Sheriff Miller gave us the names of several, among the which he was good
+enough to mention mine. I hope he will pardon me if I think otherwise. I
+believe I hung not the least back in this affair while there was life to be
+saved; but I own I thought myself extremely hazarded, and I own I think it
+would be a pity for a young man, with some idea of coming to the Bar, to
+ingrain upon himself the character of a turbulent, factious fellow before he
+was yet twenty. As for James, it seems&mdash;at this date of the proceedings,
+with the sentence as good as pronounced&mdash;he has no hope but in the
+King&rsquo;s mercy. May not his Majesty, then, be more pointedly addressed, the
+characters of these high officers sheltered from the public, and myself kept
+out of a position which I think spells ruin for me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They all sat and gazed into their glasses, and I could see they found my
+attitude on the affair unpalatable. But Miller was ready at all events.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I may be allowed to put my young friend&rsquo;s notion in more formal
+shape,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I understand him to propose that we should embody
+the fact of his sequestration, and perhaps some heads of the testimony he was
+prepared to offer, in a memorial to the Crown. This plan has elements of
+success. It is as likely as any other (and perhaps likelier) to help our
+client. Perhaps his Majesty would have the goodness to feel a certain gratitude
+to all concerned in such a memorial, which might be construed into an
+expression of a very delicate loyalty; and I think, in the drafting of the
+same, this view might be brought forward.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They all nodded to each other, not without sighs, for the former alternative
+was doubtless more after their inclination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Paper, then, Mr. Stewart, if you please,&rdquo; pursued Miller;
+&ldquo;and I think it might very fittingly be signed by the five of us here
+present, as procurators for the condemned man.&rdquo;&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It can do none of us any harm, at least,&rdquo; says Colstoun, heaving
+another sigh, for he had seen himself Lord Advocate the last ten minutes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thereupon they set themselves, not very enthusiastically, to draft the
+memorial&mdash;a process in the course of which they soon caught fire; and I
+had no more ado but to sit looking on and answer an occasional question. The
+paper was very well expressed; beginning with a recitation of the facts about
+myself, the reward offered for my apprehension, my surrender, the pressure
+brought to bear upon me; my sequestration; and my arrival at Inverary in time
+to be too late; going on to explain the reasons of loyalty and public interest
+for which it was agreed to waive any right of action; and winding up with a
+forcible appeal to the King&rsquo;s mercy on behalf of James.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Methought I was a good deal sacrificed, and rather represented in the light of
+a firebrand of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had restrained with difficulty
+from extremes. But I let it pass, and made but the one suggestion, that I
+should be described as ready to deliver my own evidence and adduce that of
+others before any commission of inquiry&mdash;and the one demand, that I should
+be immediately furnished with a copy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Colstoun hummed and hawed. &ldquo;This is a very confidential document,&rdquo;
+said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And my position towards Prestongrange is highly peculiar,&rdquo; I
+replied. &ldquo;No question but I must have touched his heart at our first
+interview, so that he has since stood my friend consistently. But for him,
+gentlemen, I must now be lying dead or awaiting my sentence alongside poor
+James. For which reason I choose to communicate to him the fact of this
+memorial as soon as it is copied. You are to consider also that this step will
+make for my protection. I have enemies here accustomed to drive hard; his Grace
+is in his own country, Lovat by his side; and if there should hang any
+ambiguity over our proceedings I think I might very well awake in gaol.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not finding any very ready answer to these considerations, my company of
+advisers were at the last persuaded to consent, and made only this condition
+that I was to lay the paper before Prestongrange with the express compliments
+of all concerned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Advocate was at the castle dining with his Grace. By the hand of one of
+Colstoun&rsquo;s servants I sent him a billet asking for an interview, and
+received a summons to meet him at once in a private house of the town. Here I
+found him alone in a chamber; from his face there was nothing to be gleaned;
+yet I was not so unobservant but what I spied some halberts in the hall, and
+not so stupid but what I could gather he was prepared to arrest me there and
+then, should it appear advisable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So, Mr. David, this is you?&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where I fear I am not overly welcome, my lord,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;And
+I would like before I go further to express my sense of your lordship&rsquo;s
+good offices, even should they now cease.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard of your gratitude before,&rdquo; he replied drily,
+&ldquo;and I think this can scarce be the matter you called me from my wine to
+listen to. I would remember also, if I were you, that you still stand on a very
+boggy foundation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not now, my lord, I think,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and if your lordship
+will but glance an eye along this, you will perhaps think as I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He read it sedulously through, frowning heavily; then turned back to one part
+and another which he seemed to weigh and compare the effect of. His face a
+little lightened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is not so bad but what it might be worse,&rdquo; said he;
+&ldquo;though I am still likely to pay dear for my acquaintance with Mr. David
+Balfour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather for your indulgence to that unlucky young man, my lord,&rdquo;
+said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He still skimmed the paper, and all the while his spirits seemed to mend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And to whom am I indebted for this?&rdquo; he asked presently.
+&ldquo;Other counsels must have been discussed, I think. Who was it proposed
+this private method? Was it Miller?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord, it was myself,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;These gentlemen have shown
+me no such consideration, as that I should deny myself any credit I can fairly
+claim, or spare them any responsibility they should properly bear. And the mere
+truth is, that they were all in favour of a process which should have
+remarkable consequences in the Parliament House, and prove for them (in one of
+their own expressions) a dripping roast. Before I intervened, I think they were
+on the point of sharing out the different law appointments. Our friend Mr.
+Simon was to be taken in upon some composition.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Prestongrange smiled. &ldquo;These are our friends,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;And
+what were your reasons for dissenting, Mr. David?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told them without concealment, expressing, however, with more force and
+volume those which regarded Prestongrange himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You do me no more than justice,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I have fought as
+hard in your interest as you have fought against mine. And how came you here
+to-day?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;As the case drew out, I began to grow uneasy
+that I had clipped the period so fine, and I was even expecting you to-morrow.
+But to-day&mdash;I never dreamed of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was not of course, going to betray Andie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suspect there is some very weary cattle by the road,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I had known you were such a mosstrooper you should have tasted longer
+of the Bass,&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Speaking of which, my lord, I return your letter.&rdquo; And I gave him
+the enclosure in the counterfeit hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was the cover also with the seal,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have it not,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It bore not even an address, and
+could not compromise a cat. The second enclosure I have, and with your
+permission, I desire to keep it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought he winced a little, but he said nothing to the point.
+&ldquo;To-morrow,&rdquo; he resumed, &ldquo;our business here is to be
+finished, and I proceed by Glasgow. I would be very glad to have you of my
+party, Mr David.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord . . .&rdquo; I began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not deny it will be of service to me,&rdquo; he interrupted.
+&ldquo;I desire even that, when we shall come to Edinburgh, you should alight
+at my house. You have very warm friends in the Miss Grants, who will be
+overjoyed to have you to themselves. If you think I have been of use to you,
+you can thus easily repay me, and so far from losing, may reap some advantage
+by the way. It is not every strange young man who is presented in society by
+the King&rsquo;s Advocate.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Often enough already (in our brief relations) this gentleman had caused my head
+to spin; no doubt but what for a moment he did so again now. Here was the old
+fiction still maintained of my particular favour with his daughters, one of
+whom had been so good as to laugh at me, while the other two had scarce deigned
+to remark the fact of my existence. And now I was to ride with my lord to
+Glasgow; I was to dwell with him in Edinburgh; I was to be brought into society
+under his protection! That he should have so much good-nature as to forgive me
+was surprising enough; that he could wish to take me up and serve me seemed
+impossible; and I began to seek some ulterior meaning. One was plain. If I
+became his guest, repentance was excluded; I could never think better of my
+present design and bring any action. And besides, would not my presence in his
+house draw out the whole pungency of the memorial? For that complaint could not
+be very seriously regarded, if the person chiefly injured was the guest of the
+official most incriminated. As I thought upon this I could not quite refrain
+from smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is in the nature of a countercheck to the memorial?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are cunning, Mr. David,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and you do not wholly
+guess wrong the fact will be of use to me in my defence. Perhaps, however, you
+underrate friendly sentiments, which are perfectly genuine. I have a respect
+for you, David, mingled with awe,&rdquo; says he, smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am more than willing, I am earnestly desirous to meet your
+wishes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It is my design to be called to the Bar, where
+your lordship&rsquo;s countenance would be invaluable; and I am besides
+sincerely grateful to yourself and family for different marks of interest and
+of indulgence. The difficulty is here. There is one point in which we pull two
+ways. You are trying to hang James Stewart, I am trying to save him. In so far
+as my riding with you would better your lordship&rsquo;s defence, I am at your
+lordships orders; but in so far as it would help to hang James Stewart, you see
+me at a stick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought he swore to himself. &ldquo;You should certainly be called; the Bar
+is the true scene for your talents,&rdquo; says he, bitterly, and then fell a
+while silent. &ldquo;I will tell you,&rdquo; he presently resumed, &ldquo;there
+is no question of James Stewart, for or against, James is a dead man; his life
+is given and taken&mdash;bought (if you like it better) and sold; no memorial
+can help&mdash;no defalcation of a faithful Mr. David hurt him. Blow high, blow
+low, there will be no pardon for James Stewart: and take that for said! The
+question is now of myself: am I to stand or fall? and I do not deny to you that
+I am in some danger. But will Mr. David Balfour consider why? It is not because
+I pushed the case unduly against James; for that, I am sure of condonation. And
+it is not because I have sequestered Mr. David on a rock, though it will pass
+under that colour; but because I did not take the ready and plain path, to
+which I was pressed repeatedly, and send Mr. David to his grave or to the
+gallows. Hence the scandal&mdash;hence this damned memorial,&rdquo; striking
+the paper on his leg. &ldquo;My tenderness for you has brought me in this
+difficulty. I wish to know if your tenderness to your own conscience is too
+great to let you help me out of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No doubt but there was much of the truth in what he said; if James was past
+helping, whom was it more natural that I should turn to help than just the man
+before me, who had helped myself so often, and was even now setting me a
+pattern of patience? I was besides not only weary, but beginning to be ashamed,
+of my perpetual attitude of suspicion and refusal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you will name the time and place, I will be punctually ready to
+attend your lordship,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook hands with me. &ldquo;And I think my misses have some news for
+you,&rdquo; says he, dismissing me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I came away, vastly pleased to have my peace made, yet a little concerned in
+conscience; nor could I help wondering, as I went back, whether, perhaps, I had
+not been a scruple too good-natured. But there was the fact, that this was a
+man that might have been my father, an able man, a great dignitary, and one
+that, in the hour of my need, had reached a hand to my assistance. I was in the
+better humour to enjoy the remainder of that evening, which I passed with the
+advocates, in excellent company no doubt, but perhaps with rather more than a
+sufficiency of punch: for though I went early to bed I have no clear mind of
+how I got there.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br />
+THE TEE&rsquo;D BALL</h2>
+
+<p>
+On the morrow, from the justices&rsquo; private room, where none could see me,
+I heard the verdict given in and judgment rendered upon James. The Duke&rsquo;s
+words I am quite sure I have correctly; and since that famous passage has been
+made a subject of dispute, I may as well commemorate my version. Having
+referred to the year &rsquo;45, the chief of the Campbells, sitting as
+Justice-General upon the bench, thus addressed the unfortunate Stewart before
+him: &ldquo;If you had been successful in that rebellion, you might have been
+giving the law where you have now received the judgment of it; we, who are this
+day your judges, might have been tried before one of your mock courts of
+judicature; and then you might have been satiated with the blood of any name or
+clan to which you had an aversion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is to let the cat out of the bag, indeed,&rdquo; thought I. And
+that was the general impression. It was extraordinary how the young advocate
+lads took hold and made a mock of this speech, and how scarce a meal passed but
+what someone would get in the words: &ldquo;And then you might have been
+satiated.&rdquo; Many songs were made in time for the hour&rsquo;s diversion,
+and are near all forgot. I remember one began:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;What do ye want the bluid of, bluid of?<br />
+Is it a name, or is it a clan,<br />
+Or is it an aefauld Hielandman,<br />
+That ye want the bluid of, bluid of?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another went to my old favourite air, <i>The House of Airlie</i>, and began
+thus:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;It fell on a day when Argyle was on the bench,<br />
+That they served him a Stewart for his denner.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And one of the verses ran:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Then up and spak&rsquo; the Duke, and flyted on his cook,<br />
+I regard it as a sensible aspersion,<br />
+That I would sup ava&rsquo;, an&rsquo; satiate my maw,<br />
+With the bluid of ony clan of my aversion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+James was as fairly murdered as though the Duke had got a fowling-piece and
+stalked him. So much of course I knew: but others knew not so much, and were
+more affected by the items of scandal that came to light in the progress of the
+cause. One of the chief was certainly this sally of the justice&rsquo;s. It was
+run hard by another of a juryman, who had struck into the midst of
+Coulston&rsquo;s speech for the defence with a &ldquo;Pray, sir, cut it short,
+we are quite weary,&rdquo; which seemed the very excess of impudence and
+simplicity. But some of my new lawyer friends were still more staggered with an
+innovation that had disgraced and even vitiated the proceedings. One witness
+was never called. His name, indeed, was printed, where it may still be seen on
+the fourth page of the list: &ldquo;James Drummond, <i>alias</i> Macgregor,
+<i>alias</i> James More, late tenant in Inveronachile&rdquo;; and his
+precognition had been taken, as the manner is, in writing. He had remembered or
+invented (God help him) matter which was lead in James Stewart&rsquo;s shoes,
+and I saw was like to prove wings to his own. This testimony it was highly
+desirable to bring to the notice of the jury, without exposing the man himself
+to the perils of cross-examination; and the way it was brought about was a
+matter of surprise to all. For the paper was handed round (like a curiosity) in
+court; passed through the jury-box, where it did its work; and disappeared
+again (as though by accident) before it reached the counsel for the prisoner.
+This was counted a most insidious device; and that the name of James More
+should be mingled up with it filled me with shame for Catriona and concern for
+myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following day, Prestongrange and I, with a considerable company, set out
+for Glasgow, where (to my impatience) we continued to linger some time in a
+mixture of pleasure and affairs. I lodged with my lord, with whom I was
+encouraged to familiarity; had my place at entertainments; was presented to the
+chief guests; and altogether made more of than I thought accorded either with
+my parts or station; so that, on strangers being present, I would often blush
+for Prestongrange. It must be owned the view I had taken of the world in these
+last months was fit to cast a gloom upon my character. I had met many men, some
+of them leaders in Israel whether by their birth or talents; and who among them
+all had shown clean hands? As for the Browns and Millers, I had seen their
+self-seeking, I could never again respect them. Prestongrange was the best yet;
+he had saved me, spared me rather, when others had it in their minds to murder
+me outright; but the blood of James lay at his door; and I thought his present
+dissimulation with myself a thing below pardon. That he should affect to find
+pleasure in my discourse almost surprised me out of my patience. I would sit
+and watch him with a kind of a slow fire of anger in my bowels. &ldquo;Ah,
+friend, friend,&rdquo; I would think to myself, &ldquo;if you were but through
+with this affair of the memorial, would you not kick me in the streets?&rdquo;
+Here I did him, as events have proved, the most grave injustice; and I think he
+was at once far more sincere, and a far more artful performer, than I supposed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I had some warrant for my incredulity in the behaviour of that court of
+young advocates that hung about in the hope of patronage. The sudden favour of
+a lad not previously heard of troubled them at first out of measure; but two
+days were not gone by before I found myself surrounded with flattery and
+attention. I was the same young man, and neither better nor bonnier, that they
+had rejected a month before; and now there was no civility too fine for me! The
+same, do I say? It was not so; and the by-name by which I went behind my back
+confirmed it. Seeing me so firm with the Advocate, and persuaded that I was to
+fly high and far, they had taken a word from the golfing green, and called me
+<i>the Tee&rsquo;d Ball</i>. <a name="citation14"></a><a
+href="#footnote14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> I was told I was now &ldquo;one of
+themselves&rdquo;; I was to taste of their soft lining, who had already made my
+own experience of the roughness of the outer husk; and one, to whom I had been
+presented in Hope Park, was so aspired as even to remind me of that meeting. I
+told him I had not the pleasure of remembering it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;it was Miss Grant herself presented me! My
+name is so-and-so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It may very well be, sir,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;but I have kept no mind
+of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At which he desisted; and in the midst of the disgust that commonly overflowed
+my spirits I had a glisk of pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I have not patience to dwell upon that time at length. When I was in
+company with these young politics I was borne down with shame for myself and my
+own plain ways, and scorn for them and their duplicity. Of the two evils, I
+thought Prestongrange to be the least; and while I was always as stiff as
+buckram to the young bloods, I made rather a dissimulation of my hard feelings
+towards the Advocate, and was (in old Mr. Campbell&rsquo;s word) &ldquo;soople
+to the laird.&rdquo; Himself commented on the difference, and bid me be more of
+my age, and make friends with my young comrades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told him I was slow of making friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will take the word back,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But there is such a
+thing as <i>Fair gude s&rsquo;en and fair gude day</i>, Mr. David. These are
+the same young men with whom you are to pass your days and get through life:
+your backwardness has a look of arrogance; and unless you can assume a little
+more lightness of manner, I fear you will meet difficulties in the path.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will be an ill job to make a silk purse of a sow&rsquo;s ear,&rdquo;
+said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the morning of October 1st I was awakened by the clattering in of an
+express; and getting to my window almost before he had dismounted, I saw the
+messenger had ridden hard. Somewhile after I was called to Prestongrange, where
+he was sitting in his bedgown and nightcap, with his letters round him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. David,&rdquo; add he, &ldquo;I have a piece of news for you. It
+concerns some friends of yours, of whom I sometimes think you are a little
+ashamed, for you have never referred to their existence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I suppose I blushed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See you understand, since you make the answering signal,&rdquo; said he.
+&ldquo;And I must compliment you on your excellent taste in beauty. But do you
+know, Mr. David? this seems to me a very enterprising lass. She crops up from
+every side. The Government of Scotland appears unable to proceed for Mistress
+Katrine Drummond, which was somewhat the case (no great while back) with a
+certain Mr. David Balfour. Should not these make a good match? Her first
+intromission in politics&mdash;but I must not tell you that story, the
+authorities have decided you are to hear it otherwise and from a livelier
+narrator. This new example is more serious, however; and I am afraid I must
+alarm you with the intelligence that she is now in prison.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I cried out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;the little lady is in prison. But I would
+not have you to despair. Unless you (with your friends and memorials) shall
+procure my downfall, she is to suffer nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what has she done? What is her offence?&rdquo; I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It might be almost construed a high treason,&rdquo; he returned,
+&ldquo;for she has broke the king&rsquo;s Castle of Edinburgh.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The lady is much my friend,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I know you would not
+mock me if the thing were serious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet it is serious in a sense,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;for this rogue
+of a Katrine&mdash;or Cateran, as we may call her&mdash;has set adrift again
+upon the world that very doubtful character, her papa.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here was one of my previsions justified: James More was once again at liberty.
+He had lent his men to keep me a prisoner; he had volunteered his testimony in
+the Appin case, and the same (no matter by what subterfuge) had been employed
+to influence the jury. Now came his reward, and he was free. It might please
+the authorities to give to it the colour of an escape; but I knew
+better&mdash;I knew it must be the fulfilment of a bargain. The same course of
+thought relieved me of the least alarm for Catriona. She might be thought to
+have broke prison for her father; she might have believed so herself. But the
+chief hand in the whole business was that of Prestongrange; and I was sure, so
+far from letting her come to punishment, he would not suffer her to be even
+tried. Whereupon thus came out of me the not very politic ejaculation:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! I was expecting that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have at times a great deal of discretion, too!&rdquo; says
+Prestongrange.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what is my lord pleased to mean by that?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was just marvelling&rdquo;, he replied, &ldquo;that being so clever as
+to draw these inferences, you should not be clever enough to keep them to
+yourself. But I think you would like to hear the details of the affair. I have
+received two versions: and the least official is the more full and far the more
+entertaining, being from the lively pen of my eldest daughter. &lsquo;Here is
+all the town bizzing with a fine piece of work,&rsquo; she writes, &lsquo;and
+what would make the thing more noted (if it were only known) the malefactor is
+a <i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;e</i> of his lordship my papa. I am sure your heart
+is too much in your duty (if it were nothing else) to have forgotten Grey Eyes.
+What does she do, but get a broad hat with the flaps open, a long hairy-like
+man&rsquo;s greatcoat, and a big gravatt; kilt her coats up to <i>Gude kens
+whaur</i>, clap two pair of boot-hose upon her legs, take a pair of <i>clouted
+brogues</i> <a name="citation15"></a><a href="#footnote15"><sup>[15]</sup></a>
+in her hand, and off to the Castle! Here she gives herself out to be a soutar
+<a name="citation16"></a><a href="#footnote16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> in the
+employ of James More, and gets admitted to his cell, the lieutenant (who seems
+to have been full of pleasantry) making sport among his soldiers of the
+soutar&rsquo;s greatcoat. Presently they hear disputation and the sound of
+blows inside. Out flies the cobbler, his coat flying, the flaps of his hat beat
+about his face, and the lieutenant and his soldiers mock at him as he runs off.
+They laughed no so hearty the next time they had occasion to visit the cell and
+found nobody but a tall, pretty, grey-eyed lass in the female habit! As for the
+cobbler, he was &lsquo;over the hills ayout Dumblane,&rsquo; and it&rsquo;s
+thought that poor Scotland will have to console herself without him. I drank
+Catriona&rsquo;s health this night in public. Indeed, the whole town admires
+her; and I think the beaux would wear bits of her garters in their button-holes
+if they could only get them. I would have gone to visit her in prison too, only
+I remembered in time I was papa&rsquo;s daughter; so I wrote her a billet
+instead, which I entrusted to the faithful Doig, and I hope you will admit I
+can be political when I please. The same faithful gomeral is to despatch this
+letter by the express along with those of the wiseacres, so that you may hear
+Tom Fool in company with Solomon. Talking of <i>gomerals</i>, do tell <i>Dauvit
+Balfour</i>. I would I could see the face of him at the thought of a
+long-legged lass in such a predicament; to say nothing of the levities of your
+affectionate daughter, and his respectful friend.&rsquo; So my rascal signs
+herself!&rdquo; continued Prestongrange. &ldquo;And you see, Mr. David, it is
+quite true what I tell you, that my daughters regard you with the most
+affectionate playfulness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The gomeral is much obliged,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And was not this prettily done!&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;Is not this
+Highland maid a piece of a heroine?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was always sure she had a great heart,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;And I
+wager she guessed nothing . . . But I beg your pardon, this is to tread upon
+forbidden subjects.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will go bail she did not,&rdquo; he returned, quite openly. &ldquo;I
+will go bail she thought she was flying straight into King George&rsquo;s
+face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Remembrance of Catriona and the thought of her lying in captivity, moved me
+strangely. I could see that even Prestongrange admired, and could not withhold
+his lips from smiling when he considered her behaviour. As for Miss Grant, for
+all her ill habit of mockery, her admiration shone out plain. A kind of a heat
+came on me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not your lordship&rsquo;s daughter. . . &rdquo; I began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I know of!&rdquo; he put in, smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I speak like a fool,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;or rather I began wrong. It
+would doubtless be unwise in Mistress Grant to go to her in prison; but for me,
+I think I would look like a half-hearted friend if I did not fly there
+instantly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So-ho, Mr. David,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;I thought that you and I were
+in a bargain?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;when I made that bargain I was a good
+deal affected by your goodness, but I&rsquo;ll never can deny that I was moved
+besides by my own interest. There was self-seeking in my heart, and I think
+shame of it now. It may be for your lordship&rsquo;s safety to say this
+fashious Davie Balfour is your friend and housemate. Say it then; I&rsquo;ll
+never contradict you. But as for your patronage, I give it all back. I ask but
+the one thing&mdash;let me go, and give me a pass to see her in her
+prison.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked at me with a hard eye. &ldquo;You put the cart before the horse, I
+think,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;That which I had given was a portion of my
+liking, which your thankless nature does not seem to have remarked. But for my
+patronage, it is not given, nor (to be exact) is it yet offered.&rdquo; He
+paused a bit. &ldquo;And I warn you, you do not know yourself,&rdquo; he added.
+&ldquo;Youth is a hasty season; you will think better of all this before a
+year.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and I would like to be that kind of youth!&rdquo; I cried.
+&ldquo;I have seen too much of the other party in these young advocates that
+fawn upon your lordship and are even at the pains to fawn on me. And I have
+seen it in the old ones also. They are all for by-ends, the whole clan of them!
+It&rsquo;s this that makes me seem to misdoubt your lordship&rsquo;s liking.
+Why would I think that you would like me? But ye told me yourself ye had an
+interest!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stopped at this, confounded that I had run so far; he was observing me with
+an unfathomable face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord, I ask your pardon,&rdquo; I resumed. &ldquo;I have nothing in
+my chafts but a rough country tongue. I think it would be only decent-like if I
+would go to see my friend in her captivity; but I&rsquo;m owing you my
+life&mdash;I&rsquo;ll never forget that; and if it&rsquo;s for your
+lordship&rsquo;s good, here I&rsquo;ll stay. That&rsquo;s barely
+gratitude.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This might have been reached in fewer words,&rdquo; says Prestongrange
+grimly. &ldquo;It is easy, and it is at times gracious, to say a plain Scots
+&lsquo;ay&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, but, my lord, I think ye take me not yet entirely!&rdquo; cried I.
+&ldquo;For <i>your</i> sake, for my life-safe, and the kindness that ye say ye
+bear to me&mdash;for these, I&rsquo;ll consent; but not for any good that might
+be coming to myself. If I stand aside when this young maid is in her trial,
+it&rsquo;s a thing I will be noways advantaged by; I will lose by it, I will
+never gain. I would rather make a shipwreck wholly than to build on that
+foundation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was a minute serious, then smiled. &ldquo;You mind me of the man with the
+long nose,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;was you to see the moon by a telescope you
+would see David Balfour there! But you shall have your way of it. I will ask at
+you one service, and then set you free: My clerks are overdriven; be so good as
+copy me these few pages, and when that is done, I shall bid you God speed! I
+would never charge myself with Mr. David&rsquo;s conscience; and if you could
+cast some part of it (as you went by) in a moss hag, you would find yourself to
+ride much easier without it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps not just entirely in the same direction though, my lord!&rdquo;
+says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you shall have the last word, too!&rdquo; cries he gaily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, he had some cause for gaiety, having now found the means to gain his
+purpose. To lessen the weight of the memorial, or to have a readier answer at
+his hand, he desired I should appear publicly in the character of his intimate.
+But if I were to appear with the same publicity as a visitor to Catriona in her
+prison the world would scarce stint to draw conclusions, and the true nature of
+James More&rsquo;s escape must become evident to all. This was the little
+problem I had to set him of a sudden, and to which he had so briskly found an
+answer. I was to be tethered in Glasgow by that job of copying, which in mere
+outward decency I could not well refuse; and during these hours of employment
+Catriona was privately got rid of. I think shame to write of this man that
+loaded me with so many goodnesses. He was kind to me as any father, yet I ever
+thought him as false as a cracked bell.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br />
+I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES</h2>
+
+<p>
+The copying was a weary business, the more so as I perceived very early there
+was no sort of urgency in the matters treated, and began very early to consider
+my employment a pretext. I had no sooner finished than I got to horse, used
+what remained of daylight to the best purpose, and being at last fairly
+benighted, slept in a house by Almond-Water side. I was in the saddle again
+before the day, and the Edinburgh booths were just opening when I clattered in
+by the West Bow and drew up a smoking horse at my lord Advocate&rsquo;s door. I
+had a written word for Doig, my lord&rsquo;s private hand that was thought to
+be in all his secrets&mdash;a worthy little plain man, all fat and snuff and
+self-sufficiency. Him I found already at his desk and already bedabbled with
+maccabaw, in the same anteroom where I rencountered with James More. He read
+the note scrupulously through like a chapter in his Bible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;ye come a wee thing ahint-hand, Mr.
+Balfour. The bird&rsquo;s flaen&mdash;we hae letten her out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Drummond is set free?&rdquo; I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Achy!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;What would we keep her for, ye ken? To hae
+made a steer about the bairn would has pleased naebody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And where&rsquo;ll she be now?&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gude kens!&rdquo; says Doig, with a shrug.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;ll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I&rsquo;m
+thinking,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;ll be it,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll gang there straight,&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But ye&rsquo;ll be for a bite or ye go?&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Neither bite nor sup,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I had a good wauch of milk
+in by Ratho.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aweel, aweel,&rdquo; says Doig. &ldquo;But ye&rsquo;ll can leave your
+horse here and your bags, for it seems we&rsquo;re to have your up-put.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Na, na&rdquo;, said I. &ldquo;Tamson&rsquo;s mear <a
+name="citation17"></a><a href="#footnote17"><sup>[17]</sup></a> would never be
+the thing for me this day of all days.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an accent much
+more countrified than I was usually careful to affect a good deal broader,
+indeed, than I have written it down; and I was the more ashamed when another
+voice joined in behind me with a scrap of a ballad:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Gae saddle me the bonny black,<br />
+Gae saddle sune and mak&rsquo; him ready<br />
+For I will down the Gatehope-slack,<br />
+And a&rsquo; to see my bonny leddy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and her hands
+muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance. Yet I could not but think
+there was kindness in the eye with which she saw me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My best respects to you, Mistress Grant,&rdquo; said I, bowing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The like to yourself, Mr. David,&rdquo; she replied with a deep
+courtesy. &ldquo;And I beg to remind you of an old musty saw, that meat and
+mass never hindered man. The mass I cannot afford you, for we are all good
+Protestants. But the meat I press on your attention. And I would not wonder but
+I could find something for your private ear that would be worth the stopping
+for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mistress Grant,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I believe I am already your debtor
+for some merry words&mdash;and I think they were kind too&mdash;on a piece of
+unsigned paper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Unsigned paper?&rdquo; says she, and made a droll face, which was
+likewise wondrous beautiful, as of one trying to remember.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or else I am the more deceived,&rdquo; I went on. &ldquo;But to be sure,
+we shall have the time to speak of these, since your father is so good as to
+make me for a while your inmate; and the <i>gomeral</i> begs you at this time
+only for the favour of his liberty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You give yourself hard names,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Doig and I would be blythe to take harder at your clever pen,&rdquo;
+says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once more I have to admire the discretion of all men-folk,&rdquo; she
+replied. &ldquo;But if you will not eat, off with you at once; you will be back
+the sooner, for you go on a fool&rsquo;s errand. Off with you, Mr.
+David,&rdquo; she continued, opening the door.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;He has lowpen on his bonny grey,<br />
+He rade the richt gate and the ready<br />
+I trow he would neither stint nor stay,<br />
+For he was seeking his bonny leddy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not wait to be twice bidden, and did justice to Miss Grant&rsquo;s
+citation on the way to Dean.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Lady Allardyce walked there alone in the garden, in her hat and mutch, and
+having a silver-mounted staff of some black wood to lean upon. As I alighted
+from my horse, and drew near to her with <i>congees</i>, I could see the blood
+come in her face, and her head fling into the air like what I had conceived of
+empresses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What brings you to my poor door?&rdquo; she cried, speaking high through
+her nose. &ldquo;I cannot bar it. The males of my house are dead and buried; I
+have neither son nor husband to stand in the gate for me; any beggar can pluck
+me by the baird <a name="citation18"></a><a
+href="#footnote18"><sup>[18]</sup></a>&mdash;and a baird there is, and
+that&rsquo;s the worst of it yet!&rdquo; she added partly to herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was extremely put out at this reception, and the last remark, which seemed
+like a daft wife&rsquo;s, left me near hand speechless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see I have fallen under your displeasure, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;Yet I will still be so bold as ask after Mistress Drummond.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She considered me with a burning eye, her lips pressed close together into
+twenty creases, her hand shaking on her staff. &ldquo;This cows all!&rdquo; she
+cried. &ldquo;Ye come to me to speir for her? Would God I knew!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is not here?&rdquo; I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She threw up her chin and made a step and a cry at me, so that I fell back
+incontinent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out upon your leeing throat!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;What! ye come and
+speir at me! She&rsquo;s in jyle, whaur ye took her to&mdash;that&rsquo;s all
+there is to it. And of a&rsquo; the beings ever I beheld in breeks, to think it
+should be to you! Ye timmer scoun&rsquo;rel, if I had a male left to my name I
+would have your jaicket dustit till ye raired.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought it not good to delay longer in that place, because I remarked her
+passion to be rising. As I turned to the horse-post she even followed me; and I
+make no shame to confess that I rode away with the one stirrup on and
+scrambling for the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I knew no other quarter where I could push my inquiries, there was nothing
+left me but to return to the Advocate&rsquo;s. I was well received by the four
+ladies, who were now in company together, and must give the news of
+Prestongrange and what word went in the west country, at the most inordinate
+length and with great weariness to myself; while all the time that young lady,
+with whom I so much desired to be alone again, observed me quizzically and
+seemed to find pleasure in the sight of my impatience. At last, after I had
+endured a meal with them, and was come very near the point of appealing for an
+interview before her aunt, she went and stood by the music-case, and picking
+out a tune, sang to it on a high key&mdash;&ldquo;He that will not when he may,
+When he will he shall have nay.&rdquo; But this was the end of her rigours, and
+presently, after making some excuse of which I have no mind, she carried me
+away in private to her father&rsquo;s library. I should not fail to say she was
+dressed to the nines, and appeared extraordinary handsome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Mr. David, sit ye down here and let us have a two-handed
+crack,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;For I have much to tell you, and it appears
+besides that I have been grossly unjust to your good taste.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In what manner, Mistress Grant?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;I trust I have
+never seemed to fail in due respect.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will be your surety, Mr. David,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Your respect,
+whether to yourself or your poor neighbours, has been always and most
+fortunately beyond imitation. But that is by the question. You got a note from
+me?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was so bold as to suppose so upon inference,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and
+it was kindly thought upon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It must have prodigiously surprised you,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;But let
+us begin with the beginning. You have not perhaps forgot a day when you were so
+kind as to escort three very tedious misses to Hope Park? I have the less cause
+to forget it myself, because you was so particular obliging as to introduce me
+to some of the principles of the Latin grammar, a thing which wrote itself
+profoundly on my gratitude.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fear I was sadly pedantical,&rdquo; said I, overcome with confusion at
+the memory. &ldquo;You are only to consider I am quite unused with the society
+of ladies.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will say the less about the grammar then,&rdquo; she replied.
+&ldquo;But how came you to desert your charge? &lsquo;He has thrown her out,
+overboard, his ain dear Annie!&rsquo;&rdquo; she hummed; &ldquo;and his ain
+dear Annie and her two sisters had to taigle home by theirselves like a string
+of green geese! It seems you returned to my papa&rsquo;s, where you showed
+yourself excessively martial, and then on to realms unknown, with an eye (it
+appears) to the Bass Rock; solan geese being perhaps more to your mind than
+bonny lasses.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through all this raillery there was something indulgent in the lady&rsquo;s eye
+which made me suppose there might be better coming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You take a pleasure to torment me,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I make a
+very feckless plaything; but let me ask you to be more merciful. At this time
+there is but the one thing that I care to hear of, and that will be news of
+Catriona.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you call her by that name to her face, Mr. Balfour?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In troth, and I am not very sure,&rdquo; I stammered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would not do so in any case to strangers,&rdquo; said Miss Grant.
+&ldquo;And why are you so much immersed in the affairs of this young
+lady?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard she was in prison,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and now you hear that she is out of it,&rdquo; she replied,
+&ldquo;and what more would you have? She has no need of any further
+champion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I may have the greater need of her, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, this is better!&rdquo; says Miss Grant. &ldquo;But look me fairly
+in the face; am I not bonnier than she?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would be the last to be denying it,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;There is not
+your marrow in all Scotland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, here you have the pick of the two at your hand, and must needs
+speak of the other,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;This is never the way to please the
+ladies, Mr. Balfour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, mistress,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;there are surely other things
+besides mere beauty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By which I am to understand that I am no better than I should be,
+perhaps?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By which you will please understand that I am like the cock in the
+midden in the fable book,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I see the braw jewel&mdash;and
+I like fine to see it too&mdash;but I have more need of the pickle corn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bravissimo!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;There is a word well said at last,
+and I will reward you for it with my story. That same night of your desertion I
+came late from a friend&rsquo;s house&mdash;where I was excessively admired,
+whatever you may think of it&mdash;and what should I hear but that a lass in a
+tartan screen desired to speak with me? She had been there an hour or better,
+said the servant-lass, and she grat in to herself as she sat waiting. I went to
+her direct; she rose as I came in, and I knew her at a look. &lsquo;<i>Grey
+Eyes</i>!&rsquo; says I to myself, but was more wise than to let on. <i>You
+will be Miss Grant at last</i>? she says, rising and looking at me hard and
+pitiful. <i>Ay</i>, <i>it was true he said</i>, <i>you are bonny at all
+events</i>.&mdash;<i>The way God made me</i>, <i>my dear</i>, I said, <i>but I
+would be gey and obliged if you could tell me what brought you here at such a
+time of the night</i>.&mdash;<i>Lady</i>, she said, <i>we are kinsfolk</i>,
+<i>we are both come of the blood of the sons of Alpin</i>.&mdash;<i>My
+dear</i>, I replied, <i>I think no more of Alpin or his sons than what I do of
+a kalestock</i>. <i>You have a better argument in these tears upon your bonny
+face</i>. And at that I was so weak-minded as to kiss her, which is what you
+would like to do dearly, and I wager will never find the courage of. I say it
+was weak-minded of me, for I knew no more of her than the outside; but it was
+the wisest stroke I could have hit upon. She is a very staunch, brave nature,
+but I think she has been little used with tenderness; and at that caress
+(though to say the truth, it was but lightly given) her heart went out to me. I
+will never betray the secrets of my sex, Mr. Davie; I will never tell you the
+way she turned me round her thumb, because it is the same she will use to twist
+yourself. Ay, it is a fine lass! She is as clean as hill well water.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is e&rsquo;en&rsquo;t!&rdquo; I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, she told me her concerns,&rdquo; pursued Miss Grant,
+&ldquo;and in what a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking about
+yourself, with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she had found
+herself after you was gone away. <i>And then I minded at long last</i>, says
+she, <i>that we were kinswomen</i>, <i>and that Mr. David should have given you
+the name of the bonniest of the bonny</i>, <i>and I was thinking to myself</i>
+&lsquo;<i>If she is so bonny she will be good at all events</i>&rsquo;; <i>and
+I took up my foot soles out of that</i>. That was when I forgave yourself, Mr.
+Davie. When you was in my society, you seemed upon hot iron: by all marks, if
+ever I saw a young man that wanted to be gone, it was yourself, and I and my
+two sisters were the ladies you were so desirous to be gone from; and now it
+appeared you had given me some notice in the by-going, and was so kind as to
+comment on my attractions! From that hour you may date our friendship, and I
+began to think with tenderness upon the Latin grammar.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will have many hours to rally me in,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and I
+think besides you do yourself injustice. I think it was Catriona turned your
+heart in my direction. She is too simple to perceive as you do the stiffness of
+her friend.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would not like to wager upon that, Mr. David,&rdquo; said she.
+&ldquo;The lasses have clear eyes. But at least she is your friend entirely, as
+I was to see. I carried her in to his lordship my papa; and his Advocacy being
+in a favourable stage of claret, was so good as to receive the pair of us.
+<i>Here is Grey Eyes that you have been deaved with these days past</i>, said
+I, <i>she is come to prove that we spoke true</i>, <i>and I lay the prettiest
+lass in the three Lothians at your feet</i>&mdash;making a papistical
+reservation of myself. She suited her action to my words: down she went upon
+her knees to him&mdash;I would not like to swear but he saw two of her, which
+doubtless made her appeal the more irresistible, for you are all a pack of
+Mahomedans&mdash;told him what had passed that night, and how she had withheld
+her father&rsquo;s man from following of you, and what a case she was in about
+her father, and what a flutter for yourself; and begged with weeping for the
+lives of both of you (neither of which was in the slightest danger), till I vow
+I was proud of my sex because it was done so pretty, and ashamed for it because
+of the smallness of the occasion. She had not gone far, I assure you, before
+the Advocate was wholly sober, to see his inmost politics ravelled out by a
+young lass and discovered to the most unruly of his daughters. But we took him
+in hand, the pair of us, and brought that matter straight. Properly
+managed&mdash;and that means managed by me&mdash;there is no one to compare
+with my papa.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has been a good man to me,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, he was a good man to Katrine, and I was there to see to it,&rdquo;
+said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she pled for me?&rdquo; say I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She did that, and very movingly,&rdquo; said Miss Grant. &ldquo;I would
+not like to tell you what she said&mdash;I find you vain enough already.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God reward her for it!&rdquo; cried I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With Mr. David Balfour, I suppose?&rdquo; says she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You do me too much injustice at the last!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;I would
+tremble to think of her in such hard hands. Do you think I would presume,
+because she begged my life? She would do that for a new whelped puppy! I have
+had more than that to set me up, if you but ken&rsquo;d. She kissed that hand
+of mine. Ay, but she did. And why? because she thought I was playing a brave
+part and might be going to my death. It was not for my sake&mdash;but I need
+not be telling that to you, that cannot look at me without laughter. It was for
+the love of what she thought was bravery. I believe there is none but me and
+poor Prince Charlie had that honour done them. Was this not to make a god of
+me? and do you not think my heart would quake when I remember it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do laugh at you a good deal, and a good deal more than is quite
+civil,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;but I will tell you one thing: if you speak to
+her like that, you have some glimmerings of a chance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Me?&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;I would never dare. I can speak to you, Miss
+Grant, because it&rsquo;s a matter of indifference what ye think of me. But
+her? no fear!&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you have the largest feet in all broad Scotland,&rdquo; says
+she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Troth they are no very small,&rdquo; said I, looking down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, poor Catriona!&rdquo; cries Miss Grant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And I could but stare upon her; for though I now see very well what she was
+driving at (and perhaps some justification for the same), I was never swift at
+the uptake in such flimsy talk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah well, Mr. David,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it goes sore against my
+conscience, but I see I shall have to be your speaking board. She shall know
+you came to her straight upon the news of her imprisonment; she shall know you
+would not pause to eat; and of our conversation she shall hear just so much as
+I think convenient for a maid of her age and inexperience. Believe me, you will
+be in that way much better served than you could serve yourself, for I will
+keep the big feet out of the platter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know where she is, then?&rdquo; I exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I do, Mr. David, and will never tell,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why that?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am a good friend, as you will soon
+discover; and the chief of those that I am friend to is my papa. I assure you,
+you will never heat nor melt me out of that, so you may spare me your
+sheep&rsquo;s eyes; and adieu to your David-Balfourship for the now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But there is yet one thing more,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;There is one
+thing that must be stopped, being mere ruin to herself, and to me too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;be brief; I have spent half the day on you
+already.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My Lady Allardyce believes,&rdquo; I began&mdash;&ldquo;she
+supposes&mdash;she thinks that I abducted her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The colour came into Miss Grant&rsquo;s face, so that at first I was quite
+abashed to find her ear so delicate, till I bethought me she was struggling
+rather with mirth, a notion in which I was altogether confirmed by the shaking
+of her voice as she replied&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will take up the defence of your reputation,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;You may leave it in my hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And with that she withdrew out of the library.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br />
+I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY</h2>
+
+<p>
+For about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange&rsquo;s
+family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar, and the
+flower of Edinburgh company. You are not to suppose my education was neglected;
+on the contrary, I was kept extremely busy. I studied the French, so as to be
+more prepared to go to Leyden; I set myself to the fencing, and wrought hard,
+sometimes three hours in the day, with notable advancement; at the suggestion
+of my cousin, Pilrig, who was an apt musician, I was put to a singing class;
+and by the orders of my Miss Grant, to one for the dancing, at which I must say
+I proved far from ornamental. However, all were good enough to say it gave me
+an address a little more genteel; and there is no question but I learned to
+manage my coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and to stand in a room as
+though the same belonged to me. My clothes themselves were all earnestly
+re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance, such as where I should tie my
+hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated among the three misses like a thing
+of weight. One way with another, no doubt I was a good deal improved to look
+at, and acquired a bit of modest air that would have surprised the good folks
+at Essendean.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my habiliment,
+because that was in the line of their chief thoughts. I cannot say that they
+appeared any other way conscious of my presence; and though always more than
+civil, with a kind of heartless cordiality, could not hide how much I wearied
+them. As for the aunt, she was a wonderful still woman; and I think she gave me
+much the same attention as she gave the rest of the family, which was little
+enough. The eldest daughter and the Advocate himself were thus my principal
+friends, and our familiarity was much increased by a pleasure that we took in
+common. Before the court met we spent a day or two at the house of Grange,
+living very nobly with an open table, and here it was that we three began to
+ride out together in the fields, a practice afterwards maintained in Edinburgh,
+so far as the Advocate&rsquo;s continual affairs permitted. When we were put in
+a good frame by the briskness of the exercise, the difficulties of the way, or
+the accidents of bad weather, my shyness wore entirely off; we forgot that we
+were strangers, and speech not being required, it flowed the more naturally on.
+Then it was that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the time that I
+left Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the <i>Covenant</i>, wanderings in
+the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found in my adventures sprung the
+circumstance of a jaunt we made a little later on, on a day when the courts
+were not sitting, and of which I will tell a trifle more at length.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where it stood
+smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet early in the day.
+Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his horse, an proceeded alone to
+visit my uncle. My heart, I remember, swelled up bitter within me at the sight
+of that bare house and the thought of the old miser sitting chittering within
+in the cold kitchen!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is my home,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and my family.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor David Balfour!&rdquo; said Miss Grant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would doubtless not be
+very agreeable to Ebenezer, for when the Advocate came forth again his face was
+dark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr. Davie,&rdquo; says he,
+turning half about with the one foot in the stirrup.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will never pretend sorrow,&rdquo; said I; and, to say the truth,
+during his absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place in fancy
+with plantations, parterres, and a terrace&mdash;much as I have since carried
+out in fact.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thence we pushed to the Queensferry, where Rankeillor gave us a good welcome,
+being indeed out of the body to receive so great a visitor. Here the Advocate
+was so unaffectedly good as to go quite fully over my affairs, sitting perhaps
+two hours with the Writer in his study, and expressing (I was told) a great
+esteem for myself and concern for my fortunes. To while this time, Miss Grant
+and I and young Rankeillor took boat and passed the Hope to Limekilns.
+Rankeillor made himself very ridiculous (and, I thought, offensive) with his
+admiration for the young lady, and to my wonder (only it is so common a
+weakness of her sex) she seemed, if anything, to be a little gratified. One use
+it had: for when we were come to the other side, she laid her commands on him
+to mind the boat, while she and I passed a little further to the alehouse. This
+was her own thought, for she had been taken with my account of Alison Hastie,
+and desired to see the lass herself. We found her once more alone&mdash;indeed,
+I believe her father wrought all day in the fields&mdash;and she curtsied
+dutifully to the gentry-folk and the beautiful young lady in the riding-coat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this all the welcome I am to get?&rdquo; said I, holding out my hand.
+&ldquo;And have you no more memory of old friends?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep me! wha&rsquo;s this of it?&rdquo; she cried, and then,
+&ldquo;God&rsquo;s truth, it&rsquo;s the tautit <a name="citation19"></a><a
+href="#footnote19"><sup>[19]</sup></a> laddie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The very same,&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mony&rsquo;s the time I&rsquo;ve thocht upon you and your freen, and
+blythe am I to see in your braws,&rdquo; <a name="citation20"></a><a
+href="#footnote20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> she cried. &ldquo;Though I kent ye were
+come to your ain folk by the grand present that ye sent me and that I thank ye
+for with a&rsquo; my heart.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There,&rdquo; said Miss Grant to me, &ldquo;run out by with ye, like a
+guid bairn. I didnae come here to stand and haud a candle; it&rsquo;s her and
+me that are to crack.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I suppose she stayed ten minutes in the house, but when she came forth I
+observed two things&mdash;that her eyes were reddened, and a silver brooch was
+gone out of her bosom. This very much affected me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never saw you so well adorned,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O Davie man, dinna be a pompous gowk!&rdquo; said she, and was more than
+usually sharp to me the remainder of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About candlelight we came home from this excursion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a good while I heard nothing further of Catriona&mdash;my Miss Grant
+remaining quite impenetrable, and stopping my mouth with pleasantries. At last,
+one day that she returned from walking and found me alone in the parlour over
+my French, I thought there was something unusual in her looks; the colour
+heightened, the eyes sparkling high, and a bit of a smile continually bitten in
+as she regarded me. She seemed indeed like the very spirit of mischief, and,
+walking briskly in the room, had soon involved me in a kind of quarrel over
+nothing and (at the least) with nothing intended on my side. I was like
+Christian in the slough&mdash;the more I tried to clamber out upon the side,
+the deeper I became involved; until at last I heard her declare, with a great
+deal of passion, that she would take that answer from the hands of none, and I
+must down upon my knees for pardon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The causelessness of all this fuff stirred my own bile. &ldquo;I have said
+nothing you can properly object to,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and as for my knees,
+that is an attitude I keep for God.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And as a goddess I am to be served!&rdquo; she cried, shaking her brown
+locks at me and with a bright colour. &ldquo;Every man that comes within waft
+of my petticoats shall use me so!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will go so far as ask your pardon for the fashion&rsquo;s sake,
+although I vow I know not why,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;But for these
+play-acting postures, you can go to others.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O Davie!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Not if I was to beg you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I bethought me I was fighting with a woman, which is the same as to say a
+child, and that upon a point entirely formal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think it a bairnly thing,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;not worthy in you to
+ask, or me to render. Yet I will not refuse you, neither,&rdquo; said I;
+&ldquo;and the stain, if there be any, rests with yourself.&rdquo; And at that
+I kneeled fairly down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;There is the proper station, there is
+where I have been manoeuvring to bring you.&rdquo; And then, suddenly,
+&ldquo;Kep,&rdquo; <a name="citation21"></a><a
+href="#footnote21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> said she, flung me a folded billet, and
+ran from the apartment laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The billet had neither place nor date. &ldquo;Dear Mr. David,&rdquo; it began,
+&ldquo;I get your news continually by my cousin, Miss Grant, and it is a
+pleisand hearing. I am very well, in a good place, among good folk, but
+necessitated to be quite private, though I am hoping that at long last we may
+meet again. All your friendships have been told me by my loving cousin, who
+loves us both. She bids me to send you this writing, and oversees the same. I
+will be asking you to do all her commands, and rest your affectionate friend,
+Catriona Macgregor-Drummond. P.S.&mdash;Will you not see my cousin,
+Allardyce?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I think it not the least brave of my campaigns (as the soldiers say) that I
+should have done as I was here bidden and gone forthright to the house by Dean.
+But the old lady was now entirely changed and supple as a glove. By what means
+Miss Grant had brought this round I could never guess; I am sure, at least, she
+dared not to appear openly in the affair, for her papa was compromised in it
+pretty deep. It was he, indeed, who had persuaded Catriona to leave, or rather,
+not to return, to her cousin&rsquo;s, placing her instead with a family of
+Gregorys&mdash;decent people, quite at the Advocate&rsquo;s disposition, and in
+whom she might have the more confidence because they were of his own clan and
+family. These kept her private till all was ripe, heated and helped her to
+attempt her father&rsquo;s rescue, and after she was discharged from prison
+received her again into the same secrecy. Thus Prestongrange obtained and used
+his instrument; nor did there leak out the smallest word of his acquaintance
+with the daughter of James More. There was some whispering, of course, upon the
+escape of that discredited person; but the Government replied by a show of
+rigour, one of the cell porters was flogged, the lieutenant of the guard (my
+poor friend, Duncansby) was broken of his rank, and as for Catriona, all men
+were well enough pleased that her fault should be passed by in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could never induce Miss Grant to carry back an answer. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she
+would say, when I persisted, &ldquo;I am going to keep the big feet out of the
+platter.&rdquo; This was the more hard to bear, as I was aware she saw my
+little friend many times in the week, and carried her my news whenever (as she
+said) I &ldquo;had behaved myself.&rdquo; At last she treated me to what she
+called an indulgence, and I thought rather more of a banter. She was certainly
+a strong, almost a violent, friend to all she liked, chief among whom was a
+certain frail old gentlewoman, very blind and very witty, who dwelt on the top
+of a tall land on a strait close, with a nest of linnets in a cage, and
+thronged all day with visitors. Miss Grant was very fond to carry me there and
+put me to entertain her friend with the narrative of my misfortunes: and Miss
+Tibbie Ramsay (that was her name) was particular kind, and told me a great deal
+that was worth knowledge of old folks and past affairs in Scotland. I should
+say that from her chamber window, and not three feet away, such is the
+straitness of that close, it was possible to look into a barred loophole
+lighting the stairway of the opposite house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, upon some pretext, Miss Grant left me one day alone with Miss Ramsay. I
+mind I thought that lady inattentive and like one preoccupied. I was besides
+very uncomfortable, for the window, contrary to custom, was left open and the
+day was cold. All at once the voice of Miss Grant sounded in my ears as from a
+distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, Shaws!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;keek out of the window and see
+what I have broughten you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I think it was the prettiest sight that ever I beheld. The well of the close
+was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly, the walls very black
+and dingy; and there from the barred loophole I saw two faces smiling across at
+me&mdash;Miss Grant&rsquo;s and Catriona&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; says Miss Grant, &ldquo;I wanted her to see you in your
+braws like the lass of Limekilns. I wanted her to see what I could make of you,
+when I buckled to the job in earnest!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It came in my mind that she had been more than common particular that day upon
+my dress; and I think that some of the same care had been bestowed upon
+Catriona. For so merry and sensible a lady, Miss Grant was certainly wonderful
+taken up with duds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona!&rdquo; was all I could get out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for her, she said nothing in the world, but only waved her hand and smiled
+to me, and was suddenly carried away again from before the loophole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That vision was no sooner lost than I ran to the house door, where I found I
+was locked in; thence back to Miss Ramsay, crying for the key, but might as
+well have cried upon the castle rock. She had passed her word, she said, and I
+must be a good lad. It was impossible to burst the door, even if it had been
+mannerly; it was impossible I should leap from the window, being seven storeys
+above ground. All I could do was to crane over the close and watch for their
+reappearance from the stair. It was little to see, being no more than the tops
+of their two heads each on a ridiculous bobbin of skirts, like to a pair of
+pincushions. Nor did Catriona so much as look up for a farewell; being
+prevented (as I heard afterwards) by Miss Grant, who told her folk were never
+seen to less advantage than from above downward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the way home, as soon as I was set free, I upbraided Miss Grant with her
+cruelty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sorry you was disappointed,&rdquo; says she demurely. &ldquo;For my
+part I was very pleased. You looked better than I dreaded; you looked&mdash;if
+it will not make you vain&mdash;a mighty pretty young man when you appeared in
+the window. You are to remember that she could not see your feet,&rdquo; says
+she, with the manner of one reassuring me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O!&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;leave my feet be&mdash;they are no bigger than
+my neighbours&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are even smaller than some,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;but I speak in
+parables like a Hebrew prophet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I marvel little they were sometimes stoned!&rdquo; says I. &ldquo;But,
+you miserable girl, how could you do it? Why should you care to tantalise me
+with a moment?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Love is like folk,&rdquo; says she; &ldquo;it needs some kind of
+vivers.&rdquo; <a name="citation22"></a><a href="#footnote22"><sup>[22]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Barbara, let me see her properly!&rdquo; I pleaded.
+&ldquo;<i>You</i> can&mdash;you see her when you please; let me have half an
+hour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is it that is managing this love affair! You! Or me?&rdquo; she
+asked, and as I continued to press her with my instances, fell back upon a
+deadly expedient: that of imitating the tones of my voice when I called on
+Catriona by name; with which, indeed, she held me in subjection for some days
+to follow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was never the least word heard of the memorial, or none by me.
+Prestongrange and his grace the Lord President may have heard of it (for what I
+know) on the deafest sides of their heads; they kept it to themselves, at
+least&mdash;the public was none the wiser; and in course of time, on November
+8th, and in the midst of a prodigious storm of wind and rain, poor James of the
+Glens was duly hanged at Lettermore by Ballachulish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So there was the final upshot of my politics! Innocent men have perished before
+James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite of all our wisdom) till the
+end of time. And till the end of time young folk (who are not yet used with the
+duplicity of life and men) will struggle as I did, and make heroical resolves,
+and take long risks; and the course of events will push them upon the one side
+and go on like a marching army. James was hanged; and here was I dwelling in
+the house of Prestongrange, and grateful to him for his fatherly attention. He
+was hanged; and behold! when I met Mr. Simon in the causeway, I was fain to
+pull off my beaver to him like a good little boy before his dominie. He had
+been hanged by fraud and violence, and the world wagged along, and there was
+not a pennyweight of difference; and the villains of that horrid plot were
+decent, kind, respectable fathers of families, who went to kirk and took the
+sacrament!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I had had my view of that detestable business they call politics&mdash;I
+had seen it from behind, when it is all bones and blackness; and I was cured
+for life of any temptations to take part in it again. A plain, quiet, private
+path was that which I was ambitious to walk in, when I might keep my head out
+of the way of dangers and my conscience out of the road of temptation. For,
+upon a retrospect, it appeared I had not done so grandly, after all; but with
+the greatest possible amount of big speech and preparation, had accomplished
+nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The 25th of the same month a ship was advertised to sail from Leith; and I was
+suddenly recommended to make up my mails for Leyden. To Prestongrange I could,
+of course, say nothing; for I had already been a long while sorning on his
+house and table. But with his daughter I was more open, bewailing my fate that
+I should be sent out of the country, and assuring her, unless she should bring
+me to farewell with Catriona, I would refuse at the last hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I not given you my advice?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know you have,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I know how much I am beholden
+to you already, and that I am bidden to obey your orders. But you must confess
+you are something too merry a lass at times to lippen <a
+name="citation23"></a><a href="#footnote23"><sup>[23]</sup></a> to
+entirely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will tell you, then,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Be you on board by nine
+o&rsquo;clock forenoon; the ship does not sail before one; keep your boat
+alongside; and if you are not pleased with my farewells when I shall send them,
+you can come ashore again and seek Katrine for yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since I could make no more of her, I was fain to be content with this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The day came round at last when she and I were to separate. We had been
+extremely intimate and familiar; I was much in her debt; and what way we were
+to part was a thing that put me from my sleep, like the vails I was to give to
+the domestic servants. I knew she considered me too backward, and rather
+desired to rise in her opinion on that head. Besides which, after so much
+affection shown and (I believe) felt upon both sides, it would have looked
+cold-like to be anyways stiff. Accordingly, I got my courage up and my words
+ready, and the last chance we were like to be alone, asked pretty boldly to be
+allowed to salute her in farewell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You forget yourself strangely, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I
+cannot call to mind that I have given you any right to presume on our
+acquaintancy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stood before her like a stopped clock, and knew not what to think, far less
+to say, when of a sudden she cast her arms about my neck and kissed me with the
+best will in the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You inimitable bairn!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Did you think that I
+would let us part like strangers? Because I can never keep my gravity at you
+five minutes on end, you must not dream I do not love you very well: I am all
+love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you! And now I will give you an
+advice to conclude your education, which you will have need of before
+it&rsquo;s very long. Never <i>ask</i> womenfolk. They&rsquo;re bound to answer
+&lsquo;No&rsquo;; God never made the lass that could resist the temptation.
+It&rsquo;s supposed by divines to be the curse of Eve: because she did not say
+it when the devil offered her the apple, her daughters can say nothing
+else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Since I am so soon to lose my bonny professor,&rdquo; I began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is gallant, indeed,&rdquo; says she curtseying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would put the one question,&rdquo; I went on. &ldquo;May I ask a lass
+to marry to me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You think you could not marry her without!&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Or
+else get her to offer?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see you cannot be serious,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall be very serious in one thing, David,&rdquo; said she: &ldquo;I
+shall always be your friend.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I got to my horse the next morning, the four ladies were all at that same
+window whence we had once looked down on Catriona, and all cried farewell and
+waved their pocket napkins as I rode away. One out of the four I knew was truly
+sorry; and at the thought of that, and how I had come to the door three months
+ago for the first time, sorrow and gratitude made a confusion in my mind.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="part02"></a>PART II.<br />
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br />
+THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND</h2>
+
+<p>
+The ship lay at a single anchor, well outside the pier of Leith, so that all we
+passengers must come to it by the means of skiffs. This was very little
+troublesome, for the reason that the day was a flat calm, very frosty and
+cloudy, and with a low shifting fog upon the water. The body of the vessel was
+thus quite hid as I drew near, but the tall spars of her stood high and bright
+in a sunshine like the flickering of a fire. She proved to be a very roomy,
+commodious merchant, but somewhat blunt in the bows, and loaden extraordinary
+deep with salt, salted salmon, and fine white linen stockings for the Dutch.
+Upon my coming on board, the captain welcomed me&mdash;one Sang (out of
+Lesmahago, I believe), a very hearty, friendly tarpaulin of a man, but at the
+moment in rather of a bustle. There had no other of the passengers yet
+appeared, so that I was left to walk about upon the deck, viewing the prospect
+and wondering a good deal what these farewells should be which I was promised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All Edinburgh and the Pentland Hills glinted above me in a kind of smuisty
+brightness, now and again overcome with blots of cloud; of Leith there was no
+more than the tops of chimneys visible, and on the face of the water, where the
+haar <a name="citation24"></a><a href="#footnote24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> lay,
+nothing at all. Out of this I was presently aware of a sound of oars pulling,
+and a little after (as if out of the smoke of a fire) a boat issued. There sat
+a grave man in the stern sheets, well muffled from the cold, and by his side a
+tall, pretty, tender figure of a maid that brought my heart to a stand. I had
+scarce the time to catch my breath in, and be ready to meet her, as she stepped
+upon the deck, smiling, and making my best bow, which was now vastly finer than
+some months before, when first I made it to her ladyship. No doubt we were both
+a good deal changed: she seemed to have shot up like a young, comely tree. She
+had now a kind of pretty backwardness that became her well as of one that
+regarded herself more highly and was fairly woman; and for another thing, the
+hand of the same magician had been at work upon the pair of us, and Miss Grant
+had made us both <i>braw</i>, if she could make but the one <i>bonny</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The same cry, in words not very different, came from both of us, that the other
+was come in compliment to say farewell, and then we perceived in a flash we
+were to ship together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, why will not Baby have been telling me!&rdquo; she cried; and then
+remembered a letter she had been given, on the condition of not opening it till
+she was well on board. Within was an enclosure for myself, and ran thus:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Dear Davie</span>,&mdash;What do you think of my
+farewell? and what do you say to your fellow passenger? Did you kiss, or did
+you ask? I was about to have signed here, but that would leave the purport of
+my question doubtful, and in my own case <i>I ken the answer</i>. So fill up
+here with good advice. Do not be too blate, <a name="citation25"></a><a
+href="#footnote25"><sup>[25]</sup></a> and for God&rsquo;s sake do not try to
+be too forward; nothing acts you worse. I am
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+&ldquo;Your affectionate friend and governess,<br />
+&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Barbara Grant</span>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my pocketbook, put it
+in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed the whole with my new signet of
+the Balfour arms, and despatched it by the hand of Prestongrange&rsquo;s
+servant that still waited in my boat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure, which we had not done
+for a piece of a minute before (upon a common impulse) we shook hands again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona?&rdquo; said I. It seemed that was the first and last word of
+my eloquence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will be glad to see me again?&rdquo; says she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I think that is an idle word,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;We are too deep
+friends to make speech upon such trifles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is she not the girl of all the world?&rdquo; she cried again. &ldquo;I
+was never knowing such a girl so honest and so beautiful.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet she cared no more for Alpin than what she did for a
+kale-stock,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, she will say so indeed!&rdquo; cries Catriona. &ldquo;Yet it was for
+the name and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and was so good to
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I will tell you why it was,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;There are all
+sorts of people&rsquo;s faces in this world. There is Barbara&rsquo;s face,
+that everyone must look at and admire, and think her a fine, brave, merry girl.
+And then there is your face, which is quite different&mdash;I never knew how
+different till to-day. You cannot see yourself, and that is why you do not
+understand; but it was for the love of your face that she took you up and was
+so good to you. And everybody in the world would do the same.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Everybody?&rdquo; says she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every living soul!&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, then, that will be why the soldiers at the castle took me up!&rdquo;
+she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Barbara has been teaching you to catch me,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She will have taught me more than that at all events. She will have
+taught me a great deal about Mr. David&mdash;all the ill of him, and a little
+that was not so ill either, now and then,&rdquo; she said, smiling. &ldquo;She
+will have told me all there was of Mr. David, only just that he would sail upon
+this very same ship. And why it is you go?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;we will be some days in company and
+then (I suppose) good-bye for altogether! I go to meet my father at a place of
+the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be exiles by the side of
+our chieftain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could say no more than just &ldquo;O!&rdquo; the name of James More always
+drying up my very voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David,&rdquo; said
+she. &ldquo;I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you altogether very
+well. And the one of them two is James More, my father, and the other is the
+Laird of Prestongrange. Prestongrange will have spoken by himself, or his
+daughter in the place of him. But for James More, my father, I have this much
+to say: he lay shackled in a prison; he is a plain honest soldier and a plain
+Highland gentleman; what they would be after he would never be guessing; but if
+he had understood it was to be some prejudice to a young gentleman like
+yourself, he would have died first. And for the sake of all your friendships, I
+will be asking you to pardon my father and family for that same mistake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what that mistake was I do not care to
+know. I know but the one thing&mdash;that you went to Prestongrange and begged
+my life upon your knees. O, I ken well enough it was for your father that you
+went, but when you were there you pleaded for me also. It is a thing I cannot
+speak of. There are two things I cannot think of into myself: and the one is
+your good words when you called yourself my little friend, and the other that
+you pleaded for my life. Let us never speak more, we two, of pardon or
+offence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on her; and
+before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up in the
+nor&rsquo;-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in upon the
+anchor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it a full
+cabin. Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkcaldy, and Dundee, all
+engaged in the same adventure into High Germany. One was a Hollander returning;
+the rest worthy merchants&rsquo; wives, to the charge of one of whom Catriona
+was recommended. Mrs. Gebbie (for that was her name) was by great good fortune
+heavily incommoded by the sea, and lay day and night on the broad of her back.
+We were besides the only creatures at all young on board the <i>Rose</i>,
+except a white-faced boy that did my old duty to attend upon the table; and it
+came about that Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves. We had
+the next seats together at the table, where I waited on her with extraordinary
+pleasure. On deck, I made her a soft place with my cloak; and the weather being
+singularly fine for that season, with bright frosty days and nights, a steady,
+gentle wind, and scarce a sheet started all the way through the North Sea, we
+sat there (only now and again walking to and fro for warmth) from the first
+blink of the sun till eight or nine at night under the clear stars. The
+merchants or Captain Sang would sometimes glance and smile upon us, or pass a
+merry word or two and give us the go-by again; but the most part of the time
+they were deep in herring and chintzes and linen, or in computations of the
+slowness of the passage, and left us to our own concerns, which were very
+little important to any but ourselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the first, we had a great deal to say, and thought ourselves pretty witty;
+and I was at a little pains to be the <i>beau</i>, and she (I believe) to play
+the young lady of experience. But soon we grew plainer with each other. I laid
+aside my high, clipped English (what little there was left of it) and forgot to
+make my Edinburgh bows and scrapes; she, upon her side, fell into a sort of
+kind familiarity; and we dwelt together like those of the same household, only
+(upon my side) with a more deep emotion. About the same time the bottom seemed
+to fall out of our conversation, and neither one of us the less pleased. Whiles
+she would tell me old wives&rsquo; tales, of which she had a wonderful variety,
+many of them from my friend red-headed Niel. She told them very pretty, and
+they were pretty enough childish tales; but the pleasure to myself was in the
+sound of her voice, and the thought that she was telling and I listening.
+Whiles, again, we would sit entirely silent, not communicating even with a
+look, and tasting pleasure enough in the sweetness of that neighbourhood. I
+speak here only for myself. Of what was in the maid&rsquo;s mind, I am not very
+sure that ever I asked myself; and what was in my own, I was afraid to
+consider. I need make no secret of it now, either to myself or to the reader; I
+was fallen totally in love. She came between me and the sun. She had grown
+suddenly taller, as I say, but with a wholesome growth; she seemed all health,
+and lightness, and brave spirits; and I thought she walked like a young deer,
+and stood like a birch upon the mountains. It was enough for me to sit near by
+her on the deck; and I declare I scarce spent two thoughts upon the future, and
+was so well content with what I then enjoyed that I was never at the pains to
+imagine any further step; unless perhaps that I would be sometimes tempted to
+take her hand in mine and hold it there. But I was too like a miser of what
+joys I had, and would venture nothing on a hazard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What we spoke was usually of ourselves or of each other, so that if anyone had
+been at so much pains as overhear us, he must have supposed us the most
+egotistical persons in the world. It befell one day when we were at this
+practice, that we came on a discourse of friends and friendship, and I think
+now that we were sailing near the wind. We said what a fine thing friendship
+was, and how little we had guessed of it, and how it made life a new thing, and
+a thousand covered things of the same kind that will have been said, since the
+foundation of the world, by young folk in the same predicament. Then we
+remarked upon the strangeness of that circumstance, that friends came together
+in the beginning as if they were there for the first time, and yet each had
+been alive a good while, losing time with other people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not much that I have done,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;and I could be
+telling you the five-fifths of it in two-three words. It is only a girl I am,
+and what can befall a girl, at all events? But I went with the clan in the year
+&rsquo;45. The men marched with swords and fire-locks, and some of them in
+brigades in the same set of tartan; they were not backward at the marching, I
+can tell you. And there were gentlemen from the Low Country, with their tenants
+mounted and trumpets to sound, and there was a grand skirling of war-pipes. I
+rode on a little Highland horse on the right hand of my father, James More, and
+of Glengyle himself. And here is one fine thing that I remember, that Glengyle
+kissed me in the face, because (says he) &lsquo;my kinswoman, you are the only
+lady of the clan that has come out,&rsquo; and me a little maid of maybe twelve
+years old! I saw Prince Charlie too, and the blue eyes of him; he was pretty
+indeed! I had his hand to kiss in front of the army. O, well, these were the
+good days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and then awakened. It
+went what way you very well know; and these were the worst days of all, when
+the red-coat soldiers were out, and my father and uncles lay in the hill, and I
+was to be carrying them their meat in the middle night, or at the short sight
+of day when the cocks crow. Yes, I have walked in the night, many&rsquo;s the
+time, and my heart great in me for terror of the darkness. It is a strange
+thing I will never have been meddled with by a bogle; but they say a maid goes
+safe. Next there was my uncle&rsquo;s marriage, and that was a dreadful affair
+beyond all. Jean Kay was that woman&rsquo;s name; and she had me in the room
+with her that night at Inversnaid, the night we took her from her friends in
+the old, ancient manner. She would and she wouldn&rsquo;t; she was for marrying
+Rob the one minute, and the next she would be for none of him. I will never
+have seen such a feckless creature of a woman; surely all there was of her
+would tell her ay or no. Well, she was a widow; and I can never be thinking a
+widow a good woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona!&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;how do you make out that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not know,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;I am only telling you the seeming
+in my heart. And then to marry a new man! Fy! But that was her; and she was
+married again upon my Uncle Robin, and went with him awhile to kirk and market;
+and then wearied, or else her friends got claught of her and talked her round,
+or maybe she turned ashamed; at the least of it, she ran away, and went back to
+her own folk, and said we had held her in the lake, and I will never tell you
+all what. I have never thought much of any females since that day. And so in
+the end my father, James More, came to be cast in prison, and you know the rest
+of it an well as me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And through all you had no friends?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;I have been pretty chief with two-three
+lasses on the braes, but not to call it friends.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, mine is a plain tale,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I never had a friend
+to my name till I met in with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that brave Mr. Stewart?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, yes, I was forgetting him,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;But he is a man, and
+that is very different.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would think so,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;O, yes, it is quite
+different.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then there was one other,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I once thought I had
+a friend, but it proved a disappointment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She asked me who she was?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was a he, then,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;We were the two best lads at my
+father&rsquo;s school, and we thought we loved each other dearly. Well, the
+time came when he went to Glasgow to a merchant&rsquo;s house, that was his
+second cousin once removed; and wrote me two-three times by the carrier; and
+then he found new friends, and I might write till I was tired, he took no
+notice. Eh, Catriona, it took me a long while to forgive the world. There is
+not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she began to question me close upon his looks and character, for we were
+each a great deal concerned in all that touched the other; till at last, in a
+very evil hour, I minded of his letters and went and fetched the bundle from
+the cabin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here are his letters,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and all the letters that
+ever I got. That will be the last I&rsquo;ll can tell of myself; ye know the
+lave <a name="citation26"></a><a href="#footnote26"><sup>[26]</sup></a> as well
+as I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you let me read them, then?&rdquo; says she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told her, <i>if she would be at the pains</i>; and she bade me go away and
+she would read them from the one end to the other. Now, in this bundle that I
+gave her, there were packed together not only all the letters of my false
+friend, but one or two of Mr. Campbell&rsquo;s when he was in town at the
+Assembly, and to make a complete roll of all that ever was written to me,
+Catriona&rsquo;s little word, and the two I had received from Miss Grant, one
+when I was on the Bass and one on board that ship. But of these last I had no
+particular mind at the moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was in that state of subjection to the thought of my friend that it mattered
+not what I did, nor scarce whether I was in her presence or out of it; I had
+caught her like some kind of a noble fever that lived continually in my bosom,
+by night and by day, and whether I was waking or asleep. So it befell that
+after I was come into the fore-part of the ship where the broad bows splashed
+into the billows, I was in no such hurry to return as you might fancy; rather
+prolonged my absence like a variety in pleasure. I do not think I am by nature
+much of an Epicurean: and there had come till then so small a share of pleasure
+in my way that I might be excused perhaps to dwell on it unduly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I returned to her again, I had a faint, painful impression as of a buckle
+slipped, so coldly she returned the packet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have read them?&rdquo; said I; and I thought my voice sounded not
+wholly natural, for I was turning in my mind for what could ail her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you mean me to read all?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told her &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; with a drooping voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The last of them as well?&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I knew where we were now; yet I would not lie to her either. &ldquo;I gave them
+all without afterthought,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;as I supposed that you would
+read them. I see no harm in any.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will be differently made,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I thank God I am
+differently made. It was not a fit letter to be shown me. It was not fit to be
+written.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you are speaking of your own friend, Barbara Grant?&rdquo; said
+I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There will not be anything as bitter as to lose a fancied friend,&rdquo;
+said she, quoting my own expression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied!&rdquo; I cried.
+&ldquo;What kind of justice do you call this, to blame me for some words that a
+tomfool of a madcap lass has written down upon a piece of paper? You know
+yourself with what respect I have behaved&mdash;and would do always.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yet you would show me that same letter!&rdquo; says she. &ldquo;I want
+no such friends. I can be doing very well, Mr. Balfour, without her&mdash;or
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is your fine gratitude!&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am very much obliged to you,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I will be asking
+you to take away your&mdash;letters.&rdquo; She seemed to choke upon the word,
+so that it sounded like an oath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall never ask twice,&rdquo; said I; picked up that bundle, walked
+a little way forward and cast them as far as possible into the sea. For a very
+little more I could have cast myself after them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rest of the day I walked up and down raging. There were few names so ill
+but what I gave her them in my own mind before the sun went down. All that I
+had ever heard of Highland pride seemed quite outdone; that a girl (scarce
+grown) should resent so trifling an allusion, and that from her next friend,
+that she had near wearied me with praising of! I had bitter, sharp, hard
+thoughts of her, like an angry boy&rsquo;s. If I had kissed her indeed (I
+thought), perhaps she would have taken it pretty well; and only because it had
+been written down, and with a spice of jocularity, up she must fuff in this
+ridiculous passion. It seemed to me there was a want of penetration in the
+female sex, to make angels weep over the case of the poor men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were side by side again at supper, and what a change was there! She was like
+curdled milk to me; her face was like a wooden doll&rsquo;s; I could have
+indifferently smitten her or grovelled at her feet, but she gave me not the
+least occasion to do either. No sooner the meal done than she betook herself to
+attend on Mrs. Gebbie, which I think she had a little neglected heretofore. But
+she was to make up for lost time, and in what remained of the passage was
+extraordinary assiduous with the old lady, and on deck began to make a great
+deal more than I thought wise of Captain Sang. Not but what the Captain seemed
+a worthy, fatherly man; but I hated to behold her in the least familiarity with
+anyone except myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Altogether, she was so quick to avoid me, and so constant to keep herself
+surrounded with others, that I must watch a long while before I could find my
+opportunity; and after it was found, I made not much of it, as you are now to
+hear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no guess how I have offended,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;it should
+scarce be beyond pardon, then. O, try if you can pardon me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have no pardon to give,&rdquo; said she; and the words seemed to come
+out of her throat like marbles. &ldquo;I will be very much obliged for all your
+friendships.&rdquo; And she made me an eighth part of a curtsey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I had schooled myself beforehand to say more, and I was going to say it
+too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is one thing,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;If I have shocked your
+particularity by the showing of that letter, it cannot touch Miss Grant. She
+wrote not to you, but to a poor, common, ordinary lad, who might have had more
+sense than show it. If you are to blame me&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will advise you to say no more about that girl, at all events!&rdquo;
+said Catriona. &ldquo;It is her I will never look the road of, not if she lay
+dying.&rdquo; She turned away from me, and suddenly back. &ldquo;Will you swear
+you will have no more to deal with her?&rdquo; she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, and I will never be so unjust then,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;nor
+yet so ungrateful.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now it was I that turned away.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br />
+HELVOETSLUYS</h2>
+
+<p>
+The weather in the end considerably worsened; the wind sang in the shrouds, the
+sea swelled higher, and the ship began to labour and cry out among the billows.
+The song of the leadsman in the chains was now scarce ceasing, for we thrid all
+the way among shoals. About nine in the morning, in a burst of wintry sun
+between two squalls of hail, I had my first look of Holland&mdash;a line of
+windmills birling in the breeze. It was besides my first knowledge of these
+daft-like contrivances, which gave me a near sense of foreign travel and a new
+world and life. We came to an anchor about half-past eleven, outside the
+harbour of Helvoetsluys, in a place where the sea sometimes broke and the ship
+pitched outrageously. You may be sure we were all on deck save Mrs. Gebbie,
+some of us in cloaks, others mantled in the ship&rsquo;s tarpaulins, all
+clinging on by ropes, and jesting the most like old sailor-folk that we could
+imitate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently a boat, that was backed like a partancrab, came gingerly alongside,
+and the skipper of it hailed our master in the Dutch. Thence Captain Sang
+turned, very troubled-like, to Catriona; and the rest of us crowding about, the
+nature of the difficulty was made plain to all. The <i>Rose</i> was bound to
+the port of Rotterdam, whither the other passengers were in a great impatience
+to arrive, in view of a conveyance due to leave that very evening in the
+direction of the Upper Germany. This, with the present half-gale of wind, the
+captain (if no time were lost) declared himself still capable to save. Now
+James More had trysted in Helvoet with his daughter, and the captain had
+engaged to call before the port and place her (according to the custom) in a
+shore boat. There was the boat, to be sure, and here was Catriona ready: but
+both our master and the patroon of the boat scrupled at the risk, and the first
+was in no humour to delay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your father,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;would be gey an little pleased if we
+was to break a leg to ye, Miss Drummond, let-a-be drowning of you. Take my way
+of it,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and come on-by with the rest of us here to
+Rotterdam. Ye can get a passage down the Maes in a sailing scoot as far as to
+the Brill, and thence on again, by a place in a rattel-waggon, back to
+Helvoet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Catriona would hear of no change. She looked white-like as she beheld the
+bursting of the sprays, the green seas that sometimes poured upon the
+fore-castle, and the perpetual bounding and swooping of the boat among the
+billows; but she stood firmly by her father&rsquo;s orders. &ldquo;My father,
+James More, will have arranged it so,&rdquo; was her first word and her last. I
+thought it very idle and indeed wanton in the girl to be so literal and stand
+opposite to so much kind advice; but the fact is she had a very good reason, if
+she would have told us. Sailing scoots and rattel-waggons are excellent things;
+only the use of them must first be paid for, and all she was possessed of in
+the world was just two shillings and a penny halfpenny sterling. So it fell out
+that captain and passengers, not knowing of her destitution&mdash;and she being
+too proud to tell them&mdash;spoke in vain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you ken nae French and nae Dutch neither,&rdquo; said one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is very true,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;but since the year &rsquo;46
+there are so many of the honest Scotch abroad that I will be doing very well. I
+thank you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a pretty country simplicity in this that made some laugh, others
+looked the more sorry, and Mr. Gebbie fall outright in a passion. I believe he
+knew it was his duty (his wife having accepted charge of the girl) to have gone
+ashore with her and seen her safe: nothing would have induced him to have done
+so, since it must have involved the lose of his conveyance; and I think he made
+it up to his conscience by the loudness of his voice. At least he broke out
+upon Captain Sang, raging and saying the thing was a disgrace; that it was mere
+death to try to leave the ship, and at any event we could not cast down an
+innocent maid in a boatful of nasty Holland fishers, and leave her to her fate.
+I was thinking something of the same; took the mate upon one side, arranged
+with him to send on my chests by track-scoot to an address I had in Leyden, and
+stood up and signalled to the fishers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will go ashore with the young lady, Captain Sang,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;It is all one what way I go to Leyden;&rdquo; and leaped at the same
+time into the boat, which I managed not so elegantly but what I fell with two
+of the fishers in the bilge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the boat the business appeared yet more precarious than from the ship, she
+stood so high over us, swung down so swift, and menaced us so perpetually with
+her plunging and passaging upon the anchor cable. I began to think I had made a
+fool&rsquo;s bargain, that it was merely impossible Catriona should be got on
+board to me, and that I stood to be set ashore at Helvoet all by myself and
+with no hope of any reward but the pleasure of embracing James More, if I
+should want to. But this was to reckon without the lass&rsquo;s courage. She
+had seen me leap with very little appearance (however much reality) of
+hesitation; to be sure, she was not to be beat by her discarded friend. Up she
+stood on the bulwarks and held by a stay, the wind blowing in her petticoats,
+which made the enterprise more dangerous, and gave us rather more of a view of
+her stockings than would be thought genteel in cities. There was no minute
+lost, and scarce time given for any to interfere if they had wished the same. I
+stood up on the other side and spread my arms; the ship swung down on us, the
+patroon humoured his boat nearer in than was perhaps wholly safe, and Catriona
+leaped into the air. I was so happy as to catch her, and the fishers readily
+supporting us, escaped a fall. She held to me a moment very tight, breathing
+quick and deep; thence (she still clinging to me with both hands) we were
+passed aft to our places by the steersman; and Captain Sang and all the crew
+and passengers cheering and crying farewell, the boat was put about for shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as Catriona came a little to herself she unhanded me suddenly, but said
+no word. No more did I; and indeed the whistling of the wind and the breaching
+of the sprays made it no time for speech; and our crew not only toiled
+excessively but made extremely little way, so that the <i>Rose</i> had got her
+anchor and was off again before we had approached the harbour mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were no sooner in smooth water than the patroon, according to their beastly
+Hollands custom, stopped his boat and required of us our fares. Two guilders
+was the man&rsquo;s demand&mdash;between three and four shillings English
+money&mdash;for each passenger. But at this Catriona began to cry out with a
+vast deal of agitation. She had asked of Captain Sang, she said, and the fare
+was but an English shilling. &ldquo;Do you think I will have come on board and
+not ask first?&rdquo; cries she. The patroon scolded back upon her in a lingo
+where the oaths were English and the rest right Hollands; till at last (seeing
+her near tears) I privately slipped in the rogue&rsquo;s hand six shillings,
+whereupon he was obliging enough to receive from her the other shilling without
+more complaint. No doubt I was a good deal nettled and ashamed. I like to see
+folk thrifty, but not with so much passion; and I daresay it would be rather
+coldly that I asked her, as the boat moved on again for shore, where it was
+that she was trysted with her father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is to be inquired of at the house of one Sprott, an honest Scotch
+merchant,&rdquo; says she; and then with the same breath, &ldquo;I am wishing
+to thank you very much&mdash;you are a brave friend to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will be time enough when I get you to your father,&rdquo; said I,
+little thinking that I spoke so true. &ldquo;I can tell him a fine tale of a
+loyal daughter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, I do not think I will be a loyal girl, at all events,&rdquo; she
+cried, with a great deal of painfulness in the expression. &ldquo;I do not
+think my heart is true.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yet there are very few that would have made that leap, and all to obey a
+father&rsquo;s orders,&rdquo; I observed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot have you to be thinking of me so,&rdquo; she cried again.
+&ldquo;When you had done that same, how would I stop behind? And at all events
+that was not all the reasons.&rdquo; Whereupon, with a burning face, she told
+me the plain truth upon her poverty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good guide us!&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;what kind of daft-like proceeding
+is this, to let yourself be launched on the continent of Europe with an empty
+purse&mdash;I count it hardly decent&mdash;scant decent!&rdquo; I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You forget James More, my father, is a poor gentleman,&rdquo; said she.
+&ldquo;He is a hunted exile.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I think not all your friends are hunted exiles,&rdquo; I exclaimed.
+&ldquo;And was this fair to them that care for you? Was it fair to me? was it
+fair to Miss Grant that counselled you to go, and would be driven fair horn-mad
+if she could hear of it? Was it even fair to these Gregory folk that you were
+living with, and used you lovingly? It&rsquo;s a blessing you have fallen in my
+hands! Suppose your father hindered by an accident, what would become of you
+here, and you your lee-lone in a strange place? The thought of the thing
+frightens me,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will have lied to all of them,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;I will have
+told them all that I had plenty. I told <i>her</i> too. I could not be lowering
+James More to them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I found out later on that she must have lowered him in the very dust, for the
+lie was originally the father&rsquo;s, not the daughter&rsquo;s, and she thus
+obliged to persevere in it for the man&rsquo;s reputation. But at the time I
+was ignorant of this, and the mere thought of her destitution and the perils in
+which see must have fallen, had ruffled me almost beyond reason.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you will have to learn more
+sense.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I left her mails for the moment in an inn upon the shore, where I got a
+direction for Sprott&rsquo;s house in my new French, and we walked
+there&mdash;it was some little way&mdash;beholding the place with wonder as we
+went. Indeed, there was much for Scots folk to admire: canals and trees being
+intermingled with the houses; the houses, each within itself, of a brave red
+brick, the colour of a rose, with steps and benches of blue marble at the cheek
+of every door, and the whole town so clean you might have dined upon the
+causeway. Sprott was within, upon his ledgers, in a low parlour, very neat and
+clean, and set out with china and pictures, and a globe of the earth in a brass
+frame. He was a big-chafted, ruddy, lusty man, with a crooked hard look to him;
+and he made us not that much civility as offer us a seat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is James More Macgregor now in Helvoet, sir?&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ken nobody by such a name,&rdquo; says he, impatient-like.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Since you are so particular,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;I will amend my
+question, and ask you where we are to find in Helvoet one James Drummond,
+<i>alias</i> Macgregor, <i>alias</i> James More, late tenant in
+Inveronachile?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;he may be in Hell for what I ken, and for my
+part I wish he was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The young lady is that gentleman&rsquo;s daughter, sir,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;before whom, I think you will agree with me, it is not very becoming to
+discuss his character.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have nothing to make either with him, or her, or you!&rdquo; cries he
+in his gross voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Under your favour, Mr. Sprott,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this young lady is
+come from Scotland seeking him, and by whatever mistake, was given the name of
+your house for a direction. An error it seems to have been, but I think this
+places both you and me&mdash;who am but her fellow-traveller by
+accident&mdash;under a strong obligation to help our countrywoman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you ding me daft?&rdquo; he cries. &ldquo;I tell ye I ken naething
+and care less either for him or his breed. I tell ye the man owes me
+money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That may very well be, sir,&rdquo; said I, who was now rather more angry
+than himself. &ldquo;At least, I owe you nothing; the young lady is under my
+protection; and I am neither at all used with these manners, nor in the least
+content with them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I said this, and without particularly thinking what I did, I drew a step or
+two nearer to his table; thus striking, by mere good fortune, on the only
+argument that could at all affect the man. The blood left his lusty
+countenance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For the Lord&rsquo;s sake dinna be hasty, sir!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I
+am truly wishfu&rsquo; no to be offensive. But ye ken, sir, I&rsquo;m like a
+wheen guid-natured, honest, canty auld fellows&mdash;my bark is waur nor my
+bite. To hear me, ye micht whiles fancy I was a wee thing dour; but na, na!
+it&rsquo;s a kind auld fallow at heart, Sandie Sprott! And ye could never
+imagine the fyke and fash this man has been to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good, sir,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Then I will make that much freedom
+with your kindness as trouble you for your last news of Mr. Drummond.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re welcome, sir!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;As for the young leddy
+(my respects to her!), he&rsquo;ll just have clean forgotten her. I ken the
+man, ye see; I have lost siller by him ere now. He thinks of naebody but just
+himsel&rsquo;; clan, king, or dauchter, if he can get his wameful, he would
+give them a&rsquo; the go-by! ay, or his correspondent either. For there is a
+sense in whilk I may be nearly almost said to be his correspondent. The fact
+is, we are employed thegether in a business affair, and I think it&rsquo;s like
+to turn out a dear affair for Sandie Sprott. The man&rsquo;s as guid&rsquo;s my
+pairtner, and I give ye my mere word I ken naething by where he is. He micht be
+coming here to Helvoet; he micht come here the morn, he michtnae come for a
+twalmouth; I would wonder at naething&mdash;or just at the ae thing, and
+that&rsquo;s if he was to pay me my siller. Ye see what way I stand with it;
+and it&rsquo;s clear I&rsquo;m no very likely to meddle up with the young
+leddy, as ye ca&rsquo; her. She cannae stop here, that&rsquo;s ae thing certain
+sure. Dod, sir, I&rsquo;m a lone man! If I was to tak her in, its highly
+possible the hellicat would try and gar me marry her when he turned up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enough of this talk,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I will take the young leddy
+among better friends. Give me, pen, ink, and paper, and I will leave here for
+James More the address of my correspondent in Leyden. He can inquire from me
+where he is to seek his daughter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This word I wrote and sealed; which while I was doing, Sprott of his own motion
+made a welcome offer, to charge himself with Miss Drummond&rsquo;s mails, and
+even send a porter for them to the inn. I advanced him to that effect a dollar
+or two to be a cover, and he gave me an acknowledgment in writing of the sum.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon (I giving my arm to Catriona) we left the house of this unpalatable
+rascal. She had said no word throughout, leaving me to judge and speak in her
+place; I, upon my side, had been careful not to embarrass her by a glance; and
+even now, although my heart still glowed inside of me with shame and anger, I
+made it my affair to seem quite easy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;let us get back to yon same inn where they
+can speak the French, have a piece of dinner, and inquire for conveyances to
+Rotterdam. I will never be easy till I have you safe again in the hands of Mrs.
+Gebbie.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose it will have to be,&rdquo; said Catriona, &ldquo;though
+whoever will be pleased, I do not think it will be her. And I will remind you
+this once again that I have but one shilling, and three baubees.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And just this once again,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I will remind you it was
+a blessing that I came alongst with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What else would I be thinking all this time?&rdquo; says she, and I
+thought weighed a little on my arm. &ldquo;It is you that are the good friend
+to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br />
+TRAVELS IN HOLLAND</h2>
+
+<p>
+The rattel-waggon, which is a kind of a long waggon set with benches, carried
+us in four hours of travel to the great city of Rotterdam. It was long past
+dark by then, but the streets were pretty brightly lighted and thronged with
+wild-like, outlandish characters&mdash;bearded Hebrews, black men, and the
+hordes of courtesans, most indecently adorned with finery and stopping seamen
+by their very sleeves; the clash of talk about us made our heads to whirl; and
+what was the most unexpected of all, we appeared to be no more struck with all
+these foreigners than they with us. I made the best face I could, for the
+lass&rsquo;s sake and my own credit; but the truth is I felt like a lost sheep,
+and my heart beat in my bosom with anxiety. Once or twice I inquired after the
+harbour or the berth of the ship <i>Rose</i>: but either fell on some who spoke
+only Hollands, or my own French failed me. Trying a street at a venture, I came
+upon a lane of lighted houses, the doors and windows thronged with wauf-like
+painted women; these jostled and mocked upon us as we passed, and I was
+thankful we had nothing of their language. A little after we issued forth upon
+an open place along the harbour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We shall be doing now,&rdquo; cries I, as soon as I spied masts.
+&ldquo;Let us walk here by the harbour. We are sure to meet some that has the
+English, and at the best of it we may light upon that very ship.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We did the next best, as happened; for, about nine of the evening, whom should
+we walk into the arms of but Captain Sang? He told us they had made their run
+in the most incredible brief time, the wind holding strong till they reached
+port; by which means his passengers were all gone already on their further
+travels. It was impossible to chase after the Gebbies into the High Germany,
+and we had no other acquaintance to fall back upon but Captain Sang himself. It
+was the more gratifying to find the man friendly and wishful to assist. He made
+it a small affair to find some good plain family of merchants, where Catriona
+might harbour till the <i>Rose</i> was loaden; declared he would then blithely
+carry her back to Leith for nothing and see her safe in the hands of Mr.
+Gregory; and in the meanwhile carried us to a late ordinary for the meal we
+stood in need of. He seemed extremely friendly, as I say, but what surprised me
+a good deal, rather boisterous in the bargain; and the cause of this was soon
+to appear. For at the ordinary, calling for Rhenish wine and drinking of it
+deep, he soon became unutterably tipsy. In this case, as too common with all
+men, but especially with those of his rough trade, what little sense or manners
+he possessed deserted him; and he behaved himself so scandalous to the young
+lady, jesting most ill-favouredly at the figure she had made on the
+ship&rsquo;s rail, that I had no resource but carry her suddenly away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She came out of the ordinary clinging to me close. &ldquo;Take me away,
+David,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;<i>You</i> keep me. I am not afraid with
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And have no cause, my little friend!&rdquo; cried I, and could have
+found it in my heart to weep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where will you be taking me?&rdquo; she said again. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+leave me at all events&mdash;never leave me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where am I taking you to?&rdquo; says I stopping, for I had been staving
+on ahead in mere blindness. &ldquo;I must stop and think. But I&rsquo;ll not
+leave you, Catriona; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I should fail or
+fash you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She crept close into me by way of a reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;is the stillest place we have hit on yet in
+this busy byke of a city. Let us sit down here under yon tree and consider of
+our course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That tree (which I am little like to forget) stood hard by the harbour side. It
+was like a black night, but lights were in the houses, and nearer hand in the
+quiet ships; there was a shining of the city on the one hand, and a buzz hung
+over it of many thousands walking and talking; on the other, it was dark and
+the water bubbled on the sides. I spread my cloak upon a builder&rsquo;s stone,
+and made her sit there; she would have kept her hold upon me, for she still
+shook with the late affronts; but I wanted to think clear, disengaged myself,
+and paced to and fro before her, in the manner of what we call a
+smuggler&rsquo;s walk, belabouring my brains for any remedy. By the course of
+these scattering thoughts I was brought suddenly face to face with a
+remembrance that, in the heat and haste of our departure, I had left Captain
+Sang to pay the ordinary. At this I began to laugh out loud, for I thought the
+man well served; and at the same time, by an instinctive movement, carried my
+hand to the pocket where my money was. I suppose it was in the lane where the
+women jostled us; but there is only the one thing certain, that my purse was
+gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will have thought of something good,&rdquo; said she, observing me
+to pause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the pinch we were in, my mind became suddenly clear as a perspective glass,
+and I saw there was no choice of methods. I had not one doit of coin, but in my
+pocket-book I had still my letter on the Leyden merchant; and there was now but
+the one way to get to Leyden, and that was to walk on our two feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I know you&rsquo;re brave and I believe
+you&rsquo;re strong&mdash;do you think you could walk thirty miles on a plain
+road?&rdquo; We found it, I believe, scarce the two-thirds of that, but such
+was my notion of the distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;David,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you will just keep near, I will go
+anywhere and do anything. The courage of my heart, it is all broken. Do not be
+leaving me in this horrible country by myself, and I will do all else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you start now and march all night?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will do all that you can ask of me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and never
+ask you why. I have been a bad ungrateful girl to you; and do what you please
+with me now! And I think Miss Barbara Grant is the best lady in the
+world,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;and I do not see what she would deny you for at
+all events.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was Greek and Hebrew to me; but I had other matters to consider, and the
+first of these was to get clear of that city on the Leyden road. It proved a
+cruel problem; and it may have been one or two at night ere we had solved it.
+Once beyond the houses, there was neither moon nor stars to guide us; only the
+whiteness of the way in the midst and a blackness of an alley on both hands.
+The walking was besides made most extraordinary difficult by a plain black
+frost that fell suddenly in the small hours and turned that highway into one
+long slide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;here we are like the king&rsquo;s
+sons and the old wives&rsquo; daughters in your daft-like Highland tales. Soon
+we&rsquo;ll be going over the &lsquo;<i>seven Bens</i>, <i>the seven glens and
+the seven mountain moors</i>&rsquo;.&rdquo; Which was a common byword or
+overcome in those tales of hers that had stuck in my memory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;but here are no glens or mountains! Though I
+will never be denying but what the trees and some of the plain places
+hereabouts are very pretty. But our country is the best yet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish we could say as much for our own folk,&rdquo; says I, recalling
+Sprott and Sang, and perhaps James More himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will never complain of the country of my friend,&rdquo; said she, and
+spoke it out with an accent so particular that I seemed to see the look upon
+her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I caught in my breath sharp and came near falling (for my pains) on the black
+ice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not know what <i>you</i> think, Catriona,&rdquo; said I, when I was
+a little recovered, &ldquo;but this has been the best day yet! I think shame to
+say it, when you have met in with such misfortunes and disfavours; but for me,
+it has been the best day yet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was a good day when you showed me so much love,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet I think shame to be happy too,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;and you
+here on the road in the black night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where in the great world would I be else?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I am
+thinking I am safest where I am with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am quite forgiven, then?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you not forgive me that time so much as not to take it in your
+mouth again?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;There is nothing in this heart to you but
+thanks. But I will be honest too,&rdquo; she added, with a kind of suddenness,
+&ldquo;and I&rsquo;ll never can forgive that girl.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this Miss Grant again?&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You said yourself she
+was the best lady in the world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So she will be, indeed!&rdquo; says Catriona. &ldquo;But I will never
+forgive her for all that. I will never, never forgive her, and let me hear tell
+of her no more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this beats all that ever came to my
+knowledge; and I wonder that you can indulge yourself in such bairnly whims.
+Here is a young lady that was the best friend in the world to the both of us,
+that learned us how to dress ourselves, and in a great manner how to behave, as
+anyone can see that knew us both before and after.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Catriona stopped square in the midst of the highway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is this way of it,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Either you will go on to
+speak of her, and I will go back to yon town, and let come of it what God
+pleases! Or else you will do me that politeness to talk of other things.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was the most nonplussed person in this world; but I bethought me that she
+depended altogether on my help, that she was of the frail sex and not so much
+beyond a child, and it was for me to be wise for the pair of us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear girl,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I can make neither head nor tails of
+this; but God forbid that I should do anything to set you on the jee. As for
+talking of Miss Grant, I have no such a mind to it, and I believe it was
+yourself began it. My only design (if I took you up at all) was for your own
+improvement, for I hate the very look of injustice. Not that I do not wish you
+to have a good pride and a nice female delicacy; they become you well; but here
+you show them to excess.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, have you done?&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have done,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A very good thing,&rdquo; said she, and we went on again, but now in
+silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding only shadows
+and hearing nought but our own steps. At first, I believe our hearts burned
+against each other with a deal of enmity; but the darkness and the cold, and
+the silence, which only the cocks sometimes interrupted, or sometimes the
+farmyard dogs, had pretty soon brought down our pride to the dust; and for my
+own particular, I would have jumped at any decent opening for speech.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was all wiped away
+from among our feet. I took my cloak to her and sought to hap her in the same;
+she bade me, rather impatiently, to keep it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed and I will do no such thing,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Here am I, a
+great, ugly lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here are you a tender,
+pretty maid! My dear, you would not put me to a shame?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in the darkness,
+I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost like an embrace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must try to be more patient of your friend,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against my bosom, or
+perhaps it was but fancy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There will be no end to your goodness,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the happiness
+that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came into the town
+of Delft. The red gabled houses made a handsome show on either hand of a canal;
+the servant lassies were out slestering and scrubbing at the very stones upon
+the public highway; smoke rose from a hundred kitchens; and it came in upon me
+strongly it was time to break our fasts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I believe you have yet a shilling and
+three baubees?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you wanting it?&rdquo; said she, and passed me her purse. &ldquo;I
+am wishing it was five pounds! What will you want it for?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what have we been walking for all night, like a pair of waif
+Egyptians!&rdquo; says I. &ldquo;Just because I was robbed of my purse and all
+I possessed in that unchancy town of Rotterdam. I will tell you of it now,
+because I think the worst is over, but we have still a good tramp before us
+till we get to where my money is, and if you would not buy me a piece of bread,
+I were like to go fasting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked at me with open eyes. By the light of the new day she was all black
+and pale for weariness, so that my heart smote me for her. But as for her, she
+broke out laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My torture! are we beggars then!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You too? O, I
+could have wished for this same thing! And I am glad to buy your breakfast to
+you. But it would be pleisand if I would have had to dance to get a meal to
+you! For I believe they are not very well acquainted with our manner of dancing
+over here, and might be paying for the curiosity of that sight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could have kissed her for that word, not with a lover&rsquo;s mind, but in a
+heat of admiration. For it always warms a man to see a woman brave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the town, and in a
+baker&rsquo;s, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling bread, which we ate
+upon the road as we went on. That road from Delft to the Hague is just five
+miles of a fine avenue shaded with trees, a canal on the one hand, on the other
+excellent pastures of cattle. It was pleasant here indeed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, Davie,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;what will you do with me at all
+events?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is what we have to speak of,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and the sooner yet
+the better. I can come by money in Leyden; that will be all well. But the
+trouble is how to dispose of you until your father come. I thought last night
+you seemed a little sweir to part from me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will be more than seeming then,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a very young maid,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I am but a very
+young callant. This is a great piece of difficulty. What way are we to manage?
+Unless indeed, you could pass to be my sister?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what for no?&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;if you would let me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish you were so, indeed,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;I would be a fine man
+if I had such a sister. But the rub is that you are Catriona Drummond.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now I will be Catriona Balfour,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And who is
+to ken? They are all strange folk here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you think that it would do,&rdquo; says I. &ldquo;I own it troubles
+me. I would like it very ill, if I advised you at all wrong.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;David, I have no friend here but you,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The mere truth is, I am too young to be your friend,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;I am too young to advise you, or you to be advised. I see not what else
+we are to do, and yet I ought to warn you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will have no choice left,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;My father James More
+has not used me very well, and it is not the first time, I am cast upon your
+hands like a sack of barley meal, and have nothing else to think of but your
+pleasure. If you will have me, good and well. If you will not&rdquo;&mdash;she
+turned and touched her hand upon my arm&mdash;&ldquo;David, I am afraid,&rdquo;
+said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, but I ought to warn you,&rdquo; I began; and then bethought me I was
+the bearer of the purse, and it would never do to seem too churlish.
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t misunderstand me: I am just
+trying to do my duty by you, girl! Here am I going alone to this strange city,
+to be a solitary student there; and here is this chance arisen that you might
+dwell with me a bit, and be like my sister; you can surely understand this
+much, my dear, that I would just love to have you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and here I am,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;So that&rsquo;s soon
+settled.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I know I was in duty bounden to have spoke more plain. I know this was a great
+blot on my character, for which I was lucky that I did not pay more dear. But I
+minded how easy her delicacy had been startled with a word of kissing her in
+Barbara&rsquo;s letter; now that she depended on me, how was I to be more bold?
+Besides, the truth is, I could see no other feasible method to dispose of her.
+And I daresay inclination pulled me very strong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little beyond the Hague she fell very lame and made the rest of the distance
+heavily enough. Twice she must rest by the wayside, which she did with pretty
+apologies, calling herself a shame to the Highlands and the race she came of,
+and nothing but a hindrance to myself. It was her excuse, she said, that she
+was not much used with walking shod. I would have had her strip off her shoes
+and stockings and go barefoot. But she pointed out to me that the women of that
+country, even in the landward roads, appeared to be all shod.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must not be disgracing my brother,&rdquo; said she, and was very merry
+with it all, although her face told tales of her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is a garden in that city we were bound to, sanded below with clean sand,
+the trees meeting overhead, some of them trimmed, some preached, and the whole
+place beautified with alleys and arbours. Here I left Catriona, and went
+forward by myself to find my correspondent. There I drew on my credit, and
+asked to be recommended to some decent, retired lodging. My baggage being not
+yet arrived, I told him I supposed I should require his caution with the people
+of the house; and explained that, my sister being come for a while to keep
+house with me, I should be wanting two chambers. This was all very well; but
+the trouble was that Mr. Balfour in his letter of recommendation had
+condescended on a great deal of particulars, and never a word of any sister in
+the case. I could see my Dutchman was extremely suspicious; and viewing me over
+the rims of a great pair of spectacles&mdash;he was a poor, frail body, and
+reminded me of an infirm rabbit&mdash;he began to question me close.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here I fell in a panic. Suppose he accept my tale (thinks I), suppose he invite
+my sister to his house, and that I bring her. I shall have a fine ravelled pirn
+to unwind, and may end by disgracing both the lassie and myself. Thereupon I
+began hastily to expound to him my sister&rsquo;s character. She was of a
+bashful disposition, it appeared, and be extremely fearful of meeting strangers
+that I had left her at that moment sitting in a public place alone. And then,
+being launched upon the stream of falsehood, I must do like all the rest of the
+world in the same circumstance, and plunge in deeper than was any service;
+adding some altogether needless particulars of Miss Balfour&rsquo;s ill-health
+and retirement during childhood. In the midst of which I awoke to a sense of my
+behaviour, and was turned to one blush.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old gentleman was not so much deceived but what he discovered a willingness
+to be quit of me. But he was first of all a man of business; and knowing that
+my money was good enough, however it might be with my conduct, he was so far
+obliging as to send his son to be my guide and caution in the matter of a
+lodging. This implied my presenting of the young man to Catriona. The poor,
+pretty child was much recovered with resting, looked and behaved to perfection,
+and took my arm and gave me the name of brother more easily than I could answer
+her. But there was one misfortune: thinking to help, she was rather towardly
+than otherwise to my Dutchman. And I could not but reflect that Miss Balfour
+had rather suddenly outgrown her bashfulness. And there was another thing, the
+difference of our speech. I had the Low Country tongue and dwelled upon my
+words; she had a hill voice, spoke with something of an English accent, only
+far more delightful, and was scarce quite fit to be called a deacon in the
+craft of talking English grammar; so that, for a brother and sister, we made a
+most uneven pair. But the young Hollander was a heavy dog, without so much
+spirit in his belly as to remark her prettiness, for which I scorned him. And
+as soon as he had found a cover to our heads, he left us alone, which was the
+greater service of the two.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br />
+FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS</h2>
+
+<p>
+The place found was in the upper part of a house backed on a canal. We had two
+rooms, the second entering from the first; each had a chimney built out into
+the floor in the Dutch manner; and being alongside, each had the same prospect
+from the window of the top of a tree below us in a little court, of a piece of
+the canal, and of houses in the Hollands architecture and a church spire upon
+the further side. A full set of bells hung in that spire and made delightful
+music; and when there was any sun at all, it shone direct in our two chambers.
+From a tavern hard by we had good meals sent in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first night we were both pretty weary, and she extremely so. There was
+little talk between us, and I packed her off to her bed as soon as she had
+eaten. The first thing in the morning I wrote word to Sprott to have her mails
+sent on, together with a line to Alan at his chief&rsquo;s; and had the same
+despatched, and her breakfast ready, ere I waked her. I was a little abashed
+when she came forth in her one habit, and the mud of the way upon her
+stockings. By what inquiries I had made, it seemed a good few days must pass
+before her mails could come to hand in Leyden, and it was plainly needful she
+must have a shift of things. She was unwilling at first that I should go to
+that expense; but I reminded her she was now a rich man&rsquo;s sister and must
+appear suitably in the part, and we had not got to the second merchant&rsquo;s
+before she was entirely charmed into the spirit of the thing, and her eyes
+shining. It pleased me to see her so innocent and thorough in this pleasure.
+What was more extraordinary was the passion into which I fell on it myself;
+being never satisfied that I had bought her enough or fine enough, and never
+weary of beholding her in different attires. Indeed, I began to understand some
+little of Miss Grant&rsquo;s immersion in the interest of clothes; for the
+truth is, when you have the ground of a beautiful person to adorn, the whole
+business becomes beautiful. The Dutch chintzes I should say were extraordinary
+cheap and fine; but I would be ashamed to set down what I paid for stockings to
+her. Altogether I spent so great a sum upon this pleasuring (as I may call it)
+that I was ashamed for a great while to spend more; and by way of a set-off, I
+left our chambers pretty bare. If we had beds, if Catriona was a little braw,
+and I had light to see her by, we were richly enough lodged for me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the door with all
+our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which to read myself a lecture.
+Here had I taken under my roof, and as good as to my bosom, a young lass
+extremely beautiful, and whose innocence was her peril. My talk with the old
+Dutchman, and the lies to which I was constrained, had already given me a sense
+of how my conduct must appear to others; and now, after the strong admiration I
+had just experienced and the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain
+purchases, I began to think of it myself as very hazarded. I bethought me, if I
+had a sister indeed, whether I would so expose her; then, judging the case too
+problematical, I varied my question into this, whether I would so trust
+Catriona in the hands of any other Christian being; the answer to which made my
+face to burn. The more cause, since I had been entrapped and had entrapped the
+girl into an undue situation, that I should behave in it with scrupulous
+nicety. She depended on me wholly for her bread and shelter; in case I should
+alarm her delicacy, she had no retreat. Besides I was her host and her
+protector; and the more irregularly I had fallen in these positions, the less
+excuse for me if I should profit by the same to forward even the most honest
+suit; for with the opportunities that I enjoyed, and which no wise parent would
+have suffered for a moment, even the most honest suit would be unfair. I saw I
+must be extremely hold-off in my relations; and yet not too much so neither;
+for if I had no right to appear at all in the character of a suitor, I must yet
+appear continually, and if possible agreeably, in that of host. It was plain I
+should require a great deal of tact and conduct, perhaps more than my years
+afforded. But I had rushed in where angels might have feared to tread, and
+there was no way out of that position save by behaving right while I was in it.
+I made a set of rules for my guidance; prayed for strength to be enabled to
+observe them, and as a more human aid to the same end purchased a study-book in
+law. This being all that I could think of, I relaxed from these grave
+considerations; whereupon my mind bubbled at once into an effervescency of
+pleasing spirits, and it was like one treading on air that I turned homeward.
+As I thought that name of home, and recalled the image of that figure awaiting
+me between four walls, my heart beat upon my bosom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My troubles began with my return. She ran to greet me with an obvious and
+affecting pleasure. She was clad, besides, entirely in the new clothes that I
+had bought for her; looked in them beyond expression well; and must walk about
+and drop me curtseys to display them and to be admired. I am sure I did it with
+an ill grace, for I thought to have choked upon the words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you will not be caring for my pretty
+clothes, see what I have done with our two chambers.&rdquo; And she showed me
+the place all very finely swept, and the fires glowing in the two chimneys.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was glad of a chance to seem a little more severe than I quite felt.
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I am very much displeased with you, and
+you must never again lay a hand upon my room. One of us two must have the rule
+while we are here together; it is most fit it should be I who am both the man
+and the elder; and I give you that for my command.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She dropped me one of her curtseys; which were extraordinary taking. &ldquo;If
+you will be cross,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;I must be making pretty manners at
+you, Davie. I will be very obedient, as I should be when every stitch upon all
+there is of me belongs to you. But you will not be very cross either, because
+now I have not anyone else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This struck me hard, and I made haste, in a kind of penitence, to blot out all
+the good effect of my last speech. In this direction progress was more easy,
+being down hill; she led me forward, smiling; at the sight of her, in the
+brightness of the fire and with her pretty becks and looks, my heart was
+altogether melted. We made our meal with infinite mirth and tenderness; and the
+two seemed to be commingled into one, so that our very laughter sounded like a
+kindness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the midst of which I awoke to better recollections, made a lame word of
+excuse, and set myself boorishly to my studies. It was a substantial,
+instructive book that I had bought, by the late Dr. Heineccius, in which I was
+to do a great deal reading these next few days, and often very glad that I had
+no one to question me of what I read. Methought she bit her lip at me a little,
+and that cut me. Indeed it left her wholly solitary, the more as she was very
+little of a reader, and had never a book. But what was I to do?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So the rest of the evening flowed by almost without speech.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could have beat myself. I could not lie in my bed that night for rage and
+repentance, but walked to and fro on my bare feet till I was nearly perished,
+for the chimney was gone out and the frost keen. The thought of her in the next
+room, the thought that she might even hear me as I walked, the remembrance of
+my churlishness and that I must continue to practise the same ungrateful course
+or be dishonoured, put me beside my reason. I stood like a man between Scylla
+and Charybdis: <i>What must she think of me</i>? was my one thought that
+softened me continually into weakness. <i>What is to become of us</i>? the
+other which steeled me again to resolution. This was my first night of
+wakefulness and divided counsels, of which I was now to pass many, pacing like
+a madman, sometimes weeping like a childish boy, sometimes praying (I fain
+would hope) like a Christian.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But prayer is not very difficult, and the hitch comes in practice. In her
+presence, and above all if I allowed any beginning of familiarity, I found I
+had very little command of what should follow. But to sit all day in the same
+room with her, and feign to be engaged upon Heineccius, surpassed my strength.
+So that I fell instead upon the expedient of absenting myself so much as I was
+able; taking out classes and sitting there regularly, often with small
+attention, the test of which I found the other day in a note-book of that
+period, where I had left off to follow an edifying lecture and actually
+scribbled in my book some very ill verses, though the Latinity is rather better
+than I thought that I could ever have compassed. The evil of this course was
+unhappily near as great as its advantage. I had the less time of trial, but I
+believe, while the time lasted, I was tried the more extremely. For she being
+so much left to solitude, she came to greet my return with an increasing
+fervour that came nigh to overmaster me. These friendly offers I must
+barbarously cast back; and my rejection sometimes wounded her so cruelly that I
+must unbend and seek to make it up to her in kindness. So that our time passed
+in ups and downs, tiffs and disappointments, upon the which I could almost say
+(if it may be said with reverence) that I was crucified.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The base of my trouble was Catriona&rsquo;s extraordinary innocence, at which I
+was not so much surprised as filled with pity and admiration. She seemed to
+have no thought of our position, no sense of my struggles; welcomed any mark of
+my weakness with responsive joy; and when I was drove again to my
+retrenchments, did not always dissemble her chagrin. There were times when I
+have thought to myself, &ldquo;If she were over head in love, and set her cap
+to catch me, she would scarce behave much otherwise;&rdquo; and then I would
+fall again into wonder at the simplicity of woman, from whom I felt (in these
+moments) that I was not worthy to be descended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was one point in particular on which our warfare turned, and of all
+things, this was the question of her clothes. My baggage had soon followed me
+from Rotterdam, and hers from Helvoet. She had now, as it were, two wardrobes;
+and it grew to be understood between us (I could never tell how) that when she
+was friendly she would wear my clothes, and when otherwise her own. It was
+meant for a buffet, and (as it were) the renunciation of her gratitude; and I
+felt it so in my bosom, but was generally more wise than to appear to have
+observed the circumstance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once, indeed, I was betrayed into a childishness greater than her own; it fell
+in this way. On my return from classes, thinking upon her devoutly with a great
+deal of love and a good deal of annoyance in the bargain, the annoyance began
+to fade away out of my mind; and spying in a window one of those forced
+flowers, of which the Hollanders are so skilled in the artifice, I gave way to
+an impulse and bought it for Catriona. I do not know the name of that flower,
+but it was of the pink colour, and I thought she would admire the same, and
+carried it home to her with a wonderful soft heart. I had left her in my
+clothes, and when I returned to find her all changed and a face to match, I
+cast but the one look at her from head to foot, ground my teeth together, flung
+the window open, and my flower into the court, and then (between rage and
+prudence) myself out of that room again, of which I slammed she door as I went
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the steep stair I came near falling, and this brought me to myself, so that
+I began at once to see the folly of my conduct. I went, not into the street as
+I had purposed, but to the house court, which was always a solitary place, and
+where I saw my flower (that had cost me vastly more than it was worth) hanging
+in the leafless tree. I stood by the side of the canal, and looked upon the
+ice. Country people went by on their skates, and I envied them. I could see no
+way out of the pickle I was in no way so much as to return to the room I had
+just left. No doubt was in my mind but I had now betrayed the secret of my
+feelings; and to make things worse, I had shown at the same time (and that with
+wretched boyishness) incivility to my helpless guest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I suppose she must have seen me from the open window. It did not seem to me
+that I had stood there very long before I heard the crunching of footsteps on
+the frozen snow, and turning somewhat angrily (for I was in no spirit to be
+interrupted) saw Catriona drawing near. She was all changed again, to the
+clocked stockings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are we not to have our walk to-day?&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was looking at her in a maze. &ldquo;Where is your brooch?&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She carried her hand to her bosom and coloured high. &ldquo;I will have
+forgotten it,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I will run upstairs for it quick, and
+then surely we&rsquo;ll can have our walk?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a note of pleading in that last that staggered me; I had neither
+words nor voice to utter them; I could do no more than nod by way of answer;
+and the moment she had left me, climbed into the tree and recovered my flower,
+which on her return I offered her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I bought it for you, Catriona,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She fixed it in the midst of her bosom with the brooch, I could have thought
+tenderly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is none the better of my handling,&rdquo; said I again, and blushed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will be liking it none the worse, you may be sure of that,&rdquo; said
+she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We did not speak so much that day; she seemed a thought on the reserve, though
+not unkindly. As for me, all the time of our walking, and after we came home,
+and I had seen her put my flower into a pot of water, I was thinking to myself
+what puzzles women were. I was thinking, the one moment, it was the most stupid
+thing on earth she should not have perceived my love; and the next, that she
+had certainly perceived it long ago, and (being a wise girl with the fine
+female instinct of propriety) concealed her knowledge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had our walk daily. Out in the streets I felt more safe; I relaxed a little
+in my guardedness; and for one thing, there was no Heineccius. This made these
+periods not only a relief to myself, but a particular pleasure to my poor
+child. When I came back about the hour appointed, I would generally find her
+ready dressed, and glowing with anticipation. She would prolong their duration
+to the extreme, seeming to dread (as I did myself) the hour of the return; and
+there is scarce a field or waterside near Leyden, scarce a street or lane
+there, where we have not lingered. Outside of these, I bade her confine herself
+entirely to our lodgings; this in the fear of her encountering any
+acquaintance, which would have rendered our position very difficult. From the
+same apprehension I would never suffer her to attend church, nor even go
+myself; but made some kind of shift to hold worship privately in our own
+chamber&mdash;I hope with an honest, but I am quite sure with a very much
+divided mind. Indeed, there was scarce anything that more affected me, than
+thus to kneel down alone with her before God like man and wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day it was snowing downright hard. I had thought it not possible that we
+should venture forth, and was surprised to find her waiting for me ready
+dressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not be doing without my walk,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You are
+never a good boy, Davie, in the house; I will never be caring for you only in
+the open air. I think we two will better turn Egyptian and dwell by the
+roadside.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was the best walk yet of all of them; she clung near to me in the falling
+snow; it beat about and melted on us, and the drops stood upon her bright
+cheeks like tears and ran into her smiling mouth. Strength seemed to come upon
+me with the sight like a giant&rsquo;s; I thought I could have caught her up
+and run with her into the uttermost places in the earth; and we spoke together
+all that time beyond belief for freedom and sweetness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the dark night when we came to the house door. She pressed my arm upon
+her bosom. &ldquo;Thank you kindly for these same good hours,&rdquo; said she,
+on a deep note of her voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The concern in which I fell instantly on this address, put me with the same
+swiftness on my guard; and we were no sooner in the chamber, and the light
+made, than she beheld the old, dour, stubborn countenance of the student of
+Heineccius. Doubtless she was more than usually hurt; and I know for myself, I
+found it more than usually difficult to maintain any strangeness. Even at the
+meal, I durst scarce unbuckle and scarce lift my eyes to her; and it was no
+sooner over than I fell again to my civilian, with more seeming abstraction and
+less understanding than before. Methought, as I read, I could hear my heart
+strike like an eight-day clock. Hard as I feigned to study, there was still
+some of my eyesight that spilled beyond the book upon Catriona. She sat on the
+floor by the side of my great mail, and the chimney lighted her up, and shone
+and blinked upon her, and made her glow and darken through a wonder of fine
+hues. Now she would be gazing in the fire, and then again at me; and at that I
+would be plunged in a terror of myself, and turn the pages of Heineccius like a
+man looking for the text in church.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly she called out aloud. &ldquo;O, why does not my father come?&rdquo;
+she cried, and fell at once into a storm of tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I leaped up, flung Heineccius fairly in the fire, ran to her side, and cast an
+arm around her sobbing body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She put me from her sharply, &ldquo;You do not love your friend,&rdquo; says
+she. &ldquo;I could be so happy too, if you would let me!&rdquo; And then,
+&ldquo;O, what will I have done that you should hate me so?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hate you!&rdquo; cries I, and held her firm. &ldquo;You blind less, can
+you not see a little in my wretched heart? Do you not think when I sit there,
+reading in that fool-book that I have just burned and be damned to it, I take
+ever the least thought of any stricken thing but just yourself? Night after
+night I could have grat to see you sitting there your lone. And what was I to
+do? You are here under my honour; would you punish me for that? Is it for that
+that you would spurn a loving servant?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the word, with a small, sudden motion, she clung near to me. I raised her
+face to mine, I kissed it, and she bowed her brow upon my bosom, clasping me
+tight. I saw in a mere whirl like a man drunken. Then I heard her voice sound
+very small and muffled in my clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you kiss her truly?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There went through me so great a heave of surprise that I was all shook with
+it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Grant?&rdquo; I cried, all in a disorder. &ldquo;Yes, I asked her
+to kiss me good-bye, the which she did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, well!&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;you have kissed me too, at all
+events.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the strangeness and sweetness of that word, I saw where we had fallen; rose,
+and set her on her feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This will never do,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;This will never, never do. O
+Catrine, Catrine!&rdquo; Then there came a pause in which I was debarred from
+any speaking. And then, &ldquo;Go away to your bed,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Go
+away to your bed and leave me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned to obey me like a child, and the next I knew of it, had stopped in
+the very doorway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good night, Davie!&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And O, good night, my love!&rdquo; I cried, with a great outbreak of my
+soul, and caught her to me again, so that it seemed I must have broken her. The
+next moment I had thrust her from the room, shut to the door even with
+violence, and stood alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The milk was spilt now, the word was out and the truth told. I had crept like
+an untrusty man into the poor maid&rsquo;s affections; she was in my hand like
+any frail, innocent thing to make or mar; and what weapon of defence was left
+me? It seemed like a symbol that Heineccius, my old protection, was now burned.
+I repented, yet could not find it in my heart to blame myself for that great
+failure. It seemed not possible to have resisted the boldness of her innocence
+or that last temptation of her weeping. And all that I had to excuse me did but
+make my sin appear the greater&mdash;it was upon a nature so defenceless, and
+with such advantages of the position, that I seemed to have practised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What was to become of us now? It seemed we could no longer dwell in the one
+place. But where was I to go? or where she? Without either choice or fault of
+ours, life had conspired to wall us together in that narrow place. I had a wild
+thought of marrying out of hand; and the next moment put it from me with
+revolt. She was a child, she could not tell her own heart; I had surprised her
+weakness, I must never go on to build on that surprisal; I must keep her not
+only clear of reproach, but free as she had come to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down I sat before the fire, and reflected, and repented, and beat my brains in
+vain for any means of escape. About two of the morning, there were three red
+embers left and the house and all the city was asleep, when I was aware of a
+small sound of weeping in the next room. She thought that I slept, the poor
+soul; she regretted her weakness&mdash;and what perhaps (God help her!) she
+called her forwardness&mdash;and in the dead of the night solaced herself with
+tears. Tender and bitter feelings, love and penitence and pity, struggled in my
+soul; it seemed I was under bond to heal that weeping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, try to forgive me!&rdquo; I cried out, &ldquo;try, try to forgive me.
+Let us forget it all, let us try if we&rsquo;ll no can forget it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There came no answer, but the sobbing ceased. I stood a long while with my
+hands still clasped as I had spoken; then the cold of the night laid hold upon
+me with a shudder, and I think my reason reawakened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can make no hand of this, Davie,&rdquo; thinks I. &ldquo;To bed with
+you like a wise lad, and try if you can sleep. To-morrow you may see your
+way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br />
+THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE</h2>
+
+<p>
+I was called on the morrow out of a late and troubled slumber by a knocking on
+my door, ran to open it, and had almost swooned with the contrariety of my
+feelings, mostly painful; for on the threshold, in a rough wraprascal and an
+extraordinary big laced hat, there stood James More.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I ought to have been glad perhaps without admixture, for there was a sense in
+which the man came like an answer to prayer. I had been saying till my head was
+weary that Catriona and I must separate, and looking till my head ached for any
+possible means of separation. Here were the means come to me upon two legs, and
+joy was the hindmost of my thoughts. It is to be considered, however, that even
+if the weight of the future were lifted off me by the man&rsquo;s arrival, the
+present heaved up the more black and menacing; so that, as I first stood before
+him in my shirt and breeches, I believe I took a leaping step backward like a
+person shot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I have found you, Mr. Balfour.&rdquo; And
+offered me his large, fine hand, the which (recovering at the same time my post
+in the doorway, as if with some thought of resistance) I took him by
+doubtfully. &ldquo;It is a remarkable circumstance how our affairs appear to
+intermingle,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I am owing you an apology for an
+unfortunate intrusion upon yours, which I suffered myself to be entrapped into
+by my confidence in that false-face, Prestongrange; I think shame to own to you
+that I was ever trusting to a lawyer.&rdquo; He shrugged his shoulders with a
+very French air. &ldquo;But indeed the man is very plausible,&rdquo; says he.
+&ldquo;And now it seems that you have busied yourself handsomely in the matter
+of my daughter, for whose direction I was remitted to yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think, sir,&rdquo; said I, with a very painful air, &ldquo;that it
+will be necessary we two should have an explanation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is nothing amiss?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;My agent, Mr.
+Sprott&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake moderate your voice!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;She
+must not hear till we have had an explanation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is in this place?&rdquo; cries he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is her chamber door,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are here with her alone?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And who else would I have got to stay with us?&rdquo; cries I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I will do him the justice to admit that he turned pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is very unusual,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;This is a very unusual
+circumstance. You are right, we must hold an explanation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So saying he passed me by, and I must own the tall old rogue appeared at that
+moment extraordinary dignified. He had now, for the first time, the view of my
+chamber, which I scanned (I may say) with his eyes. A bit of morning sun
+glinted in by the window pane, and showed it off; my bed, my mails, and washing
+dish, with some disorder of my clothes, and the unlighted chimney, made the
+only plenishing; no mistake but it looked bare and cold, and the most
+unsuitable, beggarly place conceivable to harbour a young lady. At the same
+time came in on my mind the recollection of the clothes that I had bought for
+her; and I thought this contrast of poverty and prodigality bore an ill
+appearance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked all about the chamber for a seat, and finding nothing else to his
+purpose except my bed, took a place upon the side of it; where, after I had
+closed the door, I could not very well avoid joining him. For however this
+extraordinary interview might end, it must pass if possible without waking
+Catriona; and the one thing needful was that we should sit close and talk low.
+But I can scarce picture what a pair we made; he in his great coat which the
+coldness of my chamber made extremely suitable; I shivering in my shirt and
+breeks; he with very much the air of a judge; and I (whatever I looked) with
+very much the feelings of a man who has heard the last trumpet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I began, but found myself unable to go further.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You tell me she is here?&rdquo; said he again, but now with a spice of
+impatience that seemed to brace me up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is in this house,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I knew the circumstance
+would be called unusual. But you are to consider how very unusual the whole
+business was from the beginning. Here is a young lady landed on the coast of
+Europe with two shillings and a penny halfpenny. She is directed to yon man
+Sprott in Helvoet. I hear you call him your agent. All I can say is he could do
+nothing but damn and swear at the mere mention of your name, and I must fee him
+out of my own pocket even to receive the custody of her effects. You speak of
+unusual circumstances, Mr. Drummond, if that be the name you prefer. Here was a
+circumstance, if you like, to which it was barbarity to have exposed
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But this is what I cannot understand the least,&rdquo; said James.
+&ldquo;My daughter was placed into the charge of some responsible persons,
+whose names I have forgot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gebbie was the name,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and there is no doubt that
+Mr. Gebbie should have gone ashore with her at Helvoet. But he did not, Mr.
+Drummond; and I think you might praise God that I was there to offer in his
+place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall have a word to say to Mr. Gebbie before long,&rdquo; said he.
+&ldquo;As for yourself, I think it might have occurred that you were somewhat
+young for such a post.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the choice was not between me and somebody else, it was between me
+and nobody,&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;Nobody offered in my place, and I must say I
+think you show a very small degree of gratitude to me that did.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall wait until I understand my obligation a little more in the
+particular,&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, and I think it stares you in the face, then,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;Your child was deserted, she was clean flung away in the midst of
+Europe, with scarce two shillings, and not two words of any language spoken
+there: I must say, a bonny business! I brought her to this place. I gave her
+the name and the tenderness due to a sister. All this has not gone without
+expense, but that I scarce need to hint at. They were services due to the young
+lady&rsquo;s character which I respect; and I think it would be a bonny
+business too, if I was to be singing her praises to her father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a young man,&rdquo; he began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I hear you tell me,&rdquo; said I, with a good deal of heat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a very young man,&rdquo; he repeated, &ldquo;or you would have
+understood the significancy of the step.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you speak very much at your ease,&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;What
+else was I to do? It is a fact I might have hired some decent, poor woman to be
+a third to us, and I declare I never thought of it until this moment! But where
+was I to find her, that am a foreigner myself? And let me point out to your
+observation, Mr. Drummond, that it would have cost me money out of my pocket.
+For here is just what it comes to, that I had to pay through the nose for your
+neglect; and there is only the one story to it, just that you were so unloving
+and so careless as to have lost your daughter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He that lives in a glass house should not be casting stones,&rdquo; says
+he; &ldquo;and we will finish inquiring into the behaviour of Miss Drummond
+before we go on to sit in judgment on her father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I will be entrapped into no such attitude,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;The
+character of Miss Drummond is far above inquiry, as her father ought to know.
+So is mine, and I am telling you that. There are but the two ways of it open.
+The one is to express your thanks to me as one gentleman to another, and to say
+no more. The other (if you are so difficult as to be still dissatisfied) is to
+pay me, that which I have expended and be done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He seemed to soothe me with a hand in the air. &ldquo;There, there,&rdquo; said
+he. &ldquo;You go too fast, you go too fast, Mr. Balfour. It is a good thing
+that I have learned to be more patient. And I believe you forget that I have
+yet to see my daughter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I began to be a little relieved upon this speech and a change in the
+man&rsquo;s manner that I spied in him as soon as the name of money fell
+between us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was thinking it would be more fit&mdash;if you will excuse the
+plainness of my dressing in your presence&mdash;that I should go forth and
+leave you to encounter her alone?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What I would have looked for at your hands!&rdquo; says he; and there
+was no mistake but what he said it civilly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought this better and better still, and as I began to pull on my hose,
+recalling the man&rsquo;s impudent mendicancy at Prestongrange&rsquo;s, I
+determined to pursue what seemed to be my victory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you have any mind to stay some while in Leyden,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;this room is very much at your disposal, and I can easy find another for
+myself: in which way we shall have the least amount of flitting possible, there
+being only one to change.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, sir,&rdquo; said he, making his bosom big, &ldquo;I think no shame
+of a poverty I have come by in the service of my king; I make no secret that my
+affairs are quite involved; and for the moment, it would be even impossible for
+me to undertake a journey.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Until you have occasion to communicate with your friends,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;perhaps it might be convenient for you (as of course it would be
+honourable to myself) if you were to regard yourself in the light of my
+guest?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;when an offer is frankly made, I think I
+honour myself most to imitate that frankness. Your hand, Mr. David; you have
+the character that I respect the most; you are one of those from whom a
+gentleman can take a favour and no more words about it. I am an old
+soldier,&rdquo; he went on, looking rather disgusted-like around my chamber,
+&ldquo;and you need not fear I shall prove burthensome. I have ate too often at
+a dyke-side, drank of the ditch, and had no roof but the rain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should be telling you,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that our breakfasts are
+sent customarily in about this time of morning. I propose I should go now to
+the tavern, and bid them add a cover for yourself and delay the meal the matter
+of an hour, which will give you an interval to meet your daughter in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Methought his nostrils wagged at this. &ldquo;O, an hour?&rdquo; says he.
+&ldquo;That is perhaps superfluous. Half an hour, Mr. David, or say twenty
+minutes; I shall do very well in that. And by the way,&rdquo; he adds,
+detaining me by the coat, &ldquo;what is it you drink in the morning, whether
+ale or wine?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be frank with you, sir,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;I drink nothing else
+but spare, cold water.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tut-tut,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;that is fair destruction to the stomach,
+take an old campaigner&rsquo;s word for it. Our country spirit at home is
+perhaps the most entirely wholesome; but as that is not come-at-able, Rhenish
+or a white wine of Burgundy will be next best.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shall make it my business to see you are supplied,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, very good,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and we shall make a man of you
+yet, Mr. David.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time, I can hardly say that I was minding him at all, beyond an odd
+thought of the kind of father-in-law that he was like to prove; and all my
+cares centred about the lass his daughter, to whom I determined to convey some
+warning of her visitor. I stepped to the door accordingly, and cried through
+the panels, knocking thereon at the same time: &ldquo;Miss Drummond, here is
+your father come at last.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With that I went forth upon my errand, having (by two words) extraordinarily
+damaged my affairs.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br />
+THE THREESOME</h2>
+
+<p>
+Whether or not I was to be so much blamed, or rather perhaps pitied, I must
+leave others to judge. My shrewdness (of which I have a good deal, too) seems
+not so great with the ladies. No doubt, at the moment when I awaked her, I was
+thinking a good deal of the effect upon James More; and similarly when I
+returned and we were all sat down to breakfast, I continued to behave to the
+young lady with deference and distance; as I still think to have been most
+wise. Her father had cast doubts upon the innocence of my friendship; and
+these, it was my first business to allay. But there is a kind of an excuse for
+Catriona also. We had shared in a scene of some tenderness and passion, and
+given and received caresses: I had thrust her from me with violence; I had
+called aloud upon her in the night from the one room to the other; she had
+passed hours of wakefulness and weeping; and it is not to be supposed I had
+been absent from her pillow thoughts. Upon the back of this, to be awaked, with
+unaccustomed formality, under the name of Miss Drummond, and to be thenceforth
+used with a great deal of distance and respect, led her entirely in error on my
+private sentiments; and she was indeed so incredibly abused as to imagine me
+repentant and trying to draw off!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The trouble betwixt us seems to have been this: that whereas I (since I had
+first set eyes on his great hat) thought singly of James More, his return and
+suspicions, she made so little of these that I may say she scarce remarked
+them, and all her troubles and doings regarded what had passed between us in
+the night before. This is partly to be explained by the innocence and boldness
+of her character; and partly because James More, having sped so ill in his
+interview with me, or had his mouth closed by my invitation, said no word to
+her upon the subject. At the breakfast, accordingly, it soon appeared we were
+at cross purposes. I had looked to find her in clothes of her own: I found her
+(as if her father were forgotten) wearing some of the best that I had bought
+for her, and which she knew (or thought) that I admired her in. I had looked to
+find her imitate my affectation of distance, and be most precise and formal;
+instead I found her flushed and wild-like, with eyes extraordinary bright, and
+a painful and varying expression, calling me by name with a sort of appeal of
+tenderness, and referring and deferring to my thoughts and wishes like an
+anxious or a suspected wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But this was not for long. As I behold her so regardless of her own interests,
+which I had jeopardised and was now endeavouring to recover, I redoubled my own
+coldness in the manner of a lesson to the girl. The more she came forward, the
+farther I drew back; the more she betrayed the closeness of our intimacy, the
+more pointedly civil I became, until even her father (if he had not been so
+engrossed with eating) might have observed the opposition. In the midst of
+which, of a sudden, she became wholly changed, and I told myself, with a good
+deal of relief, that she had took the hint at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All day I was at my classes or in quest of my new lodging; and though the hour
+of our customary walk hung miserably on my hands, I cannot say but I was happy
+on the whole to find my way cleared, the girl again in proper keeping, the
+father satisfied or at least acquiescent, and myself free to prosecute my love
+with honour. At supper, as at all our meals, it was James More that did the
+talking. No doubt but he talked well if anyone could have believed him. But I
+will speak of him presently more at large. The meal at an end, he rose, got his
+great coat, and looking (as I thought) at me, observed he had affairs abroad. I
+took this for a hint that I was to be going also, and got up; whereupon the
+girl, who had scarce given me greeting at my entrance, turned her eyes upon me
+wide open with a look that bade me stay. I stood between them like a fish out
+of water, turning from one to the other; neither seemed to observe me, she
+gazing on the floor, he buttoning his coat: which vastly swelled my
+embarrassment. This appearance of indifference argued, upon her side, a good
+deal of anger very near to burst out. Upon his, I thought it horribly alarming;
+I made sure there was a tempest brewing there; and considering that to be the
+chief peril, turned towards him and put myself (so to speak) in the man&rsquo;s
+hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can I do anything for <i>you</i>, Mr. Drummond?&rdquo; says I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stifled a yawn, which again I thought to be duplicity. &ldquo;Why, Mr.
+David,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;since you are so obliging as to propose it, you
+might show me the way to a certain tavern&rdquo; (of which he gave the name)
+&ldquo;where I hope to fall in with some old companions in arms.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no more to say, and I got my hat and cloak to bear him company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And as for you,&rdquo; say he to his daughter, &ldquo;you had best go to
+your bed. I shall be late home, and <i>Early to bed and early to rise</i>,
+<i>gars bonny lasses have bright eyes</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon he kissed her with a good deal of tenderness, and ushered me before
+him from the door. This was so done (I thought on purpose) that it was scarce
+possible there should be any parting salutation; but I observed she did not
+look at me, and set it down to terror of James More.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was some distance to that tavern. He talked all the way of matters which did
+not interest me the smallest, and at the door dismissed me with empty manners.
+Thence I walked to my new lodging, where I had not so much as a chimney to hold
+me warm, and no society but my own thoughts. These were still bright enough; I
+did not so much as dream that Catriona was turned against me; I thought we were
+like folk pledged; I thought we had been too near and spoke too warmly to be
+severed, least of all by what were only steps in a most needful policy. And the
+chief of my concern was only the kind of father-in-law that I was getting,
+which was not at all the kind I would have chosen: and the matter of how soon I
+ought to speak to him, which was a delicate point on several sides. In the
+first place, when I thought how young I was I blushed all over, and could
+almost have found it in my heart to have desisted; only that if once I let them
+go from Leyden without explanation, I might lose her altogether. And in the
+second place, there was our very irregular situation to be kept in view, and
+the rather scant measure of satisfaction I had given James More that morning. I
+concluded, on the whole, that delay would not hurt anything, yet I would not
+delay too long neither; and got to my cold bed with a full heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day, as James More seemed a little on the complaining hand in the
+matter of my chamber, I offered to have in more furniture; and coming in the
+afternoon, with porters bringing chairs and tables, found the girl once more
+left to herself. She greeted me on my admission civilly, but withdrew at once
+to her own room, of which she shut the door. I made my disposition, and paid
+and dismissed the men so that she might hear them go, when I supposed she would
+at once come forth again to speak to me. I waited yet awhile, then knocked upon
+her door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona!&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door was opened so quickly, even before I had the word out, that I thought
+she must have stood behind it listening. She remained there in the interval
+quite still; but she had a look that I cannot put a name on, as of one in a
+bitter trouble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are we not to have our walk to-day either?&rdquo; so I faltered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am thanking you,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I will not be caring much to
+walk, now that my father is come home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I think he has gone out himself and left you here alone,&rdquo; said
+I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And do you think that was very kindly said?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was not unkindly meant,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;What ails you,
+Catriona? What have I done to you that you should turn from me like
+this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not turn from you at all,&rdquo; she said, speaking very carefully.
+&ldquo;I will ever be grateful to my friend that was good to me; I will ever be
+his friend in all that I am able. But now that my father James More is come
+again, there is a difference to be made, and I think there are some things said
+and done that would be better to be forgotten. But I will ever be your friend
+in all that I am able, and if that is not all that . . . . if it is not so much
+. . . . Not that you will be caring! But I would not have you think of me too
+hard. It was true what you said to me, that I was too young to be advised, and
+I am hoping you will remember I was just a child. I would not like to lose your
+friendship, at all events.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She began this very pale; but before she was done, the blood was in her face
+like scarlet, so that not her words only, but her face and the trembling of her
+very hands, besought me to be gentle. I saw, for the first time, how very wrong
+I had done to place the child in that position, where she had been entrapped
+into a moment&rsquo;s weakness, and now stood before me like a person shamed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Miss Drummond,&rdquo; I said, and stuck, and made the same beginning
+once again, &ldquo;I wish you could see into my heart,&rdquo; I cried.
+&ldquo;You would read there that my respect is undiminished. If that were
+possible, I should say it was increased. This is but the result of the mistake
+we made; and had to come; and the less said of it now the better. Of all of our
+life here, I promise you it shall never pass my lips; I would like to promise
+you too that I would never think of it, but it&rsquo;s a memory that will be
+always dear to me. And as for a friend, you have one here that would die for
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am thanking you,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We stood awhile silent, and my sorrow for myself began to get the upper hand;
+for here were all my dreams come to a sad tumble, and my love lost, and myself
+alone again in the world as at the beginning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;we shall be friends always, that&rsquo;s a
+certain thing. But this is a kind of farewell, too: it&rsquo;s a kind of a
+farewell after all; I shall always ken Miss Drummond, but this is a farewell to
+my Catriona.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked at her; I could hardly say I saw her, but she seemed to grow great and
+brighten in my eyes; and with that I suppose I must have lost my head, for I
+called out her name again and made a step at her with my hands reached forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shrank back like a person struck, her face flamed; but the blood sprang no
+faster up into her cheeks, than what it flowed back upon my own heart, at sight
+of it, with penitence and concern. I found no words to excuse myself, but bowed
+before her very deep, and went my ways out of the house with death in my bosom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I think it was about five days that followed without any change. I saw her
+scarce ever but at meals, and then of course in the company of James More. If
+we were alone even for a moment, I made it my devoir to behave the more
+distantly and to multiply respectful attentions, having always in my
+mind&rsquo;s eye that picture of the girl shrinking and flaming in a blush, and
+in my heart more pity for her than I could depict in words. I was sorry enough
+for myself, I need not dwell on that, having fallen all my length and more than
+all my height in a few seconds; but, indeed, I was near as sorry for the girl,
+and sorry enough to be scarce angry with her save by fits and starts. Her plea
+was good; she had been placed in an unfair position; if she had deceived
+herself and me, it was no more than was to have been looked for.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And for another thing she was now very much alone. Her father, when he was by,
+was rather a caressing parent; but he was very easy led away by his affairs and
+pleasures, neglected her without compunction or remark, spent his nights in
+taverns when he had the money, which was more often than I could at all account
+for; and even in the course of these few days, failed once to come to a meal,
+which Catriona and I were at last compelled to partake of without him. It was
+the evening meal, and I left immediately that I had eaten, observing I supposed
+she would prefer to be alone; to which she agreed and (strange as it may seem)
+I quite believed her. Indeed, I thought myself but an eyesore to the girl, and
+a reminder of a moment&rsquo;s weakness that she now abhorred to think of. So
+she must sit alone in that room where she and I had been so merry, and in the
+blink of that chimney whose light had shone upon our many difficult and tender
+moments. There she must sit alone, and think of herself as of a maid who had
+most unmaidenly proffered her affections and had the same rejected. And in the
+meanwhile I would be alone some other place, and reading myself (whenever I was
+tempted to be angry) lessons upon human frailty and female delicacy. And
+altogether I suppose there were never two poor fools made themselves more
+unhappy in a greater misconception.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for James, he paid not so much heed to us, or to anything in nature but his
+pocket, and his belly, and his own prating talk. Before twelve hours were gone
+he had raised a small loan of me; before thirty, he had asked for a second and
+been refused. Money and refusal he took with the same kind of high good nature.
+Indeed, he had an outside air of magnanimity that was very well fitted to
+impose upon a daughter; and the light in which he was constantly presented in
+his talk, and the man&rsquo;s fine presence and great ways went together pretty
+harmoniously. So that a man that had no business with him, and either very
+little penetration or a furious deal of prejudice, might almost have been taken
+in. To me, after my first two interviews, he was as plain as print; I saw him
+to be perfectly selfish, with a perfect innocency in the same; and I would
+hearken to his swaggering talk (of arms, and &ldquo;an old soldier,&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;a poor Highland gentleman,&rdquo; and &ldquo;the strength of my country
+and my friends&rdquo;) as I might to the babbling of a parrot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The odd thing was that I fancy he believed some part of it himself, or did at
+times; I think he was so false all through that he scarce knew when he was
+lying; and for one thing, his moments of dejection must have been wholly
+genuine. There were times when he would be the most silent, affectionate,
+clinging creature possible, holding Catriona&rsquo;s hand like a big baby, and
+begging of me not to leave if I had any love to him; of which, indeed, I had
+none, but all the more to his daughter. He would press and indeed beseech us to
+entertain him with our talk, a thing very difficult in the state of our
+relations; and again break forth in pitiable regrets for his own land and
+friends, or into Gaelic singing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is one of the melancholy airs of my native land,&rdquo; he would
+say. &ldquo;You may think it strange to see a soldier weep, and indeed it is to
+make a near friend of you,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;But the notes of this singing
+are in my blood, and the words come out of my heart. And when I mind upon my
+red mountains and the wild birds calling there, and the brave streams of water
+running down, I would scarce think shame to weep before my enemies.&rdquo; Then
+he would sing again, and translate to me pieces of the song, with a great deal
+of boggling and much expressed contempt against the English language. &ldquo;It
+says here,&rdquo; he would say, &ldquo;that the sun is gone down, and the
+battle is at an end, and the brave chiefs are defeated. And it tells here how
+the stars see them fleeing into strange countries or lying dead on the red
+mountain; and they will never more shout the call of battle or wash their feet
+in the streams of the valley. But if you had only some of this language, you
+would weep also because the words of it are beyond all expression, and it is
+mere mockery to tell you it in English.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, I thought there was a good deal of mockery in the business, one way and
+another; and yet, there was some feeling too, for which I hated him, I think,
+the worst of all. And it used to cut me to the quick to see Catriona so much
+concerned for the old rogue, and weeping herself to see him weep, when I was
+sure one half of his distress flowed from his last night&rsquo;s drinking in
+some tavern. There were times when I was tempted to lend him a round sum, and
+see the last of him for good; but this would have been to see the last of
+Catriona as well, for which I was scarcely so prepared; and besides, it went
+against my conscience to squander my good money on one who was so little of a
+husband.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br />
+A TWOSOME</h2>
+
+<p>
+I believe it was about the fifth day, and I know at least that James was in one
+of his fits of gloom, when I received three letters. The first was from Alan,
+offering to visit me in Leyden; the other two were out of Scotland and prompted
+by the same affair, which was the death of my uncle and my own complete
+accession to my rights. Rankeillor&rsquo;s was, of course, wholly in the
+business view; Miss Grant&rsquo;s was like herself, a little more witty than
+wise, full of blame to me for not having written (though how was I to write
+with such intelligence?) and of rallying talk about Catriona, which it cut me
+to the quick to read in her very presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For it was of course in my own rooms that I found them, when I came to dinner,
+so that I was surprised out of my news in the very first moment of reading it.
+This made a welcome diversion for all three of us, nor could any have foreseen
+the ill consequences that ensued. It was accident that brought the three
+letters the same day, and that gave them into my hand in the same room with
+James More; and of all the events that flowed from that accident, and which I
+might have prevented if I had held my tongue, the truth is that they were
+preordained before Agricola came into Scotland or Abraham set out upon his
+travels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first that I opened was naturally Alan&rsquo;s; and what more natural than
+that I should comment on his design to visit me? but I observed James to sit up
+with an air of immediate attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that not Alan Breck that was suspected of the Appin accident?&rdquo;
+he inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told him, &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; it was the same; and he withheld me some time
+from my other letters, asking of our acquaintance, of Alan&rsquo;s manner of
+life in France, of which I knew very little, and further of his visit as now
+proposed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All we forfeited folk hang a little together,&rdquo; he explained,
+&ldquo;and besides I know the gentleman: and though his descent is not the
+thing, and indeed he has no true right to use the name of Stewart, he was very
+much admired in the day of Drummossie. He did there like a soldier; if some
+that need not be named had done as well, the upshot need not have been so
+melancholy to remember. There were two that did their best that day, and it
+makes a bond between the pair of us,&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could scarce refrain from shooting out my tongue at him, and could almost
+have wished that Alan had been there to have inquired a little further into
+that mention of his birth. Though, they tell me, the same was indeed not wholly
+regular.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, I had opened Miss Grant&rsquo;s, and could not withhold an
+exclamation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; I cried, forgetting, the first time since her father
+was arrived, to address her by a handle, &ldquo;I am come into my kingdom
+fairly, I am the laird of Shaws indeed&mdash;my uncle is dead at last.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She clapped her hands together leaping from her seat. The next moment it must
+have come over both of us at once what little cause of joy was left to either,
+and we stood opposite, staring on each other sadly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But James showed himself a ready hypocrite. &ldquo;My daughter,&rdquo; says he,
+&ldquo;is this how my cousin learned you to behave? Mr. David has lost a new
+friend, and we should first condole with him on his bereavement.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Troth, sir,&rdquo; said I, turning to him in a kind of anger, &ldquo;I
+can make no such great faces. His death is as blithe news as ever I got.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good soldier&rsquo;s philosophy,&rdquo; says James.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis the way of flesh, we must all go, all go. And if the
+gentleman was so far from your favour, why, very well! But we may at least
+congratulate you on your accession to your estates.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor can I say that either,&rdquo; I replied, with the same heat.
+&ldquo;It is a good estate; what matters that to a lone man that has enough
+already? I had a good revenue before in my frugality; and but for the
+man&rsquo;s death&mdash;which gratifies me, shame to me that must confess
+it!&mdash;I see not how anyone is to be bettered by this change.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you are more affected than you let
+on, or you would never make yourself out so lonely. Here are three letters;
+that means three that wish you well; and I could name two more, here in this
+very chamber. I have known you not so very long, but Catriona, when we are
+alone, is never done with the singing of your praises.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked up at him, a little wild at that; and he slid off at once into
+another matter, the extent of my estate, which (during the most of the dinner
+time) he continued to dwell upon with interest. But it was to no purpose he
+dissembled; he had touched the matter with too gross a hand: and I knew what to
+expect. Dinner was scarce ate when he plainly discovered his designs. He
+reminded Catriona of an errand, and bid her attend to it. &ldquo;I do not see
+you should be one beyond the hour,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;and friend David
+will be good enough to bear me company till you return.&rdquo; She made haste
+to obey him without words. I do not know if she understood, I believe not; but
+I was completely satisfied, and sat strengthening my mind for what should
+follow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door had scarce closed behind her departure, when the man leaned back in
+his chair and addressed me with a good affectation of easiness. Only the one
+thing betrayed him, and that was his face; which suddenly shone all over with
+fine points of sweat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am rather glad to have a word alone with you,&rdquo; says he,
+&ldquo;because in our first interview there were some expressions you
+misapprehended and I have long meant to set you right upon. My daughter stands
+beyond doubt. So do you, and I would make that good with my sword against all
+gainsayers. But, my dear David, this world is a censorious place&mdash;as who
+should know it better than myself, who have lived ever since the days of my
+late departed father, God sain him! in a perfect spate of calumnies? We have to
+face to that; you and me have to consider of that; we have to consider of
+that.&rdquo; And he wagged his head like a minister in a pulpit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To what effect, Mr. Drummond?&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I would be obliged
+to you if you would approach your point.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, ay,&rdquo; said he, laughing, &ldquo;like your character, indeed!
+and what I most admire in it. But the point, my worthy fellow, is sometimes in
+a kittle bit.&rdquo; He filled a glass of wine. &ldquo;Though between you and
+me, that are such fast friends, it need not bother us long. The point, I need
+scarcely tell you, is my daughter. And the first thing is that I have no
+thought in my mind of blaming you. In the unfortunate circumstances, what could
+you do else? &rsquo;Deed, and I cannot tell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thank you for that,&rdquo; said I, pretty close upon my guard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have besides studied your character,&rdquo; he went on; &ldquo;your
+talents are fair; you seem to have a moderate competence, which does no harm;
+and one thing with another, I am very happy to have to announce to you that I
+have decided on the latter of the two ways open.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid I am dull,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;What ways are these?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He bent his brows upon me formidably and uncrossed his legs. &ldquo;Why,
+sir,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I think I need scarce describe them to a gentleman
+of your condition; either that I should cut your throat or that you should
+marry my daughter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are pleased to be quite plain at last,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I believe I have been plain from the beginning!&rdquo; cries he
+robustiously. &ldquo;I am a careful parent, Mr. Balfour; but I thank God, a
+patient and deleeborate man. There is many a father, sir, that would have
+hirsled you at once either to the altar or the field. My esteem for your
+character&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Drummond,&rdquo; I interrupted, &ldquo;if you have any esteem for me
+at all, I will beg of you to moderate your voice. It is quite needless to rowt
+at a gentleman in the same chamber with yourself and lending you his best
+attention.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, very true,&rdquo; says he, with an immediate change. &ldquo;And you
+must excuse the agitations of a parent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understand you then,&rdquo; I continued&mdash;&ldquo;for I will take
+no note of your other alternative, which perhaps it was a pity you let
+fall&mdash;I understand you rather to offer me encouragement in case I should
+desire to apply for your daughter&rsquo;s hand?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not possible to express my meaning better,&rdquo; said he,
+&ldquo;and I see we shall do well together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That remains to be yet seen,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;But so much I need
+make no secret of, that I bear the lady you refer to the most tender affection,
+and I could not fancy, even in a dream, a better fortune than to get
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was sure of it, I felt certain of you, David,&rdquo; he cried, and
+reached out his hand to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I put it by. &ldquo;You go too fast, Mr. Drummond,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;There
+are conditions to be made; and there is a difficulty in the path, which I see
+not entirely how we shall come over. I have told you that, upon my side, there
+is no objection to the marriage, but I have good reason to believe there will
+be much on the young lady&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is all beside the mark,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;I will engage for
+her acceptance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think you forget, Mr. Drummond,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that, even in
+dealing with myself, you have been betrayed into two-three unpalatable
+expressions. I will have none such employed to the young lady. I am here to
+speak and think for the two of us; and I give you to understand that I would no
+more let a wife be forced upon myself, than what I would let a husband be
+forced on the young lady.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat and glowered at me like one in doubt and a good deal of temper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that is to be the way of it,&rdquo; I concluded. &ldquo;I will marry
+Miss Drummond, and that blithely, if she is entirely willing. But if there be
+the least unwillingness, as I have reason to fear&mdash;marry her will I
+never.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this is a small affair. As soon as she
+returns I will sound her a bit, and hope to reassure you&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I cut in again. &ldquo;Not a finger of you, Mr. Drummond, or I cry off, and
+you can seek a husband to your daughter somewhere else,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;It is I that am to be the only dealer and the only judge. I shall
+satisfy myself exactly; and none else shall anyways meddle&mdash;you the least
+of all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my word, sir!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;and who are you to be the
+judge?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The bridegroom, I believe,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is to quibble,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;You turn your back upon the
+fact. The girl, my daughter, has no choice left to exercise. Her character is
+gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I ask your pardon,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but while this matter lies
+between her and you and me, that is not so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What security have I!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Am I to let my
+daughter&rsquo;s reputation depend upon a chance?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You should have thought of all this long ago,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;before you were so misguided as to lose her; and not afterwards when it
+is quite too late. I refuse to regard myself as any way accountable for your
+neglect, and I will be browbeat by no man living. My mind is quite made up, and
+come what may, I will not depart from it a hair&rsquo;s breadth. You and me are
+to sit here in company till her return: upon which, without either word or look
+from you, she and I are to go forth again to hold our talk. If she can satisfy
+me that she is willing to this step, I will then make it; and if she cannot, I
+will not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He leaped out of his chair like a man stung. &ldquo;I can spy your
+man&oelig;uvre,&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;you would work upon her to
+refuse!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe ay, and maybe no,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;That is the way it is to
+be, whatever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if I refuse?&rdquo; cries he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, Mr. Drummond, it will have to come to the throat-cutting,&rdquo;
+said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What with the size of the man, his great length of arm in which he came near
+rivalling his father, and his reputed skill at weapons, I did not use this word
+without trepidation, to say nothing at all of the circumstance that he was
+Catriona&rsquo;s father. But I might have spared myself alarms. From the
+poorness of my lodging&mdash;he does not seem to have remarked his
+daughter&rsquo;s dresses, which were indeed all equally new to him&mdash;and
+from the fact that I had shown myself averse to lend, he had embraced a strong
+idea of my poverty. The sudden news of my estate convinced him of his error,
+and he had made but the one bound of it on this fresh venture, to which he was
+now so wedded, that I believe he would have suffered anything rather than fall
+to the alternative of fighting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little while longer he continued to dispute with me, until I hit upon a word
+that silenced him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I find you so averse to let me see the lady by herself,&rdquo; said
+I, &ldquo;I must suppose you have very good grounds to think me in the right
+about her unwillingness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He gabbled some kind of an excuse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But all this is very exhausting to both of our tempers,&rdquo; I added,
+&ldquo;and I think we would do better to preserve a judicious silence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The which we did until the girl returned, and I must suppose would have cut a
+very ridiculous figure had there been any there to view us.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br />
+IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE</h2>
+
+<p>
+I opened the door to Catriona and stopped her on the threshold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your father wishes us to take our walk,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked to James More, who nodded, and at that, like a trained soldier, she
+turned to go with me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We took one of our old ways, where we had gone often together, and been more
+happy than I can tell of in the past. I came a half a step behind, so that I
+could watch her unobserved. The knocking of her little shoes upon the way
+sounded extraordinary pretty and sad; and I thought it a strange moment that I
+should be so near both ends of it at once, and walk in the midst between two
+destinies, and could not tell whether I was hearing these steps for the last
+time, or whether the sound of them was to go in and out with me till death
+should part us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She avoided even to look at me, only walked before her, like one who had a
+guess of what was coming. I saw I must speak soon before my courage was run
+out, but where to begin I knew not. In this painful situation, when the girl
+was as good as forced into my arms and had already besought my forbearance, any
+excess of pressure must have seemed indecent; yet to avoid it wholly would have
+a very cold-like appearance. Between these extremes I stood helpless, and could
+have bit my fingers; so that, when at last I managed to speak at all, it may be
+said I spoke at random.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I am in a very painful situation; or
+rather, so we are both; and I would be a good deal obliged to you if you would
+promise to let me speak through first of all, and not to interrupt me till I
+have done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She promised me that simply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this that I have got to say is very
+difficult, and I know very well I have no right to be saying it. After what
+passed between the two of us last Friday, I have no manner of right. We have
+got so ravelled up (and all by my fault) that I know very well the least I
+could do is just to hold my tongue, which was what I intended fully, and there
+was nothing further from my thoughts than to have troubled you again. But, my
+dear, it has become merely necessary, and no way by it. You see, this estate of
+mine has fallen in, which makes of me rather a better match; and the&mdash;the
+business would not have quite the same ridiculous-like appearance that it would
+before. Besides which, it&rsquo;s supposed that our affairs have got so much
+ravelled up (as I was saying) that it would be better to let them be the way
+they are. In my view, this part of the thing is vastly exagerate, and if I were
+you I would not wear two thoughts on it. Only it&rsquo;s right I should mention
+the same, because there&rsquo;s no doubt it has some influence on James More.
+Then I think we were none so unhappy when we dwelt together in this town
+before. I think we did pretty well together. If you would look back, my
+dear&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will look neither back nor forward,&rdquo; she interrupted.
+&ldquo;Tell me the one thing: this is my father&rsquo;s doing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He approves of it,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;He approved I that I should ask
+your hand in marriage,&rdquo; and was going on again with somewhat more of an
+appeal upon her feelings; but she marked me not, and struck into the midst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He told you to!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;It is no sense denying it, you
+said yourself that there was nothing farther from your thoughts. He told you
+to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He spoke of it the first, if that is what you mean,&rdquo; I began.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was walking ever the faster, and looking fain in front of her; but at this
+she made a little noise in her head, and I thought she would have run.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Without which,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;after what you said last Friday,
+I would never have been so troublesome as make the offer. But when he as good
+as asked me, what was I to do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stopped and turned round upon me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it is refused at all events,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;and there
+will be an end of that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And she began again to walk forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose I could expect no better,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but I think
+you might try to be a little kind to me for the last end of it. I see not why
+you should be harsh. I have loved you very well, Catriona&mdash;no harm that I
+should call you so for the last time. I have done the best that I could manage,
+I am trying the same still, and only vexed that I can do no better. It is a
+strange thing to me that you can take any pleasure to be hard to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not thinking of you,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am thinking of that
+man, my father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and that way, too!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I can be of use to you
+that way, too; I will have to be. It is very needful, my dear, that we should
+consult about your father; for the way this talk has gone, an angry man will be
+James More.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stopped again. &ldquo;It is because I am disgraced?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is what he is thinking,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;but I have told
+you already to make nought of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will be all one to me,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I prefer to be
+disgraced!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did not know very well what to answer, and stood silent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There seemed to be something working in her bosom after that last cry;
+presently she broke out, &ldquo;And what is the meaning of all this? Why is all
+this shame loundered on my head? How could you dare it, David Balfour?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what else was I to do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not your dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I defy you to be calling
+me these words.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not thinking of my words,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;My heart bleeds for
+you, Miss Drummond. Whatever I may say, be sure you have my pity in your
+difficult position. But there is just the one thing that I wish you would bear
+in view, if it was only long enough to discuss it quietly; for there is going
+to be a collieshangie when we two get home. Take my word for it, it will need
+the two of us to make this matter end in peace.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said she. There sprang a patch of red in either of her
+cheeks. &ldquo;Was he for fighting you?&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, he was that,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She gave a dreadful kind of laugh. &ldquo;At all events, it is complete!&rdquo;
+she cried. And then turning on me. &ldquo;My father and I are a fine
+pair,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;but I am thanking the good God there will be
+somebody worse than what we are. I am thanking the good God that he has let me
+see you so. There will never be the girl made that will not scorn you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had borne a good deal pretty patiently, but this was over the mark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have no right to speak to me like that,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;What
+have I done but to be good to you, or try to be? And here is my repayment! O,
+it is too much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She kept looking at me with a hateful smile. &ldquo;Coward!&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The word in your throat and in your father&rsquo;s!&rdquo; I cried.
+&ldquo;I have dared him this day already in your interest. I will dare him
+again, the nasty pole-cat; little I care which of us should fall! Come,&rdquo;
+said I, &ldquo;back to the house with us; let us be done with it, let me be
+done with the whole Hieland crew of you! You will see what you think when I am
+dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck her for.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, smile away!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;I have seen your bonny father
+smile on the wrong side this day. Not that I mean he was afraid, of
+course,&rdquo; I added hastily, &ldquo;but he preferred the other way of
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is this?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When I offered to draw with him,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You offered to draw upon James More!&rdquo; she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I did so,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and found him backward enough, or
+how would we be here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a meaning upon this,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;What is it you are
+meaning?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was to make you take me,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;and I would not
+have it. I said you should be free, and I must speak with you alone; little I
+supposed it would be such a speaking! &lsquo;<i>And what if I
+refuse</i>?&rsquo; said he.&mdash;&lsquo;<i>Then it must come to the
+throat-cutting</i>,&rsquo; says I, &lsquo;<i>for I will no more have a husband
+forced on that young lady</i>, <i>than what I would have a wife forced upon
+myself</i>.&rsquo; These were my words, they were a friend&rsquo;s words;
+bonnily have I paid for them! Now you have refused me of your own clear free
+will, and there lives no father in the Highlands, or out of them, that can
+force on this marriage. I will see that your wishes are respected; I will make
+the same my business, as I have all through. But I think you might have that
+decency as to affect some gratitude. &rsquo;Deed, and I thought you knew me
+better! I have not behaved quite well to you, but that was weakness. And to
+think me a coward, and such a coward as that&mdash;O, my lass, there was a stab
+for the last of it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Davie, how would I guess?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;O, this is a dreadful
+business! Me and mine,&rdquo;&mdash;she gave a kind of a wretched cry at the
+word&mdash;&ldquo;me and mine are not fit to speak to you. O, I could be
+kneeling down to you in the street, I could be kissing your hands for
+forgiveness!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will keep the kisses I have got from you already,&rdquo; cried I.
+&ldquo;I will keep the ones I wanted and that were something worth; I will not
+be kissed in penitence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What can you be thinking of this miserable girl?&rdquo; says she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What I am trying to tell you all this while!&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that
+you had best leave me alone, whom you can make no more unhappy if you tried,
+and turn your attention to James More, your father, with whom you are like to
+have a queer pirn to wind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, that I must be going out into the world alone with such a man!&rdquo;
+she cried, and seemed to catch herself in with a great effort. &ldquo;But
+trouble yourself no more for that,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;He does not know
+what kind of nature is in my heart. He will pay me dear for this day of it;
+dear, dear, will he pay.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned, and began to go home and I to accompany her. At which she stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will be going alone,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is alone I must be
+seeing him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some little time I raged about the streets, and told myself I was the worst
+used lad in Christendom. Anger choked me; it was all very well for me to
+breathe deep; it seemed there was not air enough about Leyden to supply me, and
+I thought I would have burst like a man at the bottom of the sea. I stopped and
+laughed at myself at a street corner a minute together, laughing out loud, so
+that a passenger looked at me, which brought me to myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I thought, &ldquo;I have been a gull and a ninny and a soft
+Tommy long enough. Time it was done. Here is a good lesson to have nothing to
+do with that accursed sex, that was the ruin of the man in the beginning and
+will be so to the end. God knows I was happy enough before ever I saw her; God
+knows I can be happy enough again when I have seen the last of her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That seemed to me the chief affair: to see them go. I dwelled upon the idea
+fiercely; and presently slipped on, in a kind of malevolence, to consider how
+very poorly they were likely to fare when Davie Balfour was no longer by to be
+their milk-cow; at which, to my very own great surprise, the disposition of my
+mind turned bottom up. I was still angry; I still hated her; and yet I thought
+I owed it to myself that she should suffer nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This carried me home again at once, where I found the mails drawn out and ready
+fastened by the door, and the father and daughter with every mark upon them of
+a recent disagreement. Catriona was like a wooden doll; James More breathed
+hard, his face was dotted with white spots, and his nose upon one side. As soon
+as I came in, the girl looked at him with a steady, clear, dark look that might
+have been followed by a blow. It was a hint that was more contemptuous than a
+command, and I was surprised to see James More accept it. It was plain he had
+had a master talking-to; and I could see there must be more of the devil in the
+girl than I had guessed, and more good humour about the man than I had given
+him the credit of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He began, at least, calling me Mr. Balfour, and plainly speaking from a lesson;
+but he got not very far, for at the first pompous swell of his voice, Catriona
+cut in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will tell you what James More is meaning,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;He
+means we have come to you, beggar-folk, and have not behaved to you very well,
+and we are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill-behaviour. Now we are wanting to
+go away and be forgotten; and my father will have guided his gear so ill, that
+we cannot even do that unless you will give us some more alms. For that is what
+we are, at an events, beggar-folk and sorners.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By your leave, Miss Drummond,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I must speak to your
+father by myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went into her own room and shut the door, without a word or a look.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must excuse her, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; says James More. &ldquo;She has
+no delicacy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not here to discuss that with you,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but to be
+quit of you. And to that end I must talk of your position. Now, Mr. Drummond, I
+have kept the run of your affairs more closely than you bargained for. I know
+you had money of your own when you were borrowing mine. I know you have had
+more since you were here in Leyden, though you concealed it even from your
+daughter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I bid you beware. I will stand no more baiting,&rdquo; he broke out.
+&ldquo;I am sick of her and you. What kind of a damned trade is this to be a
+parent! I have had expressions used to me&mdash;&rdquo; There he broke off.
+&ldquo;Sir, this is the heart of a soldier and a parent,&rdquo; he went on
+again, laying his hand on his bosom, &ldquo;outraged in both
+characters&mdash;and I bid you beware.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you would have let me finish,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;you would have
+found I spoke for your advantage.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear friend,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I know I might have relied upon
+the generosity of your character.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Man! will you let me speak?&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;The fact is that I
+cannot win to find out if you are rich or poor. But it is my idea that your
+means, as they are mysterious in their source, so they are something
+insufficient in amount; and I do not choose your daughter to be lacking. If I
+durst speak to herself, you may be certain I would never dream of trusting it
+to you; because I know you like the back of my hand, and all your blustering
+talk is that much wind to me. However, I believe in your way you do still care
+something for your daughter after all; and I must just be doing with that
+ground of confidence, such as it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon, I arranged with him that he was to communicate with me, as to his
+whereabouts and Catriona&rsquo;s welfare, in consideration of which I was to
+serve him a small stipend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He heard the business out with a great deal of eagerness; and when it was done,
+&ldquo;My dear fellow, my dear son,&rdquo; he cried out, &ldquo;this is more
+like yourself than any of it yet! I will serve you with a soldier&rsquo;s
+faithfulness&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me hear no more of it!&rdquo; says I. &ldquo;You have got me to that
+pitch that the bare name of soldier rises on my stomach. Our traffic is
+settled; I am now going forth and will return in one half-hour, when I expect
+to find my chambers purged of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I gave them good measure of time; it was my one fear that I might see Catriona
+again, because tears and weakness were ready in my heart, and I cherished my
+anger like a piece of dignity. Perhaps an hour went by; the sun had gone down,
+a little wisp of a new moon was following it across a scarlet sunset; already
+there were stars in the east, and in my chambers, when at last I entered them,
+the night lay blue. I lit a taper and reviewed the rooms; in the first there
+remained nothing so much as to awake a memory of those who were gone; but in
+the second, in a corner of the floor, I spied a little heap that brought my
+heart into my mouth. She had left behind at her departure all that she had ever
+had of me. It was the blow that I felt sorest, perhaps because it was the last;
+and I fell upon that pile of clothing and behaved myself more foolish than I
+care to tell of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Late in the night, in a strict frost, and my teeth chattering, I came again by
+some portion of my manhood and considered with myself. The sight of these poor
+frocks and ribbons, and her shifts, and the clocked stockings, was not to be
+endured; and if I were to recover any constancy of mind, I saw I must be rid of
+them ere the morning. It was my first thought to have made a fire and burned
+them; but my disposition has always been opposed to wastery, for one thing; and
+for another, to have burned these things that she had worn so close upon her
+body seemed in the nature of a cruelty. There was a corner cupboard in that
+chamber; there I determined to bestow them. The which I did and made it a long
+business, folding them with very little skill indeed but the more care; and
+sometimes dropping them with my tears. All the heart was gone out of me, I was
+weary as though I had run miles, and sore like one beaten; when, as I was
+folding a kerchief that she wore often at her neck, I observed there was a
+corner neatly cut from it. It was a kerchief of a very pretty hue, on which I
+had frequently remarked; and once that she had it on, I remembered telling her
+(by way of a banter) that she wore my colours. There came a glow of hope and
+like a tide of sweetness in my bosom; and the next moment I was plunged back in
+a fresh despair. For there was the corner crumpled in a knot and cast down by
+itself in another part of the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when I argued with myself, I grew more hopeful. She had cut that corner off
+in some childish freak that was manifestly tender; that she had cast it away
+again was little to be wondered at; and I was inclined to dwell more upon the
+first than upon the second, and to be more pleased that she had ever conceived
+the idea of that keepsake, than concerned because she had flung it from her in
+an hour of natural resentment.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.<br />
+WE MEET IN DUNKIRK</h2>
+
+<p>
+Altogether, then, I was scare so miserable the next days but what I had many
+hopeful and happy snatches; threw myself with a good deal of constancy upon my
+studies; and made out to endure the time till Alan should arrive, or I might
+hear word of Catriona by the means of James More. I had altogether three
+letters in the time of our separation. One was to announce their arrival in the
+town of Dunkirk in France, from which place James shortly after started alone
+upon a private mission. This was to England and to see Lord Holderness; and it
+has always been a bitter thought that my good money helped to pay the charges
+of the same. But he has need of a long spoon who soups with the de&rsquo;il, or
+James More either. During this absence, the time was to fall due for another
+letter; and as the letter was the condition of his stipend, he had been so
+careful as to prepare it beforehand and leave it with Catriona to be
+despatched. The fact of our correspondence aroused her suspicions, and he was
+no sooner gone than she had burst the seal. What I received began accordingly
+in the writing of James More:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;My dear Sir,&mdash;Your esteemed favour came to hand duly, and I have to
+acknowledge the inclosure according to agreement. It shall be all faithfully
+expended on my daughter, who is well, and desires to be remembered to her dear
+friend. I find her in rather a melancholy disposition, but trust in the mercy
+of God to see her re-established. Our manner of life is very much alone, but we
+solace ourselves with the melancholy tunes of our native mountains, and by
+walking up the margin of the sea that lies next to Scotland. It was better days
+with me when I lay with five wounds upon my body on the field of Gladsmuir. I
+have found employment here in the <i>haras</i> of a French nobleman, where my
+experience is valued. But, my dear Sir, the wages are so exceedingly unsuitable
+that I would be ashamed to mention them, which makes your remittances the more
+necessary to my daughter&rsquo;s comfort, though I daresay the sight of old
+friends would be still better.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+&ldquo;My dear Sir,<br />
+&ldquo;Your affectionate, obedient servant,<br />
+&ldquo;<span class="smcap">James Macgregor Drummond</span>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Below it began again in the hand of Catriona:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;Do not be believing him, it is all lies together,&mdash;C. M. D.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not only did she add this postscript, but I think she must have come near
+suppressing the letter; for it came long after date, and was closely followed
+by the third. In the time betwixt them, Alan had arrived, and made another life
+to me with his merry conversation; I had been presented to his cousin of the
+Scots-Dutch, a man that drank more than I could have thought possible and was
+not otherwise of interest; I had been entertained to many jovial dinners and
+given some myself, all with no great change upon my sorrow; and we two (by
+which I mean Alan and myself, and not at all the cousin) had discussed a good
+deal the nature of my relations with James More and his daughter. I was
+naturally diffident to give particulars; and this disposition was not anyway
+lessened by the nature of Alan&rsquo;s commentary upon those I gave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannae make heed nor tail of it,&rdquo; he would say, &ldquo;but it
+sticks in my mind ye&rsquo;ve made a gowk of yourself. There&rsquo;s few people
+that has had more experience than Alan Breck: and I can never call to mind to
+have heard tell of a lassie like this one of yours. The way that you tell it,
+the thing&rsquo;s fair impossible. Ye must have made a terrible hash of the
+business, David.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There are whiles that I am of the same mind,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The strange thing is that ye seem to have a kind of fancy for her
+too!&rdquo; said Alan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The biggest kind, Alan,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I think I&rsquo;ll
+take it to my grave with me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, ye beat me, whatever!&rdquo; he would conclude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I showed him the letter with Catriona&rsquo;s postscript. &ldquo;And here
+again!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Impossible to deny a kind of decency to this
+Catriona, and sense forby! As for James More, the man&rsquo;s as boss as a
+drum; he&rsquo;s just a wame and a wheen words; though I&rsquo;ll can never
+deny that he fought reasonably well at Gladsmuir, and it&rsquo;s true what he
+says here about the five wounds. But the loss of him is that the man&rsquo;s
+boss.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye see, Alan,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;it goes against the grain with me to
+leave the maid in such poor hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye couldnae weel find poorer,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;But what are ye
+to do with it? It&rsquo;s this way about a man and a woman, ye see, Davie: The
+weemenfolk have got no kind of reason to them. Either they like the man, and
+then a&rsquo; goes fine; or else they just detest him, and ye may spare your
+breath&mdash;ye can do naething. There&rsquo;s just the two sets of
+them&mdash;them that would sell their coats for ye, and them that never look
+the road ye&rsquo;re on. That&rsquo;s a&rsquo; that there is to women; and you
+seem to be such a gomeral that ye cannae tell the tane frae the tither.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and I&rsquo;m afraid that&rsquo;s true for me,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet there&rsquo;s naething easier!&rdquo; cried Alan. &ldquo;I could
+easy learn ye the science of the thing; but ye seem to me to be born blind, and
+there&rsquo;s where the deefficulty comes in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And can <i>you</i> no help me?&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;you that are so
+clever at the trade?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye see, David, I wasnae here,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m like a
+field officer that has naebody but blind men for scouts and
+<i>&eacute;claireurs</i>; and what would he ken? But it sticks in my mind that
+ye&rsquo;ll have made some kind of bauchle; and if I was you I would have a try
+at her again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Would ye so, man Alan?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would e&rsquo;en&rsquo;t,&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third letter came to my hand while we were deep in some such talk: and it
+will be seen how pat it fell to the occasion. James professed to be in some
+concern upon his daughter&rsquo;s health, which I believe was never better;
+abounded in kind expressions to myself; and finally proposed that I should
+visit them at Dunkirk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You will now be enjoying the society of my old comrade Mr.
+Stewart,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;Why not accompany him so far in his return to
+France? I have something very particular for Mr. Stewart&rsquo;s ear; and, at
+any rate, I would be pleased to meet in with an old fellow-soldier and one so
+mettle as himself. As for you, my dear sir, my daughter and I would be proud to
+receive our benefactor, whom we regard as a brother and a son. The French
+nobleman has proved a person of the most filthy avarice of character, and I
+have been necessitate to leave the <i>haras</i>. You will find us in
+consequence a little poorly lodged in the <i>auberge</i> of a man Bazin on the
+dunes; but the situation is caller, and I make no doubt but we might spend some
+very pleasant days, when Mr. Stewart and I could recall our services, and you
+and my daughter divert yourselves in a manner more befitting your age. I beg at
+least that Mr. Stewart would come here; my business with him opens a very wide
+door.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does the man want with me?&rdquo; cried Alan, when he had read.
+&ldquo;What he wants with you is clear enough&mdash;it&rsquo;s siller. But what
+can he want with Alan Breck?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, it&rsquo;ll be just an excuse,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;He is still
+after this marriage, which I wish from my heart that we could bring about. And
+he asks you because he thinks I would be less likely to come wanting
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I wish that I kent,&rdquo; says Alan. &ldquo;Him and me were never
+onyways pack; we used to girn at ither like a pair of pipers. &lsquo;Something
+for my ear,&rsquo; quo&rsquo; he! I&rsquo;ll maybe have something for his
+hinder-end, before we&rsquo;re through with it. Dod, I&rsquo;m thinking it
+would be a kind of divertisement to gang and see what he&rsquo;ll be after!
+Forby that I could see your lassie then. What say ye, Davie? Will ye ride with
+Alan?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You may be sure I was not backward, and Alan&rsquo;s furlough running towards
+an end, we set forth presently upon this joint adventure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was near dark of a January day when we rode at last into the town of
+Dunkirk. We left our horses at the post, and found a guide to Bazin&rsquo;s
+Inn, which lay beyond the walls. Night was quite fallen, so that we were the
+last to leave that fortress, and heard the doors of it close behind us as we
+passed the bridge. On the other side there lay a lighted suburb, which we
+thridded for a while, then turned into a dark lane, and presently found
+ourselves wading in the night among deep sand where we could hear a bullering
+of the sea. We travelled in this fashion for some while, following our
+conductor mostly by the sound of his voice; and I had begun to think he was
+perhaps misleading us, when we came to the top of a small brae, and there
+appeared out of the darkness a dim light in a window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Voil&agrave; l&rsquo;auberge &agrave; Bazin</i>,&rdquo; says the
+guide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alan smacked his lips. &ldquo;An unco lonely bit,&rdquo; said he, and I thought
+by his tone he was not wholly pleased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little after, and we stood in the lower storey of that house, which was all
+in the one apartment, with a stairs leading to the chambers at the side,
+benches and tables by the wall, the cooking fire at the one end of it, and
+shelves of bottles and the cellar-trap at the other. Here Bazin, who was an
+ill-looking, big man, told us the Scottish gentleman was gone abroad he knew
+not where, but the young lady was above, and he would call her down to us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took from my breast that kerchief wanting the corner, and knotted it about my
+throat. I could hear my heart go; and Alan patting me on the shoulder with some
+of his laughable expressions, I could scarce refrain from a sharp word. But the
+time was not long to wait. I heard her step pass overhead, and saw her on the
+stair. This she descended very quietly, and greeted me with a pale face and a
+certain seeming of earnestness, or uneasiness, in her manner that extremely
+dashed me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My father, James More, will be here soon. He will be very pleased to see
+you,&rdquo; she said. And then of a sudden her face flamed, her eyes lightened,
+the speech stopped upon her lips; and I made sure she had observed the
+kerchief. It was only for a breath that she was discomposed; but methought it
+was with a new animation that she turned to welcome Alan. &ldquo;And you will
+be his friend, Alan Breck?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Many is the dozen times I
+will have heard him tell of you; and I love you already for all your bravery
+and goodness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; says Alan, holding her hand in his and viewing her,
+&ldquo;and so this is the young lady at the last of it! David, ye&rsquo;re an
+awful poor hand of a description.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I do not know that ever I heard him speak so straight to people&rsquo;s hearts;
+the sound of his voice was like song.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What? will he have been describing me?&rdquo; she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Little else of it since I ever came out of France!&rdquo; says he,
+&ldquo;forby a bit of a speciment one night in Scotland in a shaw of wood by
+Silvermills. But cheer up, my dear! ye&rsquo;re bonnier than what he said. And
+now there&rsquo;s one thing sure; you and me are to be a pair of friends.
+I&rsquo;m a kind of a henchman to Davie here; I&rsquo;m like a tyke at his
+heels; and whatever he cares for, I&rsquo;ve got to care for too&mdash;and by
+the holy airn! they&rsquo;ve got to care for me! So now you can see what way
+you stand with Alan Breck, and ye&rsquo;ll find ye&rsquo;ll hardly lose on the
+transaction. He&rsquo;s no very bonnie, my dear, but he&rsquo;s leal to them he
+loves.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thank you from my heart for your good words,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I
+have that honour for a brave, honest man that I cannot find any to be answering
+with.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Using travellers&rsquo; freedom, we spared to wait for James More, and sat down
+to meat, we threesome. Alan had Catriona sit by him and wait upon his wants: he
+made her drink first out of his glass, he surrounded her with continual kind
+gallantries, and yet never gave me the most small occasion to be jealous; and
+he kept the talk so much in his own hand, and that in so merry a note, that
+neither she nor I remembered to be embarrassed. If any had seen us there, it
+must have been supposed that Alan was the old friend and I the stranger.
+Indeed, I had often cause to love and to admire the man, but I never loved or
+admired him better than that night; and I could not help remarking to myself
+(what I was sometimes rather in danger of forgetting) that he had not only much
+experience of life, but in his own way a great deal of natural ability besides.
+As for Catriona, she seemed quite carried away; her laugh was like a peal of
+bells, her face gay as a May morning; and I own, although I was well pleased,
+yet I was a little sad also, and thought myself a dull, stockish character in
+comparison of my friend, and very unfit to come into a young maid&rsquo;s life,
+and perhaps ding down her gaiety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But if that was like to be my part, I found that at least I was not alone in
+it; for, James More returning suddenly, the girl was changed into a piece of
+stone. Through the rest of that evening, until she made an excuse and slipped
+to bed, I kept an eye upon her without cease; and I can bear testimony that she
+never smiled, scarce spoke, and looked mostly on the board in front of her. So
+that I really marvelled to see so much devotion (as it used to be) changed into
+the very sickness of hate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of James More it is unnecessary to say much; you know the man already, what
+there was to know of him; and I am weary of writing out his lies. Enough that
+he drank a great deal, and told us very little that was to any possible
+purpose. As for the business with Alan, that was to be reserved for the morrow
+and his private hearing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the more easy to be put off, because Alan and I were pretty weary with
+four day&rsquo;s ride, and sat not very late after Catriona.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were soon alone in a chamber where we were to make-shift with a single bed.
+Alan looked on me with a queer smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye muckle ass!&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do ye mean by that?&rdquo; I cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mean? What do I mean! It&rsquo;s extraordinar, David man,&rdquo; say he,
+&ldquo;that you should be so mortal stupit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again I begged him to speak out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s this of it,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I told ye there were
+the two kinds of women&mdash;them that would sell their shifts for ye, and the
+others. Just you try for yoursel, my bonny man! But what&rsquo;s that neepkin
+at your craig?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I told him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thocht it was something thereabout,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor would he say another word though I besieged him long with importunities.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER XXX.<br />
+THE LETTER FROM THE SHIP</h2>
+
+<p>
+Daylight showed us how solitary the inn stood. It was plainly hard upon the
+sea, yet out of all view of it, and beset on every side with scabbit hills of
+sand. There was, indeed, only one thing in the nature of a prospect, where
+there stood out over a brae the two sails of a windmill, like an ass&rsquo;s
+ears, but with the ass quite hidden. It was strange (after the wind rose, for
+at first it was dead calm) to see the turning and following of each other of
+these great sails behind the hillock. Scarce any road came by there; but a
+number of footways travelled among the bents in all directions up to Mr.
+Bazin&rsquo;s door. The truth is, he was a man of many trades, not any one of
+them honest, and the position of his inn was the best of his livelihood.
+Smugglers frequented it; political agents and forfeited persons bound across
+the water came there to await their passages; and I daresay there was worse
+behind, for a whole family might have been butchered in that house and nobody
+the wiser.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I slept little and ill. Long ere it was day, I had slipped from beside my
+bedfellow, and was warming myself at the fire or walking to and fro before the
+door. Dawn broke mighty sullen; but a little after, sprang up a wind out of the
+west, which burst the clouds, let through the sun, and set the mill to the
+turning. There was something of spring in the sunshine, or else it was in my
+heart; and the appearing of the great sails one after another from behind the
+hill, diverted me extremely. At times I could hear a creak of the machinery;
+and by half-past eight of the day, and I thought this dreary, desert place was
+like a paradise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For all which, as the day drew on and nobody came near, I began to be aware of
+an uneasiness that I could scarce explain. It seemed there was trouble afoot;
+the sails of the windmill, as they came up and went down over the hill, were
+like persons spying; and outside of all fancy, it was surely a strange
+neighbourhood and house for a young lady to be brought to dwell in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At breakfast, which we took late, it was manifest that James More was in some
+danger or perplexity; manifest that Alan was alive to the same, and watched him
+close; and this appearance of duplicity upon the one side, and vigilance upon
+the other, held me on live coals. The meal was no sooner over than James seemed
+to come began to make apologies. He had an appointment of a private nature in
+the town (it was with the French nobleman, he told me), and we would please
+excuse him till about noon. Meanwhile he carried his daughter aside to the far
+end of the room, where he seemed to speak rather earnestly and she to listen
+with much inclination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am caring less and less about this man James,&rdquo; said Alan.
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s something no right with the man James, and I shouldnae
+wonder but what Alan Breck would give an eye to him this day. I would like fine
+to see yon French nobleman, Davie; and I daresay you could find an employ to
+yoursel, and that would be to speir at the lassie for some news o&rsquo; your
+affair. Just tell it to her plainly&mdash;tell her ye&rsquo;re a muckle ass at
+the off-set; and then, if I were you, and ye could do it naitural, I would just
+mint to her I was in some kind of a danger; a&rsquo; weemenfolk likes
+that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannae lee, Alan, I cannae do it naitural,&rdquo; says I, mocking him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The more fool you!&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;Then ye&rsquo;ll can tell her
+that I recommended it; that&rsquo;ll set her to the laughing; and I wouldnae
+wonder but what that was the next best. But see to the pair of them! If I
+didnae feel just sure of the lassie, and that she was awful pleased and chief
+with Alan, I would think there was some kind of hocus-pocus about you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is she so pleased with ye, then, Alan?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She thinks a heap of me,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;m no like
+you: I&rsquo;m one that can tell. That she does&mdash;she thinks a heap of
+Alan. And troth! I&rsquo;m thinking a good deal of him mysel; and with your
+permission, Shaws, I&rsquo;ll be getting a wee yont amang the bents, so that I
+can see what way James goes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One after another went, till I was left alone beside the breakfast table; James
+to Dunkirk, Alan dogging him, Catriona up the stairs to her own chamber. I
+could very well understand how she should avoid to be alone with me; yet was
+none the better pleased with it for that, and bent my mind to entrap her to an
+interview before the men returned. Upon the whole, the best appeared to me to
+do like Alan. If I was out of view among the sandhills, the fine morning would
+decoy her forth; and once I had her in the open, I could please myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner said than done; nor was I long under the bield of a hillock before
+she appeared at the inn door, looked here and there, and (seeing nobody) set
+out by a path that led directly seaward, and by which I followed her. I was in
+no haste to make my presence known; the further she went I made sure of the
+longer hearing to my suit; and the ground being all sandy it was easy to follow
+her unheard. The path rose and came at last to the head of a knowe. Thence I
+had a picture for the first time of what a desolate wilderness that inn stood
+hidden in; where was no man to be seen, nor any house of man, except just
+Bazin&rsquo;s and the windmill. Only a little further on, the sea appeared and
+two or three ships upon it, pretty as a drawing. One of these was extremely
+close in to be so great a vessel; and I was aware of a shock of new suspicion,
+when I recognised the trim of the <i>Seahorse</i>. What should an English ship
+be doing so near in to France? Why was Alan brought into her neighbourhood, and
+that in a place so far from any hope of rescue? and was it by accident, or by
+design, that the daughter of James More should walk that day to the seaside?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently I came forth behind her in the front of the sandhills and above the
+beach. It was here long and solitary; with a man-o&rsquo;-war&rsquo;s boat
+drawn up about the middle of the prospect, and an officer in charge and pacing
+the sands like one who waited. I sat down where the rough grass a good deal
+covered me, and looked for what should follow. Catriona went straight to the
+boat; the officer met her with civilities; they had ten words together; I saw a
+letter changing hands; and there was Catriona returning. At the same time, as
+if this were all her business on the Continent, the boat shoved off and was
+headed for the <i>Seahorse</i>. But I observed the officer to remain behind and
+disappear among the bents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I liked the business little; and the more I considered of it, liked it less.
+Was it Alan the officer was seeking? or Catriona? She drew near with her head
+down, looking constantly on the sand, and made so tender a picture that I could
+not bear to doubt her innocence. The next, she raised her face and recognised
+me; seemed to hesitate, and then came on again, but more slowly, and I thought
+with a changed colour. And at that thought, all else that was upon my
+bosom&mdash;fears, suspicions, the care of my friend&rsquo;s life&mdash;was
+clean swallowed up; and I rose to my feet and stood waiting her in a
+drunkenness of hope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I gave her &ldquo;good morning&rdquo; as she came up, which she returned with a
+good deal of composure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you forgive my having followed you?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know you are always meaning kindly,&rdquo; she replied; and then, with
+a little outburst, &ldquo;but why will you be sending money to that man! It
+must not be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never sent it for him,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but for you, as you know
+well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you have no right to be sending it to either one of us,&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;David, it is not right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not, it is all wrong,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I pray God he will
+help this dull fellow (if it be at all possible) to make it better. Catriona,
+this is no kind of life for you to lead; and I ask your pardon for the word,
+but yon man is no fit father to take care of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not be speaking of him, even!&rdquo; was her cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I need speak of him no more; it is not of him that I am thinking, O,
+be sure of that!&rdquo; says I. &ldquo;I think of the one thing. I have been
+alone now this long time in Leyden; and when I was by way of at my studies,
+still I was thinking of that. Next Alan came, and I went among soldier-men to
+their big dinners; and still I had the same thought. And it was the same
+before, when I had her there beside me. Catriona, do you see this napkin at my
+throat! You cut a corner from it once and then cast it from you. They&rsquo;re
+<i>your</i> colours now; I wear them in my heart. My dear, I cannot be wanting
+you. O, try to put up with me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stepped before her so as to intercept her walking on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Try to put up with me,&rdquo; I was saying, &ldquo;try and bear me with
+a little.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still she had never the word, and a fear began to rise in me like a fear of
+death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; I cried, gazing on her hard, &ldquo;is it a mistake
+again? Am I quite lost?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She raised her face to me, breathless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you want me, Davie, truly?&rdquo; said she, and I scarce could hear
+her say it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do that,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;O, sure you know it&mdash;I do
+that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have nothing left to give or to keep back,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I
+was all yours from the first day, if you would have had a gift of me!&rdquo;
+she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was on the summit of a brae; the place was windy and conspicuous, we were
+to be seen there even from the English ship; but I kneeled down before her in
+the sand, and embraced her knees, and burst into that storm of weeping that I
+thought it must have broken me. All thought was wholly beaten from my mind by
+the vehemency of my discomposure. I knew not where I was. I had forgot why I
+was happy; only I knew she stooped, and I felt her cherish me to her face and
+bosom, and heard her words out of a whirl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Davie,&rdquo; she was saying, &ldquo;O, Davie, is this what you think of
+me! Is it so that you were caring for poor me! O, Davie, Davie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With that she wept also, and our tears were commingled in a perfect gladness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It might have been ten in the day before I came to a clear sense of what a
+mercy had befallen me; and sitting over against her, with her hands in mine,
+gazed in her face, and laughed out loud for pleasure like a child, and called
+her foolish and kind names. I have never seen the place that looked so pretty
+as those bents by Dunkirk; and the windmill sails, as they bobbed over the
+knowe, were like a tune of music.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I know not how much longer we might have continued to forget all else besides
+ourselves, had I not chanced upon a reference to her father, which brought us
+to reality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My little friend,&rdquo; I was calling her again and again, rejoicing to
+summon up the past by the sound of it, and to gaze across on her, and to be a
+little distant&mdash;&ldquo;My little friend, now you are mine altogether; mine
+for good, my little friend and that man&rsquo;s no longer at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There came a sudden whiteness in her face, she plucked her hands from mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Davie, take me away from him!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+something wrong; he&rsquo;s not true. There will be something wrong; I have a
+dreadful terror here at my heart. What will he be wanting at all events with
+that King&rsquo;s ship? What will this word be saying?&rdquo; And she held the
+letter forth. &ldquo;My mind misgives me, it will be some ill to Alan. Open it,
+Davie&mdash;open it and see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took it, and looked at it, and shook my head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;it goes against me, I cannot open a
+man&rsquo;s letter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not to save your friend?&rdquo; she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannae tell,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I think not. If I was only
+sure!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you have but to break the seal!&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but the thing goes against me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give it here,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;and I will open it myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor you neither,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You least of all. It concerns
+your father, and his honour, dear, which we are both misdoubting. No question
+but the place is dangerous-like, and the English ship being here, and your
+father having word from it, and yon officer that stayed ashore. He would not be
+alone either; there must be more along with him; I daresay we are spied upon
+this minute. Ay, no doubt, the letter should be opened; but somehow, not by you
+nor me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was about thus far with it, and my spirit very much overcome with a sense of
+danger and hidden enemies, when I spied Alan, come back again from following
+James and walking by himself among the sand-hills. He was in his
+soldier&rsquo;s coat, of course, and mighty fine; but I could not avoid to
+shudder when I thought how little that jacket would avail him, if he were once
+caught and flung in a skiff, and carried on board of the <i>Seahorse</i>, a
+deserter, a rebel, and now a condemned murderer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;there is the man that has the best right to
+open it: or not, as he thinks fit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With which I called upon his name, and we both stood up to be a mark for him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it is so&mdash;if it be more disgrace&mdash;will you can bear
+it?&rdquo; she asked, looking upon me with a burning eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was asked something of the same question when I had seen you but the
+once,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;What do you think I answered? That if I liked you
+as I thought I did&mdash;and O, but I like you better!&mdash;I would marry you
+at his gallows&rsquo; foot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The blood rose in her face; she came close up and pressed upon me, holding my
+hand: and it was so that we awaited Alan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He came with one of his queer smiles. &ldquo;What was I telling ye,
+David?&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a time for all things, Alan,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and this
+time is serious. How have you sped? You can speak out plain before this friend
+of ours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been upon a fool&rsquo;s errand,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I doubt we have done better than you, then,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and,
+at least, here is a great deal of matter that you must judge of. Do you see
+that?&rdquo; I went on, pointing to the ship. &ldquo;That is the
+<i>Seahorse</i>, Captain Palliser.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should ken her, too,&rdquo; says Alan. &ldquo;I had fyke enough with
+her when she was stationed in the Forth. But what ails the man to come so
+close?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will tell you why he came there first,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It was to
+bring this letter to James More. Why he stops here now that it&rsquo;s
+delivered, what it&rsquo;s likely to be about, why there&rsquo;s an officer
+hiding in the bents, and whether or not it&rsquo;s probable that he&rsquo;s
+alone&mdash;I would rather you considered for yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A letter to James More?&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The same,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and I can tell ye more than that,&rdquo; said Alan. &ldquo;For the
+last night, when you were fast asleep, I heard the man colloguing with some one
+in the French, and then the door of that inn to be opened and shut.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Alan!&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;you slept all night, and I am here to prove
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, but I would never trust Alan whether he was asleep or waking!&rdquo;
+says he. &ldquo;But the business looks bad. Let&rsquo;s see the letter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I gave it him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you have to excuse me, my dear; but
+there&rsquo;s nothing less than my fine bones upon the cast of it, and
+I&rsquo;ll have to break this seal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is my wish,&rdquo; said Catriona.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He opened it, glanced it through, and flung his hand in the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The stinking brock!&rdquo; says he, and crammed the paper in his pocket.
+&ldquo;Here, let&rsquo;s get our things together. This place is fair death to
+me.&rdquo; And he began to walk towards the inn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Catriona that spoke the first. &ldquo;He has sold you?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sold me, my dear,&rdquo; said Alan. &ldquo;But thanks to you and Davie,
+I&rsquo;ll can jink him yet. Just let me win upon my horse,&rdquo; he added.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona must come with us,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;She can have no more
+traffic with that man. She and I are to be married.&rdquo; At which she pressed
+my hand to her side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are ye there with it?&rdquo; says Alan, looking back. &ldquo;The best
+day&rsquo;s work that ever either of you did yet! And I&rsquo;m bound to say,
+my dawtie, ye make a real, bonny couple.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The way that he was following brought us close in by the windmill, where I was
+aware of a man in seaman&rsquo;s trousers, who seemed to be spying from behind
+it. Only, of course, we took him in the rear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See, Alan!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wheesht!&rdquo; said, he, &ldquo;this is my affairs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man was, no doubt, a little deafened by the clattering of the mill, and we
+got up close before he noticed. Then he turned, and we saw he was a big fellow
+with a mahogany face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think, sir,&rdquo; says Alan, &ldquo;that you speak the
+English?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Non</i>, <i>monsieur</i>,&rdquo; says he, with an incredible bad
+accent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Non</i>, <i>monsieur</i>,&rdquo; cries Alan, mocking him. &ldquo;Is
+that how they learn you French on the <i>Seahorse</i>? Ye muckle, gutsey hash,
+here&rsquo;s a Scots boot to your English hurdies!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And bounding on him before he could escape, he dealt the man a kick that laid
+him on his nose. Then he stood, with a savage smile, and watched him scramble
+to his feet and scamper off into the sand-hills.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s high time I was clear of these empty bents!&rdquo; said
+Alan; and continued his way at top speed, and we still following, to the
+backdoor of Bazin&rsquo;s inn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It chanced that as we entered by the one door we came face to face with James
+More entering by the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here!&rdquo; said I to Catriona, &ldquo;quick! upstairs with you and
+make your packets; this is no fit scene for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the meanwhile James and Alan had met in the midst of the long room. She
+passed them close by to reach the stairs; and after she was some way up I saw
+her turn and glance at them again, though without pausing. Indeed, they were
+worth looking at. Alan wore as they met one of his best appearances of courtesy
+and friendliness, yet with something eminently warlike, so that James smelled
+danger off the man, as folk smell fire in a house, and stood prepared for
+accidents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Time pressed. Alan&rsquo;s situation in that solitary place, and his enemies
+about him, might have daunted C&aelig;sar. It made no change in him; and it was
+in his old spirit of mockery and daffing that he began the interview.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A braw good day to ye again, Mr. Drummond,&rdquo; said he.
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;ll yon business of yours be just about?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, the thing being private, and rather of a long story,&rdquo; says
+James, &ldquo;I think it will keep very well till we have eaten.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m none so sure of that,&rdquo; said Alan. &ldquo;It sticks in my
+mind it&rsquo;s either now or never; for the fact is me and Mr. Balfour here
+have gotten a line, and we&rsquo;re thinking of the road.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw a little surprise in James&rsquo;s eye; but he held himself stoutly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have but the one word to say to cure you of that,&rdquo; said he,
+&ldquo;and that is the name of my business.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say it then,&rdquo; says Alan. &ldquo;Hout! wha minds for Davie?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a matter that would make us both rich men,&rdquo; said James.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you tell me that?&rdquo; cries Alan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, sir,&rdquo; said James. &ldquo;The plain fact is that it is
+Cluny&rsquo;s Treasure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; cried Alan. &ldquo;Have ye got word of it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ken the place, Mr. Stewart, and can take you there,&rdquo; said James.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This crowns all!&rdquo; says Alan. &ldquo;Well, and I&rsquo;m glad I
+came to Dunkirk. And so this was your business, was it? Halvers, I&rsquo;m
+thinking?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is the business, sir,&rdquo; said James.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said Alan; and then in the same tone of childlike
+interest, &ldquo;it has naething to do with the <i>Seahorse</i>, then?&rdquo;
+he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With what?&rdquo; says James.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or the lad that I have just kicked the bottom of behind yon
+windmill?&rdquo; pursued Alan. &ldquo;Hut, man! have done with your lees! I
+have Palliser&rsquo;s letter here in my pouch. You&rsquo;re by with it, James
+More. You can never show your face again with dacent folk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+James was taken all aback with it. He stood a second, motionless and white,
+then swelled with the living anger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you talk to me, you bastard?&rdquo; he roared out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye glee&rsquo;d swine!&rdquo; cried Alan, and hit him a sounding buffet
+on the mouth, and the next wink of time their blades clashed together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the first sound of the bare steel I instinctively leaped back from the
+collision. The next I saw, James parried a thrust so nearly that I thought him
+killed; and it lowed up in my mind that this was the girl&rsquo;s father, and
+in a manner almost my own, and I drew and ran in to sever them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep back, Davie! Are ye daft! Damn ye, keep back!&rdquo; roared Alan.
+&ldquo;Your blood be on your ain heid then!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I beat their blades down twice. I was knocked reeling against the wall; I was
+back again betwixt them. They took no heed of me, thrusting at each other like
+two furies. I can never think how I avoided being stabbed myself or stabbing
+one of these two Rodomonts, and the whole business turned about me like a piece
+of a dream; in the midst of which I heard a great cry from the stair, and
+Catriona sprang before her father. In the same moment the point of my sword
+encountered some thing yielding. It came back to me reddened. I saw the blood
+flow on the girl&rsquo;s kerchief, and stood sick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you be killing him before my eyes, and me his daughter after
+all!&rdquo; she cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear, I have done with him,&rdquo; said Alan, and went, and sat on a
+table, with his arms crossed and the sword naked in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Awhile she stood before the man, panting, with big eyes, then swung suddenly
+about and faced him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Begone!&rdquo; was her word, &ldquo;take your shame out of my sight;
+leave me with clean folk. I am a daughter of Alpin! Shame of the sons of Alpin,
+begone!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was said with so much passion as awoke me from the horror of my own bloodied
+sword. The two stood facing, she with the red stain on her kerchief, he white
+as a rag. I knew him well enough&mdash;I knew it must have pierced him in the
+quick place of his soul; but he betook himself to a bravado air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; says he, sheathing his sword, though still with a bright eye
+on Alan, &ldquo;if this brawl is over I will but get my
+portmanteau&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There goes no pockmantie out of this place except with me,&rdquo; says
+Alan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir!&rdquo; cries James.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;James More,&rdquo; says Alan, &ldquo;this lady daughter of yours is to
+marry my friend Davie, upon the which account I let you pack with a hale
+carcase. But take you my advice of it and get that carcase out of harm&rsquo;s
+way or ower late. Little as you suppose it, there are leemits to my
+temper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be damned, sir, but my money&rsquo;s there!&rdquo; said James.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m vexed about that, too,&rdquo; says Alan, with his funny face,
+&ldquo;but now, ye see, it&rsquo;s mines.&rdquo; And then with more gravity,
+&ldquo;Be you advised, James More, you leave this house.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+James seemed to cast about for a moment in his mind; but it&rsquo;s to be
+thought he had enough of Alan&rsquo;s swordsmanship, for he suddenly put off
+his hat to us and (with a face like one of the damned) bade us farewell in a
+series. With which he was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time a spell was lifted from me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;it was me&mdash;it was my sword. O, are
+you much hurt?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it, Davie, I am loving you for the pain of it; it was done
+defending that bad man, my father. See!&rdquo; she said, and showed me a
+bleeding scratch, &ldquo;see, you have made a man of me now. I will carry a
+wound like an old soldier.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joy that she should be so little hurt, and the love of her brave nature,
+supported me. I embraced her, I kissed the wound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And am I to be out of the kissing, me that never lost a chance?&rdquo;
+says Alan; and putting me aside and taking Catriona by either shoulder,
+&ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re a true daughter of Alpin.
+By all accounts, he was a very fine man, and he may weel be proud of you. If
+ever I was to get married, it&rsquo;s the marrow of you I would be seeking for
+a mother to my sons. And I bear&rsquo;s a king&rsquo;s name and speak the
+truth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said it with a serious heat of admiration that was honey to the girl, and
+through her, to me. It seemed to wipe us clean of all James More&rsquo;s
+disgraces. And the next moment he was just himself again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now by your leave, my dawties,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this is
+a&rsquo; very bonny; but Alan Breck&rsquo;ll be a wee thing nearer to the
+gallows than he&rsquo;s caring for; and Dod! I think this is a grand place to
+be leaving.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The word recalled us to some wisdom. Alan ran upstairs and returned with our
+saddle-bags and James More&rsquo;s portmanteau; I picked up Catriona&rsquo;s
+bundle where she had dropped it on the stair; and we were setting forth out of
+that dangerous house, when Bazin stopped the way with cries and gesticulations.
+He had whipped under a table when the swords were drawn, but now he was as bold
+as a lion. There was his bill to be settled, there was a chair broken, Alan had
+sat among his dinner things, James More had fled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;pay yourself,&rdquo; and flung him down
+some Lewie d&rsquo;ors; for I thought it was no time to be accounting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sprang upon that money, and we passed him by, and ran forth into the open.
+Upon three sides of the house were seamen hasting and closing in; a little
+nearer to us James More waved his hat as if to hurry them; and right behind
+him, like some foolish person holding up his hands, were the sails of the
+windmill turning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alan gave but one glance, and laid himself down to run. He carried a great
+weight in James More&rsquo;s portmanteau; but I think he would as soon have
+lost his life as cast away that booty which was his revenge; and he ran so that
+I was distressed to follow him, and marvelled and exulted to see the girl
+bounding at my side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as we appeared, they cast off all disguise upon the other side; and the
+seamen pursued us with shouts and view-hullohs. We had a start of some two
+hundred yards, and they were but bandy-legged tarpaulins after all, that could
+not hope to better us at such an exercise. I suppose they were armed, but did
+not care to use their pistols on French ground. And as soon as I perceived that
+we not only held our advantage but drew a little away, I began to feel quite
+easy of the issue. For all which, it was a hot, brisk bit of work, so long as
+it lasted; Dunkirk was still far off; and when we popped over a knowe, and
+found a company of the garrison marching on the other side on some
+man&oelig;uvre, I could very well understand the word that Alan had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stopped running at once; and mopping at his brow, &ldquo;They&rsquo;re a
+real bonny folk, the French nation,&rdquo; says he.
+</p>
+
+<h2>CONCLUSION</h2>
+
+<p>
+No sooner were we safe within the walls of Dunkirk than we held a very
+necessary council-of-war on our position. We had taken a daughter from her
+father at the sword&rsquo;s point; any judge would give her back to him at
+once, and by all likelihood clap me and Alan into jail; and though we had an
+argument upon our side in Captain Palliser&rsquo;s letter, neither Catriona nor
+I were very keen to be using it in public. Upon all accounts it seemed the most
+prudent to carry the girl to Paris to the hands of her own chieftain, Macgregor
+of Bohaldie, who would be very willing to help his kinswoman, on the one hand,
+and not at all anxious to dishonour James upon other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We made but a slow journey of it up, for Catriona was not so good at the riding
+as the running, and had scarce sat in the saddle since the &rsquo;Forty-five.
+But we made it out at last, reached Paris early of a Sabbath morning, and made
+all speed, under Alan&rsquo;s guidance, to find Bohaldie. He was finely lodged,
+and lived in a good style, having a pension on the Scots Fund, as well as
+private means; greeted Catriona like one of his own house, and seemed
+altogether very civil and discreet, but not particularly open. We asked of the
+news of James More. &ldquo;Poor James!&rdquo; said he, and shook his head and
+smiled, so that I thought he knew further than he meant to tell. Then we showed
+him Palliser&rsquo;s letter, and he drew a long face at that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor James!&rdquo; said he again. &ldquo;Well, there are worse folk than
+James More, too. But this is dreadful bad. Tut, tut, he must have forgot
+himself entirely! This is a most undesirable letter. But, for all that,
+gentlemen, I cannot see what we would want to make it public for. It&rsquo;s an
+ill bird that fouls his own nest, and we are all Scots folk and all
+Hieland.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon this we all agreed, save perhaps Alan; and still more upon the question of
+our marriage, which Bohaldie took in his own hands, as though there had been no
+such person as James More, and gave Catriona away with very pretty manners and
+agreeable compliments in French. It was not till all was over, and our healths
+drunk, that he told us James was in that city, whither he had preceded us some
+days, and where he now lay sick, and like to die. I thought I saw by my
+wife&rsquo;s face what way her inclination pointed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And let us go see him, then,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it is your pleasure,&rdquo; said Catriona. These were early days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was lodged in the same quarter of the city with his chief, in a great house
+upon a corner; and we were guided up to the garret where he lay by the sound of
+Highland piping. It seemed he had just borrowed a set of them from Bohaldie to
+amuse his sickness; though he was no such hand as was his brother Rob, he made
+good music of the kind; and it was strange to observe the French folk crowding
+on the stairs, and some of them laughing. He lay propped in a pallet. The first
+look of him I saw he was upon his last business; and, doubtless, this was a
+strange place for him to die in. But even now I find I can scarce dwell upon
+his end with patience. Doubtless, Bohaldie had prepared him; he seemed to know
+we were married, complimented us on the event, and gave us a benediction like a
+patriarch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been never understood,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I forgive you both
+without an afterthought;&rdquo; after which he spoke for all the world in his
+old manner, was so obliging as to play us a tune or two upon his pipes, and
+borrowed a small sum before I left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I could not trace even a hint of shame in any part of his behaviour; but he was
+great upon forgiveness; it seemed always fresh to him. I think he forgave me
+every time we met; and when after some four days he passed away in a kind of
+odour of affectionate sanctity, I could have torn my hair out for exasperation.
+I had him buried; but what to put upon his tomb was quite beyond me, till at
+last I considered the date would look best alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought it wiser to resign all thoughts of Leyden, where we had appeared once
+as brother and sister, and it would certainly look strange to return in a new
+character. Scotland would be doing for us; and thither, after I had recovered
+that which I had left behind, we sailed in a Low Country ship.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+
+And now, Miss Barbara Balfour (to set the ladies first), and Mr. Alan Balfour
+younger of Shaws, here is the story brought fairly to an end. A great many of
+the folk that took a part in it, you will find (if you think well) that you
+have seen and spoken with. Alison Hastie in Limekilns was the lass that rocked
+your cradle when you were too small to know of it, and walked abroad with you
+in the policy when you were bigger. That very fine great lady that is Miss
+Barbara&rsquo;s name-mamma is no other than the same Miss Grant that made so
+much a fool of David Balfour in the house of the Lord Advocate. And I wonder
+whether you remember a little, lean, lively gentleman in a scratch-wig and a
+wraprascal, that came to Shaws very late of a dark night, and whom you were
+awakened out of your beds and brought down to the dining-hall to be presented
+to, by the name of Mr. Jamieson? Or has Alan forgotten what he did at Mr.
+Jamieson&rsquo;s request&mdash;a most disloyal act&mdash;for which, by the
+letter of the law, he might be hanged&mdash;no less than drinking the
+king&rsquo;s health <i>across the water</i>? These were strange doings in a
+good Whig house! But Mr. Jamieson is a man privileged, and might set fire to my
+corn-barn; and the name they know him by now in France is the Chevalier
+Stewart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Davie and Catriona, I shall watch you pretty close in the next days, and
+see if you are so bold as to be laughing at papa and mamma. It is true we were
+not so wise as we might have been, and made a great deal of sorrow out of
+nothing; but you will find as you grow up that even the artful Miss Barbara,
+and even the valiant Mr. Alan, will be not so very much wiser than their
+parents. For the life of man upon this world of ours is a funny business. They
+talk of the angels weeping; but I think they must more often be holding their
+sides as they look on; and there was one thing I determined to do when I began
+this long story, and that was to tell out everything as it befell.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>Footnotes</h2>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1"
+class="footnote">[1]</a> Conspicuous.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2"
+class="footnote">[2]</a> Country.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3"
+class="footnote">[3]</a> The Fairies.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4"
+class="footnote">[4]</a> Flatteries.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5"
+class="footnote">[5]</a> Trust to.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6"
+class="footnote">[6]</a> This must have reference to Dr. Cameron on his first
+visit.&mdash;D. B.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7"
+class="footnote">[7]</a> Sweetheart.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8"
+class="footnote">[8]</a> Child.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote9"></a><a href="#citation9"
+class="footnote">[9]</a> Palm.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10"
+class="footnote">[10]</a> Gallows.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11"
+class="footnote">[11]</a> My Catechism.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote12"></a><a href="#citation12"
+class="footnote">[12]</a> Now Prince&rsquo;s Street.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote13"></a><a href="#citation13"
+class="footnote">[13]</a> A learned folklorist of my acquaintance hereby
+identifies Alan&rsquo;s air. It has been printed (it seems) in Campbell&rsquo;s
+<i>Tales of the West Highlands</i>, Vol. II., p. 91. Upon examination it would
+really seem as if Miss Grant&rsquo;s unrhymed doggrel (see Chapter V.) would
+fit with little humouring to the notes in question.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote14"></a><a href="#citation14"
+class="footnote">[14]</a> A ball placed upon a little mound for convenience of
+striking.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote15"></a><a href="#citation15"
+class="footnote">[15]</a> Patched shoes.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote16"></a><a href="#citation16"
+class="footnote">[16]</a> Shoemaker.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote17"></a><a href="#citation17"
+class="footnote">[17]</a> Tamson&rsquo;s mere&mdash;to go afoot.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote18"></a><a href="#citation18"
+class="footnote">[18]</a> Beard.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote19"></a><a href="#citation19"
+class="footnote">[19]</a> Ragged.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote20"></a><a href="#citation20"
+class="footnote">[20]</a> Fine things.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote21"></a><a href="#citation21"
+class="footnote">[21]</a> Catch.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote22"></a><a href="#citation22"
+class="footnote">[22]</a> Victuals.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote23"></a><a href="#citation23"
+class="footnote">[23]</a> Trust.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote24"></a><a href="#citation24"
+class="footnote">[24]</a> Sea fog.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote25"></a><a href="#citation25"
+class="footnote">[25]</a> Bashful.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="footnote26"></a><a href="#citation26"
+class="footnote">[26]</a> Rest.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
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+
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+
+
+Catriona (A Sequel to "Kidnapped") by Robert Louis Stevenson
+Scanned and proofed by David Price
+ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+Catriona
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION.
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER, WRITER TO THE SIGNET.
+
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,
+
+
+It is the fate of sequels to disappoint those who have waited for them; 
+and my David, having been left to kick his heels for more than a lustre 
+in the British Linen Company's office, must expect his late re-
+appearance to be greeted with hoots, if not with missiles.  Yet, when I 
+remember the days of our explorations, I am not without hope.  There 
+should be left in our native city some seed of the elect; some long-
+legged, hot-headed youth must repeat to-day our dreams and wanderings 
+of so many years ago; he will relish the pleasure, which should have 
+been ours, to follow among named streets and numbered houses the 
+country walks of David Balfour, to identify Dean, and Silvermills, and 
+Broughton, and Hope Park, and Pilrig, and poor old Lochend - if it 
+still be standing, and the Figgate Whins - if there be any of them 
+left; or to push (on a long holiday) so far afield as Gillane or the 
+Bass.  So, perhaps, his eye shall be opened to behold the series of the 
+generations, and he shall weigh with surprise his momentous and 
+nugatory gift of life.
+
+You are still - as when first I saw, as when I last addressed you - in 
+the venerable city which I must always think of as my home.  And I have 
+come so far; and the sights and thoughts of my youth pursue me; and I 
+see like a vision the youth of my father, and of his father, and the 
+whole stream of lives flowing down there far in the north, with the 
+sound of laughter and tears, to cast me out in the end, as by a sudden 
+freshet, on these ultimate islands.  And I admire and bow my head 
+before the romance of destiny.
+
+R. L. S.
+
+Vailima, Upolu,
+
+Samoa, 1892.
+
+
+
+CATRIONA - Part I - THE LORD ADVOCATE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER  I - A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK
+
+
+
+THE 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David 
+Balfour, came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter attending me 
+with a bag of money, and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me 
+from their doors.  Two days before, and even so late as yestermorning, 
+I was like a beggar-man by the wayside, clad in rags, brought down to 
+my last shillings, my companion a condemned traitor, a price set on my 
+own head for a crime with the news of which the country rang.  To-day I 
+was served heir to my position in life, a landed laird, a bank porter 
+by me carrying my gold, recommendations in my pocket, and (in the words 
+of the saying) the ball directly at my foot.
+
+There were two circumstances that served me as ballast to so much sail.  
+The first was the very difficult and deadly business I had still to 
+handle; the second, the place that I was in.  The tall, black city, and 
+the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world 
+for me, after the moorland braes, the sea-sands and the still country-
+sides that I had frequented up to then.  The throng of the citizens in 
+particular abashed me.  Rankeillor's son was short and small in the 
+girth; his clothes scarce held on me; and it was plain I was ill 
+qualified to strut in the front of a bank-porter.  It was plain, if I 
+did so, I should but set folk laughing, and (what was worse in my case) 
+set them asking questions.  So that I behooved to come by some clothes 
+of my own, and in the meanwhile to walk by the porter's side, and put 
+my hand on his arm as though we were a pair of friends.
+
+At a merchant's in the Luckenbooths I had myself fitted out:  none too 
+fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback; but 
+comely and responsible, so that servants should respect me.  Thence to 
+an armourer's, where I got a plain sword, to suit with my degree in 
+life.  I felt safer with the weapon, though (for one so ignorant of 
+defence) it might be called an added danger.  The porter, who was 
+naturally a man of some experience, judged my accoutrement to be well 
+chosen.
+
+"Naething kenspeckle," said he; "plain, dacent claes.  As for the 
+rapier, nae doubt it sits wi' your degree; but an I had been you, I 
+would has waired my siller better-gates than that."  And he proposed I 
+should buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back, that was a 
+cousin of his own, and made them "extraordinar endurable."
+
+But I had other matters on my hand more pressing.  Here I was in this 
+old, black city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-warren, not 
+only by the number of its indwellers, but the complication of its 
+passages and holes.  It was, indeed, a place where no stranger had a 
+chance to find a friend, let be another stranger.  Suppose him even to 
+hit on the right close, people dwelt so thronged in these tall houses, 
+he might very well seek a day before he chanced on the right door.  The 
+ordinary course was to hire a lad they called a CADDIE, who was like a 
+guide or pilot, led you where you had occasion, and (your errands being 
+done) brought you again where you were lodging.  But these caddies, 
+being always employed in the same sort of services, and having it for 
+obligation to be well informed of every house and person in the city, 
+had grown to form a brotherhood of spies; and I knew from tales of Mr. 
+Campbell's how they communicated one with another, what a rage of 
+curiosity they conceived as to their employer's business, and how they 
+were like eyes and fingers to the police.  It would be a piece of 
+little wisdom, the way I was now placed, to take such a ferret to my 
+tails.  I had three visits to make, all immediately needful:  to my 
+kinsman Mr. Balfour of Pilrig, to Stewart the Writer that was Appin's 
+agent, and to William Grant Esquire of Prestongrange, Lord Advocate of 
+Scotland.  Mr. Balfour's was a non-committal visit; and besides (Pilrig 
+being in the country) I made bold to find the way to it myself, with 
+the help of my two legs and a Scots tongue.  But the rest were in a 
+different case.  Not only was the visit to Appin's agent, in the midst 
+of the cry about the Appin murder, dangerous in itself, but it was 
+highly inconsistent with the other.  I was like to have a bad enough 
+time of it with my Lord Advocate Grant, the best of ways; but to go to 
+him hot-foot from Appin's agent, was little likely to mend my own 
+affairs, and might prove the mere ruin of friend Alan's.  The whole 
+thing, besides, gave me a look of running with the hare and hunting 
+with the hounds that was little to my fancy.  I determined, therefore, 
+to be done at once with Mr. Stewart and the whole Jacobitical side of 
+my business, and to profit for that purpose by the guidance of the 
+porter at my side.  But it chanced I had scarce given him the address, 
+when there came a sprinkle of rain - nothing to hurt, only for my new 
+clothes - and we took shelter under a pend at the head of a close or 
+alley.
+
+Being strange to what I saw, I stepped a little farther in.  The narrow 
+paved way descended swiftly.  Prodigious tall houses sprang upon each 
+side and bulged out, one storey beyond another, as they rose.  At the 
+top only a ribbon of sky showed in.  By what I could spy in the 
+windows, and by the respectable persons that passed out and in, I saw 
+the houses to be very well occupied; and the whole appearance of the 
+place interested me like a tale.
+
+I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in 
+time and clash of steel behind me.  Turning quickly, I was aware of a 
+party of armed soldiers, and, in their midst, a tall man in a great 
+coat.  He walked with a stoop that was like a piece of courtesy, 
+genteel and insinuating:  he waved his hands plausibly as he went, and 
+his face was sly and handsome.  I thought his eye took me in, but could 
+not meet it.  This procession went by to a door in the close, which a 
+serving-man in a fine livery set open; and two of the soldier-lads 
+carried the prisoner within, the rest lingering with their firelocks by 
+the door.
+
+There can nothing pass in the streets of a city without some following 
+of idle folk and children.  It was so now; but the more part melted 
+away incontinent until but three were left.  One was a girl; she was 
+dressed like a lady, and had a screen of the Drummond colours on her 
+head; but her comrades or (I should say) followers were ragged gillies, 
+such as I had seen the matches of by the dozen in my Highland journey.  
+They all spoke together earnestly in Gaelic, the sound of which was 
+pleasant in my ears for the sake of Alan; and, though the rain was by 
+again, and my porter plucked at me to be going, I even drew nearer 
+where they were, to listen.  The lady scolded sharply, the others 
+making apologies and cringeing before her, so that I made sure she was 
+come of a chief's house.  All the while the three of them sought in 
+their pockets, and by what I could make out, they had the matter of 
+half a farthing among the party; which made me smile a little to see 
+all Highland folk alike for fine obeisances and empty sporrans.
+
+It chanced the girl turned suddenly about, so that I saw her face for 
+the first time.  There is no greater wonder than the way the face of a 
+young woman fits in a man's mind, and stays there, and he could never 
+tell you why; it just seems it was the thing he wanted.  She had 
+wonderful bright eyes like stars, and I daresay the eyes had a part in 
+it; but what I remember the most clearly was the way her lips were a 
+trifle open as she turned.  And, whatever was the cause, I stood there 
+staring like a fool.  On her side, as she had not known there was 
+anyone so near, she looked at me a little longer, and perhaps with more 
+surprise, than was entirely civil.
+
+It went through my country head she might be wondering at my new 
+clothes; with that, I blushed to my hair, and at the sight of my 
+colouring it is to be supposed she drew her own conclusions, for she 
+moved her gillies farther down the close, and they fell again to this 
+dispute, where I could hear no more of it.
+
+I had often admired a lassie before then, if scarce so sudden and 
+strong; and it was rather my disposition to withdraw than to come 
+forward, for I was much in fear of mockery from the womenkind.  You 
+would have thought I had now all the more reason to pursue my common 
+practice, since I had met this young lady in the city street, seemingly 
+following a prisoner, and accompanied with two very ragged indecent-
+like Highlandmen.  But there was here a different ingredient; it was 
+plain the girl thought I had been prying in her secrets; and with my 
+new clothes and sword, and at the top of my new fortunes, this was more 
+than I could swallow.  The beggar on horseback could not bear to be 
+thrust down so low, or, at least of it, not by this young lady.
+
+I followed, accordingly, and took off my new hat to her the best that I 
+was able.
+
+"Madam," said I, "I think it only fair to myself to let you understand 
+I have no Gaelic.  It is true I was listening, for I have friends of my 
+own across the Highland line, and the sound of that tongue comes 
+friendly; but for your private affairs, if you had spoken Greek, I 
+might have had more guess at them."
+
+She made me a little, distant curtsey.  "There is no harm done," said 
+she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more agreeable).  
+"A cat may look at a king."
+
+"I do not mean to offend," said I.  "I have no skill of city manners; I 
+never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh.  Take me 
+for a country lad - it's what I am; and I would rather I told you than 
+you found it out."
+
+"Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking 
+to each other on the causeway," she replied.  "But if you are landward 
+bred it will be different.  I am as landward as yourself; I am 
+Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther from my home."
+
+"It is not yet a week since I passed the line," said I.  "Less than a 
+week ago I was on the braes of Balwhidder."
+
+"Balwhither?" she cries.  "Come ye from Balwhither!  The name of it 
+makes all there is of me rejoice.  You will not have been long there, 
+and not known some of our friends or family?"
+
+"I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren," I 
+replied.
+
+"Well, I know Duncan, and you give him the true name!" she said; "and 
+if he is an honest man, his wife is honest indeed."
+
+"Ay," said I, "they are fine people, and the place is a bonny place."
+
+"Where in the great world is such another!" she cries; "I am loving the 
+smell of that place and the roots that grow there."
+
+I was infinitely taken with the spirit of the maid.  "I could be 
+wishing I had brought you a spray of that heather," says I.  "And, 
+though I did ill to speak with you at the first, now it seems we have 
+common acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not forget me.  
+David Balfour is the name I am known by.  This is my lucky day, when I 
+have just come into a landed estate, and am not very long out of a 
+deadly peril.  I wish you would keep my name in mind for the sake of 
+Balwhidder," said I, "and I will yours for the sake of my lucky day."
+
+"My name is not spoken," she replied, with a great deal of haughtiness.  
+"More than a hundred years it has not gone upon men's tongues, save for 
+a blink.  I am nameless, like the Folk of Peace.  Catriona Drummond is 
+the one I use."
+
+Now indeed I knew where I was standing.  In all broad Scotland there 
+was but the one name proscribed, and that was the name of the 
+Macgregors.  Yet so far from fleeing this undesirable acquaintancy, I 
+plunged the deeper in.
+
+"I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with yourself," 
+said I, "and I think he will be one of your friends.  They called him 
+Robin Oig."
+
+"Did ye so?" cries she.  "Ye met Rob?"
+
+"I passed the night with him," said I.
+
+"He is a fowl of the night," said she.
+
+"There was a set of pipes there," I went on, "so you may judge if the 
+time passed."
+
+"You should be no enemy, at all events," said she.  "That was his 
+brother there a moment since, with the red soldiers round him.  It is 
+him that I call father."
+
+"Is it so?" cried I.  "Are you a daughter of James More's?"
+
+"All the daughter that he has," says she:  "the daughter of a prisoner; 
+that I should forget it so, even for one hour, to talk with strangers!"
+
+Here one of the gillies addressed her in what he had of English, to 
+know what "she" (meaning by that himself) was to do about "ta 
+sneeshin."  I took some note of him for a short, bandy-legged, red-
+haired, big-headed man, that I was to know more of to my cost.
+
+"There can be none the day, Neil," she replied.  "How will you get 
+'sneeshin,' wanting siller!  It will teach you another time to be more 
+careful; and I think James More will not be very well pleased with Neil 
+of the Tom."
+
+"Miss Drummond," I said, "I told you I was in my lucky day.  Here I am, 
+and a bank-porter at my tail.  And remember I have had the hospitality 
+of your own country of Balwhidder."
+
+"It was not one of my people gave it," said she.
+
+"Ah, well." said I, "but I am owing your uncle at least for some 
+springs upon the pipes.  Besides which, I have offered myself to be 
+your friend, and you have been so forgetful that you did not refuse me 
+in the proper time."
+
+"If it had been a great sum, it might have done you honour," said she; 
+"but I will tell you what this is.  James More lies shackled in prison; 
+but this time past they will be bringing him down here daily to the 
+Advocate's. . . ."
+
+"The Advocate's!" I cried.  "Is that . . . ?"
+
+"It is the house of the Lord Advocate Grant of Prestongrange," said 
+she.  "There they bring my father one time and another, for what 
+purpose I have no thought in my mind; but it seems there is some hope 
+dawned for him.  All this same time they will not let me be seeing him, 
+nor yet him write; and we wait upon the King's street to catch him; and 
+now we give him his snuff as he goes by, and now something else.  And 
+here is this son of trouble, Neil, son of Duncan, has lost my four-
+penny piece that was to buy that snuff, and James More must go wanting, 
+and will think his daughter has forgotten him."
+
+I took sixpence from my pocket, gave it to Neil, and bade him go about 
+his errand.  Then to her, "That sixpence came with me by Balwhidder," 
+said I.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "you are a friend to the Gregara!"
+
+"I would not like to deceive you, either," said I.  "I know very little 
+of the Gregara and less of James More and his doings, but since the 
+while I have been standing in this close, I seem to know something of 
+yourself; and if you will just say 'a friend to Miss Catriona' I will 
+see you are the less cheated."
+
+"The one cannot be without the other," said she.
+
+"I will even try," said I.
+
+"And what will you be thinking of myself!" she cried, "to be holding my 
+hand to the first stranger!"
+
+"I am thinking nothing but that you are a good daughter," said I.
+
+"I must not be without repaying it," she said; "where is it you stop!"
+
+"To tell the truth, I am stopping nowhere yet," said I, "being not full 
+three hours in the city; but if you will give me your direction, I will 
+he no bold as come seeking my sixpence for myself."
+
+"Will I can trust you for that?" she asked.
+
+"You need have little fear," said I.
+
+"James More could not bear it else," said she.  "I stop beyond the 
+village of Dean, on the north side of the water, with Mrs. Drummond-
+Ogilvy of Allardyce, who is my near friend and will be glad to thank 
+you."
+
+"You are to see me, then, so soon as what I have to do permits," said 
+I; and, the remembrance of Alan rolling in again upon my mind, I made 
+haste to say farewell.
+
+I could not but think, even as I did so, that we had made extraordinary 
+free upon short acquaintance, and that a really wise young lady would 
+have shown herself more backward.  I think it was the bank-porter that 
+put me from this ungallant train of thought.
+
+"I thoucht ye had been a lad of some kind o' sense," he began, shooting 
+out his lips.  "Ye're no likely to gang far this gate.  A fule and his 
+siller's shune parted.  Eh, but ye're a green callant!" he cried, "an' 
+a veecious, tae!  Cleikin' up wi' baubeejoes!"
+
+"If you dare to speak of the young lady. . . " I began.
+
+"Leddy!" he cried.  "Haud us and safe us, whatten leddy?  Ca' THON a 
+leddy?  The toun's fu' o' them.  Leddies!  Man, its weel seen ye're no 
+very acquant in Embro!"
+
+A clap of anger took me.
+
+"Here," said I, "lead me where I told you, and keep your foul mouth 
+shut!"
+
+He did not wholly obey me, for, though he no more addressed me 
+directly, he very impudent sang at me as he went in a manner of 
+innuendo, and with an exceedingly ill voice and ear -
+
+
+"As Mally Lee cam doun the street, her capuchin did flee,
+She cuist a look ahint her to see her negligee.
+And we're a' gaun east and wast, we're a' gann ajee,
+We're a' gaun east and wast courtin' Mally Lee."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II - THE HIGHLAND WRITER
+
+
+
+MR. CHARLES STEWART the Writer dwelt at the top of the longest stair 
+ever mason set a hand to; fifteen flights of it, no less; and when I 
+had come to his door, and a clerk had opened it, and told me his master 
+was within, I had scarce breath enough to send my porter packing.
+
+"Awa' east and west wi' ye!" said I, took the money bag out of his 
+hands, and followed the clerk in.
+
+The outer room was an office with the clerk's chair at a table spread 
+with law papers.  In the inner chamber, which opened from it, a little 
+brisk man sat poring on a deed, from which he scarce raised his eyes on 
+my entrance; indeed, he still kept his finger in the place, as though 
+prepared to show me out and fall again to his studies.  This pleased me 
+little enough; and what pleased me less, I thought the clerk was in a 
+good posture to overhear what should pass between us.
+
+I asked if he was Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer.
+
+"The same," says he; "and, if the question is equally fair, who may you 
+be yourself?"
+
+"You never heard tell of my name nor of me either," said I, "but I 
+bring you a token from a friend that you know well.  That you know 
+well," I repeated, lowering my voice, "but maybe are not just so keen 
+to hear from at this present being.  And the bits of business that I 
+have to propone to you are rather in the nature of being confidential.  
+In short, I would like to think we were quite private."
+
+He rose without more words, casting down his paper like a man ill-
+pleased, sent forth his clerk of an errand, and shut to the house-door 
+behind him.
+
+"Now, sir," said he, returning, "speak out your mind and fear nothing; 
+though before you begin," he cries out, "I tell you mine misgives me!  
+I tell you beforehand, ye're either a Stewart or a Stewart sent ye.  A 
+good name it is, and one it would ill-become my father's son to 
+lightly.  But I begin to grue at the sound of it."
+
+"My name is called Balfour," said I, "David Balfour of Shaws.  As for 
+him that sent me, I will let his token speak."  And I showed the silver 
+button.
+
+"Put it in your pocket, sir!" cries he.  "Ye need name no names.  The 
+deevil's buckie, I ken the button of him!  And de'il hae't!  Where is 
+he now!"
+
+I told him I knew not where Alan was, but he had some sure place (or 
+thought he had) about the north side, where he was to lie until a ship 
+was found for him; and how and where he had appointed to be spoken 
+with.
+
+"It's been always my opinion that I would hang in a tow for this family 
+of mine," he cried, "and, dod!  I believe the day's come now!  Get a 
+ship for him, quot' he!  And who's to pay for it?  The man's daft!"
+
+"That is my part of the affair, Mr. Stewart," said I.  "Here is a bag 
+of good money, and if more be wanted, more is to be had where it came 
+from."
+
+"I needn't ask your politics," said he.
+
+"Ye need not," said I, smiling, "for I'm as big a Whig as grows."
+
+"Stop a bit, stop a bit," says Mr. Stewart.  "What's all this?  A Whig?  
+Then why are you here with Alan's button? and what kind of a black-foot 
+traffic is this that I find ye out in, Mr. Whig?  Here is a forfeited 
+rebel and an accused murderer, with two hundred pounds on his life, and 
+ye ask me to meddle in his business, and then tell me ye're a Whig!  I 
+have no mind of any such Whigs before, though I've kent plenty of 
+them."
+
+"He's a forfeited rebel, the more's the pity," said I, "for the man's 
+my friend.  I can only wish he had been better guided.  And an accused 
+murderer, that he is too, for his misfortune; but wrongfully accused."
+
+"I hear you say so," said Stewart.
+
+"More than you are to hear me say so, before long," said I.  "Alan 
+Breck is innocent, and so is James."
+
+"Oh!" says he, "the two cases hang together.  If Alan is out, James can 
+never be in."
+
+Hereupon I told him briefly of my acquaintance with Alan, of the 
+accident that brought me present at the Appin murder, and the various 
+passages of our escape among the heather, and my recovery of my estate.  
+"So, sir, you have now the whole train of these events," I went on, 
+"and can see for yourself how I come to be so much mingled up with the 
+affairs of your family and friends, which (for all of our sakes) I wish 
+had been plainer and less bloody.  You can see for yourself, too, that 
+I have certain pieces of business depending, which were scarcely fit to 
+lay before a lawyer chosen at random.  No more remains, but to ask if 
+you will undertake my service?"
+
+"I have no great mind to it; but coming as you do with Alan's button, 
+the choice is scarcely left me," said he.  "What are your 
+instructions?" he added, and took up his pen.
+
+"The first point is to smuggle Alan forth of this country," said I, 
+"but I need not be repeating that."
+
+"I am little likely to forget it," said Stewart.
+
+"The next thing is the bit money I am owing to Cluny," I went on.  "It 
+would be ill for me to find a conveyance, but that should be no stick 
+to you.  It was two pounds five shillings and three-halfpence farthing 
+sterling."
+
+He noted it.
+
+"Then," said I, "there's a Mr. Henderland, a licensed preacher and 
+missionary in Ardgour, that I would like well to get some snuff into 
+the hands of; and, as I daresay you keep touch with your friends in 
+Appin (so near by), it's a job you could doubtless overtake with the 
+other."
+
+"How much snuff are we to say?" he asked.
+
+"I was thinking of two pounds," said I.
+
+"Two," said he.
+
+"Then there's the lass Alison Hastie, in Lime Kilns," said I.  "Her 
+that helped Alan and me across the Forth.  I was thinking if I could 
+get her a good Sunday gown, such as she could wear with decency in her 
+degree, it would be an ease to my conscience; for the mere truth is, we 
+owe her our two lives."
+
+"I am glad so see you are thrifty, Mr. Balfour," says he, making his 
+notes.
+
+"I would think shame to be otherwise the first day of my fortune," said 
+I.  "And now, if you will compute the outlay and your own proper 
+charges, I would be glad to know if I could get some spending-money 
+back.  It's not that I grudge the whole of it to get Alan safe; it's 
+not that I lack more; but having drawn so much the one day, I think it 
+would have a very ill appearance if I was back again seeking, the next.  
+Only be sure you have enough," I added, "for I am very undesirous to 
+meet with you again."
+
+"Well, and I'm pleased to see you're cautious, too," said the Writer.  
+"But I think ye take a risk to lay so considerable a sum at my 
+discretion."
+
+He said this with a plain sneer.
+
+"I'll have to run the hazard," I replied.  "O, and there's another 
+service I would ask, and that's to direct me to a lodging, for I have 
+no roof to my head.  But it must be a lodging I may seem to have hit 
+upon by accident, for it would never do if the Lord Advocate were to 
+get any jealousy of our acquaintance."
+
+"Ye may set your weary spirit at rest," said he.  "I will never name 
+your name, sir; and it's my belief the Advocate is still so much to be 
+sympathised with that he doesnae ken of your existence."
+
+I saw I had got to the wrong side of the man.
+
+"There's a braw day coming for him, then," said I, "for he'll have to 
+learn of it on the deaf side of his head no later than to-morrow, when 
+I call on him."
+
+"When ye CALL on him!" repeated Mr. Stewart.  "Am I daft, or are you!  
+What takes ye near the Advocate!"
+
+"O, just to give myself up," said I.
+
+"Mr. Balfour," he cried, "are ye making a mock of me?"
+
+"No, sir," said I, "though I think you have allowed yourself some such 
+freedom with myself.  But I give you to understand once and for all 
+that I am in no jesting spirit."
+
+"Nor yet me," says Stewart.  "And I give yon to understand (if that's 
+to be the word) that I like the looks of your behaviour less and less.  
+You come here to me with all sorts of propositions, which will put me 
+in a train of very doubtful acts and bring me among very undesirable 
+persons this many a day to come.  And then you tell me you're going 
+straight out of my office to make your peace with the Advocate!  Alan's 
+button here or Alan's button there, the four quarters of Alan wouldnae 
+bribe me further in."
+
+"I would take it with a little more temper," said I, "and perhaps we 
+can avoid what you object to.  I can see no way for it but to give 
+myself up, but perhaps you can see another; and if you could, I could 
+never deny but what I would be rather relieved.  For I think my traffic 
+with his lordship is little likely to agree with my health.  There's 
+just the one thing clear, that I have to give my evidence; for I hope 
+it'll save Alan's character (what's left of it), and James's neck, 
+which is the more immediate."
+
+He was silent for a breathing-space, and then, "My man," said he, 
+"you'll never be allowed to give such evidence."
+
+"We'll have to see about that," said I; "I'm stiff-necked when I like."
+
+"Ye muckle ass!" cried Stewart, "it's James they want; James has got to 
+hang - Alan, too, if they could catch him - but James whatever!  Go 
+near the Advocate with any such business, and you'll see! he'll find a 
+way to muzzle, ye."
+
+"I think better of the Advocate than that," said I.
+
+"The Advocate be dammed!" cries he.  "It's the Campbells, man!  You'll 
+have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will the 
+Advocate too, poor body!  It's extraordinar ye cannot see where ye 
+stand!  If there's no fair way to stop your gab, there's a foul one 
+gaping.  They can put ye in the dock, do ye no see that?" he cried, and 
+stabbed me with one finger in the leg.
+
+"Ay," said I, "I was told that same no further back than this morning 
+by another lawyer."
+
+"And who was he?" asked Stewart, "He spoke sense at least."
+
+I told I must be excused from naming him, for he was a decent stout old 
+Whig, and had little mind to be mixed up in such affairs.
+
+"I think all the world seems to be mixed up in it!" cries Stewart.  
+"But what said you?"
+
+"I told him what had passed between Rankeillor and myself before the 
+house of Shaws.
+
+"Well, and so ye will hang!" said he.  "Ye'll hang beside James 
+Stewart.  There's your fortune told."
+
+"I hope better of it yet than that," said I; "but I could never deny 
+there was a risk."
+
+"Risk!" says he, and then sat silent again.  "I ought to thank you for 
+you staunchness to my friends, to whom you show a very good spirit," he 
+says, "if you have the strength to stand by it.  But I warn you that 
+you're wading deep.  I wouldn't put myself in your place (me that's a 
+Stewart born!) for all the Stewarts that ever there were since Noah.  
+Risk? ay, I take over-many; but to be tried in court before a Campbell 
+jury and a Campbell judge, and that in a Campbell country and upon a 
+Campbell quarrel - think what you like of me, Balfour, it's beyond me."
+
+"It's a different way of thinking, I suppose," said I; "I was brought 
+up to this one by my father before me."
+
+"Glory to his bones! he has left a decent son to his name," says he.  
+"Yet I would not have you judge me over-sorely.  My case is dooms hard.  
+See, sir, ye tell me ye're a Whig:  I wonder what I am.  No Whig to be 
+sure; I couldnae be just that.   But - laigh in your ear, man - I'm 
+maybe no very keen on the other side."
+
+"Is that a fact?" cried I.  "It's what I would think of a man of your 
+intelligence."
+
+"Hut! none of your whillywhas!" cries he.  "There's intelligence upon 
+both sides.  But for my private part I have no particular desire to 
+harm King George; and as for King James, God bless him! he does very 
+well for me across the water.  I'm a lawyer, ye see:  fond of my books 
+and my bottle, a good plea, a well-drawn deed, a crack in the 
+Parliament House with other lawyer bodies, and perhaps a turn at the 
+golf on a Saturday at e'en.  Where do ye come in with your Hieland 
+plaids and claymores?"
+
+"Well," said I, "it's a fact ye have little of the wild Highlandman."
+
+"Little?" quoth he.  "Nothing, man!  And yet I'm Hieland born, and when 
+the clan pipes, who but me has to dance!  The clan and the name, that 
+goes by all.  It's just what you said yourself; my father learned it to 
+me, and a bonny trade I have of it.  Treason and traitors, and the 
+smuggling of them out and in; and the French recruiting, weary fall it! 
+and the smuggling through of the recruits; and their pleas - a sorrow 
+of their pleas!  Here have I been moving one for young Ardsheil, my 
+cousin; claimed the estate under the marriage contract - a forfeited 
+estate!  I told them it was nonsense:  muckle they cared!  And there 
+was I cocking behind a yadvocate that liked the business as little as 
+myself, for it was fair ruin to the pair of us - a black mark, 
+DISAFFECTED, branded on our hurdies, like folk's names upon their kye!  
+And what can I do?  I'm a Stewart, ye see, and must fend for my clan 
+and family.  Then no later by than yesterday there was one of our 
+Stewart lads carried to the Castle.  What for?  I ken fine:  Act of 
+1736:  recruiting for King Lewie.  And you'll see, he'll whistle me in 
+to be his lawyer, and there'll be another black mark on my chara'ter!  
+I tell you fair:  if I but kent the heid of a Hebrew word from the 
+hurdies of it, be dammed but I would fling the whole thing up and turn 
+minister!"
+
+"It's rather a hard position," said I.
+
+"Dooms hard!" cries he.  "And that's what makes me think so much of ye 
+- you that's no Stewart - to stick your head so deep in Stewart 
+business.  And for what, I do not know:  unless it was the sense of 
+duty."
+
+"I hope it will be that," said I.
+
+"Well," says he, "it's a grand quality.  But here is my clerk back; 
+and, by your leave, we'll pick a bit of dinner, all the three of us.  
+When that's done, I'll give you the direction of a very decent man, 
+that'll be very fain to have you for a lodger.  And I'll fill your 
+pockets to ye, forbye, out of your ain bag.  For this business'll not 
+be near as dear as ye suppose - not even the ship part of it."
+
+I made him a sign that his clerk was within hearing.
+
+"Hoot, ye neednae mind for Robbie," cries he.  "A Stewart, too, puir 
+deevil! and has smuggled out more French recruits and trafficking 
+Papists than what he has hairs upon his face.  Why, it's Robin that 
+manages that branch of my affairs.  Who will we have now, Rob, for 
+across the water!"
+
+"There'll be Andie Scougal, in the THRISTLE," replied Rob.  "I saw 
+Hoseason the other day, but it seems he's wanting the ship.  Then 
+there'll be Tam Stobo; but I'm none so sure of Tam.  I've seen him 
+colloguing with some gey queer acquaintances; and if was anybody 
+important, I would give Tam the go-by."
+
+"The head's worth two hundred pounds, Robin," said Stewart.
+
+"Gosh, that'll no be Alan Breck!" cried the clerk.
+
+"Just Alan," said his master.
+
+"Weary winds! that's sayrious," cried Robin.  "I'll try Andie, then; 
+Andie'll be the best."
+
+"It seems it's quite a big business," I observed.
+
+"Mr. Balfour, there's no end to it," said Stewart.
+
+"There was a name your clerk mentioned," I went on:  "Hoseason.  That 
+must be my man, I think:  Hoseason, of the brig COVENANT.  Would you 
+set your trust on him?"
+
+"He didnae behave very well to you and Alan," said Mr. Stewart; "but my 
+mind of the man in general is rather otherwise.  If he had taken Alan 
+on board his ship on an agreement, it's my notion he would have proved 
+a just dealer.  How say ye, Rob?"
+
+"No more honest skipper in the trade than Eli," said the clerk.  "I 
+would lippen to Eli's word - ay, if it was the Chevalier, or Appin 
+himsel'," he added.
+
+"And it was him that brought the doctor, wasnae't?" asked the master.
+
+"He was the very man," said the clerk.
+
+"And I think he took the doctor back?" says Stewart.
+
+"Ay, with his sporran full!" cried Robin.  "And Eli kent of that!"
+
+"Well, it seems it's hard to ken folk rightly," said I.
+
+"That was just what I forgot when ye came in, Mr. Balfour!" says the 
+Writer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III - I GO TO PILRIG
+
+
+
+THE next morning, I was no sooner awake in my new lodging than I was up 
+and into my new clothes; and no sooner the breakfast swallowed, than I 
+was forth on my adventurers.  Alan, I could hope, was fended for; James 
+was like to be a more difficult affair, and I could not but think that 
+enterprise might cost me dear, even as everybody said to whom I had 
+opened my opinion.  It seemed I was come to the top of the mountain 
+only to cast myself down; that I had clambered up, through so many and 
+hard trials, to be rich, to be recognised, to wear city clothes and a 
+sword to my side, all to commit mere suicide at the last end of it, and 
+the worst kind of suicide, besides, which is to get hanged at the 
+King's charges.
+
+What was I doing it for? I asked, as I went down the high Street and 
+out north by Leith Wynd.  First I said it was to save James Stewart; 
+and no doubt the memory of his distress, and his wife's cries, and a 
+word or so I had let drop on that occasion worked upon me strongly.  At 
+the same time I reflected that it was (or ought to be) the most 
+indifferent matter to my father's son, whether James died in his bed or 
+from a scaffold.  He was Alan's cousin, to be sure; but so far as 
+regarded Alan, the best thing would be to lie low, and let the King, 
+and his Grace of Argyll, and the corbie crows, pick the bones of his 
+kinsman their own way.  Nor could I forget that, while we were all in 
+the pot together, James had shown no such particular anxiety whether 
+for Alan or me.
+
+Next it came upon me I was acting for the sake of justice:  and I 
+thought that a fine word, and reasoned it out that (since we dwelt in 
+polities, at some discomfort to each one of us) the main thing of all 
+must still be justice, and the death of any innocent man a wound upon 
+the whole community.  Next, again, it was the Accuser of the Brethren 
+that gave me a turn of his argument; bade me think shame for pretending 
+myself concerned in these high matters, and told me I was but a prating 
+vain child, who had spoken big words to Rankeillor and to Stewart, and 
+held myself bound upon my vanity to make good that boastfulness.  Nay, 
+and he hit me with the other end of the stick; for he accused me of a 
+kind of artful cowardice, going about at the expense of a little risk 
+to purchase greater safety.  No doubt, until I had declared and cleared 
+myself, I might any day encounter Mungo Campbell or the sheriff's 
+officer, and be recognised, and dragged into the Appin murder by the 
+heels; and, no doubt, in case I could manage my declaration with 
+success, I should breathe more free for ever after.  But when I looked 
+this argument full in the face I could see nothing to be ashamed of.  
+As for the rest, "Here are the two roads," I thought, "and both go to 
+the same place.  It's unjust that James should hang if I can save him; 
+and it would be ridiculous in me to have talked so much and then do 
+nothing.  It's lucky for James of the Glens that I have boasted 
+beforehand; and none so unlucky for myself, because now I'm committed 
+to do right.  I have the name of a gentleman and the means of one; it 
+would be a poor duty that I was wanting in the essence."  And then I 
+thought this was a Pagan spirit, and said a prayer in to myself, asking 
+for what courage I might lack, and that I might go straight to my duty 
+like a soldier to battle, and come off again scatheless, as so many do.
+
+This train of reasoning brought me to a more resolved complexion; 
+though it was far from closing up my sense of the dangers that 
+surrounded me, nor of how very apt I was (if I went on) to stumble on 
+the ladder of the gallows.  It was a plain, fair morning, but the wind 
+in the east.  The little chill of it sang in my blood, and gave me a 
+feeling of the autumn, and the dead leaves, and dead folks' bodies in 
+their graves.  It seemed the devil was in it, if I was to die in that 
+tide of my fortunes and for other folks' affairs.  On the top of the 
+Calton Hill, though it was not the customary time of year for that 
+diversion, some children were crying and running with their kites.  
+These toys appeared very plain against the sky; I remarked a great one 
+soar on the wind to a high altitude and then plump among the whins; and 
+I thought to myself at sight of it, "There goes Davie."
+
+My way lay over Mouter's Hill, and through an end of a clachan on the 
+braeside among fields.  There was a whirr of looms in it went from 
+house to house; bees bummed in the gardens; the neighbours that I saw 
+at the doorsteps talked in a strange tongue; and I found out later that 
+this was Picardy, a village where the French weavers wrought for the 
+Linen Company.  Here I got a fresh direction for Pilrig, my 
+destination; and a little beyond, on the wayside, came by a gibbet and 
+two men hanged in chains.  They were dipped in tar, as the manner is; 
+the wind span them, the chains clattered, and the birds hung about the 
+uncanny jumping-jacks and cried.  The sight coming on me suddenly, like 
+an illustration of my fears, I could scarce be done with examining it 
+and drinking in discomfort.  And, as I thus turned and turned about the 
+gibbet, what should I strike on, but a weird old wife, that sat behind 
+a leg of it, and nodded, and talked aloud to herself with becks and 
+courtesies.
+
+"Who are these two, mother?" I asked, and pointed to the corpses.
+
+"A blessing on your precious face!" she cried.  "Twa joes o'mine:  just 
+two o' my old joes, my hinny dear."
+
+"What did they suffer for?" I asked.
+
+"Ou, just for the guid cause," said she.  "Aften I spaed to them the 
+way that it would end.  Twa shillin' Scots:  no pickle mair; and there 
+are twa bonny callants hingin' for 't!  They took it frae a wean 
+belanged to Brouchton."
+
+"Ay!" said I to myself, and not to the daft limmer, "and did they come 
+to such a figure for so poor a business?  This is to lose all indeed."
+
+"Gie's your loof, hinny," says she, "and let me spae your weird to ye."
+
+"No, mother," said I, "I see far enough the way I am.  It's an unco 
+thing to see too far in front."
+
+"I read it in your bree," she said.  "There's a bonnie lassie that has 
+bricht een, and there's a wee man in a braw coat, and a big man in a 
+pouthered wig, and there's the shadow of the wuddy, joe, that lies 
+braid across your path.  Gie's your loof, hinny, and let Auld Merren 
+spae it to ye bonny."
+
+The two chance shots that seemed to point at Alan and the daughter of 
+James More struck me hard; and I fled from the eldritch creature, 
+casting her a baubee, which she continued to sit and play with under 
+the moving shadows of the hanged.
+
+My way down the causeway of Leith Walk would have been more pleasant to 
+me but for this encounter.  The old rampart ran among fields, the like 
+of them I had never seen for artfulness of agriculture; I was pleased, 
+besides, to be so far in the still countryside; but the shackles of the 
+gibbet clattered in my head; and the mope and mows of the old witch, 
+and the thought of the dead men, hag-rode my spirits.  To hang on a 
+gallows, that seemed a hard case; and whether a man came to hang there 
+for two shillings Scots, or (as Mr. Stewart had it) from the sense of 
+duty, once he was tarred and shackled and hung up, the difference 
+seemed small.  There might David Balfour hang, and other lads pass on 
+their errands and think light of him; and old daft limmers sit at a 
+leg-foot and spae their fortunes; and the clean genty maids go by, and 
+look to the other aide, and hold a nose.  I saw them plain, and they 
+had grey eyes, and their screens upon their heads were of the Drummed 
+colours.
+
+I was thus in the poorest of spirits, though still pretty resolved, 
+when I came in view of Pilrig, a pleasant gabled house set by the 
+walkside among some brave young woods.  The laird's horse was standing 
+saddled at the door as I came up, but himself was in the study, where 
+he received me in the midst of learned works and musical instruments, 
+for he was not only a deep philosopher but much of a musician.  He 
+greeted me at first pretty well, and when he had read Rankeillor's 
+letter, placed himself obligingly at my disposal.
+
+"And what is it, cousin David!" said he - "since it appears that we are 
+cousins - what is this that I can do for you!  A word to Prestongrange!  
+Doubtless that is easily given.  But what should be the word?"
+
+"Mr. Balfour," said I, "if I were to tell you my whole story the way it 
+fell out, it's my opinion (and it was Rankeillor's before me) that you 
+would be very little made up with it."
+
+"I am sorry to hear this of you, kinsman," says he.
+
+"I must not take that at your hands, Mr. Balfour," said I; "I have 
+nothing to my charge to make me sorry, or you for me, but just the 
+common infirmities of mankind.  'The guilt of Adam's first sin, the 
+want of original righteousness, and the corruption of my whole nature,' 
+so much I must answer for, and I hope I have been taught where to look 
+for help," I said; for I judged from the look of the man he would think 
+the better of me if I knew my questions.  "But in the way of worldly 
+honour I have no great stumble to reproach myself with; and my 
+difficulties have befallen me very much against my will and (by all 
+that I can see) without my fault.  My trouble is to have become dipped 
+in a political complication, which it is judged you would be blythe to 
+avoid a knowledge of."
+
+"Why, very well, Mr. David," he replied, "I am pleased to see you are 
+all that Rankeillor represented.  And for what you say of political 
+complications, you do me no more than justice.  It is my study to be 
+beyond suspicion, and indeed outside the field of it.  The question 
+is," says he, "how, if I am to know nothing of the matter, I can very 
+well assist you?"
+
+"Why sir," said I, "I propose you should write to his lordship, that I 
+am a young man of reasonable good family and of good means:  both of 
+which I believe to be the case."
+
+"I have Rankeillor's word for it," said Mr. Balfour, "and I count that 
+a warran-dice against all deadly."
+
+"To which you might add (if you will take my word for so much) that I 
+am a good churchman, loyal to King George, and so brought up," I went 
+on.
+
+"None of which will do you any harm," said Mr. Balfour.
+
+"Then you might go on to say that I sought his lordship on a matter of 
+great moment, connected with His Majesty's service and the 
+administration of justice," I suggested.
+
+"As I am not to hear the matter," says the laird, "I will not take upon 
+myself to qualify its weight.  'Great moment' therefore falls, and 
+'moment' along with it.  For the rest I might express myself much as 
+you propose."
+
+"And then, sir," said I, and rubbed my neck a little with my thumb, 
+"then I would be very desirous if you could slip in a word that might 
+perhaps tell for my protection."
+
+"Protection?" says he, "for your protection!  Here is a phrase that 
+somewhat dampens me.  If the matter be so dangerous, I own I would be a 
+little loath to move in it blindfold."
+
+"I believe I could indicate in two words where the thing sticks," said 
+I.
+
+"Perhaps that would be the best," said he.
+
+"Well, it's the Appin murder," said I.
+
+He held up both his hands.  "Sirs! sirs!" cried he.
+
+I thought by the expression of his face and voice that I had lost my 
+helper.
+
+"Let me explain. . ." I began.
+
+"I thank you kindly, I will hear no more of it," says he.  "I decline 
+IN TOTO to hear more of it.  For your name's sake and Rankeillor's, and 
+perhaps a little for your own, I will do what I can to help you; but I 
+will hear no more upon the facts.  And it is my first clear duty to 
+warn you.  These are deep waters, Mr. David, and you are a young man.  
+Be cautious and think twice."
+
+"It is to be supposed I will have thought oftener than that, Mr. 
+Balfour," said I, "and I will direct your attention again to 
+Rankeillor's letter, where (I hope and believe) he has registered his 
+approval of that which I design."
+
+"Well, well," said he; and then again, "Well, well!  I will do what I 
+can for you."  There with he took a pen and paper, sat a while in 
+thought, and began to write with much consideration.  "I understand 
+that Rankeillor approved of what you have in mind?" he asked presently.
+
+"After some discussion, sir, he bade me to go forward in God's name," 
+said I.
+
+"That is the name to go in," said Mr. Balfour, and resumed his writing.  
+Presently, he signed, re-read what he had written, and addressed me 
+again.  "Now here, Mr. David," said he, "is a letter of introduction, 
+which I will seal without closing, and give into your hands open, as 
+the form requires.  But, since I am acting in the dark, I will just 
+read it to you, so that you may see if it will secure your end -
+
+
+"PILRIG, AUGUST 26th, 1751.
+
+"MY LORD, - This is to bring to your notice my namesake and cousin, 
+David Balfour Esquire of Shaws, a young gentleman of unblemished 
+descent and good estate.  He has enjoyed, besides, the more valuable 
+advantages of a godly training, and his political principles are all 
+that your lordship can desire.  I am not in Mr. Balfour's confidence, 
+but I understand him to have a matter to declare, touching His 
+Majesty's service and the administration of justice; purposes for which 
+your Lordship's zeal is known.  I should add that the young gentleman's 
+intention is known to and approved by some of his friends, who will 
+watch with hopeful anxiety the event of his success or failure.
+
+
+"Whereupon," continued Mr. Balfour, "I have subscribed myself with the 
+usual compliments.  You observe I have said 'some of your friends'; I 
+hope you can justify my plural?"
+
+"Perfectly, sir; my purpose is known and approved by more than one," 
+said I.  "And your letter, which I take a pleasure to thank you for, is 
+all I could have hoped."
+
+"It was all I could squeeze out," said he; "and from what I know of the 
+matter you design to meddle in, I can only pray God that it may prove 
+sufficient."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV - LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGRANGE
+
+
+
+MY kinsman kept me to a meal, "for the honour of the roof," he said; 
+and I believe I made the better speed on my return.  I had no thought 
+but to be done with the next stage, and have myself fully committed; to 
+a person circumstanced as I was, the appearance of closing a door on 
+hesitation and temptation was itself extremely tempting; and I was the 
+more disappointed, when I came to Prestongrange's house, to be informed 
+he was abroad.  I believe it was true at the moment, and for some hours 
+after; and then I have no doubt the Advocate came home again, and 
+enjoyed himself in a neighbouring chamber among friends, while perhaps 
+the very fact of my arrival was forgotten.  I would have gone away a 
+dozen times, only for this strong drawing to have done with my 
+declaration out of hand and be able to lay me down to sleep with a free 
+conscience.  At first I read, for the little cabinet where I was left 
+contained a variety of books.  But I fear I read with little profit; 
+and the weather falling cloudy, the dusk coming up earlier than usual, 
+and my cabinet being lighted with but a loophole of a window, I was at 
+last obliged to desist from this diversion (such as it was), and pass 
+the rest of my time of waiting in a very burthensome vacuity.  The 
+sound of people talking in a near chamber, the pleasant note of a 
+harpsichord, and once the voice of a lady singing, bore me a kind of 
+company.
+
+I do not know the hour, but the darkness was long come, when the door 
+of the cabinet opened, and I was aware, by the light behind him, of a 
+tall figure of a man upon the threshold.  I rose at once.
+
+"Is anybody there?" he asked.  "Who in that?"
+
+"I am bearer of a letter from the laird of Pilrig to the Lord 
+Advocate," said I.
+
+"Have you been here long?" he asked.
+
+"I would not like to hazard an estimate of how many hours," said I.
+
+"It is the first I hear of it," he replied, with a chuckle.  "The lads 
+must have forgotten you.  But you are in the bit at last, for I am 
+Prestongrange."
+
+So saying, he passed before me into the next room, whither (upon his 
+sign) I followed him, and where he lit a candle and took his place 
+before a business-table.  It was a long room, of a good proportion, 
+wholly lined with books.  That small spark of light in a corner struck 
+out the man's handsome person and strong face.  He was flushed, his eye 
+watered and sparkled, and before he sat down I observed him to sway 
+back and forth.  No doubt, he had been supping liberally; but his mind 
+and tongue were under full control.
+
+"Well, sir, sit ye down," said he, "and let us see Pilrig's letter."
+
+He glanced it through in the beginning carelessly, looking up and 
+bowing when he came to my name; but at the last words I thought I 
+observed his attention to redouble, and I made sure he read them twice.  
+All this while you are to suppose my heart was beating, for I had now 
+crossed my Rubicon and was come fairly on the field of battle.
+
+"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Balfour," he said, when he 
+had done.  "Let me offer you a glass of claret."
+
+"Under your favour, my lord, I think it would scarce be fair on me," 
+said I.  "I have come here, as the letter will have mentioned, on a 
+business of some gravity to myself; and, as I am little used with wine, 
+I might be the sooner affected."
+
+"You shall be the judge," said he.  "But if you will permit, I believe 
+I will even have the bottle in myself."
+
+He touched a bell, and a footman came, as at a signal, bringing wine 
+and glasses.
+
+"You are sure you will not join me?" asked the Advocate.  "Well, here 
+is to our better acquaintance!  In what way can I serve you?"
+
+"I should, perhaps, begin by telling you, my lord, that I am here at 
+your own pressing invitation," said I.
+
+"You have the advantage of me somewhere," said he, "for I profess I 
+think I never heard of you before this evening."
+
+"Right, my lord; the name is, indeed, new to you," said I.  "And yet 
+you have been for some time extremely wishful to make my acquaintance, 
+and have declared the same in public."
+
+"I wish you would afford me a clue," says he.  "I am no Daniel."
+
+"It will perhaps serve for such," said I, "that if I was in a jesting 
+humour - which is far from the case - I believe I might lay a claim on 
+your lordship for two hundred pounds."
+
+"In what sense?" he inquired.
+
+"In the sense of rewards offered for my person," said I.
+
+He thrust away his glass once and for all, and sat straight up in the 
+chair where he had been previously lolling.  "What am I to understand?" 
+said he.
+
+"A TALL STRONG LAD OF ABOUT EIGHTEEN," I quoted, "SPEAKS LIKE a 
+LOWLANDER AND HAS NO BEARD."
+
+"I recognise those words," said he, "which, if you have come here with 
+any ill-judged intention of amusing yourself, are like to prove 
+extremely prejudicial to your safety."
+
+"My purpose in this," I replied, "is just entirely as serious as life 
+and death, and you have understood me perfectly.  I am the boy who was 
+speaking with Glenure when he was shot."
+
+"I can only suppose (seeing you here) that you claim to be innocent," 
+said he.
+
+"The inference is clear," I said.  "I am a very loyal subject to King 
+George, but if I had anything to reproach myself with, I would have had 
+more discretion than to walk into your den."
+
+"I am glad of that," said he.  "This horrid crime, Mr. Balfour, is of a 
+dye which cannot permit any clemency.  Blood has been barbarously shed.  
+It has been shed in direct opposition to his Majesty and our whole 
+frame of laws, by those who are their known and public oppugnants.  I 
+take a very high sense of this.  I will not deny that I consider the 
+crime as directly personal to his Majesty."
+
+"And unfortunately, my lord," I added, a little drily, "directly 
+personal to another great personage who may be nameless."
+
+"If you mean anything by those words, I must tell you I consider them 
+unfit for a good subject; and were they spoke publicly I should make it 
+my business to take note of them," said he.  "You do not appear to me 
+to recognise the gravity of your situation, or you would be more 
+careful not to pejorate the same by words which glance upon the purity 
+of justice.  Justice, in this country, and in my poor hands, is no 
+respecter of persons."
+
+"You give me too great a share in my own speech, my lord," said I.  "I 
+did but repeat the common talk of the country, which I have heard 
+everywhere, and from men of all opinions as I came along."
+
+"When you are come to more discretion you will understand such talk in 
+not to be listened to, how much less repeated," says the Advocate.  
+"But I acquit you of an ill intention.  That nobleman, whom we all 
+honour, and who has indeed been wounded in a near place by the late 
+barbarity, sits too high to be reached by these aspersions.  The Duke 
+of Argyle - you see that I deal plainly with you - takes it to heart as 
+I do, and as we are both bound to do by our judicial functions and the 
+service of his Majesty; and I could wish that all hands, in this ill 
+age, were equally clean of family rancour.  But from the accident that 
+this is a Campbell who has fallen martyr to his duty - as who else but 
+the Campbells have ever put themselves foremost on that path? - I may 
+say it, who am no Campbell - and that the chief of that great house 
+happens (for all our advantages) to be the present head of the College 
+of Justice, small minds and disaffected tongues are set agog in every 
+changehouse in the country; and I find a young gentleman like Mr. 
+Balfour so ill-advised as to make himself their echo."  So much he 
+spoke with a very oratorical delivery, as if in court, and then 
+declined again upon the manner of a gentleman.  "All this apart," said 
+he.  "It now remains that I should learn what I am to do with you."
+
+"I had thought it was rather I that should learn the same from your 
+lordship," said I.
+
+"Ay, true," says the Advocate.  "But, you see, you come to me well 
+recommended.  There is a good honest Whig name to this letter," says 
+he, picking it up a moment from the table.  "And - extra-judicially, 
+Mr, Balfour - there is always the possibility of some arrangement, I 
+tell you, and I tell you beforehand that you may be the more upon your 
+guard, your fate lies with me singly.  In such a matter (be it said 
+with reverence) I am more powerful than the King's Majesty; and should 
+you please me - and of course satisfy my conscience - in what remains 
+to be held of our interview, I tell you it may remain between 
+ourselves."
+
+"Meaning how?" I asked.
+
+"Why, I mean it thus, Mr. Balfour," said he, "that if you give 
+satisfaction, no soul need know so much as that you visited my house; 
+and you may observe that I do not even call my clerk."
+
+I saw what way he was driving.  "I suppose it is needless anyone should 
+be informed upon my visit," said I, "though the precise nature of my 
+gains by that I cannot see.  I am not at all ashamed of coming here."
+
+"And have no cause to be," says he, encouragingly.  "Nor yet (if you 
+are careful) to fear the consequences."
+
+"My lord," said I, "speaking under your correction, I am not very easy 
+to be frightened."
+
+"And I am sure I do not seek to frighten you," says he.  "But to the 
+interrogation; and let me warn you to volunteer nothing beyond the 
+questions I shall ask you.  It may consist very immediately with your 
+safety.  I have a great discretion, it is true, but there are bounds to 
+it."
+
+"I shall try to follow your lordship's advice," said I.
+
+He spread a sheet of paper on the table and wrote a heading.  "It 
+appears you were present, by the way, in the wood of Lettermore at the 
+moment of the fatal shot," he began.  "Was this by accident?"
+
+"By accident," said I.
+
+"How came you in speech with Colin Campbell?" he asked.
+
+"I was inquiring my way of him to Aucharn," I replied.
+
+I observed he did not write this answer down.
+
+"H'm, true," said he, "I had forgotten that.  And do you know, Mr. 
+Balfour, I would dwell, if I were you, as little as might be on your 
+relations with these Stewarts.  It might be found to complicate our 
+business.  I am not yet inclined to regard these matters as essential."
+
+"I had thought, my lord, that all points of fact were equally material 
+in such a case," said I.
+
+"You forget we are now trying these Stewarts," he replied, with great 
+significance.  "If we should ever come to be trying you, it will be 
+very different; and I shall press these very questions that I am now 
+willing to glide upon.  But to resume:  I have it here in Mr. Mungo 
+Campbell's precognition that you ran immediately up the brae.  How came 
+that?"
+
+"Not immediately, my lord, and the cause was my seeing of the 
+murderer."
+
+"You saw him, then?"
+
+"As plain as I see your lordship, though not so near hand."
+
+"You know him?"
+
+"I should know him again."
+
+"In your pursuit you were not so fortunate, then, as to overtake him?"
+
+"I was not."
+
+"Was he alone?"
+
+"He was alone."
+
+"There was no one else in that neighbourhood?"
+
+"Alan Breck Stewart was not far off, in a piece of a wood."
+
+The Advocate laid his pen down.  "I think we are playing at cross 
+purposes," said he, "which you will find to prove a very ill amusement 
+for yourself."
+
+"I content myself with following your lordship's advice, and answering 
+what I am asked," said I.
+
+"Be so wise as to bethink yourself in time," said he, "I use you with 
+the most anxious tenderness, which you scarce seem to appreciate, and 
+which (unless you be more careful) may prove to be in vain."
+
+"I do appreciate your tenderness, but conceive it to be mistaken," I 
+replied, with something of a falter, for I saw we were come to grips at 
+last.  "I am here to lay before you certain information, by which I 
+shall convince you Alan had no hand whatever in the killing of 
+Glenure."
+
+The Advocate appeared for a moment at a stick, sitting with pursed 
+lips, and blinking his eyes upon me like an angry cat.  "Mr. Balfour," 
+he said at last, "I tell you pointedly you go an ill way for your own 
+interests."
+
+"My lord," I said, "I am as free of the charge of considering my own 
+interests in this matter as your lordship.  As God judges me, I have 
+but the one design, and that is to see justice executed and the 
+innocent go clear.  If in pursuit of that I come to fall under your 
+lordship's displeasure, I must bear it as I may."
+
+At this he rose from his chair, lit a second candle, and for a while 
+gazed upon me steadily.  I was surprised to see a great change of 
+gravity fallen upon his face, and I could have almost thought he was a 
+little pale.
+
+"You are either very simple, or extremely the reverse, and I see that I 
+must deal with you more confidentially," says he.  "This is a political 
+case - ah, yes, Mr. Balfour! whether we like it or no, the case is 
+political - and I tremble when I think what issues may depend from it.  
+To a political case, I need scarce tell a young man of your education, 
+we approach with very different thoughts from one which is criminal 
+only.  SALUS POPULI SUPREMA LEX is a maxim susceptible of great abuse, 
+but it has that force which we find elsewhere only in the laws of 
+nature:  I mean it has the force of necessity.  I will open this out to 
+you, if you will allow me, at more length.  You would have me believe - 
+"
+
+"Under your pardon, my lord, I would have you to believe nothing but 
+that which I can prove," said I.
+
+"Tut! tut; young gentleman," says he, "be not so pragmatical, and 
+suffer a man who might be your father (if it was nothing more) to 
+employ his own imperfect language, and express his own poor thoughts, 
+even when they have the misfortune not to coincide with Mr. Balfour's.  
+You would have me to believe Breck innocent.  I would think this of 
+little account, the more so as we cannot catch our man.  But the matter 
+of Breck's innocence shoots beyond itself.  Once admitted, it would 
+destroy the whole presumptions of our case against another and a very 
+different criminal; a man grown old in treason, already twice in arms 
+against his king and already twice forgiven; a fomentor of discontent, 
+and (whoever may have fired the shot) the unmistakable original of the 
+deed in question.  I need not tell you that I mean James Stewart."
+
+"And I can just say plainly that the innocence of Alan and of James is 
+what I am here to declare in private to your lordship, and what I am 
+prepared to establish at the trial by my testimony," said I.
+
+"To which I can only answer by an equal plainness, Mr. Balfour," said 
+he, "that (in that case) your testimony will not be called by me, and I 
+desire you to withhold it altogether."
+
+"You are at the head of Justice in this country," I cried, "and you 
+propose to me a crime!"
+
+"I am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country," he 
+replied, "and I press on you a political necessity.  Patriotism is not 
+always moral in the formal sense.  You might be glad of it, I think:  
+it is your own protection; the facts are heavy against you; and if I am 
+still trying to except you from a very dangerous place, it is in part 
+of course because I am not insensible to your honesty in coming here; 
+in part because of Pilrig's letter; but in part, and in chief part, 
+because I regard in this matter my political duty first and my judicial 
+duty only second.  For the same reason - I repeat it to you in the same 
+frank words - I do not want your testimony."
+
+"I desire not to be thought to make a repartee, when I express only the 
+plain sense of our position," said I.  "But if your lordship has no 
+need of my testimony, I believe the other side would be extremely 
+blythe to get it."
+
+Prestongrange arose and began to pace to and fro in the room.  "You are 
+not so young," he said, "but what you must remember very clearly the 
+year '45 and the shock that went about the country.  I read in Pilrig's 
+letter that you are sound in Kirk and State.  Who saved them in that 
+fatal year?  I do not refer to His Royal Highness and his ramrods, 
+which were extremely useful in their day; but the country had been 
+saved and the field won before ever Cumberland came upon Drummossie.  
+Who saved it?  I repeat; who saved the Protestant religion and the 
+whole frame of our civil institutions?  The late Lord President 
+Culloden, for one; he played a man's part, and small thanks he got for 
+it - even as I, whom you see before you, straining every nerve in the 
+same service, look for no reward beyond the conscience of my duties 
+done.  After the President, who else?  You know the answer as well as I 
+do; 'tis partly a scandal, and you glanced at it yourself, and I 
+reproved you for it, when you first came in.  It was the Duke and the 
+great clan of Campbell.  Now here is a Campbell foully murdered, and 
+that in the King's service.  The Duke and I are Highlanders.  But we 
+are Highlanders civilised, and it is not so with the great mass of our 
+clans and families.  They have still savage virtues and defects.  They 
+are still barbarians, like these Stewarts; only the Campbells were 
+barbarians on the right side, and the Stewarts were barbarians on the 
+wrong.  Now be you the judge.  The Campbells expect vengeance.  If they 
+do not get it - if this man James escape - there will be trouble with 
+the Campbells.  That means disturbance in the Highlands, which are 
+uneasy and very far from being disarmed:  the disarming is a farce. . 
+."
+
+"I can bear you out in that," said I.
+
+"Disturbance in the Highlands makes the hour of our old watchful 
+enemy," pursued his lordship, holding out a finger as he paced; "and I 
+give you my word we may have a '45 again with the Campbells on the 
+other side.  To protect the life of this man Stewart - which is forfeit 
+already on half-a-dozen different counts if not on this - do you 
+propose to plunge your country in war, to jeopardise the faith of your 
+fathers, and to expose the lives and fortunes of how many thousand 
+innocent persons? . . .  These are considerations that weigh with me, 
+and that I hope will weigh no less with yourself, Mr. Balfour, as a 
+lover of your country, good government, and religious truth."
+
+"You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it," said I.  "I 
+will try on my side to be no less honest.  I believe your policy to be 
+sound.  I believe these deep duties may lie upon your lordship; I 
+believe you may have laid them on your conscience when you took the 
+oath of the high office which you hold.  But for me, who am just a 
+plain man - or scarce a man yet - the plain duties must suffice.  I can 
+think but of two things, of a poor soul in the immediate and unjust 
+danger of a shameful death, and of the cries and tears of his wife that 
+still tingle in my head.  I cannot see beyond, my lord.  It's the way 
+that I am made.  If the country has to fall, it has to fall.  And I 
+pray God, if this be wilful blindness, that He may enlighten me before 
+too late."
+
+He had heard me motionless, and stood so a while longer.
+
+"This is an unexpected obstacle," says he, aloud, but to himself.
+
+"And how is your lordship to dispose of me?" I asked.
+
+"If I wished," said he, "you know that you might sleep in gaol?"
+
+"My lord," said I, "I have slept in worse places."
+
+"Well, my boy," said he, "there is one thing appears very plainly from 
+our interview, that I may rely on your pledged word.  Give me your 
+honour that you will be wholly secret, not only on what has passed to-
+night, but in the matter of the Appin case, and I let you go free."
+
+"I will give it till to-morrow or any other near day that you may 
+please to set," said I.  "I would not be thought too wily; but if I 
+gave the promise without qualification your lordship would have 
+attained his end."
+
+"I had no thought to entrap you," said he.
+
+"I am sure of that," said I.
+
+"Let me see," he continued.  "To-morrow is the Sabbath.  Come to me on 
+Monday by eight in the morning, and give me our promise until then."
+
+"Freely given, my lord," said I.  "And with regard to what has fallen 
+from yourself, I will give it for an long as it shall please God to 
+spare your days."
+
+"You will observe," he said next, "that I have made no employment of 
+menaces."
+
+"It was like your lordship's nobility," said I.  "Yet I am not 
+altogether so dull but what I can perceive the nature of those you have 
+not uttered."
+
+"Well,"  said he, "good-night to you.  May you sleep well, for I think 
+it is more than I am like to do."
+
+With that he sighed, took up a candle, and gave me his conveyance as 
+far as the street door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V - IN THE ADVOCATE'S HOUSE
+
+
+
+THE next day, Sabbath, August 27th, I had the occasion I had long 
+looked forward to, to hear some of the famous Edinburgh preachers, all 
+well known to me already by the report of Mr Campbell.  Alas! and I 
+might just as well have been at Essendean, and sitting under Mr. 
+Campbell's worthy self! the turmoil of my thoughts, which dwelt 
+continually on the interview with Prestongrange, inhibiting me from all 
+attention.  I was indeed much less impressed by the reasoning of the 
+divines than by the spectacle of the thronged congregation in the 
+churches, like what I imagined of a theatre or (in my then disposition) 
+of an assize of trial; above all at the West Kirk, with its three tiers 
+of galleries, where I went in the vain hope that I might see Miss 
+Drummond.
+
+On the Monday I betook me for the first time to a barber's, and was 
+very well pleased with the result.  Thence to the Advocate's, where the 
+red coats of the soldiers showed again about his door, making a bright 
+place in the close.  I looked about for the young lady and her gillies:  
+there was never a sign of them.  But I was no sooner shown into the 
+cabinet or antechamber where I had spent so wearyful a time upon the 
+Saturday, than I was aware of the tall figure of James More in a 
+corner.  He seemed a prey to a painful uneasiness, reaching forth his 
+feet and hands, and his eyes speeding here and there without rest about 
+the walls of the small chamber, which recalled to me with a sense of 
+pity the man's wretched situation.  I suppose it was partly this, and 
+partly my strong continuing interest in his daughter, that moved me to 
+accost him.
+
+"Give you a good-morning, sir," said I.
+
+"And a good-morning to you, sir," said he.
+
+"You bide tryst with Prestongrange?" I asked.
+
+"I do, sir, and I pray your business with that gentleman be more 
+agreeable than mine," was his reply.
+
+"I hope at least that yours will be brief, for I suppose you pass 
+before me," said I.
+
+"All pass before me," he said, with a shrug and a gesture upward of the 
+open hands.  "It was not always so, sir, but times change.  It was not 
+so when the sword was in the scale, young gentleman, and the virtues of 
+the soldier might sustain themselves."
+
+There came a kind of Highland snuffle out of the man that raised my 
+dander strangely.
+
+"Well, Mr. Macgregor," said I, "I understand the main thing for a 
+soldier is to be silent, and the first of his virtues never to 
+complain."
+
+"You have my name, I perceive" - he bowed to me with his arms crossed - 
+"though it's one I must not use myself.  Well, there is a publicity - I 
+have shown my face and told my name too often in the beards of my 
+enemies.  I must not wonder if both should be known to many that I know 
+not."
+
+"That you know not in the least, sir," said I, "nor yet anybody else; 
+but the name I am called, if you care to hear it, is Balfour."
+
+"It is a good name," he replied, civilly; "there are many decent folk 
+that use it.  And now that I call to mind, there was a young gentleman, 
+your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year '45 with my battalion."
+
+"I believe that would be a brother to Balfour of Baith," said I, for I 
+was ready for the surgeon now.
+
+"The same, sir," said James More.  "And since I have been fellow-
+soldier with your kinsman, you must suffer me to grasp your hand."
+
+He shook hands with me long and tenderly, beaming on me the while as 
+though he had found a brother.
+
+"Ah!" says he, "these are changed days since your cousin and I heard 
+the balls whistle in our lugs."
+
+"I think he was a very far-away cousin," said I, drily, "and I ought to 
+tell you that I never clapped eyes upon the man."
+
+"Well, well," said he, "it makes no change.  And you - I do not think 
+you were out yourself, sir - I have no clear mind of your face, which 
+is one not probable to be forgotten."
+
+"In the year you refer to, Mr. Macgregor, I was getting skelped in the 
+parish school," said I.
+
+"So young!" cries he.  "Ah, then, you will never be able to think what 
+this meeting is to me.  In the hour of my adversity, and here in the 
+house of my enemy, to meet in with the blood of an old brother-in-arms 
+- it heartens me, Mr. Balfour, like the skirting of the highland pipes!  
+Sir, this is a sad look back that many of us have to make:  some with 
+falling tears.  I have lived in my own country like a king; my sword, 
+my mountains, and the faith of my friends and kinsmen sufficed for me.  
+Now I lie in a stinking dungeon; and do you know, Mr. Balfour," he went 
+on, taking my arm and beginning to lead me about, "do you know, sir, 
+that I lack mere neCESSaries?  The malice of my foes has quite 
+sequestered my resources.  I lie, as you know, sir, on a trumped-up 
+charge, of which I am as innocent as yourself.  They dare not bring me 
+to my trial, and in the meanwhile I am held naked in my prison.  I 
+could have wished it was your cousin I had met, or his brother Baith 
+himself.  Either would, I know, have been rejoiced to help me; while a 
+comparative stranger like yourself - "
+
+I would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this beggarly 
+vein, or the very short and grudging answers that I made to him.  There 
+were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change; 
+but whether it was from shame or pride - whether it was for my own sake 
+or Catriona's - whether it was because I thought him no fit father for 
+his daughter, or because I resented that grossness of immediate falsity 
+that clung about the man himself - the thing was clean beyond me.  And 
+I was still being wheedled and preached to, and still being marched to 
+and fro, three steps and a turn, in that small chamber, and had 
+already, by some very short replies, highly incensed, although not 
+finally discouraged, my beggar, when Prestongrange appeared in the 
+doorway and bade me eagerly into his big chamber.
+
+"I have a moment's engagements," said he; "and that you may not sit 
+empty-handed I am going to present you to my three braw daughters, of 
+whom perhaps you may have heard, for I think they are more famous than 
+papa.  This way."
+
+He led me into another long room above, where a dry old lady sat at a 
+frame of embroidery, and the three handsomest young women (I suppose) 
+in Scotland stood together by a window.
+
+"This is my new friend, Mr Balfour," said he, presenting me by the arm, 
+"David, here is my sister, Miss Grant, who is so good as keep my house 
+for me, and will be very pleased if she can help you.  And here," says 
+he, turning to the three younger ladies, "here are my THREE BRAW 
+DAUCHTERS.  A fair question to ye, Mr. Davie:  which of the three is 
+the best favoured?  And I wager he will never have the impudence to 
+propound honest Alan Ramsay's answer!"
+
+Hereupon all three, and the old Miss Grant as well, cried out against 
+this sally, which (as I was acquainted with the verses he referred to) 
+brought shame into my own check.  It seemed to me a citation 
+unpardonable in a father, and I was amazed that these ladies could 
+laugh even while they reproved, or made believe to.
+
+Under cover of this mirth, Prestongrange got forth of the chamber, and 
+I was left, like a fish upon dry land, in that very unsuitable society.  
+I could never deny, in looking back upon what followed, that I was 
+eminently stockish; and I must say the ladies were well drilled to have 
+so long a patience with me.  The aunt indeed sat close at her 
+embroidery, only looking now and again and smiling; but the misses, and 
+especially the eldest, who was besides the most handsome, paid me a 
+score of attentions which I was very ill able to repay.  It was all in 
+vain to tell myself I was a young follow of some worth as well as a 
+good estate, and had no call to feel abashed before these lasses, the 
+eldest not so much older than myself, and no one of them by any 
+probability half as learned.  Reasoning would not change the fact; and 
+there were times when the colour came into my face to think I was 
+shaved that day for the first time.
+
+The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest 
+took pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she 
+was a passed mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and 
+singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more 
+at my ease, and being reminded of Alan's air that he had taught me in 
+the hole near Carriden, I made so bold as to whistle a bar or two, and 
+ask if she knew that.
+
+She shook her head.  "I never heard a note of it," said she.  "Whistle 
+it all through.  And now once again," she added, after I had done so.
+
+Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise) 
+instantly enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as she 
+played, with a very droll expression and broad accent -
+
+
+"Haenae I got just the lilt of it?
+Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?"
+
+
+"You see," she says, "I can do the poetry too, only it won't rhyme.  
+And then again:
+
+
+"I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:
+You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour."
+
+
+I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.
+
+"And what do you call the name of it?" she asked.
+
+"I do not know the real name," said I.  "I just call it ALAN'S AIR."
+
+She looked at me directly in the face.  "I shall call it DAVID'S AIR," 
+said she; "though if it's the least like what your namesake of Israel 
+played to Saul I would never wonder that the king got little good by 
+it, for it's but melancholy music.  Your other name I do not like; so 
+if you was ever wishing to hear your tune again you are to ask for it 
+by mine."
+
+This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog.  "Why that, 
+Miss Grant?" I asked.
+
+"Why," says she, "if ever you should come to get hanged, I will set 
+your last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it."
+
+This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story and 
+peril.  How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess.  It was 
+plain she knew there was something of danger in the name of Alan, and 
+thus warned me to leave it out of reference; and plain she knew that I 
+stood under some criminal suspicion.  I judged besides that the 
+harshness of her last speech (which besides she had followed up 
+immediately with a very noisy piece of music) was to put an end to the 
+present conversation.  I stood beside her, affecting to listen and 
+admire, but truly whirled away by my own thoughts.  I have always found 
+this young lady to be a lover of the mysterious; and certainly this 
+first interview made a mystery that was beyond my plummet.  One thing I 
+learned long after, the hours of the Sunday had been well employed, the 
+bank porter had been found and examined, my visit to Charles Stewart 
+was discovered, and the deduction made that I was pretty deep with 
+James and Alan, and most likely in a continued correspondence with the 
+last.  Hence this broad hint that was given me across the harpsichord.
+
+In the midst of the piece of music, one of the younger misses, who was 
+at a window over the close, cried on her sisters to come quick, for 
+there was "GREY EYES again."  The whole family trooped there at once, 
+and crowded one another for a look.  The window whither they ran was in 
+an odd corner of that room, gave above the entrance door, and flanked 
+up the close.
+
+"Come, Mr. Balfour," they cried, "come and see.  She is the most 
+beautiful creature!  She hangs round the close-head these last days, 
+always with some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems quite a lady."
+
+I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long.  I was afraid 
+she might have seen me there, looking down upon her from that chamber 
+of music, and she without, and her father in the same house, perhaps 
+begging for his life with tears, and myself come but newly from 
+rejecting his petitions.  But even that glance set me in a better 
+conceit of myself and much less awe of the young ladies.  They were 
+beautiful, that was beyond question, but Catriona was beautiful too, 
+and had a kind of brightness in her like a coal of fire.  As much as 
+the others cast me down, she lifted me up.  I remembered I had talked 
+easily with her.  If I could make no hand of it with these fine maids, 
+it was perhaps something their own fault.  My embarrassment began to be 
+a little mingled and lightened with a sense of fun; and when the aunt 
+smiled at me from her embroidery, and the three daughters unbent to me 
+like a baby, all with "papa's orders" written on their faces, there 
+were times when I could have found it in my heart to smile myself.
+
+Presently papa returned, the same kind, happy-like, pleasant-spoken 
+man.
+
+"Now, girls," said he, "I must take Mr. Balfour away again; but I hope 
+you have been able to persuade him to return where I shall be always 
+gratified to find him."
+
+So they each made me a little farthing compliment, and I was led away.
+
+If this visit to the family had been meant to soften my resistance, it 
+was the worst of failures.  I was no such ass but what I understood how 
+poor a figure I had made, and that the girls would be yawning their 
+jaws off as soon as my stiff back was turned.  I felt I had shown how 
+little I had in me of what was soft and graceful; and I longed for a 
+chance to prove that I had something of the other stuff, the stern and 
+dangerous.
+
+Well, I was to be served to my desire, for the scene to which he was 
+conducting me was of a different character.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI - UMQUILE THE MASTER OF LOVAT
+
+
+
+THERE was a man waiting us in Prestongrange's study, whom I distasted 
+at the first look, as we distaste a ferret or an earwig.  He was bitter 
+ugly, but seemed very much of a gentleman; had still manners, but 
+capable of sudden leaps and violences; and a small voice, which could 
+ring out shrill and dangerous when he so desired.
+
+The Advocate presented us in a familiar, friendly way.
+
+"Here, Fraser," said he, "here is Mr. Balfour whom we talked about.  
+Mr. David, this is Mr. Simon Fraser, whom we used to call by another 
+title, but that is an old song.  Mr. Fraser has an errand to you."
+
+With that he stepped aside to his book-shelves, and made believe to 
+consult a quarto volume in the far end.
+
+I was thus left (in a sense) alone with perhaps the last person in the 
+world I had expected.  There was no doubt upon the terms of 
+introduction; this could be no other than the forfeited Master of Lovat 
+and chief of the great clan Fraser.  I knew he had led his men in the 
+Rebellion; I knew his father's head - my old lord's, that grey fox of 
+the mountains - to have fallen on the block for that offence, the lands 
+of the family to have been seized, and their nobility attainted.  I 
+could not conceive what he should be doing in Grant's house; I could 
+not conceive that he had been called to the bar, had eaten all his 
+principles, and was now currying favour with the Government even to the 
+extent of acting Advocate-Depute in the Appin murder.
+
+"Well, Mr. Balfour," said he, "what is all this I hear of ye?"
+
+"It would not become me to prejudge," said I, "but if the Advocate was 
+your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions."
+
+"I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case," he went on; "I am to 
+appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of the precognitions I 
+can assure you your opinions are erroneous.  The guilt of Breck is 
+manifest; and your testimony, in which you admit you saw him on the 
+hill at the very moment, will certify his hanging."
+
+"It will be rather ill to hang him till you catch him," I observed.   
+"And for other matters I very willingly leave you to your own 
+impressions."
+
+"The Duke has been informed," he went on.  "I have just come from his 
+Grace, and he expressed himself before me with an honest freedom like 
+the great nobleman he is.  He spoke of you by name, Mr. Balfour, and 
+declared his gratitude beforehand in case you would be led by those who 
+understand your own interests and those of the country so much better 
+than yourself.  Gratitude is no empty expression in that mouth:  
+EXPERTO-CREDE.  I daresay you know something of my name and clan, and 
+the damnable example and lamented end of my late father, to say nothing 
+of my own errata.  Well, I have made my peace with that good Duke; he 
+has intervened for me with our friend Prestongrange; and here I am with 
+my foot in the stirrup again and some of the responsibility shared into 
+my hand of prosecuting King George's enemies and avenging the late 
+daring and barefaced insult to his Majesty."
+
+"Doubtless a proud position for your father's son," says I.
+
+He wagged his bald eyebrows at me.  "You are pleased to make 
+experiments in the ironical, I think," said he.  "But I am here upon 
+duty, I am here to discharge my errand in good faith, it is in vain you 
+think to divert me.  And let me tell you, for a young fellow of spirit 
+and ambition like yourself, a good shove in the beginning will do more 
+than ten years' drudgery.  The shove is now at your command; choose 
+what you will to be advanced in, the Duke will watch upon you with the 
+affectionate disposition of a father."
+
+"I am thinking that I lack the docility of the son," says I.
+
+"And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole policy of this country 
+is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill-mannered colt 
+of a boy?" he cried.  "This has been made a test case, all who would 
+prosper in the future must put a shoulder to the wheel.  Look at me!  
+Do you suppose it is for my pleasure that I put myself in the highly 
+invidious position of persecuting a man that I have drawn the sword 
+alongside of?  The choice is not left me."
+
+"But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice when you mixed in 
+with that unnatural rebellion," I remarked.  "My case is happily 
+otherwise; I am a true man, and can look either the Duke or King George 
+in the face without concern."
+
+"Is it so the wind sits?" says he.  "I protest you are fallen in the 
+worst sort of error.  Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil (he 
+tells me) as not to combat your allegations; but you must not think 
+they are not looked upon with strong suspicion.  You say you are 
+innocent.  My dear sir, the facts declare you guilty."
+
+"I was waiting for you there," said I.
+
+"The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion of 
+the murder; your long course of secresy - my good young man!" said Mr. 
+Simon, "here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be a David 
+Balfour!  I shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be raised; I shall 
+then speak much otherwise from what I do to-day, and far less to your 
+gratification, little as you like it now!  Ah, you look white!" cries 
+he.  "I have found the key of your impudent heart.  You look pale, your 
+eyes waver, Mr. David!  You see the grave and the gallows nearer by 
+than you had fancied."
+
+"I own to a natural weakness," said I.  "I think no shame for that.  
+Shame. . ."  I was going on.
+
+"Shame waits for you on the gibbet," he broke in.
+
+"Where I shall but be even'd with my lord your father," said I.
+
+"Aha, but not so!" he cried, "and you do not yet see to the bottom of 
+this business.  My father suffered in a great cause, and for dealing in 
+the affairs of kings.  You are to hang for a dirty murder about boddle-
+pieces.  Your personal part in it, the treacherous one of holding the 
+poor wretch in talk, your accomplices a pack of ragged Highland 
+gillies.  And it can be shown, my great Mr. Balfour - it can be shown, 
+and it WILL be shown, trust ME that has a finger in the pie - it can be 
+shown, and shall be shown, that you were paid to do it.  I think I can 
+see the looks go round the court when I adduce my evidence, and it 
+shall appear that you, a young man of education, let yourself be 
+corrupted to this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes, a bottle of 
+Highland spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in copper money."
+
+There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like a 
+blow:  clothes, a bottle of USQUEBAUGH, and three-and-fivepence-
+halfpenny in change made up, indeed, the most of what Alan and I had 
+carried from Auchurn; and I saw that some of James's people had been 
+blabbing in their dungeons.
+
+"You see I know more than you fancied," he resumed in triumph.  "And as 
+for giving it this turn, great Mr. David, you must not suppose the 
+Government of Great Britain and Ireland will ever be stuck for want of 
+evidence.  We have men here in prison who will swear out their lives as 
+we direct them; as I direct, if you prefer the phrase.  So now you are 
+to guess your part of glory if you choose to die.  On the one hand, 
+life, wine, women, and a duke to be your handgun:  on the other, a rope 
+to your craig, and a gibbet to clatter your bones on, and the lousiest, 
+lowest story to hand down to your namesakes in the future that was ever 
+told about a hired assassin.  And see here!" he cried, with a 
+formidable shrill voice, "see this paper that I pull out of my pocket.  
+Look at the name there:  it is the name of the great David, I believe, 
+the ink scarce dry yet.  Can you guess its nature?  It is the warrant 
+for your arrest, which I have but to touch this bell beside me to have 
+executed on the spot.  Once in the Tolbooth upon this paper, may God 
+help you, for the die is cast!"
+
+I must never deny that I was greatly horrified by so much baseness, and 
+much unmanned by the immediacy and ugliness of my danger.  Mr. Simon 
+had already gloried in the changes of my hue; I make no doubt I was now 
+no ruddier than my shirt; my speech besides trembled.
+
+"There is a gentleman in this room," cried I.  "I appeal to him.  I put 
+my life and credit in his hands."
+
+Prestongrange shut his book with a snap.  "I told you so, Simon," said 
+he; "you have played your hand for all it was worth, and you have lost.  
+Mr. David," he went on, "I wish you to believe it was by no choice of 
+mine you were subjected to this proof.  I wish you could understand how 
+glad I am you should come forth from it with so much credit.  You may 
+not quite see how, but it is a little of a service to myself.  For had 
+our friend here been more successful than I was last night, it might 
+have appeared that he was a better judge of men than I; it might have 
+appeared we were altogether in the wrong situations, Mr. Simon and 
+myself.  And I know our friend Simon to be ambitious," says he, 
+striking lightly on Fraser's shoulder.  "As for this stage play, it is 
+over; my sentiments are very much engaged in your behalf; and whatever 
+issue we can find to this unfortunate affair, I shall make it my 
+business to see it is adopted with tenderness to you."
+
+These were very good words, and I could see besides that there was 
+little love, and perhaps a spice of genuine ill-will, between these two 
+who were opposed to me.  For all that, it was unmistakable this 
+interview had been designed, perhaps rehearsed, with the consent of 
+both; it was plain my adversaries were in earnest to try me by all 
+methods; and now (persuasion, flattery, and menaces having been tried 
+in vain) I could not but wonder what would be their next expedient.  My 
+eyes besides were still troubled, and my knees loose under me, with the 
+distress of the late ordeal; and I could do no more than stammer the 
+same form of words:  "I put my life and credit in your hands."
+
+"Well, well," said he, "we must try to save them.  And in the meanwhile 
+let us return to gentler methods.  You must not bear any grudge upon my 
+friend, Mr. Simon, who did but speak by his brief.  And even if you did 
+conceive some malice against myself, who stood by and seemed rather to 
+hold a candle, I must not let that extend to innocent members of my 
+family.  These are greatly engaged to see more of you, and I cannot 
+consent to have my young womenfolk disappointed.  To-morrow they will 
+be going to Hope Park, where I think it very proper you should make 
+your bow.  Call for me first, when I may possibly have something for 
+your private hearing; then you shall be turned abroad again under the 
+conduct of my misses; and until that time repeat to me your promise of 
+secrecy."
+
+I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was beside 
+the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how; 
+and when I was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind 
+me, was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face.  That horrid 
+apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Simon rang in my memory, as a 
+sudden noise rings after it is over in the ear.  Tales of the man's 
+father, of his falseness, of his manifold perpetual treacheries, rose 
+before me from all that I had heard and read, and joined on with what I 
+had just experienced of himself.  Each time it occurred to me, the 
+ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon my 
+character startled me afresh.  The case of the man upon the gibbet by 
+Leith Walk appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was now to 
+consider as my own.  To rob a child of so little more than nothing was 
+certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men; but my own tale, as it 
+was to be represented in a court by Simon Fraser, appeared a fair 
+second in every possible point of view of sordidness and cowardice.
+
+The voices of two of Prestongrange's liveried men upon his doorstep 
+recalled me to myself.
+
+"Ha'e," said the one, "this billet as fast as ye can link to the 
+captain."
+
+"Is that for the cateran back again?" asked the other.
+
+"It would seem sae," returned the first.  "Him and Simon are seeking 
+him."
+
+"I think Prestongrange is gane gyte," says the second.  "He'll have 
+James More in bed with him next."
+
+"Weel, it's neither your affair nor mine's," said the first.
+
+And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into the 
+house.
+
+This looked as ill as possible.  I was scarce gone and they were 
+sending already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must have 
+pointed when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives 
+by all extremities.  My scalp curdled among my hair, and the next 
+moment the blood leaped in me to remember Catriona.  Poor lass! her 
+father stood to be hanged for pretty indefensible misconduct.  What was 
+yet more unpalatable, it now seemed he was prepared to save his four 
+quarters by the worst of shame and the most foul of cowardly murders - 
+murder by the false oath; and to complete our misfortunes, it seemed 
+myself was picked out to be the victim.
+
+I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire for 
+movement, air, and the open country.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII - I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR
+
+
+
+I CAME forth, I vow I know not how, on the LANG DYKES.  This is a rural 
+road which runs on the north side over against the city.  Thence I 
+could see the whole black length of it tail down, from where the castle 
+stands upon its crags above the loch in a long line of spires and gable 
+ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the sight my heart swelled in my 
+bosom.  My youth, as I have told, was already inured to dangers; but 
+such danger as I had seen the face of but that morning, in the midst of 
+what they call the safety of a town, shook me beyond experience.  Peril 
+of slavery, peril of shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had stood 
+all of these without discredit; but the peril there was in the sharp 
+voice and the fat face of Simon, property Lord Lovat, daunted me 
+wholly.
+
+I sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into the 
+water, and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples.  If I could 
+have done so with any remains of self-esteem, I would now have fled 
+from my foolhardy enterprise.  But (call it courage or cowardice, and I 
+believe it was both the one and the other) I decided I was ventured out 
+beyond the possibility of a retreat.  I had out-faced these men, I 
+would continue to out-face them; come what might, I would stand by the 
+word spoken.
+
+The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not 
+much.  At the best of it there was an icy place about my heart, and 
+life seemed a black business to be at all engaged in.  For two souls in 
+particular my pity flowed.  The one was myself, to be so friendless and 
+lost among dangers.  The other was the girl, the daughter of James 
+More.  I had seen but little of her; yet my view was taken and my 
+judgment made.  I thought her a lass of a clean honour, like a man's; I 
+thought her one to die of a disgrace; and now I believed her father to 
+be at that moment bargaining his vile life for mine.  It made a bond in 
+my thoughts betwixt the girl and me.  I had seen her before only as a 
+wayside appearance, though one that pleased me strangely; I saw her now 
+in a sudden nearness of relation, as the daughter of my blood foe, and 
+I might say, my murderer.  I reflected it was hard I should be so 
+plagued and persecuted all my days for other folks' affairs, and have 
+no manner of pleasure myself.  I got meals and a bed to sleep in when 
+my concerns would suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to 
+me.  If I was to hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not to 
+hang but to escape out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me 
+ere I was done with them.  Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory, 
+the way I had first seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness 
+came in my bosom and strength into my legs; and I set resolutely 
+forward on the way to Dean.  If I was to hang to-morrow, and it was 
+sure enough I might very likely sleep that night in a dungeon, I 
+determined I should hear and speak once more with Catriona.
+
+The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me yet 
+more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit.  In the village of 
+Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I 
+inquired my way of a miller's man, who sent me up the hill upon the 
+farther side by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house in a 
+garden of lawns and apple-trees.  My heart beat high as I stepped 
+inside the garden hedge, but it fell low indeed when I came face to 
+face with a grim and fierce old lady, walking there in a white mutch 
+with a man's hat strapped upon the top of it.
+
+"What do ye come seeking here?" she asked.
+
+I told her I was after Miss Drummond.
+
+"And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?" says she.
+
+I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to 
+render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady's 
+invitation.
+
+"O, so you're Saxpence!" she cried, with a very sneering manner.  "A 
+braw gift, a bonny gentleman.  And hae ye ony ither name and 
+designation, or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?" she asked.
+
+I told my name.
+
+"Preserve me!" she cried.  "Has Ebenezer gotten a son?"
+
+"No, ma'am," said I.  "I am a son of Alexander's.  It's I that am the 
+Laird of Shaws."
+
+"Ye'll find your work cut out for ye to establish that," quoth she.
+
+"I perceive you know my uncle," said I; "and I daresay you may be the 
+better pleased to hear that business is arranged."
+
+"And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?" she pursued.
+
+"I'm come after my saxpence, mem," said I.  "It's to be thought, being 
+my uncle's nephew, I would be found a careful lad."
+
+"So ye have a spark of sleeness in ye?" observed the old lady, with 
+some approval.  "I thought ye had just been a cuif - you and your 
+saxpence, and your LUCKY DAY and your SAKE OF BALWHIDDER" - from which 
+I was gratified to learn that Catriona had not forgotten some of our 
+talk.  "But all this is by the purpose," she resumed.  "Am I to 
+understand that ye come here keeping company?"
+
+"This is surely rather an early question," said I.  "The maid is young, 
+so am I, worse fortune.  I have but seen her the once.  I'll not deny," 
+I added, making up my mind to try her with some frankness, "I'll not 
+deny but she has run in my head a good deal since I met in with her.  
+That is one thing; but it would be quite another, and I think I would 
+look very like a fool, to commit myself."
+
+"You can speak out of your mouth, I see," said the old lady.  "Praise 
+God, and so can I!  I was fool enough to take charge of this rogue's 
+daughter:  a fine charge I have gotten; but it's mine, and I'll carry 
+it the way I want to.  Do ye mean to tell me, Mr. Balfour of Shaws, 
+that you would marry James More's daughter, and him hanged!  Well, 
+then, where there's no possible marriage there shall be no manner of 
+carryings on, and take that for said.  Lasses are bruckle things," she 
+added, with a nod; "and though ye would never think it by my wrunkled 
+chafts, I was a lassie mysel', and a bonny one."
+
+"Lady Allardyce," said I, "for that I suppose to be your name, you seem 
+to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very poor manner to come 
+to an agreement.  You give me rather a home thrust when you ask if I 
+would marry, at the gallow's foot, a young lady whom I have seen but 
+once.  I have told you already I would never be so untenty as to commit 
+myself.  And yet I'll go some way with you.  If I continue to like the 
+lass as well as I have reason to expect, it will be something more than 
+her father, or the gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart.  As 
+for my family, I found it by the wayside like a lost bawbee!  I owe 
+less than nothing to my uncle and if ever I marry, it will be to please 
+one person:  that's myself."
+
+"I have heard this kind of talk before ye were born," said Mrs. Ogilvy, 
+"which is perhaps the reason that I think of it so little.  There's 
+much to be considered.  This James More is a kinsman of mine, to my 
+shame be it spoken.  But the better the family, the mair men hanged or 
+headed, that's always been poor Scotland's story.  And if it was just 
+the hanging!  For my part I think I would be best pleased with James 
+upon the gallows, which would be at least an end to him.  Catrine's a 
+good lass enough, and a good-hearted, and lets herself be deaved all 
+day with a runt of an auld wife like me.  But, ye see, there's the weak 
+bit.  She's daft about that long, false, fleeching beggar of a father 
+of hers, and red-mad about the Gregara, and proscribed names, and King 
+James, and a wheen blethers.  And you might think ye could guide her, 
+ye would find yourself sore mista'en.  Ye say ye've seen her but the 
+once. . ."
+
+"Spoke with her but the once, I should have said," I interrupted.  "I 
+saw her again this morning from a window at Prestongrange's."
+
+This I daresay I put in because it sounded well; but I was properly 
+paid for my ostentation on the return.
+
+"What's this of it?" cries the old lady, with a sudden pucker of her 
+face.  "I think it was at the Advocate's door-cheek that ye met her 
+first."
+
+I told her that was so.
+
+"H'm," she said; and then suddenly, upon rather a scolding tone, "I 
+have your bare word for it," she cries, "as to who and what you are.  
+By your way of it, you're Balfour of the Shaws; but for what I ken you 
+may be Balfour of the Deevil's oxter.  It's possible ye may come here 
+for what ye say, and it's equally possible ye may come here for deil 
+care what!  I'm good enough Whig to sit quiet, and to have keepit all 
+my men-folk's heads upon their shoulders.  But I'm not just a good 
+enough Whig to be made a fool of neither.  And I tell you fairly, 
+there's too much Advocate's door and Advocate's window here for a man 
+that comes taigling after a Macgregor's daughter.  Ye can tell that to 
+the Advocate that sent ye, with my fond love.  And I kiss my loof to 
+ye, Mr. Balfour," says she, suiting the action to the word; "and a braw 
+journey to ye back to where ye cam frae."
+
+"If you think me a spy," I broke out, and speech stuck in my throat.  I 
+stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space, then bowed and 
+turned away.
+
+"Here!  Hoots!  The callant's in a creel!" she cried.  "Think ye a spy? 
+what else would I think ye - me that kens naething by ye?  But I see 
+that I was wrong; and as I cannot fight, I'll have to apologise.  A 
+bonny figure I would be with a broadsword.  Ay! ay!" she went on, 
+"you're none such a bad lad in your way; I think ye'll have some 
+redeeming vices.  But, O! Davit Balfour, ye're damned countryfeed.  
+Ye'll have to win over that, lad; ye'll have to soople your back-bone, 
+and think a wee pickle less of your dainty self; and ye'll have to try 
+to find out that women-folk are nae grenadiers.  But that can never be.  
+To your last day you'll ken no more of women-folk than what I do of 
+sow-gelding."
+
+I had never been used with such expressions from a lady's tongue, the 
+only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being most 
+devout and most particular women; and I suppose my amazement must have 
+been depicted in my countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst forth suddenly 
+in a fit of laughter.
+
+"Keep me!" she cried, struggling with her mirth, "you have the finest 
+timber face - and you to marry the daughter of a Hieland cateran!  
+Davie, my dear, I think we'll have to make a match of it - if it was 
+just to see the weans.  And now," she went on, "there's no manner of 
+service in your daidling here, for the young woman is from home, and 
+it's my fear that the old woman is no suitable companion for your 
+father's son.  Forbye that I have nobody but myself to look after my 
+reputation, and have been long enough alone with a sedooctive youth.  
+And come back another day for your saxpence!" she cried after me as I 
+left.
+
+My skirmish with this disconcerting lady gave my thoughts a boldness 
+they had otherwise wanted.  For two days the image of Catriona had 
+mixed in all my meditations; she made their background, so that I 
+scarce enjoyed my own company without a glint of her in a corner of my 
+mind.  But now she came immediately near; I seemed to touch her, whom I 
+had never touched but the once; I let myself flow out to her in a happy 
+weakness, and looking all about, and before and behind, saw the world 
+like an undesirable desert, where men go as soldiers on a march, 
+following their duty with what constancy they have, and Catriona alone 
+there to offer me some pleasure of my days.  I wondered at myself that 
+I could dwell on such considerations in that time of my peril and 
+disgrace; and when I remembered my youth I was ashamed.  I had my 
+studies to complete:  I had to be called into some useful business; I 
+had yet to take my part of service in a place where all must serve; I 
+had yet to learn, and know, and prove myself a man; and I had so much 
+sense as blush that I should be already tempted with these further-on 
+and holier delights and duties.  My education spoke home to me sharply; 
+I was never brought up on sugar biscuits but on the hard food of the 
+truth.  I knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was not 
+prepared to be a father also; and for a boy like me to play the father 
+was a mere derision.
+
+When I was in the midst of these thoughts and about half-way back to 
+town I saw a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my heart was 
+heightened.  It seemed I had everything in the world to say to her, but 
+nothing to say first; and remembering how tongue-tied I had been that 
+morning at the Advocate's I made sure that I would find myself struck 
+dumb.  But when she came up my fears fled away; not even the 
+consciousness of what I had been privately thinking disconcerted me the 
+least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally as I 
+might with Alan.
+
+"O!" she cried, "you have been seeking your sixpence; did you get it?"
+
+I told her no; but now I had met with her my walk was not in vain.  
+"Though I have seen you to-day already," said I, and told her where and 
+when.
+
+"I did not see you," she said.  "My eyes are big, but there are better 
+than mine at seeing far.  Only I heard singing in the house."
+
+"That was Miss Grant," said I, "the eldest and the bonniest."
+
+"They say they are all beautiful," said she.
+
+"They think the same of you, Miss Drummond," I replied, "and were all 
+crowding to the window to observe you."
+
+"It is a pity about my being so blind," said she, "or I might have seen 
+them too.  And you were in the house?  You must have been having the 
+fine time with the fine music and the pretty ladies."
+
+"There is just where you are wrong," said I; "for I was as uncouth as a 
+sea-fish upon the brae of a mountain.  The truth is that I am better 
+fitted to go about with rudas men than pretty ladies."
+
+"Well, I would think so too, at all events!" said she, at which we both 
+of us laughed.
+
+"It is a strange thing, now," said I.  "I am not the least afraid with 
+you, yet I could have run from the Miss Grants.  And I was afraid of 
+your cousin too."
+
+"O, I think any man will be afraid of her," she cried.  "My father is 
+afraid of her himself."
+
+The name of her father brought me to a stop.  I looked at her as she 
+walked by my side; I recalled the man, and the little I knew and the 
+much I guessed of him; and comparing the one with the other, felt like 
+a traitor to be silent.
+
+"Speaking of which," said I, "I met your father no later than this 
+morning."
+
+"Did you?" she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at me.  
+"You saw James More?  You will have spoken with him then?"
+
+"I did even that," said I.
+
+Then I think things went the worst way for me that was humanly 
+possible.  She gave me a look of mere gratitude.  "Ah, thank you for 
+that!" says she.
+
+"You thank me for very little," said I, and then stopped.  But it 
+seemed when I was holding back so much, something at least had to come 
+out.  "I spoke rather ill to him," said I; "I did no like him very 
+much; I spoke him rather ill, and he was angry."
+
+"I think you had little to do then, and less to tell it to his 
+daughter!" she cried out.  "But those that do not love and cherish him 
+I will not know."
+
+"I will take the freedom of a word yet," said I, beginning to tremble.  
+"Perhaps neither your father nor I are in the best of spirits at 
+Prestongrange's.  I daresay we both have anxious business there, for 
+it's a dangerous house.  I was sorry for him too, and spoke to him the 
+first, if I could but have spoken the wiser.  And for one thing, in my 
+opinion, you will soon find that his affairs are mending."
+
+"It will not be through your friendship, I am thinking," said she; "and 
+he is much made up to you for your sorrow."
+
+"Miss Drummond," cried I, "I am alone in this world."
+
+"And I am not wondering at that," said she.
+
+"O, let me speak!" said I.  "I will speak but the once, and then leave 
+you, if you will, for ever.  I came this day in the hopes of a kind 
+word that I am sore in want of.  I know that what I said must hurt you, 
+and I knew it then.  It would have been easy to have spoken smooth, 
+easy to lie to you; can you not think how I was tempted to the same?  
+Cannot you see the truth of my heart shine out?"
+
+"I think here is a great deal of work, Mr. Balfour," said she.  "I 
+think we will have met but the once, and will can part like gentle 
+folk."
+
+"O, let me have one to believe in me!" I pleaded, "I cannae bear it 
+else.  The whole world is clanned against me.  How am I to go through 
+with my dreadful fate?  If there's to be none to believe in me I cannot 
+do it.  The man must just die, for I cannot do it."
+
+She had still looked straight in front of her, head in air; but at my 
+words or the tone of my voice she came to a stop.  "What is this you 
+say?" she asked.  "What are you talking of?"
+
+"It is my testimony which may save an innocent life," said I, "and they 
+will not suffer me to bear it.  What would you do yourself?  You know 
+what this is, whose father lies in danger.  Would you desert the poor 
+soul?  They have tried all ways with me.  They have sought to bribe me; 
+they offered me hills and valleys.  And to-day that sleuth-hound told 
+me how I stood, and to what a length he would go to butcher and 
+disgrace me.  I am to be brought in a party to the murder; I am to have 
+held Glenure in talk for money and old clothes; I am to be killed and 
+shamed.  If this is the way I am to fall, and me scarce a man - if this 
+is the story to be told of me in all Scotland - if you are to believe 
+it too, and my name is to be nothing but a by-word - Catriona, how can 
+I go through with it?  The thing's not possible; it's more than a man 
+has in his heart."
+
+I poured my words out in a whirl, one upon the other; and when I 
+stopped I found her gazing on me with a startled face.
+
+"Glenure!  It is the Appin murder," she said softly, but with a very 
+deep surprise.
+
+I had turned back to bear her company, and we were now come near the 
+head of the brae above Dean village.  At this word I stepped in front 
+of her like one suddenly distracted.
+
+"For God's sake!" I cried, "for God's sake, what is this that I have 
+done?" and carried my fists to my temples.  "What made me do it?  Sure, 
+I am bewitched to say these things!"
+
+"In the name of heaven, what ails you now!" she cried.
+
+"I gave my honour," I groaned, "I gave my honour and now I have broke 
+it.  O, Catriona!"
+
+"I am asking you what it is," she said; "was it these things you should 
+not have spoken?  And do you think I have no honour, then? or that I am 
+one that would betray a friend?  I hold up my right hand to you and 
+swear."
+
+"O, I knew you would be true!" said I.  "It's me - it's here.  I that 
+stood but this morning and out-faced them, that risked rather to die 
+disgraced upon the gallows than do wrong - and a few hours after I 
+throw my honour away by the roadside in common talk!  'There is one 
+thing clear upon our interview,' says he, 'that I can rely on your 
+pledged word.'  Where is my word now?  Who could believe me now?  You 
+could not believe me.  I am clean fallen down; I had best die!"  All 
+this I said with a weeping voice, but I had no tears in my body.
+
+"My heart is sore for you," said she, "but be sure you are too nice.  I 
+would not believe you, do you say?  I would trust you with anything.  
+And these men?  I would not be thinking of them!  Men who go about to 
+entrap and to destroy you!  Fy! this is no time to crouch.  Look up!  
+Do you not think I will be admiring you like a great hero of the good - 
+and you a boy not much older than myself?  And because you said a word 
+too much in a friend's ear, that would die ere she betrayed you - to 
+make such a matter!  It is one thing that we must both forget."
+
+"Catriona," said I, looking at her, hang-dog, "is this true of it?  
+Would ye trust me yet?"
+
+"Will you not believe the tears upon my face?" she cried.  "It is the 
+world I am thinking of you, Mr. David Balfour.  Let them hang you; I 
+will never forget, I will grow old and still remember you.  I think it 
+is great to die so:  I will envy you that gallows."
+
+"And maybe all this while I am but a child frighted with bogles," said 
+I.  "Maybe they but make a mock of me."
+
+"It is what I must know," she said.  "I must hear the whole.  The harm 
+is done at all events, and I must hear the whole."
+
+I had sat down on the wayside, where she took a place beside me, and I 
+told her all that matter much as I have written it, my thoughts about 
+her father's dealings being alone omitted.
+
+"Well," she said, when I had finished, "you are a hero, surely, and I 
+never would have thought that same!  And I think you are in peril, too.  
+O, Simon Fraser! to think upon that man!  For his life and the dirty 
+money, to be dealing in such traffic!"  And just then she called out 
+aloud with a queer word that was common with her, and belongs, I 
+believe, to her own language.  "My torture!" says she, "look at the 
+sun!"
+
+Indeed, it was already dipping towards the mountains.
+
+She bid me come again soon, gave me her hand, and left me in a turmoil 
+of glad spirits.  I delayed to go home to my lodging, for I had a 
+terror of immediate arrest; but got some supper at a change house, and 
+the better part of that night walked by myself in the barley-fields, 
+and had such a sense of Catriona's presence that I seemed to bear her 
+in my arms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII - THE BRAVO
+
+
+
+THE next day, August 29th, I kept my appointment at the Advocate's in a 
+coat that I had made to my own measure, and was but newly ready,
+
+"Aha," says Prestongrange, "you are very fine to-day; my misses are to 
+have a fine cavalier.  Come, I take that kind of you.  I take that kind 
+of you, Mr. David.  O, we shall do very well yet, and I believe your 
+troubles are nearly at an end."
+
+"You have news for me?" cried I.
+
+"Beyond anticipation," he replied.  "Your testimony is after all to be 
+received; and you may go, if you will, in my company to the trial, 
+which in to be held at Inverary, Thursday, 21st PROXIMO."
+
+I was too much amazed to find words.
+
+"In the meanwhile," he continued, "though I will not ask you to renew 
+your pledge, I must caution you strictly to be reticent.  To-morrow 
+your precognition must be taken; and outside of that, do you know, I 
+think least said will be soonest mended."
+
+"I shall try to go discreetly,' said I.  "I believe it is yourself that 
+I must thank for this crowning mercy, and I do thank you gratefully.  
+After yesterday, my lord, this is like the doors of Heaven.  I cannot 
+find it in my heart to get the thing believed."
+
+"Ah, but you must try and manage, you must try and manage to believe 
+it," says he, soothing-like, "and I am very glad to hear your 
+acknowledgment of obligation, for I think you may be able to repay me 
+very shortly" - he coughed - "or even now.  The matter is much changed.  
+Your testimony, which I shall not trouble you for to-day, will 
+doubtless alter the complexion of the case for all concerned, and this 
+makes it less delicate for me to enter with you on a side issue."
+
+"My Lord," I interrupted, "excuse me for interrupting you, but how has 
+this been brought about?  The obstacles you told me of on Saturday 
+appeared even to me to be quite insurmountable; how has it been 
+contrived?"
+
+"My dear Mr. David," said he, "it would never do for me to divulge 
+(even to you, as you say) the councils of the Government; and you must 
+content yourself, if you please, with the gross fact."
+
+He smiled upon me like a father as he spoke, playing the while with a 
+new pen; methought it was impossible there could be any shadow of 
+deception in the man:  yet when he drew to him a sheet of paper, dipped 
+his pen among the ink, and began again to address me, I was somehow not 
+so certain, and fell instinctively into an attitude of guard.
+
+"There is a point I wish to touch upon," he began.  "I purposely left 
+it before upon one side, which need be now no longer necessary.  This 
+is not, of course, a part of your examination, which is to follow by 
+another hand; this is a private interest of my own.  You say you 
+encountered Alan Breck upon the hill?"
+
+"I did, my lord," said I
+
+"This was immediately after the murder?"
+
+"It was."
+
+"Did you speak to him?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"You had known him before, I think?" says my lord, carelessly.
+
+"I cannot guess your reason for so thinking, my lord," I replied, "but 
+such in the fact."
+
+"And when did you part with him again?" said he.
+
+"I reserve my answer," said I.  "The question will be put to me at the 
+assize."
+
+"Mr. Balfour," said he, "will you not understand that all this is 
+without prejudice to yourself?  I have promised you life and honour; 
+and, believe me, I can keep my word.  You are therefore clear of all 
+anxiety.  Alan, it appears, you suppose you can protect; and you talk 
+to me of your gratitude, which I think (if you push me) is not ill-
+deserved.  There are a great many different considerations all pointing 
+the same way; and I will never be persuaded that you could not help us 
+(if you chose) to put salt on Alan's tail."
+
+"My lord," said I, "I give you my word I do not so much as guess where 
+Alan is."
+
+He paused a breath.  "Nor how he might be found?" he asked.
+
+I sat before him like a log of wood.
+
+"And so much for your gratitude, Mr. David!" he observed.  Again there 
+was a piece of silence.  "Well," said he, rising, "I am not fortunate, 
+and we are a couple at cross purposes.  Let us speak of it no more; you 
+will receive notice when, where, and by whom, we are to take your 
+precognition.  And in the meantime, my misses must be waiting you.  
+They will never forgive me if I detain their cavalier."
+
+Into the hands of these Graces I was accordingly offered up, and found 
+them dressed beyond what I had thought possible, and looking fair as a 
+posy.
+
+As we went forth from the doors a small circumstance occurred which 
+came afterwards to look extremely big.  I heard a whistle sound loud 
+and brief like a signal, and looking all about, spied for one moment 
+the red head of Neil of the Tom, the son of Duncan.  The next moment he 
+was gone again, nor could I see so much as the skirt-tail of Catriona, 
+upon whom I naturally supposed him to be then attending.
+
+My three keepers led me out by Bristo and the Bruntsfield Links; whence 
+a path carried us to Hope Park, a beautiful pleasance, laid with 
+gravel-walks, furnished with seats and summer-sheds, and warded by a 
+keeper.  The way there was a little longsome; the two younger misses 
+affected an air of genteel weariness that damped me cruelly, the eldest 
+considered me with something that at times appeared like mirth; and 
+though I thought I did myself more justice than the day before, it was 
+not without some effort.  Upon our reaching the park I was launched on 
+a bevy of eight or ten young gentlemen (some of them cockaded officers, 
+the rest chiefly advocates) who crowded to attend upon these beauties; 
+and though I was presented to all of them in very good words, it seemed 
+I was by all immediately forgotten.  Young folk in a company are like 
+to savage animals:  they fall upon or scorn a stranger without 
+civility, or I may say, humanity; and I am sure, if I had been among 
+baboons, they would have shown me quite as much of both.  Some of the 
+advocates set up to be wits, and some of the soldiers to be rattles; 
+and I could not tell which of these extremes annoyed me most.  All had 
+a manner of handling their swords and coat-skirts, for the which (in 
+mere black envy) I could have kicked them from the park.  I daresay, 
+upon their side, they grudged me extremely the fine company in which I 
+had arrived; and altogether I had soon fallen behind, and stepped 
+stiffly in the rear of all that merriment with my own thoughts.
+
+From these I was recalled by one of the officers, Lieutenant Hector 
+Duncansby, a gawky, leering Highland boy, asking if my name was not 
+"Palfour."
+
+I told him it was, not very kindly, for his manner was scant civil.
+
+"Ha, Palfour," says he, and then, repeating it, "Palfour, Palfour!"
+
+"I am afraid you do not like my name, sir," says I, annoyed with myself 
+to be annoyed with such a rustical fellow.
+
+"No," says he, "but I wass thinking."
+
+"I would not advise you to make a practice of that, sir," says I.  "I 
+feel sure you would not find it to agree with you."
+
+"Tit you effer hear where Alan Grigor fand the tangs?" said he.
+
+I asked him what he could possibly mean, and he answered, with a 
+heckling laugh, that he thought I must have found the poker in the same 
+place and swallowed it.
+
+There could be no mistake about this, and my cheek burned.
+
+"Before I went about to put affronts on gentlemen," said I, "I think I 
+would learn the English language first."
+
+He took me by the sleeve with a nod and a wink and led me quietly 
+outside Hope Park.  But no sooner were we beyond the view of the 
+promenaders, than the fashion of his countenance changed.  "You tam 
+lowland scoon'rel!" cries he, and hit me a buffet on the jaw with his 
+closed fist.
+
+I paid him as good or better on the return; whereupon he stepped a 
+little back and took off his hat to me decorously.
+
+"Enough plows I think," says he.  "I will be the offended shentleman, 
+for who effer heard of such suffeeciency as tell a shentlemans that is 
+the king's officer he cannae speak Cot's English?  We have swords at 
+our hurdles, and here is the King's Park at hand.  Will ye walk first, 
+or let me show ye the way?"
+
+I returned his bow, told him to go first, and followed him.  As he went 
+I heard him grumble to himself about COT'S ENGLISH and the KING'S COAT, 
+so that I might have supposed him to be seriously offended.  But his 
+manner at the beginning of our interview was there to belie him.  It 
+was manifest he had come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me, right or 
+wrong; manifest that I was taken in a fresh contrivance of my enemies; 
+and to me (conscious as I was of my deficiencies) manifest enough that 
+I should be the one to fall in our encounter.
+
+As we came into that rough rocky desert of the King's Park I was 
+tempted half-a-dozen times to take to my heels and run for it, so loath 
+was I to show my ignorance in fencing, and so much averse to die or 
+even to be wounded.  But I considered if their malice went as far as 
+this, it would likely stick at nothing; and that to fall by the sword, 
+however ungracefully, was still an improvement on the gallows.  I 
+considered besides that by the unguarded pertness of my words and the 
+quickness of my blow I had put myself quite out of court; and that even 
+if I ran, my adversary would probably pursue and catch me, which would 
+add disgrace to my misfortune.  So that, taking all in all, I continued 
+marching behind him, much as a man follows the hangman, and certainly 
+with no more hope.
+
+We went about the end of the long craigs, and came into the Hunter's 
+Bog.  Here, on a piece of fair turf, my adversary drew.  There was 
+nobody there to see us but some birds; and no resource for me but to 
+follow his example, and stand on guard with the best face I could 
+display.  It seems it was not good enough for Mr. Dancansby, who spied 
+some flaw in my manoeuvres, paused, looked upon me sharply, and came 
+off and on, and menaced me with his blade in the air.  As I had seen no 
+such proceedings from Alan, and was besides a good deal affected with 
+the proximity of death, I grew quite bewildered, stood helpless, and 
+could have longed to run away.
+
+"Fat deil ails her?" cries the lieutenant.
+
+And suddenly engaging, he twitched the sword out of my grasp and sent 
+it flying far among the rushes.
+
+Twice was this manoeuvre repeated; and the third time when I brought 
+back my humiliated weapon, I found he had returned his own to the 
+scabbard, and stood awaiting me with a face of some anger, and his 
+hands clasped under his skirt.
+
+"Pe tamned if I touch you!" he cried, and asked me bitterly what right 
+I had to stand up before "shentlemans" when I did not know the back of 
+a sword from the front of it.
+
+I answered that was the fault of my upbringing; and would he do me the 
+justice to say I had given him all the satisfaction it was 
+unfortunately in my power to offer, and had stood up like a man?
+
+"And that is the truth," said he.  "I am fery prave myself, and pold as 
+a lions.  But to stand up there - and you ken naething of fence! - the 
+way that you did, I declare it was peyond me.  And I am sorry for the 
+plow; though I declare I pelief your own was the elder brother, and my 
+heid still sings with it.  And I declare if I had kent what way it 
+wass, I would not put a hand to such a piece of pusiness."
+
+"That is handsomely said," I replied, "and I am sure you will not stand 
+up a second time to be the actor for my private enemies."
+
+"Indeed, no, Palfour," said he; "and I think I was used extremely 
+suffeeciently myself to be set up to fecht with an auld wife, or all 
+the same as a bairn whateffer!  And I will tell the Master so, and 
+fecht him, by Cot, himself!"
+
+"And if you knew the nature of Mr. Simon's quarrel with me," said I, 
+"you would be yet the more affronted to be mingled up with such 
+affairs."
+
+He swore he could well believe it; that all the Lovats were made of the 
+same meal and the devil was the miller that ground that; then suddenly 
+shaking me by the hand, he vowed I was a pretty enough fellow after 
+all, that it was a thousand pities I had been neglected, and that if he 
+could find the time, he would give an eye himself to have me educated.
+
+"You can do me a better service than even what you propose," said I; 
+and when he had asked its nature - "Come with me to the house of one of 
+my enemies, and testify how I have carried myself this day," I told 
+him.  "That will be the true service.  For though he has sent me a 
+gallant adversary for the first, the thought in Mr. Simon's mind is 
+merely murder.  There will be a second and then a third; and by what 
+you have seen of my cleverness with the cold steel, you can judge for 
+yourself what is like to be the upshot."
+
+"And I would not like it myself, if I was no more of a man than what 
+you wass!" he cried.  "But I will do you right, Palfour.  Lead on!"
+
+If I had walked slowly on the way into that accursed park my heels were 
+light enough on the way out.  They kept time to a very good old air, 
+that is as ancient as the Bible, and the words of it are:  "SURELY THE 
+BITTERNESS OF DEATH IS PASSED."  I mind that I was extremely thirsty, 
+and had a drink at Saint Margaret's well on the road down, and the 
+sweetness of that water passed belief.  We went through the sanctuary, 
+up the Canongate, in by the Netherbow, and straight to Prestongrange's 
+door, talking as we came and arranging the details of our affair.  The 
+footman owned his master was at home, but declared him engaged with 
+other gentlemen on very private business, and his door forbidden.
+
+"My business is but for three minutes, and it cannot wait," said I.  
+"You may say it is by no means private, and I shall be even glad to 
+have some witnesses."
+
+As the man departed unwillingly enough upon this errand, we made so 
+bold as to follow him to the ante-chamber, whence I could hear for a 
+while the murmuring of several voices in the room within.  The truth 
+is, they were three at the one table - Prestongrange, Simon Fraser, and 
+Mr. Erskine, Sheriff of Perth; and as they were met in consultation on 
+the very business of the Appin murder, they were a little disturbed at 
+my appearance, but decided to receive me.
+
+"Well, well, Mr. Balfour, and what brings you here again? and who is 
+this you bring with you?" says Prestongrange.
+
+As for Fraser, he looked before him on the table.
+
+"He is here to bear a little testimony in my favour, my lord, which I 
+think it very needful you should hear," said I, and turned to 
+Duncansby.
+
+"I have only to say this," said the lieutenant, "that I stood up this 
+day with Palfour in the Hunter's Pog, which I am now fery sorry for, 
+and he behaved himself as pretty as a shentlemans could ask it.  And I 
+have creat respects for Palfour," he added.
+
+"I thank you for your honest expressions," said I.
+
+Whereupon Duncansby made his bow to the company, and left the chamber, 
+as we had agreed upon before.
+
+"What have I to do with this?" says Prestongrange.
+
+"I will tell your lordship in two words," said I.  "I have brought this 
+gentleman, a King's officer, to do me so much justice.  Now I think my 
+character in covered, and until a certain date, which your lordship can 
+very well supply, it will be quite in vain to despatch against me any 
+more officers.  I will not consent to fight my way through the garrison 
+of the castle."
+
+The veins swelled on Prestongrange's brow, and he regarded me with 
+fury.
+
+"I think the devil uncoupled this dog of a lad between my legs!" he 
+cried; and then, turning fiercely on his neighbour, "This is some of 
+your work, Simon," he said.  "I spy your hand in the business, and, let 
+me tell you, I resent it.  It is disloyal, when we are agreed upon one 
+expedient, to follow another in the dark.  You are disloyal to me.  
+What! you let me send this lad to the place with my very daughters!  
+And because I let drop a word to you..... Fy, sir, keep your dishonours 
+to yourself!"
+
+Simon was deadly pale.  "I will be a kick-ball between you and the Duke 
+no longer," he exclaimed.  "Either come to an agreement, or come to a 
+differ, and have it out among yourselves.  But I will no longer fetch 
+and carry, and get your contrary instructions, and be blamed by both.  
+For if I were to tell you what I think of all your Hanover business it 
+would make your head sing."
+
+But Sheriff Erskine had preserved his temper, and now intervened 
+smoothly.  "And in the meantime," says he, "I think we should tell Mr. 
+Balfour that his character for valour is quite established.  He may 
+sleep in peace.  Until the date he was so good as to refer to it shall 
+be put to the proof no more."
+
+His coolness brought the others to their prudence; and they made haste, 
+with a somewhat distracted civility, to pack me from the house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX - THE HEATHER ON FIRE
+
+
+
+WHEN I left Prestongrange that afternoon I was for the first time 
+angry.  The Advocate had made a mock of me.  He had pretended my 
+testimony was to be received and myself respected; and in that very 
+hour, not only was Simon practising against my life by the hands of the 
+Highland soldier, but (as appeared from his own language) Prestongrange 
+himself had some design in operation.  I counted my enemies; 
+Prestongrange with all the King's authority behind him; and the Duke 
+with the power of the West Highlands; and the Lovat interest by their 
+side to help them with so great a force in the north, and the whole 
+clan of old Jacobite spies and traffickers.  And when I remembered 
+James More, and the red head of Neil the son of Duncan, I thought there 
+was perhaps a fourth in the confederacy, and what remained of Rob Roy's 
+old desperate sept of caterans would be banded against me with the 
+others.  One thing was requisite - some strong friend or wise adviser.  
+The country must be full of such, both able and eager to support me, or 
+Lovat and the Duke and Prestongrange had not been nosing for 
+expedients; and it made me rage to think that I might brush against my 
+champions in the street and be no wiser.
+
+And just then (like an answer) a gentleman brushed against me going by, 
+gave me a meaning look, and turned into a close.  I knew him with the 
+tail of my eye - it was Stewart the Writer; and, blessing my good 
+fortune, turned in to follow him.  As soon as I had entered the close I 
+saw him standing in the mouth of a stair, where he made me a signal and 
+immediately vanished.  Seven storeys up, there he was again in a house 
+door, the which he looked behind us after we had entered.  The house 
+was quite dismantled, with not a stick of furniture; indeed, it was one 
+of which Stewart had the letting in his hands.
+
+"We'll have to sit upon the floor," said he; "but we're safe here for 
+the time being, and I've been wearying to see ye, Mr. Balfour."
+
+"How's it with Alan?" I asked.
+
+"Brawly," said he.  "Andie picks him up at Gillane sands to-morrow, 
+Wednesday.  He was keen to say good-bye to ye, but the way that things 
+were going, I was feared the pair of ye was maybe best apart.  And that 
+brings me to the essential:  how does your business speed?"
+
+"Why," said I, "I was told only this morning that my testimony was 
+accepted, and I was to travel to Inverary with the Advocate, no less."
+
+"Hout awa!" cried Stewart.  "I'll never believe that."
+
+"I have maybe a suspicion of my own," says I, "but I would like fine to 
+hear your reasons."
+
+"Well, I tell ye fairly, I'm horn-mad," cries Stewart.  "If my one hand 
+could pull their Government down I would pluck it like a rotten apple.  
+I'm doer for Appin and for James of the Glens; and, of course, it's my 
+duty to defend my kinsman for his life.  Hear how it goes with me, and 
+I'll leave the judgment of it to yourself.  The first thing they have 
+to do is to get rid of Alan.  They cannae bring in James as art and 
+part until they've brought in Alan first as principal; that's sound 
+law:  they could never put the cart before the horse."
+
+"And how are they to bring in Alan till they can catch him?" says I.
+
+"Ah, but there is a way to evite that arrestment," said he.  "Sound 
+law, too.  It would be a bonny thing if, by the escape of one ill-doer 
+another was to go scatheless, and the remeid is to summon the principal 
+and put him to outlawry for the non-compearance.  Now there's four 
+places where a person can be summoned:  at his dwelling-house; at a 
+place where he has resided forty days; at the head burgh of the shire 
+where he ordinarily resorts; or lastly (if there be ground to think him 
+forth of Scotland) AT THE CROSS OF EDINBURGH, AND THE PIER AND SHORE OF 
+LEITH, FOR SIXTY DAYS.  The purpose of which last provision is evident 
+upon its face:  being that outgoing ships may have time to carry news 
+of the transaction, and the summonsing be something other than a form.  
+Now take the case of Alan.  He has no dwelling-house that ever I could 
+hear of; I would be obliged if anyone would show me where he has lived 
+forty days together since the '45; there is no shire where he resorts 
+whether ordinarily or extraordinarily; if he has a domicile at all, 
+which I misdoubt, it must be with his regiment in France; and if he is 
+not yet forth of Scotland (as we happen to know and they happen to 
+guess) it must be evident to the most dull it's what he's aiming for.  
+Where, then, and what way should he be summoned?  I ask it at yourself, 
+a layman."
+
+"You have given the very words," said I.  "Here at the cross, and at 
+the pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days."
+
+"Ye're a sounder Scots lawyer than Prestongrange, then!" cries the 
+Writer.  "He has had Alan summoned once; that was on the twenty-fifth, 
+the day that we first met.  Once, and done with it.  And where?  Where, 
+but at the cross of Inverary, the head burgh of the Campbells?  A word 
+in your ear, Mr. Balfour - they're not seeking Alan."
+
+"What do you mean?" I cried.  "Not seeking him?"
+
+"By the best that I can make of it," said he.  "Not wanting to find 
+him, in my poor thought.  They think perhaps he might set up a fair 
+defence, upon the back of which James, the man they're really after, 
+might climb out.  This is not a case, ye see, it's a conspiracy."
+
+"Yet I can tell you Prestongrange asked after Alan keenly," said I; 
+"though, when I come to think of it, he was something of the easiest 
+put by."
+
+"See that!" says he.  "But there!  I may be right or wrong, that's 
+guesswork at the best, and let me get to my facts again.  It comes to 
+my ears that James and the witnesses - the witnesses, Mr. Balfour! - 
+lay in close dungeons, and shackled forbye, in the military prison at 
+Fort William; none allowed in to them, nor they to write.  The 
+witnesses, Mr. Balfour; heard ye ever the match of that?  I assure ye, 
+no old, crooked Stewart of the gang ever out-faced the law more 
+impudently.  It's clean in the two eyes of the Act of Parliament of 
+1700, anent wrongous imprisonment.  No sooner did I get the news than I 
+petitioned the Lord Justice Clerk.  I have his word to-day.  There's 
+law for ye! here's justice!"
+
+He put a paper in my hand, that same mealy-mouthed, false-faced paper 
+that was printed since in the pamphlet "by a bystander," for behoof (as 
+the title says) of James's "poor widow and five children."
+
+"See," said Stewart, "he couldn't dare to refuse me access to my 
+client, so he RECOMMENDS THE COMMANDING OFFICER TO LET ME IN.  
+Recommends! - the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland recommends.  Is not 
+the purpose of such language plain?  They hope the officer may be so 
+dull, or so very much the reverse, as to refuse the recommendation.  I 
+would have to make the journey back again betwixt here and Fort 
+William.  Then would follow a fresh delay till I got fresh authority, 
+and they had disavowed the officer - military man, notoriously ignorant 
+of the law, and that - I ken the cant of it.  Then the journey a third 
+time; and there we should be on the immediate heels of the trial before 
+I had received my first instruction.  Am I not right to call this a 
+conspiracy?"
+
+"It will bear that colour," said I.
+
+"And I'll go on to prove it you outright," said he.  "They have the 
+right to hold James in prison, yet they cannot deny me to visit him.  
+They have no right to hold the witnesses; but am I to get a sight of 
+them, that should be as free as the Lord Justice Clerk himself!  See - 
+read:  FOR THE REST, REFUSES TO GIVE ANY ORDERS TO KEEPERS OF PRISONS 
+WHO ARE NOT ACCUSED AS HAVING DONE ANYTHING CONTRARY TO THE DUTIES OF 
+THEIR OFFICE.  Anything contrary!  Sirs!  And the Act of seventeen 
+hunner?  Mr. Balfour, this makes my heart to burst; the heather is on 
+fire inside my wame."
+
+"And the plain English of that phrase," said I, "is that the witnesses 
+are still to lie in prison and you are not to see them?"
+
+"And I am not to see them until Inverary, when the court is set!" cries 
+he, "and then to hear Prestongrange upon THE ANXIOUS RESPONSIBILITIES 
+OF HIS OFFICE AND THE GREAT FACILITIES AFFORDED THE DEFENCE!  But I'll 
+begowk them there, Mr. David.  I have a plan to waylay the witnesses 
+upon the road, and see if I cannae get I a little harle of justice out 
+of the MILITARY MAN NOTORIOUSLY IGNORANT OF THE LAW that shall command 
+the party."
+
+It was actually so - it was actually on the wayside near Tynedrum, and 
+by the connivance of a soldier officer, that Mr. Stewart first saw the 
+witnesses upon the case.
+
+"There is nothing that would surprise me in this business," I remarked.
+
+"I'll surprise you ere I'm done!" cries he.  "Do ye see this?" - 
+producing a print still wet from the press.  "This is the libel:  see, 
+there's Prestongrange's name to the list of witnesses, and I find no 
+word of any Balfour.  But here is not the question.  Who do ye think 
+paid for the printing of this paper?"
+
+"I suppose it would likely be King George," said I.
+
+"But it happens it was me!" he cried.  "Not but it was printed by and 
+for themselves, for the Grants and the Erskines, and yon thief of the 
+black midnight, Simon Fraser.  But could I win to get a copy!  No!  I 
+was to go blindfold to my defence; I was to hear the charges for the 
+first time in court alongst the jury."
+
+"Is not this against the law?" I asked
+
+"I cannot say so much," he replied.  "It was a favour so natural and so 
+constantly rendered (till this nonesuch business) that the law has 
+never looked to it.  And now admire the hand of Providence!  A stranger 
+is in Fleming's printing house, spies a proof on the floor, picks it 
+up, and carries it to me.  Of all things, it was just this libel.  
+Whereupon I had it set again - printed at the expense of the defence:  
+SUMPTIBUS MOESTI REI; heard ever man the like of it? - and here it is 
+for anybody, the muckle secret out - all may see it now.  But how do 
+you think I would enjoy this, that has the life of my kinsman on my 
+conscience?"
+
+"Troth, I think you would enjoy it ill," said I.
+
+"And now you see how it is," he concluded, "and why, when you tell me 
+your evidence is to be let in, I laugh aloud in your face."
+
+It was now my turn.  I laid before him in brief Mr. Simon's threats and 
+offers, and the whole incident of the bravo, with the subsequent scene 
+at Prestongrange's.  Of my first talk, according to promise, I said 
+nothing, nor indeed was it necessary.  All the time I was talking 
+Stewart nodded his head like a mechanical figure; and no sooner had my 
+voice ceased, than he opened his mouth and gave me his opinion in two 
+words, dwelling strong on both of them.
+
+"Disappear yourself," said he.
+
+"I do not take you," said I.
+
+"Then I'll carry you there," said he.  "By my view of it you're to 
+disappear whatever.  O, that's outside debate.  The Advocate, who is 
+not without some spunks of a remainder decency, has wrung your life-
+safe out of Simon and the Duke.  He has refused to put you on your 
+trial, and refused to have you killed; and there is the clue to their 
+ill words together, for Simon and the Duke can keep faith with neither 
+friend nor enemy.  Ye're not to be tried then, and ye're not to be 
+murdered; but I'm in bitter error if ye're not to be kidnapped and 
+carried away like the Lady Grange.  Bet me what ye please - there was 
+their EXPEDIENT!"
+
+"You make me think," said I, and told him of the whistle and the red-
+headed retainer, Neil.
+
+"Wherever James More is there's one big rogue, never be deceived on 
+that," said he.  "His father was none so ill a man, though a kenning on 
+the wrong side of the law, and no friend to my family, that I should 
+waste my breath to be defending him!  But as for James he's a brock and 
+a blagyard.  I like the appearance of this red-headed Neil as little as 
+yourself.  It looks uncanny:  fiegh! it smells bad.  It was old Lovat 
+that managed the Lady Grange affair; if young Lovat is to handle yours, 
+it'll be all in the family.  What's James More in prison for?  The same 
+offence:  abduction.  His men have had practice in the business.  He'll 
+be to lend them to be Simon's instruments; and the next thing we'll be 
+hearing, James will have made his peace, or else he'll have escaped; 
+and you'll be in Benbecula or Applecross."
+
+"Ye make a strong case," I admitted.
+
+"And what I want," he resumed, "is that you should disappear yourself 
+ere they can get their hands upon ye.  Lie quiet until just before the 
+trial, and spring upon them at the last of it when they'll be looking 
+for you least.  This is always supposing Mr. Balfour, that your 
+evidence is worth so very great a measure of both risk and fash."
+
+"I will tell you one thing," said I.  "I saw the murderer and it was 
+not Alan."
+
+"Then, by God, my cousin's saved!" cried Stewart.  "You have his life 
+upon your tongue; and there's neither time, risk, nor money to be 
+spared to bring you to the trial."  He emptied his pockets on the 
+floor.  "Here is all that I have by me," he went on, "Take it, ye'll 
+want it ere ye're through.  Go straight down this close, there's a way 
+out by there to the Lang Dykes, and by my will of it! see no more of 
+Edinburgh till the clash is over."
+
+"Where am I to go, then?" I inquired.
+
+"And I wish that I could tell ye!" says he, "but all the places that I 
+could send ye to, would be just the places they would seek.  No, ye 
+must fend for yourself, and God be your guiding!  Five days before the 
+trial, September the sixteen, get word to me at the KING ARMS in 
+Stirling; and if ye've managed for yourself as long as that, I'll see 
+that ye reach Inverary."
+
+"One thing more," said I.  "Can I no see Alan?"
+
+He seemed boggled.  "Hech, I would rather you wouldnae," said he.  "But 
+I can never deny that Alan is extremely keen of it, and is to lie this 
+night by Silvermills on purpose.  If you're sure that you're not 
+followed, Mr. Balfour - but make sure of that - lie in a good place and 
+watch your road for a clear hour before ye risk it.  It would be a 
+dreadful business if both you and him was to miscarry!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X - THE RED-HEADED MAN
+
+
+
+IT was about half-past three when I came forth on the Lang Dykes.  Dean 
+was where I wanted to go.  Since Catriona dwelled there, and her 
+kinsfolk the Glengyle Macgregors appeared almost certainly to be 
+employed against me, it was just one of the few places I should have 
+kept away from; and being a very young man, and beginning to be very 
+much in love, I turned my face in that direction without pause.  As a 
+slave to my conscience and common sense, however, I took a measure of 
+precaution.  Coming over the crown of a bit of a rise in the road, I 
+clapped down suddenly among the barley and lay waiting.  After a while, 
+a man went by that looked to be a Highlandman, but I had never seen him 
+till that hour.  Presently after came Neil of the red head.  The next 
+to go past was a miller's cart, and after that nothing but manifest 
+country people.  Here was enough to have turned the most foolhardy from 
+his purpose, but my inclination ran too strong the other way.  I argued 
+it out that if Neil was on that road, it was the right road to find him 
+in, leading direct to his chief's daughter; as for the other 
+Highlandman, if I was to be startled off by every Highlandman I saw, I 
+would scarce reach anywhere.  And having quite satisfied myself with 
+this disingenuous debate, I made the better speed of it, and came a 
+little after four to Mrs. Drumond-Ogilvy's.
+
+Both ladies were within the house; and upon my perceiving them together 
+by the open door, I plucked off my hat and said, "Here was a lad come 
+seeking saxpence," which I thought might please the dowager.
+
+Catriona ran out to greet me heartily, and, to my surprise, the old 
+lady seemed scarce less forward than herself.  I learned long 
+afterwards that she had despatched a horseman by daylight to Rankeillor 
+at the Queensferry, whom she knew to be the doer for Shaws, and had 
+then in her pocket a letter from that good friend of mine, presenting, 
+in the most favourable view, my character and prospects.  But had I 
+read it I could scarce have seen more clear in her designs.  Maybe I 
+was COUNTRYFEED; at least, I was not so much so as she thought; and it 
+was even to my homespun wits, that she was bent to hammer up a match 
+between her cousin and a beardless boy that was something of a laird in 
+Lothian.
+
+"Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine," says she.  "Run 
+and tell the lasses."
+
+And for the little while we were alone was at a good deal of pains to 
+flatter me; always cleverly, always with the appearance of a banter, 
+still calling me Saxpence, but with such a turn that should rather 
+uplift me in my own opinion.  When Catriona returned, the design became 
+if possible more obvious; and she showed off the girl's advantages like 
+a horse-couper with a horse.  My face flamed that she should think me 
+so obtuse.  Now I would fancy the girl was being innocently made a show 
+of, and then I could have beaten the old carline wife with a cudgel; 
+and now, that perhaps these two had set their heads together to entrap 
+me, and at that I sat and gloomed betwixt them like the very image of 
+ill-will.  At last the matchmaker had a better device, which was to 
+leave the pair of us alone.  When my suspicions are anyway roused it is 
+sometimes a little the wrong side of easy to allay them.  But though I 
+knew what breed she was of, and that was a breed of thieves, I could 
+never look in Catriona's face and disbelieve her.
+
+"I must not ask?" says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left 
+alone.
+
+"Ah, but to-day I can talk with a free conscience," I replied.  "I am 
+lightened of my pledge, and indeed (after what has come and gone since 
+morning) I would not have renewed it were it asked."
+
+"Tell me," she said.  "My cousin will not be so long."
+
+So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the 
+last of it, making it as mirthful as I could, and, indeed, there was 
+matter of mirth in that absurdity.
+
+"And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudas men as for the 
+pretty ladies, after all!" says she, when I had done.  "But what was 
+your father that he could not learn you to draw the sword!  It is most 
+ungentle; I have not heard the match of that in anyone."
+
+"It is most misconvenient at least," said I; "and I think my father 
+(honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in the 
+place of it.  But you see I do the best I can, and just stand up like 
+Lot's wife and let them hammer at me."
+
+"Do you know what makes me smile?" said she.  "Well, it is this.  I am 
+made this way, that I should have been a man child.  In my own thoughts 
+it is so I am always; and I go on telling myself about this thing that 
+is to befall and that.  Then it comes to the place of the fighting, and 
+it comes over me that I am only a girl at all events, and cannot hold a 
+sword or give one good blow; and then I have to twist my story round 
+about, so that the fighting is to stop, and yet me have the best of it, 
+just like you and the lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine 
+speeches all through, like Mr. David Balfour."
+
+"You are a bloodthirsty maid," said I.
+
+"Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers," she 
+said, "but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I think 
+you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not that I 
+want to kill, I think.  Did ever you kill anyone?"
+
+"That I have, as it chances.  Two, no less, and me still a lad that 
+should be at the college," said I.  "But yet, in the look-back, I take 
+no shame for it."
+
+"But how did you feel, then - after it?" she asked.
+
+'"Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn," said I.
+
+"I know that, too," she cried.  "I feel where these tears should come 
+from.  And at any rate, I would not wish to kill, only to be Catherine 
+Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt, where it was 
+broken.  That is my chief hero.  Would you not love to die so - for 
+your king?" she asked.
+
+"Troth," said I, "my affection for my king, God bless the puggy face of 
+him, is under more control; and I thought I saw death so near to me 
+this day already, that I am rather taken up with the notion of living."
+
+"Right," she said, "the right mind of a man!  Only you must learn arms; 
+I would not like to have a friend that cannot strike.  But it will not 
+have been with the sword that you killed these two?"
+
+"Indeed, no," said I, "but with a pair of pistols.  And a fortunate 
+thing it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I am about as clever 
+with the pistols as I am with the sword."
+
+So then she drew from me the story of our battle in the brig, which I 
+had omitted in my first account of my affairs.
+
+"Yes," said she, "you are brave.  And your friend, I admire and love 
+him."
+
+"Well, and I think anyone would!" said I.  "He has his faults like 
+other folk; but he is brave and staunch and kind, God bless him!  That 
+will be a strange day when I forget Alan."  And the thought of him, and 
+that it was within my choice to speak with him that night, had almost 
+overcome me.
+
+"And where will my head be gone that I have not told my news!" she 
+cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she might 
+visit him to-morrow in the castle whither he was now transferred, and 
+that his affairs were mending.  "You do not like to hear it," said she.  
+"Will you judge my father and not know him?"
+
+"I am a thousand miles from judging," I replied.  "And I give you my 
+word I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened.  If my face fell at 
+all, as I suppose it must, you will allow this is rather an ill day for 
+compositions, and the people in power extremely ill persons to be 
+compounding with.  I have Simon Fraser extremely heavy on my stomach 
+still."
+
+"Ah!" she cried, "you will not be evening these two; and you should 
+bear in mind that Prestongrange and James More, my father, are of the 
+one blood."
+
+"I never heard tell of that," said I.
+
+"It is rather singular how little you are acquainted with," said she.  
+"One part may call themselves Grant, and one Macgregor, but they are 
+still of the same clan.  They are all the sons of Alpin, from whom, I 
+think, our country has its name."
+
+"What country is that?" I asked.
+
+"My country and yours," said she
+
+"This is my day for discovering I think," said I, "for I always thought 
+the name of it was Scotland."
+
+"Scotland is the name of what you call Ireland," she replied.  "But the 
+old ancient true name of this place that we have our foot-soles on, and 
+that our bones are made of, will be Alban.  It was Alban they called it 
+when our forefathers will be fighting for it against Rome and 
+Alexander; and it is called so still in your own tongue that you 
+forget."
+
+"Troth," said I, "and that I never learned!"  For I lacked heart to 
+take her up about the Macedonian.
+
+"But your fathers and mothers talked it, one generation with another," 
+said she.  "And it was sung about the cradles before you or me were 
+ever dreamed of; and your name remembers it still.  Ah, if you could 
+talk that language you would find me another girl.  The heart speaks in 
+that tongue."
+
+I had a meal with the two ladies, all very good, served in fine old 
+plate, and the wine excellent, for it seems that Mrs. Ogilvy was rich.  
+Our talk, too, was pleasant enough; but as soon as I saw the sun 
+decline sharply and the shadows to run out long, I rose to take my 
+leave.  For my mind was now made up to say farewell to Alan; and it was 
+needful I should see the trysting wood, and reconnoitre it, by 
+daylight.  Catriona came with me as far as to the garden gate.
+
+"It is long till I see you now?" she asked.
+
+"It is beyond my judging," I replied.  "It will be long, it may be 
+never."
+
+"It may be so," said she.  "And you are sorry?"
+
+I bowed my head, looking upon her.
+
+"So am I, at all events," said she.  "I have seen you but a small time, 
+but I put you very high.  You are true, you are brave; in time I think 
+you will be more of a man yet.  I will be proud to hear of that.  If 
+you should speed worse, if it will come to fall as we are afraid - O 
+well! think you have the one friend.  Long after you are dead and me an 
+old wife, I will be telling the bairns about David Balfour, and my 
+tears running.  I will be telling how we parted, and what I said to 
+you, and did to you.  GOD GO WITH YOU AND GUIDE YOU, PRAYS YOUR LITTLE 
+FRIEND:  so I said - I will be telling them - and here is what I did."
+
+She took up my hand and kissed it.  This so surprised my spirits that I 
+cried out like one hurt.  The colour came strong in her face, and she 
+looked at me and nodded.
+
+"O yes, Mr. David," said she, "that is what I think of you.  The head 
+goes with the lips."
+
+I could read in her face high spirit, and a chivalry like a brave 
+child's; not anything besides.  She kissed my hand, as she had kissed 
+Prince Charlie's, with a higher passion than the common kind of clay 
+has any sense of.  Nothing before had taught me how deep I was her 
+lover, nor how far I had yet to climb to make her think of me in such a 
+character.  Yet I could tell myself I had advanced some way, and that 
+her heart had beat and her blood flowed at thoughts of me.
+
+After that honour she had done me I could offer no more trivial 
+civility.  It was even hard for me to speak; a certain lifting in her 
+voice had knocked directly at the door of my own tears.
+
+"I praise God for your kindness, dear," said I.  "Farewell, my little 
+friend!" giving her that name which she had given to herself; with 
+which I bowed and left her.
+
+My way was down the glen of the Leith River, towards Stockbridge and 
+Silvermills.  A path led in the foot of it, the water bickered and sang 
+in the midst; the sunbeams overhead struck out of the west among long 
+shadows and (as the valley turned) made like a new scene and a new 
+world of it at every corner.  With Catriona behind and Alan before me, 
+I was like one lifted up.  The place besides, and the hour, and the 
+talking of the water, infinitely pleased me; and I lingered in my steps 
+and looked before and behind me as I went.  This was the cause, under 
+Providence, that I spied a little in my rear a red head among some 
+bushes.
+
+Anger sprang in my heart, and I turned straight about and walked at a 
+stiff pace to where I came from.  The path lay close by the bushes 
+where I had remarked the head.  The cover came to the wayside, and as I 
+passed I was all strung up to meet and to resist an onfall.  No such 
+thing befell, I went by unmeddled with; and at that fear increased upon 
+me.  It was still day indeed, but the place exceeding solitary.  If my 
+haunters had let slip that fair occasion I could but judge they aimed 
+at something more than David Balfour.  The lives of Alan and James 
+weighed upon my spirit with the weight of two grown bullocks.
+
+Catriona was yet in the garden walking by herself.
+
+"Catriona," said I, "you see me back again."
+
+"With a changed face," said she.
+
+"I carry two men's lives besides my own," said I.  "It would be a sin 
+and shame not to walk carefully.  I was doubtful whether I did right to 
+come here.  I would like it ill, if it was by that means we were 
+brought to harm."
+
+"I could tell you one that would be liking it less, and will like 
+little enough to hear you talking at this very same time," she cried.  
+"What have I done, at all events?"
+
+"O, you I you are not alone," I replied.  "But since I went off I have 
+been dogged again, and I can give you the name of him that follows me.  
+It is Neil, son of Duncan, your man or your father's."
+
+"To be sure you are mistaken there," she said, with a white face.  
+"Neil is in Edinburgh on errands from my father."
+
+"It is what I fear," said I, "the last of it.  But for his being in 
+Edinburgh I think I can show you another of that.  For sure you have 
+some signal, a signal of need, such as would bring him to your help, if 
+he was anywhere within the reach of ears and legs?"
+
+"Why, how will you know that?" says she.
+
+"By means of a magical talisman God gave to me when I was born, and the 
+name they call it by is Common-sense," said I.  "Oblige me so far as 
+make your signal, and I will show you the red head of Neil."
+
+No doubt but I spoke bitter and sharp.  My heart was bitter.  I blamed 
+myself and the girl and hated both of us:  her for the vile crew that 
+she was come of, myself for my wanton folly to have stuck my head in 
+such a byke of wasps.
+
+Catriona set her fingers to her lips and whistled once, with an 
+exceeding clear, strong, mounting note, as full as a ploughman's.  A 
+while we stood silent; and I was about to ask her to repeat the same, 
+when I heard the sound of some one bursting through the bushes below on 
+the braeside.  I pointed in that direction with a smile, and presently 
+Neil leaped into the garden.  His eyes burned, and he had a black knife 
+(as they call it on the Highland side) naked in his hand; but, seeing 
+me beside his mistress, stood like a man struck.
+
+"He has come to your call," said I; "judge how near he was to 
+Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father's errands.  Ask 
+himself.  If I am to lose my life, or the lives of those that hang by 
+me, through the means of your clan, let me go where I have to go with 
+my eyes open."
+
+She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic.  Remembering Alan's 
+anxious civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for 
+bitterness; here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was the hour 
+she should have stuck by English.
+
+Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil 
+(for all his obsequiousness) was an angry man.
+
+Then she turned to me.  "He swears it is not," she said.
+
+"Catriona," said I, "do you believe the man yourself?"
+
+She made a gesture like wringing the hands.
+
+"How will I can know?" she cried.
+
+But I must find some means to know," said I.  "I cannot continue to go 
+dovering round in the black night with two men's lives at my girdle!  
+Catriona, try to put yourself in my place, as I vow to God I try hard 
+to put myself in yours.  This is no kind of talk that should ever have 
+fallen between me and you; no kind of talk; my heart is sick with it.  
+See, keep him here till two of the morning, and I care not.  Try him 
+with that."
+
+They spoke together once more in the Gaelic.
+
+"He says he has James More my father's errand," said she.  She was 
+whiter than ever, and her voice faltered as she said it.
+
+"It is pretty plain now," said I, "and may God forgive the wicked!"
+
+She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with the 
+same white face.
+
+"This is a fine business," said I again.  "Am I to fall, then, and 
+those two along with me?"
+
+"O, what am I to do?" she cried.  "Could I go against my father's 
+orders, him in prison, in the danger of his life!"
+
+"But perhaps we go too fast," said I.  "This may be a lie too.  He may 
+have no right orders; all may be contrived by Simon, and your father 
+knowing nothing."
+
+She burst out weeping between the pair of us; and my heart smote me 
+hard, for I thought this girl was in a dreadful situation.
+
+"Here," said I, "keep him but the one hour; and I'll chance it, and may 
+God bless you."
+
+She put out her hand to me, "I will he needing one good word," she 
+sobbed.
+
+"The full hour, then?" said I, keeping her hand in mine.  "Three lives 
+of it, my lass!"
+
+"The full hour!" she said, and cried aloud on her Redeemer to forgive 
+her.
+
+I thought it no fit place for me, and fled.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI - THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS
+
+
+
+I LOST no time, but down through the valley and by Stockbridge and 
+Silvermills as hard as I could stave.  It was Alan's tryst to be every 
+night between twelve and two "in a bit scrog of wood by east of 
+Silvermills and by south the south mill-lade."  This I found easy 
+enough, where it grew on a steep brae, with the mill-lade flowing swift 
+and deep along the foot of it; and here I began to walk slower and to 
+reflect more reasonably on my employment.  I saw I had made but a 
+fool's bargain with Catriona.  It was not to be supposed that Neil was 
+sent alone upon his errand, but perhaps he was the only man belonging 
+to James More; in which case I should have done all I could to hang 
+Catriona's father, and nothing the least material to help myself.  To 
+tell the truth, I fancied neither one of these ideas.  Suppose by 
+holding back Neil, the girl should have helped to hang her father, I 
+thought she would never forgive herself this side of time.  And suppose 
+there were others pursuing me that moment, what kind of a gift was I 
+come bringing to Alan? and how would I like that?
+
+I was up with the west end of that wood when these two considerations 
+struck me like a cudgel.  My feet stopped of themselves and my heart 
+along with them.  "What wild game is this that I have been playing?" 
+thought I; and turned instantly upon my heels to go elsewhere.
+
+This brought my face to Silvermills; the path came past the village 
+with a crook, but all plainly visible; and, Highland or Lowland, there 
+was nobody stirring.  Here was my advantage, here was just such a 
+conjuncture as Stewart had counselled me to profit by, and I ran by the 
+side of the mill-lade, fetched about beyond the east corner of the 
+wood, threaded through the midst of it, and returned to the west 
+selvage, whence I could again command the path, and yet be myself 
+unseen.  Again it was all empty, and my heart began to rise.
+
+For more than an hour I sat close in the border of the trees, and no 
+hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch.  When that hour 
+began the sun was already set, but the sky still all golden and the 
+daylight clear; before the hour was done it had fallen to be half mirk, 
+the images and distances of things were mingled, and observation began 
+to be difficult.  All that time not a foot of man had come east from 
+Silvermills, and the few that had gone west were honest countryfolk and 
+their wives upon the road to bed.  If I were tracked by the most 
+cunning spies in Europe, I judged it was beyond the course of nature 
+they could have any jealousy of where I was:  and going a little 
+further home into the wood I lay down to wait for Alan.
+
+The strain of my attention had been great, for I had watched not the 
+path only, but every bush and field within my vision.  That was now at 
+an end.  The moon, which was in her first quarter, glinted a little in 
+the wood; all round there was a stillness of the country; and as I lay 
+there on my back, the next three or four hours, I had a fine occasion 
+to review my conduct.
+
+Two things became plain to me first:  that I had no right to go that 
+day to Dean, and (having gone there) had now no right to be lying where 
+I was.  This (where Alan was to come) was just the one wood in all 
+broad Scotland that was, by every proper feeling, closed against me; I 
+admitted that, and yet stayed on, wondering at myself.  I thought of 
+the measure with which I had meted to Catriona that same night; how I 
+had prated of the two lives I carried, and had thus forced her to 
+enjeopardy her father's; and how I was here exposing them again, it 
+seemed in wantonness.  A good conscience is eight parts of courage.  No 
+sooner had I lost conceit of my behaviour, than I seemed to stand 
+disarmed amidst a throng of terrors.  Of a sudden I sat up.  How if I 
+went now to Prestongrange, caught him (as I still easily might) before 
+he slept, and made a full submission?  Who could blame me?  Not Stewart 
+the Writer; I had but to say that I was followed, despaired of getting 
+clear, and so gave in.  Not Catriona:  here, too, I had my answer 
+ready; that I could not bear she should expose her father.  So, in a 
+moment, I could lay all these troubles by, which were after all and 
+truly none of mine; swim clear of the Appin Murder; get forth out of 
+hand-stroke of all the Stewarts and Campbells, all the Whigs and 
+Tories, in the land; and live henceforth to my own mind, and be able to 
+enjoy and to improve my fortunes, and devote some hours of my youth to 
+courting Catriona, which would be surely a more suitable occupation 
+than to hide and run and be followed like a hunted thief, and begin 
+over again the dreadful miseries of my escape with Alan.
+
+At first I thought no shame of this capitulation; I was only amazed I 
+had not thought upon the thing and done it earlier; and began to 
+inquire into the causes of the change.  These I traced to my lowness of 
+spirits, that back to my late recklessness, and that again to the 
+common, old, public, disconsidered sin of self-indulgence.  Instantly 
+the text came in my head, "HOW CAN SATAN CAST OUT SATAN?"  What? (I 
+thought) I had, by self-indulgence; and the following of pleasant 
+paths, and the lure of a young maid, cast myself wholly out of conceit 
+with my own character, and jeopardised the lives of James and Alan?  
+And I was to seek the way out by the same road as I had entered in?  
+No; the hurt that had been caused by self-indulgence must be cured by 
+self-denial; the flesh I had pampered must be crucified.  I looked 
+about me for that course which I least liked to follow:  this was to 
+leave the wood without waiting to see Alan, and go forth again alone, 
+in the dark and in the midst of my perplexed and dangerous fortunes.
+
+I have been the more careful to narrate this passage of my reflections, 
+because I think it is of some utility, and may serve as an example to 
+young men.  But there is reason (they say) in planting kale, and even 
+in ethic and religion, room for common sense.  It was already close on 
+Alan's hour, and the moon was down.  If I left (as I could not very 
+decently whistle to my spies to follow me) they might miss me in the 
+dark and tack themselves to Alan by mistake.  If I stayed, I could at 
+the least of it set my friend upon his guard which might prove his mere 
+salvation.  I had adventured other peoples' safety in a course of self-
+indulgence; to have endangered them again, and now on a mere design of 
+penance, would have been scarce rational.  Accordingly, I had scarce 
+risen from my place ere I sat down again, but already in a different 
+frame of spirits, and equally marvelling at my past weakness and 
+rejoicing in my present composure.
+
+Presently after came a crackling in the thicket.  Putting my mouth near 
+down to the ground, I whistled a note or two, of Alan's air; an answer 
+came in the like guarded tone, and soon we had knocked together in the 
+dark.
+
+"Is this you at last, Davie?" he whispered.
+
+"Just myself," said I.
+
+"God, man, but I've been wearying to see ye!" says he.  "I've had the 
+longest kind of a time.  A' day, I've had my dwelling into the inside 
+of a stack of hay, where I couldnae see the nebs of my ten fingers; and 
+then two hours of it waiting here for you, and you never coming!  Dod, 
+and ye're none too soon the way it is, with me to sail the morn!  The 
+morn? what am I saying? - the day, I mean."
+
+"Ay, Alan, man, the day, sure enough," said I.  "It's past twelve now, 
+surely, and ye sail the day.  This'll be a long road you have before 
+you."
+
+"We'll have a long crack of it first," said he.
+
+"Well, indeed, and I have a good deal it will be telling you to hear," 
+said I.
+
+And I told him what behooved, making rather a jumble of it, but clear 
+enough when done.  He heard me out with very few questions, laughing 
+here and there like a man delighted:  and the sound of his laughing 
+(above all there, in the dark, where neither one of us could see the 
+other) was extraordinary friendly to my heart.
+
+"Ay, Davie, ye're a queer character," says he, when I had done:  "a 
+queer bitch after a', and I have no mind of meeting with the like of 
+ye.  As for your story, Prestongrange is a Whig like yoursel', so I'll 
+say the less of him; and, dod! I believe he was the best friend ye had, 
+if ye could only trust him.  But Simon Fraser and James More are my ain 
+kind of cattle, and I'll give them the name that they deserve.  The 
+muckle black deil was father to the Frasers, a'body kens that; and as 
+for the Gregara, I never could abye the reek of them since I could 
+stotter on two feet.  I bloodied the nose of one, I mind, when I was 
+still so wambly on my legs that I cowped upon the top of him.  A proud 
+man was my father that day, God rest him! and I think he had the cause.  
+I'll never can deny but what Robin was something of a piper," he added; 
+"but as for James More, the deil guide him for me!"
+
+"One thing we have to consider," said I.  "Was Charles Stewart right or 
+wrong?  Is it only me they're after, or the pair of us?"
+
+"And what's your ain opinion, you that's a man of so much experience?" 
+said he.
+
+"It passes me," said I.
+
+"And me too," says Alan.  "Do ye think this lass would keep her word to 
+ye?" he asked.
+
+"I do that," said I.
+
+"Well, there's nae telling," said he.  "And anyway, that's over and 
+done:  he'll be joined to the rest of them lang syne."
+
+"How many would ye think there would be of them?" I asked.
+
+"That depends," said Alan.  "If it was only you, they would likely send 
+two-three lively, brisk young birkies, and if they thought that I was 
+to appear in the employ, I daresay ten or twelve," said he.
+
+It was no use, I gave a little crack of laughter.
+
+"And I think your own two eyes will have seen me drive that number, or 
+the double of it, nearer hand!" cries he.
+
+"It matters the less," said I, "because I am well rid of them for this 
+time."
+
+"Nae doubt that's your opinion," said he; "but I wouldnae be the least 
+surprised if they were hunkering this wood.  Ye see, David man; they'll 
+be Hieland folk.  There'll be some Frasers, I'm thinking, and some of 
+the Gregara; and I would never deny but what the both of them, and the 
+Gregara in especial, were clever experienced persons.  A man kens 
+little till he's driven a spreagh of neat cattle (say) ten miles 
+through a throng lowland country and the black soldiers maybe at his 
+tail.  It's there that I learned a great part of my penetration.  And 
+ye need nae tell me:  it's better than war; which is the next best, 
+however, though generally rather a bauchle of a business.  Now the 
+Gregara have had grand practice."
+
+"No doubt that's a branch of education that was left out with me," said 
+I.
+
+"And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly," said Alan.  "But 
+that's the strange thing about you folk of the college learning:  ye're 
+ignorat, and ye cannae see 't.  Wae's me for my Greek and Hebrew; but, 
+man, I ken that I dinnae ken them - there's the differ of it.  Now, 
+here's you.  Ye lie on your wame a bittie in the bield of this wood, 
+and ye tell me that ye've cuist off these Frasers and Macgregors.  Why?  
+BECAUSE I COULDNAE SEE THEM, says you.  Ye blockhead, that's their 
+livelihood."
+
+"Take the worst of it," said I, "and what are we to do?"
+
+"I am thinking of that same," said he.  "We might twine.  It wouldnae 
+be greatly to my taste; and forbye that, I see reasons against it.  
+First, it's now unco dark, and it's just humanly possible we might give 
+them the clean slip.  If we keep together, we make but the ae line of 
+it; if we gang separate, we make twae of them:  the more likelihood to 
+stave in upon some of these gentry of yours.  And then, second, if they 
+keep the track of us, it may come to a fecht for it yet, Davie; and 
+then, I'll confess I would be blythe to have you at my oxter, and I 
+think you would be none the worse of having me at yours.  So, by my way 
+of it, we should creep out of this wood no further gone than just the 
+inside of next minute, and hold away east for Gillane, where I'm to 
+find my ship.  It'll be like old days while it lasts, Davie; and (come 
+the time) we'll have to think what you should be doing.  I'm wae to 
+leave ye here, wanting me."
+
+"Have with ye, then!" says I.  "Do ye gang back where you were 
+stopping?"
+
+"Deil a fear!" said Alan.  "They were good folks to me, but I think 
+they would be a good deal disappointed if they saw my bonny face again.  
+For (the way times go) I amnae just what ye could call a Walcome Guest.  
+Which makes me the keener for your company, Mr. David Balfour of the 
+Shaws, and set ye up!  For, leave aside twa cracks here in the wood 
+with Charlie Stewart, I have scarce said black or white since the day 
+we parted at Corstorphine."
+
+With which he rose from his place, and we began to move quietly 
+eastward through the wood.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII - ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN
+
+
+
+IT was likely between one and two; the moon (as I have said) was down; 
+a strongish wind, carrying a heavy wrack of cloud, had set in suddenly 
+from the west; and we began our movement in as black a night as ever a 
+fugitive or a murderer wanted.  The whiteness of the path guided us 
+into the sleeping town of Broughton, thence through Picardy, and beside 
+my old acquaintance the gibbet of the two thieves.  A little beyond we 
+made a useful beacon, which was a light in an upper window of Lochend.  
+Steering by this, but a good deal at random, and with some trampling of 
+the harvest, and stumbling and falling down upon the banks, we made our 
+way across country, and won forth at last upon the linky, boggy 
+muirland that they call the Figgate Whins.  Here, under a bush of whin, 
+we lay down the remainder of that night and slumbered.
+
+The day called us about five.  A beautiful morning it was, the high 
+westerly wind still blowing strong, but the clouds all blown away to 
+Europe.  Alan was already sitting up and smiling to himself.  It was my 
+first sight of my friend since we were parted, and I looked upon him 
+with enjoyment.  He had still the same big great-coat on his back; but 
+(what was new) he had now a pair of knitted boot-hose drawn above the 
+knee.  Doubtless these were intended for disguise; but, as the day 
+promised to be warm, he made a most unseasonable figure.
+
+"Well, Davie," said he, "is this no a bonny morning?  Here is a day 
+that looks the way that a day ought to.  This is a great change of it 
+from the belly of my haystack; and while you were there sottering and 
+sleeping I have done a thing that maybe I do very seldom."
+
+"And what was that?" said I.
+
+"O, just said my prayers," said he.
+
+"And where are my gentry, as ye call them?" I asked.
+
+"Gude kens," says he; "and the short and the long of it is that we must 
+take our chance of them.  Up with your foot-soles, Davie!  Forth, 
+Fortune, once again of it!  And a bonny walk we are like to have."
+
+So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans 
+were smoking in by the Esk mouth.  No doubt there was a by-ordinary 
+bonny blink of morning sun on Arthur's Seat and the green Pentlands; 
+and the pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.
+
+"I feel like a gomeral," says he, "to be leaving Scotland on a day like 
+this.  It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to stay here 
+and hing."
+
+"Ay, but ye wouldnae, Alan," said I.
+
+"No, but what France is a good place too," he explained; "but it's some 
+way no the same.  It's brawer I believe, but it's no Scotland.  I like 
+it fine when I'm there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and 
+the Scots peat-reek."
+
+"If that's all you have to complain of, Alan, it's no such great 
+affair," said I.
+
+"And it sets me ill to be complaining, whatever," said he, "and me but 
+new out of yon deil's haystack."
+
+"And so you were unco weary of your haystack?" I asked.
+
+"Weary's nae word for it," said he.  "I'm not just precisely a man 
+that's easily cast down; but I do better with caller air and the lift 
+above my head.  I'm like the auld Black Douglas (wasnae't?) that likit 
+better to hear the laverock sing than the mouse cheep.  And yon place, 
+ye see, Davie - whilk was a very suitable place to hide in, as I'm free 
+to own - was pit mirk from dawn to gloaming.  There were days (or 
+nights, for how would I tell one from other?) that seemed to me as long 
+as a long winter."
+
+"How did you know the hour to bide your tryst?" I asked.
+
+"The goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle-dowp to 
+eat it by, about eleeven," said he.  "So, when I had swallowed a bit, 
+it would he time to be getting to the wood.  There I lay and wearied 
+for ye sore, Davie," says he, laying his hand on my shoulder "and 
+guessed when the two hours would be about by - unless Charlie Stewart 
+would come and tell me on his watch - and then back to the dooms 
+haystack.  Na, it was a driech employ, and praise the Lord that I have 
+warstled through with it!"
+
+"What did you do with yourself?" I asked.
+
+"Faith," said he, "the best I could!  Whiles I played at the 
+knucklebones.  I'm an extraordinar good hand at the knucklebones, but 
+it's a poor piece of business playing with naebody to admire ye.  And 
+whiles I would make songs."
+
+"What were they about?" says I.
+
+"O, about the deer and the heather," says he, "and about the ancient 
+old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just about what songs 
+are about in general.  And then whiles I would make believe I had a set 
+of pipes and I was playing.  I played some grand springs, and I thought 
+I played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of 
+them!  But the great affair is that it's done with."
+
+With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all over 
+again with more particularity, and extraordinary approval, swearing at 
+intervals that I was "a queer character of a callant."
+
+"So ye were frich'ened of Sim Fraser?" he asked once.
+
+"In troth was I!" cried I.
+
+"So would I have been, Davie," said he.  "And that is indeed a driedful 
+man.  But it is only proper to give the deil his due:  and I can tell 
+you he is a most respectable person on the field of war."
+
+"Is he so brave?" I asked.
+
+"Brave!" said he.  "He is as brave as my steel sword."
+
+The story of my duel set him beside himself.
+
+"To think of that!" he cried.  "I showed ye the trick in Corrynakiegh 
+too.  And three times - three times disarmed!  It's a disgrace upon my 
+character that learned ye!  Here, stand up, out with your airn; ye 
+shall walk no step beyond this place upon the road till ye can do 
+yoursel' and me mair credit."
+
+"Alan," said I, "this is midsummer madness.  Here is no time for 
+fencing lessons."
+
+"I cannae well say no to that," he admitted.  "But three times, man!  
+And you standing there like a straw bogle and rinning to fetch your ain 
+sword like a doggie with a pocket-napkin!  David, this man Duncansby 
+must be something altogether by-ordinar!  He maun be extraordinar 
+skilly.  If I had the time, I would gang straight back and try a turn 
+at him mysel'.  The man must be a provost."
+
+"You silly fellow," said I, "you forget it was just me."
+
+"Na," said he, "but three times!"
+
+"When ye ken yourself that I am fair incompetent," I cried.
+
+"Well, I never heard tell the equal of it," said he.
+
+"I promise you the one thing, Alan," said I.  "The next time that we 
+forgather, I'll be better learned.  You shall not continue to bear the 
+disgrace of a friend that cannot strike."
+
+"Ay, the next time!" says he.  "And when will that be, I would like to 
+ken?"
+
+"Well, Alan, I have had some thoughts of that, too," said I; "and my 
+plan is this.  It's my opinion to be called an advocate."
+
+"That's but a weary trade, Davie," says Alan, "and rather a blagyard 
+one forby.  Ye would be better in a king's coat than that."
+
+"And no doubt that would be the way to have us meet," cried I.  "But as 
+you'll be in King Lewie's coat, and I'll be in King Geordie's, we'll 
+have a dainty meeting of it."
+
+"There's some sense in that," he admitted
+
+"An advocate, then, it'll have to be," I continued, "and I think it a 
+more suitable trade for a gentleman that was THREE TIMES disarmed.  But 
+the beauty of the thing is this:  that one of the best colleges for 
+that kind of learning - and the one where my kinsman, Pilrig, made his 
+studies - is the college of Leyden in Holland.  Now, what say you, 
+Alan?  Could not a cadet of ROYAL ECOSSAIS get a furlough, slip over 
+the marches, and call in upon a Leyden student?"
+
+"Well, and I would think he could!" cried he.  "Ye see, I stand well in 
+with my colonel, Count Drummond-Melfort; and, what's mair to the 
+purpose I have a cousin of mine lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of the 
+Scots-Dutch.  Naething could be mair proper than what I would get a 
+leave to see Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of Halkett's.  And Lord 
+Melfort, who is a very scienteefic kind of a man, and writes books like 
+Caesar, would be doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my 
+observes."
+
+"Is Lord Meloort an author, then?" I asked, for much as Alan thought of 
+soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books.
+
+"The very same, Davie," said he.  "One would think a colonel would have 
+something better to attend to.  But what can I say that make songs?"
+
+"Well, then," said I, "it only remains you should give me an address to 
+write you at in France; and as soon as I am got to Leyden I will send 
+you mine."
+
+"The best will be to write me in the care of my chieftain," said he, 
+"Charles Stewart, of Ardsheil, Esquire, at the town of Melons, in the 
+Isle of France.  It might take long, or it might take short, but it 
+would aye get to my hands at the last of it."
+
+We had a haddock to our breakfast in Musselburgh, where it amused me 
+vastly to hear Alan.  His great-coat and boot-hose were extremely 
+remarkable this warm morning, and perhaps some hint of an explanation 
+had been wise; but Alan went into that matter like a business, or I 
+should rather say, like a diversion.  He engaged the goodwife of the 
+house with some compliments upon the rizzoring of our haddocks; and the 
+whole of the rest of our stay held her in talk about a cold he had 
+taken on his stomach, gravely relating all manner of symptoms and 
+sufferings, and hearing with a vast show of interest all the old wives' 
+remedies she could supply him with in return.
+
+We left Musselburgh before the first ninepenny coach was due from 
+Edinburgh for (as Alan said) that was a rencounter we might very well 
+avoid.  The wind although still high, was very mild, the sun shone 
+strong, and Alan began to suffer in proportion.  From Prestonpans he 
+had me aside to the field of Gladsmuir, where he exerted himself a 
+great deal more than needful to describe the stages of the battle.  
+Thence, at his old round pace, we travelled to Cockenzie.  Though they 
+were building herring-busses there at Mrs. Cadell's, it seemed a 
+desert-like, back-going town, about half full of ruined houses; but the 
+ale-house was clean, and Alan, who was now in a glowing heat, must 
+indulge himself with a bottle of ale, and carry on to the new luckie 
+with the old story of the cold upon his stomach, only now the symptoms 
+were all different.
+
+I sat listening; and it came in my mind that I had scarce ever heard 
+him address three serious words to any woman, but he was always 
+drolling and fleering and making a private mock of them, and yet 
+brought to that business a remarkable degree of energy and interest.  
+Something to this effect I remarked to him, when the good-wife (as 
+chanced) was called away.
+
+"What do ye want?" says he.  "A man should aye put his best foot forrit 
+with the womankind; he should aye give them a bit of a story to divert 
+them, the poor lambs!  It's what ye should learn to attend to, David; 
+ye should get the principles, it's like a trade.  Now, if this had been 
+a young lassie, or onyways bonnie, she would never have heard tell of 
+my stomach, Davie.  But aince they're too old to be seeking joes, they 
+a' set up to be apotecaries.  Why?  What do I ken?  They'll be just the 
+way God made them, I suppose.  But I think a man would be a gomeral 
+that didnae give his attention to the same."
+
+And here, the luckie coming back, he turned from me as if with 
+impatience to renew their former conversation.  The lady had branched 
+some while before from Alan's stomach to the case of a goodbrother of 
+her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing 
+at extraordinary length.  Sometimes it was merely dull, sometimes both 
+dull and awful, for she talked with unction.  The upshot was that I 
+fell in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the road, and 
+scarce marking what I saw.  Presently had any been looking they might 
+have seen me to start.
+
+"We pit a fomentation to his feet," the good-wife was saying, "and a 
+het stane to his wame, and we gied him hyssop and water of pennyroyal, 
+and fine, clean balsam of sulphur for the hoast. . . "
+
+"Sir," says I, cutting very quietly in, "there's a friend of mine gone 
+by the house."
+
+"Is that e'en sae?" replies Alan, as though it were a thing of small 
+account.  And then, "Ye were saying, mem?" says he; and the wearyful 
+wife went on.
+
+Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she must 
+go forth after the change.
+
+"Was it him with the red head?" asked Alan.
+
+"Ye have it," said I.
+
+"What did I tell you in the wood?" he cried.  "And yet it's strange he 
+should be here too!  Was he his lane?"
+
+"His lee-lane for what I could see," said I.
+
+"Did he gang by?" he asked.
+
+"Straight by," said I, "and looked neither to the right nor left."
+
+"And that's queerer yet," said Alan.  "It sticks in my mind, Davie, 
+that we should be stirring.  But where to? - deil hae't!  This is like 
+old days fairly," cries he.
+
+"There is one big differ, though," said I, "that now we have money in 
+our pockets."
+
+"And another big differ, Mr. Balfour," says he, "that now we have dogs 
+at our tail.  They're on the scent; they're in full cry, David.  It's a 
+bad business and be damned to it."  And he sat thinking hard with a 
+look of his that I knew well.
+
+"I'm saying, Luckie," says he, when the goodwife returned, "have ye a 
+back road out of this change house?"
+
+She told him there was and where it led to.
+
+"Then, sir," says he to me, "I think that will be the shortest road for 
+us.  And here's good-bye to ye, my braw woman; and I'll no forget thon 
+of the cinnamon water."
+
+We went out by way of the woman's kale yard, and up a lane among 
+fields.  Alan looked sharply to all sides, and seeing we were in a 
+little hollow place of the country, out of view of men, sat down.
+
+"Now for a council of war, Davie," said he.  "But first of all, a bit 
+lesson to ye.  Suppose that I had been like you, what would yon old 
+wife have minded of the pair of us!  Just that we had gone out by the 
+back gate.  And what does she mind now?  A fine, canty, friendly, 
+cracky man, that suffered with the stomach, poor body! and was real 
+ta'en up about the goodbrother.  O man, David, try and learn to have 
+some kind of intelligence!"
+
+"I'll try, Alan," said I.
+
+"And now for him of the red head," says he; "was he gaun fast or slow?"
+
+"Betwixt and between," said I.
+
+"No kind of a hurry about the man?" he asked.
+
+"Never a sign of it," said I.
+
+"Nhm!" said Alan, "it looks queer.  We saw nothing of them this morning 
+on the Whins; he's passed us by, he doesnae seem to be looking, and yet 
+here he is on our road!  Dod, Davie, I begin to take a notion.  I think 
+it's no you they're seeking, I think it's me; and I think they ken fine 
+where they're gaun."
+
+"They ken?" I asked.
+
+"I think Andie Scougal's sold me - him or his mate wha kent some part 
+of the affair - or else Charlie's clerk callant, which would be a pity 
+too," says Alan; "and if you askit me for just my inward private 
+conviction, I think there'll be heads cracked on Gillane sands."
+
+"Alan," I cried, "if you're at all right there'll be folk there and to 
+spare.  It'll be small service to crack heads."
+
+"It would aye be a satisfaction though," says Alan.  But bide a bit; 
+bide a bit; I'm thinking - and thanks to this bonny westland wind, I 
+believe I've still a chance of it.  It's this way, Davie.  I'm no 
+trysted with this man Scougal till the gloaming comes.  BUT," says he, 
+"IF I CAN GET A BIT OF A WIND OUT OF THE WEST I'LL BE THERE LONG OR 
+THAT," he says, "AND LIE-TO FOR YE BEHIND THE ISLE OF FIDRA.  Now if 
+your gentry kens the place, they ken the time forbye.  Do ye see me 
+coming, Davie? Thanks to Johnnie Cope and other red-coat gomerals, I 
+should ken this country like the back of my hand; and if ye're ready 
+for another bit run with Alan Breck, we'll can cast back inshore, and 
+come to the seaside again by Dirleton.  If the ship's there, we'll try 
+and get on board of her.  If she's no there, I'll just have to get back 
+to my weary haystack.  But either way of it, I think we will leave your 
+gentry whistling on their thumbs."
+
+"I believe there's some chance in it," said I.  "Have on with ye, 
+Alan!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII - GILLANE SANDS
+
+
+
+I DID not profit by Alan's pilotage as he had done by his marchings 
+under General Cope; for I can scarce tell what way we went.  It is my 
+excuse that we travelled exceeding fast.  Some part we ran, some 
+trotted, and the rest walked at a vengeance of a pace.  Twice, while we 
+were at top speed, we ran against country-folk; but though we plumped 
+into the first from round a corner, Alan was as ready as a loaded 
+musket.
+
+"Has ye seen my horse?" he gasped.
+
+"Na, man, I haenae seen nae horse the day," replied the countryman.
+
+And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling 
+"ride and tie"; that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he had 
+gone home to Linton.  Not only that, but he expended some breath (of 
+which he had not very much left) to curse his own misfortune and my 
+stupidity which was said to be its cause.
+
+"Them that cannae tell the truth," he observed to myself as we went on 
+again, "should be aye mindful to leave an honest, handy lee behind 
+them.  If folk dinnae ken what ye're doing, Davie, they're terrible 
+taken up with it; but if they think they ken, they care nae mair for it 
+than what I do for pease porridge."
+
+As we had first made inland, so our road came in the end to lie very 
+near due north; the old Kirk of Aberlady for a landmark on the left; on 
+the right, the top of the Berwick Law; and it was thus we struck the 
+shore again, not far from Dirleton.  From north Berwick west to Gillane 
+Ness there runs a string of four small islets, Craiglieth, the Lamb, 
+Fidra, and Eyebrough, notable by their diversity of size and shape.  
+Fidra is the most particular, being a strange grey islet of two humps, 
+made the more conspicuous by a piece of ruin; and I mind that (as we 
+drew closer to it) by some door or window of these ruins the sea peeped 
+through like a man's eye.  Under the lee of Fidra there is a good 
+anchorage in westerly winds, and there, from a far way off, we could 
+see the THISTLE riding.
+
+The shore in face of these islets is altogether waste.  Here is no 
+dwelling of man, and scarce any passage, or at most of vagabond 
+children running at their play.  Gillane is a small place on the far 
+side of the Ness, the folk of Dirleton go to their business in the 
+inland fields, and those of North Berwick straight to the sea-fishing 
+from their haven; so that few parts of the coast are lonelier.  But I 
+mind, as we crawled upon our bellies into that multiplicity of heights 
+and hollows, keeping a bright eye upon all sides, and our hearts 
+hammering at our ribs, there was such a shining of the sun and the sea, 
+such a stir of the wind in the bent grass, and such a bustle of down-
+popping rabbits and up-flying gulls, that the desert seemed to me, like 
+a place alive.  No doubt it was in all ways well chosen for a secret 
+embarcation, if the secret had been kept; and even now that it was out, 
+and the place watched, we were able to creep unperceived to the front 
+of the sandhills, where they look down immediately on the beach and 
+sea.
+
+But here Alan came to a full stop.
+
+"Davie," said he, "this is a kittle passage!  As long as we lie here 
+we're safe; but I'm nane sae muckle nearer to my ship or the coast of 
+France.  And as soon as we stand up and signal the brig, it's another 
+matter.  For where will your gentry be, think ye?"
+
+"Maybe they're no come yet," said I.  "And even if they are, there's 
+one clear matter in our favour.  They'll be all arranged to take us, 
+that's true.  But they'll have arranged for our coming from the east 
+and here we are upon their west."
+
+"Ay," says Alan, "I wish we were in some force, and this was a battle, 
+we would have bonnily out-manoeuvred them!  But it isnae, Davit; and 
+the way it is, is a wee thing less inspiring to Alan Breck.  I swither, 
+Davie."
+
+"Time flies, Alan," said I.
+
+"I ken that," said Alan.  "I ken naething else, as the French folk say.  
+But this is a dreidful case of heids or tails.  O! if I could but ken 
+where your gentry were!"
+
+"Alan," said I, "this is no like you.  It's got to be now or never."
+
+
+"This is no me, quo' he,"
+
+
+sang Alan, with a queer face betwixt shame and drollery.
+
+
+"Neither you nor me, quo' he, neither you nor me.
+Wow, na, Johnnie man! neither you nor me."
+
+
+And then of a sudden he stood straight up where he was, and with a 
+handkerchief flying in his right hand, marched down upon the beach.  I 
+stood up myself, but lingered behind him, scanning the sand-hills to 
+the east.  His appearance was at first unremarked:  Scougal not 
+expecting him so early, and MY GENTRY watching on the other side.  Then 
+they awoke on board the THISTLE, and it seemed they had all in 
+readiness, for there was scarce a second's bustle on the deck before we 
+saw a skiff put round her stern and begin to pull lively for the coast.  
+Almost at the same moment of time, and perhaps half a mile away towards 
+Gillane Ness, the figure of a man appeared for a blink upon a sandhill, 
+waving with his arms; and though he was gone again in the same flash, 
+the gulls in that part continued a little longer to fly wild.
+
+Alan had not seen this, looking straight to seaward at the ship and 
+skiff.
+
+"It maun be as it will!" said he, when I had told him, "Weel may yon 
+boatie row, or my craig'll have to thole a raxing."
+
+That part of the beach was long and flat, and excellent walking when 
+the tide was down; a little cressy burn flowed over it in one place to 
+the sea; and the sandhills ran along the head of it like the rampart of 
+a town.  No eye of ours could spy what was passing behind there in the 
+bents, no hurry of ours could mend the speed of the boat's coming:  
+time stood still with us through that uncanny period of waiting.
+
+"There is one thing I would like to ken," say Alan.  "I would like to 
+ken these gentry's orders.  We're worth four hunner pound the pair of 
+us:  how if they took the guns to us, Davie!  They would get a bonny 
+shot from the top of that lang sandy bank."
+
+"Morally impossible," said I.  "The point is that they can have no 
+guns.  This thing has been gone about too secret; pistols they may 
+have, but never guns."
+
+"I believe ye'll be in the right," says Alan.  "For all which I am 
+wearing a good deal for yon boat."
+
+And he snapped his fingers and whistled to it like a dog.
+
+It was now perhaps a third of the way in, and we ourselves already hard 
+on the margin of the sea, so that the soft sand rose over my shoes.  
+There was no more to do whatever but to wait, to look as much as we 
+were able at the creeping nearer of the boat, and as little as we could 
+manage at the long impenetrable front of the sandhills, over which the 
+gulls twinkled and behind which our enemies were doubtless marshalling.
+
+"This is a fine, bright, caller place to get shot in," says Alan 
+suddenly; "and, man, I wish that I had your courage!"
+
+"Alan!" I cried, "what kind of talk is this of it!  You're just made of 
+courage; it's the character of the man, as I could prove myself if 
+there was nobody else."
+
+"And you would be the more mistaken," said he.  "What makes the differ 
+with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of affairs.  But for 
+auld, cauld, dour, deadly courage, I am not fit to hold a candle to 
+yourself.  Look at us two here upon the sands.  Here am I, fair 
+hotching to be off; here's you (for all that I ken) in two minds of it 
+whether you'll no stop.  Do you think that I could do that, or would?  
+No me!  Firstly, because I havenae got the courage and wouldnae daur; 
+and secondly, because I am a man of so much penetration and would see 
+ye damned first."
+
+"It's there ye're coming, is it?" I cried.  "Ah, man Alan, you can wile 
+your old wives, but you never can wile me."
+
+Remembrance of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron.
+
+"I have a tryst to keep," I continued.  "I am trysted with your cousin 
+Charlie; I have passed my word."
+
+"Braw trysts that you'll can keep," said Alan.  "Ye'll just mistryst 
+aince and for a' with the gentry in the bents.  And what for?" he went 
+on with an extreme threatening gravity.  "Just tell me that, my mannie!  
+Are ye to be speerited away like Lady Grange?  Are they to drive a dirk 
+in your inside and bury ye in the bents?  Or is it to be the other way, 
+and are they to bring ye in with James?  Are they folk to be trustit?  
+Would ye stick your head in the mouth of Sim Fraser and the ither 
+Whigs?" he added with extraordinary bitterness.
+
+"Alan," cried I, "they're all rogues and liars, and I'm with ye there.  
+The more reason there should be one decent man in such a land of 
+thieves!  My word in passed, and I'll stick to it.  I said long syne to 
+your kinswoman that I would stumble at no risk.  Do ye mind of that? - 
+the night Red Colin fell, it was.  No more I will, then.  Here I stop.  
+Prestongrange promised me my life:  if he's to be mansworn, here I'll 
+have to die."
+
+"Aweel aweel," said Alan.
+
+All this time we had seen or heard no more of our pursuers.  In truth 
+we had caught them unawares; their whole party (as I was to learn 
+afterwards) had not yet reached the scene; what there was of them was 
+spread among the bents towards Gillane.  It was quite an affair to call 
+them in and bring them over, and the boat was making speed.  They were 
+besides but cowardly fellows:  a mere leash of Highland cattle-thieves, 
+of several clans, no gentleman there to be the captain and the more 
+they looked at Alan and me upon the beach, the less (I must suppose) 
+they liked the look of us.
+
+Whoever had betrayed Alan it was not the captain:  he was in the skiff 
+himself, steering and stirring up his oarsmen, like a man with his 
+heart in his employ.  Already he was near in, and the boat securing - 
+already Alan's face had flamed crimson with the excitement of his 
+deliverance, when our friends in the bents, either in their despair to 
+see their prey escape them or with some hope of scaring Andie, raised 
+suddenly a shrill cry of several voices.
+
+This sound, arising from what appeared to be a quite deserted coast, 
+was really very daunting, and the men in the boat held water instantly.
+
+"What's this of it?" sings out the captain, for he was come within an 
+easy hail.
+
+"Freens o'mine," says Alan, and began immediately to wade forth in the 
+shallow water towards the boat.  "Davie," he said, pausing, "Davie, are 
+ye no coming?  I am swier to leave ye."
+
+"Not a hair of me," said I.
+
+"He stood part of a second where he was to his knees in the salt water, 
+hesitating.
+
+"He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar," said he, and swashing in deeper 
+than his waist, was hauled into the skiff, which was immediately 
+directed for the ship.
+
+I stood where he had left me, with my hands behind my back; Alan sat 
+with his head turned watching me; and the boat drew smoothly away.  Of 
+a sudden I came the nearest hand to shedding tears, and seemed to 
+myself the most deserted solitary lad in Scotland.  With that I turned 
+my back upon the sea and faced the sandhills.  There was no sight or 
+sound of man; the sun shone on the wet sand and the dry, the wind blew 
+in the bents, the gulls made a dreary piping.  As I passed higher up 
+the beach, the sand-lice were hopping nimbly about the stranded 
+tangles.  The devil any other sight or sound in that unchancy place.  
+And yet I knew there were folk there, observing me, upon some secret 
+purpose.  They were no soldiers, or they would have fallen on and taken 
+us ere now; doubtless they were some common rogues hired for my 
+undoing, perhaps to kidnap, perhaps to murder me outright.  From the 
+position of those engaged, the first was the more likely; from what I 
+knew of their character and ardency in this business, I thought the 
+second very possible; and the blood ran cold about my heart.
+
+I had a mad idea to loosen my sword in the scabbard; for though I was 
+very unfit to stand up like a gentleman blade to blade, I thought I 
+could do some scathe in a random combat.  But I perceived in time the 
+folly of resistance.  This was no doubt the joint "expedient" on which 
+Prestongrange and Fraser were agreed.  The first, I was very sure, had 
+done something to secure my life; the second was pretty likely to have 
+slipped in some contrary hints into the ears of Neil and his 
+companions; and it I were to show bare steel I might play straight into 
+the hands of my worst enemy and seal my own doom.
+
+These thoughts brought me to the head of the beach.  I cast a look 
+behind, the boat was nearing the brig, and Alan flew his handkerchief 
+for a farewell, which I replied to with the waving of my hand.  But 
+Alan himself was shrunk to a small thing in my view, alongside of this 
+pass that lay in front of me.  I set my hat hard on my head, clenched 
+my teeth, and went right before me up the face of the sand-wreath.  It 
+made a hard climb, being steep, and the sand like water underfoot.  But 
+I caught hold at last by the long bent-grass on the brae-top, and 
+pulled myself to a good footing.  The same moment men stirred and stood 
+up here and there, six or seven of them, ragged-like knaves, each with 
+a dagger in his hand.  The fair truth is, I shut my eyes and prayed.  
+When I opened them again, the rogues were crept the least thing nearer 
+without speech or hurry.  Every eye was upon mine, which struck me with 
+a strange sensation of their brightness, and of the fear with which 
+they continued to approach me.  I held out my hands empty; whereupon 
+one asked, with a strong Highland brogue, if I surrendered.
+
+"Under protest," said I, "if ye ken what that means, which I misdoubt."
+
+At that word, they came all in upon me like a flight of birds upon a 
+carrion, seized me, took my sword, and all the money from my pockets, 
+bound me hand and foot with some strong line, and cast me on a tussock 
+of bent.  There they sat about their captive in a part of a circle and 
+gazed upon him silently like something dangerous, perhaps a lion or a 
+tiger on the spring.  Presently this attention was relaxed.  They drew 
+nearer together, fell to speech in the Gaelic, and very cynically 
+divided my property before my eyes.  It was my diversion in this time 
+that I could watch from my place the progress of my friend's escape.  I 
+saw the boat come to the brig and be hoisted in, the sails fill, and 
+the ship pass out seaward behind the isles and by North Berwick.
+
+In the course of two hours or so, more and more ragged Highlandmen kept 
+collecting.  Neil among the first, until the party must have numbered 
+near a score.  With each new arrival there was a fresh bout of talk, 
+that sounded like complaints and explanations; but I observed one 
+thing, none of those who came late had any share in the division of my 
+spoils.  The last discussion was very violent and eager, so that once I 
+thought they would have quarrelled; on the heels of which their company 
+parted, the bulk of them returning westward in a troop, and only three, 
+Neil and two others, remaining sentries on the prisoner.
+
+"I could name one who would be very ill pleased with your day's work, 
+Neil Duncanson," said I, when the rest had moved away.
+
+He assured me in answer I should be tenderly used, for he knew he was 
+"acquent wi' the leddy."
+
+This was all our talk, nor did any other son of man appear upon that 
+portion of the coast until the sun had gone down among the Highland 
+mountains, and the gloaming was beginning to grow dark.  At which hour 
+I was aware of a long, lean, bony-like Lothian man of a very swarthy 
+countenance, that came towards us among the bents on a farm horse.
+
+"Lads," cried he, "has ye a paper like this?" and held up one in his 
+hand.  Neil produced a second, which the newcomer studied through a 
+pair of horn spectacles, and saying all was right and we were the folk 
+he was seeking, immediately dismounted.  I was then set in his place, 
+my feet tied under the horse's belly, and we set forth under the 
+guidance of the Lowlander.  His path must have been very well chosen, 
+for we met but one pair - a pair of lovers - the whole way, and these, 
+perhaps taking us to be free-traders, fled on our approach.  We were at 
+one time close at the foot of Berwick Law on the south side; at 
+another, as we passed over some open hills, I spied the lights of a 
+clachan and the old tower of a church among some trees not far off, but 
+too far to cry for help, if I had dreamed of it.  At last we came again 
+within sound of the sea.  There was moonlight, though not much; and by 
+this I could see the three huge towers and broken battlements of 
+Tantallon, that old chief place of the Red Douglases.  The horse was 
+picketed in the bottom of the ditch to graze, and I was led within, and 
+forth into the court, and thence into the tumble-down stone hall.  Here 
+my conductors built a brisk fire in the midst of the pavement, for 
+there was a chill in the night.  My hands were loosed, I was set by the 
+wall in the inner end, and (the Lowlander having produced provisions) I 
+was given oatmeal bread and a pitcher of French brandy.  This done, I 
+was left once more alone with my three Highlandmen.  They sat close by 
+the fire drinking and talking; the wind blew in by the breaches, cast 
+about the smoke and flames, and sang in the tops of the towers; I could 
+hear the sea under the cliffs, and, my mind being reassured as to my 
+life, and my body and spirits wearied with the day's employment, I 
+turned upon one side and slumbered.
+
+I had no means of guessing at what hour I was wakened, only the moon 
+was down and the fire was low.  My feet were now loosed, and I was 
+carried through the ruins and down the cliff-side by a precipitous path 
+to where I found a fisher's boat in a haven of the rocks.  This I was 
+had on board of, and we began to put forth from the shore in a fine 
+starlight
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV - THE BASS
+
+
+
+I HAD no thought where they were taking me; only looked here and there 
+for the appearance of a ship; and there ran the while in my head a word 
+of Ransome's - the TWENTY-POUNDERS.  If I were to be exposed a second 
+time to that same former danger of the plantations, I judged it must 
+turn ill with me; there was no second Alan; and no second shipwreck and 
+spare yard to be expected now; and I saw myself hoe tobacco under the 
+whip's lash.  The thought chilled me; the air was sharp upon the water, 
+the stretchers of the boat drenched with a cold dew:  and I shivered in 
+my place beside the steersman.  This was the dark man whom I have 
+called hitherto the Lowlander; his name was Dale, ordinarily called 
+Black Andie.  Feeling the thrill of my shiver, he very kindly handed me 
+a rough jacket full of fish-scales, with which I was glad to cover 
+myself.
+
+"I thank you for this kindness," said I, "and will make so free as to 
+repay it with a warning.  You take a high responsibility in this 
+affair.  You are not like these ignorant, barbarous Highlanders, but 
+know what the law is and the risks of those that break it."
+
+"I am no just exactly what ye would ca' an extremist for the law," says 
+he, "at the best of times; but in this business I act with a good 
+warranty."
+
+"What are you going to do with me?" I asked.
+
+"Nae harm," said he, "nae harm ava'.  Ye'll have strong freens, I'm 
+thinking.  Ye'll be richt eneuch yet."
+
+There began to fall a greyness on the face of the sea; little dabs of 
+pink and red, like coals of slow fire, came in the east; and at the 
+same time the geese awakened, and began crying about the top of the 
+Bass.  It is just the one crag of rock, as everybody knows, but great 
+enough to carve a city from.  The sea was extremely little, but there 
+went a hollow plowter round the base of it.  With the growing of the 
+dawn I could see it clearer and clearer; the straight crags painted 
+with sea-birds' droppings like a morning frost, the sloping top of it 
+green with grass, the clan of white geese that cried about the sides, 
+and the black, broken buildings of the prison sitting close on the 
+sea's edge.
+
+At the sight the truth came in upon me in a clap.
+
+"It's there you're taking me!" I cried.
+
+"Just to the Bass, mannie," said he:  "Whaur the auld saints were afore 
+ye, and I misdoubt if ye have come so fairly by your preeson."
+
+"But none dwells there now," I cried; "the place is long a ruin."
+
+"It'll be the mair pleisand a change for the solan geese, then," quoth 
+Andie dryly.
+
+The day coming slowly brighter I observed on the bilge, among the big 
+stones with which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs and 
+baskets, and a provision of fuel.  All these were discharged upon the 
+crag.  Andie, myself, and my three Highlanders (I call them mine, 
+although it was the other way about), landed along with them.  The sun 
+was not yet up when the boat moved away again, the noise of the oars on 
+the thole-pins echoing from the cliffs, and left us in our singular 
+reclusion:
+
+Andie Dale was the Prefect (as I would jocularly call him) of the Bass, 
+being at once the shepherd and the gamekeeper of that small and rich 
+estate.  He had to mind the dozen or so of sheep that fed and fattened 
+on the grass of the sloping part of it, like beasts grazing the roof of 
+a cathedral.  He had charge besides of the solan geese that roosted in 
+the crags; and from these an extraordinary income is derived.  The 
+young are dainty eating, as much as two shillings a-piece being a 
+common price, and paid willingly by epicures; even the grown birds are 
+valuable for their oil and feathers; and a part of the minister's 
+stipend of North Berwick is paid to this day in solan geese, which 
+makes it (in some folks' eyes) a parish to be coveted.  To perform 
+these several businesses, as well as to protect the geese from 
+poachers, Andie had frequent occasion to sleep and pass days together 
+on the crag; and we found the man at home there like a farmer in his 
+steading.  Bidding us all shoulder some of the packages, a matter in 
+which I made haste to bear a hand, he led us in by a looked gate, which 
+was the only admission to the island, and through the ruins of the 
+fortress, to the governor's house.  There we saw by the ashes in the 
+chimney and a standing bed-place in one corner, that he made his usual 
+occupation.
+
+This bed he now offered me to use, saying he supposed I would set up to 
+be gentry.
+
+"My gentrice has nothing to do with where I lie," said I.  "I bless God 
+I have lain hard ere now, and can do the same again with thankfulness.  
+While I am here, Mr. Andie, if that be your name, I will do my part and 
+take my place beside the rest of you; and I ask you on the other hand 
+to spare me your mockery, which I own I like ill."
+
+He grumbled a little at this speech, but seemed upon reflection to 
+approve it.  Indeed, he was a long-headed, sensible man, and a good 
+Whig and Presbyterian; read daily in a pocket Bible, and was both able 
+and eager to converse seriously on religion, leaning more than a little 
+towards the Cameronian extremes.  His morals were of a more doubtful 
+colour.  I found he was deep in the free trade, and used the rains of 
+Tantallon for a magazine of smuggled merchandise.  As for a gauger, I 
+do not believe he valued the life of one at half-a-farthing.  But that 
+part of the coast of Lothian is to this day as wild a place, and the 
+commons there as rough a crew, as any in Scotland.
+
+One incident of my imprisonment is made memorable by a consequence it 
+had long after.  There was a warship at this time stationed in the 
+Firth, the SEAHORSE, Captain Palliser.  It chanced she was cruising in 
+the month of September, plying between Fife and Lothian, and sounding 
+for sunk dangers.  Early one fine morning she was seen about two miles 
+to east of us, where she lowered a boat, and seemed to examine the 
+Wildfire Rocks and Satan's Bush, famous dangers of that coast.  And 
+presently after having got her boat again, she came before the wind and 
+was headed directly for the Base.  This was very troublesome to Andie 
+and the Highlanders; the whole business of my sequestration was 
+designed for privacy, and here, with a navy captain perhaps blundering 
+ashore, it looked to become public enough, if it were nothing worse.  I 
+was in a minority of one, I am no Alan to fall upon so many, and I was 
+far from sure that a warship was the least likely to improve my 
+condition.  All which considered, I gave Andie my parole of good 
+behaviour and obedience, and was had briskly to the summit of the rock, 
+where we all lay down, at the cliff's edge, in different places of 
+observation and concealment.  The SEAHORSE came straight on till I 
+thought she would have struck, and we (looking giddily down) could see 
+the ship's company at their quarters and hear the leadsman singing at 
+the lead.  Then she suddenly wore and let fly a volley of I know not 
+how many great guns.  The rock was shaken with the thunder of the 
+sound, the smoke flowed over our heads, and the geese rose in number 
+beyond computation or belief.  To hear their screaming and to see the 
+twinkling of their wings, made a most inimitable curiosity; and I 
+suppose it was after this somewhat childish pleasure that Captain 
+Palliser had come so near the Bass.  He was to pay dear for it in time.  
+During his approach I had the opportunity to make a remark upon the 
+rigging of that ship by which I ever after knew it miles away; and this 
+was a means (under Providence) of my averting from a friend a great 
+calamity, and inflicting on Captain Palliser himself a sensible 
+disappointment.
+
+All the time of my stay on the rock we lived well.  We had small ale 
+and brandy, and oatmeal, of which we made our porridge night and 
+morning.  At times a boat came from the Castleton and brought us a 
+quarter of mutton, for the sheep upon the rock we must not touch, these 
+being specially fed to market.  The geese were unfortunately out of 
+season, and we let them be.  We fished ourselves, and yet more often 
+made the geese to fish for us:  observing one when he had made a 
+capture and searing him from his prey ere he had swallowed it.
+
+The strange nature of this place, and the curiosities with which it 
+abounded, held me busy and amused.  Escape being impossible, I was 
+allowed my entire liberty, and continually explored the surface of the 
+isle wherever it might support the foot of man.  The old garden of the 
+prison was still to be observed, with flowers and pot-herbs running 
+wild, and some ripe cherries on a bush.  A little lower stood a chapel 
+or a hermit's cell; who built or dwelt in it, none may know, and the 
+thought of its age made a ground of many meditations.  The prison, too, 
+where I now bivouacked with Highland cattle-thieves, was a place full 
+of history, both human and divine.  I thought it strange so many saints 
+and martyrs should have gone by there so recently, and left not so much 
+as a leaf out of their Bibles, or a name carved upon the wall, while 
+the rough soldier lads that mounted guard upon the battlements had 
+filled the neighbourhood with their mementoes - broken tobacco-pipes 
+for the most part, and that in a surprising plenty, but also metal 
+buttons from their coats.  There were times when I thought I could have 
+heard the pious sound of psalms out of the martyr's dungeons, and seen 
+the soldiers tramp the ramparts with their glinting pipes, and the dawn 
+rising behind them out of the North Sea.
+
+No doubt it was a good deal Andie and his tales that put these fancies 
+in my head.  He was extraordinarily well acquainted with the story of 
+the rock in all particulars, down to the names of private soldiers, his 
+father having served there in that same capacity.  He was gifted 
+besides with a natural genius for narration, so that the people seemed 
+to speak and the things to be done before your face.  This gift of his 
+and my assiduity to listen brought us the more close together.  I could 
+not honestly deny but what I liked him; I soon saw that he liked me; 
+and indeed, from the first I had set myself out to capture his good-
+will.  An odd circumstance (to be told presently) effected this beyond 
+my expectation; but even in early days we made a friendly pair to be a 
+prisoner and his gaoler.
+
+I should trifle with my conscience if I pretended my stay upon the Bass 
+was wholly disagreeable.  It seemed to me a safe place, as though I was 
+escaped there out of my troubles.  No harm was to be offered me; a 
+material impossibility, rock and the deep sea, prevented me from fresh 
+attempts; I felt I had my life safe and my honour safe, and there were 
+times when I allowed myself to gloat on them like stolen waters.  At 
+other times my thoughts were very different, I recalled how strong I 
+had expressed myself both to Rankeillor and to Stewart; I reflected 
+that my captivity upon the Bass, in view of a great part of the coasts 
+of Fife and Lothian, was a thing I should be thought more likely to 
+have invented than endured; and in the eyes of these two gentlemen, at 
+least, I must pass for a boaster and a coward.  Now I would take this 
+lightly enough; tell myself that so long as I stood well with Catriona 
+Drummond, the opinion of the rest of man was but moonshine and spilled 
+water; and thence pass off into those meditations of a lover which are 
+so delightful to himself and must always appear so surprisingly idle to 
+a reader.  But anon the fear would take me otherwise; I would be shaken 
+with a perfect panic of self-esteem, and these supposed hard judgments 
+appear an injustice impossible to be supported.  With that another 
+train of thought would he presented, and I had scarce begun to be 
+concerned about men's judgments of myself, than I was haunted with the 
+remembrance of James Stewart in his dungeon and the lamentations of his 
+wife.  Then, indeed, passion began to work in me; I could not forgive 
+myself to sit there idle:  it seemed (if I were a man at all) that I 
+could fly or swim out of my place of safety; and it was in such humours 
+and to amuse my self-reproaches that I would set the more particularly 
+to win the good side of Andie Dale.
+
+At last, when we two were alone on the summit of the rock on a bright 
+morning, I put in some hint about a bribe.  He looked at me, cast back 
+his head, and laughed out loud.
+
+"Ay, you're funny, Mr. Dale," said I, "but perhaps if you'll glance an 
+eye upon that paper you may change your note."
+
+The stupid Highlanders had taken from me at the time of my seizure 
+nothing but hard money, and the paper I now showed Andie was an 
+acknowledgment from the British Linen Company for a considerable sum.
+
+He read it.  "Troth, and ye're nane sae ill aff," said he.
+
+"I thought that would maybe vary your opinions," said I.
+
+"Hout!" said he.  "It shows me ye can bribe; but I'm no to be bribit."
+
+"We'll see about that yet a while," says I.  "And first, I'll show you 
+that I know what I am talking.  You have orders to detain me here till 
+after Thursday, 21st September."
+
+"Ye're no a'thegether wrong either," says Andie.  "I'm to let you gang, 
+bar orders contrair, on Saturday, the 23rd."
+
+I could not but feel there was something extremely insidious in this 
+arrangement.  That I was to re-appear precisely in time to be too late 
+would cast the more discredit on my tale, if I were minded to tell one; 
+and this screwed me to fighting point.
+
+"Now then, Andie, you that kens the world, listen to me, and think 
+while ye listen," said I.  "I know there are great folks in the 
+business, and I make no doubt you have their names to go upon.  I have 
+seen some of them myself since this affair began, and said my say into 
+their faces too.  But what kind of a crime would this be that I had 
+committed? or what kind of a process is this that I am fallen under?  
+To be apprehended by some ragged John-Hielandman on August 30th, 
+carried to a rickle of old stones that is now neither fort nor gaol 
+(whatever it once was) but just the gamekeeper's lodge of the Bass 
+Rock, and set free again, September 23rd, as secretly as I was first 
+arrested - does that sound like law to you? or does it sound like 
+justice? or does it not sound honestly like a piece of some low dirty 
+intrigue, of which the very folk that meddle with it are ashamed?"
+
+"I canna gainsay ye, Shaws.  It looks unco underhand," says Andie.  
+"And werenae the folk guid sound Whigs and true-blue Presbyterians I 
+would has seen them ayont Jordan and Jeroozlem or I would have set hand 
+to it."
+
+"The Master of Lovat'll be a braw Whig," says I, "and a grand 
+Presbyterian."
+
+"I ken naething by him," said he.  "I hae nae trokings wi' Lovats."
+
+"No, it'll be Prestongrange that you'll be dealing with," said I.
+
+"Ah, but I'll no tell ye that," said Andie.
+
+"Little need when I ken," was my retort.
+
+"There's just the ae thing ye can be fairly sure of, Shaws," says 
+Andie.  "And that is that (try as ye please) I'm no dealing wi' 
+yoursel'; nor yet I amnae goin' to," he added.
+
+"Well, Andie, I see I'll have to be speak out plain with you," I 
+replied.  And told him so much as I thought needful of the facts.
+
+He heard me out with some serious interest, and when I had done, seemed 
+to consider a little with himself.
+
+"Shaws," said he at last, "I'll deal with the naked hand.  It's a queer 
+tale, and no very creditable, the way you tell it; and I'm far frae 
+minting that is other than the way that ye believe it.  As for 
+yoursel', ye seem to me rather a dacent-like young man.  But me, that's 
+aulder and mair judeecious, see perhaps a wee bit further forrit in the 
+job than what ye can dae.  And here the maitter clear and plain to ye.  
+There'll be nae skaith to yoursel' if I keep ye here; far free that, I 
+think ye'll be a hantle better by it.  There'll be nae skaith to the 
+kintry - just ae mair Hielantman hangit - Gude kens, a guid riddance!  
+On the ither hand, it would be considerable skaith to me if I would let 
+you free.  Sae, speakin' as a guid Whig, an honest freen' to you, and 
+an anxious freen' to my ainsel', the plain fact is that I think ye'll 
+just have to bide here wi' Andie an' the solans."
+
+"Andie," said I, laying my hand upon his knee, "this Hielantman's 
+innocent."
+
+"Ay, it's a peety about that," said he.  "But ye see, in this warld, 
+the way God made it, we cannae just get a'thing that we want."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV - BLACK ANDIE'S TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK
+
+
+
+I HAVE yet said little of the Highlanders.  They were all three of the 
+followers of James More, which bound the accusation very tight about 
+their master's neck.  All understood a word or two of English, but Neil 
+was the only one who judged he had enough of it for general converse, 
+in which (when once he got embarked) his company was often tempted to 
+the contrary opinion.  They were tractable, simple creatures; showed 
+much more courtesy than might have been expected from their raggedness 
+and their uncouth appearance, and fell spontaneously to be like three 
+servants for Andie and myself.
+
+Dwelling in that isolated place, in the old falling ruins of a prison, 
+and among endless strange sounds of the sea and the sea-birds, I 
+thought I perceived in them early the effects of superstitious fear.  
+When there was nothing doing they would either lie and sleep, for which 
+their appetite appeared insatiable, or Neil would entertain the others 
+with stories which seemed always of a terrifying strain.  If neither of 
+these delights were within reach - if perhaps two were sleeping and the 
+third could find no means to follow their example - I would see him sit 
+and listen and look about him in a progression of uneasiness, starting, 
+his face blenching, his hands clutched, a man strung like a bow.  The 
+nature of these fears I had never an occasion to find out, but the 
+sight of them was catching, and the nature of the place that we were in 
+favourable to alarms.  I can find no word for it in the English, but 
+Andie had an expression for it in the Scots from which he never varied.
+
+"Ay," he would say, "ITS AN UNCO PLACE, THE BASS."
+
+It is so I always think of it.  It was an unco place by night, unco by 
+day; and these were unco sounds, of the calling of the solans, and the 
+plash of the sea and the rock echoes, that hung continually in our 
+ears.  It was chiefly so in moderate weather.  When the waves were 
+anyway great they roared about the rock like thunder and the drums of 
+armies, dreadful but merry to hear; and it was in the calm days that a 
+man could daunt himself with listening - not a Highlandman only, as I 
+several times experimented on myself, so many still, hollow noises 
+haunted and reverberated in the porches of the rock.
+
+This brings me to a story I heard, and a scene I took part in, which 
+quite changed our terms of living, and had a great effect on my 
+departure.  It chanced one night I fell in a muse beside the fire and 
+(that little air of Alan's coming back to my memory) began to whistle.  
+A hand was laid upon my arm, and the voice of Neil bade me to stop, for 
+it was not "canny musics."
+
+"Not canny?" I asked.  "How can that be?"
+
+"Na," said he; "it will be made by a bogle and her wanting ta heid upon 
+his body."
+
+"Well," said I, "there can be no bogles here, Neil; for it's not likely 
+they would fash themselves to frighten geese."
+
+"Ay?" says Andie, "is that what ye think of it!  But I'll can tell ye 
+there's been waur nor bogles here."
+
+"What's waur than bogles, Andie?" said I.
+
+"Warlocks," said he.  "Or a warlock at the least of it.  And that's a 
+queer tale, too," he added.  "And if ye would like, I'll tell it ye."
+
+To be sure we were all of the one mind, and even the Highlander that 
+had the least English of the three set himself to listen with all his 
+might.
+
+
+THE TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK
+
+
+MY faither, Tam Dale, peace to his banes, was a wild, sploring lad in 
+his young days, wi' little wisdom and little grace.  He was fond of a 
+lass and fond of a glass, and fond of a ran-dan; but I could never hear 
+tell that he was muckle use for honest employment.  Frae ae thing to 
+anither, he listed at last for a sodger and was in the garrison of this 
+fort, which was the first way that ony of the Dales cam to set foot 
+upon the Bass.  Sorrow upon that service!  The governor brewed his ain 
+ale; it seems it was the warst conceivable.  The rock was proveesioned 
+free the shore with vivers, the thing was ill-guided, and there were 
+whiles when they but to fish and shoot solans for their diet.  To crown 
+a', thir was the Days of the Persecution.  The perishin' cauld chalmers 
+were all occupeed wi' sants and martyrs, the saut of the yearth, of 
+which it wasnae worthy.  And though Tam Dale carried a firelock there, 
+a single sodger, and liked a lass and a glass, as I was sayin,' the 
+mind of the man was mair just than set with his position.  He had 
+glints of the glory of the kirk; there were whiles when his dander rase 
+to see the Lord's sants misguided, and shame covered him that he should 
+be haulding a can'le (or carrying a firelock) in so black a business.  
+There were nights of it when he was here on sentry, the place a' 
+wheesht, the frosts o' winter maybe riving in the wa's, and he would 
+hear ane o' the prisoners strike up a psalm, and the rest join in, and 
+the blessed sounds rising from the different chalmers - or dungeons, I 
+would raither say - so that this auld craig in the sea was like a pairt 
+of Heev'n.  Black shame was on his saul; his sins hove up before him 
+muckle as the Bass, and above a', that chief sin, that he should have a 
+hand in hagging and hashing at Christ's Kirk.  But the truth is that he 
+resisted the spirit.  Day cam, there were the rousing compainions, and 
+his guid resolves depairtit.
+
+In thir days, dwalled upon the Bass a man of God, Peden the Prophet was 
+his name.  Ye'll have heard tell of Prophet Peden.  There was never the 
+wale of him sinsyne, and it's a question wi' mony if there ever was his 
+like afore.  He was wild's a peat-hag, fearsome to look at, fearsome to 
+hear, his face like the day of judgment.  The voice of him was like a 
+solan's and dinnle'd in folks' lugs, and the words of him like coals of 
+fire.
+
+Now there was a lass on the rock, and I think she had little to do, for 
+it was nae place far decent weemen; but it seems she was bonny, and her 
+and Tam Dale were very well agreed.  It befell that Peden was in the 
+gairden his lane at the praying when Tam and the lass cam by; and what 
+should the lassie do but mock with laughter at the sant's devotions?   
+He rose and lookit at the twa o' them, and Tam's knees knoitered 
+thegether at the look of him.  But whan he spak, it was mair in sorrow 
+than in anger.  'Poor thing, poor thing!" says he, and it was the lass 
+he lookit at, "I hear you skirl and laugh," he says, "but the Lord has 
+a deid shot prepared for you, and at that surprising judgment ye shall 
+skirl but the ae time!"  Shortly thereafter she was daundering on the 
+craigs wi' twa-three sodgers, and it was a blawy day.  There cam a 
+gowst of wind, claught her by the coats, and awa' wi' her bag and 
+baggage.  And it was remarked by the sodgers that she gied but the ae 
+skirl.
+
+Nae doubt this judgment had some weicht upon Tam Dale; but it passed 
+again and him none the better.  Ae day he was flyting wi' anither 
+sodger-lad.  "Deil hae me!" quo' Tam, for he was a profane swearer.  
+And there was Peden glowering at him, gash an' waefu'; Peden wi' his 
+lang chafts an' luntin' een, the maud happed about his kist, and the 
+hand of him held out wi' the black nails upon the finger-nebs - for he 
+had nae care of the body.  "Fy, fy, poor man!" cries he, "the poor fool 
+man!  DEIL HAE ME, quo' he; an' I see the deil at his oxter."  The 
+conviction of guilt and grace cam in on Tam like the deep sea; he flang 
+doun the pike that was in his hands - "I will nae mair lift arms 
+against the cause o' Christ!" says he, and was as gude's word.  There 
+was a sair fyke in the beginning, but the governor, seeing him 
+resolved, gied him his discharge, and he went and dwallt and merried in 
+North Berwick, and had aye a gude name with honest folk free that day 
+on.
+
+It was in the year seeventeen hunner and sax that the Bass cam in the 
+hands o' the Da'rymples, and there was twa men soucht the chairge of 
+it.  Baith were weel qualified, for they had baith been sodgers in the 
+garrison, and kent the gate to handle solans, and the seasons and 
+values of them.  Forby that they were baith - or they baith seemed - 
+earnest professors and men of comely conversation.  The first of them 
+was just Tam Dale, my faither.  The second was ane Lapraik, whom the 
+folk ca'd Tod Lapraik maistly, but whether for his name or his nature I 
+could never hear tell.  Weel, Tam gaed to see Lapraik upon this 
+business, and took me, that was a toddlin' laddie, by the hand.  Tod 
+had his dwallin' in the lang loan benorth the kirkyaird.  It's a dark 
+uncanny loan, forby that the kirk has aye had an ill name since the 
+days o' James the Saxt and the deevil's cantrips played therein when 
+the Queen was on the seas; and as for Tod's house, it was in the 
+mirkest end, and was little liked by some that kenned the best.  The 
+door was on the sneck that day, and me and my faither gaed straucht in.  
+Tod was a wabster to his trade; his loom stood in the but.  There he 
+sat, a muckle fat, white hash of a man like creish, wi' a kind of a 
+holy smile that gart me scunner.  The hand of him aye cawed the 
+shuttle, but his een was steeked.  We cried to him by his name, we 
+skirted in the deid lug of him, we shook him by the shou'ther.  Nae 
+mainner o' service!  There he sat on his dowp, an' cawed the shuttle 
+and smiled like creish.
+
+"God be guid to us," says Tam Dale, "this is no canny?"
+
+He had jimp said the word, when Tod Lapraik cam to himsel'.
+
+"Is this you, Tam?" says he.  "Haith, man!  I'm blythe to see ye.  I 
+whiles fa' into a bit dwam like this," he says; "its frae the stamach."
+
+Weel, they began to crack about the Bass and which of them twa was to 
+get the warding o't, and little by little cam to very ill words, and 
+twined in anger.  I mind weel that as my faither and me gaed hame 
+again, he cam ower and ower the same expression, how little he likit 
+Tod Lapraik and his dwams.
+
+"Dwam!" says he.  "I think folk hae brunt for dwams like yon."
+
+Aweel, my faither got the Bass and Tod had to go wantin'.  It was 
+remembered sinsyne what way he had ta'en the thing.  "Tam," says he, 
+"ye hae gotten the better o' me aince mair, and I hope," says he, 
+"ye'll find at least a' that ye expeckit at the Bass."  Which have 
+since been thought remarkable expressions.  At last the time came for 
+Tam Dale to take young solans.  This was a business he was weel used 
+wi', he had been a craigsman frae a laddie, and trustit nane but 
+himsel'.  So there was he hingin' by a line an' speldering on the craig 
+face, whaur its hieest and steighest.  Fower tenty lads were on the 
+tap, hauldin' the line and mindin' for his signals.  But whaur Tam hung 
+there was naething but the craig, and the sea belaw, and the solans 
+skirlin and flying.  It was a braw spring morn, and Tam whustled as he 
+claught in the young geese.  Mony's the time I've heard him tell of 
+this experience, and aye the swat ran upon the man.
+
+It chanced, ye see, that Tam keeked up, and he was awaur of a muckle 
+solan, and the solan pyking at the line.  He thocht this by-ordinar and 
+outside the creature's habits.  He minded that ropes was unco saft 
+things, and the solan's neb and the Bass Rock unco hard, and that twa 
+hunner feet were raither mair than he would care to fa'.
+
+"Shoo!" says Tam.  "Awa', bird!  Shoo, awa' wi' ye!" says he.
+
+The solan keekit doon into Tam's face, and there was something unco in 
+the creature's ee.  Just the ae keek it gied, and back to the rope.  
+But now it wroucht and warstl't like a thing dementit.  There never was 
+the solan made that wroucht as that solan wroucht; and it seemed to 
+understand its employ brawly, birzing the saft rope between the neb of 
+it and a crunkled jag o' stane.
+
+There gaed a cauld stend o' fear into Tam's heart.  "This thing is nae 
+bird," thinks he.  His een turnt backward in his heid and the day gaed 
+black aboot him.  "If I get a dwam here," he toucht, "it's by wi' Tam 
+Dale."  And he signalled for the lads to pu' him up.
+
+And it seemed the solan understood about signals.  For nae sooner was 
+the signal made than he let be the rope, spried his wings, squawked out 
+loud, took a turn flying, and dashed straucht at Tam Dale's een.  Tam 
+had a knife, he gart the cauld steel glitter.  And it seemed the solan 
+understood about knives, for nae suner did the steel glint in the sun 
+than he gied the ae squawk, but laighter, like a body disappointit, and 
+flegged aff about the roundness of the craig, and Tam saw him nae mair.  
+And as sune as that thing was gane, Tam's heid drapt upon his shouther, 
+and they pu'd him up like a deid corp, dadding on the craig.
+
+A dram of brandy (which he went never without) broucht him to his mind, 
+or what was left of it.  Up he sat.
+
+"Rin, Geordie, rin to the boat, mak' sure of the boat, man - rin!" he 
+cries, "or yon solan'll have it awa'," says he.
+
+The fower lads stared at ither, an' tried to whilly-wha him to be 
+quiet.  But naething would satisfy Tam Dale, till ane o' them had 
+startit on aheid to stand sentry on the boat.  The ithers askit if he 
+was for down again.
+
+"Na," says he, "and niether you nor me," says he, "and as sune as I can 
+win to stand on my twa feet we'll be aff frae this craig o' Sawtan."
+
+Sure eneuch, nae time was lost, and that was ower muckle; for before 
+they won to North Berwick Tam was in a crying fever.  He lay a' the 
+simmer; and wha was sae kind as come speiring for him, but Tod Lapraik!  
+Folk thocht afterwards that ilka time Tod cam near the house the fever 
+had worsened.  I kenna for that; but what I ken the best, that was the 
+end of it.
+
+It was about this time o' the year; my grandfaither was out at the 
+white fishing; and like a bairn, I but to gang wi' him.  We had a grand 
+take, I mind, and the way that the fish lay broucht us near in by the 
+Bass, whaur we foregaithered wi' anither boat that belanged to a man 
+Sandie Fletcher in Castleton.  He's no lang deid neither, or ye could 
+speir at himsel'.  Weel, Sandie hailed.
+
+"What's yon on the Bass?" says he.
+
+"On the Bass?" says grandfaither.
+
+"Ay," says Sandie, "on the green side o't."
+
+"Whatten kind of a thing?" says grandfaither.  "There cannae be 
+naething on the Bass but just the sheep."
+
+"It looks unco like a body," quo' Sandie, who was nearer in.
+
+"A body!" says we, and we none of us likit that.  For there was nae 
+boat that could have brought a man, and the key o' the prison yett hung 
+ower my faither's at hame in the press bed.
+
+We keept the twa boats close for company, and crap in nearer hand.  
+Grandfaither had a gless, for he had been a sailor, and the captain of 
+a smack, and had lost her on the sands of Tay.  And when we took the 
+glass to it, sure eneuch there was a man.  He was in a crunkle o' green 
+brae, a wee below the chaipel, a' by his lee lane, and lowped and flang 
+and danced like a daft quean at a waddin'.
+
+"It's Tod," says grandfather, and passed the gless to Sandie.
+
+"Ay, it's him," says Sandie.
+
+"Or ane in the likeness o' him," says grandfaither.
+
+"Sma' is the differ," quo' Sandie.  "De'il or warlock, I'll try the gun 
+at him," quo' he, and broucht up a fowling-piece that he aye carried, 
+for Sandie was a notable famous shot in all that country.
+
+"Haud your hand, Sandie," says grandfaither; "we maun see clearer 
+first," says he, "or this may be a dear day's wark to the baith of us."
+
+"Hout!" says Sandie, "this is the Lord's judgment surely, and be damned 
+to it," says he.
+
+"Maybe ay, and maybe no," says my grandfaither, worthy man!  "But have 
+you a mind of the Procurator Fiscal, that I think ye'll have 
+foregaithered wi' before," says he.
+
+This was ower true, and Sandie was a wee thing set ajee.  "Aweel, 
+Edie," says he, "and what would be your way of it?"
+
+"Ou, just this," says grandfaither.  "Let me that has the fastest boat 
+gang back to North Berwick, and let you bide here and keep an eye on 
+Thon.  If I cannae find Lapraik, I'll join ye and the twa of us'll have 
+a crack wi' him.  But if Lapraik's at hame, I'll rin up the flag at the 
+harbour, and ye can try Thon Thing wi' the gun."
+
+Aweel, so it was agreed between them twa.  I was just a bairn, an' clum 
+in Sandie's boat, whaur I thoucht I would see the best of the employ.  
+My grandsire gied Sandie a siller tester to pit in his gun wi' the leid 
+draps, bein mair deidly again bogles.  And then the as boat set aff for 
+North Berwick, an' the tither lay whaur it was and watched the 
+wanchancy thing on the brae-side.
+
+A' the time we lay there it lowped and flang and capered and span like 
+a teetotum, and whiles we could hear it skelloch as it span.  I hae 
+seen lassies, the daft queans, that would lowp and dance a winter's 
+nicht, and still be lowping and dancing when the winter's day cam in.  
+But there would be fowk there to hauld them company, and the lads to 
+egg them on; and this thing was its lee-lane.  And there would be a 
+fiddler diddling his elbock in the chimney-side; and this thing had nae 
+music but the skirling of the solans.  And the lassies were bits o' 
+young things wi' the reid life dinnling and stending in their members; 
+and this was a muckle, fat, creishy man, and him fa'n in the vale o' 
+years.  Say what ye like, I maun say what I believe.  It was joy was in 
+the creature's heart, the joy o' hell, I daursay:  joy whatever.  Mony 
+a time I have askit mysel' why witches and warlocks should sell their 
+sauls (whilk are their maist dear possessions) and be auld, duddy, 
+wrunkl't wives or auld, feckless, doddered men; and then I mind upon 
+Tod Lapraik dancing a' the hours by his lane in the black glory of his 
+heart.  Nae doubt they burn for it muckle in hell, but they have a 
+grand time here of it, whatever! - and the Lord forgie us!
+
+Weel, at the hinder end, we saw the wee flag yirk up to the mast-heid 
+upon the harbour rocks.  That was a' Sandie waited for.  He up wi' the 
+gun, took a deleeberate aim, an' pu'd the trigger.  There cam' a bang 
+and then ae waefu' skirl frae the Bass.  And there were we rubbin' our 
+een and lookin' at ither like daft folk.  For wi' the bang and the 
+skirl the thing had clean disappeared.  The sun glintit, the wund blew, 
+and there was the bare yaird whaur the Wonder had been lowping and 
+flinging but ae second syne.
+
+The hale way hame I roared and grat wi' the terror o' that 
+dispensation.  The grawn folk were nane sae muckle better; there was 
+little said in Sandie's boat but just the name of God; and when we won 
+in by the pier, the harbour rocks were fair black wi' the folk waitin' 
+us.  It seems they had fund Lapraik in ane of his dwams, cawing the 
+shuttle and smiling.  Ae lad they sent to hoist the flag, and the rest 
+abode there in the wabster's house.  You may be sure they liked it 
+little; but it was a means of grace to severals that stood there 
+praying in to themsel's (for nane cared to pray out loud) and looking 
+on thon awesome thing as it cawed the shuttle.  Syne, upon a suddenty, 
+and wi' the ae dreidfu' skelloch, Tod sprang up frae his hinderlands 
+and fell forrit on the wab, a bluidy corp.
+
+When the corp was examined the leid draps hadnae played buff upon the 
+warlock's body; sorrow a leid drap was to be fund! but there was 
+grandfaither's siller tester in the puddock's heart of him.
+
+
+Andie had scarce done when there befell a mighty silly affair that had 
+its consequence.  Neil, as I have said, was himself a great narrator.  
+I have heard since that he knew all the stories in the Highlands; and 
+thought much of himself, and was thought much of by others on the 
+strength of it.  Now Andie's tale reminded him of one he had already 
+heard.
+
+"She would ken that story afore," he said.  "She was the story of 
+Uistean More M'Gillie Phadrig and the Gavar Vore."
+
+"It is no sic a thing," cried Andie.  "It is the story of my faither 
+(now wi' God) and Tod Lapraik.  And the same in your beard," says he; 
+"and keep the tongue of ye inside your Hielant chafts!"
+
+In dealing with Highlanders it will be found, and has been shown in 
+history, how well it goes with Lowland gentlefolk; but the thing 
+appears scarce feasible for Lowland commons.  I had already remarked 
+that Andie was continually on the point of quarrelling with our three 
+MacGregors, and now, sure enough, it was to come.
+
+"Thir will be no words to use to shentlemans," says Neil.
+
+"Shentlemans!" cries Andie.  "Shentlemans, ye hielant stot!  If God 
+would give ye the grace to see yoursel' the way that ithers see ye, ye 
+would throw your denner up."
+
+There came some kind of a Gaelic oath from Neil, and the black knife 
+was in his hand that moment.
+
+There was no time to think; and I caught the Highlander by the leg, and 
+had him down, and his armed hand pinned out, before I knew what I was 
+doing.  His comrades sprang to rescue him, Andie and I were without 
+weapons, the Gregara three to two.  It seemed we were beyond salvation, 
+when Neil screamed in his own tongue, ordering the others back, and 
+made his submission to myself in a manner the most abject, even giving 
+me up his knife which (upon a repetition of his promises) I returned to 
+him on the morrow.
+
+Two things I saw plain:  the first, that I must not build too high on 
+Andie, who had shrunk against the wall and stood there, as pale as 
+death, till the affair was over; the second, the strength of my own 
+position with the Highlanders, who must have received extraordinary 
+charges to be tender of my safety.  But if I thought Andie came not 
+very well out in courage, I had no fault to find with him upon the 
+account of gratitude.  It was not so much that he troubled me with 
+thanks, as that his whole mind and manner appeared changed; and as he 
+preserved ever after a great timidity of our companions, he and I were 
+yet more constantly together. 
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI - THE MISSING WITNESS
+
+
+
+ON the seventeenth, the day I was trysted with the Writer, I had much 
+rebellion against fate.  The thought of him waiting in the KING'S ARMS, 
+and of what he would think, and what he would say when next we met, 
+tormented and oppressed me. The truth was unbelievable, so much I had 
+to grant, and it seemed cruel hard I should be posted as a liar and a 
+coward, and have never consciously omitted what it was possible that I 
+should do.  I repeated this form of words with a kind of bitter relish, 
+and re-examined in that light the steps of my behaviour.  It seemed I 
+had behaved to James Stewart as a brother might; all the past was a 
+picture that I could be proud of, and there was only the present to 
+consider.  I could not swim the sea, nor yet fly in the air, but there 
+was always Andie.  I had done him a service, he liked me; I had a lever 
+there to work on; if it were just for decency, I must try once more 
+with Andie.
+
+It was late afternoon; there was no sound in all the Bass but the lap 
+and bubble of a very quiet sea; and my four companions were all crept 
+apart, the three Macgregors higher on the rock, and Andie with his 
+Bible to a sunny place among the ruins; there I found him in deep 
+sleep, and, as soon as he was awake, appealed to him with some fervour 
+of manner and a good show of argument.
+
+"If I thoucht it was to do guid to ye, Shaws!" said he, staring at me 
+over his spectacles.
+
+"It's to save another," said I, "and to redeem my word.  What would be 
+more good than that?  Do ye no mind the scripture, Andie?  And you with 
+the Book upon your lap!  WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN IF HE GAIN THE 
+WHOLE WORLD?"
+
+"Ay," said he, "that's grand for you.  But where do I come in!  I have 
+my word to redeem the same's yoursel'.  And what are ye asking me to 
+do, but just to sell it ye for siller?"
+
+"Andie! have I named the name of siller?" cried I.
+
+"Ou, the name's naething", said he; "the thing is there, whatever.  It 
+just comes to this; if I am to service ye the way that you propose, 
+I'll lose my lifelihood.  Then it's clear ye'll have to make it up to 
+me, and a pickle mair, for your ain credit like.  And what's that but 
+just a bribe?  And if even I was certain of the bribe!  But by a' that 
+I can learn, it's far frae that; and if YOU were to hang, where would I 
+be?  Na:  the thing's no possible.  And just awa' wi' ye like a bonny 
+lad! and let Andie read his chapter."
+
+I remember I was at bottom a good deal gratified with this result; and 
+the next humour I fell into was one (I had near said) of gratitude to 
+Prestongrange, who had saved me, in this violent, illegal manner, out 
+of the midst of my dangers, temptations, and perplexities.  But this 
+was both too flimsy and too cowardly to last me long, and the 
+remembrance of James began to succeed to the possession of my spirits.  
+The 21st, the day set for the trial, I passed in such misery of mind as 
+I can scarce recall to have endured, save perhaps upon Isle Earraid 
+only.  Much of the time I lay on a brae-side betwixt sleep and waking, 
+my body motionless, my mind full of violent thoughts.  Sometimes I 
+slept indeed; but the court-house of Inverary and the prisoner glancing 
+on all sides to find his missing witness, followed me in slumber; and I 
+would wake again with a start to darkness of spirit and distress of 
+body.  I thought Andie seemed to observe me, but I paid him little 
+heed.  Verily, my bread was bitter to me, and my days a burthen.
+
+Early the next morning (Friday, 22nd) a boat came with provisions, and 
+Andie placed a packet in my hand.  The cover was without address but 
+sealed with a Government seal.  It enclosed two notes.  "Mr. Balfour 
+can now see for himself it is too late to meddle.  His conduct will be 
+observed and his discretion rewarded."  So ran the first, which seemed 
+to be laboriously writ with the left hand.  There was certainly nothing 
+in these expressions to compromise the writer, even if that person 
+could be found; the seal, which formidably served instead of signature, 
+was affixed to a separate sheet on which there was no scratch of 
+writing; and I had to confess that (so far) my adversaries knew what 
+they were doing, and to digest as well as I was able the threat that 
+peeped under the promise.
+
+But the second enclosure was by far the more surprising.  It was in a 
+lady's hand of writ. "MAISTER DAUVIT BALFOUR IS INFORMED A FRIEND WAS 
+SPEIRING FOR HIM AND HER EYES WERE OF THE GREY," it ran - and seemed so 
+extraordinary a piece to come to my hands at such a moment and under 
+cover of a Government seal, that I stood stupid.  Catriona's grey eyes 
+shone in my remembrance.  I thought, with a bound of pleasure, she must 
+be the friend.  But who should the writer be, to have her billet thus 
+enclosed with Prestongrange's?  And of all wonders, why was it thought 
+needful to give me this pleasing but most inconsequent intelligence 
+upon the Bass?  For the writer, I could hit upon none possible except 
+Miss Grant.  Her family, I remembered, had remarked on Catriona's eyes 
+and even named her for their colour; and she herself had been much in 
+the habit to address me with a broad pronunciation, by way of a sniff, 
+I supposed, at my rusticity.  No doubt, besides, but she lived in the 
+same house as this letter came from.  So there remained but one step to 
+be accounted for; and that was how Prestongrange should have permitted 
+her at all in an affair so secret, or let her daft-like billet go in 
+the same cover with his own.  But even here I had a glimmering.  For, 
+first of all, there was something rather alarming about the young lady, 
+and papa might be more under her domination than I knew.  And, second, 
+there was the man's continual policy to be remembered, how his conduct 
+had been continually mingled with caresses, and he had scarce ever, in 
+the midst of so much contention, laid aside a mask of friendship.  He 
+must conceive that my imprisonment had incensed me.  Perhaps this 
+little jesting, friendly message was intended to disarm my rancour?
+
+I will be honest - and I think it did.  I felt a sudden warmth towards 
+that beautiful Miss Grant, that she should stoop to so much interest in 
+my affairs.  The summoning up of Catriona moved me of itself to milder 
+and more cowardly counsels.  If the Advocate knew of her and our 
+acquaintance - if I should please him by some of that "discretion" at 
+which his letter pointed - to what might not this lead!  IN VAIN IS THE 
+NET PREPARED IN THE SIGHT OF ANY FOWL, the Scripture says.  Well, fowls 
+must be wiser than folk!  For I thought I perceived the policy, and yet 
+fell in with it.
+
+I was in this frame, my heart beating, the grey eyes plain before me 
+like two stars, when Andie broke in upon my musing.
+
+"I see ye has gotten guid news," said he.
+
+I found him looking curiously in my face; with that there came before 
+me like a vision of James Stewart and the court of Inverary; and my 
+mind turned at once like a door upon its hinges.  Trials, I reflected, 
+sometimes draw out longer than is looked for.  Even if I came to 
+Inverary just too late, something might yet be attempted in the 
+interests of James - and in those of my own character, the best would 
+be accomplished.  In a moment, it seemed without thought, I had a plan 
+devised.
+
+"Andie," said I, "is it still to be to-morrow?"
+
+He told me nothing was changed.
+
+"Was anything said about the hour?" I asked.
+
+He told me it was to be two o'clock afternoon.
+
+"And about the place?" I pursued.
+
+"Whatten place?" says Andie.
+
+"The place I am to be landed at?" said I.
+
+He owned there was nothing as to that.
+
+"Very well, then," I said, "this shall be mine to arrange.  The wind is 
+in the east, my road lies westward:  keep your boat, I hire it; let us 
+work up the Forth all day; and land me at two o'clock to-morrow at the 
+westmost we'll can have reached."
+
+"Ye daft callant!" he cried; "ye would try for Inverary after a'!"
+
+"Just that, Andie," says I.
+
+"Weel, ye're ill to beat!" says he.  "And I was a kind o' sorry for ye 
+a' day yesterday," he added.  "Ye see, I was never entirely sure till 
+then, which way of it ye really wantit."
+
+Here was a spur to a lame horse!
+
+"A word in your ear, Andie," said I.  "This plan of mine has another 
+advantage yet.  We can leave these Hielandman behind us on the rock, 
+and one of your boats from the Castleton can bring them off to-morrow.  
+Yon Neil has a queer eye when he regards you; maybe, if I was once out 
+of the gate there might be knives again; these red-shanks are unco 
+grudgeful.  And if there should come to be any question, here is your 
+excuse.  Our lives were in danger by these savages; being answerable 
+for my safety, you chose the part to bring me from their neighbourhood 
+and detain me the rest of the time on board your boat:  and do you 
+know, Andie?" says I, with a smile, "I think it was very wisely 
+chosen,"
+
+"The truth is I have nae goo for Neil," says Andie, "nor he for me, I'm 
+thinking; and I would like ill to come to my hands wi' the man.  Tam 
+Anster will make a better hand of it with the cattle onyway."  (For 
+this man, Anster, came from Fife, where the Gaelic is still spoken.)  
+"Ay, ay!" says Andie, "Tam'll can deal with them the best.  And troth! 
+the mair I think of it, the less I see we would be required.  The place 
+- ay, feggs! they had forgot the place.  Eh, Shaws, ye're a lang-heided 
+chield when ye like!  Forby that I'm awing ye my life," he added, with 
+more solemnity, and offered me his hand upon the bargain.
+
+Whereupon, with scarce more words, we stepped suddenly on board the 
+boat, cast off, and set the lug.  The Gregara were then busy upon 
+breakfast, for the cookery was their usual part; but, one of them 
+stepping to the battlements, our flight was observed before we were 
+twenty fathoms from the rock; and the three of them ran about the ruins 
+and the landing-shelf, for all the world like ants about a broken nest, 
+hailing and crying on us to return.  We were still in both the lee and 
+the shadow of the rock, which last lay broad upon the waters, but 
+presently came forth in almost the same moment into the wind and 
+sunshine; the sail filled, the boat heeled to the gunwale, and we swept 
+immediately beyond sound of the men's voices.  To what terrors they 
+endured upon the rock, where they were now deserted without the 
+countenance of any civilised person or so much as the protection of a 
+Bible, no limit can be set; nor had they any brandy left to be their 
+consolation, for even in the haste and secrecy of our departure Andie 
+had managed to remove it.
+
+It was our first care to set Anster ashore in a cove by the Glenteithy 
+Rocks, so that the deliverance of our maroons might be duly seen to the 
+next day.  Thence we kept away up Firth.  The breeze, which was then so 
+spirited, swiftly declined, but never wholly failed us.  All day we 
+kept moving, though often not much more; and it was after dark ere we 
+were up with the Queensferry.  To keep the letter of Andie's engagement 
+(or what was left of it) I must remain on board, but I thought no harm 
+to communicate with the shore in writing.  On Prestongrange's cover, 
+where the Government seal must have a good deal surprised my 
+correspondent, I writ, by the boat's lantern, a few necessary words, 
+aboard and Andie carried them to Rankeillor.  In about an hour he came 
+again, with a purse of money and the assurance that a good horse should 
+be standing saddled for me by two to-morrow at Clackmannan Pool.  This 
+done, and the boat riding by her stone anchor, we lay down to sleep 
+under the sail.
+
+We were in the Pool the next day long ere two; and there was nothing 
+left for me but to sit and wait.  I felt little alacrity upon my 
+errand.  I would have been glad of any passable excuse to lay it down; 
+but none being to be found, my uneasiness was no less great than if I 
+had been running to some desired pleasure.  By shortly after one the 
+horse was at the waterside, and I could see a man walking it to and fro 
+till I should land, which vastly swelled my impatience.  Andie ran the 
+moment of my liberation very fine, showing himself a man of his bare 
+word, but scarce serving his employers with a heaped measure; and by 
+about fifty seconds after two I was in the saddle and on the full 
+stretch for Stirling.  In a little more than an hour I had passed that 
+town, and was already mounting Alan Water side, when the weather broke 
+in a small tempest.  The rain blinded me, the wind had nearly beat me 
+from the saddle, and the first darkness of the night surprised me in a 
+wilderness still some way east of Balwhidder, not very sure of my 
+direction and mounted on a horse that began already to be weary.
+
+In the press of my hurry, and to be spared the delay and annoyance of a 
+guide, I had followed (so far as it was possible for any horseman) the 
+line of my journey with Alan.  This I did with open eyes, foreseeing a 
+great risk in it, which the tempest had now brought to a reality.  The 
+last that I knew of where I was, I think it must have been about Uam 
+Var; the hour perhaps six at night.  I must still think it great good 
+fortune that I got about eleven to my destination, the house of Duncan 
+Dhu.  Where I had wandered in the interval perhaps the horse could 
+tell.  I know we were twice down, and once over the saddle and for a 
+moment carried away in a roaring burn.  Steed and rider were bemired up 
+to the eyes.
+
+From Duncan I had news of the trial.  It was followed in all these 
+Highland regions with religious interest; news of it spread from 
+Inverary as swift as men could travel; and I was rejoiced to learn 
+that, up to a late hour that Saturday it was not yet concluded; and all 
+men began to suppose it must spread over the Monday.  Under the spur of 
+this intelligence I would not sit to eat; but, Duncan having agreed to 
+be my guide, took the road again on foot, with the piece in my hand and 
+munching as I went.  Duncan brought with him a flask of usquebaugh and 
+a hand-lantern; which last enlightened us just so long as we could find 
+houses where to rekindle it, for the thing leaked outrageously and blew 
+out with every gust.  The more part of the night we walked blindfold 
+among sheets of rain, and day found us aimless on the mountains.  Hard 
+by we struck a hut on a burn-side, where we got bite and a direction; 
+and, a little before the end of the sermon, came to the kirk doors of 
+Inverary.
+
+The rain had somewhat washed the upper parts of me, but I was still 
+bogged as high as to the knees; I streamed water; I was so weary I 
+could hardly limp, and my face was like a ghost's.  I stood certainly 
+more in need of a change of raiment and a bed to lie on, than of all 
+the benefits in Christianity.  For all which (being persuaded the chief 
+point for me was to make myself immediately public) I set the door of 
+the church with the dirty Duncan at my tails, and finding a vacant 
+place sat down.
+
+"Thirteently, my brethren, and in parenthesis, the law itself must be 
+regarded as a means of grace," the minister was saying, in the voice of 
+one delighting to pursue an argument.
+
+The sermon was in English on account of the assize.  The judges were 
+present with their armed attendants, the halberts glittered in a corner 
+by the door, and the seats were thronged beyond custom with the array 
+of lawyers.  The text was in Romans 5th and 13th - the minister a 
+skilled hand; and the whole of that able churchful - from Argyle, and 
+my Lords Elchies and Kilkerran, down to the halbertmen that came in 
+their attendance - was sunk with gathered brows in a profound critical 
+attention.  The minister himself and a sprinkling of those about the 
+door observed our entrance at the moment and immediately forgot the 
+same; the rest either did not hear or would not hear or would not be 
+heard; and I sat amongst my friends and enemies unremarked.
+
+The first that I singled out was Prestongrange.  He sat well forward, 
+like an eager horseman in the saddle, his lips moving with relish, his 
+eyes glued on the minister; the doctrine was clearly to his mind.  
+Charles Stewart, on the other hand, was half asleep, and looked 
+harassed and pale.  As for Simon Fraser, he appeared like a blot, and 
+almost a scandal, in the midst of that attentive congregation, digging 
+his hands in his pockets, shifting his legs, clearing his throat, and 
+rolling up his bald eyebrows and shooting out his eyes to right and 
+left, now with a yawn, now with a secret smile.  At times, too, he 
+would take the Bible in front of him, run it through, seem to read a 
+bit, run it through again, and stop and yawn prodigiously:  the whole 
+as if for exercise.
+
+In the course of this restlessness his eye alighted on myself.  He sat 
+a second stupefied, then tore a half-leaf out of the Bible, scrawled 
+upon it with a pencil, and passed it with a whispered word to his next 
+neighbour.  The note came to Prestongrange, who gave me but the one 
+look; thence it voyaged to the hands of Mr. Erskine; thence again to 
+Argyle, where he sat between the other two lords of session, and his 
+Grace turned and fixed me with an arrogant eye.  The last of those 
+interested in my presence was Charlie Stewart, and he too began to 
+pencil and hand about dispatches, none of which I was able to trace to 
+their destination in the crowd.
+
+But the passage of these notes had aroused notice; all who were in the 
+secret (or supposed themselves to be so) were whispering information - 
+the rest questions; and the minister himself seemed quite 
+discountenanced by the flutter in the church and sudden stir and 
+whispering.  His voice changed, he plainly faltered, nor did he again 
+recover the easy conviction and full tones of his delivery.  It would 
+be a puzzle to him till his dying day, why a sermon that had gone with 
+triumph through four parts, should this miscarry in the fifth.
+
+As for me, I continued to sit there, very wet and weary, and a good 
+deal anxious as to what should happen next, but greatly exulting in my 
+success.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII - THE MEMORIAL
+
+
+
+THE last word of the blessing was scarce out of the minister's mouth 
+before Stewart had me by the arm.  We were the first to be forth of the 
+church, and he made such extraordinary expedition that we were safe 
+within the four walls of a house before the street had begun to be 
+thronged with the home-going congregation.
+
+"Am I yet in time?" I asked.
+
+"Ay and no," said he.  "The case is over; the jury is enclosed, and 
+will so kind as let us ken their view of it to-morrow in the morning, 
+the same as I could have told it my own self three days ago before the 
+play began.  The thing has been public from the start.  The panel kent 
+it, 'YE MAY DO WHAT YE WILL FOR ME,' whispers he two days ago.  'YE KEN 
+MY FATE BY WHAT THE DUKE OF ARGYLE HAS JUST SAID TO MR. MACINTOSH.'  O, 
+it's been a scandal!
+
+
+"The great Agyle he gaed before,
+He gart the cannons and guns to roar,"
+
+
+and the very macer cried 'Cruachan!'  But now that I have got you again 
+I'll never despair.  The oak shall go over the myrtle yet; we'll ding 
+the Campbells yet in their own town.  Praise God that I should see the 
+day!"
+
+He was leaping with excitement, emptied out his mails upon the floor 
+that I might have a change of clothes, and incommoded me with his 
+assistance as I changed.  What remained to be done, or how I was to do 
+it, was what he never told me nor, I believe, so much as thought of.  
+"We'll ding the Campbells yet!" that was still his overcome.  And it 
+was forced home upon my mind how this, that had the externals of a 
+sober process of law, was in its essence a clan battle between savage 
+clans.  I thought my friend the Writer none of the least savage.  Who 
+that had only seen him at a counsel's back before the Lord Ordinary or 
+following a golf ball and laying down his clubs on Bruntsfield links, 
+could have recognised for the same person this voluble and violent 
+clansman?
+
+James Stewart's counsel were four in number - Sheriffs Brown of 
+Colstoun and Miller, Mr. Robert Macintosh, and Mr. Stewart younger of 
+Stewart Hall.  These were covenanted to dine with the Writer after 
+sermon, and I was very obligingly included of the party.  No sooner the 
+cloth lifted, and the first bowl very artfully compounded by Sheriff 
+Miller, than we fell to the subject in hand.  I made a short narration 
+of my seizure and captivity, and was then examined and re-examined upon 
+the circumstances of the murder.  It will be remembered this was the 
+first time I had had my say out, or the matter at all handled, among 
+lawyers; and the consequence was very dispiriting to the others and (I 
+must own) disappointing to myself.
+
+"To sum up," said Colstoun, "you prove that Alan was on the spot; you 
+have heard him proffer menaces against Glenure; and though you assure 
+us he was not the man who fired, you leave a strong impression that he 
+was in league with him, and consenting, perhaps immediately assisting, 
+in the act.  You show him besides, at the risk of his own liberty, 
+actively furthering the criminal's escape.  And the rest of your 
+testimony (so far as the least material) depends on the bare word of 
+Alan or of James, the two accused.  In short, you do not at all break, 
+but only lengthen by one personage, the chain that binds our client to 
+the murderer; and I need scarcely say that the introduction of a third 
+accomplice rather aggravates that appearance of a conspiracy which has 
+been our stumbling block from the beginning."
+
+"I am of the same opinion," said Sheriff Miller.  "I think we may all 
+be very much obliged to Prestongrange for taking a most uncomfortable 
+witness out of our way.  And chiefly, I think, Mr. Balfour himself 
+might be obliged.  For you talk of a third accomplice, but Mr. Balfour 
+(in my view) has very much the appearance of a fourth."
+
+"Allow me, sirs!" interposed Stewart the Writer.  "There is another 
+view.  Here we have a witness - never fash whether material or not - a 
+witness in this cause, kidnapped by that old, lawless, bandit crew of 
+the Glengyle Macgregors, and sequestered for near upon a month in a 
+bourock of old ruins on the Bass.  Move that and see what dirt you 
+fling on the proceedings!  Sirs, this is a tale to make the world ring 
+with!  It would be strange, with such a grip as this, if we couldnae 
+squeeze out a pardon for my client."
+
+"And suppose we took up Mr. Balfour's cause to-morrow?" said Stewart 
+Hall.  "I am much deceived or we should find so many impediments thrown 
+in our path, as that James should have been hanged before we had found 
+a court to hear us.  This is a great scandal, but I suppose we have 
+none of us forgot a greater still, I mean the matter of the Lady 
+Grange.  The woman was still in durance; my friend Mr. Hope of 
+Rankeillor did what was humanly possible; and how did he speed? He 
+never got a warrant!  Well, it'll be the same now; the same weapons 
+will be used.  This is a scene, gentleman, of clan animosity.  The 
+hatred of the name which I have the honour to bear, rages in high 
+quarters.  There is nothing here to be viewed but naked Campbell spite 
+and scurvy Campbell intrigue."
+
+You may be sure this was to touch a welcome topic, and I sat for some 
+time in the midst of my learned counsel, almost deaved with their talk 
+but extremely little the wiser for its purport.  The Writer was led 
+into some hot expressions; Colstoun must take him up and set him right; 
+the rest joined in on different sides, but all pretty noisy; the Duke 
+of Argyle was beaten like a blanket; King George came in for a few digs 
+in the by-going and a great deal of rather elaborate defence; and there 
+was only one person that seemed to be forgotten, and that was James of 
+the Glens.
+
+Through all this Mr. Miller sat quiet.  He was a slip of an oldish 
+gentleman, ruddy and twinkling; he spoke in a smooth rich voice, with 
+an infinite effect of pawkiness, dealing out each word the way an actor 
+does, to give the most expression possible; and even now, when he was 
+silent, and sat there with his wig laid aside, his glass in both hands, 
+his mouth funnily pursed, and his chin out, he seemed the mere picture 
+of a merry slyness.  It was plain he had a word to say, and waited for 
+the fit occasion.
+
+It came presently.  Colstoun had wound up one of his speeches with some 
+expression of their duty to their client.  His brother sheriff was 
+pleased, I suppose, with the transition.  He took the table in his 
+confidence with a gesture and a look.
+
+"That suggests to me a consideration which seems overlooked," said he.  
+"The interest of our client goes certainly before all, but the world 
+does not come to an end with James Stewart." Whereat he cocked his eye.  
+"I might condescend, EXEMPLI GRATIA, upon a Mr. George Brown, a Mr. 
+Thomas Miller, and a Mr. David Balfour.  Mr. David Balfour has a very 
+good ground of complaint, and I think, gentlemen - if his story was 
+properly redd out - I think there would be a number of wigs on the 
+green."
+
+The whole table turned to him with a common movement.
+
+"Properly handled and carefully redd out, his is a story that could 
+scarcely fail to have some consequence," he continued.  "The whole 
+administration of justice, from its highest officer downward, would be 
+totally discredited; and it looks to me as if they would need to be 
+replaced." He seemed to shine with cunning as he said it.  "And I need 
+not point out to ye that this of Mr. Balfour's would be a remarkable 
+bonny cause to appear in," he added.
+
+Well, there they all were started on another hare; Mr. Balfour's cause, 
+and what kind of speeches could be there delivered, and what officials 
+could be thus turned out, and who would succeed to their positions.  I 
+shall give but the two specimens.  It was proposed to approach Simon 
+Fraser, whose testimony, if it could be obtained, would prove certainly 
+fatal to Argyle and to Prestongrange.  Miller highly approved of the 
+attempt.  "We have here before us a dreeping roast," said he, "here is 
+cut-and-come-again for all."  And methought all licked their lips.  The 
+other was already near the end.  Stewart the Writer was out of the body 
+with delight, smelling vengeance on his chief enemy, the Duke.
+
+"Gentlemen," cried he, charging his glass, "here is to Sheriff Miller.  
+His legal abilities are known to all.  His culinary, this bowl in front 
+of us is here to speak for.  But when it comes to the poleetical!" - 
+cries he, and drains the glass.
+
+"Ay, but it will hardly prove politics in your meaning, my friend," 
+said the gratified Miller.  "A revolution, if you like, and I think I 
+can promise you that historical writers shall date from Mr. Balfour's 
+cause.  But properly guided, Mr. Stewart, tenderly guided, it shall 
+prove a peaceful revolution."
+
+"And if the damned Campbells get their ears rubbed, what care I?" cries 
+Stewart, smiting down his fist.
+
+It will be thought I was not very well pleased with all this, though I 
+could scarce forbear smiling at a kind of innocency in these old 
+intriguers.  But it was not my view to have undergone so many sorrows 
+for the advancement of Sheriff Miller or to make a revolution in the 
+Parliament House:  and I interposed accordingly with as much simplicity 
+of manner as I could assume.
+
+"I have to thank you, gentlemen, for your advice," said I.  "And now I 
+would like, by your leave, to set you two or three questions.  There is 
+one thing that has fallen rather on one aide, for instance:  Will this 
+cause do any good to our friend James of the Glens?"
+
+They seemed all a hair set back, and gave various answers, but 
+concurring practically in one point, that James had now no hope but in 
+the King's mercy.
+
+"To proceed, then," said I, "will it do any good to Scotland?  We have 
+a saying that it is an ill bird that fouls his own nest.  I remember 
+hearing we had a riot in Edinburgh when I was an infant child, which 
+gave occasion to the late Queen to call this country barbarous; and I 
+always understood that we had rather lost than gained by that.  Then 
+came the year 'Forty-five, which made Scotland to be talked of 
+everywhere; but I never heard it said we had anyway gained by the 
+'Forty-five.  And now we come to this cause of Mr. Balfour's, as you 
+call it.  Sheriff Miller tells us historical writers are to date from 
+it, and I would not wonder.  It is only my fear they would date from it 
+as a period of calamity and public reproach."
+
+The nimble-witted Miller had already smelt where I was travelling to, 
+and made haste to get on the same road.  "Forcibly put, Mr. Balfour," 
+says he.  "A weighty observe, sir."
+
+"We have next to ask ourselves if it will be good for King George," I 
+pursued.  "Sheriff Miller appears pretty easy upon this; but I doubt 
+you will scarce be able to pull down the house from under him, without 
+his Majesty coming by a knock or two, one of which might easily prove 
+fatal."
+
+I have them a chance to answer, but none volunteered.
+
+"Of those for whom the case was to be profitable," I went on, "Sheriff 
+Miller gave us the names of several, among the which he was good enough 
+to mention mine.   I hope he will pardon me if I think otherwise.  I 
+believe I hung not the least back in this affair while there was life 
+to be saved; but I own I thought myself extremely hazarded, and I own I 
+think it would be a pity for a young man, with some idea of coming to 
+the Bar, to ingrain upon himself the character of a turbulent, factious 
+fellow before he was yet twenty.  As for James, it seems - at this date 
+of the proceedings, with the sentence as good as pronounced - he has no 
+hope but in the King's mercy.  May not his Majesty, then, be more 
+pointedly addressed, the characters of these high officers sheltered 
+from the public, and myself kept out of a position which I think spells 
+ruin for me?"
+
+They all sat and gazed into their glasses, and I could see they found 
+my attitude on the affair unpalatable.  But Miller was ready at all 
+events.
+
+"If I may be allowed to put my young friend's notion in more formal 
+shape," says he, "I understand him to propose that we should embody the 
+fact of his sequestration, and perhaps some heads of the testimony he 
+was prepared to offer, in a memorial to the Crown.  This plan has 
+elements of success.  It is as likely as any other (and perhaps 
+likelier) to help our client.  Perhaps his Majesty would have the 
+goodness to feel a certain gratitude to all concerned in such a 
+memorial, which might be construed into an expression of a very 
+delicate loyalty; and I think, in the drafting of the same, this view 
+might be brought forward."
+
+They all nodded to each other, not without sighs, for the former 
+alternative was doubtless more after their inclination.
+
+"Paper, then, Mr. Stewart, if you please," pursued Miller; "and I think 
+it might very fittingly be signed by the five of us here present, as 
+procurators for the condemned man."'
+
+"It can do none of us any harm, at least," says Colstoun, heaving 
+another sigh, for he had seen himself Lord Advocate the last ten 
+minutes.
+
+Thereupon they set themselves, not very enthusiastically, to draft the 
+memorial - a process in the course of which they soon caught fire; and 
+I had no more ado but to sit looking on and answer an occasional 
+question.  The paper was very well expressed; beginning with a 
+recitation of the facts about myself, the reward offered for my 
+apprehension, my surrender, the pressure brought to bear upon me; my 
+sequestration; and my arrival at Inverary in time to be too late; going 
+on to explain the reasons of loyalty and public interest for which it 
+was agreed to waive any right of action; and winding up with a forcible 
+appeal to the King's mercy on behalf of James.
+
+Methought I was a good deal sacrificed, and rather represented in the 
+light of a firebrand of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had 
+restrained with difficulty from extremes.  But I let it pass, and made 
+but the one suggestion, that I should be described as ready to deliver 
+my own evidence and adduce that of others before any commission of 
+inquiry - and the one demand, that I should be immediately furnished 
+with a copy.
+
+Colstoun hummed and hawed.  "This is a very confidential document," 
+said he.
+
+"And my position towards Prestongrange is highly peculiar," I replied.  
+"No question but I must have touched his heart at our first interview, 
+so that he has since stood my friend consistently.  But for him, 
+gentlemen, I must now be lying dead or awaiting my sentence alongside 
+poor James.  For which reason I choose to communicate to him the fact 
+of this memorial as soon as it is copied.  You are to consider also 
+that this step will make for my protection.  I have enemies here 
+accustomed to drive hard; his Grace is in his own country, Lovat by his 
+side; and if there should hang any ambiguity over our proceedings I 
+think I might very well awake in gaol."
+
+Not finding any very ready answer to these considerations, my company 
+of advisers were at the last persuaded to consent, and made only this 
+condition that I was to lay the paper before Prestongrange with the 
+express compliments of all concerned.
+
+The Advocate was at the castle dining with his Grace.  By the hand of 
+one of Colstoun's servants I sent him a billet asking for an interview, 
+and received a summons to meet him at once in a private house of the 
+town.  Here I found him alone in a chamber; from his face there was 
+nothing to be gleaned; yet I was not so unobservant but what I spied 
+some halberts in the hall, and not so stupid but what I could gather he 
+was prepared to arrest me there and then, should it appear advisable.
+
+"So, Mr. David, this is you?" said he.
+
+"Where I fear I am not overly welcome, my lord," said I.  "And I would 
+like before I go further to express my sense of your lordship's good 
+offices, even should they now cease."
+
+"I have heard of your gratitude before," he replied drily, "and I think 
+this can scarce be the matter you called me from my wine to listen to.  
+I would remember also, if I were you, that you still stand on a very 
+boggy foundation."
+
+"Not now, my lord, I think," said I; "and if your lordship will but 
+glance an eye along this, you will perhaps think as I do."
+
+He read it sedulously through, frowning heavily; then turned back to 
+one part and another which he seemed to weigh and compare the effect 
+of.  His face a little lightened.
+
+"This is not so bad but what it might be worse," said he; "though I am 
+still likely to pay dear for my acquaintance with Mr. David Balfour."
+
+"Rather for your indulgence to that unlucky young man, my lord," said 
+I.
+
+He still skimmed the paper, and all the while his spirits seemed to 
+mend.
+
+"And to whom am I indebted for this?" he asked presently.  "Other 
+counsels must have been discussed, I think.  Who was it proposed this 
+private method?  Was it Miller?"
+
+"My lord, it was myself," said I.  "These gentlemen have shown me no 
+such consideration, as that I should deny myself any credit I can 
+fairly claim, or spare them any responsibility they should properly 
+bear.  And the mere truth is, that they were all in favour of a process 
+which should have remarkable consequences in the Parliament House, and 
+prove for them (in one of their own expressions) a dripping roast.  
+Before I intervened, I think they were on the point of sharing out the 
+different law appointments.  Our friend Mr. Simon was to be taken in 
+upon some composition."
+
+Prestongrange smiled.  "These are our friends," said he.  "And what 
+were your reasons for dissenting, Mr. David?"
+
+I told them without concealment, expressing, however, with more force 
+and volume those which regarded Prestongrange himself.
+
+"You do me no more than justice," said he.  "I have fought as hard in 
+your interest as you have fought against mine.  And how came you here 
+to-day?" he asked.  "As the case drew out, I began to grow uneasy that 
+I had clipped the period so fine, and I was even expecting you to-
+morrow.  But to-day - I never dreamed of it."
+
+I was not of course, going to betray Andie.
+
+"I suspect there is some very weary cattle by the road," said I
+
+"If I had known you were such a mosstrooper you should have tasted 
+longer of the Bass," says he.
+
+"Speaking of which, my lord, I return your letter."  And I gave him the 
+enclosure in the counterfeit hand.
+
+"There was the cover also with the seal," said he.
+
+"I have it not," said I.  "It bore not even an address, and could not 
+compromise a cat.  The second enclosure I have, and with your 
+permission, I desire to keep it."
+
+I thought he winced a little, but he said nothing to the point.  "To-
+morrow," he resumed, "our business here is to be finished, and I 
+proceed by Glasgow.  I would be very glad to have you of my party, Mr 
+David."
+
+"My lord . . ." I began.
+
+"I do not deny it will be of service to me," he interrupted.  "I desire 
+even that, when we shall come to Edinburgh, you should alight at my 
+house.  You have very warm friends in the Miss Grants, who will be 
+overjoyed to have you to themselves.  If you think I have been of use 
+to you, you can thus easily repay me, and so far from losing, may reap 
+some advantage by the way.  It is not every strange young man who is 
+presented in society by the King's Advocate."
+
+Often enough already (in our brief relations) this gentleman had caused 
+my head to spin; no doubt but what for a moment he did so again now.  
+Here was the old fiction still maintained of my particular favour with 
+his daughters, one of whom had been so good as to laugh at me, while 
+the other two had scarce deigned to remark the fact of my existence.  
+And now I was to ride with my lord to Glasgow; I was to dwell with him 
+in Edinburgh; I was to be brought into society under his protection!  
+That he should have so much good-nature as to forgive me was surprising 
+enough; that he could wish to take me up and serve me seemed 
+impossible; and I began to seek some ulterior meaning.  One was plain.  
+If I became his guest, repentance was excluded; I could never think 
+better of my present design and bring any action.  And besides, would 
+not my presence in his house draw out the whole pungency of the 
+memorial?  For that complaint could not be very seriously regarded, if 
+the person chiefly injured was the guest of the official most 
+incriminated.  As I thought upon this I could not quite refrain from 
+smiling.
+
+"This is in the nature of a countercheck to the memorial?" said I.
+
+"You are cunning, Mr. David," said he, "and you do not wholly guess 
+wrong the fact will be of use to me in my defence.  Perhaps, however, 
+you underrate friendly sentiments, which are perfectly genuine.  I have 
+a respect for you, David, mingled with awe," says he, smiling.
+
+"I am more than willing, I am earnestly desirous to meet your wishes," 
+said I.  "It is my design to be called to the Bar, where your 
+lordship's countenance would be invaluable; and I am besides sincerely 
+grateful to yourself and family for different marks of interest and of 
+indulgence.  The difficulty is here.  There is one point in which we 
+pull two ways.  You are trying to hang James Stewart, I am trying to 
+save him.  In so far as my riding with you would better your lordship's 
+defence, I am at your lordships orders; but in so far as it would help 
+to hang James Stewart, you see me at a stick."
+
+I thought he swore to himself.  "You should certainly be called; the 
+Bar is the true scene for your talents," says he, bitterly, and then 
+fell a while silent.  "I will tell you," he presently resumed, "there 
+is no question of James Stewart, for or against, James is a dead man; 
+his life is given and taken - bought (if you like it better) and sold; 
+no memorial can help - no defalcation of a faithful Mr. David hurt him.  
+Blow high, blow low, there will be no pardon for James Stewart:  and 
+take that for said!  The question is now of myself:  am I to stand or 
+fall? and I do not deny to you that I am in some danger.  But will Mr. 
+David Balfour consider why?  It is not because I pushed the case unduly 
+against James; for that, I am sure of condonation.  And it is not 
+because I have sequestered Mr. David on a rock, though it will pass 
+under that colour; but because I did not take the ready and plain path, 
+to which I was pressed repeatedly, and send Mr. David to his grave or 
+to the gallows.  Hence the scandal - hence this damned memorial," 
+striking the paper on his leg.  "My tenderness for you has brought me 
+in this difficulty.  I wish to know if your tenderness to your own 
+conscience is too great to let you help me out of it."
+
+No doubt but there was much of the truth in what he said; if James was 
+past helping, whom was it more natural that I should turn to help than 
+just the man before me, who had helped myself so often, and was even 
+now setting me a pattern of patience?  I was besides not only weary, 
+but beginning to be ashamed, of my perpetual attitude of suspicion and 
+refusal
+
+"If you will name the time and place, I will be punctually ready to 
+attend your lordship," said I.
+
+He shook hands with me.  "And I think my misses have some news for 
+you," says he, dismissing me.
+
+I came away, vastly pleased to have my peace made, yet a little 
+concerned in conscience; nor could I help wondering, as I went back, 
+whether, perhaps, I had not been a scruple too good-natured.  But there 
+was the fact, that this was a man that might have been my father, an 
+able man, a great dignitary, and one that, in the hour of my need, had 
+reached a hand to my assistance.  I was in the better humour to enjoy 
+the remainder of that evening, which I passed with the advocates, in 
+excellent company no doubt, but perhaps with rather more than a 
+sufficiency of punch:  for though I went early to bed I have no clear 
+mind of how I got there.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII - THE TEE'D BALL
+
+
+
+ON the morrow, from the justices' private room, where none could see 
+me, I heard the verdict given in and judgment rendered upon James.  The 
+Duke's words I am quite sure I have correctly; and since that famous 
+passage has been made a subject of dispute, I may as well commemorate 
+my version.  Having referred to the year '45, the chief of the 
+Campbells, sitting as Justice-General upon the bench, thus addressed 
+the unfortunate Stewart before him:  "If you had been successful in 
+that rebellion, you might have been giving the law where you have now 
+received the judgment of it; we, who are this day your judges, might 
+have been tried before one of your mock courts of judicature; and then 
+you might have been satiated with the blood of any name or clan to 
+which you had an aversion."
+
+"This is to let the cat out of the bag, indeed," thought I.  And that 
+was the general impression.  It was extraordinary how the young 
+advocate lads took hold and made a mock of this speech, and how scarce 
+a meal passed but what someone would get in the words:  "And then you 
+might have been satiated."  Many songs were made in time for the hour's 
+diversion, and are near all forgot.  I remember one began:
+
+
+"What do ye want the bluid of, bluid of?
+Is it a name, or is it a clan,
+Or is it an aefauld Hielandman,
+That ye want the bluid of, bluid of?"
+
+
+Another went to my old favourite air, THE HOUSE OF AIRLIE, and began 
+thus:
+
+
+"It fell on a day when Argyle was on the bench,
+That they served him a Stewart for his denner."
+
+
+And one of the verses ran:
+
+
+"Then up and spak' the Duke, and flyted on his cook,
+I regard it as a sensible aspersion,
+That I would sup ava', an' satiate my maw,
+With the bluid of ony clan of my aversion."
+
+
+James was as fairly murdered as though the Duke had got a fowling-piece 
+and stalked him.  So much of course I knew:  but others knew not so 
+much, and were more affected by the items of scandal that came to light 
+in the progress of the cause.  One of the chief was certainly this 
+sally of the justice's.  It was run hard by another of a juryman, who 
+had struck into the midst of Coulston's speech for the defence with a 
+"Pray, sir, cut it short, we are quite weary," which seemed the very 
+excess of impudence and simplicity.  But some of my new lawyer friends 
+were still more staggered with an innovation that had disgraced and 
+even vitiated the proceedings.  One witness was never called.  His 
+name, indeed, was printed, where it may still be seen on the fourth 
+page of the list:  "James Drummond, ALIAS Macgregor, ALIAS James More, 
+late tenant in Inveronachile"; and his precognition had been taken, as 
+the manner is, in writing.  He had remembered or invented (God help 
+him) matter which was lead in James Stewart's shoes, and I saw was like 
+to prove wings to his own.  This testimony it was highly desirable to 
+bring to the notice of the jury, without exposing the man himself to 
+the perils of cross-examination; and the way it was brought about was a 
+matter of surprise to all.  For the paper was handed round (like a 
+curiosity) in court; passed through the jury-box, where it did its 
+work; and disappeared again (as though by accident) before it reached 
+the counsel for the prisoner.  This was counted a most insidious 
+device; and that the name of James More should be mingled up with it 
+filled me with shame for Catriona and concern for myself.
+
+The following day, Prestongrange and I, with a considerable company, 
+set out for Glasgow, where (to my impatience) we continued to linger 
+some time in a mixture of pleasure and affairs.  I lodged with my lord, 
+with whom I was encouraged to familiarity; had my place at 
+entertainments; was presented to the chief guests; and altogether made 
+more of than I thought accorded either with my parts or station; so 
+that, on strangers being present, I would often blush for 
+Prestongrange.  It must be owned the view I had taken of the world in 
+these last months was fit to cast a gloom upon my character.  I had met 
+many men, some of them leaders in Israel whether by their birth or 
+talents; and who among them all had shown clean hands?  As for the 
+Browns and Millers, I had seen their self-seeking, I could never again 
+respect them.  Prestongrange was the best yet; he had saved me, spared 
+me rather, when others had it in their minds to murder me outright; but 
+the blood of James lay at his door; and I thought his present 
+dissimulation with myself a thing below pardon.  That he should affect 
+to find pleasure in my discourse almost surprised me out of my 
+patience.  I would sit and watch him with a kind of a slow fire of 
+anger in my bowels.  "Ah, friend, friend," I would think to myself, "if 
+you were but through with this affair of the memorial, would you not 
+kick me in the streets?"  Here I did him, as events have proved, the 
+most grave injustice; and I think he was at once far more sincere, and 
+a far more artful performer, than I supposed.
+
+But I had some warrant for my incredulity in the behaviour of that 
+court of young advocates that hung about in the hope of patronage.  The 
+sudden favour of a lad not previously heard of troubled them at first 
+out of measure; but two days were not gone by before I found myself 
+surrounded with flattery and attention.  I was the same young man, and 
+neither better nor bonnier, that they had rejected a month before; and 
+now there was no civility too fine for me!  The same, do I say?  It was 
+not so; and the by-name by which I went behind my back confirmed it.  
+Seeing me so firm with the Advocate, and persuaded that I was to fly 
+high and far, they had taken a word from the golfing green, and called 
+me THE TEE'D BALL.  I was told I was now "one of themselves"; I was to 
+taste of their soft lining, who had already made my own experience of 
+the roughness of the outer husk; and one, to whom I had been presented 
+in Hope Park, was so aspired as even to remind me of that meeting.  I 
+told him I had not the pleasure of remembering it.
+
+"Why" says he, "it was Miss Grant herself presented me!  My name is so-
+and-so."
+
+"It may very well be, sir," said I; "but I have kept no mind of it."
+
+At which he desisted; and in the midst of the disgust that commonly 
+overflowed my spirits I had a glisk of pleasure.
+
+But I have not patience to dwell upon that time at length.  When I was 
+in company with these young politics I was borne down with shame for 
+myself and my own plain ways, and scorn for them and their duplicity.  
+Of the two evils, I thought Prestongrange to be the least; and while I 
+was always as stiff as buckram to the young bloods, I made rather a 
+dissimulation of my hard feelings towards the Advocate, and was (in old 
+Mr. Campbell's word) "soople to the laird."  Himself commented on the 
+difference, and bid me be more of my age, and make friends with my 
+young comrades.
+
+I told him I was slow of making friends.
+
+"I will take the word back," said he.  "But there is such a thing as 
+FAIR GUDE S'EN AND FAIR GUDE DAY, Mr. David.  These are the same young 
+men with whom you are to pass your days and get through life:  your 
+backwardness has a look of arrogance; and unless you can assume a 
+little more lightness of manner, I fear you will meet difficulties in 
+the path."
+
+"It will be an ill job to make a silk purse of a sow's ear," said I.
+
+On the morning of October 1st I was awakened by the clattering in of an 
+express; and getting to my window almost before he had dismounted, I 
+saw the messenger had ridden hard.  Somewhile after I was called to 
+Prestongrange, where he was sitting in his bedgown and nightcap, with 
+his letters round him.
+
+"Mr. David," add he, "I have a piece of news for you.  It concerns some 
+friends of yours, of whom I sometimes think you are a little ashamed, 
+for you have never referred to their existence."
+
+I suppose I blushed.
+
+"See you understand, since you make the answering signal," said he.  
+"And I must compliment you on your excellent taste in beauty.  But do 
+you know, Mr. David? this seems to me a very enterprising lass.  She 
+crops up from every side.  The Government of Scotland appears unable to 
+proceed for Mistress Katrine Drummond, which was somewhat the case (no 
+great while back) with a certain Mr. David Balfour.  Should not these 
+make a good match?  Her first intromission in politics - but I must not 
+tell you that story, the authorities have decided you are to hear it 
+otherwise and from a livelier narrator.  This new example is more 
+serious, however; and I am afraid I must alarm you with the 
+intelligence that she is now in prison."
+
+I cried out.
+
+"Yes," said he, "the little lady is in prison.  But I would not have 
+you to despair.  Unless you (with your friends and memorials) shall 
+procure my downfall, she is to suffer nothing."
+
+"But what has she done?  What is her offence?" I cried.
+
+"It might be almost construed a high treason," he returned, "for she 
+has broke the king's Castle of Edinburgh."
+
+"The lady is much my friend," I said.  "I know you would not mock me if 
+the thing were serious."
+
+"And yet it is serious in a sense," said he; "for this rogue of a 
+Katrine - or Cateran, as we may call her - has set adrift again upon 
+the world that very doubtful character, her papa."
+
+Here was one of my previsions justified:  James More was once again at 
+liberty.  He had lent his men to keep me a prisoner; he had volunteered 
+his testimony in the Appin case, and the same (no matter by what 
+subterfuge) had been employed to influence the jury.  Now came his 
+reward, and he was free.  It might please the authorities to give to it 
+the colour of an escape; but I knew better - I knew it must be the 
+fulfilment of a bargain.  The same course of thought relieved me of the 
+least alarm for Catriona.  She might be thought to have broke prison 
+for her father; she might have believed so herself.  But the chief hand 
+in the whole business was that of Prestongrange; and I was sure, so far 
+from letting her come to punishment, he would not suffer her to be even 
+tried.  Whereupon thus came out of me the not very politic ejaculation:
+
+"Ah! I was expecting that!"
+
+"You have at times a great deal of discretion, too!" says 
+Prestongrange.
+
+"And what is my lord pleased to mean by that?" I asked.
+
+"I was just marvelling", he replied, "that being so clever as to draw 
+these inferences, you should not be clever enough to keep them to 
+yourself.  But I think you would like to hear the details of the 
+affair.  I have received two versions:  and the least official is the 
+more full and far the more entertaining, being from the lively pen of 
+my eldest daughter.  'Here is all the town bizzing with a fine piece of 
+work,' she writes, 'and what would make the thing more noted (if it 
+were only known) the malefactor is a PROTEGEE of his lordship my papa.  
+I am sure your heart is too much in your duty (if it were nothing else) 
+to have forgotten Grey Eyes.  What does she do, but get a broad hat 
+with the flaps open, a long hairy-like man's greatcoat, and a big 
+gravatt; kilt her coats up to GUDE KENS WHAUR, clap two pair of boot-
+hose upon her legs, take a pair of CLOUTED BROGUES in her hand, and off 
+to the Castle!  Here she gives herself out to be a soutar in the employ 
+of James More, and gets admitted to his cell, the lieutenant (who seems 
+to have been full of pleasantry) making sport among his soldiers of the 
+soutar's greatcoat.  Presently they hear disputation and the sound of 
+blows inside.  Out flies the cobbler, his coat flying, the flaps of his 
+hat beat about his face, and the lieutenant and his soldiers mock at 
+him as he runs off.  They laughed no so hearty the next time they had 
+occasion to visit the cell and found nobody but a tall, pretty, grey-
+eyed lass in the female habit!  As for the cobbler, he was 'over the 
+hills ayout Dumblane,' and it's thought that poor Scotland will have to 
+console herself without him.  I drank Catriona's health this night in 
+public.
+
+Indeed, the whole town admires her; and I think the beaux would wear 
+bits of her garters in their button-holes if they could only get them.  
+I would have gone to visit her in prison too, only I remembered in time 
+I was papa's daughter; so I wrote her a billet instead, which I 
+entrusted to the faithful Doig, and I hope you will admit I can be 
+political when I please.  The same faithful gomeral is to despatch this 
+letter by the express along with those of the wiseacres, so that you 
+may hear Tom Fool in company with Solomon.  Talking of GOMERALS, do 
+tell DAUVIT BALFOUR.  I would I could see the face of him at the 
+thought of a long-legged lass in such a predicament; to say nothing of 
+the levities of your affectionate daughter, and his respectful friend.'  
+So my rascal signs herself!" continued Prestongrange.  "And you see, 
+Mr. David, it is quite true what I tell you, that my daughters regard 
+you with the most affectionate playfulness."
+
+"The gomeral is much obliged," said I.
+
+"And was not this prettily done!" he went on.  "Is not this Highland 
+maid a piece of a heroine?"
+
+"I was always sure she had a great heart," said I.  "And I wager she 
+guessed nothing . . . But I beg your pardon, this is to tread upon 
+forbidden subjects."
+
+"I will go bail she did not," he returned, quite openly.  "I will go 
+bail she thought she was flying straight into King George's face."
+
+Remembrance of Catriona and the thought of her lying in captivity, 
+moved me strangely.  I could see that even Prestongrange admired, and 
+could not withhold his lips from smiling when he considered her 
+behaviour.  As for Miss Grant, for all her ill habit of mockery, her 
+admiration shone out plain.  A kind of a heat came on me.
+
+"I am not your lordship's daughter. . . " I began.
+
+"That I know of!" he put in, smiling.
+
+"I speak like a fool," said I; "or rather I began wrong.  It would 
+doubtless be unwise in Mistress Grant to go to her in prison; but for 
+me, I think I would look like a half-hearted friend if I did not fly 
+there instantly."
+
+"So-ho, Mr. David," says he; "I thought that you and I were in a 
+bargain?"
+
+"My lord," I said, "when I made that bargain I was a good deal affected 
+by your goodness, but I'll never can deny that I was moved besides by 
+my own interest.  There was self-seeking in my heart, and I think shame 
+of it now.  It may be for your lordship's safety to say this fashious 
+Davie Balfour is your friend and housemate.  Say it then; I'll never 
+contradict you.  But as for your patronage, I give it all back.  I ask 
+but the one thing - let me go, and give me a pass to see her in her 
+prison."
+
+He looked at me with a hard eye.  "You put the cart before the horse, I 
+think," says he.  "That which I had given was a portion of my liking, 
+which your thankless nature does not seem to have remarked.  But for my 
+patronage, it is not given, nor (to be exact) is it yet offered."  He 
+paused a bit.  "And I warn you, you do not know yourself," he added.  
+"Youth is a hasty season; you will think better of all this before a 
+year."
+
+"Well, and I would like to be that kind of youth!" I cried.  "I have 
+seen too much of the other party in these young advocates that fawn 
+upon your lordship and are even at the pains to fawn on me.  And I have 
+seen it in the old ones also.  They are all for by-ends, the whole clan 
+of them!  It's this that makes me seem to misdoubt your lordship's 
+liking.  Why would I think that you would like me?  But ye told me 
+yourself ye had an interest!"
+
+I stopped at this, confounded that I had run so far; he was observing 
+me with an unfathomable face.
+
+"My lord, I ask your pardon," I resumed.  "I have nothing in my chafts 
+but a rough country tongue.  I think it would be only decent-like if I 
+would go to see my friend in her captivity; but I'm owing you my life - 
+I'll never forget that; and if it's for your lordship's good, here I'll 
+stay.  That's barely gratitude."
+
+"This might have been reached in fewer words," says Prestongrange 
+grimly.  "It is easy, and it is at times gracious, to say a plain Scots 
+'ay'."
+
+"Ah, but, my lord, I think ye take me not yet entirely!" cried I.  "For 
+YOUR sake, for my life-safe, and the kindness that ye say ye bear to me 
+- for these, I'll consent; but not for any good that might be coming to 
+myself.  If I stand aside when this young maid is in her trial, it's a 
+thing I will be noways advantaged by; I will lose by it, I will never 
+gain.  I would rather make a shipwreck wholly than to build on that 
+foundation."
+
+He was a minute serious, then smiled.  "You mind me of the man with the 
+long nose," said he; "was you to see the moon by a telescope you would 
+see David Balfour there!  But you shall have your way of it.  I will 
+ask at you one service, and then set you free:  My clerks are 
+overdriven; be so good as copy me these few pages, and when that is 
+done, I shall bid you God speed!  I would never charge myself with Mr. 
+David's conscience; and if you could cast some part of it (as you went 
+by) in a moss hag, you would find yourself to ride much easier without 
+it."
+
+"Perhaps not just entirely in the same direction though, my lord!" says 
+I.
+
+"And you shall have the last word, too!" cries he gaily.
+
+Indeed, he had some cause for gaiety, having now found the means to 
+gain his purpose.  To lessen the weight of the memorial, or to have a 
+readier answer at his hand, he desired I should appear publicly in the 
+character of his intimate.  But if I were to appear with the same 
+publicity as a visitor to Catriona in her prison the world would scarce 
+stint to draw conclusions, and the true nature of James More's escape 
+must become evident to all.  This was the little problem I had to set 
+him of a sudden, and to which he had so briskly found an answer.  I was 
+to be tethered in Glasgow by that job of copying, which in mere outward 
+decency I could not well refuse; and during these hours of employment 
+Catriona was privately got rid of.  I think shame to write of this man 
+that loaded me with so many goodnesses.  He was kind to me as any 
+father, yet I ever thought him as false as a cracked bell.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX - I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES
+
+
+
+THE copying was a weary business, the more so as I perceived very early 
+there was no sort of urgency in the matters treated, and began very 
+early to consider my employment a pretext.  I had no sooner finished 
+than I got to horse, used what remained of daylight to the best 
+purpose, and being at last fairly benighted, slept in a house by 
+Almond-Water side.  I was in the saddle again before the day, and the 
+Edinburgh booths were just opening when I clattered in by the West Bow 
+and drew up a smoking horse at my lord Advocate's door.  I had a 
+written word for Doig, my lord's private hand that was thought to be in 
+all his secrets - a worthy little plain man, all fat and snuff and 
+self-sufficiency.  Him I found already at his desk and already 
+bedabbled with maccabaw, in the same anteroom where I rencountered with 
+James More.  He read the note scrupulously through like a chapter in 
+his Bible.
+
+"H'm," says he; "ye come a wee thing ahint-hand, Mr. Balfour.  The 
+bird's flaen - we hae letten her out."
+
+"Miss Drummond is set free?" I cried.
+
+"Achy!" said he.  "What would we keep her for, ye ken?  To hae made a 
+steer about the bairn would has pleased naebody."
+
+"And where'll she be now?" says I.
+
+"Gude kens!" says Doig, with a shrug.
+
+"She'll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I'm thinking," said I.
+
+"That'll be it," said he.
+
+"Then I'll gang there straight," says I.
+
+"But ye'll be for a bite or ye go?" said he.
+
+"Neither bite nor sup," said I.  "I had a good wauch of milk in by 
+Ratho."
+
+"Aweel, aweel," says Doig.  "But ye'll can leave your horse here and 
+your bags, for it seems we're to have your up-put."
+
+"Na, na", said I.  "Tamson's mear would never be the thing for me this 
+day of all days."
+
+Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an 
+accent much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect a 
+good deal broader, indeed, than I have written it down; and I was the 
+more ashamed when another voice joined in behind me with a scrap of a 
+ballad:
+
+
+"Gae saddle me the bonny black,
+Gae saddle sune and mak' him ready
+For I will down the Gatehope-slack,
+And a' to see my bonny leddy."
+
+
+The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and her 
+hands muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance.  Yet I could 
+not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she saw me.
+
+"My best respects to you, Mistress Grant," said I, bowing.
+
+"The like to yourself, Mr. David," she replied with a deep courtesy.  
+"And I beg to remind you of an old musty saw, that meat and mass never 
+hindered man.  The mass I cannot afford you, for we are all good 
+Protestants.  But the meat I press on your attention.  And I would not 
+wonder but I could find something for your private ear that would be 
+worth the stopping for."
+
+"Mistress Grant," said I, "I believe I am already your debtor for some 
+merry words - and I think they were kind too - on a piece of unsigned 
+paper."
+
+"Unsigned paper?" says she, and made a droll face, which was likewise 
+wondrous beautiful, as of one trying to remember.
+
+"Or else I am the more deceived," I went on.  "But to be sure, we shall 
+have the time to speak of these, since your father is so good as to 
+make me for a while your inmate; and the GOMERAL begs you at this time 
+only for the favour of his liberty,"
+
+"You give yourself hard names," said she.
+
+"Mr. Doig and I would be blythe to take harder at your clever pen," 
+says I.
+
+"Once more I have to admire the discretion of all men-folk," she 
+replied.  "But if you will not eat, off with you at once; you will be 
+back the sooner, for you go on a fool's errand.  Off with you, Mr. 
+David," she continued, opening the door.
+
+
+"He has lowpen on his bonny grey,
+He rade the richt gate and the ready
+I trow he would neither stint nor stay,
+For he was seeking his bonny leddy."
+
+
+I did not wait to be twice bidden, and did justice to Miss Grant's 
+citation on the way to Dean.
+
+Old Lady Allardyce walked there alone in the garden, in her hat and 
+mutch, and having a silver-mounted staff of some black wood to lean 
+upon.  As I alighted from my horse, and drew near to her with CONGEES, 
+I could see the blood come in her face, and her head fling into the air 
+like what I had conceived of empresses.
+
+"What brings you to my poor door?" she cried, speaking high through her 
+nose.  "I cannot bar it.  The males of my house are dead and buried; I 
+have neither son nor husband to stand in the gate for me; any beggar 
+can pluck me by the baird - and a baird there is, and that's the worst 
+of it yet?" she added partly to herself.
+
+I was extremely put out at this reception, and the last remark, which 
+seemed like a daft wife's, left me near hand speechless.
+
+"I see I have fallen under your displeasure, ma'am," said I.  "Yet I 
+will still be so bold as ask after Mistress Drummond."
+
+She considered me with a burning eye, her lips pressed close together 
+into twenty creases, her hand shaking on her staff.  "This cows all!" 
+she cried.  "Ye come to me to speir for her?  Would God I knew!"
+
+"She is not here?" I cried.
+
+She threw up her chin and made a step and a cry at me, so that I fell 
+back incontinent.
+
+"Out upon your leeing throat!" she cried.  "What! ye come and speir at 
+me!  She's in jyle, whaur ye took her to - that's all there is to it.  
+And of a' the beings ever I beheld in breeks, to think it should be to 
+you!  Ye timmer scoun'rel, if I had a male left to my name I would have 
+your jaicket dustit till ye raired."
+
+I thought it not good to delay longer in that place, because I remarked 
+her passion to be rising.  As I turned to the horse-post she even 
+followed me; and I make no shame to confess that I rode away with the 
+one stirrup on and scrambling for the other.
+
+As I knew no other quarter where I could push my inquiries, there was 
+nothing left me but to return to the Advocate's.  I was well received 
+by the four ladies, who were now in company together, and must give the 
+news of Prestongrange and what word went in the west country, at the 
+most inordinate length and with great weariness to myself; while all 
+the time that young lady, with whom I so much desired to be alone 
+again, observed me quizzically and seemed to find pleasure in the sight 
+of my impatience.  At last, after I had endured a meal with them, and 
+was come very near the point of appealing for an interview before her 
+aunt, she went and stood by the music-case, and picking out a tune, 
+sang to it on a high key - "He that will not when he may, When he will 
+he shall have nay."  But this was the end of her rigours, and 
+presently, after making some excuse of which I have no mind, she 
+carried me away in private to her father's library.  I should not fail 
+to say she was dressed to the nines, and appeared extraordinary 
+handsome.
+
+"Now, Mr. David, sit ye down here and let us have a two-handed crack," 
+said she.  "For I have much to tell you, and it appears besides that I 
+have been grossly unjust to your good taste."
+
+"In what manner, Mistress Grant?" I asked.  "I trust I have never 
+seemed to fail in due respect."
+
+"I will be your surety, Mr, David," said she.  "Your respect, whether 
+to yourself or your poor neighbours, has been always and most 
+fortunately beyond imitation.  But that is by the question.  You got a 
+note from me?" she asked.
+
+"I was so bold as to suppose so upon inference," said I, "and it was 
+kindly thought upon."
+
+"It must have prodigiously surprised you," said she.  "But let us begin 
+with the beginning.  You have not perhaps forgot a day when you were so 
+kind as to escort three very tedious misses to Hope Park?  I have the 
+less cause to forget it myself, because you was so particular obliging 
+as to introduce me to some of the principles of the Latin grammar, a 
+thing which wrote itself profoundly on my gratitude."
+
+"I fear I was sadly pedantical," said I, overcome with confusion at the 
+memory.  "You are only to consider I am quite unused with the society 
+of ladies."
+
+"I will say the less about the grammar then," she replied.  "But how 
+came you to desert your charge?  'He has thrown her out, overboard, his 
+ain dear Annie!'" she hummed; "and his ain dear Annie and her two 
+sisters had to taigle home by theirselves like a string of green geese!  
+It seems you returned to my papa's, where you showed yourself 
+excessively martial, and then on to realms unknown, with an eye (it 
+appears) to the Bass Rock; solan geese being perhaps more to your mind 
+than bonny lasses."
+
+Through all this raillery there was something indulgent in the lady's 
+eye which made me suppose there might be better coming.
+
+"You take a pleasure to torment me," said I, "and I make a very 
+feckless plaything; but let me ask you to be more merciful.  At this 
+time there is but the one thing that I care to hear of, and that will 
+be news of Catriona."
+
+"Do you call her by that name to her face, Mr. Balfour?" she asked.
+
+"In troth, and I am not very sure," I stammered.
+
+"I would not do so in any case to strangers," said Miss Grant.  "And 
+why are you so much immersed in the affairs of this young lady?"
+
+"I heard she was in prison," said I.
+
+"Well, and now you hear that she is out of it," she replied, "and what 
+more would you have?  She has no need of any further champion."
+
+"I may have the greater need of her, ma'am," said I.
+
+"Come, this is better!" says Miss Grant.  "But look me fairly in the 
+face; am I not bonnier than she?"
+
+"I would be the last to be denying it," said I.  "There is not your 
+marrow in all Scotland."
+
+"Well, here you have the pick of the two at your hand, and must needs 
+speak of the other," said she.  "This is never the way to please the 
+ladies, Mr. Balfour."
+
+"But, mistress," said I, "there are surely other things besides mere 
+beauty."
+
+"By which I am to understand that I am no better than I should be, 
+perhaps?" she asked.
+
+"By which you will please understand that I am like the cock in the 
+midden in the fable book," said I.  "I see the braw jewel - and I like 
+fine to see it too - but I have more need of the pickle corn."
+
+"Bravissimo!" she cried.  "There is a word well said at last, and I 
+will reward you for it with my story.  That same night of your 
+desertion I came late from a friend's house - where I was excessively 
+admired, whatever you may think of it - and what should I hear but that 
+a lass in a tartan screen desired to speak with me?  She had been there 
+an hour or better, said the servant-lass, and she grat in to herself as 
+she sat waiting.  I went to her direct; she rose as I came in, and I 
+knew her at a look.  'GREY EYES!' says I to myself, but was more wise 
+than to let on.  YOU WILL BE MISS GRANT AT LAST? she says, rising and 
+looking at me hard and pitiful.  AY, IT WAS TRUE HE SAID, YOU ARE BONNY 
+AT ALL EVENTS. - THE WAY GOD MADE ME, MY DEAR, I said, BUT I WOULD BE 
+GEY AND OBLIGED IF YOU COULD TELL ME WHAT BROUGHT YOU HERE AT SUCH A 
+TIME OF THE NIGHT. - LADY, she said, WE ARE KINSFOLK, WE ARE BOTH COME 
+OF THE BLOOD OF THE SONS OF ALPIN. - MY DEAR, I replied, I THINK NO 
+MORE OF ALPIN OR HIS SONS THAN WHAT I DO OF A KALESTOCK.  YOU HAVE A 
+BETTER ARGUMENT IN THESE TEARS UPON YOUR BONNY FACE.  And at that I was 
+so weak-minded as to kiss her, which is what you would like to do 
+dearly, and I wager will never find the courage of.  I say it was weak-
+minded of me, for I knew no more of her than the outside; but it was 
+the wisest stroke I could have hit upon.  She is a very staunch, brave 
+nature, but I think she has been little used with tenderness; and at 
+that caress (though to say the truth, it was but lightly given) her 
+heart went out to me.  I will never betray the secrets of my sex, Mr. 
+Davie; I will never tell you the way she turned me round her thumb, 
+because it is the same she will use to twist yourself.  Ay, it is a 
+fine lass!  She is as clean as hill well water."
+
+"She is e'en't!" I cried.
+
+"Well, then, she told me her concerns," pursued Miss Grant, "and in 
+what a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking about 
+yourself, with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she had 
+found herself after you was gone away.  AND THEN I MINDED AT LONG LAST, 
+says she, THAT WE WERE KINSWOMEN, AND THAT MR. DAVID SHOULD HAVE GIVEN 
+YOU THE NAME OF THE BONNIEST OF THE BONNY, AND I WAS THINKING TO MYSELF 
+'IF SHE IS SO BONNY SHE WILL BE GOOD AT ALL EVENTS'; AND I TOOK UP MY 
+FOOT SOLES OUT OF THAT.  That was when I forgave yourself, Mr. Davie.  
+When you was in my society, you seemed upon hot iron:  by all marks, if 
+ever I saw a young man that wanted to be gone, it was yourself, and I 
+and my two sisters were the ladies you were so desirous to be gone 
+from; and now it appeared you had given me some notice in the by-going, 
+and was so kind as to comment on my attractions!  From that hour you 
+may date our friendship, and I began to think with tenderness upon the 
+Latin grammar."
+
+"You will have many hours to rally me in," said I; "and I think besides 
+you do yourself injustice.  I think it was Catriona turned your heart 
+in my direction.  She is too simple to perceive as you do the stiffness 
+of her friend."
+
+"I would not like to wager upon that, Mr. David," said she.  "The 
+lasses have clear eyes.  But at least she is your friend entirely, as I 
+was to see.  I carried her in to his lordship my papa; and his Advocacy 
+being in a favourable stage of claret, was so good as to receive the 
+pair of us.  HERE IS GREY EYES THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DEAVED WITH THESE 
+DAYS PAST, said I, SHE IS COME TO PROVE THAT WE SPOKE TRUE, AND I LAY 
+THE PRETTIEST LASS IN THE THREE LOTHIANS AT YOUR FEET - making a 
+papistical reservation of myself.  She suited her action to my words:  
+down she went upon her knees to him - I would not like to swear but he 
+saw two of her, which doubtless made her appeal the more irresistible, 
+for you are all a pack of Mahomedans - told him what had passed that 
+night, and how she had withheld her father's man from following of you, 
+and what a case she was in about her father, and what a flutter for 
+yourself; and begged with weeping for the lives of both of you (neither 
+of which was in the slightest danger), till I vow I was proud of my sex 
+because it was done so pretty, and ashamed for it because of the 
+smallness of the occasion.  She had not gone far, I assure you, before 
+the Advocate was wholly sober, to see his inmost politics ravelled out 
+by a young lass and discovered to the most unruly of his daughters.  
+But we took him in hand, the pair of us, and brought that matter 
+straight.  Properly managed - and that means managed by me - there is 
+no one to compare with my papa."
+
+"He has been a good man to me," said I.
+
+"Well, he was a good man to Katrine, and I was there to see to it," 
+said she.
+
+"And she pled for me?" say I.
+
+"She did that, and very movingly," said Miss Grant.  "I would not like 
+to tell you what she said - I find you vain enough already."
+
+"God reward her for it!" cried I.
+
+"With Mr. David Balfour, I suppose?" says she.
+
+"You do me too much injustice at the last!" I cried.  "I would tremble 
+to think of her in such hard hands.  Do you think I would presume, 
+because she begged my life?  She would do that for a new whelped puppy!  
+I have had more than that to set me up, if you but ken'd.  She kissed 
+that hand of mine.  Ay, but she did.  And why? because she thought I 
+was playing a brave part and might be going to my death.  It was not 
+for my sake - but I need not be telling that to you, that cannot look 
+at me without laughter.  It was for the love of what she thought was 
+bravery.  I believe there is none but me and poor Prince Charlie had 
+that honour done them.  Was this not to make a god of me? and do you 
+not think my heart would quake when I remember it?"
+
+"I do laugh at you a good deal, and a good deal more than is quite 
+civil," said she; "but I will tell you one thing:  if you speak to her 
+like that, you have some glimmerings of a chance."
+
+"Me?" I cried, "I would never dare.  I can speak to you, Miss Grant, 
+because it's a matter of indifference what ye think of me.  But her? no 
+fear!" said I.
+
+"I think you have the largest feet in all broad Scotland," says she.
+
+"Troth they are no very small," said I, looking down.
+
+"Ah, poor Catriona!" cries Miss Grant.
+
+And I could but stare upon her; for though I now see very well what she 
+was driving at (and perhaps some justification for the same), I was 
+never swift at the uptake in such flimsy talk.
+
+"Ah well, Mr. David," she said, "it goes sore against my conscience, 
+but I see I shall have to be your speaking board.  She shall know you 
+came to her straight upon the news of her imprisonment; she shall know 
+you would not pause to eat; and of our conversation she shall hear just 
+so much as I think convenient for a maid of her age and inexperience.  
+Believe me, you will be in that way much better served than you could 
+serve yourself, for I will keep the big feet out of the platter."
+
+"You know where she is, then?" I exclaimed.
+
+"That I do, Mr. David, and will never tell," said she.
+
+"Why that?" I asked.
+
+"Well," she said, "I am a good friend, as you will soon discover; and 
+the chief of those that I am friend to is my papa.  I assure you, you 
+will never heat nor melt me out of that, so you may spare me your 
+sheep's eyes; and adieu to your David-Balfourship for the now."
+
+"But there is yet one thing more," I cried.  "There is one thing that 
+must be stopped, being mere ruin to herself, and to me too."
+
+"Well," she said, "be brief; I have spent half the day on you already."
+
+"My Lady Allardyce believes," I began - "she supposes - she thinks that 
+I abducted her."
+
+The colour came into Miss Grant's face, so that at first I was quite 
+abashed to find her ear so delicate, till I bethought me she was 
+struggling rather with mirth, a notion in which I was altogether 
+confirmed by the shaking of her voice as she replied -
+
+"I will take up the defence of your reputation," she said.  "You may 
+leave it in my hands."
+
+And with that she withdrew out of the library.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX - I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
+
+
+
+FOR about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange's 
+family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar, and 
+the flower of Edinburgh company.  You are not to suppose my education 
+was neglected; on the contrary, I was kept extremely busy.  I studied 
+the French, so as to be more prepared to go to Leyden; I set myself to 
+the fencing, and wrought hard, sometimes three hours in the day, with 
+notable advancement; at the suggestion of my cousin, Pilrig, who was an 
+apt musician, I was put to a singing class; and by the orders of my 
+Miss Grant, to one for the dancing, at which I must say I proved far 
+from ornamental.  However, all were good enough to say it gave me an 
+address a little more genteel; and there is no question but I learned 
+to manage my coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and to stand in 
+a room as though the same belonged to me.  My clothes themselves were 
+all earnestly re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance, such as 
+where I should tie my hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated among 
+the three misses like a thing of weight.  One way with another, no 
+doubt I was a good deal improved to look at, and acquired a bit of 
+modest air that would have surprised the good folks at Essendean.
+
+The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my 
+habiliment, because that was in the line of their chief thoughts.  I 
+cannot say that they appeared any other way conscious of my presence; 
+and though always more than civil, with a kind of heartless cordiality, 
+could not hide how much I wearied them.  As for the aunt, she was a 
+wonderful still woman; and I think she gave me much the same attention 
+as she gave the rest of the family, which was little enough.  The 
+eldest daughter and the Advocate himself were thus my principal 
+friends, and our familiarity was much increased by a pleasure that we 
+took in common.  Before the court met we spent a day or two at the 
+house of Grange, living very nobly with an open table, and here it was 
+that we three began to ride out together in the fields, a practice 
+afterwards maintained in Edinburgh, so far as the Advocate's continual 
+affairs permitted.  When we were put in a good frame by the briskness 
+of the exercise, the difficulties of the way, or the accidents of bad 
+weather, my shyness wore entirely off; we forgot that we were 
+strangers, and speech not being required, it flowed the more naturally 
+on.  Then it was that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the 
+time that I left Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the COVENANT, 
+wanderings in the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found in my 
+adventures sprung the circumstance of a jaunt we made a little later 
+on, on a day when the courts were not sitting, and of which I will tell 
+a trifle more at length.
+
+We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where it 
+stood smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet early 
+in the day.  Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his horse, an 
+proceeded alone to visit my uncle.  My heart, I remember, swelled up 
+bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the thought of the 
+old miser sitting chittering within in the cold kitchen!
+
+"There is my home," said I; "and my family."
+
+"Poor David Balfour!" said Miss Grant.
+
+What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would doubtless 
+not be very agreeable to Ebenezer, for when the Advocate came forth 
+again his face was dark.
+
+"I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr. Davie," says he, 
+turning half about with the one foot in the stirrup.
+
+"I will never pretend sorrow," said I; and, to say the truth, during 
+his absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place in fancy 
+with plantations, parterres, and a terrace - much as I have since 
+carried out in fact.
+
+Thence we pushed to the Queensferry, where Rankeillor gave us a good 
+welcome, being indeed out of the body to receive so great a visitor.  
+Here the Advocate was so unaffectedly good as to go quite fully over my 
+affairs, sitting perhaps two hours with the Writer in his study, and 
+expressing (I was told) a great esteem for myself and concern for my 
+fortunes.  To while this time, Miss Grant and I and young Rankeillor 
+took boat and passed the Hope to Limekilns.  Rankeillor made himself 
+very ridiculous (and, I thought, offensive) with his admiration for the 
+young lady, and to my wonder (only it is so common a weakness of her 
+sex) she seemed, if anything, to be a little gratified.  One use it 
+had:  for when we were come to the other side, she laid her commands on 
+him to mind the boat, while she and I passed a little further to the 
+alehouse.  This was her own thought, for she had been taken with my 
+account of Alison Hastie, and desired to see the lass herself.  We 
+found her once more alone - indeed, I believe her father wrought all 
+day in the fields - and she curtsied dutifully to the gentry-folk and 
+the beautiful young lady in the riding-coat.
+
+"Is this all the welcome I am to get?" said I, holding out my hand.  
+"And have you no more memory of old friends?"
+
+"Keep me! wha's this of it?" she cried, and then, "God's truth, it's 
+the tautit laddie!"
+
+"The very same," says
+
+"Mony's the time I've thocht upon you and your freen, and blythe am I 
+to see in your braws," she cried.  "Though I kent ye were come to your 
+ain folk by the grand present that ye sent me and that I thank ye for 
+with a' my heart."
+
+"There," said Miss Grant to me, "run out by with ye, like a guid bairn.  
+I didnae come here to stand and haud a candle; it's her and me that are 
+to crack."
+
+I suppose she stayed ten minutes in the house, but when she came forth 
+I observed two things - that her eyes were reddened, and a silver 
+brooch was gone out of her bosom.  This very much affected me.
+
+"I never saw you so well adorned," said I.
+
+"O Davie man, dinna be a pompous gowk!" said she, and was more than 
+usually sharp to me the remainder of the day.
+
+About candlelight we came home from this excursion.
+
+For a good while I heard nothing further of Catriona - my Miss Grant 
+remaining quite impenetrable, and stopping my mouth with pleasantries.  
+At last, one day that she returned from walking and found me alone in 
+the parlour over my French, I thought there was something unusual in 
+her looks; the colour heightened, the eyes sparkling high, and a bit of 
+a smile continually bitten in as she regarded me.   She seemed indeed 
+like the very spirit of mischief, and, walking briskly in the room, had 
+soon involved me in a kind of quarrel over nothing and (at the least) 
+with nothing intended on my side.  I was like Christian in the slough - 
+the more I tried to clamber out upon the side, the deeper I became 
+involved; until at last I heard her declare, with a great deal of 
+passion, that she would take that answer from the hands of none, and I 
+must down upon my knees for pardon.
+
+The causelessness of all this fuff stirred my own bile.  "I have said 
+nothing you can properly object to," said I, "and as for my knees, that 
+is an attitude I keep for God."
+
+"And as a goddess I am to be served!" she cried, shaking her brown 
+locks at me and with a bright colour.  "Every man that comes within 
+waft of my petticoats shall use me so!"
+
+"I will go so far as ask your pardon for the fashion's sake, although I 
+vow I know not why," I replied.  "But for these play-acting postures, 
+you can go to others."
+
+"O Davie!" she said.  "Not if I was to beg you?"
+
+I bethought me I was fighting with a woman, which is the same as to say 
+a child, and that upon a point entirely formal.
+
+"I think it a bairnly thing," I said, "not worthy in you to ask, or me 
+to render.  Yet I will not refuse you, neither," said I; "and the 
+stain, if there be any, rests with yourself."  And at that I kneeled 
+fairly down.
+
+"There!" she cried.  "There is the proper station, there is where I 
+have been manoeuvring to bring you."  And then, suddenly, "Kep," said 
+she, flung me a folded billet, and ran from the apartment laughing.
+
+The billet had neither place nor date.  "Dear Mr. David," it began, "I 
+get your news continually by my cousin, Miss Grant, and it is a 
+pleisand hearing.  I am very well, in a good place, among good folk, 
+but necessitated to be quite private, though I am hoping that at long 
+last we may meet again.  All your friendships have been told me by my 
+loving cousin, who loves us both.  She bids me to send you this 
+writing, and oversees the same.  I will be asking you to do all her 
+commands, and rest your affectionate friend, Catriona Macgregor-
+Drummond.  P.S. - Will you not see my cousin, Allardyce?"
+
+I think it not the least brave of my campaigns (as the soldiers say) 
+that I should have done as I was here bidden and gone forthright to the 
+house by Dean.  But the old lady was now entirely changed and supple as 
+a glove.  By what means Miss Grant had brought this round I could never 
+guess; I am sure, at least, she dared not to appear openly in the 
+affair, for her papa was compromised in it pretty deep.  It was he, 
+indeed, who had persuaded Catriona to leave, or rather, not to return, 
+to her cousin's, placing her instead with a family of Gregorys - decent 
+people, quite at the Advocate's disposition, and in whom she might have 
+the more confidence because they were of his own clan and family.  
+These kept her private till all was ripe, heated and helped her to 
+attempt her father's rescue, and after she was discharged from prison 
+received her again into the same secrecy.  Thus Prestongrange obtained 
+and used his instrument; nor did there leak out the smallest word of 
+his acquaintance with the daughter of James More.  There was some 
+whispering, of course, upon the escape of that discredited person; but 
+the Government replied by a show of rigour, one of the cell porters was 
+flogged, the lieutenant of the guard (my poor friend, Duncansby) was 
+broken of his rank, and as for Catriona, all men were well enough 
+pleased that her fault should be passed by in silence.
+
+I could never induce Miss Grant to carry back an answer.  "No," she 
+would say, when I persisted, "I am going to keep the big feet out of 
+the platter."  This was the more hard to bear, as I was aware she saw 
+my little friend many times in the week, and carried her my news 
+whenever (as she said) I "had behaved myself."  At last she treated me 
+to what she called an indulgence, and I thought rather more of a 
+banter.  She was certainly a strong, almost a violent, friend to all 
+she liked, chief among whom was a certain frail old gentlewoman, very 
+blind and very witty, who dwelt on the top of a tall land on a strait 
+close, with a nest of linnets in a cage, and thronged all day with 
+visitors.  Miss Grant was very fond to carry me there and put me to 
+entertain her friend with the narrative of my misfortunes:  and Miss 
+Tibbie Ramsay (that was her name) was particular kind, and told me a 
+great deal that was worth knowledge of old folks and past affairs in 
+Scotland.  I should say that from her chamber window, and not three 
+feet away, such is the straitness of that close, it was possible to 
+look into a barred loophole lighting the stairway of the opposite 
+house.
+
+Here, upon some pretext, Miss Grant left me one day alone with Miss 
+Ramsay.  I mind I thought that lady inattentive and like one 
+preoccupied.  I was besides very uncomfortable, for the window, 
+contrary to custom, was left open and the day was cold.  All at once 
+the voice of Miss Grant sounded in my ears as from a distance.
+
+"Here, Shaws!" she cried, "keek out of the window and see what I have 
+broughten you."
+
+I think it was the prettiest sight that ever I beheld.  The well of the 
+close was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly, the 
+walls very black and dingy; and there from the barred loophole I saw 
+two faces smiling across at me - Miss Grant's and Catriona's.
+
+"There!" says Miss Grant, "I wanted her to see you in your braws like 
+the lass of Limekilns.  I wanted her to see what I could make of you, 
+when I buckled to the job in earnest!"
+
+It came in my mind that she had been more than common particular that 
+day upon my dress; and I think that some of the same care had been 
+bestowed upon Catriona.  For so merry and sensible a lady, Miss Grant 
+was certainly wonderful taken up with duds.
+
+"Catriona!" was all I could get out.
+
+As for her, she said nothing in the world, but only waved her hand and 
+smiled to me, and was suddenly carried away again from before the 
+loophole.
+
+That vision was no sooner lost than I ran to the house door, where I 
+found I was locked in; thence back to Miss Ramsay, crying for the key, 
+but might as well have cried upon the castle rock.  She had passed her 
+word, she said, and I must be a good lad.  It was impossible to burst 
+the door, even if it had been mannerly; it was impossible I should leap 
+from the window, being seven storeys above ground.  All I could do was 
+to crane over the close and watch for their reappearance from the 
+stair.  It was little to see, being no more than the tops of their two 
+heads each on a ridiculous bobbin of skirts, like to a pair of 
+pincushions.  Nor did Catriona so much as look up for a farewell; being 
+prevented (as I heard afterwards) by Miss Grant, who told her folk were 
+never seen to less advantage than from above downward.
+
+On the way home, as soon as I was set free, I upbraided Miss Grant with 
+her cruelty.
+
+"I am sorry you was disappointed," says she demurely.  "For my part I 
+was very pleased.  You looked better than I dreaded; you looked - if it 
+will not make you vain - a mighty pretty young man when you appeared in 
+the window.  You are to remember that she could not see your feet," 
+says she, with the manner of one reassuring me.
+
+"O!" cried I, "leave my feet be - they are no bigger than my 
+neighbours'."
+
+"They are even smaller than some," said she, "but I speak in parables 
+like a Hebrew prophet."
+
+"I marvel little they were sometimes stoned!" says I.  "But, you 
+miserable girl, how could you do it?  Why should you care to tantalise 
+me with a moment?"
+
+"Love is like folk," says she; "it needs some kind of vivers."
+
+"Oh, Barbara, let me see her properly!" I pleaded.  "YOU can - you see 
+her when you please; let me have half an hour."
+
+"Who is it that is managing this love affair!  You!  Or me?" she asked, 
+and as I continued to press her with my instances, fell back upon a 
+deadly expedient:  that of imitating the tones of my voice when I 
+called on Catriona by name; with which, indeed, she held me in 
+subjection for some days to follow.
+
+There was never the least word heard of the memorial, or none by me.  
+Prestongrange and his grace the Lord President may have heard of it 
+(for what I know) on the deafest sides of their heads; they kept it to 
+themselves, at least - the public was none the wiser; and in course of 
+time, on November 8th, and in the midst of a prodigious storm of wind 
+and rain, poor James of the Glens was duly hanged at Lettermore by 
+Ballachulish.
+
+So there was the final upshot of my politics!  Innocent men have 
+perished before James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite of 
+all our wisdom) till the end of time.  And till the end of time young 
+folk (who are not yet used with the duplicity of life and men) will 
+struggle as I did, and make heroical resolves, and take long risks; and 
+the course of events will push them upon the one side and go on like a 
+marching army.  James was hanged; and here was I dwelling in the house 
+of Prestongrange, and grateful to him for his fatherly attention.  He 
+was hanged; and behold! when I met Mr. Simon in the causeway, I was 
+fain to pull off my beaver to him like a good little boy before his 
+dominie.  He had been hanged by fraud and violence, and the world 
+wagged along, and there was not a pennyweight of difference; and the 
+villains of that horrid plot were decent, kind, respectable fathers of 
+families, who went to kirk and took the sacrament!
+
+But I had had my view of that detestable business they call politics - 
+I had seen it from behind, when it is all bones and blackness; and I 
+was cured for life of any temptations to take part in it again.  A 
+plain, quiet, private path was that which I was ambitious to walk in, 
+when I might keep my head out of the way of dangers and my conscience 
+out of the road of temptation.  For, upon a retrospect, it appeared I 
+had not done so grandly, after all; but with the greatest possible 
+amount of big speech and preparation, had accomplished nothing.
+
+The 25th of the same month a ship was advertised to sail from Leith; 
+and I was suddenly recommended to make up my mails for Leyden.  To 
+Prestongrange I could, of course, say nothing; for I had already been a 
+long while sorning on his house and table.  But with his daughter I was 
+more open, bewailing my fate that I should be sent out of the country, 
+and assuring her, unless she should bring me to farewell with Catriona, 
+I would refuse at the last hour.
+
+"Have I not given you my advice?" she asked.
+
+"I know you have," said I, "and I know how much I am beholden to you 
+already, and that I am bidden to obey your orders.  But you must 
+confess you are something too merry a lass at times to lippen to 
+entirely."
+
+"I will tell you, then," said she.  "Be you on board by nine o'clock 
+forenoon; the ship does not sail before one; keep your boat alongside; 
+and if you are not pleased with my farewells when I shall send them, 
+you can come ashore again and seek Katrine for yourself."
+
+Since I could make no more of her, I was fain to be content with this.
+
+The day came round at last when she and I were to separate.  We had 
+been extremely intimate and familiar; I was much in her debt; and what 
+way we were to part was a thing that put me from my sleep, like the 
+vails I was to give to the domestic servants.  I knew she considered me 
+too backward, and rather desired to rise in her opinion on that head.  
+Besides which, after so much affection shown and (I believe) felt upon 
+both sides, it would have looked cold-like to be anyways stiff.  
+Accordingly, I got my courage up and my words ready, and the last 
+chance we were like to be alone, asked pretty boldly to be allowed to 
+salute her in farewell.
+
+"You forget yourself strangely, Mr. Balfour," said she.  "I cannot call 
+to mind that I have given you any right to presume on our 
+acquaintancy."
+
+I stood before her like a stopped clock, and knew not what to think, 
+far less to say, when of a sudden she cast her arms about my neck and 
+kissed me with the best will in the world.
+
+"You inimitable bairn?" she cried.  "Did you think that I would let us 
+part like strangers?  Because I can never keep my gravity at you five 
+minutes on end, you must not dream I do not love you very well:  I am 
+all love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you!  And now I will 
+give you an advice to conclude your education, which you will have need 
+of before it's very long.
+
+Never ASK womenfolk.  They're bound to answer 'No'; God never made the 
+lass that could resist the temptation.  It's supposed by divines to be 
+the curse of Eve:  because she did not say it when the devil offered 
+her the apple, her daughters can say nothing else."
+
+"Since I am so soon to lose my bonny professor," I began.
+
+"This is gallant, indeed," says she curtseying.
+
+"I would put the one question," I went on.  "May I ask a lass to marry 
+to me?"
+
+"You think you could not marry her without!" she asked.  "Or else get 
+her to offer?"
+
+"You see you cannot be serious," said I.
+
+"I shall be very serious in one thing, David," said she:  "I shall 
+always be your friend."
+
+As I got to my horse the next morning, the four ladies were all at that 
+same window whence we had once looked down on Catriona, and all cried 
+farewell and waved their pocket napkins as I rode away.  One out of the 
+four I knew was truly sorry; and at the thought of that, and how I had 
+come to the door three months ago for the first time, sorrow and 
+gratitude made a confusion in my mind.
+
+
+
+
+PART II - FATHER AND DAUGHTER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI - THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND
+
+
+
+THE ship lay at a single anchor, well outside the pier of Leith, so 
+that all we passengers must come to it by the means of skiffs.  This 
+was very little trouble-some, for the reason that the day was a flat 
+calm, very frosty and cloudy, and with a low shifting fog upon the 
+water.  The body of the vessel was thus quite hid as I drew near, but 
+the tall spars of her stood high and bright in a sunshine like the 
+flickering of a fire.  She proved to be a very roomy, commodious 
+merchant, but somewhat blunt in the bows, and loaden extraordinary deep 
+with salt, salted salmon, and fine white linen stockings for the Dutch.  
+Upon my coming on board, the captain welcomed me - one Sang (out of 
+Lesmahago, I believe), a very hearty, friendly tarpaulin of a man, but 
+at the moment in rather of a bustle.  There had no other of the 
+passengers yet appeared, so that I was left to walk about upon the 
+deck, viewing the prospect and wondering a good deal what these 
+farewells should be which I was promised.
+
+All Edinburgh and the Pentland Hills glinted above me in a kind of 
+smuisty brightness, now and again overcome with blots of cloud; of 
+Leith there was no more than the tops of chimneys visible, and on the 
+face of the water, where the haar lay, nothing at all.  Out of this I 
+was presently aware of a sound of oars pulling, and a little after (as 
+if out of the smoke of a fire) a boat issued.  There sat a grave man in 
+the stern sheets, well muffled from the cold, and by his side a tall, 
+pretty, tender figure of a maid that brought my heart to a stand.  I 
+had scarce the time to catch my breath in, and be ready to meet her, as 
+she stepped upon the deck, smiling, and making my best bow, which was 
+now vastly finer than some months before, when first I made it to her 
+ladyship.  No doubt we were both a good deal changed:  she seemed to 
+have shot up like a young, comely tree.  She had now a kind of pretty 
+backwardness that became her well as of one that regarded herself more 
+highly and was fairly woman; and for another thing, the hand of the 
+same magician had been at work upon the pair of us, and Miss Grant had 
+made us both BRAW, if she could make but the one BONNY.
+
+The same cry, in words not very different, came from both of us, that 
+the other was come in compliment to say farewell, and then we perceived 
+in a flash we were to ship together.
+
+"O, why will not Baby have been telling me!" she cried; and then 
+remembered a letter she had been given, on the condition of not opening 
+it till she was well on board.  Within was an enclosure for myself, and 
+ran thus:
+
+
+"DEAR DAVIE, - What do you think of my farewell? and what do you say to 
+your fellow passenger?  Did you kiss, or did you ask?  I was about to 
+have signed here, but that would leave the purport of my question 
+doubtful, and in my own case I KEN THE ANSWER.  So fill up here with 
+good advice.  Do not be too blate, and for God's sake do not try to be 
+too forward; nothing acts you worse.  I am
+
+"Your affectionate friend and governess,
+"BARBARA GRANT."
+
+
+I wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my pocketbook, 
+put it in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed the whole with my 
+new signet of the Balfour arms, and despatched it by the hand of 
+Prestongrange's servant that still waited in my boat.
+
+Then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure, which we had 
+not done for a piece of a minute before (upon a common impulse) we 
+shook hands again.
+
+"Catriona?" said I.  It seemed that was the first and last word of my 
+eloquence.
+
+"You will be glad to see me again?" says she.
+
+"And I think that is an idle word," said I.  "We are too deep friends 
+to make speech upon such trifles."
+
+"Is she not the girl of all the world?" she cried again.  "I was never 
+knowing such a girl so honest and so beautiful."
+
+"And yet she cared no more for Alpin than what she did for a kale-
+stock," said I.
+
+"Ah, she will say so indeed!" cries Catriona.  "Yet it was for the name 
+and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and was so good to me."
+
+"Well, I will tell you why it was," said I.  "There are all sorts of 
+people's faces in this world.  There is Barbara's face, that everyone 
+must look at and admire, and think her a fine, brave, merry girl.  And 
+then there is your face, which is quite different - I never knew how 
+different till to-day.  You cannot see yourself, and that is why you do 
+not understand; but it was for the love of your face that she took you 
+up and was so good to you.  And everybody in the world would do the 
+same."
+
+"Everybody?" says she.
+
+"Every living soul?" said I.
+
+"Ah, then, that will be why the soldiers at the castle took me up!" she 
+cried,
+
+"Barbara has been teaching you to catch me," said I.
+
+"She will have taught me more than that at all events.  She will have 
+taught me a great deal about Mr. David - all the ill of him, and a 
+little that was not so ill either, now and then," she said, smiling.  
+"She will have told me all there was of Mr. David, only just that he 
+would sail upon this very same ship.  And why it is you go?"
+
+I told her.
+
+"Ah, well," said she, "we will be some days in company and then (I 
+suppose) good-bye for altogether!  I go to meet my father at a place of 
+the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be exiles by the 
+side of our chieftain."
+
+I could say no more than just "O!" the name of James More always drying 
+up my very voice.
+
+She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my thought.
+
+"There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David," said 
+she.  "I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you altogether 
+very well.  And the one of them two is James More, my father, and the 
+other is the Laird of Prestongrange.  Prestongrange will have spoken by 
+himself, or his daughter in the place of him.  But for James More, my 
+father, I have this much to say:  he lay shackled in a prison; he is a 
+plain honest soldier and a plain Highland gentleman; what they would be 
+after he would never be guessing; but if he had understood it was to be 
+some prejudice to a young gentleman like yourself, he would have died 
+first.  And for the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you 
+to pardon my father and family for that same mistake."
+
+"Catriona," said I, "what that mistake was I do not care to know.  I 
+know but the one thing - that you went to Prestongrange and begged my 
+life upon your knees.  O, I ken well enough it was for your father that 
+you went, but when you were there you pleaded for me also.  It is a 
+thing I cannot speak of.  There are two things I cannot think of into 
+myself:  and the one is your good words when you called yourself my 
+little friend, and the other that you pleaded for my life.  Let us 
+never speak more, we two, of pardon or offence."
+
+We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on her; 
+and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up in the 
+nor'-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in upon the 
+anchor.
+
+There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it a 
+full cabin.  Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkcaldy, and 
+Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany.  One was a 
+Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants' wives, to the charge of 
+one of whom Catriona was recommended.  Mrs. Gebbie (for that was her 
+name) was by great good fortune heavily incommoded by the sea, and lay 
+day and night on the broad of her back.  We were besides the only 
+creatures at all young on board the ROSE, except a white-faced boy that 
+did my old duty to attend upon the table; and it came about that 
+Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves.  We had the next 
+seats together at the table, where I waited on her with extraordinary 
+pleasure.  On deck, I made her a soft place with my cloak; and the 
+weather being singularly fine for that season, with bright frosty days 
+and nights, a steady, gentle wind, and scarce a sheet started all the 
+way through the North Sea, we sat there (only now and again walking to 
+and fro for warmth) from the first blink of the sun till eight or nine 
+at night under the clear stars.  The merchants or Captain Sang would 
+sometimes glance and smile upon us, or pass a merry word or two and 
+give us the go-by again; but the most part of the time they were deep 
+in herring and chintzes and linen, or in computations of the slowness 
+of the passage, and left us to our own concerns, which were very little 
+important to any but ourselves.
+
+At the first, we had a great deal to say, and thought ourselves pretty 
+witty; and I was at a little pains to be the BEAU, and she (I believe) 
+to play the young lady of experience.  But soon we grew plainer with 
+each other.  I laid aside my high, clipped English (what little there 
+was left of it) and forgot to make my Edinburgh bows and scrapes; she, 
+upon her side, fell into a sort of kind familiarity; and we dwelt 
+together like those of the same household, only (upon my side) with a 
+more deep emotion.  About the same time the bottom seemed to fall out 
+of our conversation, and neither one of us the less pleased.  Whiles 
+she would tell me old wives' tales, of which she had a wonderful 
+variety, many of them from my friend red-headed Niel.  She told them 
+very pretty, and they were pretty enough childish tales; but the 
+pleasure to myself was in the sound of her voice, and the thought that 
+she was telling and I listening.  Whiles, again, we would sit entirely 
+silent, not communicating even with a look, and tasting pleasure enough 
+in the sweetness of that neighbourhood.  I speak here only for myself.  
+Of what was in the maid's mind, I am not very sure that ever I asked 
+myself; and what was in my own, I was afraid to consider.  I need make 
+no secret of it now, either to myself or to the reader; I was fallen 
+totally in love.  She came between me and the sun.  She had grown 
+suddenly taller, as I say, but with a wholesome growth; she seemed all 
+health, and lightness, and brave spirits; and I thought she walked like 
+a young deer, and stood like a birch upon the mountains.  It was enough 
+for me to sit near by her on the deck; and I declare I scarce spent two 
+thoughts upon the future, and was so well content with what I then 
+enjoyed that I was never at the pains to imagine any further step; 
+unless perhaps that I would be sometimes tempted to take her hand in 
+mine and hold it there.  But I was too like a miser of what joys I had, 
+and would venture nothing on a hazard.
+
+What we spoke was usually of ourselves or of each other, so that if 
+anyone had been at so much pains as overhear us, he must have supposed 
+us the most egotistical persons in the world.  It befell one day when 
+we were at this practice, that we came on a discourse of friends and 
+friendship, and I think now that we were sailing near the wind.  We 
+said what a fine thing friendship was, and how little we had guessed of 
+it, and how it made life a new thing, and a thousand covered things of 
+the same kind that will have been said, since the foundation of the 
+world, by young folk in the same predicament.  Then we remarked upon 
+the strangeness of that circumstance, that friends came together in the 
+beginning as if they were there for the first time, and yet each had 
+been alive a good while, losing time with other people.
+
+"It is not much that I have done," said she, "and I could be telling 
+you the five-fifths of it in two-three words.  It is only a girl I am, 
+and what can befall a girl, at all events?  But I went with the clan in 
+the year '45.  The men marched with swords and fire-locks, and some of 
+them in brigades in the same set of tartan; they were not backward at 
+the marching, I can tell you.  And there were gentlemen from the Low 
+Country, with their tenants mounted and trumpets to sound, and there 
+was a grant skirling of war-pipes.  I rode on a little Highland horse 
+on the right hand of my father, James More, and of Glengyle himself.  
+And here is one fine thing that I remember, that Glengyle kissed me in 
+the face, because (says he) 'my kinswoman, you are the only lady of the 
+clan that has come out,' and me a little maid of maybe twelve years 
+old!  I saw Prince Charlie too, and the blue eyes of him; he was pretty 
+indeed!  I had his hand to kiss in front of the army.  O, well, these 
+were the good days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and 
+then awakened.  It went what way you very well know; and these were the 
+worst days of all, when the red-coat soldiers were out, and my father 
+and uncles lay in the hill, and I was to be carrying them their meat in 
+the middle night, or at the short sight of day when the cocks crow.  
+Yes, I have walked in the night, many's the time, and my heart great in 
+me for terror of the darkness.  It is a strange thing I will never have 
+been meddled with by a bogle; but they say a maid goes safe.  Next 
+there was my uncle's marriage, and that was a dreadful affair beyond 
+all.  Jean Kay was that woman's name; and she had me in the room with 
+her that night at Inversnaid, the night we took her from her friends in 
+the old, ancient manner.  She would and she wouldn't; she was for 
+marrying Rob the one minute, and the next she would be for none of him.  
+I will never have seen such a feckless creature of a woman; surely all 
+there was of her would tell her ay or no.  Well, she was a widow; and I 
+can never be thinking a widow a good woman."
+
+"Catriona!" says I, "how do you make out that?"
+
+"I do not know," said she; "I am only telling you the seeming in my 
+heart.  And then to marry a new man!  Fy!  But that was her; and she 
+was married again upon my Uncle Robin, and went with him awhile to kirk 
+and market; and then wearied, or else her friends got claught of her 
+and talked her round, or maybe she turned ashamed; at the least of it, 
+she ran away, and went back to her own folk, and said we had held her 
+in the lake, and I will never tell you all what.  I have never thought 
+much of any females since that day.  And so in the end my father, James 
+More, came to be cast in prison, and you know the rest of it an well as 
+me."
+
+"And through all you had no friends?" said I.
+
+"No," said she; "I have been pretty chief with two-three lasses on the 
+braes, but not to call it friends."
+
+"Well, mine is a plain tale," said I.  "I never had a friend to my name 
+till I met in with you."
+
+"And that brave Mr. Stewart?" she asked.
+
+"O, yes, I was forgetting him," I said.  "But he in a man, and that in 
+very different."
+
+"I would think so," said she.  "O, yes, it is quite different."
+
+"And then there was one other," said I.  "I once thought I had a 
+friend, but it proved a disappointment."
+
+She asked me who she was?
+
+"It was a he, then," said I.  "We were the two best lads at my father's 
+school, and we thought we loved each other dearly.  Well, the time came 
+when he went to Glasgow to a merchant's house, that was his second 
+cousin once removed; and wrote me two-three times by the carrier; and 
+then he found new friends, and I might write till I was tired, he took 
+no notice.  Eh, Catriona, it took me a long while to forgive the world.  
+There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend."
+
+Then she began to question me close upon his looks and character, for 
+we were each a great deal concerned in all that touched the other; till 
+at last, in a very evil hour, I minded of his letters and went and 
+fetched the bundle from the cabin.
+
+"Here are his letters," said I, "and all the letters that ever I got.  
+That will be the last I'll can tell of myself; ye know the lave as well 
+as I do."
+
+"Will you let me read them, then?" says she.
+
+I told her, IF SHE WOULD BE AT THE PAINS; and she bade me go away and 
+she would read them from the one end to the other.  Now, in this bundle 
+that I gave her, there were packed together not only all the letters of 
+my false friend, but one or two of Mr. Campbell's when he was in town 
+at the Assembly, and to make a complete roll of all that ever was 
+written to me, Catriona's little word, and the two I had received from 
+Miss Grant, one when I was on the Bass and one on board that ship.  But 
+of these last I had no particular mind at the moment.
+
+I was in that state of subjection to the thought of my friend that it 
+mattered not what I did, nor scarce whether I was in her presence or 
+out of it; I had caught her like some kind of a noble fever that lived 
+continually in my bosom, by night and by day, and whether I was waking 
+or asleep.  So it befell that after I was come into the fore-part of 
+the ship where the broad bows splashed into the billows, I was in no 
+such hurry to return as you might fancy; rather prolonged my absence 
+like a variety in pleasure.  I do not think I am by nature much of an 
+Epicurean:  and there had come till then so small a share of pleasure 
+in my way that I might be excused perhaps to dwell on it unduly.
+
+When I returned to her again, I had a faint, painful impression as of a 
+buckle slipped, so coldly she returned the packet.
+
+"You have read them?" said I; and I thought my voice sounded not wholly 
+natural, for I was turning in my mind for what could ail her.
+
+"Did you mean me to read all?" she asked.
+
+I told her "Yes," with a drooping voice.
+
+"The last of them as well?" said she.
+
+I knew where we were now; yet I would not lie to her either.  "I gave 
+them all without afterthought," I said, "as I supposed that you would 
+read them.  I see no harm in any."
+
+"I will be differently made," said she.  "I thank God I am differently 
+made.  It was not a fit letter to be shown me.  It was not fit to be 
+written."
+
+"I think you are speaking of your own friend, Barbara Grant?" said I.
+
+"There will not be anything as bitter as to lose a fancied friend," 
+said she, quoting my own expression.
+
+"I think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied!" I cried.  
+"What kind of justice do you call this, to blame me for some words that 
+a tomfool of a madcap lass has written down upon a piece of paper?  You 
+know yourself with what respect I have behaved - and would do always."
+
+"Yet you would show me that same letter!" says she.  "I want no such 
+friends.  I can be doing very well, Mr. Balfour, without her - or you."
+
+"This is your fine gratitude!" says I.
+
+"I am very much obliged to you," said she.  "I will be asking you to 
+take away your - letters."  She seemed to choke upon the word, so that 
+it sounded like an oath.
+
+"You shall never ask twice," said I; picked up that bundle, walked a 
+little way forward and cast them as far as possible into the sea.  For 
+a very little more I could have cast myself after them.
+
+The rest of the day I walked up and down raging.  There were few names 
+so ill but what I gave her them in my own mind before the sun went 
+down.  All that I had ever heard of Highland pride seemed quite 
+outdone; that a girl (scarce grown) should resent so trifling an 
+allusion, and that from her next friend, that she had near wearied me 
+with praising of!  I had bitter, sharp, hard thoughts of her, like an 
+angry boy's.  If I had kissed her indeed (I thought), perhaps she would 
+have taken it pretty well; and only because it had been written down, 
+and with a spice of jocularity, up she must fuff in this ridiculous 
+passion.  It seemed to me there was a want of penetration in the female 
+sex, to make angels weep over the case of the poor men.
+
+We were side by side again at supper, and what a change was there!  She 
+was like curdled milk to me; her face was like a wooden doll's; I could 
+have indifferently smitten her or grovelled at her feet, but she gave 
+me not the least occasion to do either.  No sooner the meal done than 
+she betook herself to attend on Mrs. Gebbie, which I think she had a 
+little neglected heretofore.  But she was to make up for lost time, and 
+in what remained of the passage was extraordinary assiduous with the 
+old lady, and on deck began to make a great deal more than I thought 
+wise of Captain Sang.  Not but what the Captain seemed a worthy, 
+fatherly man; but I hated to behold her in the least familiarity with 
+anyone except myself.
+
+Altogether, she was so quick to avoid me, and so constant to keep 
+herself surrounded with others, that I must watch a long while before I 
+could find my opportunity; and after it was found, I made not much of 
+it, as you are now to hear.
+
+"I have no guess how I have offended," said I; "it should scarce be 
+beyond pardon, then.  O, try if you can pardon me."
+
+"I have no pardon to give," said she; and the words seemed to come out 
+of her throat like marbles.  "I will be very much obliged for all your 
+friendships."  And she made me an eighth part of a curtsey.
+
+But I had schooled myself beforehand to say more, and I was going to 
+say it too.
+
+"There is one thing," said I.  "If I have shocked your particularity by 
+the showing of that letter, it cannot touch Miss Grant.  She wrote not 
+to you, but to a poor, common, ordinary lad, who might have had more 
+sense than show it.  If you are to blame me - "
+
+"I will advise you to say no more about that girl, at all events!" said 
+Catriona.  "It is her I will never look the road of, not if she lay 
+dying."  She turned away from me, and suddenly back.  "Will you swear 
+you will have no more to deal with her?" she cried.
+
+"Indeed, and I will never be so unjust then," said I; "nor yet so 
+ungrateful."
+
+And now it was I that turned away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII - HELVOETSLUYS
+
+
+
+THE weather in the end considerably worsened; the wind sang in the 
+shrouds, the sea swelled higher, and the ship began to labour and cry 
+out among the billows.  The song of the leadsman in the chains was now 
+scarce ceasing, for we thrid all the way among shoals.  About nine in 
+the morning, in a burst of wintry sun between two squalls of hail, I 
+had my first look of Holland - a line of windmills birling in the 
+breeze.  It was besides my first knowledge of these daft-like 
+contrivances, which gave me a near sense of foreign travel and a new 
+world and life.  We came to an anchor about half-past eleven, outside 
+the harbour of Helvoetsluys, in a place where the sea sometimes broke 
+and the ship pitched outrageously.  You may be sure we were all on deck 
+save Mrs. Gebbie, some of us in cloaks, others mantled in the ship's 
+tarpaulins, all clinging on by ropes, and jesting the most like old 
+sailor-folk that we could imitate.
+
+Presently a boat, that was backed like a partancrab, came gingerly 
+alongside, and the skipper of it hailed our master in the Dutch.  
+Thence Captain Sang turned, very troubled-like, to Catriona; and the 
+rest of us crowding about, the nature of the difficulty was made plain 
+to all.  The ROSE was bound to the port of Rotterdam, whither the other 
+passengers were in a great impatience to arrive, in view of a 
+conveyance due to leave that very evening in the direction of the Upper 
+Germany.  This, with the present half-gale of wind, the captain (if no 
+time were lost) declared himself still capable to save.  Now James More 
+had trysted in Helvoet with his daughter, and the captain had engaged 
+to call before the port and place her (according to the custom) in a 
+shore boat.  There was the boat, to be sure, and here was Catriona 
+ready:  but both our master and the patroon of the boat scrupled at the 
+risk, and the first was in no humour to delay.
+
+"Your father," said he, "would be gey an little pleased if we was to 
+break a leg to ye, Miss Drummond, let-a-be drowning of you.  Take my 
+way of it," says he, "and come on-by with the rest of us here to 
+Rotterdam.  Ye can get a passage down the Maes in a sailing scoot as 
+far as to the Brill, and thence on again, by a place in a rattel-
+waggon, back to Helvoet."
+
+But Catriona would hear of no change.  She looked white-like as she 
+beheld the bursting of the sprays, the green seas that sometimes poured 
+upon the fore-castle, and the perpetual bounding and swooping of the 
+boat among the billows; but she stood firmly by her father's orders.  
+"My father, James More, will have arranged it so," was her first word 
+and her last.  I thought it very idle and indeed wanton in the girl to 
+be so literal and stand opposite to so much kind advice; but the fact 
+is she had a very good reason, if she would have told us.  Sailing 
+scoots and rattel-waggons are excellent things; only the use of them 
+must first be paid for, and all she was possessed of in the world was 
+just two shillings and a penny halfpenny sterling.  So it fell out that 
+captain and passengers, not knowing of her destitution - and she being 
+too proud to tell them - spoke in vain.
+
+"But you ken nae French and nae Dutch neither," said one.
+
+"It is very true," says she, "but since the year '46 there are so many 
+of the honest Scotch abroad that I will be doing very well.  I thank 
+you."
+
+There was a pretty country simplicity in this that made some laugh, 
+others looked the more sorry, and Mr. Gebbie fall outright in a 
+passion.  I believe he knew it was his duty (his wife having accepted 
+charge of the girl) to have gone ashore with her and seen her safe:  
+nothing would have induced him to have done so, since it must have 
+involved the lose of his conveyance; and I think he made it up to his 
+conscience by the loudness of his voice.  At least he broke out upon 
+Captain Sang, raging and saying the thing was a disgrace; that it was 
+mere death to try to leave the ship, and at any event we could not cast 
+down an innocent maid in a boatful of nasty Holland fishers, and leave 
+her to her fate.  I was thinking something of the same; took the mate 
+upon one side, arranged with him to send on my chests by track-scoot to 
+an address I had in Leyden, and stood up and signalled to the fishers.
+
+"I will go ashore with the young lady, Captain Sang," said I.  "It is 
+all one what way I go to Leyden;" and leaped at the same time into the 
+boat, which I managed not so elegantly but what I fell with two of the 
+fishers in the bilge.
+
+From the boat the business appeared yet more precarious than from the 
+ship, she stood so high over us, swung down so swift, and menaced us so 
+perpetually with her plunging and passaging upon the anchor cable.  I 
+began to think I had made a fool's bargain, that it was merely 
+impossible Catriona should be got on board to me, and that I stood to 
+be set ashore at Helvoet all by myself and with no hope of any reward 
+but the pleasure of embracing James More, if I should want to.  But 
+this was to reckon without the lass's courage.  She had seen me leap 
+with very little appearance (however much reality) of hesitation; to be 
+sure, she was not to be beat by her discarded friend.  Up she stood on 
+the bulwarks and held by a stay, the wind blowing in her petticoats, 
+which made the enterprise more dangerous, and gave us rather more of a 
+view of her stockings than would be thought genteel in cities.  There 
+was no minute lost, and scarce time given for any to interfere if they 
+had wished the same.  I stood up on the other side and spread my arms; 
+the ship swung down on us, the patroon humoured his boat nearer in than 
+was perhaps wholly safe, and Catriona leaped into the air.  I was so 
+happy as to catch her, and the fishers readily supporting us, escaped a 
+fall.  She held to me a moment very tight, breathing quick and deep; 
+thence (she still clinging to me with both hands) we were passed aft to 
+our places by the steersman; and Captain Sang and all the crew and 
+passengers cheering and crying farewell, the boat was put about for 
+shore.
+
+As soon as Catriona came a little to herself she unhanded me suddenly, 
+but said no word.  No more did I; and indeed the whistling of the wind 
+and the breaching of the sprays made it no time for speech; and our 
+crew not only toiled excessively but made extremely little way, so that 
+the ROSE had got her anchor and was off again before we had approached 
+the harbour mouth.
+
+We were no sooner in smooth water than the patroon, according to their 
+beastly Hollands custom, stopped his boat and required of us our fares.  
+Two guilders was the man's demand - between three and four shillings 
+English money - for each passenger.  But at this Catriona began to cry 
+out with a vast deal of agitation.  She had asked of Captain Sang, she 
+said, and the fare was but an English shilling.  "Do you think I will 
+have come on board and not ask first?" cries she.  The patroon scolded 
+back upon her in a lingo where the oaths were English and the rest 
+right Hollands; till at last (seeing her near tears) I privately 
+slipped in the rogue's hand six shillings, whereupon he was obliging 
+enough to receive from her the other shilling without more complaint.  
+No doubt I was a good deal nettled and ashamed.  I like to see folk 
+thrifty, but not with so much passion; and I daresay it would be rather 
+coldly that I asked her, as the boat moved on again for shore, where it 
+was that she was trysted with her father.
+
+"He is to be inquired of at the house of one Sprott, an honest Scotch 
+merchant," says she; and then with the same breath, "I am wishing to 
+thank you very much - you are a brave friend to me."
+
+"It will be time enough when I get you to your father," said I, little 
+thinking that I spoke so true.  "I can tell him a fine tale of a loyal 
+daughter."
+
+"O, I do not think I will be a loyal girl, at all events," she cried, 
+with a great deal of painfulness in the expression.  "I do not think my 
+heart is true."
+
+"Yet there are very few that would have made that leap, and all to obey 
+a father's orders," I observed.
+
+"I cannot have you to be thinking of me so," she cried again.  "When 
+you had done that same, how would I stop behind?  And at all events 
+that was not all the reasons."  Whereupon, with a burning face, she 
+told me the plain truth upon her poverty.
+
+"Good guide us!" cried I, "what kind of daft-like proceeding is this, 
+to let yourself be launched on the continent of Europe with an empty 
+purse - I count it hardly decent - scant decent!" I cried.
+
+"You forget James More, my father, is a poor gentleman," said she.  "He 
+is a hunted exile."
+
+"But I think not all your friends are hunted exiles," I exclaimed.  
+"And was this fair to them that care for you?  Was it fair to me? was 
+it fair to Miss Grant that counselled you to go, and would be driven 
+fair horn-mad if she could hear of it?  Was it even fair to these 
+Gregory folk that you were living with, and used you lovingly?  It's a 
+blessing you have fallen in my hands!  Suppose your father hindered by 
+an accident, what would become of you here, and you your lee-lone in a 
+strange place?  The thought of the thing frightens me," I said.
+
+"I will have lied to all of them," she replied.  "I will have told them 
+all that I had plenty.  I told HER too.  I could not be lowering James 
+More to them."
+
+I found out later on that she must have lowered him in the very dust, 
+for the lie was originally the father's, not the daughter's, and she 
+thus obliged to persevere in it for the man's reputation.  But at the 
+time I was ignorant of this, and the mere thought of her destitution 
+and the perils in which see must have fallen, had ruffled me almost 
+beyond reason.
+
+"Well, well, well," said I, "you will have to learn more sense."
+
+I left her mails for the moment in an inn upon the shore, where I got a 
+direction for Sprott's house in my new French, and we walked there - it 
+was some little way - beholding the place with wonder as we went.  
+Indeed, there was much for Scots folk to admire:  canals and trees 
+being intermingled with the houses; the houses, each within itself, of 
+a brave red brick, the colour of a rose, with steps and benches of blue 
+marble at the cheek of every door, and the whole town so clean you 
+might have dined upon the causeway.  Sprott was within, upon his 
+ledgers, in a low parlour, very neat and clean, and set out with china 
+and pictures, and a globe of the earth in a brass frame.  He was a big-
+chafted, ruddy, lusty man, with a crooked hard look to him; and he made 
+us not that much civility as offer us a seat.
+
+"Is James More Macgregor now in Helvoet, sir?" says I.
+
+"I ken nobody by such a name," says he, impatient-like.
+
+"Since you are so particular," says I, "I will amend my question, and 
+ask you where we are to find in Helvoet one James Drummond, ALIAS 
+Macgregor, ALIAS James More, late tenant in Inveronachile?"
+
+"Sir," says he, "he may be in Hell for what I ken, and for my part I 
+wish he was."
+
+"The young lady is that gentleman's daughter, sir," said I, "before 
+whom, I think you will agree with me, it is not very becoming to 
+discuss his character."
+
+"I have nothing to make either with him, or her, or you!" cries he in 
+his gross voice.
+
+"Under your favour, Mr. Sprott," said I, "this young lady is come from 
+Scotland seeking him, and by whatever mistake, was given the name of 
+your house for a direction.  An error it seems to have been, but I 
+think this places both you and me - who am but her fellow-traveller by 
+accident - under a strong obligation to help our countrywoman."
+
+"Will you ding me daft?" he cries.  "I tell ye I ken naething and care 
+less either for him or his breed.  I tell ye the man owes me money."
+
+"That may very well be, sir," said I, who was now rather more angry 
+than himself.  "At least, I owe you nothing; the young lady is under my 
+protection; and I am neither at all used with these manners, nor in the 
+least content with them."
+
+As I said this, and without particularly thinking what I did, I drew a 
+step or two nearer to his table; thus striking, by mere good fortune, 
+on the only argument that could at all affect the man.  The blood left 
+his lusty countenance.
+
+"For the Lord's sake dinna be hasty, sir!" he cried.  "I am truly 
+wishfu' no to be offensive.  But ye ken, sir, I'm like a wheen guid-
+natured, honest, canty auld fellows - my bark is waur nor my bite.  To 
+hear me, ye micht whiles fancy I was a wee thing dour; but na, na! it's 
+a kind auld fallow at heart, Sandie Sprott!  And ye could never imagine 
+the fyke and fash this man has been to me."
+
+"Very good, sir," said I.  "Then I will make that much freedom with 
+your kindness as trouble you for your last news of Mr. Drummond."
+
+"You're welcome, sir!" said he.  "As for the young leddy (my respects 
+to her!), he'll just have clean forgotten her.  I ken the man, ye see; 
+I have lost siller by him ere now.  He thinks of naebody but just 
+himsel'; clan, king, or dauchter, if he can get his wameful, he would 
+give them a' the go-by! ay, or his correspondent either.  For there is 
+a sense in whilk I may be nearly almost said to be his correspondent.  
+The fact is, we are employed thegether in a business affair, and I 
+think it's like to turn out a dear affair for Sandie Sprott.  The man's 
+as guid's my pairtner, and I give ye my mere word I ken naething by 
+where he is.  He micht be coming here to Helvoet; he micht come here 
+the morn, he michtnae come for a twalmouth; I would wonder at naething 
+- or just at the ae thing, and that's if he was to pay me my siller.  
+Ye see what way I stand with it; and it's clear I'm no very likely to 
+meddle up with the young leddy, as ye ca' her.  She cannae stop here, 
+that's ae thing certain sure.  Dod, sir, I'm a lone man!  If I was to 
+tak her in, its highly possible the hellicat would try and gar me marry 
+her when he turned up."
+
+"Enough of this talk," said I.  "I will take the young leddy among 
+better friends.  Give me, pen, ink, and paper, and I will leave here 
+for James More the address of my correspondent in Leyden.  He can 
+inquire from me where he is to seek his daughter."
+
+This word I wrote and sealed; which while I was doing, Sprott of his 
+own motion made a welcome offer, to charge himself with Miss Drummond's 
+mails, and even send a porter for them to the inn.  I advanced him to 
+that effect a dollar or two to be a cover, and he gave me an 
+acknowledgment in writing of the sum.
+
+Whereupon (I giving my arm to Catriona) we left the house of this 
+unpalatable rascal.  She had said no word throughout, leaving me to 
+judge and speak in her place; I, upon my side, had been careful not to 
+embarrass her by a glance; and even now, although my heart still glowed 
+inside of me with shame and anger, I made it my affair to seem quite 
+easy.
+
+"Now," said I, "let us get back to yon same inn where they can speak 
+the French, have a piece of dinner, and inquire for conveyances to 
+Rotterdam.  I will never be easy till I have you safe again in the 
+hands of Mrs. Gebbie."
+
+"I suppose it will have to be," said Catriona, "though whoever will be 
+pleased, I do not think it will be her.  And I will remind you this 
+once again that I have but one shilling, and three baubees."
+
+"And just this once again," said I, "I will remind you it was a 
+blessing that I came alongst with you."
+
+"What else would I be thinking all this time?" says she, and I thought 
+weighed a little on my arm.  "It is you that are the good friend to 
+me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII - TRAVELS IN HOLLAND
+
+
+
+THE rattel-waggon, which is a kind of a long waggon set with benches, 
+carried us in four hours of travel to the great city of Rotterdam.  It 
+was long past dark by then, but the streets were pretty brightly 
+lighted and thronged with wild-like, outlandish characters - bearded 
+Hebrews, black men, and the hordes of courtesans, most indecently 
+adorned with finery and stopping seamen by their very sleeves; the 
+clash of talk about us made our heads to whirl; and what was the most 
+unexpected of all, we appeared to be no more struck with all these 
+foreigners than they with us.  I made the best face I could, for the 
+lass's sake and my own credit; but the truth is I felt like a lost 
+sheep, and my heart beat in my bosom with anxiety.  Once or twice I 
+inquired after the harbour or the berth of the ship ROSE:  but either 
+fell on some who spoke only Hollands, or my own French failed me.  
+Trying a street at a venture, I came upon a lane of lighted houses, the 
+doors and windows thronged with wauf-like painted women; these jostled 
+and mocked upon us as we passed, and I was thankful we had nothing of 
+their language.  A little after we issued forth upon an open place 
+along the harbour.
+
+"We shall be doing now," cries I, as soon as I spied masts.  "Let us 
+walk here by the harbour.  We are sure to meet some that has the 
+English, and at the best of it we may light upon that very ship."
+
+We did the next best, as happened; for, about nine of the evening, whom 
+should we walk into the arms of but Captain Sang?  He told us they had 
+made their run in the most incredible brief time, the wind holding 
+strong till they reached port; by which means his passengers were all 
+gone already on their further travels.  It was impossible to chase 
+after the Gebbies into the High Germany, and we had no other 
+acquaintance to fall back upon but Captain Sang himself.  It was the 
+more gratifying to find the man friendly and wishful to assist.  He 
+made it a small affair to find some good plain family of merchants, 
+where Catriona might harbour till the ROSE was loaden; declared he 
+would then blithely carry her back to Leith for nothing and see her 
+safe in the hands of Mr. Gregory; and in the meanwhile carried us to a 
+late ordinary for the meal we stood in need of.  He seemed extremely 
+friendly, as I say, but what surprised me a good deal, rather 
+boisterous in the bargain; and the cause of this was soon to appear.  
+For at the ordinary, calling for Rhenish wine and drinking of it deep, 
+he soon became unutterably tipsy.  In this case, as too common with all 
+men, but especially with those of his rough trade, what little sense or 
+manners he possessed deserted him; and he behaved himself so scandalous 
+to the young lady, jesting most ill-favouredly at the figure she had 
+made on the ship's rail, that I had no resource but carry her suddenly 
+away.
+
+She came out of the ordinary clinging to me close.  "Take me away, 
+David," she said.  "YOU keep me.  I am not afraid with you."
+
+"And have no cause, my little friend!" cried I, and could have found it 
+in my heart to weep.
+
+"Where will you be taking me?" she said again.  "Don't leave me at all 
+events - never leave me."
+
+"Where am I taking you to?" says I stopping, for I had been staving on 
+ahead in mere blindness.  "I must stop and think.  But I'll not leave 
+you, Catriona; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I should fail or 
+fash you."
+
+She crept close into me by way of a reply.
+
+"Here," I said, "is the stillest place we have hit on yet in this busy 
+byke of a city.  Let us sit down here under yon tree and consider of 
+our course."
+
+That tree (which I am little like to forget) stood hard by the harbour 
+side.  It was like a black night, but lights were in the houses, and 
+nearer hand in the quiet ships; there was a shining of the city on the 
+one hand, and a buzz hung over it of many thousands walking and 
+talking; on the other, it was dark and the water bubbled on the sides.  
+I spread my cloak upon a builder's stone, and made her sit there; she 
+would have kept her hold upon me, for she still shook with the late 
+affronts; but I wanted to think clear, disengaged myself, and paced to 
+and fro before her, in the manner of what we call a smuggler's walk, 
+belabouring my brains for any remedy.  By the course of these 
+scattering thoughts I was brought suddenly face to face with a 
+remembrance that, in the heat and haste of our departure, I had left 
+Captain Sang to pay the ordinary.  At this I began to laugh out loud, 
+for I thought the man well served; and at the same time, by an 
+instinctive movement, carried my hand to the pocket where my money was.  
+I suppose it was in the lane where the women jostled us; but there is 
+only the one thing certain, that my purse was gone.
+
+"You will have thought of something good," said she, observing me to 
+pause.
+
+At the pinch we were in, my mind became suddenly clear as a perspective 
+glass, and I saw there was no choice of methods.  I had not one doit of 
+coin, but in my pocket-book I had still my letter on the Leyden 
+merchant; and there was now but the one way to get to Leyden, and that 
+was to walk on our two feet.
+
+"Catriona," said I, "I know you're brave and I believe you're strong - 
+do you think you could walk thirty miles on a plain road?"  We found 
+it, I believe, scarce the two-thirds of that, but such was my notion of 
+the distance.
+
+"David," she said, "if you will just keep near, I will go anywhere and 
+do anything.  The courage of my heart, it is all broken.  Do not be 
+leaving me in this horrible country by myself, and I will do all else."
+
+"Can you start now and march all night?" said I.
+
+"I will do all that you can ask of me," she said, "and never ask you 
+why.  I have been a bad ungrateful girl to you; and do what you please 
+with me now!  And I think Miss Barbara Grant is the best lady in the 
+world," she added, "and I do not see what she would deny you for at all 
+events."
+
+This was Greek and Hebrew to me; but I had other matters to consider, 
+and the first of these was to get clear of that city on the Leyden 
+road.  It proved a cruel problem; and it may have been one or two at 
+night ere we had solved it.  Once beyond the houses, there was neither 
+moon nor stars to guide us; only the whiteness of the way in the midst 
+and a blackness of an alley on both hands.  The walking was besides 
+made most extraordinary difficult by a plain black frost that fell 
+suddenly in the small hours and turned that highway into one long 
+slide.
+
+"Well, Catriona," said I, "here we are like the king's sons and the old 
+wives' daughters in your daft-like Highland tales.  Soon we'll be going 
+over the 'SEVEN BENS, THE SEVEN GLENS AND THE SEVEN MOUNTAIN MOORS'."  
+Which was a common byword or overcome in those tales of hers that had 
+stuck in my memory.
+
+"Ah," says she, "but here are no glens or mountains!  Though I will 
+never be denying but what the trees and some of the plain places 
+hereabouts are very pretty.  But our country is the best yet."
+
+"I wish we could say as much for our own folk," says I, recalling 
+Sprott and Sang, and perhaps James More himself.
+
+"I will never complain of the country of my friend," said she, and 
+spoke it out with an accent so particular that I seemed to see the look 
+upon her face.
+
+I caught in my breath sharp and came near falling (for my pains) on the 
+black ice.
+
+"I do not know what YOU think, Catriona," said I, when I was a little 
+recovered, "but this has been the best day yet!  I think shame to say 
+it, when you have met in with such misfortunes and disfavours; but for 
+me, it has been the best day yet."
+
+"It was a good day when you showed me so much love," said she.
+
+"And yet I think shame to be happy too," I went on, "and you here on 
+the road in the black night."
+
+"Where in the great world would I be else?" she cried.  "I am thinking 
+I am safest where I am with you."
+
+"I am quite forgiven, then?" I asked.
+
+"Will you not forgive me that time so much as not to take it in your 
+mouth again?" she cried.  "There is nothing in this heart to you but 
+thanks.  But I will be honest too," she added, with a kind of 
+suddenness, "and I'll never can forgive that girl."
+
+"Is this Miss Grant again?" said I.  "You said yourself she was the 
+best lady in the world."
+
+"So she will be, indeed!" says Catriona.  "But I will never forgive her 
+for all that.  I will never, never forgive her, and let me hear tell of 
+her no more."
+
+"Well," said I, "this beats all that ever came to my knowledge; and I 
+wonder that you can indulge yourself in such bairnly whims.  Here is a 
+young lady that was the best friend in the world to the both of us, 
+that learned us how to dress ourselves, and in a great manner how to 
+behave, as anyone can see that knew us both before and after."
+
+But Catriona stopped square in the midst of the highway.
+
+"It is this way of it," said she.  "Either you will go on to speak of 
+her, and I will go back to yon town, and let come of it what God 
+pleases!  Or else you will do me that politeness to talk of other 
+things."
+
+I was the most nonplussed person in this world; but I bethought me that 
+she depended altogether on my help, that she was of the frail sex and 
+not so much beyond a child, and it was for me to be wise for the pair 
+of us.
+
+"My dear girl," said I, "I can make neither head nor tails of this; but 
+God forbid that I should do anything to set you on the jee.  As for 
+talking of Miss Grant, I have no such a mind to it, and I believe it 
+was yourself began it.  My only design (if I took you up at all) was 
+for your own improvement, for I hate the very look of injustice.  Not 
+that I do not wish you to have a good pride and a nice female delicacy; 
+they become you well; but here you show them to excess."
+
+"Well, then, have you done?" said she.
+
+"I have done," said I.
+
+"A very good thing," said she, and we went on again, but now in 
+silence.
+
+It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding only 
+shadows and hearing nought but our own steps.  At first, I believe our 
+hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity; but the 
+darkness and the cold, and the silence, which only the cocks sometimes 
+interrupted, or sometimes the farmyard dogs, had pretty soon brought 
+down our pride to the dust; and for my own particular, I would have 
+jumped at any decent opening for speech.
+
+Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was all 
+wiped away from among our feet.  I took my cloak to her and sought to 
+hap her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to keep it.
+
+"Indeed and I will do no such thing," said I.  "Here am I, a great, 
+ugly lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here are you a tender, 
+pretty maid!  My dear, you would not put me to a shame?"
+
+Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in the 
+darkness, I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost like an 
+embrace.
+
+"You must try to be more patient of your friend," said I.
+
+I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against my 
+bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.
+
+"There will be no end to your goodness," said she.
+
+And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the 
+happiness that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.
+
+The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came into 
+the town of Delft.  The red gabled houses made a handsome show on 
+either hand of a canal; the servant lassies were out slestering and 
+scrubbing at the very stones upon the public highway; smoke rose from a 
+hundred kitchens; and it came in upon me strongly it was time to break 
+our fasts.
+
+"Catriona," said I, "I believe you have yet a shilling and three 
+baubees?"
+
+"Are you wanting it?" said she, and passed me her purse.  "I am wishing 
+it was five pounds!  What will you want it for?"
+
+"And what have we been walking for all night, like a pair of waif 
+Egyptians!" says I.  "Just because I was robbed of my purse and all I 
+possessed in that unchancy town of Rotterdam.  I will tell you of it 
+now, because I think the worst is over, but we have still a good tramp 
+before us till we get to where my money is, and if you would not buy me 
+a piece of bread, I were like to go fasting."
+
+She looked at me with open eyes.  By the light of the new day she was 
+all black and pale for weariness, so that my heart smote me for her.  
+But as for her, she broke out laughing.
+
+"My torture! are we beggars then!" she cried.  "You too?  O, I could 
+have wished for this same thing!  And I am glad to buy your breakfast 
+to you.  But it would be pleisand if I would have had to dance to get a 
+meal to you!  For I believe they are not very well acquainted with our 
+manner of dancing over here, and might be paying for the curiosity of 
+that sight."
+
+I could have kissed her for that word, not with a lover's mind, but in 
+a heat of admiration.  For it always warms a man to see a woman brave.
+
+We got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the town, 
+and in a baker's, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling bread, 
+which we ate upon the road as we went on.  That road from Delft to the 
+Hague is just five miles of a fine avenue shaded with trees, a canal on 
+the one hand, on the other excellent pastures of cattle.  It was 
+pleasant here indeed.
+
+"And now, Davie," said she, "what will you do with me at all events?"
+
+"It is what we have to speak of," said I, "and the sooner yet the 
+better.  I can come by money in Leyden; that will be all well.  But the 
+trouble is how to dispose of you until your father come.  I thought 
+last night you seemed a little sweir to part from me?"
+
+"It will be more than seeming then," said she.
+
+"You are a very young maid," said I, "and I am but a very young 
+callant.  This is a great piece of difficulty.  What way are we to 
+manage?  Unless indeed, you could pass to be my sister?"
+
+"And what for no?" said she, "if you would let me!"
+
+"I wish you were so, indeed," I cried.  "I would be a fine man if I had 
+such a sister.  But the rub is that you are Catriona Drummond."
+
+"And now I will be Catriona Balfour," she said.  "And who is to ken?  
+They are all strange folk here."
+
+"If you think that it would do," says I.  "I own it troubles me.  I 
+would like it very ill, if I advised you at all wrong."
+
+"David, I have no friend here but you," she said.
+
+"The mere truth is, I am too young to be your friend," said I.  "I am 
+too young to advise you, or you to be advised.  I see not what else we 
+are to do, and yet I ought to warn you."
+
+"I will have no choice left," said she.  "My father James More has not 
+used me very well, and it is not the first time, I am cast upon your 
+hands like a sack of barley meal, and have nothing else to think of but 
+your pleasure.  If you will have me, good and well.  If you will not" - 
+she turned and touched her hand upon my arm - "David, I am afraid," 
+said she.
+
+"No, but I ought to warn you," I began; and then bethought me I was the 
+bearer of the purse, and it would never do to seem too churlish.  
+"Catriona," said I, "don't misunderstand me:  I am just trying to do my 
+duty by you, girl!  Here am I going alone to this strange city, to be a 
+solitary student there; and here is this chance arisen that you might 
+dwell with me a bit, and be like my sister; you can surely understand 
+this much, my dear, that I would just love to have you?"
+
+"Well, and here I am," said she.  "So that's soon settled."
+
+I know I was in duty bounden to have spoke more plain.  I know this was 
+a great blot on my character, for which I was lucky that I did not pay 
+more dear.  But I minded how easy her delicacy had been startled with a 
+word of kissing her in Barbara's letter; now that she depended on me, 
+how was I to be more bold?  Besides, the truth is, I could see no other 
+feasible method to dispose of her.  And I daresay inclination pulled me 
+very strong.
+
+A little beyond the Hague she fell very lame and made the rest of the 
+distance heavily enough.  Twice she must rest by the wayside, which she 
+did with pretty apologies, calling herself a shame to the Highlands and 
+the race she came of, and nothing but a hindrance to myself.  It was 
+her excuse, she said, that she was not much used with walking shod.  I 
+would have had her strip off her shoes and stockings and go barefoot.  
+But she pointed out to me that the women of that country, even in the 
+landward roads, appeared to be all shod.
+
+"I must not be disgracing my brother," said she, and was very merry 
+with it all, although her face told tales of her.
+
+There is a garden in that city we were bound to, sanded below with 
+clean sand, the trees meeting overhead, some of them trimmed, some 
+preached, and the whole place beautified with alleys and arbours.  Here 
+I left Catriona, and went forward by myself to find my correspondent.  
+There I drew on my credit, and asked to be recommended to some decent, 
+retired lodging.  My baggage being not yet arrived, I told him I 
+supposed I should require his caution with the people of the house; and 
+explained that, my sister being come for a while to keep house with me, 
+I should be wanting two chambers.  This was all very well; but the 
+trouble was that Mr. Balfour in his letter of recommendation had 
+condescended on a great deal of particulars, and never a word of any 
+sister in the case.  I could see my Dutchman was extremely suspicious; 
+and viewing me over the rims of a great pair of spectacles - he was a 
+poor, frail body, and reminded me of an infirm rabbit - he began to 
+question me close.
+
+Here I fell in a panic.  Suppose he accept my tale (thinks I), suppose 
+he invite my sister to his house, and that I bring her.  I shall have a 
+fine ravelled pirn to unwind, and may end by disgracing both the lassie 
+and myself.  Thereupon I began hastily to expound to him my sister's 
+character.  She was of a bashful disposition, it appeared, and be 
+extremely fearful of meeting strangers that I had left her at that 
+moment sitting in a public place alone.  And then, being launched upon 
+the stream of falsehood, I must do like all the rest of the world in 
+the same circumstance, and plunge in deeper than was any service; 
+adding some altogether needless particulars of Miss Balfour's ill-
+health and retirement during childhood.  In the midst of which I awoke 
+to a sense of my behaviour, and was turned to one blush.
+
+The old gentleman was not so much deceived but what he discovered a 
+willingness to be quit of me.  But he was first of all a man of 
+business; and knowing that my money was good enough, however it might 
+be with my conduct, he was so far obliging as to send his son to be my 
+guide and caution in the matter of a lodging.  This implied my 
+presenting of the young man to Catriona.  The poor, pretty child was 
+much recovered with resting, looked and behaved to perfection, and took 
+my arm and gave me the name of brother more easily than I could answer 
+her.  But there was one misfortune:  thinking to help, she was rather 
+towardly than otherwise to my Dutchman.  And I could not but reflect 
+that Miss Balfour had rather suddenly outgrown her bashfulness.  And 
+there was another thing, the difference of our speech.  I had the Low 
+Country tongue and dwelled upon my words; she had a hill voice, spoke 
+with something of an English accent, only far more delightful, and was 
+scarce quite fit to be called a deacon in the craft of talking English 
+grammar; so that, for a brother and sister, we made a most uneven pair.  
+But the young Hollander was a heavy dog, without so much spirit in his 
+belly as to remark her prettiness, for which I scorned him.  And as 
+soon as he had found a cover to our heads, he left us alone, which was 
+the greater service of the two.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV - FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS
+
+
+
+THE place found was in the upper part of a house backed on a canal.  We 
+had two rooms, the second entering from the first; each had a chimney 
+built out into the floor in the Dutch manner; and being alongside, each 
+had the same prospect from the window of the top of a tree below us in 
+a little court, of a piece of the canal, and of houses in the Hollands 
+architecture and a church spire upon the further side.  A full set of 
+bells hung in that spire and made delightful music; and when there was 
+any sun at all, it shone direct in our two chambers.  From a tavern 
+hard by we had good meals sent in.
+
+The first night we were both pretty weary, and she extremely so.  There 
+was little talk between us, and I packed her off to her bed as soon as 
+she had eaten.  The first thing in the morning I wrote word to Sprott 
+to have her mails sent on, together with a line to Alan at his chief's; 
+and had the same despatched, and her breakfast ready, ere I waked her.  
+I was a little abashed when she came forth in her one habit, and the 
+mud of the way upon her stockings.  By what inquiries I had made, it 
+seemed a good few days must pass before her mails could come to hand in 
+Leyden, and it was plainly needful she must have a shift of things.  
+She was unwilling at first that I should go to that expense; but I 
+reminded her she was now a rich man's sister and must appear suitably 
+in the part, and we had not got to the second merchant's before she was 
+entirely charmed into the spirit of the thing, and her eyes shining.  
+It pleased me to see her so innocent and thorough in this pleasure.  
+What was more extraordinary was the passion into which I fell on it 
+myself; being never satisfied that I had bought her enough or fine 
+enough, and never weary of beholding her in different attires.  Indeed, 
+I began to understand some little of Miss Grant's immersion in the 
+interest of clothes; for the truth is, when you have the ground of a 
+beautiful person to adorn, the whole business becomes beautiful.  The 
+Dutch chintzes I should say were extraordinary cheap and fine; but I 
+would be ashamed to set down what I paid for stockings to her.  
+Altogether I spent so great a sum upon this pleasuring (as I may call 
+it) that I was ashamed for a great while to spend more; and by way of a 
+set-off, I left our chambers pretty bare.  If we had beds, if Catriona 
+was a little braw, and I had light to see her by, we were richly enough 
+lodged for me.
+
+By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the door 
+with all our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which to read 
+myself a lecture.  Here had I taken under my roof, and as good as to my 
+bosom, a young lass extremely beautiful, and whose innocence was her 
+peril.  My talk with the old Dutchman, and the lies to which I was 
+constrained, had already given me a sense of how my conduct must appear 
+to others; and now, after the strong admiration I had just experienced 
+and the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain purchases, I 
+began to think of it myself as very hazarded.  I bethought me, if I had 
+a sister indeed, whether I would so expose her; then, judging the case 
+too problematical, I varied my question into this, whether I would so 
+trust Catriona in the hands of any other Christian being; the answer to 
+which made my face to burn.  The more cause, since I had been entrapped 
+and had entrapped the girl into an undue situation, that I should 
+behave in it with scrupulous nicety.  She depended on me wholly for her 
+bread and shelter; in case I should alarm her delicacy, she had no 
+retreat.  Besides I was her host and her protector; and the more 
+irregularly I had fallen in these positions, the less excuse for me if 
+I should profit by the same to forward even the most honest suit; for 
+with the opportunities that I enjoyed, and which no wise parent would 
+have suffered for a moment, even the most honest suit would be unfair.  
+I saw I must be extremely hold-off in my relations; and yet not too 
+much so neither; for if I had no right to appear at all in the 
+character of a suitor, I must yet appear continually, and if possible 
+agreeably, in that of host.  It was plain I should require a great deal 
+of tact and conduct, perhaps more than my years afforded.  But I had 
+rushed in where angels might have feared to tread, and there was no way 
+out of that position save by behaving right while I was in it.  I made 
+a set of rules for my guidance; prayed for strength to be enabled to 
+observe them, and as a more human aid to the same end purchased a 
+study-book in law.  This being all that I could think of, I relaxed 
+from these grave considerations; whereupon my mind bubbled at once into 
+an effervescency of pleasing spirits, and it was like one treading on 
+air that I turned homeward.  As I thought that name of home, and 
+recalled the image of that figure awaiting me between four walls, my 
+heart beat upon my bosom.
+
+My troubles began with my return.  She ran to greet me with an obvious 
+and affecting pleasure.  She was clad, besides, entirely in the new 
+clothes that I had bought for her; looked in them beyond expression 
+well; and must walk about and drop me curtseys to display them and to 
+be admired.  I am sure I did it with an ill grace, for I thought to 
+have choked upon the words.
+
+"Well," she said, "if you will not be caring for my pretty clothes, see 
+what I have done with our two chambers."  And she showed me the place 
+all very finely swept, and the fires glowing in the two chimneys.
+
+I was glad of a chance to seem a little more severe than I quite felt.  
+"Catriona," said I, "I am very much displeased with you, and you must 
+never again lay a hand upon my room.  One of us two must have the rule 
+while we are here together; it is most fit it should be I who am both 
+the man and the elder; and I give you that for my command."
+
+She dropped me one of her curtseys; which were extraordinary taking.  
+"If you will be cross," said she, "I must be making pretty manners at 
+you, Davie.  I will be very obedient, as I should be when every stitch 
+upon all there is of me belongs to you.  But you will not be very cross 
+either, because now I have not anyone else."
+
+This struck me hard, and I made haste, in a kind of penitence, to blot 
+out all the good effect of my last speech.  In this direction progress 
+was more easy, being down hill; she led me forward, smiling; at the 
+sight of her, in the brightness of the fire and with her pretty becks 
+and looks, my heart was altogether melted.  We made our meal with 
+infinite mirth and tenderness; and the two seemed to be commingled into 
+one, so that our very laughter sounded like a kindness.
+
+In the midst of which I awoke to better recollections, made a lame word 
+of excuse, and set myself boorishly to my studies.  It was a 
+substantial, instructive book that I had bought, by the late Dr. 
+Heineccius, in which I was to do a great deal reading these next few 
+days, and often very glad that I had no one to question me of what I 
+read.  Methought she bit her lip at me a little, and that cut me.  
+Indeed it left her wholly solitary, the more as she was very little of 
+a reader, and had never a book.  But what was I to do?
+
+So the rest of the evening flowed by almost without speech.
+
+I could have beat myself.  I could not lie in my bed that night for 
+rage and repentance, but walked to and fro on my bare feet till I was 
+nearly perished, for the chimney was gone out and the frost keen.  The 
+thought of her in the next room, the thought that she might even hear 
+me as I walked, the remembrance of my churlishness and that I must 
+continue to practise the same ungrateful course or be dishonoured, put 
+me beside my reason.  I stood like a man between Scylla and Charybdis:  
+WHAT MUST SHE THINK OF ME? was my one thought that softened me 
+continually into weakness.  WHAT IS TO BECOME OF US? the other which 
+steeled me again to resolution.  This was my first night of wakefulness 
+and divided counsels, of which I was now to pass many, pacing like a 
+madman, sometimes weeping like a childish boy, sometimes praying (I 
+fain would hope) like a Christian.
+
+But prayer is not very difficult, and the hitch comes in practice.  In 
+her presence, and above all if I allowed any beginning of familiarity, 
+I found I had very little command of what should follow.  But to sit 
+all day in the same room with her, and feign to be engaged upon 
+Heineccius, surpassed my strength.  So that I fell instead upon the 
+expedient of absenting myself so much as I was able; taking out classes 
+and sitting there regularly, often with small attention, the test of 
+which I found the other day in a note-book of that period, where I had 
+left off to follow an edifying lecture and actually scribbled in my 
+book some very ill verses, though the Latinity is rather better than I 
+thought that I could ever have compassed.  The evil of this course was 
+unhappily near as great as its advantage.  I had the less time of 
+trial, but I believe, while the time lasted, I was tried the more 
+extremely.  For she being so much left to solitude, she came to greet 
+my return with an increasing fervour that came nigh to overmaster me.  
+These friendly offers I must barbarously cast back; and my rejection 
+sometimes wounded her so cruelly that I must unbend and seek to make it 
+up to her in kindness.  So that our time passed in ups and downs, tiffs 
+and disappointments, upon the which I could almost say (if it may be 
+said with reverence) that I was crucified.
+
+The base of my trouble was Catriona's extraordinary innocence, at which 
+I was not so much surprised as filled with pity and admiration.  She 
+seemed to have no thought of our position, no sense of my struggles; 
+welcomed any mark of my weakness with responsive joy; and when I was 
+drove again to my retrenchments, did not always dissemble her chagrin.  
+There were times when I have thought to myself, "If she were over head 
+in love, and set her cap to catch me, she would scarce behave much 
+otherwise;" and then I would fall again into wonder at the simplicity 
+of woman, from whom I felt (in these moments) that I was not worthy to 
+be descended.
+
+There was one point in particular on which our warfare turned, and of 
+all things, this was the question of her clothes.  My baggage had soon 
+followed me from Rotterdam, and hers from Helvoet.  She had now, as it 
+were, two wardrobes; and it grew to be understood between us (I could 
+never tell how) that when she was friendly she would wear my clothes, 
+and when otherwise her own.  It was meant for a buffet, and (as it 
+were) the renunciation of her gratitude; and I felt it so in my bosom, 
+but was generally more wise than to appear to have observed the 
+circumstance.
+
+Once, indeed, I was betrayed into a childishness greater than her own; 
+it fell in this way.  On my return from classes, thinking upon her 
+devoutly with a great deal of love and a good deal of annoyance in the 
+bargain, the annoyance began to fade away out of my mind; and spying in 
+a window one of those forced flowers, of which the Hollanders are so 
+skilled in the artifice, I gave way to an impulse and bought it for 
+Catriona.  I do not know the name of that flower, but it was of the 
+pink colour, and I thought she would admire the same, and carried it 
+home to her with a wonderful soft heart.  I had left her in my clothes, 
+and when I returned to find her all changed and a face to match, I cast 
+but the one look at her from head to foot, ground my teeth together, 
+flung the window open, and my flower into the court, and then (between 
+rage and prudence) myself out of that room again, of which I slammed 
+she door as I went out.
+
+On the steep stair I came near falling, and this brought me to myself, 
+so that I began at once to see the folly of my conduct.  I went, not 
+into the street as I had purposed, but to the house court, which was 
+always a solitary place, and where I saw my flower (that had cost me 
+vastly more than it was worth) hanging in the leafless tree.  I stood 
+by the side of the canal, and looked upon the ice.  Country people went 
+by on their skates, and I envied them.  I could see no way out of the 
+pickle I was in no way so much as to return to the room I had just 
+left.  No doubt was in my mind but I had now betrayed the secret of my 
+feelings; and to make things worse, I had shown at the same time (and 
+that with wretched boyishness) incivility to my helpless guest.
+
+I suppose she must have seen me from the open window.  It did not seem 
+to me that I had stood there very long before I heard the crunching of 
+footsteps on the frozen snow, and turning somewhat angrily (for I was 
+in no spirit to be interrupted) saw Catriona drawing near.  She was all 
+changed again, to the clocked stockings.
+
+"Are we not to have our walk to-day?" said she.
+
+I was looking at her in a maze.  "Where is your brooch?" says I.
+
+She carried her hand to her bosom and coloured high.  "I will have 
+forgotten it," said she.  "I will run upstairs for it quick, and then 
+surely we'll can have our walk?"
+
+There was a note of pleading in that last that staggered me; I had 
+neither words nor voice to utter them; I could do no more than nod by 
+way of answer; and the moment she had left me, climbed into the tree 
+and recovered my flower, which on her return I offered her.
+
+"I bought it for you, Catriona," said I.
+
+She fixed it in the midst of her bosom with the brooch, I could have 
+thought tenderly.
+
+"It is none the better of my handling," said I again, and blushed.
+
+"I will be liking it none the worse, you may be sure of that," said 
+she.
+
+We did not speak so much that day; she seemed a thought on the reserve, 
+though not unkindly.  As for me, all the time of our walking, and after 
+we came home, and I had seen her put my flower into a pot of water, I 
+was thinking to myself what puzzles women were.  I was thinking, the 
+one moment, it was the most stupid thing on earth she should not have 
+perceived my love; and the next, that she had certainly perceived it 
+long ago, and (being a wise girl with the fine female instinct of 
+propriety) concealed her knowledge.
+
+We had our walk daily.  Out in the streets I felt more safe; I relaxed 
+a little in my guardedness; and for one thing, there was no Heineccius.  
+This made these periods not only a relief to myself, but a particular 
+pleasure to my poor child.  When I came back about the hour appointed, 
+I would generally find her ready dressed, and glowing with 
+anticipation.  She would prolong their duration to the extreme, seeming 
+to dread (as I did myself) the hour of the return; and there is scarce 
+a field or waterside near Leyden, scarce a street or lane there, where 
+we have not lingered.  Outside of these, I bade her confine herself 
+entirely to our lodgings; this in the fear of her encountering any 
+acquaintance, which would have rendered our position very difficult.  
+From the same apprehension I would never suffer her to attend church, 
+nor even go myself; but made some kind of shift to hold worship 
+privately in our own chamber - I hope with an honest, but I am quite 
+sure with a very much divided mind.  Indeed, there was scarce anything 
+that more affected me, than thus to kneel down alone with her before 
+God like man and wife.
+
+One day it was snowing downright hard.  I had thought it not possible 
+that we should venture forth, and was surprised to find her waiting for 
+me ready dressed.
+
+"I will not be doing without my walk," she cried.  "You are never a 
+good boy, Davie, in the house; I will never be caring for you only in 
+the open air.  I think we two will better turn Egyptian and dwell by 
+the roadside."
+
+That was the best walk yet of all of them; she clung near to me in the 
+falling snow; it beat about and melted on us, and the drops stood upon 
+her bright cheeks like tears and ran into her smiling mouth.  Strength 
+seemed to come upon me with the sight like a giant's; I thought I could 
+have caught her up and run with her into the uttermost places in the 
+earth; and we spoke together all that time beyond belief for freedom 
+and sweetness.
+
+It was the dark night when we came to the house door.  She pressed my 
+arm upon her bosom.  "Thank you kindly for these same good hours," said 
+she, on a deep note of her voice.
+
+The concern in which I fell instantly on this address, put me with the 
+same swiftness on my guard; and we were no sooner in the chamber, and 
+the light made, than she beheld the old, dour, stubborn countenance of 
+the student of Heineccius.  Doubtless she was more than usually hurt; 
+and I know for myself, I found it more than usually difficult to 
+maintain any strangeness.  Even at the meal, I durst scarce unbuckle 
+and scarce lift my eyes to her; and it was no sooner over than I fell 
+again to my civilian, with more seeming abstraction and less 
+understanding than before.  Methought, as I read, I could hear my heart 
+strike like an eight-day clock.  Hard as I feigned to study, there was 
+still some of my eyesight that spilled beyond the book upon Catriona.  
+She sat on the floor by the side of my great mail, and the chimney 
+lighted her up, and shone and blinked upon her, and made her glow and 
+darken through a wonder of fine hues.  Now she would be gazing in the 
+fire, and then again at me; and at that I would be plunged in a terror 
+of myself, and turn the pages of Heineccius like a man looking for the 
+text in church.
+
+Suddenly she called out aloud.  "O, why does not my father come?" she 
+cried, and fell at once into a storm of tears.
+
+I leaped up, flung Heineccius fairly in the fire, ran to her side, and 
+cast an arm around her sobbing body.
+
+She put me from her sharply, "You do not love your friend," says she.  
+"I could be so happy too, if you would let me!"  And then, "O, what 
+will I have done that you should hate me so?"
+
+"Hate you!" cries I, and held her firm.  "You blind less, can you not 
+see a little in my wretched heart?  Do you not think when I sit there, 
+reading in that fool-book that I have just burned and be damned to it, 
+I take ever the least thought of any stricken thing but just yourself?  
+Night after night I could have grat to see you sitting there your lone.  
+And what was I to do?  You are here under my honour; would you punish 
+me for that?  Is it for that that you would spurn a loving servant?"
+
+At the word, with a small, sudden motion, she clung near to me.  I 
+raised her face to mine, I kissed it, and she bowed her brow upon my 
+bosom, clasping me tight.  I saw in a mere whirl like a man drunken.  
+Then I heard her voice sound very small and muffled in my clothes.
+
+"Did you kiss her truly?" she asked.
+
+There went through me so great a heave of surprise that I was all shook 
+with it.
+
+"Miss Grant?" I cried, all in a disorder.  "Yes, I asked her to kiss me 
+good-bye, the which she did."
+
+"Ah, well!" said she, "you have kissed me too, at all events."
+
+At the strangeness and sweetness of that word, I saw where we had 
+fallen; rose, and set her on her feet.
+
+"This will never do," said I.  "This will never, never do.  O Catrine, 
+Catrine!"  Then there came a pause in which I was debarred from any 
+speaking.  And then, "Go away to your bed," said I.  "Go away to your 
+bed and leave me."
+
+She turned to obey me like a child, and the next I knew of it, had 
+stopped in the very doorway.
+
+"Good night, Davie!" said she.
+
+"And O, good night, my love!" I cried, with a great outbreak of my 
+soul, and caught her to me again, so that it seemed I must have broken 
+her.  The next moment I had thrust her from the room, shut to the door 
+even with violence, and stood alone.
+
+The milk was spilt now, the word was out and the truth told.  I had 
+crept like an untrusty man into the poor maid's affections; she was in 
+my hand like any frail, innocent thing to make or mar; and what weapon 
+of defence was left me?  It seemed like a symbol that Heineccius, my 
+old protection, was now burned.  I repented, yet could not find it in 
+my heart to blame myself for that great failure.  It seemed not 
+possible to have resisted the boldness of her innocence or that last 
+temptation of her weeping.  And all that I had to excuse me did but 
+make my sin appear the greater - it was upon a nature so defenceless, 
+and with such advantages of the position, that I seemed to have 
+practised.
+
+What was to become of us now?  It seemed we could no longer dwell in 
+the one place.  But where was I to go? or where she?  Without either 
+choice or fault of ours, life had conspired to wall us together in that 
+narrow place.  I had a wild thought of marrying out of hand; and the 
+next moment put it from me with revolt.  She was a child, she could not 
+tell her own heart; I had surprised her weakness, I must never go on to 
+build on that surprisal; I must keep her not only clear of reproach, 
+but free as she had come to me.
+
+Down I sat before the fire, and reflected, and repented, and beat my 
+brains in vain for any means of escape.  About two of the morning, 
+there were three red embers left and the house and all the city was 
+asleep, when I was aware of a small sound of weeping in the next room.  
+She thought that I slept, the poor soul; she regretted her weakness - 
+and what perhaps (God help her!) she called her forwardness - and in 
+the dead of the night solaced herself with tears.  Tender and bitter 
+feelings, love and penitence and pity, struggled in my soul; it seemed 
+I was under bond to heal that weeping.
+
+"O, try to forgive me!" I cried out, "try, try to forgive me.  Let us 
+forget it all, let us try if we'll no can forget it!"
+
+There came no answer, but the sobbing ceased.  I stood a long while 
+with my hands still clasped as I had spoken; then the cold of the night 
+laid hold upon me with a shudder, and I think my reason reawakened.
+
+"You can make no hand of this, Davie," thinks I.  "To bed with you like 
+a wise lad, and try if you can sleep.  To-morrow you may see your way."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV - THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE
+
+
+
+I WAS called on the morrow out of a late and troubled slumber by a 
+knocking on my door, ran to open it, and had almost swooned with the 
+contrariety of my feelings, mostly painful; for on the threshold, in a 
+rough wraprascal and an extraordinary big laced hat, there stood James 
+More.
+
+I ought to have been glad perhaps without admixture, for there was a 
+sense in which the man came like an answer to prayer.  I had been 
+saying till my head was weary that Catriona and I must separate, and 
+looking till my head ached for any possible means of separation.  Here 
+were the means come to me upon two legs, and joy was the hindmost of my 
+thoughts.  It is to be considered, however, that even if the weight of 
+the future were lifted off me by the man's arrival, the present heaved 
+up the more black and menacing; so that, as I first stood before him in 
+my shirt and breeches, I believe I took a leaping step backward like a 
+person shot.
+
+"Ah," said he, "I have found you, Mr, Balfour."  And offered me his 
+large, fine hand, the which (recovering at the same time my post in the 
+doorway, as if with some thought of resistance) I took him by 
+doubtfully.  "It is a remarkable circumstance how our affairs appear to 
+intermingle," he continued.  "I am owing you an apology for an 
+unfortunate intrusion upon yours, which I suffered myself to be 
+entrapped into by my confidence in that false-face, Prestongrange; I 
+think shame to own to you that I was ever trusting to a lawyer."  He 
+shrugged his shoulders with a very French air.  "But indeed the man is 
+very plausible," says he.  "And now it seems that you have busied 
+yourself handsomely in the matter of my daughter, for whose direction I 
+was remitted to yourself."
+
+"I think, sir," said I, with a very painful air, "that it will be 
+necessary we two should have an explanation."
+
+"There is nothing amiss?" he asked.  "My agent, Mr. Sprott - "
+
+"For God's sake moderate your voice!" I cried.  "She must not hear till 
+we have had an explanation."
+
+"She is in this place?" cries he.
+
+"That is her chamber door," said I.
+
+"You are here with her alone?" he asked.
+
+"And who else would I have got to stay with us?" cries I.
+
+I will do him the justice to admit that he turned pale.
+
+"This is very unusual," said he.  "This is a very unusual circumstance.  
+You are right, we must hold an explanation."
+
+So saying he passed me by, and I must own the tall old rogue appeared 
+at that moment extraordinary dignified.  He had now, for the first 
+time, the view of my chamber, which I scanned (I may say) with his 
+eyes.  A bit of morning sun glinted in by the window pane, and showed 
+it off; my bed, my mails, and washing dish, with some disorder of my 
+clothes, and the unlighted chimney, made the only plenishing; no 
+mistake but it looked bare and cold, and the most unsuitable, beggarly 
+place conceivable to harbour a young lady.  At the same time came in on 
+my mind the recollection of the clothes that I had bought for her; and 
+I thought this contrast of poverty and prodigality bore an ill 
+appearance.
+
+He looked all about the chamber for a seat, and finding nothing else to 
+his purpose except my bed, took a place upon the side of it; where, 
+after I had closed the door, I could not very well avoid joining him.  
+For however this extraordinary interview might end, it must pass if 
+possible without waking Catriona; and the one thing needful was that we 
+should sit close and talk low.  But I can scarce picture what a pair we 
+made; he in his great coat which the coldness of my chamber made 
+extremely suitable; I shivering in my shirt and breeks; he with very 
+much the air of a judge; and I (whatever I looked) with very much the 
+feelings of a man who has heard the last trumpet.
+
+"Well?" says he.
+
+And "Well," I began, but found myself unable to go further.
+
+"You tell me she is here?" said he again, but now with a spice of 
+impatience that seemed to brace me up.
+
+"She is in this house," said I, "and I knew the circumstance would be 
+called unusual.  But you are to consider how very unusual the whole 
+business was from the beginning.  Here is a young lady landed on the 
+coast of Europe with two shillings and a penny halfpenny.  She is 
+directed to yon man Sprott in Helvoet.  I hear you call him your agent.  
+All I can say is he could do nothing but damn and swear at the mere 
+mention of your name, and I must fee him out of my own pocket even to 
+receive the custody of her effects.  You speak of unusual 
+circumstances, Mr. Drummond, if that be the name you prefer.  Here was 
+a circumstance, if you like, to which it was barbarity to have exposed 
+her."
+
+"But this is what I cannot understand the least," said James.  "My 
+daughter was placed into the charge of some responsible persons, whose 
+names I have forgot."  "Gebbie was the name," said I; "and there is no 
+doubt that Mr. Gebbie should have gone ashore with her at Helvoet.  But 
+he did not, Mr. Drummond; and I think you might praise God that I was 
+there to offer in his place."
+
+"I shall have a word to say to Mr. Gebbie before long," said he.  "As 
+for yourself, I think it might have occurred that you were somewhat 
+young for such a post."
+
+"But the choice was not between me and somebody else, it was between me 
+and nobody," cried I.  "Nobody offered in my place, and I must say I 
+think you show a very small degree of gratitude to me that did."
+
+"I shall wait until I understand my obligation a little more in the 
+particular," says he.
+
+"Indeed, and I think it stares you in the face, then," said I.  "Your 
+child was deserted, she was clean flung away in the midst of Europe, 
+with scarce two shillings, and not two words of any language spoken 
+there:  I must say, a bonny business!  I brought her to this place.  I 
+gave her the name and the tenderness due to a sister.  All this has not 
+gone without expense, but that I scarce need to hint at.  They were 
+services due to the young lady's character which I respect; and I think 
+it would be a bonny business too, if I was to be singing her praises to 
+her father."
+
+"You are a young man," he began.
+
+"So I hear you tell me," said I, with a good deal of heat.
+
+"You are a very young man," he repeated, "or you would have understood 
+the significancy of the step."
+
+"I think you speak very much at your ease," cried I.  "What else was I 
+to do?  It is a fact I might have hired some decent, poor woman to be a 
+third to us, and I declare I never thought of it until this moment!  
+But where was I to find her, that am a foreigner myself?  And let me 
+point out to your observation, Mr. Drummond, that it would have cost me 
+money out of my pocket.  For here is just what it comes to, that I had 
+to pay through the nose for your neglect; and there is only the one 
+story to it, just that you were so unloving and so careless as to have 
+lost your daughter."
+
+"He that lives in a glass house should not be casting stones," says he; 
+"and we will finish inquiring into the behaviour of Miss Drummond 
+before we go on to sit in judgment on her father."
+
+"But I will be entrapped into no such attitude," said I.  "The 
+character of Miss Drummond is far above inquiry, as her father ought to 
+know.  So is mine, and I am telling you that.  There are but the two 
+ways of it open.  The one is to express your thanks to me as one 
+gentleman to another, and to say no more.  The other (if you are so 
+difficult as to be still dissatisfied) is to pay me, that which I have 
+expended and be done."
+
+He seemed to soothe me with a hand in the air.  "There, there," said 
+he.  "You go too fast, you go too fast, Mr. Balfour.  It is a good 
+thing that I have learned to be more patient.  And I believe you forget 
+that I have yet to see my daughter."
+
+I began to be a little relieved upon this speech and a change in the 
+man's manner that I spied in him as soon as the name of money fell 
+between us.
+
+"I was thinking it would be more fit - if you will excuse the plainness 
+of my dressing in your presence - that I should go forth and leave you 
+to encounter her alone?" said I.
+
+"What I would have looked for at your hands!" says he; and there was no 
+mistake but what he said it civilly.
+
+I thought this better and better still, and as I began to pull on my 
+hose, recalling the man's impudent mendicancy at Prestongrange's, I 
+determined to pursue what seemed to be my victory.
+
+"If you have any mind to stay some while in Leyden," said I, "this room 
+is very much at your disposal, and I can easy find another for myself:  
+in which way we shall have the least amount of flitting possible, there 
+being only one to change."
+
+"Why, sir," said he, making his bosom big, "I think no shame of a 
+poverty I have come by in the service of my king; I make no secret that 
+my affairs are quite involved; and for the moment, it would be even 
+impossible for me to undertake a journey."
+
+"Until you have occasion to communicate with your friends," said I, 
+"perhaps it might be convenient for you (as of course it would be 
+honourable to myself) if you were to regard yourself in the light of my 
+guest?"
+
+"Sir," said he, "when an offer is frankly made, I think I honour myself 
+most to imitate that frankness.  Your hand, Mr. David; you have the 
+character that I respect the most; you are one of those from whom a 
+gentleman can take a favour and no more words about it.  I am an old 
+soldier," he went on, looking rather disgusted-like around my chamber, 
+"and you need not fear I shall prove burthensome.  I have ate too often 
+at a dyke-side, drank of the ditch, and had no roof but the rain."
+
+"I should be telling you," said I, "that our breakfasts are sent 
+customarily in about this time of morning.  I propose I should go now 
+to the tavern, and bid them add a cover for yourself and delay the meal 
+the matter of an hour, which will give you an interval to meet your 
+daughter in."
+
+Methought his nostrils wagged at this.  "O, an hour" says he.  "That is 
+perhaps superfluous.  Half an hour, Mr. David, or say twenty minutes; I 
+shall do very well in that.  And by the way," he adds, detaining me by 
+the coat, "what is it you drink in the morning, whether ale or wine?"
+
+"To be frank with you, sir," says I, "I drink nothing else but spare, 
+cold water."
+
+"Tut-tut," says he, "that is fair destruction to the stomach, take an 
+old campaigner's word for it.  Our country spirit at home is perhaps 
+the most entirely wholesome; but as that is not come-at-able, Rhenish 
+or a white wine of Burgundy will be next best."
+
+"I shall make it my business to see you are supplied," said I.
+
+"Why, very good," said he, "and we shall make a man of you yet, Mr. 
+David."
+
+By this time, I can hardly say that I was minding him at all, beyond an 
+odd thought of the kind of father-in-law that he was like to prove; and 
+all my cares centred about the lass his daughter, to whom I determined 
+to convey some warning of her visitor.  I stepped to the door 
+accordingly, and cried through the panels, knocking thereon at the same 
+time:  "Miss Drummond, here is your father come at last."
+
+With that I went forth upon my errand, having (by two words) 
+extraordinarily damaged my affairs.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI - THE THREESOME
+
+
+
+WHETHER or not I was to be so much blamed, or rather perhaps pitied, I 
+must leave others to judge.  My shrewdness (of which I have a good 
+deal, too) seems not so great with the ladies.  No doubt, at the moment 
+when I awaked her, I was thinking a good deal of the effect upon James 
+More; and similarly when I returned and we were all sat down to 
+breakfast, I continued to behave to the young lady with deference and 
+distance; as I still think to have been most wise.  Her father had cast 
+doubts upon the innocence of my friendship; and these, it was my first 
+business to allay.  But there is a kind of an excuse for Catriona also.  
+We had shared in a scene of some tenderness and passion, and given and 
+received caresses:  I had thrust her from me with violence; I had 
+called aloud upon her in the night from the one room to the other; she 
+had passed hours of wakefulness and weeping; and it is not to be 
+supposed I had been absent from her pillow thoughts.  Upon the back of 
+this, to be awaked, with unaccustomed formality, under the name of Miss 
+Drummond, and to be thenceforth used with a great deal of distance and 
+respect, led her entirely in error on my private sentiments; and she 
+was indeed so incredibly abused as to imagine me repentant and trying 
+to draw off!
+
+The trouble betwixt us seems to have been this:  that whereas I (since 
+I had first set eyes on his great hat) thought singly of James More, 
+his return and suspicions, she made so little of these that I may say 
+she scarce remarked them, and all her troubles and doings regarded what 
+had passed between us in the night before.  This is partly to be 
+explained by the innocence and boldness of her character; and partly 
+because James More, having sped so ill in his interview with me, or had 
+his mouth closed by my invitation, said no word to her upon the 
+subject.  At the breakfast, accordingly, it soon appeared we were at 
+cross purposes.  I had looked to find her in clothes of her own:  I 
+found her (as if her father were forgotten) wearing some of the best 
+that I had bought for her, and which she knew (or thought) that I 
+admired her in.  I had looked to find her imitate my affectation of 
+distance, and be most precise and formal; instead I found her flushed 
+and wild-like, with eyes extraordinary bright, and a painful and 
+varying expression, calling me by name with a sort of appeal of 
+tenderness, and referring and deferring to my thoughts and wishes like 
+an anxious or a suspected wife.
+
+But this was not for long.  As I behold her so regardless of her own 
+interests, which I had jeopardised and was now endeavouring to recover, 
+I redoubled my own coldness in the manner of a lesson to the girl.  The 
+more she came forward, the farther I drew back; the more she betrayed 
+the closeness of our intimacy, the more pointedly civil I became, until 
+even her father (if he had not been so engrossed with eating) might 
+have observed the opposition.  In the midst of which, of a sudden, she 
+became wholly changed, and I told myself, with a good deal of relief, 
+that she had took the hint at last.
+
+All day I was at my classes or in quest of my new lodging; and though 
+the hour of our customary walk hung miserably on my hands, I cannot say 
+but I was happy on the whole to find my way cleared, the girl again in 
+proper keeping, the father satisfied or at least acquiescent, and 
+myself free to prosecute my love with honour.  At supper, as at all our 
+meals, it was James More that did the talking.  No doubt but he talked 
+well if anyone could have believed him.  But I will speak of him 
+presently more at large.  The meal at an end, he rose, got his great 
+coat, and looking (as I thought) at me, observed he had affairs abroad.  
+I took this for a hint that I was to be going also, and got up; 
+whereupon the girl, who had scarce given me greeting at my entrance, 
+turned her eyes upon me wide open with a look that bade me stay.  I 
+stood between them like a fish out of water, turning from one to the 
+other; neither seemed to observe me, she gazing on the floor, he 
+buttoning his coat:  which vastly swelled my embarrassment.  This 
+appearance of indifference argued, upon her side, a good deal of anger 
+very near to burst out.  Upon his, I thought it horribly alarming; I 
+made sure there was a tempest brewing there; and considering that to be 
+the chief peril, turned towards him and put myself (so to speak) in the 
+man's hands.
+
+"Can I do anything for YOU, Mr. Drummond?" says I.
+
+He stifled a yawn, which again I thought to be duplicity.  "Why, Mr. 
+David," said he, "since you are so obliging as to propose it, you might 
+show me the way to a certain tavern" (of which he gave the name) "where 
+I hope to fall in with some old companions in arms."
+
+There was no more to say, and I got my hat and cloak to bear him 
+company.
+
+"And as for you," say he to his daughter, "you had best go to your bed.  
+I shall be late home, and EARLY TO BED AND EARLY TO RISE, GARS BONNY 
+LASSES HAVE BRIGHT EYES."
+
+Whereupon he kissed her with a good deal of tenderness, and ushered me 
+before him from the door.  This was so done (I thought on purpose) that 
+it was scarce possible there should be any parting salutation; but I 
+observed she did not look at me, and set it down to terror of James 
+More.
+
+It was some distance to that tavern.  He talked all the way of matters 
+which did not interest me the smallest, and at the door dismissed me 
+with empty manners.  Thence I walked to my new lodging, where I had not 
+so much as a chimney to hold me warm, and no society but my own 
+thoughts.  These were still bright enough; I did not so much as dream 
+that Catriona was turned against me; I thought we were like folk 
+pledged; I thought we had been too near and spoke too warmly to be 
+severed, least of all by what were only steps in a most needful policy.  
+And the chief of my concern was only the kind of father-in-law that I 
+was getting, which was not at all the kind I would have chosen:  and 
+the matter of how soon I ought to speak to him, which was a delicate 
+point on several sides.  In the first place, when I thought how young I 
+was I blushed all over, and could almost have found it in my heart to 
+have desisted; only that if once I let them go from Leyden without 
+explanation, I might lose her altogether.  And in the second place, 
+there was our very irregular situation to be kept in view, and the 
+rather scant measure of satisfaction I had given James More that 
+morning.  I concluded, on the whole, that delay would not hurt 
+anything, yet I would not delay too long neither; and got to my cold 
+bed with a full heart.
+
+The next day, as James More seemed a little on the complaining hand in 
+the matter of my chamber, I offered to have in more furniture; and 
+coming in the afternoon, with porters bringing chairs and tables, found 
+the girl once more left to herself.  She greeted me on my admission 
+civilly, but withdrew at once to her own room, of which she shut the 
+door.  I made my disposition, and paid and dismissed the men so that 
+she might hear them go, when I supposed she would at once come forth 
+again to speak to me.  I waited yet awhile, then knocked upon her door.
+
+"Catriona!" said I.
+
+The door was opened so quickly, even before I had the word out, that I 
+thought she must have stood behind it listening.  She remained there in 
+the interval quite still; but she had a look that I cannot put a name 
+on, as of one in a bitter trouble.
+
+"Are we not to have our walk to-day either?" so I faltered.
+
+"I am thanking you," said she.  "I will not be caring much to walk, now 
+that my father is come home."
+
+"But I think he has gone out himself and left you here alone," said I.
+
+"And do you think that was very kindly said?" she asked.
+
+"It was not unkindly meant," I replied.  "What ails you, Catriona?  
+What have I done to you that you should turn from me like this?"
+
+"I do not turn from you at all," she said, speaking very carefully.  "I 
+will ever be grateful to my friend that was good to me; I will ever be 
+his friend in all that I am able.  But now that my father James More is 
+come again, there is a difference to be made, and I think there are 
+some things said and done that would be better to be forgotten.  But I 
+will ever be your friend in all that I am able, and if that is not all 
+that . . . . if it is not so much . . . . Not that you will be caring!  
+But I would not have you think of me too hard.  It was true what you 
+said to me, that I was too young to be advised, and I am hoping you 
+will remember I was just a child.  I would not like to lose your 
+friendship, at all events."
+
+She began this very pale; but before she was done, the blood was in her 
+face like scarlet, so that not her words only, but her face and the 
+trembling of her very hands, besought me to be gentle.  I saw, for the 
+first time, how very wrong I had done to place the child in that 
+position, where she had been entrapped into a moment's weakness, and 
+now stood before me like a person shamed.
+
+"Miss Drummond," I said, and stuck, and made the same beginning once 
+again, "I wish you could see into my heart," I cried.  "You would read 
+there that my respect is undiminished.  If that were possible, I should 
+say it was increased.  This is but the result of the mistake we made; 
+and had to come; and the less said of it now the better.  Of all of our 
+life here, I promise you it shall never pass my lips; I would like to 
+promise you too that I would never think of it, but it's a memory that 
+will be always dear to me.  And as for a friend, you have one here that 
+would die for you."
+
+"I am thanking you," said she.
+
+We stood awhile silent, and my sorrow for myself began to get the upper 
+hand; for here were all my dreams come to a sad tumble, and my love 
+lost, and myself alone again in the world as at the beginning.
+
+"Well," said I, "we shall be friends always, that's a certain thing.  
+But this is a kind of farewell, too:  it's a kind of a farewell after 
+all; I shall always ken Miss Drummond, but this is a farewell to my 
+Catriona."
+
+I looked at her; I could hardly say I saw her, but she seemed to grow 
+great and brighten in my eyes; and with that I suppose I must have lost 
+my head, for I called out her name again and made a step at her with my 
+hands reached forth.
+
+She shrank back like a person struck, her face flamed; but the blood 
+sprang no faster up into her cheeks, than what it flowed back upon my 
+own heart, at sight of it, with penitence and concern.  I found no 
+words to excuse myself, but bowed before her very deep, and went my 
+ways out of the house with death in my bosom.
+
+I think it was about five days that followed without any change.  I saw 
+her scarce ever but at meals, and then of course in the company of 
+James More.  If we were alone even for a moment, I made it my devoir to 
+behave the more distantly and to multiply respectful attentions, having 
+always in my mind's eye that picture of the girl shrinking and flaming 
+in a blush, and in my heart more pity for her than I could depict in 
+words.  I was sorry enough for myself, I need not dwell on that, having 
+fallen all my length and more than all my height in a few seconds; but, 
+indeed, I was near as sorry for the girl, and sorry enough to be scarce 
+angry with her save by fits and starts.  Her plea was good; she had 
+been placed in an unfair position; if she had deceived herself and me, 
+it was no more than was to have been looked for.
+
+And for another thing she was now very much alone.  Her father, when he 
+was by, was rather a caressing parent; but he was very easy led away by 
+his affairs and pleasures, neglected her without compunction or remark, 
+spent his nights in taverns when he had the money, which was more often 
+than I could at all account for; and even in the course of these few 
+days, failed once to come to a meal, which Catriona and I were at last 
+compelled to partake of without him.  It was the evening meal, and I 
+left immediately that I had eaten, observing I supposed she would 
+prefer to be alone; to which she agreed and (strange as it may seem) I 
+quite believed her.  Indeed, I thought myself but an eyesore to the 
+girl, and a reminder of a moment's weakness that she now abhorred to 
+think of.  So she must sit alone in that room where she and I had been 
+so merry, and in the blink of that chimney whose light had shone upon 
+our many difficult and tender moments.  There she must sit alone, and 
+think of herself as of a maid who had most unmaidenly proffered her 
+affections and had the same rejected.  And in the meanwhile I would be 
+alone some other place, and reading myself (whenever I was tempted to 
+be angry) lessons upon human frailty and female delicacy.  And 
+altogether I suppose there were never two poor fools made themselves 
+more unhappy in a greater misconception.
+
+As for James, he paid not so much heed to us, or to anything in nature 
+but his pocket, and his belly, and his own prating talk.  Before twelve 
+hours were gone he had raised a small loan of me; before thirty, he had 
+asked for a second and been refused.  Money and refusal he took with 
+the same kind of high good nature.  Indeed, he had an outside air of 
+magnanimity that was very well fitted to impose upon a daughter; and 
+the light in which he was constantly presented in his talk, and the 
+man's fine presence and great ways went together pretty harmoniously.  
+So that a man that had no business with him, and either very little 
+penetration or a furious deal of prejudice, might almost have been 
+taken in.  To me, after my first two interviews, he was as plain as 
+print; I saw him to be perfectly selfish, with a perfect innocency in 
+the same; and I would hearken to his swaggering talk (of arms, and "an 
+old soldier," and "a poor Highland gentleman," and "the strength of my 
+country and my friends") as I might to the babbling of a parrot.
+
+The odd thing was that I fancy he believed some part of it himself, or 
+did at times; I think  he was so false all through that he scarce knew 
+when he was lying; and for one thing, his moments of dejection must 
+have been wholly genuine.  There were times when he would be the most 
+silent, affectionate, clinging creature possible, holding Catriona's 
+hand like a big baby, and begging of me not to leave if I had any love 
+to him; of which, indeed, I had none, but all the more to his daughter.  
+He would press and indeed beseech us to entertain him with our talk, a 
+thing very difficult in the state of our relations; and again break 
+forth in pitiable regrets for his own land and friends, or into Gaelic 
+singing.
+
+"This is one of the melancholy airs of my native land," he would say.  
+"You may think it strange to see a soldier weep, and indeed it is to 
+make a near friend of you," says he.  "But the notes of this singing 
+are in my blood, and the words come out of my heart.  And when I mind 
+upon my red mountains and the wild birds calling there, and the brave 
+streams of water running down, I would scarce think shame to weep 
+before my enemies."  Then he would sing again, and translate to me 
+pieces of the song, with a great deal of boggling and much expressed 
+contempt against the English language.  "It says here," he would say, 
+"that the sun is gone down, and the battle is at an end, and the brave 
+chiefs are defeated.  And it tells here how the stars see them fleeing 
+into strange countries or lying dead on the red mountain; and they will 
+never more shout the call of battle or wash their feet in the streams 
+of the valley.  But if you had only some of this language, you would 
+weep also because the words of it are beyond all expression, and it is 
+mere mockery to tell you it in English."
+
+Well, I thought there was a good deal of mockery in the business, one 
+way and another; and yet, there was some feeling too, for which I hated 
+him, I think, the worst of all.  And it used to cut me to the quick to 
+see Catriona so much concerned for the old rogue, and weeping herself 
+to see him weep, when I was sure one half of his distress flowed from 
+his last night's drinking in some tavern.  There were times when I was 
+tempted to lend him a round sum, and see the last of him for good; but 
+this would have been to see the last of Catriona as well, for which I 
+was scarcely so prepared; and besides, it went against my conscience to 
+squander my good money on one who was so little of a husband.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII - A TWOSOME
+
+
+
+I BELIEVE it was about the fifth day, and I know at least that James 
+was in one of his fits of gloom, when I received three letters.  The 
+first was from Alan, offering to visit me in Leyden; the other two were 
+out of Scotland and prompted by the same affair, which was the death of 
+my uncle and my own complete accession to my rights.  Rankeillor's was, 
+of course, wholly in the business view; Miss Grant's was like herself, 
+a little more witty than wise, full of blame to me for not having 
+written (though how was I to write with such intelligence?) and of 
+rallying talk about Catriona, which it cut me to the quick to read in 
+her very presence.
+
+For it was of course in my own rooms that I found them, when I came to 
+dinner, so that I was surprised out of my news in the very first moment 
+of reading it.  This made a welcome diversion for all three of us, nor 
+could any have foreseen the ill consequences that ensued.  It was 
+accident that brought the three letters the same day, and that gave 
+them into my hand in the same room with James More; and of all the 
+events that flowed from that accident, and which I might have prevented 
+if I had held my tongue, the truth is that they were preordained before 
+Agricola came into Scotland or Abraham set out upon his travels.
+
+The first that I opened was naturally Alan's; and what more natural 
+than that I should comment on his design to visit me? but I observed 
+James to sit up with an air of immediate attention.
+
+"Is that not Alan Breck that was suspected of the Appin accident?" he 
+inquired.
+
+I told him, "Ay," it was the same; and he withheld me some time from my 
+other letters, asking of our acquaintance, of Alan's manner of life in 
+France, of which I knew very little, and further of his visit as now 
+proposed.
+
+"All we forfeited folk hang a little together," he explained, "and 
+besides I know the gentleman:  and though his descent is not the thing, 
+and indeed he has no true right to use the name of Stewart, he was very 
+much admired in the day of Drummossie.  He did there like a soldier; if 
+some that need not be named had done as well, the upshot need not have 
+been so melancholy to remember.  There were two that did their best 
+that day, and it makes a bond between the pair of us," says he.
+
+I could scarce refrain from shooting out my tongue at him, and could 
+almost have wished that Alan had been there to have inquired a little 
+further into that mention of his birth.  Though, they tell me, the same 
+was indeed not wholly regular.
+
+Meanwhile, I had opened Miss Grant's, and could not withhold an 
+exclamation.
+
+"Catriona," I cried, forgetting, the first time since her father was 
+arrived, to address her by a handle, "I am come into my kingdom fairly, 
+I am the laird of Shaws indeed - my uncle is dead at last."
+
+She clapped her hands together leaping from her seat.  The next moment 
+it must have come over both of us at once what little cause of joy was 
+left to either, and we stood opposite, staring on each other sadly.
+
+But James showed himself a ready hypocrite.  "My daughter," says he, 
+"is this how my cousin learned you to behave?  Mr. David has lost a new 
+friend, and we should first condole with him on his bereavement."
+
+"Troth, sir," said I, turning to him in a kind of anger, "I can make no 
+such great faces.  His death is as blithe news as ever I got."
+
+"It's a good soldier's philosophy," says James.  "'Tis the way of 
+flesh, we must all go, all go.  And if the gentleman was so far from 
+your favour, why, very well!  But we may at least congratulate you on 
+your accession to your estates."
+
+"Nor can I say that either," I replied, with the same heat.  "It is a 
+good estate; what matters that to a lone man that has enough already?  
+I had a good revenue before in my frugality; and but for the man's 
+death - which gratifies me, shame to me that must confess it! - I see 
+not how anyone is to be bettered by this change."
+
+"Come, come," said he, "you are more affected than you let on, or you 
+would never make yourself out so lonely.  Here are three letters; that 
+means three that wish you well; and I could name two more, here in this 
+very chamber.  I have known you not so very long, but Catriona, when we 
+are alone, is never done with the singing of your praises."
+
+She looked up at him, a little wild at that; and he slid off at once 
+into another matter, the extent of my estate, which (during the most of 
+the dinner time) he continued to dwell upon with interest.  But it was 
+to no purpose he dissembled; he had touched the matter with too gross a 
+hand:  and I knew what to expect.  Dinner was scarce ate when he 
+plainly discovered his designs.  He reminded Catriona of an errand, and 
+bid her attend to it.  "I do not see you should be one beyond the 
+hour," he added, "and friend David will be good enough to bear me 
+company till you return." She made haste to obey him without words.  I 
+do not know if she understood, I believe not; but I was completely 
+satisfied, and sat strengthening my mind for what should follow.
+
+The door had scarce closed behind her departure, when the man leaned 
+back in his chair and addressed me with a good affectation of easiness.  
+Only the one thing betrayed him, and that was his face; which suddenly 
+shone all over with fine points of sweat.
+
+"I am rather glad to have a word alone with you," says he, "because in 
+our first interview there were some expressions you misapprehended and 
+I have long meant to set you right upon.  My daughter stands beyond 
+doubt.  So do you, and I would make that good with my sword against all 
+gainsayers.  But, my dear David, this world is a censorious place - as 
+who should know it better than myself, who have lived ever since the 
+days of my late departed father, God sain him! in a perfect spate of 
+calumnies?  We have to face to that; you and me have to consider of 
+that; we have to consider of that."  And he wagged his head like a 
+minister in a pulpit.
+
+"To what effect, Mr. Drummond?" said I.  "I would be obliged to you if 
+you would approach your point."
+
+"Ay, ay," said he, laughing, "like your character, indeed! and what I 
+most admire in it.  But the point, my worthy fellow, is sometimes in a 
+kittle bit."  He filled a glass of wine.  "Though between you and me, 
+that are such fast friends, it need not bother us long.  The point, I 
+need scarcely tell you, is my daughter.  And the first thing is that I 
+have no thought in my mind of blaming you.  In the unfortunate 
+circumstances, what could you do else?  'Deed, and I cannot tell."
+
+"I thank you for that," said I, pretty close upon my guard.
+
+"I have besides studied your character," he went on; "your talents are 
+fair; you seem to have a moderate competence, which does no harm; and 
+one thing with another, I am very happy to have to announce to you that 
+I have decided on the latter of the two ways open."
+
+"I am afraid I am dull," said I.  "What ways are these?"
+
+He bent his brows upon me formidably and uncrossed his legs.  "Why, 
+sir," says he, "I think I need scarce describe them to a gentleman of 
+your condition; either that I should cut your throat or that you should 
+marry my daughter."
+
+"You are pleased to be quite plain at last," said I.
+
+"And I believe I have been plain from the beginning!" cries he 
+robustiously.  "I am a careful parent, Mr. Balfour; but I thank God, a 
+patient and deleeborate man.  There is many a father, sir, that would 
+have hirsled you at once either to the altar or the field.  My esteem 
+for your character - "
+
+"Mr. Drummond," I interrupted, "if you have any esteem for me at all, I 
+will beg of you to moderate your voice.  It is quite needless to rowt 
+at a gentleman in the same chamber with yourself and lending you his 
+best attention."
+
+"Why, very true," says he, with an immediate change.  "And you must 
+excuse the agitations of a parent."
+
+"I understand you then," I continued - "for I will take no note of your 
+other alternative, which perhaps it was a pity you let fall - I 
+understand you rather to offer me encouragement in case I should desire 
+to apply for your daughter's hand?"
+
+"It is not possible to express my meaning better," said he, "and I see 
+we shall do well together."
+
+"That remains to be yet seen," said I.  "But so much I need make no 
+secret of, that I bear the lady you refer to the most tender affection, 
+and I could not fancy, even in a dream, a better fortune than to get 
+her."
+
+"I was sure of it, I felt certain of you, David," he cried, and reached 
+out his hand to me.
+
+I put it by.  "You go too fast, Mr. Drummond," said I.  "There are 
+conditions to be made; and there is a difficulty in the path, which I 
+see not entirely how we shall come over.  I have told you that, upon my 
+side, there is no objection to the marriage, but I have good reason to 
+believe there will be much on the young lady's."
+
+"This is all beside the mark," says he.  "I will engage for her 
+acceptance."
+
+"I think you forget, Mr. Drummond," said I, "that, even in dealing with 
+myself, you have been betrayed into two-three unpalatable expressions.  
+I will have none such employed to the young lady.  I am here to speak 
+and think for the two of us; and I give you to understand that I would 
+no more let a wife be forced upon myself, than what I would let a 
+husband be forced on the young lady."
+
+He sat and glowered at me like one in doubt and a good deal of temper.
+
+"So that is to be the way of it," I concluded.  "I will marry Miss 
+Drummond, and that blithely, if she is entirely willing.  But if there 
+be the least unwillingness, as I have reason to fear - marry her will I 
+never."
+
+"Well well," said he, "this is a small affair.  As soon as she returns 
+I will sound her a bit, and hope to reassure you - "
+
+But I cut in again.  "Not a finger of you, Mr. Drummond, or I cry off, 
+and you can seek a husband to your daughter somewhere else," said I.  
+"It is I that am to be the only dealer and the only judge.  I shall 
+satisfy myself exactly; and none else shall anyways meddle - you the 
+least of all."
+
+"Upon my word, sir!" he exclaimed, "and who are you to be the judge?"
+
+"The bridegroom, I believe," said I.
+
+"This is to quibble," he cried.  "You turn your back upon the fact.  
+The girl, my daughter, has no choice left to exercise.  Her character 
+is gone."
+
+"And I ask your pardon," said I, "but while this matter lies between 
+her and you and me, that is not so."
+
+"What security have I!" he cried.  "Am I to let my daughter's 
+reputation depend upon a chance?"
+
+"You should have thought of all this long ago," said I, "before you 
+were so misguided as to lose her; and not afterwards when it is quite 
+too late.  I refuse to regard myself as any way accountable for your 
+neglect, and I will be browbeat by no man living.  My mind is quite 
+made up, and come what may, I will not depart from it a hair's breadth.  
+You and me are to sit here in company till her return:  upon which, 
+without either word or look from you, she and I are to go forth again 
+to hold our talk.  If she can satisfy me that she is willing to this 
+step, I will then make it; and if she cannot, I will not."
+
+He leaped out of his chair like a man stung.   "I can spy your 
+manoeuvre," he cried; "you would work upon her to refuse!"
+
+"Maybe ay, and maybe no," said I.  "That is the way it is to be, 
+whatever."
+
+"And if I refuse?" cries he.
+
+"Then, Mr. Drummond, it will have to come to the throat-cutting," said 
+I.
+
+What with the size of the man, his great length of arm in which he came 
+near rivalling his father, and his reputed skill at weapons, I did not 
+use this word without trepidation, to say nothing at all of the 
+circumstance that he was Catriona's father.  But I might have spared 
+myself alarms.  From the poorness of my lodging - he does not seem to 
+have remarked his daughter's dresses, which were indeed all equally new 
+to him - and from the fact that I had shown myself averse to lend, he 
+had embraced a strong idea of my poverty.  The sudden news of my estate 
+convinced him of his error, and he had made but the one bound of it on 
+this fresh venture, to which he was now so wedded, that I believe he 
+would have suffered anything rather than fall to the alternative of 
+fighting.
+
+A little while longer he continued to dispute with me, until I hit upon 
+a word that silenced him.
+
+"If I find you so averse to let me see the lady by herself," said I, "I 
+must suppose you have very good grounds to think me in the right about 
+her unwillingness."
+
+He gabbled some kind of an excuse.
+
+"But all this is very exhausting to both of our tempers," I added, "and 
+I think we would do better to preserve a judicious silence."
+
+The which we did until the girl returned, and I must suppose would have 
+cut a very ridiculous figure had there been any there to view us.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII - IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE
+
+
+
+I OPENED the door to Catriona and stopped her on the threshold.
+
+"Your father wishes us to take our walk," said I.
+
+She looked to James More, who nodded, and at that, like a trained 
+soldier, she turned to go with me.
+
+We took one of our old ways, where we had gone often together, and been 
+more happy than I can tell of in the past.  I came a half a step 
+behind, so that I could watch her unobserved.  The knocking of her 
+little shoes upon the way sounded extraordinary pretty and sad; and I 
+thought it a strange moment that I should be so near both ends of it at 
+once, and walk in the midst between two destinies, and could not tell 
+whether I was hearing these steps for the last time, or whether the 
+sound of them was to go in and out with me till death should part us.
+
+She avoided even to look at me, only walked before her, like one who 
+had a guess of what was coming.  I saw I must speak soon before my 
+courage was run out, but where to begin I knew not.  In this painful 
+situation, when the girl was as good as forced into my arms and had 
+already besought my forbearance, any excess of pressure must have 
+seemed indecent; yet to avoid it wholly would have a very cold-like 
+appearance.  Between these extremes I stood helpless, and could have 
+bit my fingers; so that, when at last I managed to speak at all, it may 
+be said I spoke at random.
+
+"Catriona," said I, "I am in a very painful situation; or rather, so we 
+are both; and I would be a good deal obliged to you if you would 
+promise to let me speak through first of all, and not to interrupt me 
+till I have done."
+
+She promised me that simply.
+
+"Well," said I, "this that I have got to say is very difficult, and I 
+know very well I have no right to be saying it.  After what passed 
+between the two of us last Friday, I have no manner of right.  We have 
+got so ravelled up (and all by my fault) that I know very well the 
+least I could do is just to hold my tongue, which was what I intended 
+fully, and there was nothing further from my thoughts than to have 
+troubled you again.  But, my dear, it has become merely necessary, and 
+no way by it.  You see, this estate of mine has fallen in, which makes 
+of me rather a better match; and the - the business would not have 
+quite the same ridiculous-like appearance that it would before.  
+Besides which, it's supposed that our affairs have got so much ravelled 
+up (as I was saying) that it would be better to let them be the way 
+they are.  In my view, this part of the thing is vastly exagerate, and 
+if I were you I would not wear two thoughts on it.  Only it's right I 
+should mention the same, because there's no doubt it has some influence 
+on James More.  Then I think we were none so unhappy when we dwelt 
+together in this town before.  I think we did pretty well together.  If 
+you would look back, my dear - "
+
+"I will look neither back nor forward," she interrupted.  "Tell me the 
+one thing:  this is my father's doing?"
+
+"He approves of it," said I.  "He approved I that I should ask your 
+hand in marriage," and was going on again with somewhat more of an 
+appeal upon her feelings; but she marked me not, and struck into the 
+midst.
+
+"He told you to!" she cried.  "It is no sense denying it, you said 
+yourself that there was nothing farther from your thoughts.  He told 
+you to."
+
+"He spoke of it the first, if that is what you mean," I began.
+
+She was walking ever the faster, and looking fain in front of her; but 
+at this she made a little noise in her head, and I thought she would 
+have run.
+
+"Without which," I went on, "after what you said last Friday, I would 
+never have been so troublesome as make the offer.  But when he as good 
+as asked me, what was I to do?"
+
+She stopped and turned round upon me.
+
+"Well, it is refused at all events," she cried, "and there will be an 
+end of that."
+
+And she began again to walk forward.
+
+"I suppose I could expect no better," said I, "but I think you might 
+try to be a little kind to me for the last end of it.  I see not why 
+you should be harsh.  I have loved you very well, Catriona - no harm 
+that I should call you so for the last time.  I have done the best that 
+I could manage, I am trying the same still, and only vexed that I can 
+do no better.  It is a strange thing to me that you can take any 
+pleasure to be hard to me."
+
+"I am not thinking of you," she said, "I am thinking of that man, my 
+father."
+
+"Well, and that way, too!" said I.  "I can be of use to you that way, 
+too; I will have to be.  It is very needful, my dear, that we should 
+consult about your father; for the way this talk has gone, an angry man 
+will be James More."
+
+She stopped again.  "It is because I am disgraced?" she asked.
+
+"That is what he is thinking," I replied, "but I have told you already 
+to make nought of it."
+
+"It will be all one to me," she cried.  "I prefer to be disgraced!"
+
+I did not know very well what to answer, and stood silent.
+
+There seemed to be something working in her bosom after that last cry; 
+presently she broke out, "And what is the meaning of all this?  Why is 
+all this shame loundered on my head?  How could you dare it, David 
+Balfour?"
+
+"My dear," said I, "what else was I to do?"
+
+"I am not your dear," she said, "and I defy you to be calling me these 
+words."
+
+"I am not thinking of my words," said I.  "My heart bleeds for you, 
+Miss Drummond.  Whatever I may say, be sure you have my pity in your 
+difficult position.  But there is just the one thing that I wish you 
+would bear in view, if it was only long enough to discuss it quietly; 
+for there is going to be a collieshangie when we two get home.  Take my 
+word for it, it will need the two of us to make this matter end in 
+peace."
+
+"Ay," said she.  There sprang a patch of red in either of her cheeks.  
+"Was he for fighting you?" said she.
+
+"Well, he was that," said I.
+
+She gave a dreadful kind of laugh.  "At all events, it is complete!" 
+she cried.  And then turning on me.  "My father and I are a fine pair," 
+said she, "but I am thanking the good God there will be somebody worse 
+than what we are.  I am thanking the good God that he has let me see 
+you so.  There will never be the girl made that will not scorn you."
+
+I had borne a good deal pretty patiently, but this was over the mark.
+
+"You have no right to speak to me like that," said I.  "What have I 
+done but to be good to you, or try to be?  And here is my repayment!  
+O, it is too much."
+
+She kept looking at me with a hateful smile.  "Coward!" said she.
+
+"The word in your throat and in your father's!" I cried.  "I have dared 
+him this day already in your interest.  I will dare him again, the 
+nasty pole-cat; little I care which of us should fall!  Come," said I, 
+"back to the house with us; let us be done with it, let me be done with 
+the whole Hieland crew of you!  You will see what you think when I am 
+dead."
+
+She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck her 
+for.
+
+"O, smile away!" I cried.  "I have seen your bonny father smile on the 
+wrong side this day.  Not that I mean he was afraid, of course," I 
+added hastily, "but he preferred the other way of it."
+
+"What is this?" she asked.
+
+"When I offered to draw with him," said I.
+
+"You offered to draw upon James More!" she cried.
+
+"And I did so," said I, "and found him backward enough, or how would we 
+be here?"
+
+"There is a meaning upon this," said she.  "What is it you are 
+meaning?"
+
+"He was to make you take me," I replied, "and I would not have it.  I 
+said you should be free, and I must speak with you alone; little I 
+supposed it would be such a speaking!  'AND WHAT IF I REFUSE?' said he. 
+- 'THEN IT MUST COME TO THE THROAT-CUTTING,' says I, 'FOR I WILL NO 
+MORE HAVE A HUSBAND FORCED ON THAT YOUNG LADY, THAN WHAT I WOULD HAVE A 
+WIFE FORCED UPON MYSELF.'  These were my words, they were a friend's 
+words; bonnily have I paid for them!  Now you have refused me of your 
+own clear free will, and there lives no father in the Highlands, or out 
+of them, that can force on this marriage.  I will see that your wishes 
+are respected; I will make the same my business, as I have all through.  
+But I think you might have that decency as to affect some gratitude.  
+'Deed, and I thought you knew me better!  I have not behaved quite well 
+to you, but that was weakness.  And to think me a coward, and such a 
+coward as that - O, my lass, there was a stab for the last of it!"
+
+"Davie, how would I guess?" she cried.  "O, this is a dreadful 
+business!  Me and mine," - she gave a kind of a wretched cry at the 
+word - "me and mine are not fit to speak to you.  O, I could be 
+kneeling down to you in the street, I could be kissing your hands for 
+forgiveness!"
+
+"I will keep the kisses I have got from you already," cried I.  "I will 
+keep the ones I wanted and that were something worth; I will not be 
+kissed in penitence."
+
+"What can you be thinking of this miserable girl?" says she.
+
+"What I am trying to tell you all this while!" said I, "that you had 
+best leave me alone, whom you can make no more unhappy if you tried, 
+and turn your attention to James More, your father, with whom you are 
+like to have a queer pirn to wind."
+
+"O, that I must be going out into the world alone with such a man!" she 
+cried, and seemed to catch herself in with a great effort.  "But 
+trouble yourself no more for that," said she.  "He does not know what 
+kind of nature is in my heart.  He will pay me dear for this day of it; 
+dear, dear, will he pay."
+
+She turned, and began to go home and I to accompany her.  At which she 
+stopped.
+
+"I will be going alone," she said.  "It is alone I must be seeing him."
+
+Some little time I raged about the streets, and told myself I was the 
+worst used lad in Christendom.  Anger choked me; it was all very well 
+for me to breathe deep; it seemed there was not air enough about Leyden 
+to supply me, and I thought I would have burst like a man at the bottom 
+of the sea.  I stopped and laughed at myself at a street corner a 
+minute together, laughing out loud, so that a passenger looked at me, 
+which brought me to myself.
+
+"Well," I thought, "I have been a gull and a ninny and a soft Tommy 
+long enough.  Time it was done.  Here is a good lesson to have nothing 
+to do with that accursed sex, that was the ruin of the man in the 
+beginning and will be so to the end.  God knows I was happy enough 
+before ever I saw her; God knows I can be happy enough again when I 
+have seen the last of her."
+
+That seemed to me the chief affair:  to see them go.  I dwelled upon 
+the idea fiercely; and presently slipped on, in a kind of malevolence, 
+to consider how very poorly they were likely to fare when Davie Balfour 
+was no longer by to be their milk-cow; at which, to my very own great 
+surprise, the disposition of my mind turned bottom up.  I was still 
+angry; I still hated her; and yet I thought I owed it to myself that 
+she should suffer nothing.
+
+This carried me home again at once, where I found the mails drawn out 
+and ready fastened by the door, and the father and daughter with every 
+mark upon them of a recent disagreement.  Catriona was like a wooden 
+doll; James More breathed hard, his face was dotted with white spots, 
+and his nose upon one side.  As soon as I came in, the girl looked at 
+him with a steady, clear, dark look that might have been followed by a 
+blow.  It was a hint that was more contemptuous than a command, and I 
+was surprised to see James More accept it.  It was plain he had had a 
+master talking-to; and I could see there must be more of the devil in 
+the girl than I had guessed, and more good humour about the man than I 
+had given him the credit of.
+
+He began, at least, calling me Mr. Balfour, and plainly speaking from a 
+lesson; but he got not very far, for at the first pompous swell of his 
+voice, Catriona cut in.
+
+"I will tell you what James More is meaning," said she.  "He means we 
+have come to you, beggar-folk, and have not behaved to you very well, 
+and we are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill-behaviour.  Now we are 
+wanting to go away and be forgotten; and my father will have guided his 
+gear so ill, that we cannot even do that unless you will give us some 
+more alms.  For that is what we are, at an events, beggar-folk and 
+sorners."
+
+"By your leave, Miss Drummond," said I, "I must speak to your father by 
+myself."
+
+She went into her own room and shut the door, without a word or a look.
+
+"You must excuse her, Mr. Balfour," says James More.  "She has no 
+delicacy."
+
+"I am not here to discuss that with you," said I, "but to be quit of 
+you.  And to that end I must talk of your position.  Now, Mr. Drummond, 
+I have kept the run of your affairs more closely than you bargained 
+for.  I know you had money of your own when you were borrowing mine.  I 
+know you have had more since you were here in Leyden, though you 
+concealed it even from your daughter."
+
+"I bid you beware.  I will stand no more baiting," he broke out.  "I am 
+sick of her and you.  What kind of a damned trade is this to be a 
+parent!  I have had expressions used to me - "  There he broke off.  
+"Sir, this is the heart of a soldier and a parent," he went on again, 
+laying his hand on his bosom, "outraged in both characters - and I bid 
+you beware."
+
+"If you would have let me finish," says I, "you would have found I 
+spoke for your advantage."
+
+"My dear friend," he cried, "I know I might have relied upon the 
+generosity of your character."
+
+"Man! will you let me speak?" said I.  "The fact is that I cannot win 
+to find out if you are rich or poor.  But it is my idea that your 
+means, as they are mysterious in their source, so they are something 
+insufficient in amount; and I do not choose your daughter to be 
+lacking.  If I durst speak to herself, you may be certain I would never 
+dream of trusting it to you; because I know you like the back of my 
+hand, and all your blustering talk is that much wind to me.  However, I 
+believe in your way you do still care something for your daughter after 
+all; and I must just be doing with that ground of confidence, such as 
+it is."
+
+Whereupon, I arranged with him that he was to communicate with me, as 
+to his whereabouts and Catriona's welfare, in consideration of which I 
+was to serve him a small stipend.
+
+He heard the business out with a great deal of eagerness; and when it 
+was done, "My dear fellow, my dear son," he cried out, "this is more 
+like yourself than any of it yet!  I will serve you with a soldier's 
+faithfulness - "
+
+"Let me hear no more of it!" says I.  "You have got me to that pitch 
+that the bare name of soldier rises on my stomach.  Our traffic is 
+settled; I am now going forth and will return in one half-hour, when I 
+expect to find my chambers purged of you."
+
+I gave them good measure of time; it was my one fear that I might see 
+Catriona again, because tears and weakness were ready in my heart, and 
+I cherished my anger like a piece of dignity.  Perhaps an hour went by; 
+the sun had gone down, a little wisp of a new moon was following it 
+across a scarlet sunset; already there were stars in the east, and in 
+my chambers, when at last I entered them, the night lay blue.  I lit a 
+taper and reviewed the rooms; in the first there remained nothing so 
+much as to awake a memory of those who were gone; but in the second, in 
+a corner of the floor, I spied a little heap that brought my heart into 
+my mouth.  She had left behind at her departure all that she had ever 
+had of me.  It was the blow that I felt sorest, perhaps because it was 
+the last; and I fell upon that pile of clothing and behaved myself more 
+foolish than I care to tell of.
+
+Late in the night, in a strict frost, and my teeth chattering, I came 
+again by some portion of my manhood and considered with myself.  The 
+sight of these poor frocks and ribbons, and her shifts, and the clocked 
+stockings, was not to be endured; and if I were to recover any 
+constancy of mind, I saw I must be rid of them ere the morning.  It was 
+my first thought to have made a fire and burned them; but my 
+disposition has always been opposed to wastery, for one thing; and for 
+another, to have burned these things that she had worn so close upon 
+her body seemed in the nature of a cruelty.  There was a corner 
+cupboard in that chamber; there I determined to bestow them.  The which 
+I did and made it a long business, folding them with very little skill 
+indeed but the more care; and sometimes dropping them with my tears.  
+All the heart was gone out of me, I was weary as though I had run 
+miles, and sore like one beaten; when, as I was folding a kerchief that 
+she wore often at her neck, I observed there was a corner neatly cut 
+from it.  It was a kerchief of a very pretty hue, on which I had 
+frequently remarked; and once that she had it on, I remembered telling 
+her (by way of a banter) that she wore my colours.  There came a glow 
+of hope and like a tide of sweetness in my bosom; and the next moment I 
+was plunged back in a fresh despair.  For there was the corner crumpled 
+in a knot and cast down by itself in another part of the floor.
+
+But when I argued with myself, I grew more hopeful.  She had cut that 
+corner off in some childish freak that was manifestly tender; that she 
+had cast it away again was little to he wondered at; and I was inclined 
+to dwell more upon the first than upon the second, and to be more 
+pleased that she had ever conceived the idea of that keepsake, than 
+concerned because she had flung it from her in an hour of natural 
+resentment.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX - WE MEET IN DUNKIRK.
+
+
+
+ALTOGETHER, then, I was scare so miserable the next days but what I had 
+many hopeful and happy snatches; threw myself with a good deal of 
+constancy upon my studies; and made out to endure the time till Alan 
+should arrive, or I might hear word of Catriona by the means of James 
+More.  I had altogether three letters in the time of our separation.  
+One was to announce their arrival in the town of Dunkirk in France, 
+from which place James shortly after started alone upon a private 
+mission.  This was to England and to see Lord Holderness; and it has 
+always been a bitter thought that my good money helped to pay the 
+charges of the same.  But he has need of a long spoon who soups with 
+the de'il, or James More either.  During this absence, the time was to 
+fall due for another letter; and as the letter was the condition of his 
+stipend, he had been so careful as to prepare it beforehand and leave 
+it with Catriona to be despatched.  The fact of our correspondence 
+aroused her suspicions, and he was no sooner gone than she had burst 
+the seal.  What I received began accordingly in the writing of James 
+More:
+
+
+"My dear Sir, - Your esteemed favour came to hand duly, and I have to 
+acknowledge the inclosure according to agreement.  It shall be all 
+faithfully expended on my daughter, who is well, and desires to be 
+remembered to her dear friend.  I find her in rather a melancholy 
+disposition, but trust in the mercy of God to see her re-established.  
+Our manner of life is very much alone, but we solace ourselves with the 
+melancholy tunes of our native mountains, and by walking up the margin 
+of the sea that lies next to Scotland.  It was better days with me when 
+I lay with five wounds upon my body on the field of Gladsmuir.  I have 
+found employment here in the HARAS of a French nobleman, where my 
+experience is valued.  But, my dear Sir, the wages are so exceedingly 
+unsuitable that I would be ashamed to mention them, which makes your 
+remittances the more necessary to my daughter's comfort, though I 
+daresay the sight of old friends would be still better.
+
+"My dear Sir,
+"Your affectionate, obedient servant,
+"JAMES MACGREGOR DRUMMOND."
+
+
+Below it began again in the hand of Catriona:-
+
+
+"Do not be believing him, it is all lies together, - C. M. D."
+
+
+Not only did she add this postscript, but I think she must have come 
+near suppressing the letter; for it came long after date, and was 
+closely followed by the third.  In the time betwixt them, Alan had 
+arrived, and made another life to me with his merry conversation; I had 
+been presented to his cousin of the Scots-Dutch, a man that drank more 
+than I could have thought possible and was not otherwise of interest; I 
+had been entertained to many jovial dinners and given some myself, all 
+with no great change upon my sorrow; and we two (by which I mean Alan 
+and myself, and not at all the cousin) had discussed a good deal the 
+nature of my relations with James More and his daughter.  I was 
+naturally diffident to give particulars; and this disposition was not 
+anyway lessened by the nature of Alan's commentary upon those I gave.
+
+"I cannae make heed nor tail of it," he would say, "but it sticks in my 
+mind ye've made a gowk of yourself.  There's few people that has had 
+more experience than Alan Breck:  and I can never call to mind to have 
+heard tell of a lassie like this one of yours.  The way that you tell 
+it, the thing's fair impossible.  Ye must have made a terrible hash of 
+the business, David."
+
+"There are whiles that I am of the same mind," said I.
+
+"The strange thing is that ye seem to have a kind of fancy for her 
+too!" said Alan.
+
+"The biggest kind, Alan," said I, "and I think I'll take it to my grave 
+with me."
+
+"Well, ye beat me, whatever!" he would conclude.
+
+I showed him the letter with Catriona's postscript.   "And here again!" 
+he cried.  "Impossible to deny a kind of decency to this Catriona, and 
+sense forby!  As for James More, the man's as boss as a drum; he's just 
+a wame and a wheen words; though I'll can never deny that he fought 
+reasonably well at Gladsmuir, and it's true what he says here about the 
+five wounds.  But the loss of him is that the man's boss."
+
+"Ye see, Alan," said I, "it goes against the grain with me to leave the 
+maid in such poor hands."
+
+"Ye couldnae weel find poorer," he admitted.  "But what are ye to do 
+with it?  It's this way about a man and a woman, ye see, Davie:  The 
+weemenfolk have got no kind of reason to them.  Either they like the 
+man, and then a' goes fine; or else they just detest him, and ye may 
+spare your breath - ye can do naething.  There's just the two sets of 
+them - them that would sell their coats for ye, and them that never 
+look the road ye're on.  That's a' that there is to women; and you seem 
+to be such a gomeral that ye cannae tell the tane frae the tither."
+
+"Well, and I'm afraid that's true for me," said I.
+
+"And yet there's naething easier!" cried Alan.  "I could easy learn ye 
+the science of the thing; but ye seem to me to be born blind, and 
+there's where the deefficulty comes in."
+
+"And can YOU no help me?" I asked, "you that are so clever at the 
+trade?"
+
+"Ye see, David, I wasnae here," said he.  "I'm like a field officer 
+that has naebody but blind men for scouts and ECLAIREURS; and what 
+would he ken?  But it sticks in my mind that ye'll have made some kind 
+of bauchle; and if I was you I would have a try at her again."
+
+"Would ye so, man Alan?" said I.
+
+"I would e'en't," says he.
+
+The third letter came to my hand while we were deep in some such talk:  
+and it will be seen how pat it fell to the occasion.  James professed 
+to be in some concern upon his daughter's health, which I believe was 
+never better; abounded in kind expressions to myself; and finally 
+proposed that I should visit them at Dunkirk.
+
+"You will now be enjoying the society of my old comrade Mr. Stewart," 
+he wrote.  "Why not accompany him so far in his return to France?  I 
+have something very particular for Mr. Stewart's ear; and, at any rate, 
+I would be pleased to meet in with an old fellow-soldier and one so 
+mettle as himself.  As for you, my dear sir, my daughter and I would be 
+proud to receive our benefactor, whom we regard as a brother and a son.  
+The French nobleman has proved a person of the most filthy avarice of 
+character, and I have been necessitate to leave the HARAS.  You will 
+find us in consequence a little poorly lodged in the AUBERGE of a man 
+Bazin on the dunes; but the situation is caller, and I make no doubt 
+but we might spend some very pleasant days, when Mr. Stewart and I 
+could recall our services, and you and my daughter divert yourselves in 
+a manner more befitting your age.  I beg at least that Mr. Stewart 
+would come here; my business with him opens a very wide door."
+
+"What does the man want with me?" cried Alan, when he had read.  "What 
+he wants with you in clear enough - it's siller.  But what can he want 
+with Alan Breck?"
+
+"O, it'll be just an excuse," said I.  "He is still after this 
+marriage, which I wish from my heart that we could bring about.  And he 
+asks you because he thinks I would be less likely to come wanting you."
+
+"Well, I wish that I kent," says Alan.  "Him and me were never onyways 
+pack; we used to girn at ither like a pair of pipers.  'Something for 
+my ear,' quo' he!  I'll maybe have something for his hinder-end, before 
+we're through with it.  Dod, I'm thinking it would be a kind of 
+divertisement to gang and see what he'll be after!  Forby that I could 
+see your lassie then.  What say ye, Davie?  Will ye ride with Alan?"
+
+You may be sure I was not backward, and Alan's furlough running towards 
+an end, we set forth presently upon this joint adventure.
+
+It was near dark of a January day when we rode at last into the town of 
+Dunkirk.  We left our horses at the post, and found a guide to Bazin's 
+Inn, which lay beyond the walls.  Night was quite fallen, so that we 
+were the last to leave that fortress, and heard the doors of it close 
+behind us as we passed the bridge.  On the other side there lay a 
+lighted suburb, which we thridded for a while, then turned into a dark 
+lane, and presently found ourselves wading in the night among deep sand 
+where we could hear a bullering of the sea.  We travelled in this 
+fashion for some while, following our conductor mostly by the sound of 
+his voice; and I had begun to think he was perhaps misleading us, when 
+we came to the top of a small brae, and there appeared out of the 
+darkness a dim light in a window.
+
+"VOILA L'AUBERGE A BAZIN," says the guide.
+
+Alan smacked his lips.  "An unco lonely bit," said he, and I thought by 
+his tone he was not wholly pleased.
+
+A little after, and we stood in the lower storey of that house, which 
+was all in the one apartment, with a stairs leading to the chambers at 
+the side, benches and tables by the wall, the cooking fire at the one 
+end of it, and shelves of bottles and the cellar-trap at the other.  
+Here Bazin, who was an ill-looking, big man, told us the Scottish 
+gentleman was gone abroad he knew not where, but the young lady was 
+above, and he would call her down to us.
+
+I took from my breast that kerchief wanting the corner, and knotted it 
+about my throat.  I could hear my heart go; and Alan patting me on the 
+shoulder with some of his laughable expressions, I could scarce refrain 
+from a sharp word.  But the time was not long to wait.  I heard her 
+step pass overhead, and saw her on the stair.  This she descended very 
+quietly, and greeted me with a pale face and a certain seeming of 
+earnestness, or uneasiness, in her manner that extremely dashed me.
+
+"My father, James More, will be here soon.  He will be very pleased to 
+see you," she said.  And then of a sudden her face flamed, her eyes 
+lightened, the speech stopped upon her lips; and I made sure she had 
+observed the kerchief.  It was only for a breath that she was 
+discomposed; but methought it was with a new animation that she turned 
+to welcome Alan.  "And you will be his friend, Alan Breck?" she cried.  
+"Many is the dozen times I will have heard him tell of you; and I love 
+you already for all your bravery and goodness."
+
+"Well, well," says Alan, holding her hand in his and viewing her, "and 
+so this is the young lady at the last of it!  David, ye're an awful 
+poor hand of a description."
+
+I do not know that ever I heard him speak so straight to people's 
+hearts; the sound of his voice was like song.
+
+"What? will he have been describing me?" she cried.
+
+"Little else of it since I ever came out of France!" says he, "forby a 
+bit of a speciment one night in Scotland in a shaw of wood by 
+Silvermills.  But cheer up, my dear! ye're bonnier than what he said.  
+And now there's one thing sure; you and me are to be a pair of friends.  
+I'm a kind of a henchman to Davie here; I'm like a tyke at his heels; 
+and whatever he cares for, I've got to care for too - and by the holy 
+airn! they've got to care for me!  So now you can see what way you 
+stand with Alan Breck, and ye'll find ye'll hardly lose on the 
+transaction.  He's no very bonnie, my dear, but he's leal to them he 
+loves."
+
+"I thank you from my heart for your good words," said she.  "I have 
+that honour for a brave, honest man that I cannot find any to be 
+answering with."
+
+Using travellers' freedom, we spared to wait for James More, and sat 
+down to meat, we threesome.  Alan had Catriona sit by him and wait upon 
+his wants:  he made her drink first out of his glass, he surrounded her 
+with continual kind gallantries, and yet never gave me the most small 
+occasion to be jealous; and he kept the talk so much in his own hand, 
+and that in so merry a note, that neither she nor I remembered to be 
+embarrassed.  If any had seen us there, it must have been supposed that 
+Alan was the old friend and I the stranger.  Indeed, I had often cause 
+to love and to admire the man, but I never loved or admired him better 
+than that night; and I could not help remarking to myself (what I was 
+sometimes rather in danger of forgetting) that he had not only much 
+experience of life, but in his own way a great deal of natural ability 
+besides.  As for Catriona, she seemed quite carried away; her laugh was 
+like a peal of bells, her face gay as a May morning; and I own, 
+although I was well pleased, yet I was a little sad also, and thought 
+myself a dull, stockish character in comparison of my friend, and very 
+unfit to come into a young maid's life, and perhaps ding down her 
+gaiety.
+
+But if that was like to be my part, I found that at least I was not 
+alone in it; for, James More returning suddenly, the girl was changed 
+into a piece of stone.  Through the rest of that evening, until she 
+made an excuse and slipped to bed, I kept an eye upon her without 
+cease; and I can bear testimony that she never smiled, scarce spoke, 
+and looked mostly on the board in front of her.  So that I really 
+marvelled to see so much devotion (as it used to be) changed into the 
+very sickness of hate.
+
+Of James More it is unnecessary to say much; you know the man already, 
+what there was to know of him; and I am weary of writing out his lies.  
+Enough that he drank a great deal, and told us very little that was to 
+any possible purpose.  As for the business with Alan, that was to be 
+reserved for the morrow and his private hearing.
+
+It was the more easy to be put off, because Alan and I were pretty 
+weary with four day's ride, and sat not very late after Catriona.
+
+We were soon alone in a chamber where we were to make-shift with a 
+single bed.  Alan looked on me with a queer smile.
+
+"Ye muckle ass!" said he.
+
+"What do ye mean by that?" I cried.
+
+"Mean?  What do I mean!  It's extraordinar, David man," say he, "that 
+you should be so mortal stupit."
+
+Again I begged him to speak out.
+
+"Well, it's this of it," said he.  "I told ye there were the two kinds 
+of women - them that would sell their shifts for ye, and the others.  
+Just you try for yoursel, my bonny man!  But what's that neepkin at 
+your craig?"
+
+I told him.
+
+"I thocht it was something thereabout" said he.
+
+Nor would he say another word though I besieged him long with 
+importunities.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX - THE LETTER FROM THE SHIP
+
+
+
+DAYLIGHT showed us how solitary the inn stood.  It was plainly hard 
+upon the sea, yet out of all view of it, and beset on every side with 
+scabbit hills of sand.  There was, indeed, only one thing in the nature 
+of a prospect, where there stood out over a brae the two sails of a 
+windmill, like an ass's ears, but with the ass quite hidden.  It was 
+strange (after the wind rose, for at first it was dead calm) to see the 
+turning and following of each other of these great sails behind the 
+hillock.  Scarce any road came by there; but a number of footways 
+travelled among the bents in all directions up to Mr. Bazin's door.  
+The truth is, he was a man of many trades, not any one of them honest, 
+and the position of his inn was the best of his livelihood.  Smugglers 
+frequented it; political agents and forfeited persons bound across the 
+water came there to await their passages; and I daresay there was worse 
+behind, for a whole family might have been butchered in that house and 
+nobody the wiser.
+
+I slept little and ill.  Long ere it was day, I had slipped from beside 
+my bedfellow, and was warming myself at the fire or walking to and fro 
+before the door.  Dawn broke mighty sullen; but a little after, sprang 
+up a wind out of the west, which burst the clouds, let through the sun, 
+and set the mill to the turning.  There was something of spring in the 
+sunshine, or else it was in my heart; and the appearing of the great 
+sails one after another from behind the hill, diverted me extremely.  
+At times I could hear a creak of the machinery; and by half-past eight 
+of the day, and I thought this dreary, desert place was like a 
+paradise.
+
+For all which, as the day drew on and nobody came near, I began to be 
+aware of an uneasiness that I could scarce explain.  It seemed there 
+was trouble afoot; the sails of the windmill, as they came up and went 
+down over the hill, were like persons spying; and outside of all fancy, 
+it was surely a strange neighbourhood and house for a young lady to be 
+brought to dwell in.
+
+At breakfast, which we took late, it was manifest that James More was 
+in some danger or perplexity; manifest that Alan was alive to the same, 
+and watched him close; and this appearance of duplicity upon the one 
+side, and vigilance upon the other, held me on live coals.  The meal 
+was no sooner over than James seemed to come began to make apologies.  
+He had an appointment of a private nature in the town (it was with the 
+French nobleman, he told me), and we would please excuse him till about 
+noon.  Meanwhile he carried his daughter aside to the far end of the 
+room, where he seemed to speak rather earnestly and she to listen with 
+much inclination.
+
+"I am caring less and less about this man James," said Alan.  "There's 
+something no right with the man James, and I shouldnae wonder but what 
+Alan Breck would give an eye to him this day.  I would like fine to see 
+yon French nobleman, Davie; and I daresay you could find an employ to 
+yoursel, and that would be to speir at the lassie for some news o' your 
+affair.  Just tell it to her plainly - tell her ye're a muckle ass at 
+the off-set; and then, if I were you, and ye could do it naitural, I 
+would just mint to her I was in some kind of a danger; a' weemenfolk 
+likes that."
+
+"I cannae lee, Alan, I cannae do it naitural," says I, mocking him.
+
+"The more fool you!" says he.  "Then ye'll can tell her that I 
+recommended it; that'll set her to the laughing; and I wouldnae wonder 
+but what that was the next best.  But see to the pair of them!  If I 
+didnae feel just sure of the lassie, and that she was awful pleased and 
+chief with Alan, I would think there was some kind of hocus-pocus about 
+you."
+
+"And is she so pleased with ye, then, Alan?" I asked.
+
+"She thinks a heap of me," says he.  "And I'm no like you:  I'm one 
+that can tell.  That she does - she thinks a heap of Alan.  And troth! 
+I'm thinking a good deal of him mysel; and with your permission, Shaws, 
+I'll be getting a wee yont amang the bents, so that I can see what way 
+James goes."
+
+One after another went, till I was left alone beside the breakfast 
+table; James to Dunkirk, Alan dogging him, Catriona up the stairs to 
+her own chamber.  I could very well understand how she should avoid to 
+be alone with me; yet was none the better pleased with it for that, and 
+bent my mind to entrap her to an interview before the men returned.  
+Upon the whole, the best appeared to me to do like Alan.  If I was out 
+of view among the sandhills, the fine morning would decoy her forth; 
+and once I had her in the open, I could please myself.
+
+No sooner said than done; nor was I long under the bield of a hillock 
+before she appeared at the inn door, looked here and there, and (seeing 
+nobody) set out by a path that led directly seaward, and by which I 
+followed her.  I was in no haste to make my presence known; the further 
+she went I made sure of the longer hearing to my suit; and the ground 
+being all sandy it was easy to follow her unheard.  The path rose and 
+came at last to the head of a knowe.  Thence I had a picture for the 
+first time of what a desolate wilderness that inn stood hidden in; 
+where was no man to be seen, nor any house of man, except just Bazin's 
+and the windmill.  Only a little further on, the sea appeared and two 
+or three ships upon it, pretty as a drawing.  One of these was 
+extremely close in to be so great a vessel; and I was aware of a shock 
+of new suspicion, when I recognised the trim of the SEAHORSE.  What 
+should an English ship be doing so near in to France?  Why was Alan 
+brought into her neighbourhood, and that in a place so far from any 
+hope of rescue? and was it by accident, or by design, that the daughter 
+of James More should walk that day to the seaside?
+
+Presently I came forth behind her in the front of the sandhills and 
+above the beach.  It was here long and solitary; with a man-o'-war's 
+boat drawn up about the middle of the prospect, and an officer in 
+charge and pacing the sands like one who waited.  I sat down where the 
+rough grass a good deal covered me, and looked for what should follow.  
+Catriona went straight to the boat; the officer met her with 
+civilities; they had ten words together; I saw a letter changing hands; 
+and there was Catriona returning.  At the same time, as if this were 
+all her business on the Continent, the boat shoved off and was headed 
+for the SEAHORSE.  But I observed the officer to remain behind and 
+disappear among the bents.
+
+I liked the business little; and the more I considered of it, liked it 
+less.  Was it Alan the officer was seeking? or Catriona?  She drew near 
+with her head down, looking constantly on the sand, and made so tender 
+a picture that I could not bear to doubt her innocence.  The next, she 
+raised her face and recognised me; seemed to hesitate, and then came on 
+again, but more slowly, and I thought with a changed colour.  And at 
+that thought, all else that was upon my bosom - fears, suspicions, the 
+care of my friend's life - was clean swallowed up; and I rose to my 
+feet and stood waiting her in a drunkenness of hope.
+
+I gave her "good morning" as she came up, which she returned with a 
+good deal of composure.
+
+"Will you forgive my having followed you?" said I.
+
+"I know you are always meaning kindly," she replied; and then, with a 
+little outburst, "but why will you be sending money to that man!  It 
+must not be."
+
+"I never sent it for him," said I, "but for you, as you know well."
+
+"And you have no right to be sending it to either one of us," she said.  
+"David, it is not right."
+
+"It is not, it is all wrong," said I, "and I pray God he will help this 
+dull fellow (if it be at all possible) to make it better.  Catriona, 
+this is no kind of life for you to lead; and I ask your pardon for the 
+word, but yon man is no fit father to take care of you."
+
+"Do not be speaking of him, even!" was her cry.
+
+"And I need speak of him no more; it is not of him that I am thinking, 
+O, be sure of that!" says I.  "I think of the one thing.  I have been 
+alone now this long time in Leyden; and when I was by way of at my 
+studies, still I was thinking of that.  Next Alan came, and I went 
+among soldier-men to their big dinners; and still I had the same 
+thought.  And it was the same before, when I had her there beside me.  
+Catriona, do you see this napkin at my throat!  You cut a corner from 
+it once and then cast it from you.  They're YOUR colours now; I wear 
+them in my heart.  My dear, I cannot be wanting you.  O, try to put up 
+with me!"
+
+I stepped before her so as to intercept her walking on.
+
+"Try to put up with me," I was saying, "try and bear me with a little."
+
+Still she had never the word, and a fear began to rise in me like a 
+fear of death.
+
+"Catriona," I cried, gazing on her hard, "is it a mistake again?  Am I 
+quite lost?"
+
+She raised her face to me, breathless.
+
+"Do you want me, Davie, truly?" said she, and I scarce could hear her 
+say it.
+
+"I do that," said I.  "O, sure you know it - I do that."
+
+"I have nothing left to give or to keep back," said she.  "I was all 
+yours from the first day, if you would have had a gift of me!" she 
+said,
+
+This was on the summit of a brae; the place was windy and conspicuous, 
+we were to be seen there even from the English ship; but I kneeled down 
+before her in the sand, and embraced her knees, and burst into that 
+storm of weeping that I thought it must have broken me.  All thought 
+was wholly beaten from my mind by the vehemency of my discomposure.  I 
+knew not where I was.  I had forgot why I was happy; only I knew she 
+stooped, and I felt her cherish me to her face and bosom, and heard her 
+words out of a whirl.
+
+"Davie," she was saying, "O, Davie, is this what you think of me!  Is 
+it so that you were caring for poor me!  O, Davie, Davie!"
+
+With that she wept also, and our tears were commingled in a perfect 
+gladness.
+
+It might have been ten in the day before I came to a clear sense of 
+what a mercy had befallen me; and sitting over against her, with her 
+hands in mine, gazed in her face, and laughed out loud for pleasure 
+like a child, and called her foolish and kind names.  I have never seen 
+the place that looked so pretty as those bents by Dunkirk; and the 
+windmill sails, as they bobbed over the knowe, were like a tune of 
+music.
+
+I know not how much longer we might have continued to forget all else 
+besides ourselves, had I not chanced upon a reference to her father, 
+which brought us to reality.
+
+"My little friend," I was calling her again and again, rejoicing to 
+summon up the past by the sound of it, and to gaze across on her, and 
+to be a little distant - "My little friend, now you are mine 
+altogether; mine for good, my little friend and that man's no longer at 
+all."
+
+There came a sudden whiteness in her face, she plucked her hands from 
+mine.
+
+"Davie, take me away from him!" she cried.  "There's something wrong; 
+he's not true.  There will be something wrong; I have a dreadful terror 
+here at my heart.  What will he be wanting at all events with that 
+King's ship?  What will this word be saying?"  And she held the letter 
+forth.  "My mind misgives me, it will be some ill to Alan.  Open it, 
+Davie - open it and see."
+
+I took it, and looked at it, and shook my head.
+
+"No," said I, "it goes against me, I cannot open a man's letter."
+
+"Not to save your friend?" she cried.
+
+"I cannae tell," said I.  "I think not.  If I was only sure!"
+
+"And you have but to break the seal!" said she.
+
+"I know it," said I, "but the thing goes against me."
+
+"Give it here," said she, "and I will open it myself."
+
+"Nor you neither," said I.  "You least of all.  It concerns your 
+father, and his honour, dear, which we are both misdoubting.  No 
+question but the place is dangerous-like, and the English ship being 
+here, and your father having word from it, and yon officer that stayed 
+ashore.  He would not be alone either; there must be more along with 
+him; I daresay we are spied upon this minute.  Ay, no doubt, the letter 
+should be opened; but somehow, not by you nor me."
+
+I was about thus far with it, and my spirit very much overcome with a 
+sense of danger and hidden enemies, when I spied Alan, come back again 
+from following James and walking by himself among the sand-hills.  He 
+was in his soldier's coat, of course, and mighty fine; but I could not 
+avoid to shudder when I thought how little that jacket would avail him, 
+if he were once caught and flung in a skiff, and carried on board of 
+the SEAHORSE, a deserter, a rebel, and now a condemned murderer.
+
+"There," said I, "there is the man that has the best right to open it:  
+or not, as he thinks fit."
+
+With which I called upon his name, and we both stood up to be a mark 
+for him.
+
+"If it is so - if it be more disgrace - will you can bear it?" she 
+asked, looking upon me with a burning eye.
+
+"I was asked something of the same question when I had seen you but the 
+once," said I. "What do you think I answered?  That if I liked you as I 
+thought I did - and O, but I like you better! - I would marry you at 
+his gallows' foot."
+
+The blood rose in her face; she came close up and pressed upon me, 
+holding my hand:  and it was so that we awaited Alan.
+
+He came with one of his queer smiles.  "What was I telling ye, David?" 
+says he.
+
+"There is a time for all things, Alan," said I, "and this time is 
+serious.  How have you sped?  You can speak out plain before this 
+friend of ours."
+
+"I have been upon a fool's errand," said he.
+
+"I doubt we have done better than you, then," said I; "and, at least, 
+here is a great deal of matter that you must judge of.  Do you see 
+that?" I went on, pointing to the ship.  "That is the SEAHORSE, Captain 
+Palliser."
+
+"I should ken her, too," says Alan.  "I had fyke enough with her when 
+she was stationed in the Forth.  But what ails the man to come so 
+close?"
+
+"I will tell you why he came there first," said I.  "It was to bring 
+this letter to James More.  Why he stops here now that it's delivered, 
+what it's likely to be about, why there's an officer hiding in the 
+bents, and whether or not it's probable that he's alone - I would 
+rather you considered for yourself."
+
+"A letter to James More?" said he.
+
+"The same," said I.
+
+"Well, and I can tell ye more than that," said Alan.  "For the last 
+night, when you were fast asleep, I heard the man colloguing with some 
+one in the French, and then the door of that inn to be opened and 
+shut."
+
+"Alan!" cried I, "you slept all night, and I am here to prove it."
+
+"Ay, but I would never trust Alan whether he was asleep or waking!" 
+says he.  "But the business looks bad.  Let's see the letter."
+
+I gave it him.
+
+"Catriona," said he, "you have to excuse me, my dear; but there's 
+nothing less than my fine bones upon the cast of it, and I'll have to 
+break this seal."
+
+"It is my wish," said Catriona.
+
+He opened it, glanced it through, and flung his hand in the air.
+
+"The stinking brock!" says he, and crammed the paper in his pocket.  
+"Here, let's get our things together.  This place is fair death to me."  
+And he began to walk towards the inn.
+
+It was Catriona that spoke the first.  "He has sold you?" she asked.
+
+"Sold me, my dear," said Alan.  "But thanks to you and Davie, I'll can 
+jink him yet.  Just let me win upon my horse," he added.
+
+"Catriona must come with us," said I.  "She can have no more traffic 
+with that man.  She and I are to be married."  At which she pressed my 
+hand to her side.
+
+"Are ye there with it?" says Alan, looking back.  "The best day's work 
+that ever either of you did yet!  And I'm bound to say, my dawtie, ye 
+make a real, bonny couple."
+
+The way that he was following brought us close in by the windmill, 
+where I was aware of a man in seaman's trousers, who seemed to be 
+spying from behind it.  Only, of course, we took him in the rear.
+
+"See, Alan!"
+
+"Wheesht!" said, he, "this is my affairs."
+
+The man was, no doubt, a little deafened by the clattering of the mill, 
+and we got up close before he noticed.  Then he turned, and we saw he 
+was a big fellow with a mahogany face.
+
+"I think, sir," says Alan, "that you speak the English?"
+
+"NON, MONSIEUR," says he, with an incredible bad accent.
+
+"NON, MONSIEUR," cries Alan, mocking him.  "Is that how they learn you 
+French on the SEAHORSE?  Ye muckle, gutsey hash, here's a Scots boot to 
+your English hurdies!"
+
+And bounding on him before he could escape, he dealt the man a kick 
+that laid him on his nose.  Then he stood, with a savage smile, and 
+watched him scramble to his feet and scamper off into the sand-hills.
+
+"But it's high time I was clear of these empty bents!" said Alan; and 
+continued his way at top speed, and we still following, to the backdoor 
+of Bazin's inn.
+
+It chanced that as we entered by the one door we came face to face with 
+James More entering by the other.
+
+"Here!" said I to Catriona, "quick! upstairs with you and make your 
+packets; this is no fit scene for you."
+
+In the meanwhile James and Alan had met in the midst of the long room.  
+She passed them close by to reach the stairs; and after she was some 
+way up I saw her turn and glance at them again, though without pausing.  
+Indeed, they were worth looking at.  Alan wore as they met one of his 
+best appearances of courtesy and friendliness, yet with something 
+eminently warlike, so that James smelled danger off the man, as folk 
+smell fire in a house, and stood prepared for accidents.
+
+Time pressed.  Alan's situation in that solitary place, and his enemies 
+about him, might have daunted Caesar.  It made no change in him; and it 
+was in his old spirit of mockery and daffing that he began the 
+interview.
+
+"A braw good day to ye again, Mr. Drummond," said he.  "What'll yon 
+business of yours be just about?"
+
+"Why, the thing being private, and rather of a long story," says James, 
+"I think it will keep very well till we have eaten."
+
+"I'm none so sure of that," said Alan.  "It sticks in my mind it's 
+either now or never; for the fact is me and Mr. Balfour here have 
+gotten a line, and we're thinking of the road."
+
+I saw a little surprise in James's eye; but he held himself stoutly.
+
+"I have but the one word to say to cure you of that," said he, "and 
+that is the name of my business."
+
+"Say it then," says Alan.  "Hout! wha minds for Davie?"
+
+"It is a matter that would make us both rich men," said James.
+
+"Do you tell me that?" cries Alan.
+
+"I do, sir," said James.  "The plain fact is that it is Cluny's 
+Treasure."
+
+"No!" cried Alan.  "Have ye got word of it?"
+
+"I ken the place, Mr. Stewart, and can take you there," said James.
+
+"This crowns all!" says Alan.  "Well, and I'm glad I came to Dunkirk.  
+And so this was your business, was it?  Halvers, I'm thinking?"
+
+"That is the business, sir," said James.
+
+"Well, well," said Alan; and then in the same tone of childlike 
+interest, "it has naething to do with the SEAHORSE, then?" he asked,
+
+"With what?" says James.
+
+"Or the lad that I have just kicked the bottom of behind yon windmill?" 
+pursued Alan.  "Hut, man! have done with your lees!  I have Palliser's 
+letter here in my pouch.  You're by with it, James More.  You can never 
+show your face again with dacent folk."
+
+James was taken all aback with it.  He stood a second, motionless and 
+white, then swelled with the living anger.
+
+"Do you talk to me, you bastard?" he roared out.
+
+"Ye glee'd swine!" cried Alan, and hit him a sounding buffet on the 
+mouth, and the next wink of time their blades clashed together.
+
+At the first sound of the bare steel I instinctively leaped back from 
+the collision.  The next I saw, James parried a thrust so nearly that I 
+thought him killed; and it lowed up in my mind that this was the girl's 
+father, and in a manner almost my own, and I drew and ran in to sever 
+them.
+
+"Keep back, Davie!  Are ye daft!  Damn ye, keep back!" roared Alan.  
+"Your blood be on your ain heid then!"
+
+I beat their blades down twice.  I was knocked reeling against the 
+wall; I was back again betwixt them.  They took no heed of me, 
+thrusting at each other like two furies.  I can never think how I 
+avoided being stabbed myself or stabbing one of these two Rodomonts, 
+and the whole business turned about me like a piece of a dream; in the 
+midst of which I heard a great cry from the stair, and Catriona sprang 
+before her father.  In the same moment the point of my sword 
+encountered some thing yielding.  It came back to me reddened.  I saw 
+the blood flow on the girl's kerchief, and stood sick.
+
+"Will you be killing him before my eyes, and me his daughter after 
+all!" she cried.
+
+"My dear, I have done with him," said Alan, and went, and sat on a 
+table, with his arms crossed and the sword naked in his hand.
+
+Awhile she stood before the man, panting, with big eyes, then swung 
+suddenly about and faced him.
+
+"Begone!" was her word, "take your shame out of my sight; leave me with 
+clean folk.  I am a daughter of Alpin!  Shame of the sons of Alpin, 
+begone!"
+
+It was said with so much passion as awoke me from the horror of my own 
+bloodied sword.  The two stood facing, she with the red stain on her 
+kerchief, he white as a rag.  I knew him well enough - I knew it must 
+have pierced him in the quick place of his soul; but he betook himself 
+to a bravado air.
+
+"Why," says he, sheathing his sword, though still with a bright eye on 
+Alan, "if this brawl is over I will but get my portmanteau - "
+
+"There goes no pockmantie out of this place except with me," says Alan.
+
+"Sir!" cries James.
+
+"James More," says Alan, "this lady daughter of yours is to marry my 
+friend Davie, upon the which account I let you pack with a hale 
+carcase.  But take you my advice of it and get that carcase out of 
+harm's way or ower late.  Little as you suppose it, there are leemits 
+to my temper."
+
+"Be damned, sir, but my money's there!" said James.
+
+"I'm vexed about that, too," says Alan, with his funny face, "but now, 
+ye see, it's mines."  And then with more gravity, "Be you advised, 
+James More, you leave this house."
+
+James seemed to cast about for a moment in his mind; but it's to be 
+thought he had enough of Alan's swordsmanship, for he suddenly put off 
+his hat to us and (with a face like one of the damned) bade us farewell 
+in a series.  With which he was gone.
+
+At the same time a spell was lifted from me.
+
+"Catriona," I cried, "it was me - it was my sword.  O, are you much 
+hurt?"
+
+"I know it, Davie, I am loving you for the pain of it; it was done 
+defending that bad man, my father.  See!" she said, and showed me a 
+bleeding scratch, "see, you have made a man of me now.  I will carry a 
+wound like an old soldier."
+
+Joy that she should be so little hurt, and the love of her brave 
+nature, supported me.  I embraced her, I kissed the wound.
+
+"And am I to be out of the kissing, me that never lost a chance?" says 
+Alan; and putting me aside and taking Catriona by either shoulder, "My 
+dear," he said, "you're a true daughter of Alpin.  By all accounts, he 
+was a very fine man, and he may weel be proud of you.  If ever I was to 
+get married, it's the marrow of you I would be seeking for a mother to 
+my sons.  And I bear's a king's name and speak the truth."
+
+He said it with a serious heat of admiration that was honey to the 
+girl, and through her, to me.  It seemed to wipe us clean of all James 
+More's disgraces.  And the next moment he was just himself again.
+
+"And now by your leave, my dawties," said he, "this is a' very bonny; 
+but Alan Breck'll be a wee thing nearer to the gallows than he's caring 
+for; and Dod! I think this is a grand place to be leaving."
+
+The word recalled us to some wisdom.  Alan ran upstairs and returned 
+with our saddle-bags and James More's portmanteau; I picked up 
+Catriona's bundle where she had dropped it on the stair; and we were 
+setting forth out of that dangerous house, when Bazin stopped the way 
+with cries and gesticulations.  He had whipped under a table when the 
+swords were drawn, but now he was as bold as a lion.  There was his 
+bill to be settled, there was a chair broken, Alan had sat among his 
+dinner things, James More had fled.
+
+"Here," I cried, "pay yourself," and flung him down some Lewie d'ors; 
+for I thought it was no time to be accounting.
+
+He sprang upon that money, and we passed him by, and ran forth into the 
+open.  Upon three sides of the house were seamen hasting and closing 
+in; a little nearer to us James More waved his hat as if to hurry them; 
+and right behind him, like some foolish person holding up his hands, 
+were the sails of the windmill turning.
+
+Alan gave but one glance, and laid himself down to run.  He carried a 
+great weight in James More's portmanteau; but I think he would as soon 
+have lost his life as cast away that booty which was his revenge; and 
+he ran so that I was distressed to follow him, and marvelled and 
+exulted to see the girl bounding at my side.
+
+As soon as we appeared, they cast off all disguise upon the other side; 
+and the seamen pursued us with shouts and view-hullohs.  We had a start 
+of some two hundred yards, and they were but bandy-legged tarpaulins 
+after all, that could not hope to better us at such an exercise.  I 
+suppose they were armed, but did not care to use their pistols on 
+French ground.  And as soon as I perceived that we not only held our 
+advantage but drew a little away, I began to feel quite easy of the 
+issue.  For all which, it was a hot, brisk bit of work, so long as it 
+lasted; Dunkirk was still far off; and when we popped over a knowe, and 
+found a company of the garrison marching on the other side on some 
+manoeuvre, I could very well understand the word that Alan had.
+
+He stopped running at once; and mopping at his brow, "They're a real 
+bonny folk, the French nation," says he.
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+NO sooner were we safe within the walls of Dunkirk than we held a very 
+necessary council-of-war on our position.  We had taken a daughter from 
+her father at the sword's point; any judge would give her back to him 
+at once, and by all likelihood clap me and Alan into jail; and though 
+we had an argument upon our side in Captain Palliser's letter, neither 
+Catriona nor I were very keen to be using it in public.  Upon all 
+accounts it seemed the most prudent to carry the girl to Paris to the 
+hands of her own chieftain, Macgregor of Bohaldie, who would be very 
+willing to help his kinswoman, on the one hand, and not at all anxious 
+to dishonour James upon other.
+
+We made but a slow journey of it up, for Catriona was not so good at 
+the riding as the running, and had scarce sat in the saddle since the 
+'Forty-five.  But we made it out at last, reached Paris early of a 
+Sabbath morning, and made all speed, under Alan's guidance, to find 
+Bohaldie.  He was finely lodged, and lived in a good style, having a 
+pension on the Scots Fund, as well as private means; greeted Catriona 
+like one of his own house, and seemed altogether very civil and 
+discreet, but not particularly open.  We asked of the news of James 
+More.  "Poor James!" said he, and shook his head and smiled, so that I 
+thought he knew further than he meant to tell.  Then we showed him 
+Palliser's letter, and he drew a long face at that.
+
+"Poor James!" said he again.  "Well, there are worse folk than James 
+More, too.  But this is dreadful bad.  Tut, tut, he must have forgot 
+himself entirely!  This is a most undesirable letter.  But, for all 
+that, gentlemen, I cannot see what we would want to make it public for.  
+It's an ill bird that fouls his own nest, and we are all Scots folk and 
+all Hieland."
+
+Upon this we all agreed, save perhaps Alan; and still more upon the 
+question of our marriage, which Bohaldie took in his own hands, as 
+though there had been no such person as James More, and gave Catriona 
+away with very pretty manners and agreeable compliments in French.  It 
+was not till all was over, and our healths drunk, that he told us James 
+was in that city, whither he had preceded us some days, and where he 
+now lay sick, and like to die.  I thought I saw by my wife's face what 
+way her inclination pointed.
+
+"And let us go see him, then," said I.
+
+"If it is your pleasure," said Catriona.  These were early days.
+
+He was lodged in the same quarter of the city with his chief, in a 
+great house upon a corner; and we were guided up to the garret where he 
+lay by the sound of Highland piping.  It seemed he had just borrowed a 
+set of them from Bohaldie to amuse his sickness; though he was no such 
+hand as was his brother Rob, he made good music of the kind; and it was 
+strange to observe the French folk crowding on the stairs, and some of 
+them laughing.  He lay propped in a pallet.  The first look of him I 
+saw he was upon his last business; and, doubtless, this was a strange 
+place for him to die in.  But even now I find I can scarce dwell upon 
+his end with patience.  Doubtless, Bohaldie had prepared him; he seemed 
+to know we were married, complimented us on the event, and gave us a 
+benediction like a patriarch.
+
+"I have been never understood," said he.  "I forgive you both without 
+an after-thought;" after which he spoke for all the world in his old 
+manner, was so obliging as to play us a tune or two upon his pipes, and 
+borrowed a small sum before I left.
+
+I could not trace even a hint of shame in any part of his behaviour; 
+but he was great upon forgiveness; it seemed always fresh to him.  I 
+think he forgave me every time we met; and when after some four days he 
+passed away in a kind of odour of affectionate sanctity, I could have 
+torn my hair out for exasperation.  I had him buried; but what to put 
+upon his tomb was quite beyond me, till at last I considered the date 
+would look best alone.
+
+I thought it wiser to resign all thoughts of Leyden, where we had 
+appeared once as brother and sister, and it would certainly look 
+strange to return in a new character.  Scotland would be doing for us; 
+and thither, after I had recovered that which I had left behind, we 
+sailed in a Low Country ship.
+
+
+
+And now, Miss Barbara Balfour (to set the ladies first), and Mr. Alan 
+Balfour younger of Shaws, here is the story brought fairly to an end.  
+A great many of the folk that took a part in it, you will find (if you 
+think well) that you have seen and spoken with.  Alison Hastie in 
+Limekilns was the lass that rocked your cradle when you were too small 
+to know of it, and walked abroad with you in the policy when you were 
+bigger.  That very fine great lady that is Miss Barbara's name-mamma is 
+no other than the same Miss Grant that made so much a fool of David 
+Balfour in the house of the Lord Advocate.  And I wonder whether you 
+remember a little, lean, lively gentleman in a scratch-wig and a 
+wraprascal, that came to Shaws very late of a dark night, and whom you 
+were awakened out of your beds and brought down to the dining-hall to 
+be presented to, by the name of Mr. Jamieson?  Or has Alan forgotten 
+what he did at Mr. Jamieson's request - a most disloyal act - for 
+which, by the letter of the law, he might be hanged - no less than 
+drinking the king's health ACROSS THE WATER?  These were strange doings 
+in a good Whig house!  But Mr. Jamieson is a man privileged, and might 
+set fire to my corn-barn; and the name they know him by now in France 
+is the Chevalier Stewart.
+
+As for Davie and Catriona, I shall watch you pretty close in the next 
+days, and see if you are so bold as to be laughing at papa and mamma.  
+It is true we were not so wise as we might have been, and made a great 
+deal of sorrow out of nothing; but you will find as you grow up that 
+even the artful Miss Barbara, and even the valiant Mr. Alan, will be 
+not so very much wiser than their parents.  For the life of man upon 
+this world of ours is a funny business.  They talk of the angels 
+weeping; but I think they must more often be holding their sides as 
+they look on; and there was one thing I determined to do when I began 
+this long story, and that was to tell out everything as it befell.
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg eText Catriona
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Catriona, by Robert Louis Stevenson

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+

+Title: Catriona

+

+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

+

+Release Date: July, 1996  [EBook #589]

+[This file was first posted on May 15, 1996]

+[Most recently updated: May 20, 2002]

+

+Edition: 11

+

+Language: English

+

+Character set encoding: ASCII

+

+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CATRIONA ***

+

+

+

+

+Transcribed from the 1904 Cassell and Company edition by David Price,

+email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

+

+

+

+

+

+CATRIONA

+

+

+

+

+DEDICATION.

+

+

+TO CHARLES BAXTER, Writer to the Signet.

+

+

+My Dear Charles,

+

+

+It is the fate of sequels to disappoint those who have waited for

+them; and my David, having been left to kick his heels for more

+than a lustre in the British Linen Company's office, must expect

+his late re-appearance to be greeted with hoots, if not with

+missiles.  Yet, when I remember the days of our explorations, I am

+not without hope.  There should be left in our native city some

+seed of the elect; some long-legged, hot-headed youth must repeat

+to-day our dreams and wanderings of so many years ago; he will

+relish the pleasure, which should have been ours, to follow among

+named streets and numbered houses the country walks of David

+Balfour, to identify Dean, and Silvermills, and Broughton, and Hope

+Park, and Pilrig, and poor old Lochend--if it still be standing,

+and the Figgate Whins--if there be any of them left; or to push (on

+a long holiday) so far afield as Gillane or the Bass.  So, perhaps,

+his eye shall be opened to behold the series of the generations,

+and he shall weigh with surprise his momentous and nugatory gift of

+life.

+

+You are still--as when first I saw, as when I last addressed you--

+in the venerable city which I must always think of as my home.  And

+I have come so far; and the sights and thoughts of my youth pursue

+me; and I see like a vision the youth of my father, and of his

+father, and the whole stream of lives flowing down there far in the

+north, with the sound of laughter and tears, to cast me out in the

+end, as by a sudden freshet, on these ultimate islands.  And I

+admire and bow my head before the romance of destiny.

+

+R. L. S.

+Vailima, Upolu,

+Samoa, 1892.

+

+

+

+

+CATRIONA--Part I--THE LORD ADVOCATE

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I--A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK

+

+

+

+The 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David

+Balfour, came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter

+attending me with a bag of money, and some of the chief of these

+merchants bowing me from their doors.  Two days before, and even so

+late as yestermorning, I was like a beggar-man by the wayside, clad

+in rags, brought down to my last shillings, my companion a

+condemned traitor, a price set on my own head for a crime with the

+news of which the country rang.  To-day I was served heir to my

+position in life, a landed laird, a bank porter by me carrying my

+gold, recommendations in my pocket, and (in the words of the

+saying) the ball directly at my foot.

+

+There were two circumstances that served me as ballast to so much

+sail.  The first was the very difficult and deadly business I had

+still to handle; the second, the place that I was in.  The tall,

+black city, and the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk,

+made a new world for me, after the moorland braes, the sea-sands

+and the still country-sides that I had frequented up to then.  The

+throng of the citizens in particular abashed me.  Rankeillor's son

+was short and small in the girth; his clothes scarce held on me;

+and it was plain I was ill qualified to strut in the front of a

+bank-porter.  It was plain, if I did so, I should but set folk

+laughing, and (what was worse in my case) set them asking

+questions.  So that I behooved to come by some clothes of my own,

+and in the meanwhile to walk by the porter's side, and put my hand

+on his arm as though we were a pair of friends.

+

+At a merchant's in the Luckenbooths I had myself fitted out:  none

+too fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback;

+but comely and responsible, so that servants should respect me.

+Thence to an armourer's, where I got a plain sword, to suit with my

+degree in life.  I felt safer with the weapon, though (for one so

+ignorant of defence) it might be called an added danger.  The

+porter, who was naturally a man of some experience, judged my

+accoutrement to be well chosen.

+

+"Naething kenspeckle," {1} said he; "plain, dacent claes.  As for

+the rapier, nae doubt it sits wi' your degree; but an I had been

+you, I would has waired my siller better-gates than that."  And he

+proposed I should buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back,

+that was a cousin of his own, and made them "extraordinar

+endurable."

+

+But I had other matters on my hand more pressing.  Here I was in

+this old, black city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-

+warren, not only by the number of its indwellers, but the

+complication of its passages and holes.  It was, indeed, a place

+where no stranger had a chance to find a friend, let be another

+stranger.  Suppose him even to hit on the right close, people dwelt

+so thronged in these tall houses, he might very well seek a day

+before he chanced on the right door.  The ordinary course was to

+hire a lad they called a caddie, who was like a guide or pilot, led

+you where you had occasion, and (your errands being done) brought

+you again where you were lodging.  But these caddies, being always

+employed in the same sort of services, and having it for obligation

+to be well informed of every house and person in the city, had

+grown to form a brotherhood of spies; and I knew from tales of Mr.

+Campbell's how they communicated one with another, what a rage of

+curiosity they conceived as to their employer's business, and how

+they were like eyes and fingers to the police.  It would be a piece

+of little wisdom, the way I was now placed, to take such a ferret

+to my tails.  I had three visits to make, all immediately needful:

+to my kinsman Mr. Balfour of Pilrig, to Stewart the Writer that was

+Appin's agent, and to William Grant Esquire of Prestongrange, Lord

+Advocate of Scotland.  Mr. Balfour's was a non-committal visit; and

+besides (Pilrig being in the country) I made bold to find the way

+to it myself, with the help of my two legs and a Scots tongue.  But

+the rest were in a different case.  Not only was the visit to

+Appin's agent, in the midst of the cry about the Appin murder,

+dangerous in itself, but it was highly inconsistent with the other.

+I was like to have a bad enough time of it with my Lord Advocate

+Grant, the best of ways; but to go to him hot-foot from Appin's

+agent, was little likely to mend my own affairs, and might prove

+the mere ruin of friend Alan's.  The whole thing, besides, gave me

+a look of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds that

+was little to my fancy.  I determined, therefore, to be done at

+once with Mr. Stewart and the whole Jacobitical side of my

+business, and to profit for that purpose by the guidance of the

+porter at my side.  But it chanced I had scarce given him the

+address, when there came a sprinkle of rain--nothing to hurt, only

+for my new clothes--and we took shelter under a pend at the head of

+a close or alley.

+

+Being strange to what I saw, I stepped a little farther in.  The

+narrow paved way descended swiftly.  Prodigious tall houses sprang

+upon each side and bulged out, one storey beyond another, as they

+rose.  At the top only a ribbon of sky showed in.  By what I could

+spy in the windows, and by the respectable persons that passed out

+and in, I saw the houses to be very well occupied; and the whole

+appearance of the place interested me like a tale.

+

+I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in

+time and clash of steel behind me.  Turning quickly, I was aware of

+a party of armed soldiers, and, in their midst, a tall man in a

+great coat.  He walked with a stoop that was like a piece of

+courtesy, genteel and insinuating:  he waved his hands plausibly as

+he went, and his face was sly and handsome.  I thought his eye took

+me in, but could not meet it.  This procession went by to a door in

+the close, which a serving-man in a fine livery set open; and two

+of the soldier-lads carried the prisoner within, the rest lingering

+with their firelocks by the door.

+

+There can nothing pass in the streets of a city without some

+following of idle folk and children.  It was so now; but the more

+part melted away incontinent until but three were left.  One was a

+girl; she was dressed like a lady, and had a screen of the Drummond

+colours on her head; but her comrades or (I should say) followers

+were ragged gillies, such as I had seen the matches of by the dozen

+in my Highland journey.  They all spoke together earnestly in

+Gaelic, the sound of which was pleasant in my ears for the sake of

+Alan; and, though the rain was by again, and my porter plucked at

+me to be going, I even drew nearer where they were, to listen.  The

+lady scolded sharply, the others making apologies and cringeing

+before her, so that I made sure she was come of a chief's house.

+All the while the three of them sought in their pockets, and by

+what I could make out, they had the matter of half a farthing among

+the party; which made me smile a little to see all Highland folk

+alike for fine obeisances and empty sporrans.

+

+It chanced the girl turned suddenly about, so that I saw her face

+for the first time.  There is no greater wonder than the way the

+face of a young woman fits in a man's mind, and stays there, and he

+could never tell you why; it just seems it was the thing he wanted.

+She had wonderful bright eyes like stars, and I daresay the eyes

+had a part in it; but what I remember the most clearly was the way

+her lips were a trifle open as she turned.  And, whatever was the

+cause, I stood there staring like a fool.  On her side, as she had

+not known there was anyone so near, she looked at me a little

+longer, and perhaps with more surprise, than was entirely civil.

+

+It went through my country head she might be wondering at my new

+clothes; with that, I blushed to my hair, and at the sight of my

+colouring it is to be supposed she drew her own conclusions, for

+she moved her gillies farther down the close, and they fell again

+to this dispute, where I could hear no more of it.

+

+I had often admired a lassie before then, if scarce so sudden and

+strong; and it was rather my disposition to withdraw than to come

+forward, for I was much in fear of mockery from the womenkind.  You

+would have thought I had now all the more reason to pursue my

+common practice, since I had met this young lady in the city

+street, seemingly following a prisoner, and accompanied with two

+very ragged indecent-like Highlandmen.  But there was here a

+different ingredient; it was plain the girl thought I had been

+prying in her secrets; and with my new clothes and sword, and at

+the top of my new fortunes, this was more than I could swallow.

+The beggar on horseback could not bear to be thrust down so low,

+or, at least of it, not by this young lady.

+

+I followed, accordingly, and took off my new hat to her the best

+that I was able.

+

+"Madam," said I, "I think it only fair to myself to let you

+understand I have no Gaelic.  It is true I was listening, for I

+have friends of my own across the Highland line, and the sound of

+that tongue comes friendly; but for your private affairs, if you

+had spoken Greek, I might have had more guess at them."

+

+She made me a little, distant curtsey.  "There is no harm done,"

+said she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more

+agreeable).  "A cat may look at a king."

+

+"I do not mean to offend," said I.  "I have no skill of city

+manners; I never before this day set foot inside the doors of

+Edinburgh.  Take me for a country lad--it's what I am; and I would

+rather I told you than you found it out."

+

+"Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be

+speaking to each other on the causeway," she replied.  "But if you

+are landward {2} bred it will be different.  I am as landward as

+yourself; I am Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther

+from my home."

+

+"It is not yet a week since I passed the line," said I.  "Less than

+a week ago I was on the braes of Balwhidder."

+

+"Balwhither?" she cries.  "Come ye from Balwhither!  The name of it

+makes all there is of me rejoice.  You will not have been long

+there, and not known some of our friends or family?"

+

+"I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren,"

+I replied.

+

+"Well, I know Duncan, and you give him the true name!" she said;

+"and if he is an honest man, his wife is honest indeed."

+

+"Ay," said I, "they are fine people, and the place is a bonny

+place."

+

+"Where in the great world is such another!" she cries; "I am loving

+the smell of that place and the roots that grow there."

+

+I was infinitely taken with the spirit of the maid.  "I could be

+wishing I had brought you a spray of that heather," says I.  "And,

+though I did ill to speak with you at the first, now it seems we

+have common acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not forget

+me.  David Balfour is the name I am known by.  This is my lucky

+day, when I have just come into a landed estate, and am not very

+long out of a deadly peril.  I wish you would keep my name in mind

+for the sake of Balwhidder," said I, "and I will yours for the sake

+of my lucky day."

+

+"My name is not spoken," she replied, with a great deal of

+haughtiness.  "More than a hundred years it has not gone upon men's

+tongues, save for a blink.  I am nameless, like the Folk of Peace.

+{3}  Catriona Drummond is the one I use."

+

+Now indeed I knew where I was standing.  In all broad Scotland

+there was but the one name proscribed, and that was the name of the

+Macgregors.  Yet so far from fleeing this undesirable acquaintancy,

+I plunged the deeper in.

+

+"I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with

+yourself," said I, "and I think he will be one of your friends.

+They called him Robin Oig."

+

+"Did ye so?" cries she.  "Ye met Rob?"

+

+"I passed the night with him," said I.

+

+"He is a fowl of the night," said she.

+

+"There was a set of pipes there," I went on, "so you may judge if

+the time passed."

+

+"You should be no enemy, at all events," said she.  "That was his

+brother there a moment since, with the red soldiers round him.  It

+is him that I call father."

+

+"Is it so?" cried I.  "Are you a daughter of James More's?"

+

+"All the daughter that he has," says she:  "the daughter of a

+prisoner; that I should forget it so, even for one hour, to talk

+with strangers!"

+

+Here one of the gillies addressed her in what he had of English, to

+know what "she" (meaning by that himself) was to do about "ta

+sneeshin."  I took some note of him for a short, bandy-legged, red-

+haired, big-headed man, that I was to know more of to my cost.

+

+"There can be none the day, Neil," she replied.  "How will you get

+'sneeshin,' wanting siller!  It will teach you another time to be

+more careful; and I think James More will not be very well pleased

+with Neil of the Tom."

+

+"Miss Drummond," I said, "I told you I was in my lucky day.  Here I

+am, and a bank-porter at my tail.  And remember I have had the

+hospitality of your own country of Balwhidder."

+

+"It was not one of my people gave it," said she.

+

+"Ah, well," said I, "but I am owing your uncle at least for some

+springs upon the pipes.  Besides which, I have offered myself to be

+your friend, and you have been so forgetful that you did not refuse

+me in the proper time."

+

+"If it had been a great sum, it might have done you honour," said

+she; "but I will tell you what this is.  James More lies shackled

+in prison; but this time past they will be bringing him down here

+daily to the Advocate's. . . ."

+

+"The Advocate's!" I cried.  "Is that . . . ?"

+

+"It is the house of the Lord Advocate Grant of Prestongrange," said

+she.  "There they bring my father one time and another, for what

+purpose I have no thought in my mind; but it seems there is some

+hope dawned for him.  All this same time they will not let me be

+seeing him, nor yet him write; and we wait upon the King's street

+to catch him; and now we give him his snuff as he goes by, and now

+something else.  And here is this son of trouble, Neil, son of

+Duncan, has lost my four-penny piece that was to buy that snuff,

+and James More must go wanting, and will think his daughter has

+forgotten him."

+

+I took sixpence from my pocket, gave it to Neil, and bade him go

+about his errand.  Then to her, "That sixpence came with me by

+Balwhidder," said I.

+

+"Ah!" she said, "you are a friend to the Gregara!"

+

+"I would not like to deceive you, either," said I.  "I know very

+little of the Gregara and less of James More and his doings, but

+since the while I have been standing in this close, I seem to know

+something of yourself; and if you will just say 'a friend to Miss

+Catriona' I will see you are the less cheated."

+

+"The one cannot be without the other," said she.

+

+"I will even try," said I.

+

+"And what will you be thinking of myself!" she cried, "to be

+holding my hand to the first stranger!"

+

+"I am thinking nothing but that you are a good daughter," said I.

+

+"I must not be without repaying it," she said; "where is it you

+stop!"

+

+"To tell the truth, I am stopping nowhere yet," said I, "being not

+full three hours in the city; but if you will give me your

+direction, I will he no bold as come seeking my sixpence for

+myself."

+

+"Will I can trust you for that?" she asked.

+

+"You need have little fear," said I.

+

+"James More could not bear it else," said she.  "I stop beyond the

+village of Dean, on the north side of the water, with Mrs.

+Drummond-Ogilvy of Allardyce, who is my near friend and will be

+glad to thank you."

+

+"You are to see me, then, so soon as what I have to do permits,"

+said I; and, the remembrance of Alan rolling in again upon my mind,

+I made haste to say farewell.

+

+I could not but think, even as I did so, that we had made

+extraordinary free upon short acquaintance, and that a really wise

+young lady would have shown herself more backward.  I think it was

+the bank-porter that put me from this ungallant train of thought.

+

+"I thoucht ye had been a lad of some kind o' sense," he began,

+shooting out his lips.  "Ye're no likely to gang far this gate.  A

+fule and his siller's shune parted.  Eh, but ye're a green

+callant!" he cried, "an' a veecious, tae!  Cleikin' up wi'

+baubeejoes!"

+

+"If you dare to speak of the young lady. . . " I began.

+

+"Leddy!" he cried.  "Haud us and safe us, whatten leddy?  Ca' THON

+a leddy?  The toun's fu' o' them.  Leddies!  Man, its weel seen

+ye're no very acquant in Embro!"

+

+A clap of anger took me.

+

+"Here," said I, "lead me where I told you, and keep your foul mouth

+shut!"

+

+He did not wholly obey me, for, though he no more addressed me

+directly, he very impudent sang at me as he went in a manner of

+innuendo, and with an exceedingly ill voice and ear -

+

+

+"As Mally Lee cam doun the street, her capuchin did flee,

+She cuist a look ahint her to see her negligee.

+And we're a' gaun east and wast, we're a' gann ajee,

+We're a' gaun east and wast courtin' Mally Lee."

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II--THE HIGHLAND WRITER

+

+

+

+Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer dwelt at the top of the longest

+stair ever mason set a hand to; fifteen flights of it, no less; and

+when I had come to his door, and a clerk had opened it, and told me

+his master was within, I had scarce breath enough to send my porter

+packing.

+

+"Awa' east and west wi' ye!" said I, took the money bag out of his

+hands, and followed the clerk in.

+

+The outer room was an office with the clerk's chair at a table

+spread with law papers.  In the inner chamber, which opened from

+it, a little brisk man sat poring on a deed, from which he scarce

+raised his eyes on my entrance; indeed, he still kept his finger in

+the place, as though prepared to show me out and fall again to his

+studies.  This pleased me little enough; and what pleased me less,

+I thought the clerk was in a good posture to overhear what should

+pass between us.

+

+I asked if he was Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer.

+

+"The same," says he; "and, if the question is equally fair, who may

+you be yourself?"

+

+"You never heard tell of my name nor of me either," said I, "but I

+bring you a token from a friend that you know well.  That you know

+well," I repeated, lowering my voice, "but maybe are not just so

+keen to hear from at this present being.  And the bits of business

+that I have to propone to you are rather in the nature of being

+confidential.  In short, I would like to think we were quite

+private."

+

+He rose without more words, casting down his paper like a man ill-

+pleased, sent forth his clerk of an errand, and shut to the house-

+door behind him.

+

+"Now, sir," said he, returning, "speak out your mind and fear

+nothing; though before you begin," he cries out, "I tell you mine

+misgives me!  I tell you beforehand, ye're either a Stewart or a

+Stewart sent ye.  A good name it is, and one it would ill-become my

+father's son to lightly.  But I begin to grue at the sound of it."

+

+"My name is called Balfour," said I, "David Balfour of Shaws.  As

+for him that sent me, I will let his token speak."  And I showed

+the silver button.

+

+"Put it in your pocket, sir!" cries he.  "Ye need name no names.

+The deevil's buckie, I ken the button of him!  And de'il hae't!

+Where is he now!"

+

+I told him I knew not where Alan was, but he had some sure place

+(or thought he had) about the north side, where he was to lie until

+a ship was found for him; and how and where he had appointed to be

+spoken with.

+

+"It's been always my opinion that I would hang in a tow for this

+family of mine," he cried, "and, dod!  I believe the day's come

+now!  Get a ship for him, quot' he!  And who's to pay for it?  The

+man's daft!"

+

+"That is my part of the affair, Mr. Stewart," said I.  "Here is a

+bag of good money, and if more be wanted, more is to be had where

+it came from."

+

+"I needn't ask your politics," said he.

+

+"Ye need not," said I, smiling, "for I'm as big a Whig as grows."

+

+"Stop a bit, stop a bit," says Mr. Stewart.  "What's all this?  A

+Whig?  Then why are you here with Alan's button? and what kind of a

+black-foot traffic is this that I find ye out in, Mr. Whig?  Here

+is a forfeited rebel and an accused murderer, with two hundred

+pounds on his life, and ye ask me to meddle in his business, and

+then tell me ye're a Whig!  I have no mind of any such Whigs

+before, though I've kent plenty of them."

+

+"He's a forfeited rebel, the more's the pity," said I, "for the

+man's my friend.  I can only wish he had been better guided.  And

+an accused murderer, that he is too, for his misfortune; but

+wrongfully accused."

+

+"I hear you say so," said Stewart.

+

+"More than you are to hear me say so, before long," said I.  "Alan

+Breck is innocent, and so is James."

+

+"Oh!" says he, "the two cases hang together.  If Alan is out, James

+can never be in."

+

+Hereupon I told him briefly of my acquaintance with Alan, of the

+accident that brought me present at the Appin murder, and the

+various passages of our escape among the heather, and my recovery

+of my estate.  "So, sir, you have now the whole train of these

+events," I went on, "and can see for yourself how I come to be so

+much mingled up with the affairs of your family and friends, which

+(for all of our sakes) I wish had been plainer and less bloody.

+You can see for yourself, too, that I have certain pieces of

+business depending, which were scarcely fit to lay before a lawyer

+chosen at random.  No more remains, but to ask if you will

+undertake my service?"

+

+"I have no great mind to it; but coming as you do with Alan's

+button, the choice is scarcely left me," said he.  "What are your

+instructions?" he added, and took up his pen.

+

+"The first point is to smuggle Alan forth of this country," said I,

+"but I need not be repeating that."

+

+"I am little likely to forget it," said Stewart.

+

+"The next thing is the bit money I am owing to Cluny," I went on.

+"It would be ill for me to find a conveyance, but that should be no

+stick to you.  It was two pounds five shillings and three-halfpence

+farthing sterling."

+

+He noted it.

+

+"Then," said I, "there's a Mr. Henderland, a licensed preacher and

+missionary in Ardgour, that I would like well to get some snuff

+into the hands of; and, as I daresay you keep touch with your

+friends in Appin (so near by), it's a job you could doubtless

+overtake with the other."

+

+"How much snuff are we to say?" he asked.

+

+"I was thinking of two pounds," said I.

+

+"Two," said he.

+

+"Then there's the lass Alison Hastie, in Lime Kilns," said I.  "Her

+that helped Alan and me across the Forth.  I was thinking if I

+could get her a good Sunday gown, such as she could wear with

+decency in her degree, it would be an ease to my conscience; for

+the mere truth is, we owe her our two lives."

+

+"I am glad so see you are thrifty, Mr. Balfour," says he, making

+his notes.

+

+"I would think shame to be otherwise the first day of my fortune,"

+said I.  "And now, if you will compute the outlay and your own

+proper charges, I would be glad to know if I could get some

+spending-money back.  It's not that I grudge the whole of it to get

+Alan safe; it's not that I lack more; but having drawn so much the

+one day, I think it would have a very ill appearance if I was back

+again seeking, the next.  Only be sure you have enough," I added,

+"for I am very undesirous to meet with you again."

+

+"Well, and I'm pleased to see you're cautious, too," said the

+Writer.  "But I think ye take a risk to lay so considerable a sum

+at my discretion."

+

+He said this with a plain sneer.

+

+"I'll have to run the hazard," I replied.  "O, and there's another

+service I would ask, and that's to direct me to a lodging, for I

+have no roof to my head.  But it must be a lodging I may seem to

+have hit upon by accident, for it would never do if the Lord

+Advocate were to get any jealousy of our acquaintance."

+

+"Ye may set your weary spirit at rest," said he.  "I will never

+name your name, sir; and it's my belief the Advocate is still so

+much to be sympathised with that he doesnae ken of your existence."

+

+I saw I had got to the wrong side of the man.

+

+"There's a braw day coming for him, then," said I, "for he'll have

+to learn of it on the deaf side of his head no later than to-

+morrow, when I call on him."

+

+"When ye CALL on him!" repeated Mr. Stewart.  "Am I daft, or are

+you!  What takes ye near the Advocate!"

+

+"O, just to give myself up," said I.

+

+"Mr. Balfour," he cried, "are ye making a mock of me?"

+

+"No, sir," said I, "though I think you have allowed yourself some

+such freedom with myself.  But I give you to understand once and

+for all that I am in no jesting spirit."

+

+"Nor yet me," says Stewart.  "And I give yon to understand (if

+that's to be the word) that I like the looks of your behaviour less

+and less.  You come here to me with all sorts of propositions,

+which will put me in a train of very doubtful acts and bring me

+among very undesirable persons this many a day to come.  And then

+you tell me you're going straight out of my office to make your

+peace with the Advocate!  Alan's button here or Alan's button

+there, the four quarters of Alan wouldnae bribe me further in."

+

+"I would take it with a little more temper," said I, "and perhaps

+we can avoid what you object to.  I can see no way for it but to

+give myself up, but perhaps you can see another; and if you could,

+I could never deny but what I would be rather relieved.  For I

+think my traffic with his lordship is little likely to agree with

+my health.  There's just the one thing clear, that I have to give

+my evidence; for I hope it'll save Alan's character (what's left of

+it), and James's neck, which is the more immediate."

+

+He was silent for a breathing-space, and then, "My man," said he,

+"you'll never be allowed to give such evidence."

+

+"We'll have to see about that," said I; "I'm stiff-necked when I

+like."

+

+"Ye muckle ass!" cried Stewart, "it's James they want; James has

+got to hang--Alan, too, if they could catch him--but James

+whatever!  Go near the Advocate with any such business, and you'll

+see! he'll find a way to muzzle, ye."

+

+"I think better of the Advocate than that," said I.

+

+"The Advocate be dammed!" cries he.  "It's the Campbells, man!

+You'll have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will

+the Advocate too, poor body!  It's extraordinar ye cannot see where

+ye stand!  If there's no fair way to stop your gab, there's a foul

+one gaping.  They can put ye in the dock, do ye no see that?" he

+cried, and stabbed me with one finger in the leg.

+

+"Ay," said I, "I was told that same no further back than this

+morning by another lawyer."

+

+"And who was he?" asked Stewart, "He spoke sense at least."

+

+I told I must be excused from naming him, for he was a decent stout

+old Whig, and had little mind to be mixed up in such affairs.

+

+"I think all the world seems to be mixed up in it!" cries Stewart.

+"But what said you?"

+

+"I told him what had passed between Rankeillor and myself before

+the house of Shaws.

+

+"Well, and so ye will hang!" said he.  "Ye'll hang beside James

+Stewart.  There's your fortune told."

+

+"I hope better of it yet than that," said I; "but I could never

+deny there was a risk."

+

+"Risk!" says he, and then sat silent again.  "I ought to thank you

+for you staunchness to my friends, to whom you show a very good

+spirit," he says, "if you have the strength to stand by it.  But I

+warn you that you're wading deep.  I wouldn't put myself in your

+place (me that's a Stewart born!) for all the Stewarts that ever

+there were since Noah.  Risk? ay, I take over-many; but to be tried

+in court before a Campbell jury and a Campbell judge, and that in a

+Campbell country and upon a Campbell quarrel--think what you like

+of me, Balfour, it's beyond me."

+

+"It's a different way of thinking, I suppose," said I; "I was

+brought up to this one by my father before me."

+

+"Glory to his bones! he has left a decent son to his name," says

+he.  "Yet I would not have you judge me over-sorely.  My case is

+dooms hard.  See, sir, ye tell me ye're a Whig:  I wonder what I

+am.  No Whig to be sure; I couldnae be just that.  But--laigh in

+your ear, man--I'm maybe no very keen on the other side."

+

+"Is that a fact?" cried I.  "It's what I would think of a man of

+your intelligence."

+

+"Hut! none of your whillywhas!" {4} cries he.  "There's

+intelligence upon both sides.  But for my private part I have no

+particular desire to harm King George; and as for King James, God

+bless him! he does very well for me across the water.  I'm a

+lawyer, ye see:  fond of my books and my bottle, a good plea, a

+well-drawn deed, a crack in the Parliament House with other lawyer

+bodies, and perhaps a turn at the golf on a Saturday at e'en.

+Where do ye come in with your Hieland plaids and claymores?"

+

+"Well," said I, "it's a fact ye have little of the wild

+Highlandman."

+

+"Little?" quoth he.  "Nothing, man!  And yet I'm Hieland born, and

+when the clan pipes, who but me has to dance!  The clan and the

+name, that goes by all.  It's just what you said yourself; my

+father learned it to me, and a bonny trade I have of it.  Treason

+and traitors, and the smuggling of them out and in; and the French

+recruiting, weary fall it! and the smuggling through of the

+recruits; and their pleas--a sorrow of their pleas!  Here have I

+been moving one for young Ardsheil, my cousin; claimed the estate

+under the marriage contract--a forfeited estate!  I told them it

+was nonsense:  muckle they cared!  And there was I cocking behind a

+yadvocate that liked the business as little as myself, for it was

+fair ruin to the pair of us--a black mark, DISAFFECTED, branded on

+our hurdies, like folk's names upon their kye!  And what can I do?

+I'm a Stewart, ye see, and must fend for my clan and family.  Then

+no later by than yesterday there was one of our Stewart lads

+carried to the Castle.  What for?  I ken fine:  Act of 1736:

+recruiting for King Lewie.  And you'll see, he'll whistle me in to

+be his lawyer, and there'll be another black mark on my chara'ter!

+I tell you fair:  if I but kent the heid of a Hebrew word from the

+hurdies of it, be dammed but I would fling the whole thing up and

+turn minister!"

+

+"It's rather a hard position," said I.

+

+"Dooms hard!" cries he.  "And that's what makes me think so much of

+ye--you that's no Stewart--to stick your head so deep in Stewart

+business.  And for what, I do not know:  unless it was the sense of

+duty."

+

+"I hope it will be that," said I.

+

+"Well," says he, "it's a grand quality.  But here is my clerk back;

+and, by your leave, we'll pick a bit of dinner, all the three of

+us.  When that's done, I'll give you the direction of a very decent

+man, that'll be very fain to have you for a lodger.  And I'll fill

+your pockets to ye, forbye, out of your ain bag.  For this

+business'll not be near as dear as ye suppose--not even the ship

+part of it."

+

+I made him a sign that his clerk was within hearing.

+

+"Hoot, ye neednae mind for Robbie," cries he.  "A Stewart, too,

+puir deevil! and has smuggled out more French recruits and

+trafficking Papists than what he has hairs upon his face.  Why,

+it's Robin that manages that branch of my affairs.  Who will we

+have now, Rob, for across the water!"

+

+"There'll be Andie Scougal, in the Thristle," replied Rob.  "I saw

+Hoseason the other day, but it seems he's wanting the ship.  Then

+there'll be Tam Stobo; but I'm none so sure of Tam.  I've seen him

+colloguing with some gey queer acquaintances; and if was anybody

+important, I would give Tam the go-by."

+

+"The head's worth two hundred pounds, Robin," said Stewart.

+

+"Gosh, that'll no be Alan Breck!" cried the clerk.

+

+"Just Alan," said his master.

+

+"Weary winds! that's sayrious," cried Robin.  "I'll try Andie,

+then; Andie'll be the best."

+

+"It seems it's quite a big business," I observed.

+

+"Mr. Balfour, there's no end to it," said Stewart.

+

+"There was a name your clerk mentioned," I went on:  "Hoseason.

+That must be my man, I think:  Hoseason, of the brig Covenant.

+Would you set your trust on him?"

+

+"He didnae behave very well to you and Alan," said Mr. Stewart;

+"but my mind of the man in general is rather otherwise.  If he had

+taken Alan on board his ship on an agreement, it's my notion he

+would have proved a just dealer.  How say ye, Rob?"

+

+"No more honest skipper in the trade than Eli," said the clerk.  "I

+would lippen to {5} Eli's word--ay, if it was the Chevalier, or

+Appin himsel'," he added.

+

+"And it was him that brought the doctor, wasnae't?" asked the

+master.

+

+"He was the very man," said the clerk.

+

+"And I think he took the doctor back?" says Stewart.

+

+"Ay, with his sporran full!" cried Robin.  "And Eli kent of that!"

+{6}

+

+"Well, it seems it's hard to ken folk rightly," said I.

+

+"That was just what I forgot when ye came in, Mr. Balfour!" says

+the Writer.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III--I GO TO PILRIG

+

+

+

+The next morning, I was no sooner awake in my new lodging than I

+was up and into my new clothes; and no sooner the breakfast

+swallowed, than I was forth on my adventurers.  Alan, I could hope,

+was fended for; James was like to be a more difficult affair, and I

+could not but think that enterprise might cost me dear, even as

+everybody said to whom I had opened my opinion.  It seemed I was

+come to the top of the mountain only to cast myself down; that I

+had clambered up, through so many and hard trials, to be rich, to

+be recognised, to wear city clothes and a sword to my side, all to

+commit mere suicide at the last end of it, and the worst kind of

+suicide, besides, which is to get hanged at the King's charges.

+

+What was I doing it for? I asked, as I went down the high Street

+and out north by Leith Wynd.  First I said it was to save James

+Stewart; and no doubt the memory of his distress, and his wife's

+cries, and a word or so I had let drop on that occasion worked upon

+me strongly.  At the same time I reflected that it was (or ought to

+be) the most indifferent matter to my father's son, whether James

+died in his bed or from a scaffold.  He was Alan's cousin, to be

+sure; but so far as regarded Alan, the best thing would be to lie

+low, and let the King, and his Grace of Argyll, and the corbie

+crows, pick the bones of his kinsman their own way.  Nor could I

+forget that, while we were all in the pot together, James had shown

+no such particular anxiety whether for Alan or me.

+

+Next it came upon me I was acting for the sake of justice:  and I

+thought that a fine word, and reasoned it out that (since we dwelt

+in polities, at some discomfort to each one of us) the main thing

+of all must still be justice, and the death of any innocent man a

+wound upon the whole community.  Next, again, it was the Accuser of

+the Brethren that gave me a turn of his argument; bade me think

+shame for pretending myself concerned in these high matters, and

+told me I was but a prating vain child, who had spoken big words to

+Rankeillor and to Stewart, and held myself bound upon my vanity to

+make good that boastfulness.  Nay, and he hit me with the other end

+of the stick; for he accused me of a kind of artful cowardice,

+going about at the expense of a little risk to purchase greater

+safety.  No doubt, until I had declared and cleared myself, I might

+any day encounter Mungo Campbell or the sheriff's officer, and be

+recognised, and dragged into the Appin murder by the heels; and, no

+doubt, in case I could manage my declaration with success, I should

+breathe more free for ever after.  But when I looked this argument

+full in the face I could see nothing to be ashamed of.  As for the

+rest, "Here are the two roads," I thought, "and both go to the same

+place.  It's unjust that James should hang if I can save him; and

+it would be ridiculous in me to have talked so much and then do

+nothing.  It's lucky for James of the Glens that I have boasted

+beforehand; and none so unlucky for myself, because now I'm

+committed to do right.  I have the name of a gentleman and the

+means of one; it would be a poor duty that I was wanting in the

+essence."  And then I thought this was a Pagan spirit, and said a

+prayer in to myself, asking for what courage I might lack, and that

+I might go straight to my duty like a soldier to battle, and come

+off again scatheless, as so many do.

+

+This train of reasoning brought me to a more resolved complexion;

+though it was far from closing up my sense of the dangers that

+surrounded me, nor of how very apt I was (if I went on) to stumble

+on the ladder of the gallows.  It was a plain, fair morning, but

+the wind in the east.  The little chill of it sang in my blood, and

+gave me a feeling of the autumn, and the dead leaves, and dead

+folks' bodies in their graves.  It seemed the devil was in it, if I

+was to die in that tide of my fortunes and for other folks'

+affairs.  On the top of the Calton Hill, though it was not the

+customary time of year for that diversion, some children were

+crying and running with their kites.  These toys appeared very

+plain against the sky; I remarked a great one soar on the wind to a

+high altitude and then plump among the whins; and I thought to

+myself at sight of it, "There goes Davie."

+

+My way lay over Mouter's Hill, and through an end of a clachan on

+the braeside among fields.  There was a whirr of looms in it went

+from house to house; bees bummed in the gardens; the neighbours

+that I saw at the doorsteps talked in a strange tongue; and I found

+out later that this was Picardy, a village where the French weavers

+wrought for the Linen Company.  Here I got a fresh direction for

+Pilrig, my destination; and a little beyond, on the wayside, came

+by a gibbet and two men hanged in chains.  They were dipped in tar,

+as the manner is; the wind span them, the chains clattered, and the

+birds hung about the uncanny jumping-jacks and cried.  The sight

+coming on me suddenly, like an illustration of my fears, I could

+scarce be done with examining it and drinking in discomfort.  And,

+as I thus turned and turned about the gibbet, what should I strike

+on, but a weird old wife, that sat behind a leg of it, and nodded,

+and talked aloud to herself with becks and courtesies.

+

+"Who are these two, mother?" I asked, and pointed to the corpses.

+

+"A blessing on your precious face!" she cried.  "Twa joes {7}

+o'mine:  just two o' my old joes, my hinny dear."

+

+"What did they suffer for?" I asked.

+

+"Ou, just for the guid cause," said she.  "Aften I spaed to them

+the way that it would end.  Twa shillin' Scots:  no pickle mair;

+and there are twa bonny callants hingin' for 't!  They took it frae

+a wean {8} belanged to Brouchton."

+

+"Ay!" said I to myself, and not to the daft limmer, "and did they

+come to such a figure for so poor a business?  This is to lose all

+indeed."

+

+"Gie's your loof, {9} hinny," says she, "and let me spae your weird

+to ye."

+

+"No, mother," said I, "I see far enough the way I am.  It's an unco

+thing to see too far in front."

+

+"I read it in your bree," she said.  "There's a bonnie lassie that

+has bricht een, and there's a wee man in a braw coat, and a big man

+in a pouthered wig, and there's the shadow of the wuddy, {10} joe,

+that lies braid across your path.  Gie's your loof, hinny, and let

+Auld Merren spae it to ye bonny."

+

+The two chance shots that seemed to point at Alan and the daughter

+of James More struck me hard; and I fled from the eldritch

+creature, casting her a baubee, which she continued to sit and play

+with under the moving shadows of the hanged.

+

+My way down the causeway of Leith Walk would have been more

+pleasant to me but for this encounter.  The old rampart ran among

+fields, the like of them I had never seen for artfulness of

+agriculture; I was pleased, besides, to be so far in the still

+countryside; but the shackles of the gibbet clattered in my head;

+and the mope and mows of the old witch, and the thought of the dead

+men, hag-rode my spirits.  To hang on a gallows, that seemed a hard

+case; and whether a man came to hang there for two shillings Scots,

+or (as Mr. Stewart had it) from the sense of duty, once he was

+tarred and shackled and hung up, the difference seemed small.

+There might David Balfour hang, and other lads pass on their

+errands and think light of him; and old daft limmers sit at a leg-

+foot and spae their fortunes; and the clean genty maids go by, and

+look to the other aide, and hold a nose.  I saw them plain, and

+they had grey eyes, and their screens upon their heads were of the

+Drummed colours.

+

+I was thus in the poorest of spirits, though still pretty resolved,

+when I came in view of Pilrig, a pleasant gabled house set by the

+walkside among some brave young woods.  The laird's horse was

+standing saddled at the door as I came up, but himself was in the

+study, where he received me in the midst of learned works and

+musical instruments, for he was not only a deep philosopher but

+much of a musician.  He greeted me at first pretty well, and when

+he had read Rankeillor's letter, placed himself obligingly at my

+disposal.

+

+"And what is it, cousin David!" said he--"since it appears that we

+are cousins--what is this that I can do for you!  A word to

+Prestongrange!  Doubtless that is easily given.  But what should be

+the word?"

+

+"Mr. Balfour," said I, "if I were to tell you my whole story the

+way it fell out, it's my opinion (and it was Rankeillor's before

+me) that you would be very little made up with it."

+

+"I am sorry to hear this of you, kinsman," says he.

+

+"I must not take that at your hands, Mr. Balfour," said I; "I have

+nothing to my charge to make me sorry, or you for me, but just the

+common infirmities of mankind.  'The guilt of Adam's first sin, the

+want of original righteousness, and the corruption of my whole

+nature,' so much I must answer for, and I hope I have been taught

+where to look for help," I said; for I judged from the look of the

+man he would think the better of me if I knew my questions. {11}

+"But in the way of worldly honour I have no great stumble to

+reproach myself with; and my difficulties have befallen me very

+much against my will and (by all that I can see) without my fault.

+My trouble is to have become dipped in a political complication,

+which it is judged you would be blythe to avoid a knowledge of."

+

+"Why, very well, Mr. David," he replied, "I am pleased to see you

+are all that Rankeillor represented.  And for what you say of

+political complications, you do me no more than justice.  It is my

+study to be beyond suspicion, and indeed outside the field of it.

+The question is," says he, "how, if I am to know nothing of the

+matter, I can very well assist you?"

+

+"Why sir," said I, "I propose you should write to his lordship,

+that I am a young man of reasonable good family and of good means:

+both of which I believe to be the case."

+

+"I have Rankeillor's word for it," said Mr. Balfour, "and I count

+that a warran-dice against all deadly."

+

+"To which you might add (if you will take my word for so much) that

+I am a good churchman, loyal to King George, and so brought up," I

+went on.

+

+"None of which will do you any harm," said Mr. Balfour.

+

+"Then you might go on to say that I sought his lordship on a matter

+of great moment, connected with His Majesty's service and the

+administration of justice," I suggested.

+

+"As I am not to hear the matter," says the laird, "I will not take

+upon myself to qualify its weight.  'Great moment' therefore falls,

+and 'moment' along with it.  For the rest I might express myself

+much as you propose."

+

+"And then, sir," said I, and rubbed my neck a little with my thumb,

+"then I would be very desirous if you could slip in a word that

+might perhaps tell for my protection."

+

+"Protection?" says he, "for your protection!  Here is a phrase that

+somewhat dampens me.  If the matter be so dangerous, I own I would

+be a little loath to move in it blindfold."

+

+"I believe I could indicate in two words where the thing sticks,"

+said I.

+

+"Perhaps that would be the best," said he.

+

+"Well, it's the Appin murder," said I.

+

+He held up both his hands.  "Sirs! sirs!" cried he.

+

+I thought by the expression of his face and voice that I had lost

+my helper.

+

+"Let me explain. . ." I began.

+

+"I thank you kindly, I will hear no more of it," says he.  "I

+decline in toto to hear more of it.  For your name's sake and

+Rankeillor's, and perhaps a little for your own, I will do what I

+can to help you; but I will hear no more upon the facts.  And it is

+my first clear duty to warn you.  These are deep waters, Mr. David,

+and you are a young man.  Be cautious and think twice."

+

+"It is to be supposed I will have thought oftener than that, Mr.

+Balfour," said I, "and I will direct your attention again to

+Rankeillor's letter, where (I hope and believe) he has registered

+his approval of that which I design."

+

+"Well, well," said he; and then again, "Well, well!  I will do what

+I can for you."  There with he took a pen and paper, sat a while in

+thought, and began to write with much consideration.  "I understand

+that Rankeillor approved of what you have in mind?" he asked

+presently.

+

+"After some discussion, sir, he bade me to go forward in God's

+name," said I.

+

+"That is the name to go in," said Mr. Balfour, and resumed his

+writing.  Presently, he signed, re-read what he had written, and

+addressed me again.  "Now here, Mr. David," said he, "is a letter

+of introduction, which I will seal without closing, and give into

+your hands open, as the form requires.  But, since I am acting in

+the dark, I will just read it to you, so that you may see if it

+will secure your end -

+

+

+"PILRIG, August 26th, 1751.

+

+"My Lord,--This is to bring to your notice my namesake and cousin,

+David Balfour Esquire of Shaws, a young gentleman of unblemished

+descent and good estate.  He has enjoyed, besides, the more

+valuable advantages of a godly training, and his political

+principles are all that your lordship can desire.  I am not in Mr.

+Balfour's confidence, but I understand him to have a matter to

+declare, touching His Majesty's service and the administration of

+justice; purposes for which your Lordship's zeal is known.  I

+should add that the young gentleman's intention is known to and

+approved by some of his friends, who will watch with hopeful

+anxiety the event of his success or failure.

+

+

+"Whereupon," continued Mr. Balfour, "I have subscribed myself with

+the usual compliments.  You observe I have said 'some of your

+friends'; I hope you can justify my plural?"

+

+"Perfectly, sir; my purpose is known and approved by more than

+one," said I.  "And your letter, which I take a pleasure to thank

+you for, is all I could have hoped."

+

+"It was all I could squeeze out," said he; "and from what I know of

+the matter you design to meddle in, I can only pray God that it may

+prove sufficient."

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV--LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGRANGE

+

+

+

+My kinsman kept me to a meal, "for the honour of the roof," he

+said; and I believe I made the better speed on my return.  I had no

+thought but to be done with the next stage, and have myself fully

+committed; to a person circumstanced as I was, the appearance of

+closing a door on hesitation and temptation was itself extremely

+tempting; and I was the more disappointed, when I came to

+Prestongrange's house, to be informed he was abroad.  I believe it

+was true at the moment, and for some hours after; and then I have

+no doubt the Advocate came home again, and enjoyed himself in a

+neighbouring chamber among friends, while perhaps the very fact of

+my arrival was forgotten.  I would have gone away a dozen times,

+only for this strong drawing to have done with my declaration out

+of hand and be able to lay me down to sleep with a free conscience.

+At first I read, for the little cabinet where I was left contained

+a variety of books.  But I fear I read with little profit; and the

+weather falling cloudy, the dusk coming up earlier than usual, and

+my cabinet being lighted with but a loophole of a window, I was at

+last obliged to desist from this diversion (such as it was), and

+pass the rest of my time of waiting in a very burthensome vacuity.

+The sound of people talking in a near chamber, the pleasant note of

+a harpsichord, and once the voice of a lady singing, bore me a kind

+of company.

+

+I do not know the hour, but the darkness was long come, when the

+door of the cabinet opened, and I was aware, by the light behind

+him, of a tall figure of a man upon the threshold.  I rose at once.

+

+"Is anybody there?" he asked.  "Who in that?"

+

+"I am bearer of a letter from the laird of Pilrig to the Lord

+Advocate," said I.

+

+"Have you been here long?" he asked.

+

+"I would not like to hazard an estimate of how many hours," said I.

+

+"It is the first I hear of it," he replied, with a chuckle.  "The

+lads must have forgotten you.  But you are in the bit at last, for

+I am Prestongrange."

+

+So saying, he passed before me into the next room, whither (upon

+his sign) I followed him, and where he lit a candle and took his

+place before a business-table.  It was a long room, of a good

+proportion, wholly lined with books.  That small spark of light in

+a corner struck out the man's handsome person and strong face.  He

+was flushed, his eye watered and sparkled, and before he sat down I

+observed him to sway back and forth.  No doubt, he had been supping

+liberally; but his mind and tongue were under full control.

+

+"Well, sir, sit ye down," said he, "and let us see Pilrig's

+letter."

+

+He glanced it through in the beginning carelessly, looking up and

+bowing when he came to my name; but at the last words I thought I

+observed his attention to redouble, and I made sure he read them

+twice.  All this while you are to suppose my heart was beating, for

+I had now crossed my Rubicon and was come fairly on the field of

+battle.

+

+"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Balfour," he said,

+when he had done.  "Let me offer you a glass of claret."

+

+"Under your favour, my lord, I think it would scarce be fair on

+me," said I.  "I have come here, as the letter will have mentioned,

+on a business of some gravity to myself; and, as I am little used

+with wine, I might be the sooner affected."

+

+"You shall be the judge," said he.  "But if you will permit, I

+believe I will even have the bottle in myself."

+

+He touched a bell, and a footman came, as at a signal, bringing

+wine and glasses.

+

+"You are sure you will not join me?" asked the Advocate.  "Well,

+here is to our better acquaintance!  In what way can I serve you?"

+

+"I should, perhaps, begin by telling you, my lord, that I am here

+at your own pressing invitation," said I.

+

+"You have the advantage of me somewhere," said he, "for I profess I

+think I never heard of you before this evening."

+

+"Right, my lord; the name is, indeed, new to you," said I.  "And

+yet you have been for some time extremely wishful to make my

+acquaintance, and have declared the same in public."

+

+"I wish you would afford me a clue," says he.  "I am no Daniel."

+

+"It will perhaps serve for such," said I, "that if I was in a

+jesting humour--which is far from the case--I believe I might lay a

+claim on your lordship for two hundred pounds."

+

+"In what sense?" he inquired.

+

+"In the sense of rewards offered for my person," said I.

+

+He thrust away his glass once and for all, and sat straight up in

+the chair where he had been previously lolling.  "What am I to

+understand?" said he.

+

+"A TALL STRONG LAD OF ABOUT EIGHTEEN," I quoted, "SPEAKS LIKE a

+LOWLANDER AND HAS NO BEARD."

+

+"I recognise those words," said he, "which, if you have come here

+with any ill-judged intention of amusing yourself, are like to

+prove extremely prejudicial to your safety."

+

+"My purpose in this," I replied, "is just entirely as serious as

+life and death, and you have understood me perfectly.  I am the boy

+who was speaking with Glenure when he was shot."

+

+"I can only suppose (seeing you here) that you claim to be

+innocent," said he.

+

+"The inference is clear," I said.  "I am a very loyal subject to

+King George, but if I had anything to reproach myself with, I would

+have had more discretion than to walk into your den."

+

+"I am glad of that," said he.  "This horrid crime, Mr. Balfour, is

+of a dye which cannot permit any clemency.  Blood has been

+barbarously shed.  It has been shed in direct opposition to his

+Majesty and our whole frame of laws, by those who are their known

+and public oppugnants.  I take a very high sense of this.  I will

+not deny that I consider the crime as directly personal to his

+Majesty."

+

+"And unfortunately, my lord," I added, a little drily, "directly

+personal to another great personage who may be nameless."

+

+"If you mean anything by those words, I must tell you I consider

+them unfit for a good subject; and were they spoke publicly I

+should make it my business to take note of them," said he.  "You do

+not appear to me to recognise the gravity of your situation, or you

+would be more careful not to pejorate the same by words which

+glance upon the purity of justice.  Justice, in this country, and

+in my poor hands, is no respecter of persons."

+

+"You give me too great a share in my own speech, my lord," said I.

+"I did but repeat the common talk of the country, which I have

+heard everywhere, and from men of all opinions as I came along."

+

+"When you are come to more discretion you will understand such talk

+in not to be listened to, how much less repeated," says the

+Advocate.  "But I acquit you of an ill intention.  That nobleman,

+whom we all honour, and who has indeed been wounded in a near place

+by the late barbarity, sits too high to be reached by these

+aspersions.  The Duke of Argyle--you see that I deal plainly with

+you--takes it to heart as I do, and as we are both bound to do by

+our judicial functions and the service of his Majesty; and I could

+wish that all hands, in this ill age, were equally clean of family

+rancour.  But from the accident that this is a Campbell who has

+fallen martyr to his duty--as who else but the Campbells have ever

+put themselves foremost on that path?--I may say it, who am no

+Campbell--and that the chief of that great house happens (for all

+our advantages) to be the present head of the College of Justice,

+small minds and disaffected tongues are set agog in every

+changehouse in the country; and I find a young gentleman like Mr.

+Balfour so ill-advised as to make himself their echo."  So much he

+spoke with a very oratorical delivery, as if in court, and then

+declined again upon the manner of a gentleman.  "All this apart,"

+said he.  "It now remains that I should learn what I am to do with

+you."

+

+"I had thought it was rather I that should learn the same from your

+lordship," said I.

+

+"Ay, true," says the Advocate.  "But, you see, you come to me well

+recommended.  There is a good honest Whig name to this letter,"

+says he, picking it up a moment from the table.  "And--extra-

+judicially, Mr, Balfour--there is always the possibility of some

+arrangement, I tell you, and I tell you beforehand that you may be

+the more upon your guard, your fate lies with me singly.  In such a

+matter (be it said with reverence) I am more powerful than the

+King's Majesty; and should you please me--and of course satisfy my

+conscience--in what remains to be held of our interview, I tell you

+it may remain between ourselves."

+

+"Meaning how?" I asked.

+

+"Why, I mean it thus, Mr. Balfour," said he, "that if you give

+satisfaction, no soul need know so much as that you visited my

+house; and you may observe that I do not even call my clerk."

+

+I saw what way he was driving.  "I suppose it is needless anyone

+should be informed upon my visit," said I, "though the precise

+nature of my gains by that I cannot see.  I am not at all ashamed

+of coming here."

+

+"And have no cause to be," says he, encouragingly.  "Nor yet (if

+you are careful) to fear the consequences."

+

+"My lord," said I, "speaking under your correction, I am not very

+easy to be frightened."

+

+"And I am sure I do not seek to frighten you," says he.  "But to

+the interrogation; and let me warn you to volunteer nothing beyond

+the questions I shall ask you.  It may consist very immediately

+with your safety.  I have a great discretion, it is true, but there

+are bounds to it."

+

+"I shall try to follow your lordship's advice," said I.

+

+He spread a sheet of paper on the table and wrote a heading.  "It

+appears you were present, by the way, in the wood of Lettermore at

+the moment of the fatal shot," he began.  "Was this by accident?"

+

+"By accident," said I.

+

+"How came you in speech with Colin Campbell?" he asked.

+

+"I was inquiring my way of him to Aucharn," I replied.

+

+I observed he did not write this answer down.

+

+"H'm, true," said he, "I had forgotten that.  And do you know, Mr.

+Balfour, I would dwell, if I were you, as little as might be on

+your relations with these Stewarts.  It might be found to

+complicate our business.  I am not yet inclined to regard these

+matters as essential."

+

+"I had thought, my lord, that all points of fact were equally

+material in such a case," said I.

+

+"You forget we are now trying these Stewarts," he replied, with

+great significance.  "If we should ever come to be trying you, it

+will be very different; and I shall press these very questions that

+I am now willing to glide upon.  But to resume:  I have it here in

+Mr. Mungo Campbell's precognition that you ran immediately up the

+brae.  How came that?"

+

+"Not immediately, my lord, and the cause was my seeing of the

+murderer."

+

+"You saw him, then?"

+

+"As plain as I see your lordship, though not so near hand."

+

+"You know him?"

+

+"I should know him again."

+

+"In your pursuit you were not so fortunate, then, as to overtake

+him?"

+

+"I was not."

+

+"Was he alone?"

+

+"He was alone."

+

+"There was no one else in that neighbourhood?"

+

+"Alan Breck Stewart was not far off, in a piece of a wood."

+

+The Advocate laid his pen down.  "I think we are playing at cross

+purposes," said he, "which you will find to prove a very ill

+amusement for yourself."

+

+"I content myself with following your lordship's advice, and

+answering what I am asked," said I.

+

+"Be so wise as to bethink yourself in time," said he, "I use you

+with the most anxious tenderness, which you scarce seem to

+appreciate, and which (unless you be more careful) may prove to be

+in vain."

+

+"I do appreciate your tenderness, but conceive it to be mistaken,"

+I replied, with something of a falter, for I saw we were come to

+grips at last.  "I am here to lay before you certain information,

+by which I shall convince you Alan had no hand whatever in the

+killing of Glenure."

+

+The Advocate appeared for a moment at a stick, sitting with pursed

+lips, and blinking his eyes upon me like an angry cat.  "Mr.

+Balfour," he said at last, "I tell you pointedly you go an ill way

+for your own interests."

+

+"My lord," I said, "I am as free of the charge of considering my

+own interests in this matter as your lordship.  As God judges me, I

+have but the one design, and that is to see justice executed and

+the innocent go clear.  If in pursuit of that I come to fall under

+your lordship's displeasure, I must bear it as I may."

+

+At this he rose from his chair, lit a second candle, and for a

+while gazed upon me steadily.  I was surprised to see a great

+change of gravity fallen upon his face, and I could have almost

+thought he was a little pale.

+

+"You are either very simple, or extremely the reverse, and I see

+that I must deal with you more confidentially," says he.  "This is

+a political case--ah, yes, Mr. Balfour! whether we like it or no,

+the case is political--and I tremble when I think what issues may

+depend from it.  To a political case, I need scarce tell a young

+man of your education, we approach with very different thoughts

+from one which is criminal only.  Salus populi suprema lex is a

+maxim susceptible of great abuse, but it has that force which we

+find elsewhere only in the laws of nature:  I mean it has the force

+of necessity.  I will open this out to you, if you will allow me,

+at more length.  You would have me believe--"

+

+"Under your pardon, my lord, I would have you to believe nothing

+but that which I can prove," said I.

+

+"Tut! tut; young gentleman," says he, "be not so pragmatical, and

+suffer a man who might be your father (if it was nothing more) to

+employ his own imperfect language, and express his own poor

+thoughts, even when they have the misfortune not to coincide with

+Mr. Balfour's.  You would have me to believe Breck innocent.  I

+would think this of little account, the more so as we cannot catch

+our man.  But the matter of Breck's innocence shoots beyond itself.

+Once admitted, it would destroy the whole presumptions of our case

+against another and a very different criminal; a man grown old in

+treason, already twice in arms against his king and already twice

+forgiven; a fomentor of discontent, and (whoever may have fired the

+shot) the unmistakable original of the deed in question.  I need

+not tell you that I mean James Stewart."

+

+"And I can just say plainly that the innocence of Alan and of James

+is what I am here to declare in private to your lordship, and what

+I am prepared to establish at the trial by my testimony," said I.

+

+"To which I can only answer by an equal plainness, Mr. Balfour,"

+said he, "that (in that case) your testimony will not be called by

+me, and I desire you to withhold it altogether."

+

+"You are at the head of Justice in this country," I cried, "and you

+propose to me a crime!"

+

+"I am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country,"

+he replied, "and I press on you a political necessity.  Patriotism

+is not always moral in the formal sense.  You might be glad of it,

+I think:  it is your own protection; the facts are heavy against

+you; and if I am still trying to except you from a very dangerous

+place, it is in part of course because I am not insensible to your

+honesty in coming here; in part because of Pilrig's letter; but in

+part, and in chief part, because I regard in this matter my

+political duty first and my judicial duty only second.  For the

+same reason--I repeat it to you in the same frank words--I do not

+want your testimony."

+

+"I desire not to be thought to make a repartee, when I express only

+the plain sense of our position," said I.  "But if your lordship

+has no need of my testimony, I believe the other side would be

+extremely blythe to get it."

+

+Prestongrange arose and began to pace to and fro in the room.  "You

+are not so young," he said, "but what you must remember very

+clearly the year '45 and the shock that went about the country.  I

+read in Pilrig's letter that you are sound in Kirk and State.  Who

+saved them in that fatal year?  I do not refer to His Royal

+Highness and his ramrods, which were extremely useful in their day;

+but the country had been saved and the field won before ever

+Cumberland came upon Drummossie.  Who saved it?  I repeat; who

+saved the Protestant religion and the whole frame of our civil

+institutions?  The late Lord President Culloden, for one; he played

+a man's part, and small thanks he got for it--even as I, whom you

+see before you, straining every nerve in the same service, look for

+no reward beyond the conscience of my duties done.  After the

+President, who else?  You know the answer as well as I do; 'tis

+partly a scandal, and you glanced at it yourself, and I reproved

+you for it, when you first came in.  It was the Duke and the great

+clan of Campbell.  Now here is a Campbell foully murdered, and that

+in the King's service.  The Duke and I are Highlanders.  But we are

+Highlanders civilised, and it is not so with the great mass of our

+clans and families.  They have still savage virtues and defects.

+They are still barbarians, like these Stewarts; only the Campbells

+were barbarians on the right side, and the Stewarts were barbarians

+on the wrong.  Now be you the judge.  The Campbells expect

+vengeance.  If they do not get it--if this man James escape--there

+will be trouble with the Campbells.  That means disturbance in the

+Highlands, which are uneasy and very far from being disarmed:  the

+disarming is a farce. . ."

+

+"I can bear you out in that," said I.

+

+"Disturbance in the Highlands makes the hour of our old watchful

+enemy," pursued his lordship, holding out a finger as he paced;

+"and I give you my word we may have a '45 again with the Campbells

+on the other side.  To protect the life of this man Stewart--which

+is forfeit already on half-a-dozen different counts if not on this-

+-do you propose to plunge your country in war, to jeopardise the

+faith of your fathers, and to expose the lives and fortunes of how

+many thousand innocent persons? . . .  These are considerations

+that weigh with me, and that I hope will weigh no less with

+yourself, Mr. Balfour, as a lover of your country, good government,

+and religious truth."

+

+"You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it," said I.

+"I will try on my side to be no less honest.  I believe your policy

+to be sound.  I believe these deep duties may lie upon your

+lordship; I believe you may have laid them on your conscience when

+you took the oath of the high office which you hold.  But for me,

+who am just a plain man--or scarce a man yet--the plain duties must

+suffice.  I can think but of two things, of a poor soul in the

+immediate and unjust danger of a shameful death, and of the cries

+and tears of his wife that still tingle in my head.  I cannot see

+beyond, my lord.  It's the way that I am made.  If the country has

+to fall, it has to fall.  And I pray God, if this be wilful

+blindness, that He may enlighten me before too late."

+

+He had heard me motionless, and stood so a while longer.

+

+"This is an unexpected obstacle," says he, aloud, but to himself.

+

+"And how is your lordship to dispose of me?" I asked.

+

+"If I wished," said he, "you know that you might sleep in gaol?"

+

+"My lord," said I, "I have slept in worse places."

+

+"Well, my boy," said he, "there is one thing appears very plainly

+from our interview, that I may rely on your pledged word.  Give me

+your honour that you will be wholly secret, not only on what has

+passed to-night, but in the matter of the Appin case, and I let you

+go free."

+

+"I will give it till to-morrow or any other near day that you may

+please to set," said I.  "I would not be thought too wily; but if I

+gave the promise without qualification your lordship would have

+attained his end."

+

+"I had no thought to entrap you," said he.

+

+"I am sure of that," said I.

+

+"Let me see," he continued.  "To-morrow is the Sabbath.  Come to me

+on Monday by eight in the morning, and give me our promise until

+then."

+

+"Freely given, my lord," said I.  "And with regard to what has

+fallen from yourself, I will give it for an long as it shall please

+God to spare your days."

+

+"You will observe," he said next, "that I have made no employment

+of menaces."

+

+"It was like your lordship's nobility," said I.  "Yet I am not

+altogether so dull but what I can perceive the nature of those you

+have not uttered."

+

+"Well," said he, "good-night to you.  May you sleep well, for I

+think it is more than I am like to do."

+

+With that he sighed, took up a candle, and gave me his conveyance

+as far as the street door.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V--IN THE ADVOCATE'S HOUSE

+

+

+

+The next day, Sabbath, August 27th, I had the occasion I had long

+looked forward to, to hear some of the famous Edinburgh preachers,

+all well known to me already by the report of Mr Campbell.  Alas!

+and I might just as well have been at Essendean, and sitting under

+Mr. Campbell's worthy self! the turmoil of my thoughts, which dwelt

+continually on the interview with Prestongrange, inhibiting me from

+all attention.  I was indeed much less impressed by the reasoning

+of the divines than by the spectacle of the thronged congregation

+in the churches, like what I imagined of a theatre or (in my then

+disposition) of an assize of trial; above all at the West Kirk,

+with its three tiers of galleries, where I went in the vain hope

+that I might see Miss Drummond.

+

+On the Monday I betook me for the first time to a barber's, and was

+very well pleased with the result.  Thence to the Advocate's, where

+the red coats of the soldiers showed again about his door, making a

+bright place in the close.  I looked about for the young lady and

+her gillies:  there was never a sign of them.  But I was no sooner

+shown into the cabinet or antechamber where I had spent so wearyful

+a time upon the Saturday, than I was aware of the tall figure of

+James More in a corner.  He seemed a prey to a painful uneasiness,

+reaching forth his feet and hands, and his eyes speeding here and

+there without rest about the walls of the small chamber, which

+recalled to me with a sense of pity the man's wretched situation.

+I suppose it was partly this, and partly my strong continuing

+interest in his daughter, that moved me to accost him.

+

+"Give you a good-morning, sir," said I.

+

+"And a good-morning to you, sir," said he.

+

+"You bide tryst with Prestongrange?" I asked.

+

+"I do, sir, and I pray your business with that gentleman be more

+agreeable than mine," was his reply.

+

+"I hope at least that yours will be brief, for I suppose you pass

+before me," said I.

+

+"All pass before me," he said, with a shrug and a gesture upward of

+the open hands.  "It was not always so, sir, but times change.  It

+was not so when the sword was in the scale, young gentleman, and

+the virtues of the soldier might sustain themselves."

+

+There came a kind of Highland snuffle out of the man that raised my

+dander strangely.

+

+"Well, Mr. Macgregor," said I, "I understand the main thing for a

+soldier is to be silent, and the first of his virtues never to

+complain."

+

+"You have my name, I perceive"--he bowed to me with his arms

+crossed--"though it's one I must not use myself.  Well, there is a

+publicity--I have shown my face and told my name too often in the

+beards of my enemies.  I must not wonder if both should be known to

+many that I know not."

+

+"That you know not in the least, sir," said I, "nor yet anybody

+else; but the name I am called, if you care to hear it, is

+Balfour."

+

+"It is a good name," he replied, civilly; "there are many decent

+folk that use it.  And now that I call to mind, there was a young

+gentleman, your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year '45 with

+my battalion."

+

+"I believe that would be a brother to Balfour of Baith," said I,

+for I was ready for the surgeon now.

+

+"The same, sir," said James More.  "And since I have been fellow-

+soldier with your kinsman, you must suffer me to grasp your hand."

+

+He shook hands with me long and tenderly, beaming on me the while

+as though he had found a brother.

+

+"Ah!" says he, "these are changed days since your cousin and I

+heard the balls whistle in our lugs."

+

+"I think he was a very far-away cousin," said I, drily, "and I

+ought to tell you that I never clapped eyes upon the man."

+

+"Well, well," said he, "it makes no change.  And you--I do not

+think you were out yourself, sir--I have no clear mind of your

+face, which is one not probable to be forgotten."

+

+"In the year you refer to, Mr. Macgregor, I was getting skelped in

+the parish school," said I.

+

+"So young!" cries he.  "Ah, then, you will never be able to think

+what this meeting is to me.  In the hour of my adversity, and here

+in the house of my enemy, to meet in with the blood of an old

+brother-in-arms--it heartens me, Mr. Balfour, like the skirting of

+the highland pipes!  Sir, this is a sad look back that many of us

+have to make:  some with falling tears.  I have lived in my own

+country like a king; my sword, my mountains, and the faith of my

+friends and kinsmen sufficed for me.  Now I lie in a stinking

+dungeon; and do you know, Mr. Balfour," he went on, taking my arm

+and beginning to lead me about, "do you know, sir, that I lack mere

+neCESSaries?  The malice of my foes has quite sequestered my

+resources.  I lie, as you know, sir, on a trumped-up charge, of

+which I am as innocent as yourself.  They dare not bring me to my

+trial, and in the meanwhile I am held naked in my prison.  I could

+have wished it was your cousin I had met, or his brother Baith

+himself.  Either would, I know, have been rejoiced to help me;

+while a comparative stranger like yourself--"

+

+I would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this

+beggarly vein, or the very short and grudging answers that I made

+to him.  There were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with

+some small change; but whether it was from shame or pride--whether

+it was for my own sake or Catriona's--whether it was because I

+thought him no fit father for his daughter, or because I resented

+that grossness of immediate falsity that clung about the man

+himself--the thing was clean beyond me.  And I was still being

+wheedled and preached to, and still being marched to and fro, three

+steps and a turn, in that small chamber, and had already, by some

+very short replies, highly incensed, although not finally

+discouraged, my beggar, when Prestongrange appeared in the doorway

+and bade me eagerly into his big chamber.

+

+"I have a moment's engagements," said he; "and that you may not sit

+empty-handed I am going to present you to my three braw daughters,

+of whom perhaps you may have heard, for I think they are more

+famous than papa.  This way."

+

+He led me into another long room above, where a dry old lady sat at

+a frame of embroidery, and the three handsomest young women (I

+suppose) in Scotland stood together by a window.

+

+"This is my new friend, Mr Balfour," said he, presenting me by the

+arm, "David, here is my sister, Miss Grant, who is so good as keep

+my house for me, and will be very pleased if she can help you.  And

+here," says he, turning to the three younger ladies, "here are my

+THREE BRAW DAUCHTERS.  A fair question to ye, Mr. Davie:  which of

+the three is the best favoured?  And I wager he will never have the

+impudence to propound honest Alan Ramsay's answer!"

+

+Hereupon all three, and the old Miss Grant as well, cried out

+against this sally, which (as I was acquainted with the verses he

+referred to) brought shame into my own check.  It seemed to me a

+citation unpardonable in a father, and I was amazed that these

+ladies could laugh even while they reproved, or made believe to.

+

+Under cover of this mirth, Prestongrange got forth of the chamber,

+and I was left, like a fish upon dry land, in that very unsuitable

+society.  I could never deny, in looking back upon what followed,

+that I was eminently stockish; and I must say the ladies were well

+drilled to have so long a patience with me.  The aunt indeed sat

+close at her embroidery, only looking now and again and smiling;

+but the misses, and especially the eldest, who was besides the most

+handsome, paid me a score of attentions which I was very ill able

+to repay.  It was all in vain to tell myself I was a young follow

+of some worth as well as a good estate, and had no call to feel

+abashed before these lasses, the eldest not so much older than

+myself, and no one of them by any probability half as learned.

+Reasoning would not change the fact; and there were times when the

+colour came into my face to think I was shaved that day for the

+first time.

+

+The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest

+took pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which

+she was a passed mistress, and entertained me for a while with

+playing and singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners;

+this put me more at my ease, and being reminded of Alan's air that

+he had taught me in the hole near Carriden, I made so bold as to

+whistle a bar or two, and ask if she knew that.

+

+She shook her head.  "I never heard a note of it," said she.

+"Whistle it all through.  And now once again," she added, after I

+had done so.

+

+Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise)

+instantly enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as

+she played, with a very droll expression and broad accent -

+

+

+"Haenae I got just the lilt of it?

+Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?"

+

+

+"You see," she says, "I can do the poetry too, only it won't rhyme.

+And then again:

+

+

+"I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:

+You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour."

+

+

+I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.

+

+"And what do you call the name of it?" she asked.

+

+"I do not know the real name," said I.  "I just call it Alan's

+air."

+

+She looked at me directly in the face.  "I shall call it David's

+air," said she; "though if it's the least like what your namesake

+of Israel played to Saul I would never wonder that the king got

+little good by it, for it's but melancholy music.  Your other name

+I do not like; so if you was ever wishing to hear your tune again

+you are to ask for it by mine."

+

+This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog.  "Why

+that, Miss Grant?" I asked.

+

+"Why," says she, "if ever you should come to get hanged, I will set

+your last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it."

+

+This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story

+and peril.  How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess.

+It was plain she knew there was something of danger in the name of

+Alan, and thus warned me to leave it out of reference; and plain

+she knew that I stood under some criminal suspicion.  I judged

+besides that the harshness of her last speech (which besides she

+had followed up immediately with a very noisy piece of music) was

+to put an end to the present conversation.  I stood beside her,

+affecting to listen and admire, but truly whirled away by my own

+thoughts.  I have always found this young lady to be a lover of the

+mysterious; and certainly this first interview made a mystery that

+was beyond my plummet.  One thing I learned long after, the hours

+of the Sunday had been well employed, the bank porter had been

+found and examined, my visit to Charles Stewart was discovered, and

+the deduction made that I was pretty deep with James and Alan, and

+most likely in a continued correspondence with the last.  Hence

+this broad hint that was given me across the harpsichord.

+

+In the midst of the piece of music, one of the younger misses, who

+was at a window over the close, cried on her sisters to come quick,

+for there was "Grey eyes again."  The whole family trooped there at

+once, and crowded one another for a look.  The window whither they

+ran was in an odd corner of that room, gave above the entrance

+door, and flanked up the close.

+

+"Come, Mr. Balfour," they cried, "come and see.  She is the most

+beautiful creature!  She hangs round the close-head these last

+days, always with some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems quite a

+lady."

+

+I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long.  I was

+afraid she might have seen me there, looking down upon her from

+that chamber of music, and she without, and her father in the same

+house, perhaps begging for his life with tears, and myself come but

+newly from rejecting his petitions.  But even that glance set me in

+a better conceit of myself and much less awe of the young ladies.

+They were beautiful, that was beyond question, but Catriona was

+beautiful too, and had a kind of brightness in her like a coal of

+fire.  As much as the others cast me down, she lifted me up.  I

+remembered I had talked easily with her.  If I could make no hand

+of it with these fine maids, it was perhaps something their own

+fault.  My embarrassment began to be a little mingled and lightened

+with a sense of fun; and when the aunt smiled at me from her

+embroidery, and the three daughters unbent to me like a baby, all

+with "papa's orders" written on their faces, there were times when

+I could have found it in my heart to smile myself.

+

+Presently papa returned, the same kind, happy-like, pleasant-spoken

+man.

+

+"Now, girls," said he, "I must take Mr. Balfour away again; but I

+hope you have been able to persuade him to return where I shall be

+always gratified to find him."

+

+So they each made me a little farthing compliment, and I was led

+away.

+

+If this visit to the family had been meant to soften my resistance,

+it was the worst of failures.  I was no such ass but what I

+understood how poor a figure I had made, and that the girls would

+be yawning their jaws off as soon as my stiff back was turned.  I

+felt I had shown how little I had in me of what was soft and

+graceful; and I longed for a chance to prove that I had something

+of the other stuff, the stern and dangerous.

+

+Well, I was to be served to my desire, for the scene to which he

+was conducting me was of a different character.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI--UMQUILE THE MASTER OF LOVAT

+

+

+

+There was a man waiting us in Prestongrange's study, whom I

+distasted at the first look, as we distaste a ferret or an earwig.

+He was bitter ugly, but seemed very much of a gentleman; had still

+manners, but capable of sudden leaps and violences; and a small

+voice, which could ring out shrill and dangerous when he so

+desired.

+

+The Advocate presented us in a familiar, friendly way.

+

+"Here, Fraser," said he, "here is Mr. Balfour whom we talked about.

+Mr. David, this is Mr. Simon Fraser, whom we used to call by

+another title, but that is an old song.  Mr. Fraser has an errand

+to you."

+

+With that he stepped aside to his book-shelves, and made believe to

+consult a quarto volume in the far end.

+

+I was thus left (in a sense) alone with perhaps the last person in

+the world I had expected.  There was no doubt upon the terms of

+introduction; this could be no other than the forfeited Master of

+Lovat and chief of the great clan Fraser.  I knew he had led his

+men in the Rebellion; I knew his father's head--my old lord's, that

+grey fox of the mountains--to have fallen on the block for that

+offence, the lands of the family to have been seized, and their

+nobility attainted.  I could not conceive what he should be doing

+in Grant's house; I could not conceive that he had been called to

+the bar, had eaten all his principles, and was now currying favour

+with the Government even to the extent of acting Advocate-Depute in

+the Appin murder.

+

+"Well, Mr. Balfour," said he, "what is all this I hear of ye?"

+

+"It would not become me to prejudge," said I, "but if the Advocate

+was your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions."

+

+"I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case," he went on; "I am

+to appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of the

+precognitions I can assure you your opinions are erroneous.  The

+guilt of Breck is manifest; and your testimony, in which you admit

+you saw him on the hill at the very moment, will certify his

+hanging."

+

+"It will be rather ill to hang him till you catch him," I observed.

+"And for other matters I very willingly leave you to your own

+impressions."

+

+"The Duke has been informed," he went on.  "I have just come from

+his Grace, and he expressed himself before me with an honest

+freedom like the great nobleman he is.  He spoke of you by name,

+Mr. Balfour, and declared his gratitude beforehand in case you

+would be led by those who understand your own interests and those

+of the country so much better than yourself.  Gratitude is no empty

+expression in that mouth:  experto-crede.  I daresay you know

+something of my name and clan, and the damnable example and

+lamented end of my late father, to say nothing of my own errata.

+Well, I have made my peace with that good Duke; he has intervened

+for me with our friend Prestongrange; and here I am with my foot in

+the stirrup again and some of the responsibility shared into my

+hand of prosecuting King George's enemies and avenging the late

+daring and barefaced insult to his Majesty."

+

+"Doubtless a proud position for your father's son," says I.

+

+He wagged his bald eyebrows at me.  "You are pleased to make

+experiments in the ironical, I think," said he.  "But I am here

+upon duty, I am here to discharge my errand in good faith, it is in

+vain you think to divert me.  And let me tell you, for a young

+fellow of spirit and ambition like yourself, a good shove in the

+beginning will do more than ten years' drudgery.  The shove is now

+at your command; choose what you will to be advanced in, the Duke

+will watch upon you with the affectionate disposition of a father."

+

+"I am thinking that I lack the docility of the son," says I.

+

+"And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole policy of this

+country is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill-

+mannered colt of a boy?" he cried.  "This has been made a test

+case, all who would prosper in the future must put a shoulder to

+the wheel.  Look at me!  Do you suppose it is for my pleasure that

+I put myself in the highly invidious position of persecuting a man

+that I have drawn the sword alongside of?  The choice is not left

+me."

+

+"But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice when you mixed in

+with that unnatural rebellion," I remarked.  "My case is happily

+otherwise; I am a true man, and can look either the Duke or King

+George in the face without concern."

+

+"Is it so the wind sits?" says he.  "I protest you are fallen in

+the worst sort of error.  Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil

+(he tells me) as not to combat your allegations; but you must not

+think they are not looked upon with strong suspicion.  You say you

+are innocent.  My dear sir, the facts declare you guilty."

+

+"I was waiting for you there," said I.

+

+"The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion

+of the murder; your long course of secresy--my good young man!"

+said Mr. Simon, "here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be

+a David Balfour!  I shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be

+raised; I shall then speak much otherwise from what I do to-day,

+and far less to your gratification, little as you like it now!  Ah,

+you look white!" cries he.  "I have found the key of your impudent

+heart.  You look pale, your eyes waver, Mr. David!  You see the

+grave and the gallows nearer by than you had fancied."

+

+"I own to a natural weakness," said I.  "I think no shame for that.

+Shame. . ."  I was going on.

+

+"Shame waits for you on the gibbet," he broke in.

+

+"Where I shall but be even'd with my lord your father," said I.

+

+"Aha, but not so!" he cried, "and you do not yet see to the bottom

+of this business.  My father suffered in a great cause, and for

+dealing in the affairs of kings.  You are to hang for a dirty

+murder about boddle-pieces.  Your personal part in it, the

+treacherous one of holding the poor wretch in talk, your

+accomplices a pack of ragged Highland gillies.  And it can be

+shown, my great Mr. Balfour--it can be shown, and it WILL be shown,

+trust ME that has a finger in the pie--it can be shown, and shall

+be shown, that you were paid to do it.  I think I can see the looks

+go round the court when I adduce my evidence, and it shall appear

+that you, a young man of education, let yourself be corrupted to

+this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes, a bottle of Highland

+spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in copper money."

+

+There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like

+a blow:  clothes, a bottle of usquebaugh, and three-and-fivepence-

+halfpenny in change made up, indeed, the most of what Alan and I

+had carried from Auchurn; and I saw that some of James's people had

+been blabbing in their dungeons.

+

+"You see I know more than you fancied," he resumed in triumph.

+"And as for giving it this turn, great Mr. David, you must not

+suppose the Government of Great Britain and Ireland will ever be

+stuck for want of evidence.  We have men here in prison who will

+swear out their lives as we direct them; as I direct, if you prefer

+the phrase.  So now you are to guess your part of glory if you

+choose to die.  On the one hand, life, wine, women, and a duke to

+be your handgun:  on the other, a rope to your craig, and a gibbet

+to clatter your bones on, and the lousiest, lowest story to hand

+down to your namesakes in the future that was ever told about a

+hired assassin.  And see here!" he cried, with a formidable shrill

+voice, "see this paper that I pull out of my pocket.  Look at the

+name there:  it is the name of the great David, I believe, the ink

+scarce dry yet.  Can you guess its nature?  It is the warrant for

+your arrest, which I have but to touch this bell beside me to have

+executed on the spot.  Once in the Tolbooth upon this paper, may

+God help you, for the die is cast!"

+

+I must never deny that I was greatly horrified by so much baseness,

+and much unmanned by the immediacy and ugliness of my danger.  Mr.

+Simon had already gloried in the changes of my hue; I make no doubt

+I was now no ruddier than my shirt; my speech besides trembled.

+

+"There is a gentleman in this room," cried I.  "I appeal to him.  I

+put my life and credit in his hands."

+

+Prestongrange shut his book with a snap.  "I told you so, Simon,"

+said he; "you have played your hand for all it was worth, and you

+have lost.  Mr. David," he went on, "I wish you to believe it was

+by no choice of mine you were subjected to this proof.  I wish you

+could understand how glad I am you should come forth from it with

+so much credit.  You may not quite see how, but it is a little of a

+service to myself.  For had our friend here been more successful

+than I was last night, it might have appeared that he was a better

+judge of men than I; it might have appeared we were altogether in

+the wrong situations, Mr. Simon and myself.  And I know our friend

+Simon to be ambitious," says he, striking lightly on Fraser's

+shoulder.  "As for this stage play, it is over; my sentiments are

+very much engaged in your behalf; and whatever issue we can find to

+this unfortunate affair, I shall make it my business to see it is

+adopted with tenderness to you."

+

+These were very good words, and I could see besides that there was

+little love, and perhaps a spice of genuine ill-will, between these

+two who were opposed to me.  For all that, it was unmistakable this

+interview had been designed, perhaps rehearsed, with the consent of

+both; it was plain my adversaries were in earnest to try me by all

+methods; and now (persuasion, flattery, and menaces having been

+tried in vain) I could not but wonder what would be their next

+expedient.  My eyes besides were still troubled, and my knees loose

+under me, with the distress of the late ordeal; and I could do no

+more than stammer the same form of words:  "I put my life and

+credit in your hands."

+

+"Well, well," said he, "we must try to save them.  And in the

+meanwhile let us return to gentler methods.  You must not bear any

+grudge upon my friend, Mr. Simon, who did but speak by his brief.

+And even if you did conceive some malice against myself, who stood

+by and seemed rather to hold a candle, I must not let that extend

+to innocent members of my family.  These are greatly engaged to see

+more of you, and I cannot consent to have my young womenfolk

+disappointed.  To-morrow they will be going to Hope Park, where I

+think it very proper you should make your bow.  Call for me first,

+when I may possibly have something for your private hearing; then

+you shall be turned abroad again under the conduct of my misses;

+and until that time repeat to me your promise of secrecy."

+

+I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was

+beside the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I

+know not how; and when I was forth again in the close, and the door

+had shut behind me, was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my

+face.  That horrid apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Simon rang

+in my memory, as a sudden noise rings after it is over in the ear.

+Tales of the man's father, of his falseness, of his manifold

+perpetual treacheries, rose before me from all that I had heard and

+read, and joined on with what I had just experienced of himself.

+Each time it occurred to me, the ingenious foulness of that calumny

+he had proposed to nail upon my character startled me afresh.  The

+case of the man upon the gibbet by Leith Walk appeared scarce

+distinguishable from that I was now to consider as my own.  To rob

+a child of so little more than nothing was certainly a paltry

+enterprise for two grown men; but my own tale, as it was to be

+represented in a court by Simon Fraser, appeared a fair second in

+every possible point of view of sordidness and cowardice.

+

+The voices of two of Prestongrange's liveried men upon his doorstep

+recalled me to myself.

+

+"Ha'e," said the one, "this billet as fast as ye can link to the

+captain."

+

+"Is that for the cateran back again?" asked the other.

+

+"It would seem sae," returned the first.  "Him and Simon are

+seeking him."

+

+"I think Prestongrange is gane gyte," says the second.  "He'll have

+James More in bed with him next."

+

+"Weel, it's neither your affair nor mine's," said the first.

+

+And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into

+the house.

+

+This looked as ill as possible.  I was scarce gone and they were

+sending already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must

+have pointed when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem

+their lives by all extremities.  My scalp curdled among my hair,

+and the next moment the blood leaped in me to remember Catriona.

+Poor lass! her father stood to be hanged for pretty indefensible

+misconduct.  What was yet more unpalatable, it now seemed he was

+prepared to save his four quarters by the worst of shame and the

+most foul of cowardly murders--murder by the false oath; and to

+complete our misfortunes, it seemed myself was picked out to be the

+victim.

+

+I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire

+for movement, air, and the open country.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII--I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR

+

+

+

+I came forth, I vow I know not how, on the Lang Dykes {12}.  This

+is a rural road which runs on the north side over against the city.

+Thence I could see the whole black length of it tail down, from

+where the castle stands upon its crags above the loch in a long

+line of spires and gable ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the

+sight my heart swelled in my bosom.  My youth, as I have told, was

+already inured to dangers; but such danger as I had seen the face

+of but that morning, in the midst of what they call the safety of a

+town, shook me beyond experience.  Peril of slavery, peril of

+shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had stood all of these

+without discredit; but the peril there was in the sharp voice and

+the fat face of Simon, property Lord Lovat, daunted me wholly.

+

+I sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into

+the water, and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples.  If I

+could have done so with any remains of self-esteem, I would now

+have fled from my foolhardy enterprise.  But (call it courage or

+cowardice, and I believe it was both the one and the other) I

+decided I was ventured out beyond the possibility of a retreat.  I

+had out-faced these men, I would continue to out-face them; come

+what might, I would stand by the word spoken.

+

+The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not

+much.  At the best of it there was an icy place about my heart, and

+life seemed a black business to be at all engaged in.  For two

+souls in particular my pity flowed.  The one was myself, to be so

+friendless and lost among dangers.  The other was the girl, the

+daughter of James More.  I had seen but little of her; yet my view

+was taken and my judgment made.  I thought her a lass of a clean

+honour, like a man's; I thought her one to die of a disgrace; and

+now I believed her father to be at that moment bargaining his vile

+life for mine.  It made a bond in my thoughts betwixt the girl and

+me.  I had seen her before only as a wayside appearance, though one

+that pleased me strangely; I saw her now in a sudden nearness of

+relation, as the daughter of my blood foe, and I might say, my

+murderer.  I reflected it was hard I should be so plagued and

+persecuted all my days for other folks' affairs, and have no manner

+of pleasure myself.  I got meals and a bed to sleep in when my

+concerns would suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to

+me.  If I was to hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not

+to hang but to escape out of this trouble, they might yet seem long

+to me ere I was done with them.  Of a sudden her face appeared in

+my memory, the way I had first seen it, with the parted lips; at

+that, weakness came in my bosom and strength into my legs; and I

+set resolutely forward on the way to Dean.  If I was to hang to-

+morrow, and it was sure enough I might very likely sleep that night

+in a dungeon, I determined I should hear and speak once more with

+Catriona.

+

+The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me

+yet more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit.  In the

+village of Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the

+river, I inquired my way of a miller's man, who sent me up the hill

+upon the farther side by a plain path, and so to a decent-like

+small house in a garden of lawns and apple-trees.  My heart beat

+high as I stepped inside the garden hedge, but it fell low indeed

+when I came face to face with a grim and fierce old lady, walking

+there in a white mutch with a man's hat strapped upon the top of

+it.

+

+"What do ye come seeking here?" she asked.

+

+I told her I was after Miss Drummond.

+

+"And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?" says she.

+

+I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as

+to render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young

+lady's invitation.

+

+"O, so you're Saxpence!" she cried, with a very sneering manner.

+"A braw gift, a bonny gentleman.  And hae ye ony ither name and

+designation, or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?" she asked.

+

+I told my name.

+

+"Preserve me!" she cried.  "Has Ebenezer gotten a son?"

+

+"No, ma'am," said I.  "I am a son of Alexander's.  It's I that am

+the Laird of Shaws."

+

+"Ye'll find your work cut out for ye to establish that," quoth she.

+

+"I perceive you know my uncle," said I; "and I daresay you may be

+the better pleased to hear that business is arranged."

+

+"And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?" she pursued.

+

+"I'm come after my saxpence, mem," said I.  "It's to be thought,

+being my uncle's nephew, I would be found a careful lad."

+

+"So ye have a spark of sleeness in ye?" observed the old lady, with

+some approval.  "I thought ye had just been a cuif--you and your

+saxpence, and your LUCKY DAY and your SAKE OF BALWHIDDER"--from

+which I was gratified to learn that Catriona had not forgotten some

+of our talk.  "But all this is by the purpose," she resumed.  "Am I

+to understand that ye come here keeping company?"

+

+"This is surely rather an early question," said I.  "The maid is

+young, so am I, worse fortune.  I have but seen her the once.  I'll

+not deny," I added, making up my mind to try her with some

+frankness, "I'll not deny but she has run in my head a good deal

+since I met in with her.  That is one thing; but it would be quite

+another, and I think I would look very like a fool, to commit

+myself."

+

+"You can speak out of your mouth, I see," said the old lady.

+"Praise God, and so can I!  I was fool enough to take charge of

+this rogue's daughter:  a fine charge I have gotten; but it's mine,

+and I'll carry it the way I want to.  Do ye mean to tell me, Mr.

+Balfour of Shaws, that you would marry James More's daughter, and

+him hanged!  Well, then, where there's no possible marriage there

+shall be no manner of carryings on, and take that for said.  Lasses

+are bruckle things," she added, with a nod; "and though ye would

+never think it by my wrunkled chafts, I was a lassie mysel', and a

+bonny one."

+

+"Lady Allardyce," said I, "for that I suppose to be your name, you

+seem to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very poor

+manner to come to an agreement.  You give me rather a home thrust

+when you ask if I would marry, at the gallow's foot, a young lady

+whom I have seen but once.  I have told you already I would never

+be so untenty as to commit myself.  And yet I'll go some way with

+you.  If I continue to like the lass as well as I have reason to

+expect, it will be something more than her father, or the gallows

+either, that keeps the two of us apart.  As for my family, I found

+it by the wayside like a lost bawbee!  I owe less than nothing to

+my uncle and if ever I marry, it will be to please one person:

+that's myself."

+

+"I have heard this kind of talk before ye were born," said Mrs.

+Ogilvy, "which is perhaps the reason that I think of it so little.

+There's much to be considered.  This James More is a kinsman of

+mine, to my shame be it spoken.  But the better the family, the

+mair men hanged or headed, that's always been poor Scotland's

+story.  And if it was just the hanging!  For my part I think I

+would be best pleased with James upon the gallows, which would be

+at least an end to him.  Catrine's a good lass enough, and a good-

+hearted, and lets herself be deaved all day with a runt of an auld

+wife like me.  But, ye see, there's the weak bit.  She's daft about

+that long, false, fleeching beggar of a father of hers, and red-mad

+about the Gregara, and proscribed names, and King James, and a

+wheen blethers.  And you might think ye could guide her, ye would

+find yourself sore mista'en.  Ye say ye've seen her but the once. .

+."

+

+"Spoke with her but the once, I should have said," I interrupted.

+"I saw her again this morning from a window at Prestongrange's."

+

+This I daresay I put in because it sounded well; but I was properly

+paid for my ostentation on the return.

+

+"What's this of it?" cries the old lady, with a sudden pucker of

+her face.  "I think it was at the Advocate's door-cheek that ye met

+her first."

+

+I told her that was so.

+

+"H'm," she said; and then suddenly, upon rather a scolding tone, "I

+have your bare word for it," she cries, "as to who and what you

+are.  By your way of it, you're Balfour of the Shaws; but for what

+I ken you may be Balfour of the Deevil's oxter.  It's possible ye

+may come here for what ye say, and it's equally possible ye may

+come here for deil care what!  I'm good enough Whig to sit quiet,

+and to have keepit all my men-folk's heads upon their shoulders.

+But I'm not just a good enough Whig to be made a fool of neither.

+And I tell you fairly, there's too much Advocate's door and

+Advocate's window here for a man that comes taigling after a

+Macgregor's daughter.  Ye can tell that to the Advocate that sent

+ye, with my fond love.  And I kiss my loof to ye, Mr. Balfour,"

+says she, suiting the action to the word; "and a braw journey to ye

+back to where ye cam frae."

+

+"If you think me a spy," I broke out, and speech stuck in my

+throat.  I stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space,

+then bowed and turned away.

+

+"Here!  Hoots!  The callant's in a creel!" she cried.  "Think ye a

+spy? what else would I think ye--me that kens naething by ye?  But

+I see that I was wrong; and as I cannot fight, I'll have to

+apologise.  A bonny figure I would be with a broadsword.  Ay! ay!"

+she went on, "you're none such a bad lad in your way; I think ye'll

+have some redeeming vices.  But, O! Davit Balfour, ye're damned

+countryfeed.  Ye'll have to win over that, lad; ye'll have to

+soople your back-bone, and think a wee pickle less of your dainty

+self; and ye'll have to try to find out that women-folk are nae

+grenadiers.  But that can never be.  To your last day you'll ken no

+more of women-folk than what I do of sow-gelding."

+

+I had never been used with such expressions from a lady's tongue,

+the only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being

+most devout and most particular women; and I suppose my amazement

+must have been depicted in my countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst

+forth suddenly in a fit of laughter.

+

+"Keep me!" she cried, struggling with her mirth, "you have the

+finest timber face--and you to marry the daughter of a Hieland

+cateran!  Davie, my dear, I think we'll have to make a match of it-

+-if it was just to see the weans.  And now," she went on, "there's

+no manner of service in your daidling here, for the young woman is

+from home, and it's my fear that the old woman is no suitable

+companion for your father's son.  Forbye that I have nobody but

+myself to look after my reputation, and have been long enough alone

+with a sedooctive youth.  And come back another day for your

+saxpence!" she cried after me as I left.

+

+My skirmish with this disconcerting lady gave my thoughts a

+boldness they had otherwise wanted.  For two days the image of

+Catriona had mixed in all my meditations; she made their

+background, so that I scarce enjoyed my own company without a glint

+of her in a corner of my mind.  But now she came immediately near;

+I seemed to touch her, whom I had never touched but the once; I let

+myself flow out to her in a happy weakness, and looking all about,

+and before and behind, saw the world like an undesirable desert,

+where men go as soldiers on a march, following their duty with what

+constancy they have, and Catriona alone there to offer me some

+pleasure of my days.  I wondered at myself that I could dwell on

+such considerations in that time of my peril and disgrace; and when

+I remembered my youth I was ashamed.  I had my studies to complete:

+I had to be called into some useful business; I had yet to take my

+part of service in a place where all must serve; I had yet to

+learn, and know, and prove myself a man; and I had so much sense as

+blush that I should be already tempted with these further-on and

+holier delights and duties.  My education spoke home to me sharply;

+I was never brought up on sugar biscuits but on the hard food of

+the truth.  I knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was

+not prepared to be a father also; and for a boy like me to play the

+father was a mere derision.

+

+When I was in the midst of these thoughts and about half-way back

+to town I saw a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my

+heart was heightened.  It seemed I had everything in the world to

+say to her, but nothing to say first; and remembering how tongue-

+tied I had been that morning at the Advocate's I made sure that I

+would find myself struck dumb.  But when she came up my fears fled

+away; not even the consciousness of what I had been privately

+thinking disconcerted me the least; and I found I could talk with

+her as easily and rationally as I might with Alan.

+

+"O!" she cried, "you have been seeking your sixpence; did you get

+it?"

+

+I told her no; but now I had met with her my walk was not in vain.

+"Though I have seen you to-day already," said I, and told her where

+and when.

+

+"I did not see you," she said.  "My eyes are big, but there are

+better than mine at seeing far.  Only I heard singing in the

+house."

+

+"That was Miss Grant," said I, "the eldest and the bonniest."

+

+"They say they are all beautiful," said she.

+

+"They think the same of you, Miss Drummond," I replied, "and were

+all crowding to the window to observe you."

+

+"It is a pity about my being so blind," said she, "or I might have

+seen them too.  And you were in the house?  You must have been

+having the fine time with the fine music and the pretty ladies."

+

+"There is just where you are wrong," said I; "for I was as uncouth

+as a sea-fish upon the brae of a mountain.  The truth is that I am

+better fitted to go about with rudas men than pretty ladies."

+

+"Well, I would think so too, at all events!" said she, at which we

+both of us laughed.

+

+"It is a strange thing, now," said I.  "I am not the least afraid

+with you, yet I could have run from the Miss Grants.  And I was

+afraid of your cousin too."

+

+"O, I think any man will be afraid of her," she cried.  "My father

+is afraid of her himself."

+

+The name of her father brought me to a stop.  I looked at her as

+she walked by my side; I recalled the man, and the little I knew

+and the much I guessed of him; and comparing the one with the

+other, felt like a traitor to be silent.

+

+"Speaking of which," said I, "I met your father no later than this

+morning."

+

+"Did you?" she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at

+me.  "You saw James More?  You will have spoken with him then?"

+

+"I did even that," said I.

+

+Then I think things went the worst way for me that was humanly

+possible.  She gave me a look of mere gratitude.  "Ah, thank you

+for that!" says she.

+

+"You thank me for very little," said I, and then stopped.  But it

+seemed when I was holding back so much, something at least had to

+come out.  "I spoke rather ill to him," said I; "I did no like him

+very much; I spoke him rather ill, and he was angry."

+

+"I think you had little to do then, and less to tell it to his

+daughter!" she cried out.  "But those that do not love and cherish

+him I will not know."

+

+"I will take the freedom of a word yet," said I, beginning to

+tremble.  "Perhaps neither your father nor I are in the best of

+spirits at Prestongrange's.  I daresay we both have anxious

+business there, for it's a dangerous house.  I was sorry for him

+too, and spoke to him the first, if I could but have spoken the

+wiser.  And for one thing, in my opinion, you will soon find that

+his affairs are mending."

+

+"It will not be through your friendship, I am thinking," said she;

+"and he is much made up to you for your sorrow."

+

+"Miss Drummond," cried I, "I am alone in this world."

+

+"And I am not wondering at that," said she.

+

+"O, let me speak!" said I.  "I will speak but the once, and then

+leave you, if you will, for ever.  I came this day in the hopes of

+a kind word that I am sore in want of.  I know that what I said

+must hurt you, and I knew it then.  It would have been easy to have

+spoken smooth, easy to lie to you; can you not think how I was

+tempted to the same?  Cannot you see the truth of my heart shine

+out?"

+

+"I think here is a great deal of work, Mr. Balfour," said she.  "I

+think we will have met but the once, and will can part like gentle

+folk."

+

+"O, let me have one to believe in me!" I pleaded, "I cannae bear it

+else.  The whole world is clanned against me.  How am I to go

+through with my dreadful fate?  If there's to be none to believe in

+me I cannot do it.  The man must just die, for I cannot do it."

+

+She had still looked straight in front of her, head in air; but at

+my words or the tone of my voice she came to a stop.  "What is this

+you say?" she asked.  "What are you talking of?"

+

+"It is my testimony which may save an innocent life," said I, "and

+they will not suffer me to bear it.  What would you do yourself?

+You know what this is, whose father lies in danger.  Would you

+desert the poor soul?  They have tried all ways with me.  They have

+sought to bribe me; they offered me hills and valleys.  And to-day

+that sleuth-hound told me how I stood, and to what a length he

+would go to butcher and disgrace me.  I am to be brought in a party

+to the murder; I am to have held Glenure in talk for money and old

+clothes; I am to be killed and shamed.  If this is the way I am to

+fall, and me scarce a man--if this is the story to be told of me in

+all Scotland--if you are to believe it too, and my name is to be

+nothing but a by-word--Catriona, how can I go through with it?  The

+thing's not possible; it's more than a man has in his heart."

+

+I poured my words out in a whirl, one upon the other; and when I

+stopped I found her gazing on me with a startled face.

+

+"Glenure!  It is the Appin murder," she said softly, but with a

+very deep surprise.

+

+I had turned back to bear her company, and we were now come near

+the head of the brae above Dean village.  At this word I stepped in

+front of her like one suddenly distracted.

+

+"For God's sake!" I cried, "for God's sake, what is this that I

+have done?" and carried my fists to my temples.  "What made me do

+it?  Sure, I am bewitched to say these things!"

+

+"In the name of heaven, what ails you now!" she cried.

+

+"I gave my honour," I groaned, "I gave my honour and now I have

+broke it.  O, Catriona!"

+

+"I am asking you what it is," she said; "was it these things you

+should not have spoken?  And do you think I have no honour, then?

+or that I am one that would betray a friend?  I hold up my right

+hand to you and swear."

+

+"O, I knew you would be true!" said I.  "It's me--it's here.  I

+that stood but this morning and out-faced them, that risked rather

+to die disgraced upon the gallows than do wrong--and a few hours

+after I throw my honour away by the roadside in common talk!

+'There is one thing clear upon our interview,' says he, 'that I can

+rely on your pledged word.'  Where is my word now?  Who could

+believe me now?  You could not believe me.  I am clean fallen down;

+I had best die!"  All this I said with a weeping voice, but I had

+no tears in my body.

+

+"My heart is sore for you," said she, "but be sure you are too

+nice.  I would not believe you, do you say?  I would trust you with

+anything.  And these men?  I would not be thinking of them!  Men

+who go about to entrap and to destroy you!  Fy! this is no time to

+crouch.  Look up!  Do you not think I will be admiring you like a

+great hero of the good--and you a boy not much older than myself?

+And because you said a word too much in a friend's ear, that would

+die ere she betrayed you--to make such a matter!  It is one thing

+that we must both forget."

+

+"Catriona," said I, looking at her, hang-dog, "is this true of it?

+Would ye trust me yet?"

+

+"Will you not believe the tears upon my face?" she cried.  "It is

+the world I am thinking of you, Mr. David Balfour.  Let them hang

+you; I will never forget, I will grow old and still remember you.

+I think it is great to die so:  I will envy you that gallows."

+

+"And maybe all this while I am but a child frighted with bogles,"

+said I.  "Maybe they but make a mock of me."

+

+"It is what I must know," she said.  "I must hear the whole.  The

+harm is done at all events, and I must hear the whole."

+

+I had sat down on the wayside, where she took a place beside me,

+and I told her all that matter much as I have written it, my

+thoughts about her father's dealings being alone omitted.

+

+"Well," she said, when I had finished, "you are a hero, surely, and

+I never would have thought that same!  And I think you are in

+peril, too.  O, Simon Fraser! to think upon that man!  For his life

+and the dirty money, to be dealing in such traffic!"  And just then

+she called out aloud with a queer word that was common with her,

+and belongs, I believe, to her own language.  "My torture!" says

+she, "look at the sun!"

+

+Indeed, it was already dipping towards the mountains.

+

+She bid me come again soon, gave me her hand, and left me in a

+turmoil of glad spirits.  I delayed to go home to my lodging, for I

+had a terror of immediate arrest; but got some supper at a change

+house, and the better part of that night walked by myself in the

+barley-fields, and had such a sense of Catriona's presence that I

+seemed to bear her in my arms.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII--THE BRAVO

+

+

+

+The next day, August 29th, I kept my appointment at the Advocate's

+in a coat that I had made to my own measure, and was but newly

+ready,

+

+"Aha," says Prestongrange, "you are very fine to-day; my misses are

+to have a fine cavalier.  Come, I take that kind of you.  I take

+that kind of you, Mr. David.  O, we shall do very well yet, and I

+believe your troubles are nearly at an end."

+

+"You have news for me?" cried I.

+

+"Beyond anticipation," he replied.  "Your testimony is after all to

+be received; and you may go, if you will, in my company to the

+trial, which in to be held at Inverary, Thursday, 21st proximo."

+

+I was too much amazed to find words.

+

+"In the meanwhile," he continued, "though I will not ask you to

+renew your pledge, I must caution you strictly to be reticent.  To-

+morrow your precognition must be taken; and outside of that, do you

+know, I think least said will be soonest mended."

+

+"I shall try to go discreetly,' said I.  "I believe it is yourself

+that I must thank for this crowning mercy, and I do thank you

+gratefully.  After yesterday, my lord, this is like the doors of

+Heaven.  I cannot find it in my heart to get the thing believed."

+

+"Ah, but you must try and manage, you must try and manage to

+believe it," says he, soothing-like, "and I am very glad to hear

+your acknowledgment of obligation, for I think you may be able to

+repay me very shortly"--he coughed--"or even now.  The matter is

+much changed.  Your testimony, which I shall not trouble you for

+to-day, will doubtless alter the complexion of the case for all

+concerned, and this makes it less delicate for me to enter with you

+on a side issue."

+

+"My Lord," I interrupted, "excuse me for interrupting you, but how

+has this been brought about?  The obstacles you told me of on

+Saturday appeared even to me to be quite insurmountable; how has it

+been contrived?"

+

+"My dear Mr. David," said he, "it would never do for me to divulge

+(even to you, as you say) the councils of the Government; and you

+must content yourself, if you please, with the gross fact."

+

+He smiled upon me like a father as he spoke, playing the while with

+a new pen; methought it was impossible there could be any shadow of

+deception in the man:  yet when he drew to him a sheet of paper,

+dipped his pen among the ink, and began again to address me, I was

+somehow not so certain, and fell instinctively into an attitude of

+guard.

+

+"There is a point I wish to touch upon," he began.  "I purposely

+left it before upon one side, which need be now no longer

+necessary.  This is not, of course, a part of your examination,

+which is to follow by another hand; this is a private interest of

+my own.  You say you encountered Alan Breck upon the hill?"

+

+"I did, my lord," said I

+

+"This was immediately after the murder?"

+

+"It was."

+

+"Did you speak to him?"

+

+"I did."

+

+"You had known him before, I think?" says my lord, carelessly.

+

+"I cannot guess your reason for so thinking, my lord," I replied,

+"but such in the fact."

+

+"And when did you part with him again?" said he.

+

+"I reserve my answer," said I.  "The question will be put to me at

+the assize."

+

+"Mr. Balfour," said he, "will you not understand that all this is

+without prejudice to yourself?  I have promised you life and

+honour; and, believe me, I can keep my word.  You are therefore

+clear of all anxiety.  Alan, it appears, you suppose you can

+protect; and you talk to me of your gratitude, which I think (if

+you push me) is not ill-deserved.  There are a great many different

+considerations all pointing the same way; and I will never be

+persuaded that you could not help us (if you chose) to put salt on

+Alan's tail."

+

+"My lord," said I, "I give you my word I do not so much as guess

+where Alan is."

+

+He paused a breath.  "Nor how he might be found?" he asked.

+

+I sat before him like a log of wood.

+

+"And so much for your gratitude, Mr. David!" he observed.  Again

+there was a piece of silence.  "Well," said he, rising, "I am not

+fortunate, and we are a couple at cross purposes.  Let us speak of

+it no more; you will receive notice when, where, and by whom, we

+are to take your precognition.  And in the meantime, my misses must

+be waiting you.  They will never forgive me if I detain their

+cavalier."

+

+Into the hands of these Graces I was accordingly offered up, and

+found them dressed beyond what I had thought possible, and looking

+fair as a posy.

+

+As we went forth from the doors a small circumstance occurred which

+came afterwards to look extremely big.  I heard a whistle sound

+loud and brief like a signal, and looking all about, spied for one

+moment the red head of Neil of the Tom, the son of Duncan.  The

+next moment he was gone again, nor could I see so much as the

+skirt-tail of Catriona, upon whom I naturally supposed him to be

+then attending.

+

+My three keepers led me out by Bristo and the Bruntsfield Links;

+whence a path carried us to Hope Park, a beautiful pleasance, laid

+with gravel-walks, furnished with seats and summer-sheds, and

+warded by a keeper.  The way there was a little longsome; the two

+younger misses affected an air of genteel weariness that damped me

+cruelly, the eldest considered me with something that at times

+appeared like mirth; and though I thought I did myself more justice

+than the day before, it was not without some effort.  Upon our

+reaching the park I was launched on a bevy of eight or ten young

+gentlemen (some of them cockaded officers, the rest chiefly

+advocates) who crowded to attend upon these beauties; and though I

+was presented to all of them in very good words, it seemed I was by

+all immediately forgotten.  Young folk in a company are like to

+savage animals:  they fall upon or scorn a stranger without

+civility, or I may say, humanity; and I am sure, if I had been

+among baboons, they would have shown me quite as much of both.

+Some of the advocates set up to be wits, and some of the soldiers

+to be rattles; and I could not tell which of these extremes annoyed

+me most.  All had a manner of handling their swords and coat-

+skirts, for the which (in mere black envy) I could have kicked them

+from the park.  I daresay, upon their side, they grudged me

+extremely the fine company in which I had arrived; and altogether I

+had soon fallen behind, and stepped stiffly in the rear of all that

+merriment with my own thoughts.

+

+From these I was recalled by one of the officers, Lieutenant Hector

+Duncansby, a gawky, leering Highland boy, asking if my name was not

+"Palfour."

+

+I told him it was, not very kindly, for his manner was scant civil.

+

+"Ha, Palfour," says he, and then, repeating it, "Palfour, Palfour!"

+

+"I am afraid you do not like my name, sir," says I, annoyed with

+myself to be annoyed with such a rustical fellow.

+

+"No," says he, "but I wass thinking."

+

+"I would not advise you to make a practice of that, sir," says I.

+"I feel sure you would not find it to agree with you."

+

+"Tit you effer hear where Alan Grigor fand the tangs?" said he.

+

+I asked him what he could possibly mean, and he answered, with a

+heckling laugh, that he thought I must have found the poker in the

+same place and swallowed it.

+

+There could be no mistake about this, and my cheek burned.

+

+"Before I went about to put affronts on gentlemen," said I, "I

+think I would learn the English language first."

+

+He took me by the sleeve with a nod and a wink and led me quietly

+outside Hope Park.  But no sooner were we beyond the view of the

+promenaders, than the fashion of his countenance changed.  "You tam

+lowland scoon'rel!" cries he, and hit me a buffet on the jaw with

+his closed fist.

+

+I paid him as good or better on the return; whereupon he stepped a

+little back and took off his hat to me decorously.

+

+"Enough plows I think," says he.  "I will be the offended

+shentleman, for who effer heard of such suffeeciency as tell a

+shentlemans that is the king's officer he cannae speak Cot's

+English?  We have swords at our hurdles, and here is the King's

+Park at hand.  Will ye walk first, or let me show ye the way?"

+

+I returned his bow, told him to go first, and followed him.  As he

+went I heard him grumble to himself about COT'S ENGLISH and the

+KING'S COAT, so that I might have supposed him to be seriously

+offended.  But his manner at the beginning of our interview was

+there to belie him.  It was manifest he had come prepared to fasten

+a quarrel on me, right or wrong; manifest that I was taken in a

+fresh contrivance of my enemies; and to me (conscious as I was of

+my deficiencies) manifest enough that I should be the one to fall

+in our encounter.

+

+As we came into that rough rocky desert of the King's Park I was

+tempted half-a-dozen times to take to my heels and run for it, so

+loath was I to show my ignorance in fencing, and so much averse to

+die or even to be wounded.  But I considered if their malice went

+as far as this, it would likely stick at nothing; and that to fall

+by the sword, however ungracefully, was still an improvement on the

+gallows.  I considered besides that by the unguarded pertness of my

+words and the quickness of my blow I had put myself quite out of

+court; and that even if I ran, my adversary would probably pursue

+and catch me, which would add disgrace to my misfortune.  So that,

+taking all in all, I continued marching behind him, much as a man

+follows the hangman, and certainly with no more hope.

+

+We went about the end of the long craigs, and came into the

+Hunter's Bog.  Here, on a piece of fair turf, my adversary drew.

+There was nobody there to see us but some birds; and no resource

+for me but to follow his example, and stand on guard with the best

+face I could display.  It seems it was not good enough for Mr.

+Dancansby, who spied some flaw in my manoeuvres, paused, looked

+upon me sharply, and came off and on, and menaced me with his blade

+in the air.  As I had seen no such proceedings from Alan, and was

+besides a good deal affected with the proximity of death, I grew

+quite bewildered, stood helpless, and could have longed to run

+away.

+

+"Fat deil ails her?" cries the lieutenant.

+

+And suddenly engaging, he twitched the sword out of my grasp and

+sent it flying far among the rushes.

+

+Twice was this manoeuvre repeated; and the third time when I

+brought back my humiliated weapon, I found he had returned his own

+to the scabbard, and stood awaiting me with a face of some anger,

+and his hands clasped under his skirt.

+

+"Pe tamned if I touch you!" he cried, and asked me bitterly what

+right I had to stand up before "shentlemans" when I did not know

+the back of a sword from the front of it.

+

+I answered that was the fault of my upbringing; and would he do me

+the justice to say I had given him all the satisfaction it was

+unfortunately in my power to offer, and had stood up like a man?

+

+"And that is the truth," said he.  "I am fery prave myself, and

+pold as a lions.  But to stand up there--and you ken naething of

+fence!--the way that you did, I declare it was peyond me.  And I am

+sorry for the plow; though I declare I pelief your own was the

+elder brother, and my heid still sings with it.  And I declare if I

+had kent what way it wass, I would not put a hand to such a piece

+of pusiness."

+

+"That is handsomely said," I replied, "and I am sure you will not

+stand up a second time to be the actor for my private enemies."

+

+"Indeed, no, Palfour," said he; "and I think I was used extremely

+suffeeciently myself to be set up to fecht with an auld wife, or

+all the same as a bairn whateffer!  And I will tell the Master so,

+and fecht him, by Cot, himself!"

+

+"And if you knew the nature of Mr. Simon's quarrel with me," said

+I, "you would be yet the more affronted to be mingled up with such

+affairs."

+

+He swore he could well believe it; that all the Lovats were made of

+the same meal and the devil was the miller that ground that; then

+suddenly shaking me by the hand, he vowed I was a pretty enough

+fellow after all, that it was a thousand pities I had been

+neglected, and that if he could find the time, he would give an eye

+himself to have me educated.

+

+"You can do me a better service than even what you propose," said

+I; and when he had asked its nature--"Come with me to the house of

+one of my enemies, and testify how I have carried myself this day,"

+I told him.  "That will be the true service.  For though he has

+sent me a gallant adversary for the first, the thought in Mr.

+Simon's mind is merely murder.  There will be a second and then a

+third; and by what you have seen of my cleverness with the cold

+steel, you can judge for yourself what is like to be the upshot."

+

+"And I would not like it myself, if I was no more of a man than

+what you wass!" he cried.  "But I will do you right, Palfour.  Lead

+on!"

+

+If I had walked slowly on the way into that accursed park my heels

+were light enough on the way out.  They kept time to a very good

+old air, that is as ancient as the Bible, and the words of it are:

+"SURELY THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH IS PASSED."  I mind that I was

+extremely thirsty, and had a drink at Saint Margaret's well on the

+road down, and the sweetness of that water passed belief.  We went

+through the sanctuary, up the Canongate, in by the Netherbow, and

+straight to Prestongrange's door, talking as we came and arranging

+the details of our affair.  The footman owned his master was at

+home, but declared him engaged with other gentlemen on very private

+business, and his door forbidden.

+

+"My business is but for three minutes, and it cannot wait," said I.

+"You may say it is by no means private, and I shall be even glad to

+have some witnesses."

+

+As the man departed unwillingly enough upon this errand, we made so

+bold as to follow him to the ante-chamber, whence I could hear for

+a while the murmuring of several voices in the room within.  The

+truth is, they were three at the one table--Prestongrange, Simon

+Fraser, and Mr. Erskine, Sheriff of Perth; and as they were met in

+consultation on the very business of the Appin murder, they were a

+little disturbed at my appearance, but decided to receive me.

+

+"Well, well, Mr. Balfour, and what brings you here again? and who

+is this you bring with you?" says Prestongrange.

+

+As for Fraser, he looked before him on the table.

+

+"He is here to bear a little testimony in my favour, my lord, which

+I think it very needful you should hear," said I, and turned to

+Duncansby.

+

+"I have only to say this," said the lieutenant, "that I stood up

+this day with Palfour in the Hunter's Pog, which I am now fery

+sorry for, and he behaved himself as pretty as a shentlemans could

+ask it.  And I have creat respects for Palfour," he added.

+

+"I thank you for your honest expressions," said I.

+

+Whereupon Duncansby made his bow to the company, and left the

+chamber, as we had agreed upon before.

+

+"What have I to do with this?" says Prestongrange.

+

+"I will tell your lordship in two words," said I.  "I have brought

+this gentleman, a King's officer, to do me so much justice.  Now I

+think my character in covered, and until a certain date, which your

+lordship can very well supply, it will be quite in vain to despatch

+against me any more officers.  I will not consent to fight my way

+through the garrison of the castle."

+

+The veins swelled on Prestongrange's brow, and he regarded me with

+fury.

+

+"I think the devil uncoupled this dog of a lad between my legs!" he

+cried; and then, turning fiercely on his neighbour, "This is some

+of your work, Simon," he said.  "I spy your hand in the business,

+and, let me tell you, I resent it.  It is disloyal, when we are

+agreed upon one expedient, to follow another in the dark.  You are

+disloyal to me.  What! you let me send this lad to the place with

+my very daughters!  And because I let drop a word to you..... Fy,

+sir, keep your dishonours to yourself!"

+

+Simon was deadly pale.  "I will be a kick-ball between you and the

+Duke no longer," he exclaimed.  "Either come to an agreement, or

+come to a differ, and have it out among yourselves.  But I will no

+longer fetch and carry, and get your contrary instructions, and be

+blamed by both.  For if I were to tell you what I think of all your

+Hanover business it would make your head sing."

+

+But Sheriff Erskine had preserved his temper, and now intervened

+smoothly.  "And in the meantime," says he, "I think we should tell

+Mr. Balfour that his character for valour is quite established.  He

+may sleep in peace.  Until the date he was so good as to refer to

+it shall be put to the proof no more."

+

+His coolness brought the others to their prudence; and they made

+haste, with a somewhat distracted civility, to pack me from the

+house.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX--THE HEATHER ON FIRE

+

+

+

+When I left Prestongrange that afternoon I was for the first time

+angry.  The Advocate had made a mock of me.  He had pretended my

+testimony was to be received and myself respected; and in that very

+hour, not only was Simon practising against my life by the hands of

+the Highland soldier, but (as appeared from his own language)

+Prestongrange himself had some design in operation.  I counted my

+enemies; Prestongrange with all the King's authority behind him;

+and the Duke with the power of the West Highlands; and the Lovat

+interest by their side to help them with so great a force in the

+north, and the whole clan of old Jacobite spies and traffickers.

+And when I remembered James More, and the red head of Neil the son

+of Duncan, I thought there was perhaps a fourth in the confederacy,

+and what remained of Rob Roy's old desperate sept of caterans would

+be banded against me with the others.  One thing was requisite--

+some strong friend or wise adviser.  The country must be full of

+such, both able and eager to support me, or Lovat and the Duke and

+Prestongrange had not been nosing for expedients; and it made me

+rage to think that I might brush against my champions in the street

+and be no wiser.

+

+And just then (like an answer) a gentleman brushed against me going

+by, gave me a meaning look, and turned into a close.  I knew him

+with the tail of my eye--it was Stewart the Writer; and, blessing

+my good fortune, turned in to follow him.  As soon as I had entered

+the close I saw him standing in the mouth of a stair, where he made

+me a signal and immediately vanished.  Seven storeys up, there he

+was again in a house door, the which he looked behind us after we

+had entered.  The house was quite dismantled, with not a stick of

+furniture; indeed, it was one of which Stewart had the letting in

+his hands.

+

+"We'll have to sit upon the floor," said he; "but we're safe here

+for the time being, and I've been wearying to see ye, Mr. Balfour."

+

+"How's it with Alan?" I asked.

+

+"Brawly," said he.  "Andie picks him up at Gillane sands to-morrow,

+Wednesday.  He was keen to say good-bye to ye, but the way that

+things were going, I was feared the pair of ye was maybe best

+apart.  And that brings me to the essential:  how does your

+business speed?"

+

+"Why," said I, "I was told only this morning that my testimony was

+accepted, and I was to travel to Inverary with the Advocate, no

+less."

+

+"Hout awa!" cried Stewart.  "I'll never believe that."

+

+"I have maybe a suspicion of my own," says I, "but I would like

+fine to hear your reasons."

+

+"Well, I tell ye fairly, I'm horn-mad," cries Stewart.  "If my one

+hand could pull their Government down I would pluck it like a

+rotten apple.  I'm doer for Appin and for James of the Glens; and,

+of course, it's my duty to defend my kinsman for his life.  Hear

+how it goes with me, and I'll leave the judgment of it to yourself.

+The first thing they have to do is to get rid of Alan.  They cannae

+bring in James as art and part until they've brought in Alan first

+as principal; that's sound law:  they could never put the cart

+before the horse."

+

+"And how are they to bring in Alan till they can catch him?" says

+I.

+

+"Ah, but there is a way to evite that arrestment," said he.  "Sound

+law, too.  It would be a bonny thing if, by the escape of one ill-

+doer another was to go scatheless, and the remeid is to summon the

+principal and put him to outlawry for the non-compearance.  Now

+there's four places where a person can be summoned:  at his

+dwelling-house; at a place where he has resided forty days; at the

+head burgh of the shire where he ordinarily resorts; or lastly (if

+there be ground to think him forth of Scotland) AT THE CROSS OF

+EDINBURGH, AND THE PIER AND SHORE OF LEITH, FOR SIXTY DAYS.  The

+purpose of which last provision is evident upon its face:  being

+that outgoing ships may have time to carry news of the transaction,

+and the summonsing be something other than a form.  Now take the

+case of Alan.  He has no dwelling-house that ever I could hear of;

+I would be obliged if anyone would show me where he has lived forty

+days together since the '45; there is no shire where he resorts

+whether ordinarily or extraordinarily; if he has a domicile at all,

+which I misdoubt, it must be with his regiment in France; and if he

+is not yet forth of Scotland (as we happen to know and they happen

+to guess) it must be evident to the most dull it's what he's aiming

+for.  Where, then, and what way should he be summoned?  I ask it at

+yourself, a layman."

+

+"You have given the very words," said I.  "Here at the cross, and

+at the pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days."

+

+"Ye're a sounder Scots lawyer than Prestongrange, then!" cries the

+Writer.  "He has had Alan summoned once; that was on the twenty-

+fifth, the day that we first met.  Once, and done with it.  And

+where?  Where, but at the cross of Inverary, the head burgh of the

+Campbells?  A word in your ear, Mr. Balfour--they're not seeking

+Alan."

+

+"What do you mean?" I cried.  "Not seeking him?"

+

+"By the best that I can make of it," said he.  "Not wanting to find

+him, in my poor thought.  They think perhaps he might set up a fair

+defence, upon the back of which James, the man they're really

+after, might climb out.  This is not a case, ye see, it's a

+conspiracy."

+

+"Yet I can tell you Prestongrange asked after Alan keenly," said I;

+"though, when I come to think of it, he was something of the

+easiest put by."

+

+"See that!" says he.  "But there!  I may be right or wrong, that's

+guesswork at the best, and let me get to my facts again.  It comes

+to my ears that James and the witnesses--the witnesses, Mr.

+Balfour!--lay in close dungeons, and shackled forbye, in the

+military prison at Fort William; none allowed in to them, nor they

+to write.  The witnesses, Mr. Balfour; heard ye ever the match of

+that?  I assure ye, no old, crooked Stewart of the gang ever out-

+faced the law more impudently.  It's clean in the two eyes of the

+Act of Parliament of 1700, anent wrongous imprisonment.  No sooner

+did I get the news than I petitioned the Lord Justice Clerk.  I

+have his word to-day.  There's law for ye! here's justice!"

+

+He put a paper in my hand, that same mealy-mouthed, false-faced

+paper that was printed since in the pamphlet "by a bystander," for

+behoof (as the title says) of James's "poor widow and five

+children."

+

+"See," said Stewart, "he couldn't dare to refuse me access to my

+client, so he RECOMMENDS THE COMMANDING OFFICER TO LET ME IN.

+Recommends!--the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland recommends.  Is not

+the purpose of such language plain?  They hope the officer may be

+so dull, or so very much the reverse, as to refuse the

+recommendation.  I would have to make the journey back again

+betwixt here and Fort William.  Then would follow a fresh delay

+till I got fresh authority, and they had disavowed the officer--

+military man, notoriously ignorant of the law, and that--I ken the

+cant of it.  Then the journey a third time; and there we should be

+on the immediate heels of the trial before I had received my first

+instruction.  Am I not right to call this a conspiracy?"

+

+"It will bear that colour," said I.

+

+"And I'll go on to prove it you outright," said he.  "They have the

+right to hold James in prison, yet they cannot deny me to visit

+him.  They have no right to hold the witnesses; but am I to get a

+sight of them, that should be as free as the Lord Justice Clerk

+himself!  See--read:  FOR THE REST, REFUSES TO GIVE ANY ORDERS TO

+KEEPERS OF PRISONS WHO ARE NOT ACCUSED AS HAVING DONE ANYTHING

+CONTRARY TO THE DUTIES OF THEIR OFFICE.  Anything contrary!  Sirs!

+And the Act of seventeen hunner?  Mr. Balfour, this makes my heart

+to burst; the heather is on fire inside my wame."

+

+"And the plain English of that phrase," said I, "is that the

+witnesses are still to lie in prison and you are not to see them?"

+

+"And I am not to see them until Inverary, when the court is set!"

+cries he, "and then to hear Prestongrange upon THE ANXIOUS

+RESPONSIBILITIES OF HIS OFFICE AND THE GREAT FACILITIES AFFORDED

+THE DEFENCE!  But I'll begowk them there, Mr. David.  I have a plan

+to waylay the witnesses upon the road, and see if I cannae get I a

+little harle of justice out of the MILITARY MAN NOTORIOUSLY

+IGNORANT OF THE LAW that shall command the party."

+

+It was actually so--it was actually on the wayside near Tynedrum,

+and by the connivance of a soldier officer, that Mr. Stewart first

+saw the witnesses upon the case.

+

+"There is nothing that would surprise me in this business," I

+remarked.

+

+"I'll surprise you ere I'm done!" cries he.  "Do ye see this?"--

+producing a print still wet from the press.  "This is the libel:

+see, there's Prestongrange's name to the list of witnesses, and I

+find no word of any Balfour.  But here is not the question.  Who do

+ye think paid for the printing of this paper?"

+

+"I suppose it would likely be King George," said I.

+

+"But it happens it was me!" he cried.  "Not but it was printed by

+and for themselves, for the Grants and the Erskines, and yon thief

+of the black midnight, Simon Fraser.  But could _I_ win to get a

+copy!  No!  I was to go blindfold to my defence; I was to hear the

+charges for the first time in court alongst the jury."

+

+"Is not this against the law?" I asked

+

+"I cannot say so much," he replied.  "It was a favour so natural

+and so constantly rendered (till this nonesuch business) that the

+law has never looked to it.  And now admire the hand of Providence!

+A stranger is in Fleming's printing house, spies a proof on the

+floor, picks it up, and carries it to me.  Of all things, it was

+just this libel.  Whereupon I had it set again--printed at the

+expense of the defence:  sumptibus moesti rei; heard ever man the

+like of it?--and here it is for anybody, the muckle secret out--all

+may see it now.  But how do you think I would enjoy this, that has

+the life of my kinsman on my conscience?"

+

+"Troth, I think you would enjoy it ill," said I.

+

+"And now you see how it is," he concluded, "and why, when you tell

+me your evidence is to be let in, I laugh aloud in your face."

+

+It was now my turn.  I laid before him in brief Mr. Simon's threats

+and offers, and the whole incident of the bravo, with the

+subsequent scene at Prestongrange's.  Of my first talk, according

+to promise, I said nothing, nor indeed was it necessary.  All the

+time I was talking Stewart nodded his head like a mechanical

+figure; and no sooner had my voice ceased, than he opened his mouth

+and gave me his opinion in two words, dwelling strong on both of

+them.

+

+"Disappear yourself," said he.

+

+"I do not take you," said I.

+

+"Then I'll carry you there," said he.  "By my view of it you're to

+disappear whatever.  O, that's outside debate.  The Advocate, who

+is not without some spunks of a remainder decency, has wrung your

+life-safe out of Simon and the Duke.  He has refused to put you on

+your trial, and refused to have you killed; and there is the clue

+to their ill words together, for Simon and the Duke can keep faith

+with neither friend nor enemy.  Ye're not to be tried then, and

+ye're not to be murdered; but I'm in bitter error if ye're not to

+be kidnapped and carried away like the Lady Grange.  Bet me what ye

+please--there was their EXPEDIENT!"

+

+"You make me think," said I, and told him of the whistle and the

+red-headed retainer, Neil.

+

+"Wherever James More is there's one big rogue, never be deceived on

+that," said he.  "His father was none so ill a man, though a

+kenning on the wrong side of the law, and no friend to my family,

+that I should waste my breath to be defending him!  But as for

+James he's a brock and a blagyard.  I like the appearance of this

+red-headed Neil as little as yourself.  It looks uncanny:  fiegh!

+it smells bad.  It was old Lovat that managed the Lady Grange

+affair; if young Lovat is to handle yours, it'll be all in the

+family.  What's James More in prison for?  The same offence:

+abduction.  His men have had practice in the business.  He'll be to

+lend them to be Simon's instruments; and the next thing we'll be

+hearing, James will have made his peace, or else he'll have

+escaped; and you'll be in Benbecula or Applecross."

+

+"Ye make a strong case," I admitted.

+

+"And what I want," he resumed, "is that you should disappear

+yourself ere they can get their hands upon ye.  Lie quiet until

+just before the trial, and spring upon them at the last of it when

+they'll be looking for you least.  This is always supposing Mr.

+Balfour, that your evidence is worth so very great a measure of

+both risk and fash."

+

+"I will tell you one thing," said I.  "I saw the murderer and it

+was not Alan."

+

+"Then, by God, my cousin's saved!" cried Stewart.  "You have his

+life upon your tongue; and there's neither time, risk, nor money to

+be spared to bring you to the trial."  He emptied his pockets on

+the floor.  "Here is all that I have by me," he went on, "Take it,

+ye'll want it ere ye're through.  Go straight down this close,

+there's a way out by there to the Lang Dykes, and by my will of it!

+see no more of Edinburgh till the clash is over."

+

+"Where am I to go, then?" I inquired.

+

+"And I wish that I could tell ye!" says he, "but all the places

+that I could send ye to, would be just the places they would seek.

+No, ye must fend for yourself, and God be your guiding!  Five days

+before the trial, September the sixteen, get word to me at the King

+Arms in Stirling; and if ye've managed for yourself as long as

+that, I'll see that ye reach Inverary."

+

+"One thing more," said I.  "Can I no see Alan?"

+

+He seemed boggled.  "Hech, I would rather you wouldnae," said he.

+"But I can never deny that Alan is extremely keen of it, and is to

+lie this night by Silvermills on purpose.  If you're sure that

+you're not followed, Mr. Balfour--but make sure of that--lie in a

+good place and watch your road for a clear hour before ye risk it.

+It would be a dreadful business if both you and him was to

+miscarry!"

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X--THE RED-HEADED MAN

+

+

+

+It was about half-past three when I came forth on the Lang Dykes.

+Dean was where I wanted to go.  Since Catriona dwelled there, and

+her kinsfolk the Glengyle Macgregors appeared almost certainly to

+be employed against me, it was just one of the few places I should

+have kept away from; and being a very young man, and beginning to

+be very much in love, I turned my face in that direction without

+pause.  As a slave to my conscience and common sense, however, I

+took a measure of precaution.  Coming over the crown of a bit of a

+rise in the road, I clapped down suddenly among the barley and lay

+waiting.  After a while, a man went by that looked to be a

+Highlandman, but I had never seen him till that hour.  Presently

+after came Neil of the red head.  The next to go past was a

+miller's cart, and after that nothing but manifest country people.

+Here was enough to have turned the most foolhardy from his purpose,

+but my inclination ran too strong the other way.  I argued it out

+that if Neil was on that road, it was the right road to find him

+in, leading direct to his chief's daughter; as for the other

+Highlandman, if I was to be startled off by every Highlandman I

+saw, I would scarce reach anywhere.  And having quite satisfied

+myself with this disingenuous debate, I made the better speed of

+it, and came a little after four to Mrs. Drumond-Ogilvy's.

+

+Both ladies were within the house; and upon my perceiving them

+together by the open door, I plucked off my hat and said, "Here was

+a lad come seeking saxpence," which I thought might please the

+dowager.

+

+Catriona ran out to greet me heartily, and, to my surprise, the old

+lady seemed scarce less forward than herself.  I learned long

+afterwards that she had despatched a horseman by daylight to

+Rankeillor at the Queensferry, whom she knew to be the doer for

+Shaws, and had then in her pocket a letter from that good friend of

+mine, presenting, in the most favourable view, my character and

+prospects.  But had I read it I could scarce have seen more clear

+in her designs.  Maybe I was COUNTRYFEED; at least, I was not so

+much so as she thought; and it was even to my homespun wits, that

+she was bent to hammer up a match between her cousin and a

+beardless boy that was something of a laird in Lothian.

+

+"Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine," says she.

+"Run and tell the lasses."

+

+And for the little while we were alone was at a good deal of pains

+to flatter me; always cleverly, always with the appearance of a

+banter, still calling me Saxpence, but with such a turn that should

+rather uplift me in my own opinion.  When Catriona returned, the

+design became if possible more obvious; and she showed off the

+girl's advantages like a horse-couper with a horse.  My face flamed

+that she should think me so obtuse.  Now I would fancy the girl was

+being innocently made a show of, and then I could have beaten the

+old carline wife with a cudgel; and now, that perhaps these two had

+set their heads together to entrap me, and at that I sat and

+gloomed betwixt them like the very image of ill-will.  At last the

+matchmaker had a better device, which was to leave the pair of us

+alone.  When my suspicions are anyway roused it is sometimes a

+little the wrong side of easy to allay them.  But though I knew

+what breed she was of, and that was a breed of thieves, I could

+never look in Catriona's face and disbelieve her.

+

+"I must not ask?" says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left

+alone.

+

+"Ah, but to-day I can talk with a free conscience," I replied.  "I

+am lightened of my pledge, and indeed (after what has come and gone

+since morning) I would not have renewed it were it asked."

+

+"Tell me," she said.  "My cousin will not be so long."

+

+So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the

+last of it, making it as mirthful as I could, and, indeed, there

+was matter of mirth in that absurdity.

+

+"And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudas men as for

+the pretty ladies, after all!" says she, when I had done.  "But

+what was your father that he could not learn you to draw the sword!

+It is most ungentle; I have not heard the match of that in anyone."

+

+"It is most misconvenient at least," said I; "and I think my father

+(honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in

+the place of it.  But you see I do the best I can, and just stand

+up like Lot's wife and let them hammer at me."

+

+"Do you know what makes me smile?" said she.  "Well, it is this.  I

+am made this way, that I should have been a man child.  In my own

+thoughts it is so I am always; and I go on telling myself about

+this thing that is to befall and that.  Then it comes to the place

+of the fighting, and it comes over me that I am only a girl at all

+events, and cannot hold a sword or give one good blow; and then I

+have to twist my story round about, so that the fighting is to

+stop, and yet me have the best of it, just like you and the

+lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine speeches all

+through, like Mr. David Balfour."

+

+"You are a bloodthirsty maid," said I.

+

+"Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers,"

+she said, "but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I

+think you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not

+that I want to kill, I think.  Did ever you kill anyone?"

+

+"That I have, as it chances.  Two, no less, and me still a lad that

+should be at the college," said I.  "But yet, in the look-back, I

+take no shame for it."

+

+"But how did you feel, then--after it?" she asked.

+

+'"Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn," said I.

+

+"I know that, too," she cried.  "I feel where these tears should

+come from.  And at any rate, I would not wish to kill, only to be

+Catherine Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt,

+where it was broken.  That is my chief hero.  Would you not love to

+die so--for your king?" she asked.

+

+"Troth," said I, "my affection for my king, God bless the puggy

+face of him, is under more control; and I thought I saw death so

+near to me this day already, that I am rather taken up with the

+notion of living."

+

+"Right," she said, "the right mind of a man!  Only you must learn

+arms; I would not like to have a friend that cannot strike.  But it

+will not have been with the sword that you killed these two?"

+

+"Indeed, no," said I, "but with a pair of pistols.  And a fortunate

+thing it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I am about as

+clever with the pistols as I am with the sword."

+

+So then she drew from me the story of our battle in the brig, which

+I had omitted in my first account of my affairs.

+

+"Yes," said she, "you are brave.  And your friend, I admire and

+love him."

+

+"Well, and I think anyone would!" said I.  "He has his faults like

+other folk; but he is brave and staunch and kind, God bless him!

+That will be a strange day when I forget Alan."  And the thought of

+him, and that it was within my choice to speak with him that night,

+had almost overcome me.

+

+"And where will my head be gone that I have not told my news!" she

+cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she

+might visit him to-morrow in the castle whither he was now

+transferred, and that his affairs were mending.  "You do not like

+to hear it," said she.  "Will you judge my father and not know

+him?"

+

+"I am a thousand miles from judging," I replied.  "And I give you

+my word I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened.  If my face

+fell at all, as I suppose it must, you will allow this is rather an

+ill day for compositions, and the people in power extremely ill

+persons to be compounding with.  I have Simon Fraser extremely

+heavy on my stomach still."

+

+"Ah!" she cried, "you will not be evening these two; and you should

+bear in mind that Prestongrange and James More, my father, are of

+the one blood."

+

+"I never heard tell of that," said I.

+

+"It is rather singular how little you are acquainted with," said

+she.  "One part may call themselves Grant, and one Macgregor, but

+they are still of the same clan.  They are all the sons of Alpin,

+from whom, I think, our country has its name."

+

+"What country is that?" I asked.

+

+"My country and yours," said she

+

+"This is my day for discovering I think," said I, "for I always

+thought the name of it was Scotland."

+

+"Scotland is the name of what you call Ireland," she replied.  "But

+the old ancient true name of this place that we have our foot-soles

+on, and that our bones are made of, will be Alban.  It was Alban

+they called it when our forefathers will be fighting for it against

+Rome and Alexander; and it is called so still in your own tongue

+that you forget."

+

+"Troth," said I, "and that I never learned!"  For I lacked heart to

+take her up about the Macedonian.

+

+"But your fathers and mothers talked it, one generation with

+another," said she.  "And it was sung about the cradles before you

+or me were ever dreamed of; and your name remembers it still.  Ah,

+if you could talk that language you would find me another girl.

+The heart speaks in that tongue."

+

+I had a meal with the two ladies, all very good, served in fine old

+plate, and the wine excellent, for it seems that Mrs. Ogilvy was

+rich.  Our talk, too, was pleasant enough; but as soon as I saw the

+sun decline sharply and the shadows to run out long, I rose to take

+my leave.  For my mind was now made up to say farewell to Alan; and

+it was needful I should see the trysting wood, and reconnoitre it,

+by daylight.  Catriona came with me as far as to the garden gate.

+

+"It is long till I see you now?" she asked.

+

+"It is beyond my judging," I replied.  "It will be long, it may be

+never."

+

+"It may be so," said she.  "And you are sorry?"

+

+I bowed my head, looking upon her.

+

+"So am I, at all events," said she.  "I have seen you but a small

+time, but I put you very high.  You are true, you are brave; in

+time I think you will be more of a man yet.  I will be proud to

+hear of that.  If you should speed worse, if it will come to fall

+as we are afraid--O well! think you have the one friend.  Long

+after you are dead and me an old wife, I will be telling the bairns

+about David Balfour, and my tears running.  I will be telling how

+we parted, and what I said to you, and did to you.  GOD GO WITH YOU

+AND GUIDE YOU, PRAYS YOUR LITTLE FRIEND:  so I said--I will be

+telling them--and here is what I did."

+

+She took up my hand and kissed it.  This so surprised my spirits

+that I cried out like one hurt.  The colour came strong in her

+face, and she looked at me and nodded.

+

+"O yes, Mr. David," said she, "that is what I think of you.  The

+head goes with the lips."

+

+I could read in her face high spirit, and a chivalry like a brave

+child's; not anything besides.  She kissed my hand, as she had

+kissed Prince Charlie's, with a higher passion than the common kind

+of clay has any sense of.  Nothing before had taught me how deep I

+was her lover, nor how far I had yet to climb to make her think of

+me in such a character.  Yet I could tell myself I had advanced

+some way, and that her heart had beat and her blood flowed at

+thoughts of me.

+

+After that honour she had done me I could offer no more trivial

+civility.  It was even hard for me to speak; a certain lifting in

+her voice had knocked directly at the door of my own tears.

+

+"I praise God for your kindness, dear," said I.  "Farewell, my

+little friend!" giving her that name which she had given to

+herself; with which I bowed and left her.

+

+My way was down the glen of the Leith River, towards Stockbridge

+and Silvermills.  A path led in the foot of it, the water bickered

+and sang in the midst; the sunbeams overhead struck out of the west

+among long shadows and (as the valley turned) made like a new scene

+and a new world of it at every corner.  With Catriona behind and

+Alan before me, I was like one lifted up.  The place besides, and

+the hour, and the talking of the water, infinitely pleased me; and

+I lingered in my steps and looked before and behind me as I went.

+This was the cause, under Providence, that I spied a little in my

+rear a red head among some bushes.

+

+Anger sprang in my heart, and I turned straight about and walked at

+a stiff pace to where I came from.  The path lay close by the

+bushes where I had remarked the head.  The cover came to the

+wayside, and as I passed I was all strung up to meet and to resist

+an onfall.  No such thing befell, I went by unmeddled with; and at

+that fear increased upon me.  It was still day indeed, but the

+place exceeding solitary.  If my haunters had let slip that fair

+occasion I could but judge they aimed at something more than David

+Balfour.  The lives of Alan and James weighed upon my spirit with

+the weight of two grown bullocks.

+

+Catriona was yet in the garden walking by herself.

+

+"Catriona," said I, "you see me back again."

+

+"With a changed face," said she.

+

+"I carry two men's lives besides my own," said I.  "It would be a

+sin and shame not to walk carefully.  I was doubtful whether I did

+right to come here.  I would like it ill, if it was by that means

+we were brought to harm."

+

+"I could tell you one that would be liking it less, and will like

+little enough to hear you talking at this very same time," she

+cried.  "What have I done, at all events?"

+

+"O, you I you are not alone," I replied.  "But since I went off I

+have been dogged again, and I can give you the name of him that

+follows me.  It is Neil, son of Duncan, your man or your father's."

+

+"To be sure you are mistaken there," she said, with a white face.

+"Neil is in Edinburgh on errands from my father."

+

+"It is what I fear," said I, "the last of it.  But for his being in

+Edinburgh I think I can show you another of that.  For sure you

+have some signal, a signal of need, such as would bring him to your

+help, if he was anywhere within the reach of ears and legs?"

+

+"Why, how will you know that?" says she.

+

+"By means of a magical talisman God gave to me when I was born, and

+the name they call it by is Common-sense," said I.  "Oblige me so

+far as make your signal, and I will show you the red head of Neil."

+

+No doubt but I spoke bitter and sharp.  My heart was bitter.  I

+blamed myself and the girl and hated both of us:  her for the vile

+crew that she was come of, myself for my wanton folly to have stuck

+my head in such a byke of wasps.

+

+Catriona set her fingers to her lips and whistled once, with an

+exceeding clear, strong, mounting note, as full as a ploughman's.

+A while we stood silent; and I was about to ask her to repeat the

+same, when I heard the sound of some one bursting through the

+bushes below on the braeside.  I pointed in that direction with a

+smile, and presently Neil leaped into the garden.  His eyes burned,

+and he had a black knife (as they call it on the Highland side)

+naked in his hand; but, seeing me beside his mistress, stood like a

+man struck.

+

+"He has come to your call," said I; "judge how near he was to

+Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father's errands.  Ask

+himself.  If I am to lose my life, or the lives of those that hang

+by me, through the means of your clan, let me go where I have to go

+with my eyes open."

+

+She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic.  Remembering Alan's

+anxious civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud

+for bitterness; here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was

+the hour she should have stuck by English.

+

+Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil

+(for all his obsequiousness) was an angry man.

+

+Then she turned to me.  "He swears it is not," she said.

+

+"Catriona," said I, "do you believe the man yourself?"

+

+She made a gesture like wringing the hands.

+

+"How will I can know?" she cried.

+

+But I must find some means to know," said I.  "I cannot continue to

+go dovering round in the black night with two men's lives at my

+girdle!  Catriona, try to put yourself in my place, as I vow to God

+I try hard to put myself in yours.  This is no kind of talk that

+should ever have fallen between me and you; no kind of talk; my

+heart is sick with it.  See, keep him here till two of the morning,

+and I care not.  Try him with that."

+

+They spoke together once more in the Gaelic.

+

+"He says he has James More my father's errand," said she.  She was

+whiter than ever, and her voice faltered as she said it.

+

+"It is pretty plain now," said I, "and may God forgive the wicked!"

+

+She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with

+the same white face.

+

+"This is a fine business," said I again.  "Am I to fall, then, and

+those two along with me?"

+

+"O, what am I to do?" she cried.  "Could I go against my father's

+orders, him in prison, in the danger of his life!"

+

+"But perhaps we go too fast," said I.  "This may be a lie too.  He

+may have no right orders; all may be contrived by Simon, and your

+father knowing nothing."

+

+She burst out weeping between the pair of us; and my heart smote me

+hard, for I thought this girl was in a dreadful situation.

+

+"Here," said I, "keep him but the one hour; and I'll chance it, and

+may God bless you."

+

+She put out her hand to me, "I will he needing one good word," she

+sobbed.

+

+"The full hour, then?" said I, keeping her hand in mine.  "Three

+lives of it, my lass!"

+

+"The full hour!" she said, and cried aloud on her Redeemer to

+forgive her.

+

+I thought it no fit place for me, and fled.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI--THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS

+

+

+

+I lost no time, but down through the valley and by Stockbridge and

+Silvermills as hard as I could stave.  It was Alan's tryst to be

+every night between twelve and two "in a bit scrog of wood by east

+of Silvermills and by south the south mill-lade."  This I found

+easy enough, where it grew on a steep brae, with the mill-lade

+flowing swift and deep along the foot of it; and here I began to

+walk slower and to reflect more reasonably on my employment.  I saw

+I had made but a fool's bargain with Catriona.  It was not to be

+supposed that Neil was sent alone upon his errand, but perhaps he

+was the only man belonging to James More; in which case I should

+have done all I could to hang Catriona's father, and nothing the

+least material to help myself.  To tell the truth, I fancied

+neither one of these ideas.  Suppose by holding back Neil, the girl

+should have helped to hang her father, I thought she would never

+forgive herself this side of time.  And suppose there were others

+pursuing me that moment, what kind of a gift was I come bringing to

+Alan? and how would I like that?

+

+I was up with the west end of that wood when these two

+considerations struck me like a cudgel.  My feet stopped of

+themselves and my heart along with them.  "What wild game is this

+that I have been playing?" thought I; and turned instantly upon my

+heels to go elsewhere.

+

+This brought my face to Silvermills; the path came past the village

+with a crook, but all plainly visible; and, Highland or Lowland,

+there was nobody stirring.  Here was my advantage, here was just

+such a conjuncture as Stewart had counselled me to profit by, and I

+ran by the side of the mill-lade, fetched about beyond the east

+corner of the wood, threaded through the midst of it, and returned

+to the west selvage, whence I could again command the path, and yet

+be myself unseen.  Again it was all empty, and my heart began to

+rise.

+

+For more than an hour I sat close in the border of the trees, and

+no hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch.  When

+that hour began the sun was already set, but the sky still all

+golden and the daylight clear; before the hour was done it had

+fallen to be half mirk, the images and distances of things were

+mingled, and observation began to be difficult.  All that time not

+a foot of man had come east from Silvermills, and the few that had

+gone west were honest countryfolk and their wives upon the road to

+bed.  If I were tracked by the most cunning spies in Europe, I

+judged it was beyond the course of nature they could have any

+jealousy of where I was:  and going a little further home into the

+wood I lay down to wait for Alan.

+

+The strain of my attention had been great, for I had watched not

+the path only, but every bush and field within my vision.  That was

+now at an end.  The moon, which was in her first quarter, glinted a

+little in the wood; all round there was a stillness of the country;

+and as I lay there on my back, the next three or four hours, I had

+a fine occasion to review my conduct.

+

+Two things became plain to me first:  that I had no right to go

+that day to Dean, and (having gone there) had now no right to be

+lying where I was.  This (where Alan was to come) was just the one

+wood in all broad Scotland that was, by every proper feeling,

+closed against me; I admitted that, and yet stayed on, wondering at

+myself.  I thought of the measure with which I had meted to

+Catriona that same night; how I had prated of the two lives I

+carried, and had thus forced her to enjeopardy her father's; and

+how I was here exposing them again, it seemed in wantonness.  A

+good conscience is eight parts of courage.  No sooner had I lost

+conceit of my behaviour, than I seemed to stand disarmed amidst a

+throng of terrors.  Of a sudden I sat up.  How if I went now to

+Prestongrange, caught him (as I still easily might) before he

+slept, and made a full submission?  Who could blame me?  Not

+Stewart the Writer; I had but to say that I was followed, despaired

+of getting clear, and so gave in.  Not Catriona:  here, too, I had

+my answer ready; that I could not bear she should expose her

+father.  So, in a moment, I could lay all these troubles by, which

+were after all and truly none of mine; swim clear of the Appin

+Murder; get forth out of hand-stroke of all the Stewarts and

+Campbells, all the Whigs and Tories, in the land; and live

+henceforth to my own mind, and be able to enjoy and to improve my

+fortunes, and devote some hours of my youth to courting Catriona,

+which would be surely a more suitable occupation than to hide and

+run and be followed like a hunted thief, and begin over again the

+dreadful miseries of my escape with Alan.

+

+At first I thought no shame of this capitulation; I was only amazed

+I had not thought upon the thing and done it earlier; and began to

+inquire into the causes of the change.  These I traced to my

+lowness of spirits, that back to my late recklessness, and that

+again to the common, old, public, disconsidered sin of self-

+indulgence.  Instantly the text came in my head, "HOW CAN SATAN

+CAST OUT SATAN?"  What? (I thought) I had, by self-indulgence; and

+the following of pleasant paths, and the lure of a young maid, cast

+myself wholly out of conceit with my own character, and jeopardised

+the lives of James and Alan?  And I was to seek the way out by the

+same road as I had entered in?  No; the hurt that had been caused

+by self-indulgence must be cured by self-denial; the flesh I had

+pampered must be crucified.  I looked about me for that course

+which I least liked to follow:  this was to leave the wood without

+waiting to see Alan, and go forth again alone, in the dark and in

+the midst of my perplexed and dangerous fortunes.

+

+I have been the more careful to narrate this passage of my

+reflections, because I think it is of some utility, and may serve

+as an example to young men.  But there is reason (they say) in

+planting kale, and even in ethic and religion, room for common

+sense.  It was already close on Alan's hour, and the moon was down.

+If I left (as I could not very decently whistle to my spies to

+follow me) they might miss me in the dark and tack themselves to

+Alan by mistake.  If I stayed, I could at the least of it set my

+friend upon his guard which might prove his mere salvation.  I had

+adventured other peoples' safety in a course of self-indulgence; to

+have endangered them again, and now on a mere design of penance,

+would have been scarce rational.  Accordingly, I had scarce risen

+from my place ere I sat down again, but already in a different

+frame of spirits, and equally marvelling at my past weakness and

+rejoicing in my present composure.

+

+Presently after came a crackling in the thicket.  Putting my mouth

+near down to the ground, I whistled a note or two, of Alan's air;

+an answer came in the like guarded tone, and soon we had knocked

+together in the dark.

+

+"Is this you at last, Davie?" he whispered.

+

+"Just myself," said I.

+

+"God, man, but I've been wearying to see ye!" says he.  "I've had

+the longest kind of a time.  A' day, I've had my dwelling into the

+inside of a stack of hay, where I couldnae see the nebs of my ten

+fingers; and then two hours of it waiting here for you, and you

+never coming!  Dod, and ye're none too soon the way it is, with me

+to sail the morn!  The morn? what am I saying?--the day, I mean."

+

+"Ay, Alan, man, the day, sure enough," said I.  "It's past twelve

+now, surely, and ye sail the day.  This'll be a long road you have

+before you."

+

+"We'll have a long crack of it first," said he.

+

+"Well, indeed, and I have a good deal it will be telling you to

+hear," said I.

+

+And I told him what behooved, making rather a jumble of it, but

+clear enough when done.  He heard me out with very few questions,

+laughing here and there like a man delighted:  and the sound of his

+laughing (above all there, in the dark, where neither one of us

+could see the other) was extraordinary friendly to my heart.

+

+"Ay, Davie, ye're a queer character," says he, when I had done:  "a

+queer bitch after a', and I have no mind of meeting with the like

+of ye.  As for your story, Prestongrange is a Whig like yoursel',

+so I'll say the less of him; and, dod! I believe he was the best

+friend ye had, if ye could only trust him.  But Simon Fraser and

+James More are my ain kind of cattle, and I'll give them the name

+that they deserve.  The muckle black deil was father to the

+Frasers, a'body kens that; and as for the Gregara, I never could

+abye the reek of them since I could stotter on two feet.  I

+bloodied the nose of one, I mind, when I was still so wambly on my

+legs that I cowped upon the top of him.  A proud man was my father

+that day, God rest him! and I think he had the cause.  I'll never

+can deny but what Robin was something of a piper," he added; "but

+as for James More, the deil guide him for me!"

+

+"One thing we have to consider," said I.  "Was Charles Stewart

+right or wrong?  Is it only me they're after, or the pair of us?"

+

+"And what's your ain opinion, you that's a man of so much

+experience?" said he.

+

+"It passes me," said I.

+

+"And me too," says Alan.  "Do ye think this lass would keep her

+word to ye?" he asked.

+

+"I do that," said I.

+

+"Well, there's nae telling," said he.  "And anyway, that's over and

+done:  he'll be joined to the rest of them lang syne."

+

+"How many would ye think there would be of them?" I asked.

+

+"That depends," said Alan.  "If it was only you, they would likely

+send two-three lively, brisk young birkies, and if they thought

+that I was to appear in the employ, I daresay ten or twelve," said

+he.

+

+It was no use, I gave a little crack of laughter.

+

+"And I think your own two eyes will have seen me drive that number,

+or the double of it, nearer hand!" cries he.

+

+"It matters the less," said I, "because I am well rid of them for

+this time."

+

+"Nae doubt that's your opinion," said he; "but I wouldnae be the

+least surprised if they were hunkering this wood.  Ye see, David

+man; they'll be Hieland folk.  There'll be some Frasers, I'm

+thinking, and some of the Gregara; and I would never deny but what

+the both of them, and the Gregara in especial, were clever

+experienced persons.  A man kens little till he's driven a spreagh

+of neat cattle (say) ten miles through a throng lowland country and

+the black soldiers maybe at his tail.  It's there that I learned a

+great part of my penetration.  And ye need nae tell me:  it's

+better than war; which is the next best, however, though generally

+rather a bauchle of a business.  Now the Gregara have had grand

+practice."

+

+"No doubt that's a branch of education that was left out with me,"

+said I.

+

+"And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly," said Alan.

+"But that's the strange thing about you folk of the college

+learning:  ye're ignorat, and ye cannae see 't.  Wae's me for my

+Greek and Hebrew; but, man, I ken that I dinnae ken them--there's

+the differ of it.  Now, here's you.  Ye lie on your wame a bittie

+in the bield of this wood, and ye tell me that ye've cuist off

+these Frasers and Macgregors.  Why?  BECAUSE I COULDNAE SEE THEM,

+says you.  Ye blockhead, that's their livelihood."

+

+"Take the worst of it," said I, "and what are we to do?"

+

+"I am thinking of that same," said he.  "We might twine.  It

+wouldnae be greatly to my taste; and forbye that, I see reasons

+against it.  First, it's now unco dark, and it's just humanly

+possible we might give them the clean slip.  If we keep together,

+we make but the ae line of it; if we gang separate, we make twae of

+them:  the more likelihood to stave in upon some of these gentry of

+yours.  And then, second, if they keep the track of us, it may come

+to a fecht for it yet, Davie; and then, I'll confess I would be

+blythe to have you at my oxter, and I think you would be none the

+worse of having me at yours.  So, by my way of it, we should creep

+out of this wood no further gone than just the inside of next

+minute, and hold away east for Gillane, where I'm to find my ship.

+It'll be like old days while it lasts, Davie; and (come the time)

+we'll have to think what you should be doing.  I'm wae to leave ye

+here, wanting me."

+

+"Have with ye, then!" says I.  "Do ye gang back where you were

+stopping?"

+

+"Deil a fear!" said Alan.  "They were good folks to me, but I think

+they would be a good deal disappointed if they saw my bonny face

+again.  For (the way times go) I amnae just what ye could call a

+Walcome Guest.  Which makes me the keener for your company, Mr.

+David Balfour of the Shaws, and set ye up!  For, leave aside twa

+cracks here in the wood with Charlie Stewart, I have scarce said

+black or white since the day we parted at Corstorphine."

+

+With which he rose from his place, and we began to move quietly

+eastward through the wood.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII--ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN

+

+

+

+It was likely between one and two; the moon (as I have said) was

+down; a strongish wind, carrying a heavy wrack of cloud, had set in

+suddenly from the west; and we began our movement in as black a

+night as ever a fugitive or a murderer wanted.  The whiteness of

+the path guided us into the sleeping town of Broughton, thence

+through Picardy, and beside my old acquaintance the gibbet of the

+two thieves.  A little beyond we made a useful beacon, which was a

+light in an upper window of Lochend.  Steering by this, but a good

+deal at random, and with some trampling of the harvest, and

+stumbling and falling down upon the banks, we made our way across

+country, and won forth at last upon the linky, boggy muirland that

+they call the Figgate Whins.  Here, under a bush of whin, we lay

+down the remainder of that night and slumbered.

+

+The day called us about five.  A beautiful morning it was, the high

+westerly wind still blowing strong, but the clouds all blown away

+to Europe.  Alan was already sitting up and smiling to himself.  It

+was my first sight of my friend since we were parted, and I looked

+upon him with enjoyment.  He had still the same big great-coat on

+his back; but (what was new) he had now a pair of knitted boot-hose

+drawn above the knee.  Doubtless these were intended for disguise;

+but, as the day promised to be warm, he made a most unseasonable

+figure.

+

+"Well, Davie," said he, "is this no a bonny morning?  Here is a day

+that looks the way that a day ought to.  This is a great change of

+it from the belly of my haystack; and while you were there

+sottering and sleeping I have done a thing that maybe I do very

+seldom."

+

+"And what was that?" said I.

+

+"O, just said my prayers," said he.

+

+"And where are my gentry, as ye call them?" I asked.

+

+"Gude kens," says he; "and the short and the long of it is that we

+must take our chance of them.  Up with your foot-soles, Davie!

+Forth, Fortune, once again of it!  And a bonny walk we are like to

+have."

+

+So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-

+pans were smoking in by the Esk mouth.  No doubt there was a by-

+ordinary bonny blink of morning sun on Arthur's Seat and the green

+Pentlands; and the pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan

+among nettles.

+

+"I feel like a gomeral," says he, "to be leaving Scotland on a day

+like this.  It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to

+stay here and hing."

+

+"Ay, but ye wouldnae, Alan," said I.

+

+"No, but what France is a good place too," he explained; "but it's

+some way no the same.  It's brawer I believe, but it's no Scotland.

+I like it fine when I'm there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots

+divots and the Scots peat-reek."

+

+"If that's all you have to complain of, Alan, it's no such great

+affair," said I.

+

+"And it sets me ill to be complaining, whatever," said he, "and me

+but new out of yon deil's haystack."

+

+"And so you were unco weary of your haystack?" I asked.

+

+"Weary's nae word for it," said he.  "I'm not just precisely a man

+that's easily cast down; but I do better with caller air and the

+lift above my head.  I'm like the auld Black Douglas (wasnae't?)

+that likit better to hear the laverock sing than the mouse cheep.

+And yon place, ye see, Davie--whilk was a very suitable place to

+hide in, as I'm free to own--was pit mirk from dawn to gloaming.

+There were days (or nights, for how would I tell one from other?)

+that seemed to me as long as a long winter."

+

+"How did you know the hour to bide your tryst?" I asked.

+

+"The goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle-

+dowp to eat it by, about eleeven," said he.  "So, when I had

+swallowed a bit, it would he time to be getting to the wood.  There

+I lay and wearied for ye sore, Davie," says he, laying his hand on

+my shoulder "and guessed when the two hours would be about by--

+unless Charlie Stewart would come and tell me on his watch--and

+then back to the dooms haystack.  Na, it was a driech employ, and

+praise the Lord that I have warstled through with it!"

+

+"What did you do with yourself?" I asked.

+

+"Faith," said he, "the best I could!  Whiles I played at the

+knucklebones.  I'm an extraordinar good hand at the knucklebones,

+but it's a poor piece of business playing with naebody to admire

+ye.  And whiles I would make songs."

+

+"What were they about?" says I.

+

+"O, about the deer and the heather," says he, "and about the

+ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just

+about what songs are about in general.  And then whiles I would

+make believe I had a set of pipes and I was playing.  I played some

+grand springs, and I thought I played them awful bonny; I vow

+whiles that I could hear the squeal of them!  But the great affair

+is that it's done with."

+

+With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all

+over again with more particularity, and extraordinary approval,

+swearing at intervals that I was "a queer character of a callant."

+

+"So ye were frich'ened of Sim Fraser?" he asked once.

+

+"In troth was I!" cried I.

+

+"So would I have been, Davie," said he.  "And that is indeed a

+driedful man.  But it is only proper to give the deil his due:  and

+I can tell you he is a most respectable person on the field of

+war."

+

+"Is he so brave?" I asked.

+

+"Brave!" said he.  "He is as brave as my steel sword."

+

+The story of my duel set him beside himself.

+

+"To think of that!" he cried.  "I showed ye the trick in

+Corrynakiegh too.  And three times--three times disarmed!  It's a

+disgrace upon my character that learned ye!  Here, stand up, out

+with your airn; ye shall walk no step beyond this place upon the

+road till ye can do yoursel' and me mair credit."

+

+"Alan," said I, "this is midsummer madness.  Here is no time for

+fencing lessons."

+

+"I cannae well say no to that," he admitted.  "But three times,

+man!  And you standing there like a straw bogle and rinning to

+fetch your ain sword like a doggie with a pocket-napkin!  David,

+this man Duncansby must be something altogether by-ordinar!  He

+maun be extraordinar skilly.  If I had the time, I would gang

+straight back and try a turn at him mysel'.  The man must be a

+provost."

+

+"You silly fellow," said I, "you forget it was just me."

+

+"Na," said he, "but three times!"

+

+"When ye ken yourself that I am fair incompetent," I cried.

+

+"Well, I never heard tell the equal of it," said he.

+

+"I promise you the one thing, Alan," said I.  "The next time that

+we forgather, I'll be better learned.  You shall not continue to

+bear the disgrace of a friend that cannot strike."

+

+"Ay, the next time!" says he.  "And when will that be, I would like

+to ken?"

+

+"Well, Alan, I have had some thoughts of that, too," said I; "and

+my plan is this.  It's my opinion to be called an advocate."

+

+"That's but a weary trade, Davie," says Alan, "and rather a

+blagyard one forby.  Ye would be better in a king's coat than

+that."

+

+"And no doubt that would be the way to have us meet," cried I.

+"But as you'll be in King Lewie's coat, and I'll be in King

+Geordie's, we'll have a dainty meeting of it."

+

+"There's some sense in that," he admitted

+

+"An advocate, then, it'll have to be," I continued, "and I think it

+a more suitable trade for a gentleman that was THREE TIMES

+disarmed.  But the beauty of the thing is this:  that one of the

+best colleges for that kind of learning--and the one where my

+kinsman, Pilrig, made his studies--is the college of Leyden in

+Holland.  Now, what say you, Alan?  Could not a cadet of Royal

+Ecossais get a furlough, slip over the marches, and call in upon a

+Leyden student?"

+

+"Well, and I would think he could!" cried he.  "Ye see, I stand

+well in with my colonel, Count Drummond-Melfort; and, what's mair

+to the purpose I have a cousin of mine lieutenant-colonel in a

+regiment of the Scots-Dutch.  Naething could be mair proper than

+what I would get a leave to see Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of

+Halkett's.  And Lord Melfort, who is a very scienteefic kind of a

+man, and writes books like Caesar, would be doubtless very pleased

+to have the advantage of my observes."

+

+"Is Lord Meloort an author, then?" I asked, for much as Alan

+thought of soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books.

+

+"The very same, Davie," said he.  "One would think a colonel would

+have something better to attend to.  But what can I say that make

+songs?"

+

+"Well, then," said I, "it only remains you should give me an

+address to write you at in France; and as soon as I am got to

+Leyden I will send you mine."

+

+"The best will be to write me in the care of my chieftain," said

+he, "Charles Stewart, of Ardsheil, Esquire, at the town of Melons,

+in the Isle of France.  It might take long, or it might take short,

+but it would aye get to my hands at the last of it."

+

+We had a haddock to our breakfast in Musselburgh, where it amused

+me vastly to hear Alan.  His great-coat and boot-hose were

+extremely remarkable this warm morning, and perhaps some hint of an

+explanation had been wise; but Alan went into that matter like a

+business, or I should rather say, like a diversion.  He engaged the

+goodwife of the house with some compliments upon the rizzoring of

+our haddocks; and the whole of the rest of our stay held her in

+talk about a cold he had taken on his stomach, gravely relating all

+manner of symptoms and sufferings, and hearing with a vast show of

+interest all the old wives' remedies she could supply him with in

+return.

+

+We left Musselburgh before the first ninepenny coach was due from

+Edinburgh for (as Alan said) that was a rencounter we might very

+well avoid.  The wind although still high, was very mild, the sun

+shone strong, and Alan began to suffer in proportion.  From

+Prestonpans he had me aside to the field of Gladsmuir, where he

+exerted himself a great deal more than needful to describe the

+stages of the battle.  Thence, at his old round pace, we travelled

+to Cockenzie.  Though they were building herring-busses there at

+Mrs. Cadell's, it seemed a desert-like, back-going town, about half

+full of ruined houses; but the ale-house was clean, and Alan, who

+was now in a glowing heat, must indulge himself with a bottle of

+ale, and carry on to the new luckie with the old story of the cold

+upon his stomach, only now the symptoms were all different.

+

+I sat listening; and it came in my mind that I had scarce ever

+heard him address three serious words to any woman, but he was

+always drolling and fleering and making a private mock of them, and

+yet brought to that business a remarkable degree of energy and

+interest.  Something to this effect I remarked to him, when the

+good-wife (as chanced) was called away.

+

+"What do ye want?" says he.  "A man should aye put his best foot

+forrit with the womankind; he should aye give them a bit of a story

+to divert them, the poor lambs!  It's what ye should learn to

+attend to, David; ye should get the principles, it's like a trade.

+Now, if this had been a young lassie, or onyways bonnie, she would

+never have heard tell of my stomach, Davie.  But aince they're too

+old to be seeking joes, they a' set up to be apotecaries.  Why?

+What do I ken?  They'll be just the way God made them, I suppose.

+But I think a man would be a gomeral that didnae give his attention

+to the same."

+

+And here, the luckie coming back, he turned from me as if with

+impatience to renew their former conversation.  The lady had

+branched some while before from Alan's stomach to the case of a

+goodbrother of her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise

+she was describing at extraordinary length.  Sometimes it was

+merely dull, sometimes both dull and awful, for she talked with

+unction.  The upshot was that I fell in a deep muse, looking forth

+of the window on the road, and scarce marking what I saw.

+Presently had any been looking they might have seen me to start.

+

+"We pit a fomentation to his feet," the good-wife was saying, "and

+a het stane to his wame, and we gied him hyssop and water of

+pennyroyal, and fine, clean balsam of sulphur for the hoast. . . "

+

+"Sir," says I, cutting very quietly in, "there's a friend of mine

+gone by the house."

+

+"Is that e'en sae?" replies Alan, as though it were a thing of

+small account.  And then, "Ye were saying, mem?" says he; and the

+wearyful wife went on.

+

+Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she

+must go forth after the change.

+

+"Was it him with the red head?" asked Alan.

+

+"Ye have it," said I.

+

+"What did I tell you in the wood?" he cried.  "And yet it's strange

+he should be here too!  Was he his lane?"

+

+"His lee-lane for what I could see," said I.

+

+"Did he gang by?" he asked.

+

+"Straight by," said I, "and looked neither to the right nor left."

+

+"And that's queerer yet," said Alan.  "It sticks in my mind, Davie,

+that we should be stirring.  But where to?--deil hae't!  This is

+like old days fairly," cries he.

+

+"There is one big differ, though," said I, "that now we have money

+in our pockets."

+

+"And another big differ, Mr. Balfour," says he, "that now we have

+dogs at our tail.  They're on the scent; they're in full cry,

+David.  It's a bad business and be damned to it."  And he sat

+thinking hard with a look of his that I knew well.

+

+"I'm saying, Luckie," says he, when the goodwife returned, "have ye

+a back road out of this change house?"

+

+She told him there was and where it led to.

+

+"Then, sir," says he to me, "I think that will be the shortest road

+for us.  And here's good-bye to ye, my braw woman; and I'll no

+forget thon of the cinnamon water."

+

+We went out by way of the woman's kale yard, and up a lane among

+fields.  Alan looked sharply to all sides, and seeing we were in a

+little hollow place of the country, out of view of men, sat down.

+

+"Now for a council of war, Davie," said he.  "But first of all, a

+bit lesson to ye.  Suppose that I had been like you, what would yon

+old wife have minded of the pair of us!  Just that we had gone out

+by the back gate.  And what does she mind now?  A fine, canty,

+friendly, cracky man, that suffered with the stomach, poor body!

+and was real ta'en up about the goodbrother.  O man, David, try and

+learn to have some kind of intelligence!"

+

+"I'll try, Alan," said I.

+

+"And now for him of the red head," says he; "was he gaun fast or

+slow?"

+

+"Betwixt and between," said I.

+

+"No kind of a hurry about the man?" he asked.

+

+"Never a sign of it," said I.

+

+"Nhm!" said Alan, "it looks queer.  We saw nothing of them this

+morning on the Whins; he's passed us by, he doesnae seem to be

+looking, and yet here he is on our road!  Dod, Davie, I begin to

+take a notion.  I think it's no you they're seeking, I think it's

+me; and I think they ken fine where they're gaun."

+

+"They ken?" I asked.

+

+"I think Andie Scougal's sold me--him or his mate wha kent some

+part of the affair--or else Charlie's clerk callant, which would be

+a pity too," says Alan; "and if you askit me for just my inward

+private conviction, I think there'll be heads cracked on Gillane

+sands."

+

+"Alan," I cried, "if you're at all right there'll be folk there and

+to spare.  It'll be small service to crack heads."

+

+"It would aye be a satisfaction though," says Alan.  But bide a

+bit; bide a bit; I'm thinking--and thanks to this bonny westland

+wind, I believe I've still a chance of it.  It's this way, Davie.

+I'm no trysted with this man Scougal till the gloaming comes.

+BUT," says he, "IF I CAN GET A BIT OF A WIND OUT OF THE WEST I'LL

+BE THERE LONG OR THAT," he says, "AND LIE-TO FOR YE BEHIND THE ISLE

+OF FIDRA.  Now if your gentry kens the place, they ken the time

+forbye.  Do ye see me coming, Davie? Thanks to Johnnie Cope and

+other red-coat gomerals, I should ken this country like the back of

+my hand; and if ye're ready for another bit run with Alan Breck,

+we'll can cast back inshore, and come to the seaside again by

+Dirleton.  If the ship's there, we'll try and get on board of her.

+If she's no there, I'll just have to get back to my weary haystack.

+But either way of it, I think we will leave your gentry whistling

+on their thumbs."

+

+"I believe there's some chance in it," said I.  "Have on with ye,

+Alan!"

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII--GILLANE SANDS

+

+

+

+I did not profit by Alan's pilotage as he had done by his marchings

+under General Cope; for I can scarce tell what way we went.  It is

+my excuse that we travelled exceeding fast.  Some part we ran, some

+trotted, and the rest walked at a vengeance of a pace.  Twice,

+while we were at top speed, we ran against country-folk; but though

+we plumped into the first from round a corner, Alan was as ready as

+a loaded musket.

+

+"Has ye seen my horse?" he gasped.

+

+"Na, man, I haenae seen nae horse the day," replied the countryman.

+

+And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling

+"ride and tie"; that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he

+had gone home to Linton.  Not only that, but he expended some

+breath (of which he had not very much left) to curse his own

+misfortune and my stupidity which was said to be its cause.

+

+"Them that cannae tell the truth," he observed to myself as we went

+on again, "should be aye mindful to leave an honest, handy lee

+behind them.  If folk dinnae ken what ye're doing, Davie, they're

+terrible taken up with it; but if they think they ken, they care

+nae mair for it than what I do for pease porridge."

+

+As we had first made inland, so our road came in the end to lie

+very near due north; the old Kirk of Aberlady for a landmark on the

+left; on the right, the top of the Berwick Law; and it was thus we

+struck the shore again, not far from Dirleton.  From north Berwick

+west to Gillane Ness there runs a string of four small islets,

+Craiglieth, the Lamb, Fidra, and Eyebrough, notable by their

+diversity of size and shape.  Fidra is the most particular, being a

+strange grey islet of two humps, made the more conspicuous by a

+piece of ruin; and I mind that (as we drew closer to it) by some

+door or window of these ruins the sea peeped through like a man's

+eye.  Under the lee of Fidra there is a good anchorage in westerly

+winds, and there, from a far way off, we could see the Thistle

+riding.

+

+The shore in face of these islets is altogether waste.  Here is no

+dwelling of man, and scarce any passage, or at most of vagabond

+children running at their play.  Gillane is a small place on the

+far side of the Ness, the folk of Dirleton go to their business in

+the inland fields, and those of North Berwick straight to the sea-

+fishing from their haven; so that few parts of the coast are

+lonelier.  But I mind, as we crawled upon our bellies into that

+multiplicity of heights and hollows, keeping a bright eye upon all

+sides, and our hearts hammering at our ribs, there was such a

+shining of the sun and the sea, such a stir of the wind in the bent

+grass, and such a bustle of down-popping rabbits and up-flying

+gulls, that the desert seemed to me, like a place alive.  No doubt

+it was in all ways well chosen for a secret embarcation, if the

+secret had been kept; and even now that it was out, and the place

+watched, we were able to creep unperceived to the front of the

+sandhills, where they look down immediately on the beach and sea.

+

+But here Alan came to a full stop.

+

+"Davie," said he, "this is a kittle passage!  As long as we lie

+here we're safe; but I'm nane sae muckle nearer to my ship or the

+coast of France.  And as soon as we stand up and signal the brig,

+it's another matter.  For where will your gentry be, think ye?"

+

+"Maybe they're no come yet," said I.  "And even if they are,

+there's one clear matter in our favour.  They'll be all arranged to

+take us, that's true.  But they'll have arranged for our coming

+from the east and here we are upon their west."

+

+"Ay," says Alan, "I wish we were in some force, and this was a

+battle, we would have bonnily out-manoeuvred them!  But it isnae,

+Davit; and the way it is, is a wee thing less inspiring to Alan

+Breck.  I swither, Davie."

+

+"Time flies, Alan," said I.

+

+"I ken that," said Alan.  "I ken naething else, as the French folk

+say.  But this is a dreidful case of heids or tails.  O! if I could

+but ken where your gentry were!"

+

+"Alan," said I, "this is no like you.  It's got to be now or

+never."

+

+

+"This is no me, quo' he,"

+

+

+sang Alan, with a queer face betwixt shame and drollery.

+

+

+"Neither you nor me, quo' he, neither you nor me.

+Wow, na, Johnnie man! neither you nor me."

+

+

+And then of a sudden he stood straight up where he was, and with a

+handkerchief flying in his right hand, marched down upon the beach.

+I stood up myself, but lingered behind him, scanning the sand-hills

+to the east.  His appearance was at first unremarked:  Scougal not

+expecting him so early, and MY GENTRY watching on the other side.

+Then they awoke on board the Thistle, and it seemed they had all in

+readiness, for there was scarce a second's bustle on the deck

+before we saw a skiff put round her stern and begin to pull lively

+for the coast.  Almost at the same moment of time, and perhaps half

+a mile away towards Gillane Ness, the figure of a man appeared for

+a blink upon a sandhill, waving with his arms; and though he was

+gone again in the same flash, the gulls in that part continued a

+little longer to fly wild.

+

+Alan had not seen this, looking straight to seaward at the ship and

+skiff.

+

+"It maun be as it will!" said he, when I had told him, "Weel may

+yon boatie row, or my craig'll have to thole a raxing."

+

+That part of the beach was long and flat, and excellent walking

+when the tide was down; a little cressy burn flowed over it in one

+place to the sea; and the sandhills ran along the head of it like

+the rampart of a town.  No eye of ours could spy what was passing

+behind there in the bents, no hurry of ours could mend the speed of

+the boat's coming:  time stood still with us through that uncanny

+period of waiting.

+

+"There is one thing I would like to ken," say Alan.  "I would like

+to ken these gentry's orders.  We're worth four hunner pound the

+pair of us:  how if they took the guns to us, Davie!  They would

+get a bonny shot from the top of that lang sandy bank."

+

+"Morally impossible," said I.  "The point is that they can have no

+guns.  This thing has been gone about too secret; pistols they may

+have, but never guns."

+

+"I believe ye'll be in the right," says Alan.  "For all which I am

+wearing a good deal for yon boat."

+

+And he snapped his fingers and whistled to it like a dog.

+

+It was now perhaps a third of the way in, and we ourselves already

+hard on the margin of the sea, so that the soft sand rose over my

+shoes.  There was no more to do whatever but to wait, to look as

+much as we were able at the creeping nearer of the boat, and as

+little as we could manage at the long impenetrable front of the

+sandhills, over which the gulls twinkled and behind which our

+enemies were doubtless marshalling.

+

+"This is a fine, bright, caller place to get shot in," says Alan

+suddenly; "and, man, I wish that I had your courage!"

+

+"Alan!" I cried, "what kind of talk is this of it!  You're just

+made of courage; it's the character of the man, as I could prove

+myself if there was nobody else."

+

+"And you would be the more mistaken," said he.  "What makes the

+differ with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of

+affairs.  But for auld, cauld, dour, deadly courage, I am not fit

+to hold a candle to yourself.  Look at us two here upon the sands.

+Here am I, fair hotching to be off; here's you (for all that I ken)

+in two minds of it whether you'll no stop.  Do you think that I

+could do that, or would?  No me!  Firstly, because I havenae got

+the courage and wouldnae daur; and secondly, because I am a man of

+so much penetration and would see ye damned first."

+

+"It's there ye're coming, is it?" I cried.  "Ah, man Alan, you can

+wile your old wives, but you never can wile me."

+

+Remembrance of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron.

+

+"I have a tryst to keep," I continued.  "I am trysted with your

+cousin Charlie; I have passed my word."

+

+"Braw trysts that you'll can keep," said Alan.  "Ye'll just

+mistryst aince and for a' with the gentry in the bents.  And what

+for?" he went on with an extreme threatening gravity.  "Just tell

+me that, my mannie!  Are ye to be speerited away like Lady Grange?

+Are they to drive a dirk in your inside and bury ye in the bents?

+Or is it to be the other way, and are they to bring ye in with

+James?  Are they folk to be trustit?  Would ye stick your head in

+the mouth of Sim Fraser and the ither Whigs?" he added with

+extraordinary bitterness.

+

+"Alan," cried I, "they're all rogues and liars, and I'm with ye

+there.  The more reason there should be one decent man in such a

+land of thieves!  My word in passed, and I'll stick to it.  I said

+long syne to your kinswoman that I would stumble at no risk.  Do ye

+mind of that?--the night Red Colin fell, it was.  No more I will,

+then.  Here I stop.  Prestongrange promised me my life:  if he's to

+be mansworn, here I'll have to die."

+

+"Aweel aweel," said Alan.

+

+All this time we had seen or heard no more of our pursuers.  In

+truth we had caught them unawares; their whole party (as I was to

+learn afterwards) had not yet reached the scene; what there was of

+them was spread among the bents towards Gillane.  It was quite an

+affair to call them in and bring them over, and the boat was making

+speed.  They were besides but cowardly fellows:  a mere leash of

+Highland cattle-thieves, of several clans, no gentleman there to be

+the captain and the more they looked at Alan and me upon the beach,

+the less (I must suppose) they liked the look of us.

+

+Whoever had betrayed Alan it was not the captain:  he was in the

+skiff himself, steering and stirring up his oarsmen, like a man

+with his heart in his employ.  Already he was near in, and the boat

+securing--already Alan's face had flamed crimson with the

+excitement of his deliverance, when our friends in the bents,

+either in their despair to see their prey escape them or with some

+hope of scaring Andie, raised suddenly a shrill cry of several

+voices.

+

+This sound, arising from what appeared to be a quite deserted

+coast, was really very daunting, and the men in the boat held water

+instantly.

+

+"What's this of it?" sings out the captain, for he was come within

+an easy hail.

+

+"Freens o'mine," says Alan, and began immediately to wade forth in

+the shallow water towards the boat.  "Davie," he said, pausing,

+"Davie, are ye no coming?  I am swier to leave ye."

+

+"Not a hair of me," said I.

+

+"He stood part of a second where he was to his knees in the salt

+water, hesitating.

+

+"He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar," said he, and swashing in

+deeper than his waist, was hauled into the skiff, which was

+immediately directed for the ship.

+

+I stood where he had left me, with my hands behind my back; Alan

+sat with his head turned watching me; and the boat drew smoothly

+away.  Of a sudden I came the nearest hand to shedding tears, and

+seemed to myself the most deserted solitary lad in Scotland.  With

+that I turned my back upon the sea and faced the sandhills.  There

+was no sight or sound of man; the sun shone on the wet sand and the

+dry, the wind blew in the bents, the gulls made a dreary piping.

+As I passed higher up the beach, the sand-lice were hopping nimbly

+about the stranded tangles.  The devil any other sight or sound in

+that unchancy place.  And yet I knew there were folk there,

+observing me, upon some secret purpose.  They were no soldiers, or

+they would have fallen on and taken us ere now; doubtless they were

+some common rogues hired for my undoing, perhaps to kidnap, perhaps

+to murder me outright.  From the position of those engaged, the

+first was the more likely; from what I knew of their character and

+ardency in this business, I thought the second very possible; and

+the blood ran cold about my heart.

+

+I had a mad idea to loosen my sword in the scabbard; for though I

+was very unfit to stand up like a gentleman blade to blade, I

+thought I could do some scathe in a random combat.  But I perceived

+in time the folly of resistance.  This was no doubt the joint

+"expedient" on which Prestongrange and Fraser were agreed.  The

+first, I was very sure, had done something to secure my life; the

+second was pretty likely to have slipped in some contrary hints

+into the ears of Neil and his companions; and it I were to show

+bare steel I might play straight into the hands of my worst enemy

+and seal my own doom.

+

+These thoughts brought me to the head of the beach.  I cast a look

+behind, the boat was nearing the brig, and Alan flew his

+handkerchief for a farewell, which I replied to with the waving of

+my hand.  But Alan himself was shrunk to a small thing in my view,

+alongside of this pass that lay in front of me.  I set my hat hard

+on my head, clenched my teeth, and went right before me up the face

+of the sand-wreath.  It made a hard climb, being steep, and the

+sand like water underfoot.  But I caught hold at last by the long

+bent-grass on the brae-top, and pulled myself to a good footing.

+The same moment men stirred and stood up here and there, six or

+seven of them, ragged-like knaves, each with a dagger in his hand.

+The fair truth is, I shut my eyes and prayed.  When I opened them

+again, the rogues were crept the least thing nearer without speech

+or hurry.  Every eye was upon mine, which struck me with a strange

+sensation of their brightness, and of the fear with which they

+continued to approach me.  I held out my hands empty; whereupon one

+asked, with a strong Highland brogue, if I surrendered.

+

+"Under protest," said I, "if ye ken what that means, which I

+misdoubt."

+

+At that word, they came all in upon me like a flight of birds upon

+a carrion, seized me, took my sword, and all the money from my

+pockets, bound me hand and foot with some strong line, and cast me

+on a tussock of bent.  There they sat about their captive in a part

+of a circle and gazed upon him silently like something dangerous,

+perhaps a lion or a tiger on the spring.  Presently this attention

+was relaxed.  They drew nearer together, fell to speech in the

+Gaelic, and very cynically divided my property before my eyes.  It

+was my diversion in this time that I could watch from my place the

+progress of my friend's escape.  I saw the boat come to the brig

+and be hoisted in, the sails fill, and the ship pass out seaward

+behind the isles and by North Berwick.

+

+In the course of two hours or so, more and more ragged Highlandmen

+kept collecting.  Neil among the first, until the party must have

+numbered near a score.  With each new arrival there was a fresh

+bout of talk, that sounded like complaints and explanations; but I

+observed one thing, none of those who came late had any share in

+the division of my spoils.  The last discussion was very violent

+and eager, so that once I thought they would have quarrelled; on

+the heels of which their company parted, the bulk of them returning

+westward in a troop, and only three, Neil and two others, remaining

+sentries on the prisoner.

+

+"I could name one who would be very ill pleased with your day's

+work, Neil Duncanson," said I, when the rest had moved away.

+

+He assured me in answer I should be tenderly used, for he knew he

+was "acquent wi' the leddy."

+

+This was all our talk, nor did any other son of man appear upon

+that portion of the coast until the sun had gone down among the

+Highland mountains, and the gloaming was beginning to grow dark.

+At which hour I was aware of a long, lean, bony-like Lothian man of

+a very swarthy countenance, that came towards us among the bents on

+a farm horse.

+

+"Lads," cried he, "has ye a paper like this?" and held up one in

+his hand.  Neil produced a second, which the newcomer studied

+through a pair of horn spectacles, and saying all was right and we

+were the folk he was seeking, immediately dismounted.  I was then

+set in his place, my feet tied under the horse's belly, and we set

+forth under the guidance of the Lowlander.  His path must have been

+very well chosen, for we met but one pair--a pair of lovers--the

+whole way, and these, perhaps taking us to be free-traders, fled on

+our approach.  We were at one time close at the foot of Berwick Law

+on the south side; at another, as we passed over some open hills, I

+spied the lights of a clachan and the old tower of a church among

+some trees not far off, but too far to cry for help, if I had

+dreamed of it.  At last we came again within sound of the sea.

+There was moonlight, though not much; and by this I could see the

+three huge towers and broken battlements of Tantallon, that old

+chief place of the Red Douglases.  The horse was picketed in the

+bottom of the ditch to graze, and I was led within, and forth into

+the court, and thence into the tumble-down stone hall.  Here my

+conductors built a brisk fire in the midst of the pavement, for

+there was a chill in the night.  My hands were loosed, I was set by

+the wall in the inner end, and (the Lowlander having produced

+provisions) I was given oatmeal bread and a pitcher of French

+brandy.  This done, I was left once more alone with my three

+Highlandmen.  They sat close by the fire drinking and talking; the

+wind blew in by the breaches, cast about the smoke and flames, and

+sang in the tops of the towers; I could hear the sea under the

+cliffs, and, my mind being reassured as to my life, and my body and

+spirits wearied with the day's employment, I turned upon one side

+and slumbered.

+

+I had no means of guessing at what hour I was wakened, only the

+moon was down and the fire was low.  My feet were now loosed, and I

+was carried through the ruins and down the cliff-side by a

+precipitous path to where I found a fisher's boat in a haven of the

+rocks.  This I was had on board of, and we began to put forth from

+the shore in a fine starlight

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV--THE BASS

+

+

+

+I had no thought where they were taking me; only looked here and

+there for the appearance of a ship; and there ran the while in my

+head a word of Ransome's--the TWENTY-POUNDERS.  If I were to be

+exposed a second time to that same former danger of the

+plantations, I judged it must turn ill with me; there was no second

+Alan; and no second shipwreck and spare yard to be expected now;

+and I saw myself hoe tobacco under the whip's lash.  The thought

+chilled me; the air was sharp upon the water, the stretchers of the

+boat drenched with a cold dew:  and I shivered in my place beside

+the steersman.  This was the dark man whom I have called hitherto

+the Lowlander; his name was Dale, ordinarily called Black Andie.

+Feeling the thrill of my shiver, he very kindly handed me a rough

+jacket full of fish-scales, with which I was glad to cover myself.

+

+"I thank you for this kindness," said I, "and will make so free as

+to repay it with a warning.  You take a high responsibility in this

+affair.  You are not like these ignorant, barbarous Highlanders,

+but know what the law is and the risks of those that break it."

+

+"I am no just exactly what ye would ca' an extremist for the law,"

+says he, "at the best of times; but in this business I act with a

+good warranty."

+

+"What are you going to do with me?" I asked.

+

+"Nae harm," said he, "nae harm ava'.  Ye'll have strong freens, I'm

+thinking.  Ye'll be richt eneuch yet."

+

+There began to fall a greyness on the face of the sea; little dabs

+of pink and red, like coals of slow fire, came in the east; and at

+the same time the geese awakened, and began crying about the top of

+the Bass.  It is just the one crag of rock, as everybody knows, but

+great enough to carve a city from.  The sea was extremely little,

+but there went a hollow plowter round the base of it.  With the

+growing of the dawn I could see it clearer and clearer; the

+straight crags painted with sea-birds' droppings like a morning

+frost, the sloping top of it green with grass, the clan of white

+geese that cried about the sides, and the black, broken buildings

+of the prison sitting close on the sea's edge.

+

+At the sight the truth came in upon me in a clap.

+

+"It's there you're taking me!" I cried.

+

+"Just to the Bass, mannie," said he:  "Whaur the auld saints were

+afore ye, and I misdoubt if ye have come so fairly by your

+preeson."

+

+"But none dwells there now," I cried; "the place is long a ruin."

+

+"It'll be the mair pleisand a change for the solan geese, then,"

+quoth Andie dryly.

+

+The day coming slowly brighter I observed on the bilge, among the

+big stones with which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs

+and baskets, and a provision of fuel.  All these were discharged

+upon the crag.  Andie, myself, and my three Highlanders (I call

+them mine, although it was the other way about), landed along with

+them.  The sun was not yet up when the boat moved away again, the

+noise of the oars on the thole-pins echoing from the cliffs, and

+left us in our singular reclusion:

+

+Andie Dale was the Prefect (as I would jocularly call him) of the

+Bass, being at once the shepherd and the gamekeeper of that small

+and rich estate.  He had to mind the dozen or so of sheep that fed

+and fattened on the grass of the sloping part of it, like beasts

+grazing the roof of a cathedral.  He had charge besides of the

+solan geese that roosted in the crags; and from these an

+extraordinary income is derived.  The young are dainty eating, as

+much as two shillings a-piece being a common price, and paid

+willingly by epicures; even the grown birds are valuable for their

+oil and feathers; and a part of the minister's stipend of North

+Berwick is paid to this day in solan geese, which makes it (in some

+folks' eyes) a parish to be coveted.  To perform these several

+businesses, as well as to protect the geese from poachers, Andie

+had frequent occasion to sleep and pass days together on the crag;

+and we found the man at home there like a farmer in his steading.

+Bidding us all shoulder some of the packages, a matter in which I

+made haste to bear a hand, he led us in by a looked gate, which was

+the only admission to the island, and through the ruins of the

+fortress, to the governor's house.  There we saw by the ashes in

+the chimney and a standing bed-place in one corner, that he made

+his usual occupation.

+

+This bed he now offered me to use, saying he supposed I would set

+up to be gentry.

+

+"My gentrice has nothing to do with where I lie," said I.  "I bless

+God I have lain hard ere now, and can do the same again with

+thankfulness.  While I am here, Mr. Andie, if that be your name, I

+will do my part and take my place beside the rest of you; and I ask

+you on the other hand to spare me your mockery, which I own I like

+ill."

+

+He grumbled a little at this speech, but seemed upon reflection to

+approve it.  Indeed, he was a long-headed, sensible man, and a good

+Whig and Presbyterian; read daily in a pocket Bible, and was both

+able and eager to converse seriously on religion, leaning more than

+a little towards the Cameronian extremes.  His morals were of a

+more doubtful colour.  I found he was deep in the free trade, and

+used the rains of Tantallon for a magazine of smuggled merchandise.

+As for a gauger, I do not believe he valued the life of one at

+half-a-farthing.  But that part of the coast of Lothian is to this

+day as wild a place, and the commons there as rough a crew, as any

+in Scotland.

+

+One incident of my imprisonment is made memorable by a consequence

+it had long after.  There was a warship at this time stationed in

+the Firth, the Seahorse, Captain Palliser.  It chanced she was

+cruising in the month of September, plying between Fife and

+Lothian, and sounding for sunk dangers.  Early one fine morning she

+was seen about two miles to east of us, where she lowered a boat,

+and seemed to examine the Wildfire Rocks and Satan's Bush, famous

+dangers of that coast.  And presently after having got her boat

+again, she came before the wind and was headed directly for the

+Base.  This was very troublesome to Andie and the Highlanders; the

+whole business of my sequestration was designed for privacy, and

+here, with a navy captain perhaps blundering ashore, it looked to

+become public enough, if it were nothing worse.  I was in a

+minority of one, I am no Alan to fall upon so many, and I was far

+from sure that a warship was the least likely to improve my

+condition.  All which considered, I gave Andie my parole of good

+behaviour and obedience, and was had briskly to the summit of the

+rock, where we all lay down, at the cliff's edge, in different

+places of observation and concealment.  The Seahorse came straight

+on till I thought she would have struck, and we (looking giddily

+down) could see the ship's company at their quarters and hear the

+leadsman singing at the lead.  Then she suddenly wore and let fly a

+volley of I know not how many great guns.  The rock was shaken with

+the thunder of the sound, the smoke flowed over our heads, and the

+geese rose in number beyond computation or belief.  To hear their

+screaming and to see the twinkling of their wings, made a most

+inimitable curiosity; and I suppose it was after this somewhat

+childish pleasure that Captain Palliser had come so near the Bass.

+He was to pay dear for it in time.  During his approach I had the

+opportunity to make a remark upon the rigging of that ship by which

+I ever after knew it miles away; and this was a means (under

+Providence) of my averting from a friend a great calamity, and

+inflicting on Captain Palliser himself a sensible disappointment.

+

+All the time of my stay on the rock we lived well.  We had small

+ale and brandy, and oatmeal, of which we made our porridge night

+and morning.  At times a boat came from the Castleton and brought

+us a quarter of mutton, for the sheep upon the rock we must not

+touch, these being specially fed to market.  The geese were

+unfortunately out of season, and we let them be.  We fished

+ourselves, and yet more often made the geese to fish for us:

+observing one when he had made a capture and searing him from his

+prey ere he had swallowed it.

+

+The strange nature of this place, and the curiosities with which it

+abounded, held me busy and amused.  Escape being impossible, I was

+allowed my entire liberty, and continually explored the surface of

+the isle wherever it might support the foot of man.  The old garden

+of the prison was still to be observed, with flowers and pot-herbs

+running wild, and some ripe cherries on a bush.  A little lower

+stood a chapel or a hermit's cell; who built or dwelt in it, none

+may know, and the thought of its age made a ground of many

+meditations.  The prison, too, where I now bivouacked with Highland

+cattle-thieves, was a place full of history, both human and divine.

+I thought it strange so many saints and martyrs should have gone by

+there so recently, and left not so much as a leaf out of their

+Bibles, or a name carved upon the wall, while the rough soldier

+lads that mounted guard upon the battlements had filled the

+neighbourhood with their mementoes--broken tobacco-pipes for the

+most part, and that in a surprising plenty, but also metal buttons

+from their coats.  There were times when I thought I could have

+heard the pious sound of psalms out of the martyr's dungeons, and

+seen the soldiers tramp the ramparts with their glinting pipes, and

+the dawn rising behind them out of the North Sea.

+

+No doubt it was a good deal Andie and his tales that put these

+fancies in my head.  He was extraordinarily well acquainted with

+the story of the rock in all particulars, down to the names of

+private soldiers, his father having served there in that same

+capacity.  He was gifted besides with a natural genius for

+narration, so that the people seemed to speak and the things to be

+done before your face.  This gift of his and my assiduity to listen

+brought us the more close together.  I could not honestly deny but

+what I liked him; I soon saw that he liked me; and indeed, from the

+first I had set myself out to capture his good-will.  An odd

+circumstance (to be told presently) effected this beyond my

+expectation; but even in early days we made a friendly pair to be a

+prisoner and his gaoler.

+

+I should trifle with my conscience if I pretended my stay upon the

+Bass was wholly disagreeable.  It seemed to me a safe place, as

+though I was escaped there out of my troubles.  No harm was to be

+offered me; a material impossibility, rock and the deep sea,

+prevented me from fresh attempts; I felt I had my life safe and my

+honour safe, and there were times when I allowed myself to gloat on

+them like stolen waters.  At other times my thoughts were very

+different, I recalled how strong I had expressed myself both to

+Rankeillor and to Stewart; I reflected that my captivity upon the

+Bass, in view of a great part of the coasts of Fife and Lothian,

+was a thing I should be thought more likely to have invented than

+endured; and in the eyes of these two gentlemen, at least, I must

+pass for a boaster and a coward.  Now I would take this lightly

+enough; tell myself that so long as I stood well with Catriona

+Drummond, the opinion of the rest of man was but moonshine and

+spilled water; and thence pass off into those meditations of a

+lover which are so delightful to himself and must always appear so

+surprisingly idle to a reader.  But anon the fear would take me

+otherwise; I would be shaken with a perfect panic of self-esteem,

+and these supposed hard judgments appear an injustice impossible to

+be supported.  With that another train of thought would he

+presented, and I had scarce begun to be concerned about men's

+judgments of myself, than I was haunted with the remembrance of

+James Stewart in his dungeon and the lamentations of his wife.

+Then, indeed, passion began to work in me; I could not forgive

+myself to sit there idle:  it seemed (if I were a man at all) that

+I could fly or swim out of my place of safety; and it was in such

+humours and to amuse my self-reproaches that I would set the more

+particularly to win the good side of Andie Dale.

+

+At last, when we two were alone on the summit of the rock on a

+bright morning, I put in some hint about a bribe.  He looked at me,

+cast back his head, and laughed out loud.

+

+"Ay, you're funny, Mr. Dale," said I, "but perhaps if you'll glance

+an eye upon that paper you may change your note."

+

+The stupid Highlanders had taken from me at the time of my seizure

+nothing but hard money, and the paper I now showed Andie was an

+acknowledgment from the British Linen Company for a considerable

+sum.

+

+He read it.  "Troth, and ye're nane sae ill aff," said he.

+

+"I thought that would maybe vary your opinions," said I.

+

+"Hout!" said he.  "It shows me ye can bribe; but I'm no to be

+bribit."

+

+"We'll see about that yet a while," says I.  "And first, I'll show

+you that I know what I am talking.  You have orders to detain me

+here till after Thursday, 21st September."

+

+"Ye're no a'thegether wrong either," says Andie.  "I'm to let you

+gang, bar orders contrair, on Saturday, the 23rd."

+

+I could not but feel there was something extremely insidious in

+this arrangement.  That I was to re-appear precisely in time to be

+too late would cast the more discredit on my tale, if I were minded

+to tell one; and this screwed me to fighting point.

+

+"Now then, Andie, you that kens the world, listen to me, and think

+while ye listen," said I.  "I know there are great folks in the

+business, and I make no doubt you have their names to go upon.  I

+have seen some of them myself since this affair began, and said my

+say into their faces too.  But what kind of a crime would this be

+that I had committed? or what kind of a process is this that I am

+fallen under?  To be apprehended by some ragged John-Hielandman on

+August 30th, carried to a rickle of old stones that is now neither

+fort nor gaol (whatever it once was) but just the gamekeeper's

+lodge of the Bass Rock, and set free again, September 23rd, as

+secretly as I was first arrested--does that sound like law to you?

+or does it sound like justice? or does it not sound honestly like a

+piece of some low dirty intrigue, of which the very folk that

+meddle with it are ashamed?"

+

+"I canna gainsay ye, Shaws.  It looks unco underhand," says Andie.

+"And werenae the folk guid sound Whigs and true-blue Presbyterians

+I would has seen them ayont Jordan and Jeroozlem or I would have

+set hand to it."

+

+"The Master of Lovat'll be a braw Whig," says I, "and a grand

+Presbyterian."

+

+"I ken naething by him," said he.  "I hae nae trokings wi' Lovats."

+

+"No, it'll be Prestongrange that you'll be dealing with," said I.

+

+"Ah, but I'll no tell ye that," said Andie.

+

+"Little need when I ken," was my retort.

+

+"There's just the ae thing ye can be fairly sure of, Shaws," says

+Andie.  "And that is that (try as ye please) I'm no dealing wi'

+yoursel'; nor yet I amnae goin' to," he added.

+

+"Well, Andie, I see I'll have to be speak out plain with you," I

+replied.  And told him so much as I thought needful of the facts.

+

+He heard me out with some serious interest, and when I had done,

+seemed to consider a little with himself.

+

+"Shaws," said he at last, "I'll deal with the naked hand.  It's a

+queer tale, and no very creditable, the way you tell it; and I'm

+far frae minting that is other than the way that ye believe it.  As

+for yoursel', ye seem to me rather a dacent-like young man.  But

+me, that's aulder and mair judeecious, see perhaps a wee bit

+further forrit in the job than what ye can dae.  And here the

+maitter clear and plain to ye.  There'll be nae skaith to yoursel'

+if I keep ye here; far free that, I think ye'll be a hantle better

+by it.  There'll be nae skaith to the kintry--just ae mair

+Hielantman hangit--Gude kens, a guid riddance!  On the ither hand,

+it would be considerable skaith to me if I would let you free.

+Sae, speakin' as a guid Whig, an honest freen' to you, and an

+anxious freen' to my ainsel', the plain fact is that I think ye'll

+just have to bide here wi' Andie an' the solans."

+

+"Andie," said I, laying my hand upon his knee, "this Hielantman's

+innocent."

+

+"Ay, it's a peety about that," said he.  "But ye see, in this

+warld, the way God made it, we cannae just get a'thing that we

+want."

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV--BLACK ANDIE'S TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK

+

+

+

+I have yet said little of the Highlanders.  They were all three of

+the followers of James More, which bound the accusation very tight

+about their master's neck.  All understood a word or two of

+English, but Neil was the only one who judged he had enough of it

+for general converse, in which (when once he got embarked) his

+company was often tempted to the contrary opinion.  They were

+tractable, simple creatures; showed much more courtesy than might

+have been expected from their raggedness and their uncouth

+appearance, and fell spontaneously to be like three servants for

+Andie and myself.

+

+Dwelling in that isolated place, in the old falling ruins of a

+prison, and among endless strange sounds of the sea and the sea-

+birds, I thought I perceived in them early the effects of

+superstitious fear.  When there was nothing doing they would either

+lie and sleep, for which their appetite appeared insatiable, or

+Neil would entertain the others with stories which seemed always of

+a terrifying strain.  If neither of these delights were within

+reach--if perhaps two were sleeping and the third could find no

+means to follow their example--I would see him sit and listen and

+look about him in a progression of uneasiness, starting, his face

+blenching, his hands clutched, a man strung like a bow.  The nature

+of these fears I had never an occasion to find out, but the sight

+of them was catching, and the nature of the place that we were in

+favourable to alarms.  I can find no word for it in the English,

+but Andie had an expression for it in the Scots from which he never

+varied.

+

+"Ay," he would say, "ITS AN UNCO PLACE, THE BASS."

+

+It is so I always think of it.  It was an unco place by night, unco

+by day; and these were unco sounds, of the calling of the solans,

+and the plash of the sea and the rock echoes, that hung continually

+in our ears.  It was chiefly so in moderate weather.  When the

+waves were anyway great they roared about the rock like thunder and

+the drums of armies, dreadful but merry to hear; and it was in the

+calm days that a man could daunt himself with listening--not a

+Highlandman only, as I several times experimented on myself, so

+many still, hollow noises haunted and reverberated in the porches

+of the rock.

+

+This brings me to a story I heard, and a scene I took part in,

+which quite changed our terms of living, and had a great effect on

+my departure.  It chanced one night I fell in a muse beside the

+fire and (that little air of Alan's coming back to my memory) began

+to whistle.  A hand was laid upon my arm, and the voice of Neil

+bade me to stop, for it was not "canny musics."

+

+"Not canny?" I asked.  "How can that be?"

+

+"Na," said he; "it will be made by a bogle and her wanting ta heid

+upon his body." {13}

+

+"Well," said I, "there can be no bogles here, Neil; for it's not

+likely they would fash themselves to frighten geese."

+

+"Ay?" says Andie, "is that what ye think of it!  But I'll can tell

+ye there's been waur nor bogles here."

+

+"What's waur than bogles, Andie?" said I.

+

+"Warlocks," said he.  "Or a warlock at the least of it.  And that's

+a queer tale, too," he added.  "And if ye would like, I'll tell it

+ye."

+

+To be sure we were all of the one mind, and even the Highlander

+that had the least English of the three set himself to listen with

+all his might.

+

+

+THE TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK

+

+

+MY faither, Tam Dale, peace to his banes, was a wild, sploring lad

+in his young days, wi' little wisdom and little grace.  He was fond

+of a lass and fond of a glass, and fond of a ran-dan; but I could

+never hear tell that he was muckle use for honest employment.  Frae

+ae thing to anither, he listed at last for a sodger and was in the

+garrison of this fort, which was the first way that ony of the

+Dales cam to set foot upon the Bass.  Sorrow upon that service!

+The governor brewed his ain ale; it seems it was the warst

+conceivable.  The rock was proveesioned free the shore with vivers,

+the thing was ill-guided, and there were whiles when they but to

+fish and shoot solans for their diet.  To crown a', thir was the

+Days of the Persecution.  The perishin' cauld chalmers were all

+occupeed wi' sants and martyrs, the saut of the yearth, of which it

+wasnae worthy.  And though Tam Dale carried a firelock there, a

+single sodger, and liked a lass and a glass, as I was sayin,' the

+mind of the man was mair just than set with his position.  He had

+glints of the glory of the kirk; there were whiles when his dander

+rase to see the Lord's sants misguided, and shame covered him that

+he should be haulding a can'le (or carrying a firelock) in so black

+a business.  There were nights of it when he was here on sentry,

+the place a' wheesht, the frosts o' winter maybe riving in the

+wa's, and he would hear ane o' the prisoners strike up a psalm, and

+the rest join in, and the blessed sounds rising from the different

+chalmers--or dungeons, I would raither say--so that this auld craig

+in the sea was like a pairt of Heev'n.  Black shame was on his

+saul; his sins hove up before him muckle as the Bass, and above a',

+that chief sin, that he should have a hand in hagging and hashing

+at Christ's Kirk.  But the truth is that he resisted the spirit.

+Day cam, there were the rousing compainions, and his guid resolves

+depairtit.

+

+In thir days, dwalled upon the Bass a man of God, Peden the Prophet

+was his name.  Ye'll have heard tell of Prophet Peden.  There was

+never the wale of him sinsyne, and it's a question wi' mony if

+there ever was his like afore.  He was wild's a peat-hag, fearsome

+to look at, fearsome to hear, his face like the day of judgment.

+The voice of him was like a solan's and dinnle'd in folks' lugs,

+and the words of him like coals of fire.

+

+Now there was a lass on the rock, and I think she had little to do,

+for it was nae place far decent weemen; but it seems she was bonny,

+and her and Tam Dale were very well agreed.  It befell that Peden

+was in the gairden his lane at the praying when Tam and the lass

+cam by; and what should the lassie do but mock with laughter at the

+sant's devotions?  He rose and lookit at the twa o' them, and Tam's

+knees knoitered thegether at the look of him.  But whan he spak, it

+was mair in sorrow than in anger.  'Poor thing, poor thing!" says

+he, and it was the lass he lookit at, "I hear you skirl and laugh,"

+he says, "but the Lord has a deid shot prepared for you, and at

+that surprising judgment ye shall skirl but the ae time!"  Shortly

+thereafter she was daundering on the craigs wi' twa-three sodgers,

+and it was a blawy day.  There cam a gowst of wind, claught her by

+the coats, and awa' wi' her bag and baggage.  And it was remarked

+by the sodgers that she gied but the ae skirl.

+

+Nae doubt this judgment had some weicht upon Tam Dale; but it

+passed again and him none the better.  Ae day he was flyting wi'

+anither sodger-lad.  "Deil hae me!" quo' Tam, for he was a profane

+swearer.  And there was Peden glowering at him, gash an' waefu';

+Peden wi' his lang chafts an' luntin' een, the maud happed about

+his kist, and the hand of him held out wi' the black nails upon the

+finger-nebs--for he had nae care of the body.  "Fy, fy, poor man!"

+cries he, "the poor fool man!  DEIL HAE ME, quo' he; an' I see the

+deil at his oxter."  The conviction of guilt and grace cam in on

+Tam like the deep sea; he flang doun the pike that was in his

+hands--"I will nae mair lift arms against the cause o' Christ!"

+says he, and was as gude's word.  There was a sair fyke in the

+beginning, but the governor, seeing him resolved, gied him his

+discharge, and he went and dwallt and merried in North Berwick, and

+had aye a gude name with honest folk free that day on.

+

+It was in the year seeventeen hunner and sax that the Bass cam in

+the hands o' the Da'rymples, and there was twa men soucht the

+chairge of it.  Baith were weel qualified, for they had baith been

+sodgers in the garrison, and kent the gate to handle solans, and

+the seasons and values of them.  Forby that they were baith--or

+they baith seemed--earnest professors and men of comely

+conversation.  The first of them was just Tam Dale, my faither.

+The second was ane Lapraik, whom the folk ca'd Tod Lapraik maistly,

+but whether for his name or his nature I could never hear tell.

+Weel, Tam gaed to see Lapraik upon this business, and took me, that

+was a toddlin' laddie, by the hand.  Tod had his dwallin' in the

+lang loan benorth the kirkyaird.  It's a dark uncanny loan, forby

+that the kirk has aye had an ill name since the days o' James the

+Saxt and the deevil's cantrips played therein when the Queen was on

+the seas; and as for Tod's house, it was in the mirkest end, and

+was little liked by some that kenned the best.  The door was on the

+sneck that day, and me and my faither gaed straucht in.  Tod was a

+wabster to his trade; his loom stood in the but.  There he sat, a

+muckle fat, white hash of a man like creish, wi' a kind of a holy

+smile that gart me scunner.  The hand of him aye cawed the shuttle,

+but his een was steeked.  We cried to him by his name, we skirted

+in the deid lug of him, we shook him by the shou'ther.  Nae mainner

+o' service!  There he sat on his dowp, an' cawed the shuttle and

+smiled like creish.

+

+"God be guid to us," says Tam Dale, "this is no canny?"

+

+He had jimp said the word, when Tod Lapraik cam to himsel'.

+

+"Is this you, Tam?" says he.  "Haith, man!  I'm blythe to see ye.

+I whiles fa' into a bit dwam like this," he says; "its frae the

+stamach."

+

+Weel, they began to crack about the Bass and which of them twa was

+to get the warding o't, and little by little cam to very ill words,

+and twined in anger.  I mind weel that as my faither and me gaed

+hame again, he cam ower and ower the same expression, how little he

+likit Tod Lapraik and his dwams.

+

+"Dwam!" says he.  "I think folk hae brunt for dwams like yon."

+

+Aweel, my faither got the Bass and Tod had to go wantin'.  It was

+remembered sinsyne what way he had ta'en the thing.  "Tam," says

+he, "ye hae gotten the better o' me aince mair, and I hope," says

+he, "ye'll find at least a' that ye expeckit at the Bass."  Which

+have since been thought remarkable expressions.  At last the time

+came for Tam Dale to take young solans.  This was a business he was

+weel used wi', he had been a craigsman frae a laddie, and trustit

+nane but himsel'.  So there was he hingin' by a line an' speldering

+on the craig face, whaur its hieest and steighest.  Fower tenty

+lads were on the tap, hauldin' the line and mindin' for his

+signals.  But whaur Tam hung there was naething but the craig, and

+the sea belaw, and the solans skirlin and flying.  It was a braw

+spring morn, and Tam whustled as he claught in the young geese.

+Mony's the time I've heard him tell of this experience, and aye the

+swat ran upon the man.

+

+It chanced, ye see, that Tam keeked up, and he was awaur of a

+muckle solan, and the solan pyking at the line.  He thocht this by-

+ordinar and outside the creature's habits.  He minded that ropes

+was unco saft things, and the solan's neb and the Bass Rock unco

+hard, and that twa hunner feet were raither mair than he would care

+to fa'.

+

+"Shoo!" says Tam.  "Awa', bird!  Shoo, awa' wi' ye!" says he.

+

+The solan keekit doon into Tam's face, and there was something unco

+in the creature's ee.  Just the ae keek it gied, and back to the

+rope.  But now it wroucht and warstl't like a thing dementit.

+There never was the solan made that wroucht as that solan wroucht;

+and it seemed to understand its employ brawly, birzing the saft

+rope between the neb of it and a crunkled jag o' stane.

+

+There gaed a cauld stend o' fear into Tam's heart.  "This thing is

+nae bird," thinks he.  His een turnt backward in his heid and the

+day gaed black aboot him.  "If I get a dwam here," he toucht, "it's

+by wi' Tam Dale."  And he signalled for the lads to pu' him up.

+

+And it seemed the solan understood about signals.  For nae sooner

+was the signal made than he let be the rope, spried his wings,

+squawked out loud, took a turn flying, and dashed straucht at Tam

+Dale's een.  Tam had a knife, he gart the cauld steel glitter.  And

+it seemed the solan understood about knives, for nae suner did the

+steel glint in the sun than he gied the ae squawk, but laighter,

+like a body disappointit, and flegged aff about the roundness of

+the craig, and Tam saw him nae mair.  And as sune as that thing was

+gane, Tam's heid drapt upon his shouther, and they pu'd him up like

+a deid corp, dadding on the craig.

+

+A dram of brandy (which he went never without) broucht him to his

+mind, or what was left of it.  Up he sat.

+

+"Rin, Geordie, rin to the boat, mak' sure of the boat, man--rin!"

+he cries, "or yon solan'll have it awa'," says he.

+

+The fower lads stared at ither, an' tried to whilly-wha him to be

+quiet.  But naething would satisfy Tam Dale, till ane o' them had

+startit on aheid to stand sentry on the boat.  The ithers askit if

+he was for down again.

+

+"Na," says he, "and niether you nor me," says he, "and as sune as I

+can win to stand on my twa feet we'll be aff frae this craig o'

+Sawtan."

+

+Sure eneuch, nae time was lost, and that was ower muckle; for

+before they won to North Berwick Tam was in a crying fever.  He lay

+a' the simmer; and wha was sae kind as come speiring for him, but

+Tod Lapraik!  Folk thocht afterwards that ilka time Tod cam near

+the house the fever had worsened.  I kenna for that; but what I ken

+the best, that was the end of it.

+

+It was about this time o' the year; my grandfaither was out at the

+white fishing; and like a bairn, I but to gang wi' him.  We had a

+grand take, I mind, and the way that the fish lay broucht us near

+in by the Bass, whaur we foregaithered wi' anither boat that

+belanged to a man Sandie Fletcher in Castleton.  He's no lang deid

+neither, or ye could speir at himsel'.  Weel, Sandie hailed.

+

+"What's yon on the Bass?" says he.

+

+"On the Bass?" says grandfaither.

+

+"Ay," says Sandie, "on the green side o't."

+

+"Whatten kind of a thing?" says grandfaither.  "There cannae be

+naething on the Bass but just the sheep."

+

+"It looks unco like a body," quo' Sandie, who was nearer in.

+

+"A body!" says we, and we none of us likit that.  For there was nae

+boat that could have brought a man, and the key o' the prison yett

+hung ower my faither's at hame in the press bed.

+

+We keept the twa boats close for company, and crap in nearer hand.

+Grandfaither had a gless, for he had been a sailor, and the captain

+of a smack, and had lost her on the sands of Tay.  And when we took

+the glass to it, sure eneuch there was a man.  He was in a crunkle

+o' green brae, a wee below the chaipel, a' by his lee lane, and

+lowped and flang and danced like a daft quean at a waddin'.

+

+"It's Tod," says grandfather, and passed the gless to Sandie.

+

+"Ay, it's him," says Sandie.

+

+"Or ane in the likeness o' him," says grandfaither.

+

+"Sma' is the differ," quo' Sandie.  "De'il or warlock, I'll try the

+gun at him," quo' he, and broucht up a fowling-piece that he aye

+carried, for Sandie was a notable famous shot in all that country.

+

+"Haud your hand, Sandie," says grandfaither; "we maun see clearer

+first," says he, "or this may be a dear day's wark to the baith of

+us."

+

+"Hout!" says Sandie, "this is the Lord's judgment surely, and be

+damned to it," says he.

+

+"Maybe ay, and maybe no," says my grandfaither, worthy man!  "But

+have you a mind of the Procurator Fiscal, that I think ye'll have

+foregaithered wi' before," says he.

+

+This was ower true, and Sandie was a wee thing set ajee.  "Aweel,

+Edie," says he, "and what would be your way of it?"

+

+"Ou, just this," says grandfaither.  "Let me that has the fastest

+boat gang back to North Berwick, and let you bide here and keep an

+eye on Thon.  If I cannae find Lapraik, I'll join ye and the twa of

+us'll have a crack wi' him.  But if Lapraik's at hame, I'll rin up

+the flag at the harbour, and ye can try Thon Thing wi' the gun."

+

+Aweel, so it was agreed between them twa.  I was just a bairn, an'

+clum in Sandie's boat, whaur I thoucht I would see the best of the

+employ.  My grandsire gied Sandie a siller tester to pit in his gun

+wi' the leid draps, bein mair deidly again bogles.  And then the as

+boat set aff for North Berwick, an' the tither lay whaur it was and

+watched the wanchancy thing on the brae-side.

+

+A' the time we lay there it lowped and flang and capered and span

+like a teetotum, and whiles we could hear it skelloch as it span.

+I hae seen lassies, the daft queans, that would lowp and dance a

+winter's nicht, and still be lowping and dancing when the winter's

+day cam in.  But there would be fowk there to hauld them company,

+and the lads to egg them on; and this thing was its lee-lane.  And

+there would be a fiddler diddling his elbock in the chimney-side;

+and this thing had nae music but the skirling of the solans.  And

+the lassies were bits o' young things wi' the reid life dinnling

+and stending in their members; and this was a muckle, fat, creishy

+man, and him fa'n in the vale o' years.  Say what ye like, I maun

+say what I believe.  It was joy was in the creature's heart, the

+joy o' hell, I daursay:  joy whatever.  Mony a time I have askit

+mysel' why witches and warlocks should sell their sauls (whilk are

+their maist dear possessions) and be auld, duddy, wrunkl't wives or

+auld, feckless, doddered men; and then I mind upon Tod Lapraik

+dancing a' the hours by his lane in the black glory of his heart.

+Nae doubt they burn for it muckle in hell, but they have a grand

+time here of it, whatever!--and the Lord forgie us!

+

+Weel, at the hinder end, we saw the wee flag yirk up to the mast-

+heid upon the harbour rocks.  That was a' Sandie waited for.  He up

+wi' the gun, took a deleeberate aim, an' pu'd the trigger.  There

+cam' a bang and then ae waefu' skirl frae the Bass.  And there were

+we rubbin' our een and lookin' at ither like daft folk.  For wi'

+the bang and the skirl the thing had clean disappeared.  The sun

+glintit, the wund blew, and there was the bare yaird whaur the

+Wonder had been lowping and flinging but ae second syne.

+

+The hale way hame I roared and grat wi' the terror o' that

+dispensation.  The grawn folk were nane sae muckle better; there

+was little said in Sandie's boat but just the name of God; and when

+we won in by the pier, the harbour rocks were fair black wi' the

+folk waitin' us.  It seems they had fund Lapraik in ane of his

+dwams, cawing the shuttle and smiling.  Ae lad they sent to hoist

+the flag, and the rest abode there in the wabster's house.  You may

+be sure they liked it little; but it was a means of grace to

+severals that stood there praying in to themsel's (for nane cared

+to pray out loud) and looking on thon awesome thing as it cawed the

+shuttle.  Syne, upon a suddenty, and wi' the ae dreidfu' skelloch,

+Tod sprang up frae his hinderlands and fell forrit on the wab, a

+bluidy corp.

+

+When the corp was examined the leid draps hadnae played buff upon

+the warlock's body; sorrow a leid drap was to be fund! but there

+was grandfaither's siller tester in the puddock's heart of him.

+

+

+Andie had scarce done when there befell a mighty silly affair that

+had its consequence.  Neil, as I have said, was himself a great

+narrator.  I have heard since that he knew all the stories in the

+Highlands; and thought much of himself, and was thought much of by

+others on the strength of it.  Now Andie's tale reminded him of one

+he had already heard.

+

+"She would ken that story afore," he said.  "She was the story of

+Uistean More M'Gillie Phadrig and the Gavar Vore."

+

+"It is no sic a thing," cried Andie.  "It is the story of my

+faither (now wi' God) and Tod Lapraik.  And the same in your

+beard," says he; "and keep the tongue of ye inside your Hielant

+chafts!"

+

+In dealing with Highlanders it will be found, and has been shown in

+history, how well it goes with Lowland gentlefolk; but the thing

+appears scarce feasible for Lowland commons.  I had already

+remarked that Andie was continually on the point of quarrelling

+with our three MacGregors, and now, sure enough, it was to come.

+

+"Thir will be no words to use to shentlemans," says Neil.

+

+"Shentlemans!" cries Andie.  "Shentlemans, ye hielant stot!  If God

+would give ye the grace to see yoursel' the way that ithers see ye,

+ye would throw your denner up."

+

+There came some kind of a Gaelic oath from Neil, and the black

+knife was in his hand that moment.

+

+There was no time to think; and I caught the Highlander by the leg,

+and had him down, and his armed hand pinned out, before I knew what

+I was doing.  His comrades sprang to rescue him, Andie and I were

+without weapons, the Gregara three to two.  It seemed we were

+beyond salvation, when Neil screamed in his own tongue, ordering

+the others back, and made his submission to myself in a manner the

+most abject, even giving me up his knife which (upon a repetition

+of his promises) I returned to him on the morrow.

+

+Two things I saw plain:  the first, that I must not build too high

+on Andie, who had shrunk against the wall and stood there, as pale

+as death, till the affair was over; the second, the strength of my

+own position with the Highlanders, who must have received

+extraordinary charges to be tender of my safety.  But if I thought

+Andie came not very well out in courage, I had no fault to find

+with him upon the account of gratitude.  It was not so much that he

+troubled me with thanks, as that his whole mind and manner appeared

+changed; and as he preserved ever after a great timidity of our

+companions, he and I were yet more constantly together.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI--THE MISSING WITNESS

+

+

+

+On the seventeenth, the day I was trysted with the Writer, I had

+much rebellion against fate.  The thought of him waiting in the

+King's Arms, and of what he would think, and what he would say when

+next we met, tormented and oppressed me. The truth was

+unbelievable, so much I had to grant, and it seemed cruel hard I

+should be posted as a liar and a coward, and have never consciously

+omitted what it was possible that I should do.  I repeated this

+form of words with a kind of bitter relish, and re-examined in that

+light the steps of my behaviour.  It seemed I had behaved to James

+Stewart as a brother might; all the past was a picture that I could

+be proud of, and there was only the present to consider.  I could

+not swim the sea, nor yet fly in the air, but there was always

+Andie.  I had done him a service, he liked me; I had a lever there

+to work on; if it were just for decency, I must try once more with

+Andie.

+

+It was late afternoon; there was no sound in all the Bass but the

+lap and bubble of a very quiet sea; and my four companions were all

+crept apart, the three Macgregors higher on the rock, and Andie

+with his Bible to a sunny place among the ruins; there I found him

+in deep sleep, and, as soon as he was awake, appealed to him with

+some fervour of manner and a good show of argument.

+

+"If I thoucht it was to do guid to ye, Shaws!" said he, staring at

+me over his spectacles.

+

+"It's to save another," said I, "and to redeem my word.  What would

+be more good than that?  Do ye no mind the scripture, Andie?  And

+you with the Book upon your lap!  WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN IF HE

+GAIN THE WHOLE WORLD?"

+

+"Ay," said he, "that's grand for you.  But where do I come in!  I

+have my word to redeem the same's yoursel'.  And what are ye asking

+me to do, but just to sell it ye for siller?"

+

+"Andie! have I named the name of siller?" cried I.

+

+"Ou, the name's naething", said he; "the thing is there, whatever.

+It just comes to this; if I am to service ye the way that you

+propose, I'll lose my lifelihood.  Then it's clear ye'll have to

+make it up to me, and a pickle mair, for your ain credit like.  And

+what's that but just a bribe?  And if even I was certain of the

+bribe!  But by a' that I can learn, it's far frae that; and if YOU

+were to hang, where would _I_ be?  Na:  the thing's no possible.

+And just awa' wi' ye like a bonny lad! and let Andie read his

+chapter."

+

+I remember I was at bottom a good deal gratified with this result;

+and the next humour I fell into was one (I had near said) of

+gratitude to Prestongrange, who had saved me, in this violent,

+illegal manner, out of the midst of my dangers, temptations, and

+perplexities.  But this was both too flimsy and too cowardly to

+last me long, and the remembrance of James began to succeed to the

+possession of my spirits.  The 21st, the day set for the trial, I

+passed in such misery of mind as I can scarce recall to have

+endured, save perhaps upon Isle Earraid only.  Much of the time I

+lay on a brae-side betwixt sleep and waking, my body motionless, my

+mind full of violent thoughts.  Sometimes I slept indeed; but the

+court-house of Inverary and the prisoner glancing on all sides to

+find his missing witness, followed me in slumber; and I would wake

+again with a start to darkness of spirit and distress of body.  I

+thought Andie seemed to observe me, but I paid him little heed.

+Verily, my bread was bitter to me, and my days a burthen.

+

+Early the next morning (Friday, 22nd) a boat came with provisions,

+and Andie placed a packet in my hand.  The cover was without

+address but sealed with a Government seal.  It enclosed two notes.

+"Mr. Balfour can now see for himself it is too late to meddle.  His

+conduct will be observed and his discretion rewarded."  So ran the

+first, which seemed to be laboriously writ with the left hand.

+There was certainly nothing in these expressions to compromise the

+writer, even if that person could be found; the seal, which

+formidably served instead of signature, was affixed to a separate

+sheet on which there was no scratch of writing; and I had to

+confess that (so far) my adversaries knew what they were doing, and

+to digest as well as I was able the threat that peeped under the

+promise.

+

+But the second enclosure was by far the more surprising.  It was in

+a lady's hand of writ.  "MAISTER DAUVIT BALFOUR IS INFORMED A

+FRIEND WAS SPEIRING FOR HIM AND HER EYES WERE OF THE GREY," it ran-

+-and seemed so extraordinary a piece to come to my hands at such a

+moment and under cover of a Government seal, that I stood stupid.

+Catriona's grey eyes shone in my remembrance.  I thought, with a

+bound of pleasure, she must be the friend.  But who should the

+writer be, to have her billet thus enclosed with Prestongrange's?

+And of all wonders, why was it thought needful to give me this

+pleasing but most inconsequent intelligence upon the Bass?  For the

+writer, I could hit upon none possible except Miss Grant.  Her

+family, I remembered, had remarked on Catriona's eyes and even

+named her for their colour; and she herself had been much in the

+habit to address me with a broad pronunciation, by way of a sniff,

+I supposed, at my rusticity.  No doubt, besides, but she lived in

+the same house as this letter came from.  So there remained but one

+step to be accounted for; and that was how Prestongrange should

+have permitted her at all in an affair so secret, or let her daft-

+like billet go in the same cover with his own.  But even here I had

+a glimmering.  For, first of all, there was something rather

+alarming about the young lady, and papa might be more under her

+domination than I knew.  And, second, there was the man's continual

+policy to be remembered, how his conduct had been continually

+mingled with caresses, and he had scarce ever, in the midst of so

+much contention, laid aside a mask of friendship.  He must conceive

+that my imprisonment had incensed me.  Perhaps this little jesting,

+friendly message was intended to disarm my rancour?

+

+I will be honest--and I think it did.  I felt a sudden warmth

+towards that beautiful Miss Grant, that she should stoop to so much

+interest in my affairs.  The summoning up of Catriona moved me of

+itself to milder and more cowardly counsels.  If the Advocate knew

+of her and our acquaintance--if I should please him by some of that

+"discretion" at which his letter pointed--to what might not this

+lead!  IN VAIN IS THE NET PREPARED IN THE SIGHT OF ANY FOWL, the

+Scripture says.  Well, fowls must be wiser than folk!  For I

+thought I perceived the policy, and yet fell in with it.

+

+I was in this frame, my heart beating, the grey eyes plain before

+me like two stars, when Andie broke in upon my musing.

+

+"I see ye has gotten guid news," said he.

+

+I found him looking curiously in my face; with that there came

+before me like a vision of James Stewart and the court of Inverary;

+and my mind turned at once like a door upon its hinges.  Trials, I

+reflected, sometimes draw out longer than is looked for.  Even if I

+came to Inverary just too late, something might yet be attempted in

+the interests of James--and in those of my own character, the best

+would be accomplished.  In a moment, it seemed without thought, I

+had a plan devised.

+

+"Andie," said I, "is it still to be to-morrow?"

+

+He told me nothing was changed.

+

+"Was anything said about the hour?" I asked.

+

+He told me it was to be two o'clock afternoon.

+

+"And about the place?" I pursued.

+

+"Whatten place?" says Andie.

+

+"The place I am to be landed at?" said I.

+

+He owned there was nothing as to that.

+

+"Very well, then," I said, "this shall be mine to arrange.  The

+wind is in the east, my road lies westward:  keep your boat, I hire

+it; let us work up the Forth all day; and land me at two o'clock

+to-morrow at the westmost we'll can have reached."

+

+"Ye daft callant!" he cried; "ye would try for Inverary after a'!"

+

+"Just that, Andie," says I.

+

+"Weel, ye're ill to beat!" says he.  "And I was a kind o' sorry for

+ye a' day yesterday," he added.  "Ye see, I was never entirely sure

+till then, which way of it ye really wantit."

+

+Here was a spur to a lame horse!

+

+"A word in your ear, Andie," said I.  "This plan of mine has

+another advantage yet.  We can leave these Hielandman behind us on

+the rock, and one of your boats from the Castleton can bring them

+off to-morrow.  Yon Neil has a queer eye when he regards you;

+maybe, if I was once out of the gate there might be knives again;

+these red-shanks are unco grudgeful.  And if there should come to

+be any question, here is your excuse.  Our lives were in danger by

+these savages; being answerable for my safety, you chose the part

+to bring me from their neighbourhood and detain me the rest of the

+time on board your boat:  and do you know, Andie?" says I, with a

+smile, "I think it was very wisely chosen,"

+

+"The truth is I have nae goo for Neil," says Andie, "nor he for me,

+I'm thinking; and I would like ill to come to my hands wi' the man.

+Tam Anster will make a better hand of it with the cattle onyway."

+(For this man, Anster, came from Fife, where the Gaelic is still

+spoken.)  "Ay, ay!" says Andie, "Tam'll can deal with them the

+best.  And troth! the mair I think of it, the less I see we would

+be required.  The place--ay, feggs! they had forgot the place.  Eh,

+Shaws, ye're a lang-heided chield when ye like!  Forby that I'm

+awing ye my life," he added, with more solemnity, and offered me

+his hand upon the bargain.

+

+Whereupon, with scarce more words, we stepped suddenly on board the

+boat, cast off, and set the lug.  The Gregara were then busy upon

+breakfast, for the cookery was their usual part; but, one of them

+stepping to the battlements, our flight was observed before we were

+twenty fathoms from the rock; and the three of them ran about the

+ruins and the landing-shelf, for all the world like ants about a

+broken nest, hailing and crying on us to return.  We were still in

+both the lee and the shadow of the rock, which last lay broad upon

+the waters, but presently came forth in almost the same moment into

+the wind and sunshine; the sail filled, the boat heeled to the

+gunwale, and we swept immediately beyond sound of the men's voices.

+To what terrors they endured upon the rock, where they were now

+deserted without the countenance of any civilised person or so much

+as the protection of a Bible, no limit can be set; nor had they any

+brandy left to be their consolation, for even in the haste and

+secrecy of our departure Andie had managed to remove it.

+

+It was our first care to set Anster ashore in a cove by the

+Glenteithy Rocks, so that the deliverance of our maroons might be

+duly seen to the next day.  Thence we kept away up Firth.  The

+breeze, which was then so spirited, swiftly declined, but never

+wholly failed us.  All day we kept moving, though often not much

+more; and it was after dark ere we were up with the Queensferry.

+To keep the letter of Andie's engagement (or what was left of it) I

+must remain on board, but I thought no harm to communicate with the

+shore in writing.  On Prestongrange's cover, where the Government

+seal must have a good deal surprised my correspondent, I writ, by

+the boat's lantern, a few necessary words, aboard and Andie carried

+them to Rankeillor.  In about an hour he came again, with a purse

+of money and the assurance that a good horse should be standing

+saddled for me by two to-morrow at Clackmannan Pool.  This done,

+and the boat riding by her stone anchor, we lay down to sleep under

+the sail.

+

+We were in the Pool the next day long ere two; and there was

+nothing left for me but to sit and wait.  I felt little alacrity

+upon my errand.  I would have been glad of any passable excuse to

+lay it down; but none being to be found, my uneasiness was no less

+great than if I had been running to some desired pleasure.  By

+shortly after one the horse was at the waterside, and I could see a

+man walking it to and fro till I should land, which vastly swelled

+my impatience.  Andie ran the moment of my liberation very fine,

+showing himself a man of his bare word, but scarce serving his

+employers with a heaped measure; and by about fifty seconds after

+two I was in the saddle and on the full stretch for Stirling.  In a

+little more than an hour I had passed that town, and was already

+mounting Alan Water side, when the weather broke in a small

+tempest.  The rain blinded me, the wind had nearly beat me from the

+saddle, and the first darkness of the night surprised me in a

+wilderness still some way east of Balwhidder, not very sure of my

+direction and mounted on a horse that began already to be weary.

+

+In the press of my hurry, and to be spared the delay and annoyance

+of a guide, I had followed (so far as it was possible for any

+horseman) the line of my journey with Alan.  This I did with open

+eyes, foreseeing a great risk in it, which the tempest had now

+brought to a reality.  The last that I knew of where I was, I think

+it must have been about Uam Var; the hour perhaps six at night.  I

+must still think it great good fortune that I got about eleven to

+my destination, the house of Duncan Dhu.  Where I had wandered in

+the interval perhaps the horse could tell.  I know we were twice

+down, and once over the saddle and for a moment carried away in a

+roaring burn.  Steed and rider were bemired up to the eyes.

+

+From Duncan I had news of the trial.  It was followed in all these

+Highland regions with religious interest; news of it spread from

+Inverary as swift as men could travel; and I was rejoiced to learn

+that, up to a late hour that Saturday it was not yet concluded; and

+all men began to suppose it must spread over the Monday.  Under the

+spur of this intelligence I would not sit to eat; but, Duncan

+having agreed to be my guide, took the road again on foot, with the

+piece in my hand and munching as I went.  Duncan brought with him a

+flask of usquebaugh and a hand-lantern; which last enlightened us

+just so long as we could find houses where to rekindle it, for the

+thing leaked outrageously and blew out with every gust.  The more

+part of the night we walked blindfold among sheets of rain, and day

+found us aimless on the mountains.  Hard by we struck a hut on a

+burn-side, where we got bite and a direction; and, a little before

+the end of the sermon, came to the kirk doors of Inverary.

+

+The rain had somewhat washed the upper parts of me, but I was still

+bogged as high as to the knees; I streamed water; I was so weary I

+could hardly limp, and my face was like a ghost's.  I stood

+certainly more in need of a change of raiment and a bed to lie on,

+than of all the benefits in Christianity.  For all which (being

+persuaded the chief point for me was to make myself immediately

+public) I set the door of the church with the dirty Duncan at my

+tails, and finding a vacant place sat down.

+

+"Thirteently, my brethren, and in parenthesis, the law itself must

+be regarded as a means of grace," the minister was saying, in the

+voice of one delighting to pursue an argument.

+

+The sermon was in English on account of the assize.  The judges

+were present with their armed attendants, the halberts glittered in

+a corner by the door, and the seats were thronged beyond custom

+with the array of lawyers.  The text was in Romans 5th and 13th--

+the minister a skilled hand; and the whole of that able churchful--

+from Argyle, and my Lords Elchies and Kilkerran, down to the

+halbertmen that came in their attendance--was sunk with gathered

+brows in a profound critical attention.  The minister himself and a

+sprinkling of those about the door observed our entrance at the

+moment and immediately forgot the same; the rest either did not

+hear or would not hear or would not be heard; and I sat amongst my

+friends and enemies unremarked.

+

+The first that I singled out was Prestongrange.  He sat well

+forward, like an eager horseman in the saddle, his lips moving with

+relish, his eyes glued on the minister; the doctrine was clearly to

+his mind.  Charles Stewart, on the other hand, was half asleep, and

+looked harassed and pale.  As for Simon Fraser, he appeared like a

+blot, and almost a scandal, in the midst of that attentive

+congregation, digging his hands in his pockets, shifting his legs,

+clearing his throat, and rolling up his bald eyebrows and shooting

+out his eyes to right and left, now with a yawn, now with a secret

+smile.  At times, too, he would take the Bible in front of him, run

+it through, seem to read a bit, run it through again, and stop and

+yawn prodigiously:  the whole as if for exercise.

+

+In the course of this restlessness his eye alighted on myself.  He

+sat a second stupefied, then tore a half-leaf out of the Bible,

+scrawled upon it with a pencil, and passed it with a whispered word

+to his next neighbour.  The note came to Prestongrange, who gave me

+but the one look; thence it voyaged to the hands of Mr. Erskine;

+thence again to Argyle, where he sat between the other two lords of

+session, and his Grace turned and fixed me with an arrogant eye.

+The last of those interested in my presence was Charlie Stewart,

+and he too began to pencil and hand about dispatches, none of which

+I was able to trace to their destination in the crowd.

+

+But the passage of these notes had aroused notice; all who were in

+the secret (or supposed themselves to be so) were whispering

+information--the rest questions; and the minister himself seemed

+quite discountenanced by the flutter in the church and sudden stir

+and whispering.  His voice changed, he plainly faltered, nor did he

+again recover the easy conviction and full tones of his delivery.

+It would be a puzzle to him till his dying day, why a sermon that

+had gone with triumph through four parts, should this miscarry in

+the fifth.

+

+As for me, I continued to sit there, very wet and weary, and a good

+deal anxious as to what should happen next, but greatly exulting in

+my success.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII--THE MEMORIAL

+

+

+

+The last word of the blessing was scarce out of the minister's

+mouth before Stewart had me by the arm.  We were the first to be

+forth of the church, and he made such extraordinary expedition that

+we were safe within the four walls of a house before the street had

+begun to be thronged with the home-going congregation.

+

+"Am I yet in time?" I asked.

+

+"Ay and no," said he.  "The case is over; the jury is enclosed, and

+will so kind as let us ken their view of it to-morrow in the

+morning, the same as I could have told it my own self three days

+ago before the play began.  The thing has been public from the

+start.  The panel kent it, 'YE MAY DO WHAT YE WILL FOR ME,'

+whispers he two days ago.  'YE KEN MY FATE BY WHAT THE DUKE OF

+ARGYLE HAS JUST SAID TO MR. MACINTOSH.'  O, it's been a scandal!

+

+

+"The great Agyle he gaed before,

+He gart the cannons and guns to roar,"

+

+

+and the very macer cried 'Cruachan!'  But now that I have got you

+again I'll never despair.  The oak shall go over the myrtle yet;

+we'll ding the Campbells yet in their own town.  Praise God that I

+should see the day!"

+

+He was leaping with excitement, emptied out his mails upon the

+floor that I might have a change of clothes, and incommoded me with

+his assistance as I changed.  What remained to be done, or how I

+was to do it, was what he never told me nor, I believe, so much as

+thought of.  "We'll ding the Campbells yet!" that was still his

+overcome.  And it was forced home upon my mind how this, that had

+the externals of a sober process of law, was in its essence a clan

+battle between savage clans.  I thought my friend the Writer none

+of the least savage.  Who that had only seen him at a counsel's

+back before the Lord Ordinary or following a golf ball and laying

+down his clubs on Bruntsfield links, could have recognised for the

+same person this voluble and violent clansman?

+

+James Stewart's counsel were four in number--Sheriffs Brown of

+Colstoun and Miller, Mr. Robert Macintosh, and Mr. Stewart younger

+of Stewart Hall.  These were covenanted to dine with the Writer

+after sermon, and I was very obligingly included of the party.  No

+sooner the cloth lifted, and the first bowl very artfully

+compounded by Sheriff Miller, than we fell to the subject in hand.

+I made a short narration of my seizure and captivity, and was then

+examined and re-examined upon the circumstances of the murder.  It

+will be remembered this was the first time I had had my say out, or

+the matter at all handled, among lawyers; and the consequence was

+very dispiriting to the others and (I must own) disappointing to

+myself.

+

+"To sum up," said Colstoun, "you prove that Alan was on the spot;

+you have heard him proffer menaces against Glenure; and though you

+assure us he was not the man who fired, you leave a strong

+impression that he was in league with him, and consenting, perhaps

+immediately assisting, in the act.  You show him besides, at the

+risk of his own liberty, actively furthering the criminal's escape.

+And the rest of your testimony (so far as the least material)

+depends on the bare word of Alan or of James, the two accused.  In

+short, you do not at all break, but only lengthen by one personage,

+the chain that binds our client to the murderer; and I need

+scarcely say that the introduction of a third accomplice rather

+aggravates that appearance of a conspiracy which has been our

+stumbling block from the beginning."

+

+"I am of the same opinion," said Sheriff Miller.  "I think we may

+all be very much obliged to Prestongrange for taking a most

+uncomfortable witness out of our way.  And chiefly, I think, Mr.

+Balfour himself might be obliged.  For you talk of a third

+accomplice, but Mr. Balfour (in my view) has very much the

+appearance of a fourth."

+

+"Allow me, sirs!" interposed Stewart the Writer.  "There is another

+view.  Here we have a witness--never fash whether material or not--

+a witness in this cause, kidnapped by that old, lawless, bandit

+crew of the Glengyle Macgregors, and sequestered for near upon a

+month in a bourock of old ruins on the Bass.  Move that and see

+what dirt you fling on the proceedings!  Sirs, this is a tale to

+make the world ring with!  It would be strange, with such a grip as

+this, if we couldnae squeeze out a pardon for my client."

+

+"And suppose we took up Mr. Balfour's cause to-morrow?" said

+Stewart Hall.  "I am much deceived or we should find so many

+impediments thrown in our path, as that James should have been

+hanged before we had found a court to hear us.  This is a great

+scandal, but I suppose we have none of us forgot a greater still, I

+mean the matter of the Lady Grange.  The woman was still in

+durance; my friend Mr. Hope of Rankeillor did what was humanly

+possible; and how did he speed? He never got a warrant!  Well,

+it'll be the same now; the same weapons will be used.  This is a

+scene, gentleman, of clan animosity.  The hatred of the name which

+I have the honour to bear, rages in high quarters.  There is

+nothing here to be viewed but naked Campbell spite and scurvy

+Campbell intrigue."

+

+You may be sure this was to touch a welcome topic, and I sat for

+some time in the midst of my learned counsel, almost deaved with

+their talk but extremely little the wiser for its purport.  The

+Writer was led into some hot expressions; Colstoun must take him up

+and set him right; the rest joined in on different sides, but all

+pretty noisy; the Duke of Argyle was beaten like a blanket; King

+George came in for a few digs in the by-going and a great deal of

+rather elaborate defence; and there was only one person that seemed

+to be forgotten, and that was James of the Glens.

+

+Through all this Mr. Miller sat quiet.  He was a slip of an oldish

+gentleman, ruddy and twinkling; he spoke in a smooth rich voice,

+with an infinite effect of pawkiness, dealing out each word the way

+an actor does, to give the most expression possible; and even now,

+when he was silent, and sat there with his wig laid aside, his

+glass in both hands, his mouth funnily pursed, and his chin out, he

+seemed the mere picture of a merry slyness.  It was plain he had a

+word to say, and waited for the fit occasion.

+

+It came presently.  Colstoun had wound up one of his speeches with

+some expression of their duty to their client.  His brother sheriff

+was pleased, I suppose, with the transition.  He took the table in

+his confidence with a gesture and a look.

+

+"That suggests to me a consideration which seems overlooked," said

+he.  "The interest of our client goes certainly before all, but the

+world does not come to an end with James Stewart."  Whereat he

+cocked his eye.  "I might condescend, exempli gratia, upon a Mr.

+George Brown, a Mr. Thomas Miller, and a Mr. David Balfour.  Mr.

+David Balfour has a very good ground of complaint, and I think,

+gentlemen--if his story was properly redd out--I think there would

+be a number of wigs on the green."

+

+The whole table turned to him with a common movement.

+

+"Properly handled and carefully redd out, his is a story that could

+scarcely fail to have some consequence," he continued.  "The whole

+administration of justice, from its highest officer downward, would

+be totally discredited; and it looks to me as if they would need to

+be replaced."  He seemed to shine with cunning as he said it.  "And

+I need not point out to ye that this of Mr. Balfour's would be a

+remarkable bonny cause to appear in," he added.

+

+Well, there they all were started on another hare; Mr. Balfour's

+cause, and what kind of speeches could be there delivered, and what

+officials could be thus turned out, and who would succeed to their

+positions.  I shall give but the two specimens.  It was proposed to

+approach Simon Fraser, whose testimony, if it could be obtained,

+would prove certainly fatal to Argyle and to Prestongrange.  Miller

+highly approved of the attempt.  "We have here before us a dreeping

+roast," said he, "here is cut-and-come-again for all."  And

+methought all licked their lips.  The other was already near the

+end.  Stewart the Writer was out of the body with delight, smelling

+vengeance on his chief enemy, the Duke.

+

+"Gentlemen," cried he, charging his glass, "here is to Sheriff

+Miller.  His legal abilities are known to all.  His culinary, this

+bowl in front of us is here to speak for.  But when it comes to the

+poleetical!"--cries he, and drains the glass.

+

+"Ay, but it will hardly prove politics in your meaning, my friend,"

+said the gratified Miller.  "A revolution, if you like, and I think

+I can promise you that historical writers shall date from Mr.

+Balfour's cause.  But properly guided, Mr. Stewart, tenderly

+guided, it shall prove a peaceful revolution."

+

+"And if the damned Campbells get their ears rubbed, what care I?"

+cries Stewart, smiting down his fist.

+

+It will be thought I was not very well pleased with all this,

+though I could scarce forbear smiling at a kind of innocency in

+these old intriguers.  But it was not my view to have undergone so

+many sorrows for the advancement of Sheriff Miller or to make a

+revolution in the Parliament House:  and I interposed accordingly

+with as much simplicity of manner as I could assume.

+

+"I have to thank you, gentlemen, for your advice," said I.  "And

+now I would like, by your leave, to set you two or three questions.

+There is one thing that has fallen rather on one aide, for

+instance:  Will this cause do any good to our friend James of the

+Glens?"

+

+They seemed all a hair set back, and gave various answers, but

+concurring practically in one point, that James had now no hope but

+in the King's mercy.

+

+"To proceed, then," said I, "will it do any good to Scotland?  We

+have a saying that it is an ill bird that fouls his own nest.  I

+remember hearing we had a riot in Edinburgh when I was an infant

+child, which gave occasion to the late Queen to call this country

+barbarous; and I always understood that we had rather lost than

+gained by that.  Then came the year 'Forty-five, which made

+Scotland to be talked of everywhere; but I never heard it said we

+had anyway gained by the 'Forty-five.  And now we come to this

+cause of Mr. Balfour's, as you call it.  Sheriff Miller tells us

+historical writers are to date from it, and I would not wonder.  It

+is only my fear they would date from it as a period of calamity and

+public reproach."

+

+The nimble-witted Miller had already smelt where I was travelling

+to, and made haste to get on the same road.  "Forcibly put, Mr.

+Balfour," says he.  "A weighty observe, sir."

+

+"We have next to ask ourselves if it will be good for King George,"

+I pursued.  "Sheriff Miller appears pretty easy upon this; but I

+doubt you will scarce be able to pull down the house from under

+him, without his Majesty coming by a knock or two, one of which

+might easily prove fatal."

+

+I have them a chance to answer, but none volunteered.

+

+"Of those for whom the case was to be profitable," I went on,

+"Sheriff Miller gave us the names of several, among the which he

+was good enough to mention mine.  I hope he will pardon me if I

+think otherwise.  I believe I hung not the least back in this

+affair while there was life to be saved; but I own I thought myself

+extremely hazarded, and I own I think it would be a pity for a

+young man, with some idea of coming to the Bar, to ingrain upon

+himself the character of a turbulent, factious fellow before he was

+yet twenty.  As for James, it seems--at this date of the

+proceedings, with the sentence as good as pronounced--he has no

+hope but in the King's mercy.  May not his Majesty, then, be more

+pointedly addressed, the characters of these high officers

+sheltered from the public, and myself kept out of a position which

+I think spells ruin for me?"

+

+They all sat and gazed into their glasses, and I could see they

+found my attitude on the affair unpalatable.  But Miller was ready

+at all events.

+

+"If I may be allowed to put my young friend's notion in more formal

+shape," says he, "I understand him to propose that we should embody

+the fact of his sequestration, and perhaps some heads of the

+testimony he was prepared to offer, in a memorial to the Crown.

+This plan has elements of success.  It is as likely as any other

+(and perhaps likelier) to help our client.  Perhaps his Majesty

+would have the goodness to feel a certain gratitude to all

+concerned in such a memorial, which might be construed into an

+expression of a very delicate loyalty; and I think, in the drafting

+of the same, this view might be brought forward."

+

+They all nodded to each other, not without sighs, for the former

+alternative was doubtless more after their inclination.

+

+"Paper, then, Mr. Stewart, if you please," pursued Miller; "and I

+think it might very fittingly be signed by the five of us here

+present, as procurators for the condemned man."'

+

+"It can do none of us any harm, at least," says Colstoun, heaving

+another sigh, for he had seen himself Lord Advocate the last ten

+minutes.

+

+Thereupon they set themselves, not very enthusiastically, to draft

+the memorial--a process in the course of which they soon caught

+fire; and I had no more ado but to sit looking on and answer an

+occasional question.  The paper was very well expressed; beginning

+with a recitation of the facts about myself, the reward offered for

+my apprehension, my surrender, the pressure brought to bear upon

+me; my sequestration; and my arrival at Inverary in time to be too

+late; going on to explain the reasons of loyalty and public

+interest for which it was agreed to waive any right of action; and

+winding up with a forcible appeal to the King's mercy on behalf of

+James.

+

+Methought I was a good deal sacrificed, and rather represented in

+the light of a firebrand of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had

+restrained with difficulty from extremes.  But I let it pass, and

+made but the one suggestion, that I should be described as ready to

+deliver my own evidence and adduce that of others before any

+commission of inquiry--and the one demand, that I should be

+immediately furnished with a copy.

+

+Colstoun hummed and hawed.  "This is a very confidential document,"

+said he.

+

+"And my position towards Prestongrange is highly peculiar," I

+replied.  "No question but I must have touched his heart at our

+first interview, so that he has since stood my friend consistently.

+But for him, gentlemen, I must now be lying dead or awaiting my

+sentence alongside poor James.  For which reason I choose to

+communicate to him the fact of this memorial as soon as it is

+copied.  You are to consider also that this step will make for my

+protection.  I have enemies here accustomed to drive hard; his

+Grace is in his own country, Lovat by his side; and if there should

+hang any ambiguity over our proceedings I think I might very well

+awake in gaol."

+

+Not finding any very ready answer to these considerations, my

+company of advisers were at the last persuaded to consent, and made

+only this condition that I was to lay the paper before

+Prestongrange with the express compliments of all concerned.

+

+The Advocate was at the castle dining with his Grace.  By the hand

+of one of Colstoun's servants I sent him a billet asking for an

+interview, and received a summons to meet him at once in a private

+house of the town.  Here I found him alone in a chamber; from his

+face there was nothing to be gleaned; yet I was not so unobservant

+but what I spied some halberts in the hall, and not so stupid but

+what I could gather he was prepared to arrest me there and then,

+should it appear advisable.

+

+"So, Mr. David, this is you?" said he.

+

+"Where I fear I am not overly welcome, my lord," said I.  "And I

+would like before I go further to express my sense of your

+lordship's good offices, even should they now cease."

+

+"I have heard of your gratitude before," he replied drily, "and I

+think this can scarce be the matter you called me from my wine to

+listen to.  I would remember also, if I were you, that you still

+stand on a very boggy foundation."

+

+"Not now, my lord, I think," said I; "and if your lordship will but

+glance an eye along this, you will perhaps think as I do."

+

+He read it sedulously through, frowning heavily; then turned back

+to one part and another which he seemed to weigh and compare the

+effect of.  His face a little lightened.

+

+"This is not so bad but what it might be worse," said he; "though I

+am still likely to pay dear for my acquaintance with Mr. David

+Balfour."

+

+"Rather for your indulgence to that unlucky young man, my lord,"

+said I.

+

+He still skimmed the paper, and all the while his spirits seemed to

+mend.

+

+"And to whom am I indebted for this?" he asked presently.  "Other

+counsels must have been discussed, I think.  Who was it proposed

+this private method?  Was it Miller?"

+

+"My lord, it was myself," said I.  "These gentlemen have shown me

+no such consideration, as that I should deny myself any credit I

+can fairly claim, or spare them any responsibility they should

+properly bear.  And the mere truth is, that they were all in favour

+of a process which should have remarkable consequences in the

+Parliament House, and prove for them (in one of their own

+expressions) a dripping roast.  Before I intervened, I think they

+were on the point of sharing out the different law appointments.

+Our friend Mr. Simon was to be taken in upon some composition."

+

+Prestongrange smiled.  "These are our friends," said he.  "And what

+were your reasons for dissenting, Mr. David?"

+

+I told them without concealment, expressing, however, with more

+force and volume those which regarded Prestongrange himself.

+

+"You do me no more than justice," said he.  "I have fought as hard

+in your interest as you have fought against mine.  And how came you

+here to-day?" he asked.  "As the case drew out, I began to grow

+uneasy that I had clipped the period so fine, and I was even

+expecting you to-morrow.  But to-day--I never dreamed of it."

+

+I was not of course, going to betray Andie.

+

+"I suspect there is some very weary cattle by the road," said I

+

+"If I had known you were such a mosstrooper you should have tasted

+longer of the Bass," says he.

+

+"Speaking of which, my lord, I return your letter."  And I gave him

+the enclosure in the counterfeit hand.

+

+"There was the cover also with the seal," said he.

+

+"I have it not," said I.  "It bore not even an address, and could

+not compromise a cat.  The second enclosure I have, and with your

+permission, I desire to keep it."

+

+I thought he winced a little, but he said nothing to the point.

+"To-morrow," he resumed, "our business here is to be finished, and

+I proceed by Glasgow.  I would be very glad to have you of my

+party, Mr David."

+

+"My lord . . ." I began.

+

+"I do not deny it will be of service to me," he interrupted.  "I

+desire even that, when we shall come to Edinburgh, you should

+alight at my house.  You have very warm friends in the Miss Grants,

+who will be overjoyed to have you to themselves.  If you think I

+have been of use to you, you can thus easily repay me, and so far

+from losing, may reap some advantage by the way.  It is not every

+strange young man who is presented in society by the King's

+Advocate."

+

+Often enough already (in our brief relations) this gentleman had

+caused my head to spin; no doubt but what for a moment he did so

+again now.  Here was the old fiction still maintained of my

+particular favour with his daughters, one of whom had been so good

+as to laugh at me, while the other two had scarce deigned to remark

+the fact of my existence.  And now I was to ride with my lord to

+Glasgow; I was to dwell with him in Edinburgh; I was to be brought

+into society under his protection!  That he should have so much

+good-nature as to forgive me was surprising enough; that he could

+wish to take me up and serve me seemed impossible; and I began to

+seek some ulterior meaning.  One was plain.  If I became his guest,

+repentance was excluded; I could never think better of my present

+design and bring any action.  And besides, would not my presence in

+his house draw out the whole pungency of the memorial?  For that

+complaint could not be very seriously regarded, if the person

+chiefly injured was the guest of the official most incriminated.

+As I thought upon this I could not quite refrain from smiling.

+

+"This is in the nature of a countercheck to the memorial?" said I.

+

+"You are cunning, Mr. David," said he, "and you do not wholly guess

+wrong the fact will be of use to me in my defence.  Perhaps,

+however, you underrate friendly sentiments, which are perfectly

+genuine.  I have a respect for you, David, mingled with awe," says

+he, smiling.

+

+"I am more than willing, I am earnestly desirous to meet your

+wishes," said I.  "It is my design to be called to the Bar, where

+your lordship's countenance would be invaluable; and I am besides

+sincerely grateful to yourself and family for different marks of

+interest and of indulgence.  The difficulty is here.  There is one

+point in which we pull two ways.  You are trying to hang James

+Stewart, I am trying to save him.  In so far as my riding with you

+would better your lordship's defence, I am at your lordships

+orders; but in so far as it would help to hang James Stewart, you

+see me at a stick."

+

+I thought he swore to himself.  "You should certainly be called;

+the Bar is the true scene for your talents," says he, bitterly, and

+then fell a while silent.  "I will tell you," he presently resumed,

+"there is no question of James Stewart, for or against, James is a

+dead man; his life is given and taken--bought (if you like it

+better) and sold; no memorial can help--no defalcation of a

+faithful Mr. David hurt him.  Blow high, blow low, there will be no

+pardon for James Stewart:  and take that for said!  The question is

+now of myself:  am I to stand or fall? and I do not deny to you

+that I am in some danger.  But will Mr. David Balfour consider why?

+It is not because I pushed the case unduly against James; for that,

+I am sure of condonation.  And it is not because I have sequestered

+Mr. David on a rock, though it will pass under that colour; but

+because I did not take the ready and plain path, to which I was

+pressed repeatedly, and send Mr. David to his grave or to the

+gallows.  Hence the scandal--hence this damned memorial," striking

+the paper on his leg.  "My tenderness for you has brought me in

+this difficulty.  I wish to know if your tenderness to your own

+conscience is too great to let you help me out of it."

+

+No doubt but there was much of the truth in what he said; if James

+was past helping, whom was it more natural that I should turn to

+help than just the man before me, who had helped myself so often,

+and was even now setting me a pattern of patience?  I was besides

+not only weary, but beginning to be ashamed, of my perpetual

+attitude of suspicion and refusal

+

+"If you will name the time and place, I will be punctually ready to

+attend your lordship," said I.

+

+He shook hands with me.  "And I think my misses have some news for

+you," says he, dismissing me.

+

+I came away, vastly pleased to have my peace made, yet a little

+concerned in conscience; nor could I help wondering, as I went

+back, whether, perhaps, I had not been a scruple too good-natured.

+But there was the fact, that this was a man that might have been my

+father, an able man, a great dignitary, and one that, in the hour

+of my need, had reached a hand to my assistance.  I was in the

+better humour to enjoy the remainder of that evening, which I

+passed with the advocates, in excellent company no doubt, but

+perhaps with rather more than a sufficiency of punch:  for though I

+went early to bed I have no clear mind of how I got there.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII--THE TEE'D BALL

+

+

+

+On the morrow, from the justices' private room, where none could

+see me, I heard the verdict given in and judgment rendered upon

+James.  The Duke's words I am quite sure I have correctly; and

+since that famous passage has been made a subject of dispute, I may

+as well commemorate my version.  Having referred to the year '45,

+the chief of the Campbells, sitting as Justice-General upon the

+bench, thus addressed the unfortunate Stewart before him:  "If you

+had been successful in that rebellion, you might have been giving

+the law where you have now received the judgment of it; we, who are

+this day your judges, might have been tried before one of your mock

+courts of judicature; and then you might have been satiated with

+the blood of any name or clan to which you had an aversion."

+

+"This is to let the cat out of the bag, indeed," thought I.  And

+that was the general impression.  It was extraordinary how the

+young advocate lads took hold and made a mock of this speech, and

+how scarce a meal passed but what someone would get in the words:

+"And then you might have been satiated."  Many songs were made in

+time for the hour's diversion, and are near all forgot.  I remember

+one began:

+

+

+"What do ye want the bluid of, bluid of?

+Is it a name, or is it a clan,

+Or is it an aefauld Hielandman,

+That ye want the bluid of, bluid of?"

+

+

+Another went to my old favourite air, The House of Airlie, and

+began thus:

+

+

+"It fell on a day when Argyle was on the bench,

+That they served him a Stewart for his denner."

+

+

+And one of the verses ran:

+

+

+"Then up and spak' the Duke, and flyted on his cook,

+I regard it as a sensible aspersion,

+That I would sup ava', an' satiate my maw,

+With the bluid of ony clan of my aversion."

+

+

+James was as fairly murdered as though the Duke had got a fowling-

+piece and stalked him.  So much of course I knew:  but others knew

+not so much, and were more affected by the items of scandal that

+came to light in the progress of the cause.  One of the chief was

+certainly this sally of the justice's.  It was run hard by another

+of a juryman, who had struck into the midst of Coulston's speech

+for the defence with a "Pray, sir, cut it short, we are quite

+weary," which seemed the very excess of impudence and simplicity.

+But some of my new lawyer friends were still more staggered with an

+innovation that had disgraced and even vitiated the proceedings.

+One witness was never called.  His name, indeed, was printed, where

+it may still be seen on the fourth page of the list:  "James

+Drummond, alias Macgregor, alias James More, late tenant in

+Inveronachile"; and his precognition had been taken, as the manner

+is, in writing.  He had remembered or invented (God help him)

+matter which was lead in James Stewart's shoes, and I saw was like

+to prove wings to his own.  This testimony it was highly desirable

+to bring to the notice of the jury, without exposing the man

+himself to the perils of cross-examination; and the way it was

+brought about was a matter of surprise to all.  For the paper was

+handed round (like a curiosity) in court; passed through the jury-

+box, where it did its work; and disappeared again (as though by

+accident) before it reached the counsel for the prisoner.  This was

+counted a most insidious device; and that the name of James More

+should be mingled up with it filled me with shame for Catriona and

+concern for myself.

+

+The following day, Prestongrange and I, with a considerable

+company, set out for Glasgow, where (to my impatience) we continued

+to linger some time in a mixture of pleasure and affairs.  I lodged

+with my lord, with whom I was encouraged to familiarity; had my

+place at entertainments; was presented to the chief guests; and

+altogether made more of than I thought accorded either with my

+parts or station; so that, on strangers being present, I would

+often blush for Prestongrange.  It must be owned the view I had

+taken of the world in these last months was fit to cast a gloom

+upon my character.  I had met many men, some of them leaders in

+Israel whether by their birth or talents; and who among them all

+had shown clean hands?  As for the Browns and Millers, I had seen

+their self-seeking, I could never again respect them.

+Prestongrange was the best yet; he had saved me, spared me rather,

+when others had it in their minds to murder me outright; but the

+blood of James lay at his door; and I thought his present

+dissimulation with myself a thing below pardon.  That he should

+affect to find pleasure in my discourse almost surprised me out of

+my patience.  I would sit and watch him with a kind of a slow fire

+of anger in my bowels.  "Ah, friend, friend," I would think to

+myself, "if you were but through with this affair of the memorial,

+would you not kick me in the streets?"  Here I did him, as events

+have proved, the most grave injustice; and I think he was at once

+far more sincere, and a far more artful performer, than I supposed.

+

+But I had some warrant for my incredulity in the behaviour of that

+court of young advocates that hung about in the hope of patronage.

+The sudden favour of a lad not previously heard of troubled them at

+first out of measure; but two days were not gone by before I found

+myself surrounded with flattery and attention.  I was the same

+young man, and neither better nor bonnier, that they had rejected a

+month before; and now there was no civility too fine for me!  The

+same, do I say?  It was not so; and the by-name by which I went

+behind my back confirmed it.  Seeing me so firm with the Advocate,

+and persuaded that I was to fly high and far, they had taken a word

+from the golfing green, and called me THE TEE'D BALL. {14}  I was

+told I was now "one of themselves"; I was to taste of their soft

+lining, who had already made my own experience of the roughness of

+the outer husk; and one, to whom I had been presented in Hope Park,

+was so aspired as even to remind me of that meeting.  I told him I

+had not the pleasure of remembering it.

+

+"Why" says he, "it was Miss Grant herself presented me!  My name is

+so-and-so."

+

+"It may very well be, sir," said I; "but I have kept no mind of

+it."

+

+At which he desisted; and in the midst of the disgust that commonly

+overflowed my spirits I had a glisk of pleasure.

+

+But I have not patience to dwell upon that time at length.  When I

+was in company with these young politics I was borne down with

+shame for myself and my own plain ways, and scorn for them and

+their duplicity.  Of the two evils, I thought Prestongrange to be

+the least; and while I was always as stiff as buckram to the young

+bloods, I made rather a dissimulation of my hard feelings towards

+the Advocate, and was (in old Mr. Campbell's word) "soople to the

+laird."  Himself commented on the difference, and bid me be more of

+my age, and make friends with my young comrades.

+

+I told him I was slow of making friends.

+

+"I will take the word back," said he.  "But there is such a thing

+as FAIR GUDE S'EN AND FAIR GUDE DAY, Mr. David.  These are the same

+young men with whom you are to pass your days and get through life:

+your backwardness has a look of arrogance; and unless you can

+assume a little more lightness of manner, I fear you will meet

+difficulties in the path."

+

+"It will be an ill job to make a silk purse of a sow's ear," said

+I.

+

+On the morning of October 1st I was awakened by the clattering in

+of an express; and getting to my window almost before he had

+dismounted, I saw the messenger had ridden hard.  Somewhile after I

+was called to Prestongrange, where he was sitting in his bedgown

+and nightcap, with his letters round him.

+

+"Mr. David," add he, "I have a piece of news for you.  It concerns

+some friends of yours, of whom I sometimes think you are a little

+ashamed, for you have never referred to their existence."

+

+I suppose I blushed.

+

+"See you understand, since you make the answering signal," said he.

+"And I must compliment you on your excellent taste in beauty.  But

+do you know, Mr. David? this seems to me a very enterprising lass.

+She crops up from every side.  The Government of Scotland appears

+unable to proceed for Mistress Katrine Drummond, which was somewhat

+the case (no great while back) with a certain Mr. David Balfour.

+Should not these make a good match?  Her first intromission in

+politics--but I must not tell you that story, the authorities have

+decided you are to hear it otherwise and from a livelier narrator.

+This new example is more serious, however; and I am afraid I must

+alarm you with the intelligence that she is now in prison."

+

+I cried out.

+

+"Yes," said he, "the little lady is in prison.  But I would not

+have you to despair.  Unless you (with your friends and memorials)

+shall procure my downfall, she is to suffer nothing."

+

+"But what has she done?  What is her offence?" I cried.

+

+"It might be almost construed a high treason," he returned, "for

+she has broke the king's Castle of Edinburgh."

+

+"The lady is much my friend," I said.  "I know you would not mock

+me if the thing were serious."

+

+"And yet it is serious in a sense," said he; "for this rogue of a

+Katrine--or Cateran, as we may call her--has set adrift again upon

+the world that very doubtful character, her papa."

+

+Here was one of my previsions justified:  James More was once again

+at liberty.  He had lent his men to keep me a prisoner; he had

+volunteered his testimony in the Appin case, and the same (no

+matter by what subterfuge) had been employed to influence the jury.

+Now came his reward, and he was free.  It might please the

+authorities to give to it the colour of an escape; but I knew

+better--I knew it must be the fulfilment of a bargain.  The same

+course of thought relieved me of the least alarm for Catriona.  She

+might be thought to have broke prison for her father; she might

+have believed so herself.  But the chief hand in the whole business

+was that of Prestongrange; and I was sure, so far from letting her

+come to punishment, he would not suffer her to be even tried.

+Whereupon thus came out of me the not very politic ejaculation:

+

+"Ah! I was expecting that!"

+

+"You have at times a great deal of discretion, too!" says

+Prestongrange.

+

+"And what is my lord pleased to mean by that?" I asked.

+

+"I was just marvelling", he replied, "that being so clever as to

+draw these inferences, you should not be clever enough to keep them

+to yourself.  But I think you would like to hear the details of the

+affair.  I have received two versions:  and the least official is

+the more full and far the more entertaining, being from the lively

+pen of my eldest daughter.  'Here is all the town bizzing with a

+fine piece of work,' she writes, 'and what would make the thing

+more noted (if it were only known) the malefactor is a protegee of

+his lordship my papa.  I am sure your heart is too much in your

+duty (if it were nothing else) to have forgotten Grey Eyes.  What

+does she do, but get a broad hat with the flaps open, a long hairy-

+like man's greatcoat, and a big gravatt; kilt her coats up to GUDE

+KENS WHAUR, clap two pair of boot-hose upon her legs, take a pair

+of CLOUTED BROGUES {15} in her hand, and off to the Castle!  Here

+she gives herself out to be a soutar {16} in the employ of James

+More, and gets admitted to his cell, the lieutenant (who seems to

+have been full of pleasantry) making sport among his soldiers of

+the soutar's greatcoat.  Presently they hear disputation and the

+sound of blows inside.  Out flies the cobbler, his coat flying, the

+flaps of his hat beat about his face, and the lieutenant and his

+soldiers mock at him as he runs off.  They laughed no so hearty the

+next time they had occasion to visit the cell and found nobody but

+a tall, pretty, grey-eyed lass in the female habit!  As for the

+cobbler, he was 'over the hills ayout Dumblane,' and it's thought

+that poor Scotland will have to console herself without him.  I

+drank Catriona's health this night in public.

+

+Indeed, the whole town admires her; and I think the beaux would

+wear bits of her garters in their button-holes if they could only

+get them.  I would have gone to visit her in prison too, only I

+remembered in time I was papa's daughter; so I wrote her a billet

+instead, which I entrusted to the faithful Doig, and I hope you

+will admit I can be political when I please.  The same faithful

+gomeral is to despatch this letter by the express along with those

+of the wiseacres, so that you may hear Tom Fool in company with

+Solomon.  Talking of GOMERALS, do tell DAUVIT BALFOUR.  I would I

+could see the face of him at the thought of a long-legged lass in

+such a predicament; to say nothing of the levities of your

+affectionate daughter, and his respectful friend.'  So my rascal

+signs herself!" continued Prestongrange.  "And you see, Mr. David,

+it is quite true what I tell you, that my daughters regard you with

+the most affectionate playfulness."

+

+"The gomeral is much obliged," said I.

+

+"And was not this prettily done!" he went on.  "Is not this

+Highland maid a piece of a heroine?"

+

+"I was always sure she had a great heart," said I.  "And I wager

+she guessed nothing . . . But I beg your pardon, this is to tread

+upon forbidden subjects."

+

+"I will go bail she did not," he returned, quite openly.  "I will

+go bail she thought she was flying straight into King George's

+face."

+

+Remembrance of Catriona and the thought of her lying in captivity,

+moved me strangely.  I could see that even Prestongrange admired,

+and could not withhold his lips from smiling when he considered her

+behaviour.  As for Miss Grant, for all her ill habit of mockery,

+her admiration shone out plain.  A kind of a heat came on me.

+

+"I am not your lordship's daughter. . . " I began.

+

+"That I know of!" he put in, smiling.

+

+"I speak like a fool," said I; "or rather I began wrong.  It would

+doubtless be unwise in Mistress Grant to go to her in prison; but

+for me, I think I would look like a half-hearted friend if I did

+not fly there instantly."

+

+"So-ho, Mr. David," says he; "I thought that you and I were in a

+bargain?"

+

+"My lord," I said, "when I made that bargain I was a good deal

+affected by your goodness, but I'll never can deny that I was moved

+besides by my own interest.  There was self-seeking in my heart,

+and I think shame of it now.  It may be for your lordship's safety

+to say this fashious Davie Balfour is your friend and housemate.

+Say it then; I'll never contradict you.  But as for your patronage,

+I give it all back.  I ask but the one thing--let me go, and give

+me a pass to see her in her prison."

+

+He looked at me with a hard eye.  "You put the cart before the

+horse, I think," says he.  "That which I had given was a portion of

+my liking, which your thankless nature does not seem to have

+remarked.  But for my patronage, it is not given, nor (to be exact)

+is it yet offered."  He paused a bit.  "And I warn you, you do not

+know yourself," he added.  "Youth is a hasty season; you will think

+better of all this before a year."

+

+"Well, and I would like to be that kind of youth!" I cried.  "I

+have seen too much of the other party in these young advocates that

+fawn upon your lordship and are even at the pains to fawn on me.

+And I have seen it in the old ones also.  They are all for by-ends,

+the whole clan of them!  It's this that makes me seem to misdoubt

+your lordship's liking.  Why would I think that you would like me?

+But ye told me yourself ye had an interest!"

+

+I stopped at this, confounded that I had run so far; he was

+observing me with an unfathomable face.

+

+"My lord, I ask your pardon," I resumed.  "I have nothing in my

+chafts but a rough country tongue.  I think it would be only

+decent-like if I would go to see my friend in her captivity; but

+I'm owing you my life--I'll never forget that; and if it's for your

+lordship's good, here I'll stay.  That's barely gratitude."

+

+"This might have been reached in fewer words," says Prestongrange

+grimly.  "It is easy, and it is at times gracious, to say a plain

+Scots 'ay'."

+

+"Ah, but, my lord, I think ye take me not yet entirely!" cried I.

+"For YOUR sake, for my life-safe, and the kindness that ye say ye

+bear to me--for these, I'll consent; but not for any good that

+might be coming to myself.  If I stand aside when this young maid

+is in her trial, it's a thing I will be noways advantaged by; I

+will lose by it, I will never gain.  I would rather make a

+shipwreck wholly than to build on that foundation."

+

+He was a minute serious, then smiled.  "You mind me of the man with

+the long nose," said he; "was you to see the moon by a telescope

+you would see David Balfour there!  But you shall have your way of

+it.  I will ask at you one service, and then set you free:  My

+clerks are overdriven; be so good as copy me these few pages, and

+when that is done, I shall bid you God speed!  I would never charge

+myself with Mr. David's conscience; and if you could cast some part

+of it (as you went by) in a moss hag, you would find yourself to

+ride much easier without it."

+

+"Perhaps not just entirely in the same direction though, my lord!"

+says I.

+

+"And you shall have the last word, too!" cries he gaily.

+

+Indeed, he had some cause for gaiety, having now found the means to

+gain his purpose.  To lessen the weight of the memorial, or to have

+a readier answer at his hand, he desired I should appear publicly

+in the character of his intimate.  But if I were to appear with the

+same publicity as a visitor to Catriona in her prison the world

+would scarce stint to draw conclusions, and the true nature of

+James More's escape must become evident to all.  This was the

+little problem I had to set him of a sudden, and to which he had so

+briskly found an answer.  I was to be tethered in Glasgow by that

+job of copying, which in mere outward decency I could not well

+refuse; and during these hours of employment Catriona was privately

+got rid of.  I think shame to write of this man that loaded me with

+so many goodnesses.  He was kind to me as any father, yet I ever

+thought him as false as a cracked bell.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX--I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES

+

+

+

+The copying was a weary business, the more so as I perceived very

+early there was no sort of urgency in the matters treated, and

+began very early to consider my employment a pretext.  I had no

+sooner finished than I got to horse, used what remained of daylight

+to the best purpose, and being at last fairly benighted, slept in a

+house by Almond-Water side.  I was in the saddle again before the

+day, and the Edinburgh booths were just opening when I clattered in

+by the West Bow and drew up a smoking horse at my lord Advocate's

+door.  I had a written word for Doig, my lord's private hand that

+was thought to be in all his secrets--a worthy little plain man,

+all fat and snuff and self-sufficiency.  Him I found already at his

+desk and already bedabbled with maccabaw, in the same anteroom

+where I rencountered with James More.  He read the note

+scrupulously through like a chapter in his Bible.

+

+"H'm," says he; "ye come a wee thing ahint-hand, Mr. Balfour.  The

+bird's flaen--we hae letten her out."

+

+"Miss Drummond is set free?" I cried.

+

+"Achy!" said he.  "What would we keep her for, ye ken?  To hae made

+a steer about the bairn would has pleased naebody."

+

+"And where'll she be now?" says I.

+

+"Gude kens!" says Doig, with a shrug.

+

+"She'll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I'm thinking," said I.

+

+"That'll be it," said he.

+

+"Then I'll gang there straight," says I.

+

+"But ye'll be for a bite or ye go?" said he.

+

+"Neither bite nor sup," said I.  "I had a good wauch of milk in by

+Ratho."

+

+"Aweel, aweel," says Doig.  "But ye'll can leave your horse here

+and your bags, for it seems we're to have your up-put."

+

+"Na, na", said I.  "Tamson's mear {17} would never be the thing for

+me this day of all days."

+

+Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an

+accent much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect a

+good deal broader, indeed, than I have written it down; and I was

+the more ashamed when another voice joined in behind me with a

+scrap of a ballad:

+

+

+"Gae saddle me the bonny black,

+Gae saddle sune and mak' him ready

+For I will down the Gatehope-slack,

+And a' to see my bonny leddy."

+

+

+The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and

+her hands muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance.  Yet

+I could not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she

+saw me.

+

+"My best respects to you, Mistress Grant," said I, bowing.

+

+"The like to yourself, Mr. David," she replied with a deep

+courtesy.  "And I beg to remind you of an old musty saw, that meat

+and mass never hindered man.  The mass I cannot afford you, for we

+are all good Protestants.  But the meat I press on your attention.

+And I would not wonder but I could find something for your private

+ear that would be worth the stopping for."

+

+"Mistress Grant," said I, "I believe I am already your debtor for

+some merry words--and I think they were kind too--on a piece of

+unsigned paper."

+

+"Unsigned paper?" says she, and made a droll face, which was

+likewise wondrous beautiful, as of one trying to remember.

+

+"Or else I am the more deceived," I went on.  "But to be sure, we

+shall have the time to speak of these, since your father is so good

+as to make me for a while your inmate; and the GOMERAL begs you at

+this time only for the favour of his liberty,"

+

+"You give yourself hard names," said she.

+

+"Mr. Doig and I would be blythe to take harder at your clever pen,"

+says I.

+

+"Once more I have to admire the discretion of all men-folk," she

+replied.  "But if you will not eat, off with you at once; you will

+be back the sooner, for you go on a fool's errand.  Off with you,

+Mr. David," she continued, opening the door.

+

+

+"He has lowpen on his bonny grey,

+He rade the richt gate and the ready

+I trow he would neither stint nor stay,

+For he was seeking his bonny leddy."

+

+

+I did not wait to be twice bidden, and did justice to Miss Grant's

+citation on the way to Dean.

+

+Old Lady Allardyce walked there alone in the garden, in her hat and

+mutch, and having a silver-mounted staff of some black wood to lean

+upon.  As I alighted from my horse, and drew near to her with

+CONGEES, I could see the blood come in her face, and her head fling

+into the air like what I had conceived of empresses.

+

+"What brings you to my poor door?" she cried, speaking high through

+her nose.  "I cannot bar it.  The males of my house are dead and

+buried; I have neither son nor husband to stand in the gate for me;

+any beggar can pluck me by the baird {18}--and a baird there is,

+and that's the worst of it yet?" she added partly to herself.

+

+I was extremely put out at this reception, and the last remark,

+which seemed like a daft wife's, left me near hand speechless.

+

+"I see I have fallen under your displeasure, ma'am," said I.  "Yet

+I will still be so bold as ask after Mistress Drummond."

+

+She considered me with a burning eye, her lips pressed close

+together into twenty creases, her hand shaking on her staff.  "This

+cows all!" she cried.  "Ye come to me to speir for her?  Would God

+I knew!"

+

+"She is not here?" I cried.

+

+She threw up her chin and made a step and a cry at me, so that I

+fell back incontinent.

+

+"Out upon your leeing throat!" she cried.  "What! ye come and speir

+at me!  She's in jyle, whaur ye took her to--that's all there is to

+it.  And of a' the beings ever I beheld in breeks, to think it

+should be to you!  Ye timmer scoun'rel, if I had a male left to my

+name I would have your jaicket dustit till ye raired."

+

+I thought it not good to delay longer in that place, because I

+remarked her passion to be rising.  As I turned to the horse-post

+she even followed me; and I make no shame to confess that I rode

+away with the one stirrup on and scrambling for the other.

+

+As I knew no other quarter where I could push my inquiries, there

+was nothing left me but to return to the Advocate's.  I was well

+received by the four ladies, who were now in company together, and

+must give the news of Prestongrange and what word went in the west

+country, at the most inordinate length and with great weariness to

+myself; while all the time that young lady, with whom I so much

+desired to be alone again, observed me quizzically and seemed to

+find pleasure in the sight of my impatience.  At last, after I had

+endured a meal with them, and was come very near the point of

+appealing for an interview before her aunt, she went and stood by

+the music-case, and picking out a tune, sang to it on a high key--

+"He that will not when he may, When he will he shall have nay."

+But this was the end of her rigours, and presently, after making

+some excuse of which I have no mind, she carried me away in private

+to her father's library.  I should not fail to say she was dressed

+to the nines, and appeared extraordinary handsome.

+

+"Now, Mr. David, sit ye down here and let us have a two-handed

+crack," said she.  "For I have much to tell you, and it appears

+besides that I have been grossly unjust to your good taste."

+

+"In what manner, Mistress Grant?" I asked.  "I trust I have never

+seemed to fail in due respect."

+

+"I will be your surety, Mr, David," said she.  "Your respect,

+whether to yourself or your poor neighbours, has been always and

+most fortunately beyond imitation.  But that is by the question.

+You got a note from me?" she asked.

+

+"I was so bold as to suppose so upon inference," said I, "and it

+was kindly thought upon."

+

+"It must have prodigiously surprised you," said she.  "But let us

+begin with the beginning.  You have not perhaps forgot a day when

+you were so kind as to escort three very tedious misses to Hope

+Park?  I have the less cause to forget it myself, because you was

+so particular obliging as to introduce me to some of the principles

+of the Latin grammar, a thing which wrote itself profoundly on my

+gratitude."

+

+"I fear I was sadly pedantical," said I, overcome with confusion at

+the memory.  "You are only to consider I am quite unused with the

+society of ladies."

+

+"I will say the less about the grammar then," she replied.  "But

+how came you to desert your charge?  'He has thrown her out,

+overboard, his ain dear Annie!'" she hummed; "and his ain dear

+Annie and her two sisters had to taigle home by theirselves like a

+string of green geese!  It seems you returned to my papa's, where

+you showed yourself excessively martial, and then on to realms

+unknown, with an eye (it appears) to the Bass Rock; solan geese

+being perhaps more to your mind than bonny lasses."

+

+Through all this raillery there was something indulgent in the

+lady's eye which made me suppose there might be better coming.

+

+"You take a pleasure to torment me," said I, "and I make a very

+feckless plaything; but let me ask you to be more merciful.  At

+this time there is but the one thing that I care to hear of, and

+that will be news of Catriona."

+

+"Do you call her by that name to her face, Mr. Balfour?" she asked.

+

+"In troth, and I am not very sure," I stammered.

+

+"I would not do so in any case to strangers," said Miss Grant.

+"And why are you so much immersed in the affairs of this young

+lady?"

+

+"I heard she was in prison," said I.

+

+"Well, and now you hear that she is out of it," she replied, "and

+what more would you have?  She has no need of any further

+champion."

+

+"I may have the greater need of her, ma'am," said I.

+

+"Come, this is better!" says Miss Grant.  "But look me fairly in

+the face; am I not bonnier than she?"

+

+"I would be the last to be denying it," said I.  "There is not your

+marrow in all Scotland."

+

+"Well, here you have the pick of the two at your hand, and must

+needs speak of the other," said she.  "This is never the way to

+please the ladies, Mr. Balfour."

+

+"But, mistress," said I, "there are surely other things besides

+mere beauty."

+

+"By which I am to understand that I am no better than I should be,

+perhaps?" she asked.

+

+"By which you will please understand that I am like the cock in the

+midden in the fable book," said I.  "I see the braw jewel--and I

+like fine to see it too--but I have more need of the pickle corn."

+

+"Bravissimo!" she cried.  "There is a word well said at last, and I

+will reward you for it with my story.  That same night of your

+desertion I came late from a friend's house--where I was

+excessively admired, whatever you may think of it--and what should

+I hear but that a lass in a tartan screen desired to speak with me?

+She had been there an hour or better, said the servant-lass, and

+she grat in to herself as she sat waiting.  I went to her direct;

+she rose as I came in, and I knew her at a look.  'Grey Eyes!' says

+I to myself, but was more wise than to let on.  YOU WILL BE MISS

+GRANT AT LAST? she says, rising and looking at me hard and pitiful.

+AY, IT WAS TRUE HE SAID, YOU ARE BONNY AT ALL EVENTS.--THE WAY GOD

+MADE ME, MY DEAR, I said, BUT I WOULD BE GEY AND OBLIGED IF YOU

+COULD TELL ME WHAT BROUGHT YOU HERE AT SUCH A TIME OF THE NIGHT.--

+LADY, she said, WE ARE KINSFOLK, WE ARE BOTH COME OF THE BLOOD OF

+THE SONS OF ALPIN.--MY DEAR, I replied, I THINK NO MORE OF ALPIN OR

+HIS SONS THAN WHAT I DO OF A KALESTOCK.  YOU HAVE A BETTER ARGUMENT

+IN THESE TEARS UPON YOUR BONNY FACE.  And at that I was so weak-

+minded as to kiss her, which is what you would like to do dearly,

+and I wager will never find the courage of.  I say it was weak-

+minded of me, for I knew no more of her than the outside; but it

+was the wisest stroke I could have hit upon.  She is a very

+staunch, brave nature, but I think she has been little used with

+tenderness; and at that caress (though to say the truth, it was but

+lightly given) her heart went out to me.  I will never betray the

+secrets of my sex, Mr. Davie; I will never tell you the way she

+turned me round her thumb, because it is the same she will use to

+twist yourself.  Ay, it is a fine lass!  She is as clean as hill

+well water."

+

+"She is e'en't!" I cried.

+

+"Well, then, she told me her concerns," pursued Miss Grant, "and in

+what a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking about

+yourself, with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she had

+found herself after you was gone away.  AND THEN I MINDED AT LONG

+LAST, says she, THAT WE WERE KINSWOMEN, AND THAT MR. DAVID SHOULD

+HAVE GIVEN YOU THE NAME OF THE BONNIEST OF THE BONNY, AND I WAS

+THINKING TO MYSELF 'IF SHE IS SO BONNY SHE WILL BE GOOD AT ALL

+EVENTS'; AND I TOOK UP MY FOOT SOLES OUT OF THAT.  That was when I

+forgave yourself, Mr. Davie.  When you was in my society, you

+seemed upon hot iron:  by all marks, if ever I saw a young man that

+wanted to be gone, it was yourself, and I and my two sisters were

+the ladies you were so desirous to be gone from; and now it

+appeared you had given me some notice in the by-going, and was so

+kind as to comment on my attractions!  From that hour you may date

+our friendship, and I began to think with tenderness upon the Latin

+grammar."

+

+"You will have many hours to rally me in," said I; "and I think

+besides you do yourself injustice.  I think it was Catriona turned

+your heart in my direction.  She is too simple to perceive as you

+do the stiffness of her friend."

+

+"I would not like to wager upon that, Mr. David," said she.  "The

+lasses have clear eyes.  But at least she is your friend entirely,

+as I was to see.  I carried her in to his lordship my papa; and his

+Advocacy being in a favourable stage of claret, was so good as to

+receive the pair of us.  HERE IS GREY EYES THAT YOU HAVE BEEN

+DEAVED WITH THESE DAYS PAST, said I, SHE IS COME TO PROVE THAT WE

+SPOKE TRUE, AND I LAY THE PRETTIEST LASS IN THE THREE LOTHIANS AT

+YOUR FEET--making a papistical reservation of myself.  She suited

+her action to my words:  down she went upon her knees to him--I

+would not like to swear but he saw two of her, which doubtless made

+her appeal the more irresistible, for you are all a pack of

+Mahomedans--told him what had passed that night, and how she had

+withheld her father's man from following of you, and what a case

+she was in about her father, and what a flutter for yourself; and

+begged with weeping for the lives of both of you (neither of which

+was in the slightest danger), till I vow I was proud of my sex

+because it was done so pretty, and ashamed for it because of the

+smallness of the occasion.  She had not gone far, I assure you,

+before the Advocate was wholly sober, to see his inmost politics

+ravelled out by a young lass and discovered to the most unruly of

+his daughters.  But we took him in hand, the pair of us, and

+brought that matter straight.  Properly managed--and that means

+managed by me--there is no one to compare with my papa."

+

+"He has been a good man to me," said I.

+

+"Well, he was a good man to Katrine, and I was there to see to it,"

+said she.

+

+"And she pled for me?" say I.

+

+"She did that, and very movingly," said Miss Grant.  "I would not

+like to tell you what she said--I find you vain enough already."

+

+"God reward her for it!" cried I.

+

+"With Mr. David Balfour, I suppose?" says she.

+

+"You do me too much injustice at the last!" I cried.  "I would

+tremble to think of her in such hard hands.  Do you think I would

+presume, because she begged my life?  She would do that for a new

+whelped puppy!  I have had more than that to set me up, if you but

+ken'd.  She kissed that hand of mine.  Ay, but she did.  And why?

+because she thought I was playing a brave part and might be going

+to my death.  It was not for my sake--but I need not be telling

+that to you, that cannot look at me without laughter.  It was for

+the love of what she thought was bravery.  I believe there is none

+but me and poor Prince Charlie had that honour done them.  Was this

+not to make a god of me? and do you not think my heart would quake

+when I remember it?"

+

+"I do laugh at you a good deal, and a good deal more than is quite

+civil," said she; "but I will tell you one thing:  if you speak to

+her like that, you have some glimmerings of a chance."

+

+"Me?" I cried, "I would never dare.  I can speak to you, Miss

+Grant, because it's a matter of indifference what ye think of me.

+But her? no fear!" said I.

+

+"I think you have the largest feet in all broad Scotland," says

+she.

+

+"Troth they are no very small," said I, looking down.

+

+"Ah, poor Catriona!" cries Miss Grant.

+

+And I could but stare upon her; for though I now see very well what

+she was driving at (and perhaps some justification for the same), I

+was never swift at the uptake in such flimsy talk.

+

+"Ah well, Mr. David," she said, "it goes sore against my

+conscience, but I see I shall have to be your speaking board.  She

+shall know you came to her straight upon the news of her

+imprisonment; she shall know you would not pause to eat; and of our

+conversation she shall hear just so much as I think convenient for

+a maid of her age and inexperience.  Believe me, you will be in

+that way much better served than you could serve yourself, for I

+will keep the big feet out of the platter."

+

+"You know where she is, then?" I exclaimed.

+

+"That I do, Mr. David, and will never tell," said she.

+

+"Why that?" I asked.

+

+"Well," she said, "I am a good friend, as you will soon discover;

+and the chief of those that I am friend to is my papa.  I assure

+you, you will never heat nor melt me out of that, so you may spare

+me your sheep's eyes; and adieu to your David-Balfourship for the

+now."

+

+"But there is yet one thing more," I cried.  "There is one thing

+that must be stopped, being mere ruin to herself, and to me too."

+

+"Well," she said, "be brief; I have spent half the day on you

+already."

+

+"My Lady Allardyce believes," I began--"she supposes--she thinks

+that I abducted her."

+

+The colour came into Miss Grant's face, so that at first I was

+quite abashed to find her ear so delicate, till I bethought me she

+was struggling rather with mirth, a notion in which I was

+altogether confirmed by the shaking of her voice as she replied -

+

+"I will take up the defence of your reputation," she said.  "You

+may leave it in my hands."

+

+And with that she withdrew out of the library.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX--I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

+

+

+

+For about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange's

+family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar,

+and the flower of Edinburgh company.  You are not to suppose my

+education was neglected; on the contrary, I was kept extremely

+busy.  I studied the French, so as to be more prepared to go to

+Leyden; I set myself to the fencing, and wrought hard, sometimes

+three hours in the day, with notable advancement; at the suggestion

+of my cousin, Pilrig, who was an apt musician, I was put to a

+singing class; and by the orders of my Miss Grant, to one for the

+dancing, at which I must say I proved far from ornamental.

+However, all were good enough to say it gave me an address a little

+more genteel; and there is no question but I learned to manage my

+coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and to stand in a room

+as though the same belonged to me.  My clothes themselves were all

+earnestly re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance, such as

+where I should tie my hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated

+among the three misses like a thing of weight.  One way with

+another, no doubt I was a good deal improved to look at, and

+acquired a bit of modest air that would have surprised the good

+folks at Essendean.

+

+The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my

+habiliment, because that was in the line of their chief thoughts.

+I cannot say that they appeared any other way conscious of my

+presence; and though always more than civil, with a kind of

+heartless cordiality, could not hide how much I wearied them.  As

+for the aunt, she was a wonderful still woman; and I think she gave

+me much the same attention as she gave the rest of the family,

+which was little enough.  The eldest daughter and the Advocate

+himself were thus my principal friends, and our familiarity was

+much increased by a pleasure that we took in common.  Before the

+court met we spent a day or two at the house of Grange, living very

+nobly with an open table, and here it was that we three began to

+ride out together in the fields, a practice afterwards maintained

+in Edinburgh, so far as the Advocate's continual affairs permitted.

+When we were put in a good frame by the briskness of the exercise,

+the difficulties of the way, or the accidents of bad weather, my

+shyness wore entirely off; we forgot that we were strangers, and

+speech not being required, it flowed the more naturally on.  Then

+it was that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the time

+that I left Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the Covenant,

+wanderings in the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found

+in my adventures sprung the circumstance of a jaunt we made a

+little later on, on a day when the courts were not sitting, and of

+which I will tell a trifle more at length.

+

+We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where

+it stood smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet

+early in the day.  Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his

+horse, an proceeded alone to visit my uncle.  My heart, I remember,

+swelled up bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the

+thought of the old miser sitting chittering within in the cold

+kitchen!

+

+"There is my home," said I; "and my family."

+

+"Poor David Balfour!" said Miss Grant.

+

+What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would

+doubtless not be very agreeable to Ebenezer, for when the Advocate

+came forth again his face was dark.

+

+"I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr. Davie," says he,

+turning half about with the one foot in the stirrup.

+

+"I will never pretend sorrow," said I; and, to say the truth,

+during his absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place

+in fancy with plantations, parterres, and a terrace--much as I have

+since carried out in fact.

+

+Thence we pushed to the Queensferry, where Rankeillor gave us a

+good welcome, being indeed out of the body to receive so great a

+visitor.  Here the Advocate was so unaffectedly good as to go quite

+fully over my affairs, sitting perhaps two hours with the Writer in

+his study, and expressing (I was told) a great esteem for myself

+and concern for my fortunes.  To while this time, Miss Grant and I

+and young Rankeillor took boat and passed the Hope to Limekilns.

+Rankeillor made himself very ridiculous (and, I thought, offensive)

+with his admiration for the young lady, and to my wonder (only it

+is so common a weakness of her sex) she seemed, if anything, to be

+a little gratified.  One use it had:  for when we were come to the

+other side, she laid her commands on him to mind the boat, while

+she and I passed a little further to the alehouse.  This was her

+own thought, for she had been taken with my account of Alison

+Hastie, and desired to see the lass herself.  We found her once

+more alone--indeed, I believe her father wrought all day in the

+fields--and she curtsied dutifully to the gentry-folk and the

+beautiful young lady in the riding-coat.

+

+"Is this all the welcome I am to get?" said I, holding out my hand.

+"And have you no more memory of old friends?"

+

+"Keep me! wha's this of it?" she cried, and then, "God's truth,

+it's the tautit {19} laddie!"

+

+"The very same," says

+

+"Mony's the time I've thocht upon you and your freen, and blythe am

+I to see in your braws," {20} she cried.  "Though I kent ye were

+come to your ain folk by the grand present that ye sent me and that

+I thank ye for with a' my heart."

+

+"There," said Miss Grant to me, "run out by with ye, like a guid

+bairn.  I didnae come here to stand and haud a candle; it's her and

+me that are to crack."

+

+I suppose she stayed ten minutes in the house, but when she came

+forth I observed two things--that her eyes were reddened, and a

+silver brooch was gone out of her bosom.  This very much affected

+me.

+

+"I never saw you so well adorned," said I.

+

+"O Davie man, dinna be a pompous gowk!" said she, and was more than

+usually sharp to me the remainder of the day.

+

+About candlelight we came home from this excursion.

+

+For a good while I heard nothing further of Catriona--my Miss Grant

+remaining quite impenetrable, and stopping my mouth with

+pleasantries.  At last, one day that she returned from walking and

+found me alone in the parlour over my French, I thought there was

+something unusual in her looks; the colour heightened, the eyes

+sparkling high, and a bit of a smile continually bitten in as she

+regarded me.  She seemed indeed like the very spirit of mischief,

+and, walking briskly in the room, had soon involved me in a kind of

+quarrel over nothing and (at the least) with nothing intended on my

+side.  I was like Christian in the slough--the more I tried to

+clamber out upon the side, the deeper I became involved; until at

+last I heard her declare, with a great deal of passion, that she

+would take that answer from the hands of none, and I must down upon

+my knees for pardon.

+

+The causelessness of all this fuff stirred my own bile.  "I have

+said nothing you can properly object to," said I, "and as for my

+knees, that is an attitude I keep for God."

+

+"And as a goddess I am to be served!" she cried, shaking her brown

+locks at me and with a bright colour.  "Every man that comes within

+waft of my petticoats shall use me so!"

+

+"I will go so far as ask your pardon for the fashion's sake,

+although I vow I know not why," I replied.  "But for these play-

+acting postures, you can go to others."

+

+"O Davie!" she said.  "Not if I was to beg you?"

+

+I bethought me I was fighting with a woman, which is the same as to

+say a child, and that upon a point entirely formal.

+

+"I think it a bairnly thing," I said, "not worthy in you to ask, or

+me to render.  Yet I will not refuse you, neither," said I; "and

+the stain, if there be any, rests with yourself."  And at that I

+kneeled fairly down.

+

+"There!" she cried.  "There is the proper station, there is where I

+have been manoeuvring to bring you."  And then, suddenly, "Kep,"

+{21} said she, flung me a folded billet, and ran from the apartment

+laughing.

+

+The billet had neither place nor date.  "Dear Mr. David," it began,

+"I get your news continually by my cousin, Miss Grant, and it is a

+pleisand hearing.  I am very well, in a good place, among good

+folk, but necessitated to be quite private, though I am hoping that

+at long last we may meet again.  All your friendships have been

+told me by my loving cousin, who loves us both.  She bids me to

+send you this writing, and oversees the same.  I will be asking you

+to do all her commands, and rest your affectionate friend, Catriona

+Macgregor-Drummond.  P.S.--Will you not see my cousin, Allardyce?"

+

+I think it not the least brave of my campaigns (as the soldiers

+say) that I should have done as I was here bidden and gone

+forthright to the house by Dean.  But the old lady was now entirely

+changed and supple as a glove.  By what means Miss Grant had

+brought this round I could never guess; I am sure, at least, she

+dared not to appear openly in the affair, for her papa was

+compromised in it pretty deep.  It was he, indeed, who had

+persuaded Catriona to leave, or rather, not to return, to her

+cousin's, placing her instead with a family of Gregorys--decent

+people, quite at the Advocate's disposition, and in whom she might

+have the more confidence because they were of his own clan and

+family.  These kept her private till all was ripe, heated and

+helped her to attempt her father's rescue, and after she was

+discharged from prison received her again into the same secrecy.

+Thus Prestongrange obtained and used his instrument; nor did there

+leak out the smallest word of his acquaintance with the daughter of

+James More.  There was some whispering, of course, upon the escape

+of that discredited person; but the Government replied by a show of

+rigour, one of the cell porters was flogged, the lieutenant of the

+guard (my poor friend, Duncansby) was broken of his rank, and as

+for Catriona, all men were well enough pleased that her fault

+should be passed by in silence.

+

+I could never induce Miss Grant to carry back an answer.  "No," she

+would say, when I persisted, "I am going to keep the big feet out

+of the platter."  This was the more hard to bear, as I was aware

+she saw my little friend many times in the week, and carried her my

+news whenever (as she said) I "had behaved myself."  At last she

+treated me to what she called an indulgence, and I thought rather

+more of a banter.  She was certainly a strong, almost a violent,

+friend to all she liked, chief among whom was a certain frail old

+gentlewoman, very blind and very witty, who dwelt on the top of a

+tall land on a strait close, with a nest of linnets in a cage, and

+thronged all day with visitors.  Miss Grant was very fond to carry

+me there and put me to entertain her friend with the narrative of

+my misfortunes:  and Miss Tibbie Ramsay (that was her name) was

+particular kind, and told me a great deal that was worth knowledge

+of old folks and past affairs in Scotland.  I should say that from

+her chamber window, and not three feet away, such is the straitness

+of that close, it was possible to look into a barred loophole

+lighting the stairway of the opposite house.

+

+Here, upon some pretext, Miss Grant left me one day alone with Miss

+Ramsay.  I mind I thought that lady inattentive and like one

+preoccupied.  I was besides very uncomfortable, for the window,

+contrary to custom, was left open and the day was cold.  All at

+once the voice of Miss Grant sounded in my ears as from a distance.

+

+"Here, Shaws!" she cried, "keek out of the window and see what I

+have broughten you."

+

+I think it was the prettiest sight that ever I beheld.  The well of

+the close was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly,

+the walls very black and dingy; and there from the barred loophole

+I saw two faces smiling across at me--Miss Grant's and Catriona's.

+

+"There!" says Miss Grant, "I wanted her to see you in your braws

+like the lass of Limekilns.  I wanted her to see what I could make

+of you, when I buckled to the job in earnest!"

+

+It came in my mind that she had been more than common particular

+that day upon my dress; and I think that some of the same care had

+been bestowed upon Catriona.  For so merry and sensible a lady,

+Miss Grant was certainly wonderful taken up with duds.

+

+"Catriona!" was all I could get out.

+

+As for her, she said nothing in the world, but only waved her hand

+and smiled to me, and was suddenly carried away again from before

+the loophole.

+

+That vision was no sooner lost than I ran to the house door, where

+I found I was locked in; thence back to Miss Ramsay, crying for the

+key, but might as well have cried upon the castle rock.  She had

+passed her word, she said, and I must be a good lad.  It was

+impossible to burst the door, even if it had been mannerly; it was

+impossible I should leap from the window, being seven storeys above

+ground.  All I could do was to crane over the close and watch for

+their reappearance from the stair.  It was little to see, being no

+more than the tops of their two heads each on a ridiculous bobbin

+of skirts, like to a pair of pincushions.  Nor did Catriona so much

+as look up for a farewell; being prevented (as I heard afterwards)

+by Miss Grant, who told her folk were never seen to less advantage

+than from above downward.

+

+On the way home, as soon as I was set free, I upbraided Miss Grant

+with her cruelty.

+

+"I am sorry you was disappointed," says she demurely.  "For my part

+I was very pleased.  You looked better than I dreaded; you looked--

+if it will not make you vain--a mighty pretty young man when you

+appeared in the window.  You are to remember that she could not see

+your feet," says she, with the manner of one reassuring me.

+

+"O!" cried I, "leave my feet be--they are no bigger than my

+neighbours'."

+

+"They are even smaller than some," said she, "but I speak in

+parables like a Hebrew prophet."

+

+"I marvel little they were sometimes stoned!" says I.  "But, you

+miserable girl, how could you do it?  Why should you care to

+tantalise me with a moment?"

+

+"Love is like folk," says she; "it needs some kind of vivers." {22}

+

+"Oh, Barbara, let me see her properly!" I pleaded.  "YOU can--you

+see her when you please; let me have half an hour."

+

+"Who is it that is managing this love affair!  You!  Or me?" she

+asked, and as I continued to press her with my instances, fell back

+upon a deadly expedient:  that of imitating the tones of my voice

+when I called on Catriona by name; with which, indeed, she held me

+in subjection for some days to follow.

+

+There was never the least word heard of the memorial, or none by

+me.  Prestongrange and his grace the Lord President may have heard

+of it (for what I know) on the deafest sides of their heads; they

+kept it to themselves, at least--the public was none the wiser; and

+in course of time, on November 8th, and in the midst of a

+prodigious storm of wind and rain, poor James of the Glens was duly

+hanged at Lettermore by Ballachulish.

+

+So there was the final upshot of my politics!  Innocent men have

+perished before James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite

+of all our wisdom) till the end of time.  And till the end of time

+young folk (who are not yet used with the duplicity of life and

+men) will struggle as I did, and make heroical resolves, and take

+long risks; and the course of events will push them upon the one

+side and go on like a marching army.  James was hanged; and here

+was I dwelling in the house of Prestongrange, and grateful to him

+for his fatherly attention.  He was hanged; and behold! when I met

+Mr. Simon in the causeway, I was fain to pull off my beaver to him

+like a good little boy before his dominie.  He had been hanged by

+fraud and violence, and the world wagged along, and there was not a

+pennyweight of difference; and the villains of that horrid plot

+were decent, kind, respectable fathers of families, who went to

+kirk and took the sacrament!

+

+But I had had my view of that detestable business they call

+politics--I had seen it from behind, when it is all bones and

+blackness; and I was cured for life of any temptations to take part

+in it again.  A plain, quiet, private path was that which I was

+ambitious to walk in, when I might keep my head out of the way of

+dangers and my conscience out of the road of temptation.  For, upon

+a retrospect, it appeared I had not done so grandly, after all; but

+with the greatest possible amount of big speech and preparation,

+had accomplished nothing.

+

+The 25th of the same month a ship was advertised to sail from

+Leith; and I was suddenly recommended to make up my mails for

+Leyden.  To Prestongrange I could, of course, say nothing; for I

+had already been a long while sorning on his house and table.  But

+with his daughter I was more open, bewailing my fate that I should

+be sent out of the country, and assuring her, unless she should

+bring me to farewell with Catriona, I would refuse at the last

+hour.

+

+"Have I not given you my advice?" she asked.

+

+"I know you have," said I, "and I know how much I am beholden to

+you already, and that I am bidden to obey your orders.  But you

+must confess you are something too merry a lass at times to lippen

+{23} to entirely."

+

+"I will tell you, then," said she.  "Be you on board by nine

+o'clock forenoon; the ship does not sail before one; keep your boat

+alongside; and if you are not pleased with my farewells when I

+shall send them, you can come ashore again and seek Katrine for

+yourself."

+

+Since I could make no more of her, I was fain to be content with

+this.

+

+The day came round at last when she and I were to separate.  We had

+been extremely intimate and familiar; I was much in her debt; and

+what way we were to part was a thing that put me from my sleep,

+like the vails I was to give to the domestic servants.  I knew she

+considered me too backward, and rather desired to rise in her

+opinion on that head.  Besides which, after so much affection shown

+and (I believe) felt upon both sides, it would have looked cold-

+like to be anyways stiff.  Accordingly, I got my courage up and my

+words ready, and the last chance we were like to be alone, asked

+pretty boldly to be allowed to salute her in farewell.

+

+"You forget yourself strangely, Mr. Balfour," said she.  "I cannot

+call to mind that I have given you any right to presume on our

+acquaintancy."

+

+I stood before her like a stopped clock, and knew not what to

+think, far less to say, when of a sudden she cast her arms about my

+neck and kissed me with the best will in the world.

+

+"You inimitable bairn?" she cried.  "Did you think that I would let

+us part like strangers?  Because I can never keep my gravity at you

+five minutes on end, you must not dream I do not love you very

+well:  I am all love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you!

+And now I will give you an advice to conclude your education, which

+you will have need of before it's very long.

+

+Never ASK womenfolk.  They're bound to answer 'No'; God never made

+the lass that could resist the temptation.  It's supposed by

+divines to be the curse of Eve:  because she did not say it when

+the devil offered her the apple, her daughters can say nothing

+else."

+

+"Since I am so soon to lose my bonny professor," I began.

+

+"This is gallant, indeed," says she curtseying.

+

+"I would put the one question," I went on.  "May I ask a lass to

+marry to me?"

+

+"You think you could not marry her without!" she asked.  "Or else

+get her to offer?"

+

+"You see you cannot be serious," said I.

+

+"I shall be very serious in one thing, David," said she:  "I shall

+always be your friend."

+

+As I got to my horse the next morning, the four ladies were all at

+that same window whence we had once looked down on Catriona, and

+all cried farewell and waved their pocket napkins as I rode away.

+One out of the four I knew was truly sorry; and at the thought of

+that, and how I had come to the door three months ago for the first

+time, sorrow and gratitude made a confusion in my mind.

+

+

+

+

+PART II--FATHER AND DAUGHTER

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXI--THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND

+

+

+

+The ship lay at a single anchor, well outside the pier of Leith, so

+that all we passengers must come to it by the means of skiffs.

+This was very little troublesome, for the reason that the day was a

+flat calm, very frosty and cloudy, and with a low shifting fog upon

+the water.  The body of the vessel was thus quite hid as I drew

+near, but the tall spars of her stood high and bright in a sunshine

+like the flickering of a fire.  She proved to be a very roomy,

+commodious merchant, but somewhat blunt in the bows, and loaden

+extraordinary deep with salt, salted salmon, and fine white linen

+stockings for the Dutch.  Upon my coming on board, the captain

+welcomed me--one Sang (out of Lesmahago, I believe), a very hearty,

+friendly tarpaulin of a man, but at the moment in rather of a

+bustle.  There had no other of the passengers yet appeared, so that

+I was left to walk about upon the deck, viewing the prospect and

+wondering a good deal what these farewells should be which I was

+promised.

+

+All Edinburgh and the Pentland Hills glinted above me in a kind of

+smuisty brightness, now and again overcome with blots of cloud; of

+Leith there was no more than the tops of chimneys visible, and on

+the face of the water, where the haar {24} lay, nothing at all.

+Out of this I was presently aware of a sound of oars pulling, and a

+little after (as if out of the smoke of a fire) a boat issued.

+There sat a grave man in the stern sheets, well muffled from the

+cold, and by his side a tall, pretty, tender figure of a maid that

+brought my heart to a stand.  I had scarce the time to catch my

+breath in, and be ready to meet her, as she stepped upon the deck,

+smiling, and making my best bow, which was now vastly finer than

+some months before, when first I made it to her ladyship.  No doubt

+we were both a good deal changed:  she seemed to have shot up like

+a young, comely tree.  She had now a kind of pretty backwardness

+that became her well as of one that regarded herself more highly

+and was fairly woman; and for another thing, the hand of the same

+magician had been at work upon the pair of us, and Miss Grant had

+made us both BRAW, if she could make but the one BONNY.

+

+The same cry, in words not very different, came from both of us,

+that the other was come in compliment to say farewell, and then we

+perceived in a flash we were to ship together.

+

+"O, why will not Baby have been telling me!" she cried; and then

+remembered a letter she had been given, on the condition of not

+opening it till she was well on board.  Within was an enclosure for

+myself, and ran thus:

+

+

+"DEAR DAVIE,--What do you think of my farewell? and what do you say

+to your fellow passenger?  Did you kiss, or did you ask?  I was

+about to have signed here, but that would leave the purport of my

+question doubtful, and in my own case I KEN THE ANSWER.  So fill up

+here with good advice.  Do not be too blate, {25} and for God's

+sake do not try to be too forward; nothing acts you worse.  I am

+

+"Your affectionate friend and governess,

+"BARBARA GRANT."

+

+

+I wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my

+pocketbook, put it in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed

+the whole with my new signet of the Balfour arms, and despatched it

+by the hand of Prestongrange's servant that still waited in my

+boat.

+

+Then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure, which we

+had not done for a piece of a minute before (upon a common impulse)

+we shook hands again.

+

+"Catriona?" said I.  It seemed that was the first and last word of

+my eloquence.

+

+"You will be glad to see me again?" says she.

+

+"And I think that is an idle word," said I.  "We are too deep

+friends to make speech upon such trifles."

+

+"Is she not the girl of all the world?" she cried again.  "I was

+never knowing such a girl so honest and so beautiful."

+

+"And yet she cared no more for Alpin than what she did for a kale-

+stock," said I.

+

+"Ah, she will say so indeed!" cries Catriona.  "Yet it was for the

+name and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and was so good

+to me."

+

+"Well, I will tell you why it was," said I.  "There are all sorts

+of people's faces in this world.  There is Barbara's face, that

+everyone must look at and admire, and think her a fine, brave,

+merry girl.  And then there is your face, which is quite different-

+-I never knew how different till to-day.  You cannot see yourself,

+and that is why you do not understand; but it was for the love of

+your face that she took you up and was so good to you.  And

+everybody in the world would do the same."

+

+"Everybody?" says she.

+

+"Every living soul?" said I.

+

+"Ah, then, that will be why the soldiers at the castle took me up!"

+she cried,

+

+"Barbara has been teaching you to catch me," said I.

+

+"She will have taught me more than that at all events.  She will

+have taught me a great deal about Mr. David--all the ill of him,

+and a little that was not so ill either, now and then," she said,

+smiling.  "She will have told me all there was of Mr. David, only

+just that he would sail upon this very same ship.  And why it is

+you go?"

+

+I told her.

+

+"Ah, well," said she, "we will be some days in company and then (I

+suppose) good-bye for altogether!  I go to meet my father at a

+place of the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be

+exiles by the side of our chieftain."

+

+I could say no more than just "O!" the name of James More always

+drying up my very voice.

+

+She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my

+thought.

+

+"There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David," said

+she.  "I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you

+altogether very well.  And the one of them two is James More, my

+father, and the other is the Laird of Prestongrange.  Prestongrange

+will have spoken by himself, or his daughter in the place of him.

+But for James More, my father, I have this much to say:  he lay

+shackled in a prison; he is a plain honest soldier and a plain

+Highland gentleman; what they would be after he would never be

+guessing; but if he had understood it was to be some prejudice to a

+young gentleman like yourself, he would have died first.  And for

+the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you to pardon my

+father and family for that same mistake."

+

+"Catriona," said I, "what that mistake was I do not care to know.

+I know but the one thing--that you went to Prestongrange and begged

+my life upon your knees.  O, I ken well enough it was for your

+father that you went, but when you were there you pleaded for me

+also.  It is a thing I cannot speak of.  There are two things I

+cannot think of into myself:  and the one is your good words when

+you called yourself my little friend, and the other that you

+pleaded for my life.  Let us never speak more, we two, of pardon or

+offence."

+

+We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on

+her; and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung

+up in the nor'-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in

+upon the anchor.

+

+There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it

+a full cabin.  Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkcaldy,

+and Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany.

+One was a Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants' wives, to

+the charge of one of whom Catriona was recommended.  Mrs. Gebbie

+(for that was her name) was by great good fortune heavily

+incommoded by the sea, and lay day and night on the broad of her

+back.  We were besides the only creatures at all young on board the

+Rose, except a white-faced boy that did my old duty to attend upon

+the table; and it came about that Catriona and I were left almost

+entirely to ourselves.  We had the next seats together at the

+table, where I waited on her with extraordinary pleasure.  On deck,

+I made her a soft place with my cloak; and the weather being

+singularly fine for that season, with bright frosty days and

+nights, a steady, gentle wind, and scarce a sheet started all the

+way through the North Sea, we sat there (only now and again walking

+to and fro for warmth) from the first blink of the sun till eight

+or nine at night under the clear stars.  The merchants or Captain

+Sang would sometimes glance and smile upon us, or pass a merry word

+or two and give us the go-by again; but the most part of the time

+they were deep in herring and chintzes and linen, or in

+computations of the slowness of the passage, and left us to our own

+concerns, which were very little important to any but ourselves.

+

+At the first, we had a great deal to say, and thought ourselves

+pretty witty; and I was at a little pains to be the beau, and she

+(I believe) to play the young lady of experience.  But soon we grew

+plainer with each other.  I laid aside my high, clipped English

+(what little there was left of it) and forgot to make my Edinburgh

+bows and scrapes; she, upon her side, fell into a sort of kind

+familiarity; and we dwelt together like those of the same

+household, only (upon my side) with a more deep emotion.  About the

+same time the bottom seemed to fall out of our conversation, and

+neither one of us the less pleased.  Whiles she would tell me old

+wives' tales, of which she had a wonderful variety, many of them

+from my friend red-headed Niel.  She told them very pretty, and

+they were pretty enough childish tales; but the pleasure to myself

+was in the sound of her voice, and the thought that she was telling

+and I listening.  Whiles, again, we would sit entirely silent, not

+communicating even with a look, and tasting pleasure enough in the

+sweetness of that neighbourhood.  I speak here only for myself.  Of

+what was in the maid's mind, I am not very sure that ever I asked

+myself; and what was in my own, I was afraid to consider.  I need

+make no secret of it now, either to myself or to the reader; I was

+fallen totally in love.  She came between me and the sun.  She had

+grown suddenly taller, as I say, but with a wholesome growth; she

+seemed all health, and lightness, and brave spirits; and I thought

+she walked like a young deer, and stood like a birch upon the

+mountains.  It was enough for me to sit near by her on the deck;

+and I declare I scarce spent two thoughts upon the future, and was

+so well content with what I then enjoyed that I was never at the

+pains to imagine any further step; unless perhaps that I would be

+sometimes tempted to take her hand in mine and hold it there.  But

+I was too like a miser of what joys I had, and would venture

+nothing on a hazard.

+

+What we spoke was usually of ourselves or of each other, so that if

+anyone had been at so much pains as overhear us, he must have

+supposed us the most egotistical persons in the world.  It befell

+one day when we were at this practice, that we came on a discourse

+of friends and friendship, and I think now that we were sailing

+near the wind.  We said what a fine thing friendship was, and how

+little we had guessed of it, and how it made life a new thing, and

+a thousand covered things of the same kind that will have been

+said, since the foundation of the world, by young folk in the same

+predicament.  Then we remarked upon the strangeness of that

+circumstance, that friends came together in the beginning as if

+they were there for the first time, and yet each had been alive a

+good while, losing time with other people.

+

+"It is not much that I have done," said she, "and I could be

+telling you the five-fifths of it in two-three words.  It is only a

+girl I am, and what can befall a girl, at all events?  But I went

+with the clan in the year '45.  The men marched with swords and

+fire-locks, and some of them in brigades in the same set of tartan;

+they were not backward at the marching, I can tell you.  And there

+were gentlemen from the Low Country, with their tenants mounted and

+trumpets to sound, and there was a grant skirling of war-pipes.  I

+rode on a little Highland horse on the right hand of my father,

+James More, and of Glengyle himself.  And here is one fine thing

+that I remember, that Glengyle kissed me in the face, because (says

+he) 'my kinswoman, you are the only lady of the clan that has come

+out,' and me a little maid of maybe twelve years old!  I saw Prince

+Charlie too, and the blue eyes of him; he was pretty indeed!  I had

+his hand to kiss in front of the army.  O, well, these were the

+good days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and then

+awakened.  It went what way you very well know; and these were the

+worst days of all, when the red-coat soldiers were out, and my

+father and uncles lay in the hill, and I was to be carrying them

+their meat in the middle night, or at the short sight of day when

+the cocks crow.  Yes, I have walked in the night, many's the time,

+and my heart great in me for terror of the darkness.  It is a

+strange thing I will never have been meddled with by a bogle; but

+they say a maid goes safe.  Next there was my uncle's marriage, and

+that was a dreadful affair beyond all.  Jean Kay was that woman's

+name; and she had me in the room with her that night at Inversnaid,

+the night we took her from her friends in the old, ancient manner.

+She would and she wouldn't; she was for marrying Rob the one

+minute, and the next she would be for none of him.  I will never

+have seen such a feckless creature of a woman; surely all there was

+of her would tell her ay or no.  Well, she was a widow; and I can

+never be thinking a widow a good woman."

+

+"Catriona!" says I, "how do you make out that?"

+

+"I do not know," said she; "I am only telling you the seeming in my

+heart.  And then to marry a new man!  Fy!  But that was her; and

+she was married again upon my Uncle Robin, and went with him awhile

+to kirk and market; and then wearied, or else her friends got

+claught of her and talked her round, or maybe she turned ashamed;

+at the least of it, she ran away, and went back to her own folk,

+and said we had held her in the lake, and I will never tell you all

+what.  I have never thought much of any females since that day.

+And so in the end my father, James More, came to be cast in prison,

+and you know the rest of it an well as me."

+

+"And through all you had no friends?" said I.

+

+"No," said she; "I have been pretty chief with two-three lasses on

+the braes, but not to call it friends."

+

+"Well, mine is a plain tale," said I.  "I never had a friend to my

+name till I met in with you."

+

+"And that brave Mr. Stewart?" she asked.

+

+"O, yes, I was forgetting him," I said.  "But he in a man, and that

+in very different."

+

+"I would think so," said she.  "O, yes, it is quite different."

+

+"And then there was one other," said I.  "I once thought I had a

+friend, but it proved a disappointment."

+

+She asked me who she was?

+

+"It was a he, then," said I.  "We were the two best lads at my

+father's school, and we thought we loved each other dearly.  Well,

+the time came when he went to Glasgow to a merchant's house, that

+was his second cousin once removed; and wrote me two-three times by

+the carrier; and then he found new friends, and I might write till

+I was tired, he took no notice.  Eh, Catriona, it took me a long

+while to forgive the world.  There is not anything more bitter than

+to lose a fancied friend."

+

+Then she began to question me close upon his looks and character,

+for we were each a great deal concerned in all that touched the

+other; till at last, in a very evil hour, I minded of his letters

+and went and fetched the bundle from the cabin.

+

+"Here are his letters," said I, "and all the letters that ever I

+got.  That will be the last I'll can tell of myself; ye know the

+lave {26} as well as I do."

+

+"Will you let me read them, then?" says she.

+

+I told her, IF SHE WOULD BE AT THE PAINS; and she bade me go away

+and she would read them from the one end to the other.  Now, in

+this bundle that I gave her, there were packed together not only

+all the letters of my false friend, but one or two of Mr.

+Campbell's when he was in town at the Assembly, and to make a

+complete roll of all that ever was written to me, Catriona's little

+word, and the two I had received from Miss Grant, one when I was on

+the Bass and one on board that ship.  But of these last I had no

+particular mind at the moment.

+

+I was in that state of subjection to the thought of my friend that

+it mattered not what I did, nor scarce whether I was in her

+presence or out of it; I had caught her like some kind of a noble

+fever that lived continually in my bosom, by night and by day, and

+whether I was waking or asleep.  So it befell that after I was come

+into the fore-part of the ship where the broad bows splashed into

+the billows, I was in no such hurry to return as you might fancy;

+rather prolonged my absence like a variety in pleasure.  I do not

+think I am by nature much of an Epicurean:  and there had come till

+then so small a share of pleasure in my way that I might be excused

+perhaps to dwell on it unduly.

+

+When I returned to her again, I had a faint, painful impression as

+of a buckle slipped, so coldly she returned the packet.

+

+"You have read them?" said I; and I thought my voice sounded not

+wholly natural, for I was turning in my mind for what could ail

+her.

+

+"Did you mean me to read all?" she asked.

+

+I told her "Yes," with a drooping voice.

+

+"The last of them as well?" said she.

+

+I knew where we were now; yet I would not lie to her either.  "I

+gave them all without afterthought," I said, "as I supposed that

+you would read them.  I see no harm in any."

+

+"I will be differently made," said she.  "I thank God I am

+differently made.  It was not a fit letter to be shown me.  It was

+not fit to be written."

+

+"I think you are speaking of your own friend, Barbara Grant?" said

+I.

+

+"There will not be anything as bitter as to lose a fancied friend,"

+said she, quoting my own expression.

+

+"I think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied!" I cried.

+"What kind of justice do you call this, to blame me for some words

+that a tomfool of a madcap lass has written down upon a piece of

+paper?  You know yourself with what respect I have behaved--and

+would do always."

+

+"Yet you would show me that same letter!" says she.  "I want no

+such friends.  I can be doing very well, Mr. Balfour, without her--

+or you."

+

+"This is your fine gratitude!" says I.

+

+"I am very much obliged to you," said she.  "I will be asking you

+to take away your--letters."  She seemed to choke upon the word, so

+that it sounded like an oath.

+

+"You shall never ask twice," said I; picked up that bundle, walked

+a little way forward and cast them as far as possible into the sea.

+For a very little more I could have cast myself after them.

+

+The rest of the day I walked up and down raging.  There were few

+names so ill but what I gave her them in my own mind before the sun

+went down.  All that I had ever heard of Highland pride seemed

+quite outdone; that a girl (scarce grown) should resent so trifling

+an allusion, and that from her next friend, that she had near

+wearied me with praising of!  I had bitter, sharp, hard thoughts of

+her, like an angry boy's.  If I had kissed her indeed (I thought),

+perhaps she would have taken it pretty well; and only because it

+had been written down, and with a spice of jocularity, up she must

+fuff in this ridiculous passion.  It seemed to me there was a want

+of penetration in the female sex, to make angels weep over the case

+of the poor men.

+

+We were side by side again at supper, and what a change was there!

+She was like curdled milk to me; her face was like a wooden doll's;

+I could have indifferently smitten her or grovelled at her feet,

+but she gave me not the least occasion to do either.  No sooner the

+meal done than she betook herself to attend on Mrs. Gebbie, which I

+think she had a little neglected heretofore.  But she was to make

+up for lost time, and in what remained of the passage was

+extraordinary assiduous with the old lady, and on deck began to

+make a great deal more than I thought wise of Captain Sang.  Not

+but what the Captain seemed a worthy, fatherly man; but I hated to

+behold her in the least familiarity with anyone except myself.

+

+Altogether, she was so quick to avoid me, and so constant to keep

+herself surrounded with others, that I must watch a long while

+before I could find my opportunity; and after it was found, I made

+not much of it, as you are now to hear.

+

+"I have no guess how I have offended," said I; "it should scarce be

+beyond pardon, then.  O, try if you can pardon me."

+

+"I have no pardon to give," said she; and the words seemed to come

+out of her throat like marbles.  "I will be very much obliged for

+all your friendships."  And she made me an eighth part of a

+curtsey.

+

+But I had schooled myself beforehand to say more, and I was going

+to say it too.

+

+"There is one thing," said I.  "If I have shocked your

+particularity by the showing of that letter, it cannot touch Miss

+Grant.  She wrote not to you, but to a poor, common, ordinary lad,

+who might have had more sense than show it.  If you are to blame

+me--"

+

+"I will advise you to say no more about that girl, at all events!"

+said Catriona.  "It is her I will never look the road of, not if

+she lay dying."  She turned away from me, and suddenly back.  "Will

+you swear you will have no more to deal with her?" she cried.

+

+"Indeed, and I will never be so unjust then," said I; "nor yet so

+ungrateful."

+

+And now it was I that turned away.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXII--HELVOETSLUYS

+

+

+

+The weather in the end considerably worsened; the wind sang in the

+shrouds, the sea swelled higher, and the ship began to labour and

+cry out among the billows.  The song of the leadsman in the chains

+was now scarce ceasing, for we thrid all the way among shoals.

+About nine in the morning, in a burst of wintry sun between two

+squalls of hail, I had my first look of Holland--a line of

+windmills birling in the breeze.  It was besides my first knowledge

+of these daft-like contrivances, which gave me a near sense of

+foreign travel and a new world and life.  We came to an anchor

+about half-past eleven, outside the harbour of Helvoetsluys, in a

+place where the sea sometimes broke and the ship pitched

+outrageously.  You may be sure we were all on deck save Mrs.

+Gebbie, some of us in cloaks, others mantled in the ship's

+tarpaulins, all clinging on by ropes, and jesting the most like old

+sailor-folk that we could imitate.

+

+Presently a boat, that was backed like a partancrab, came gingerly

+alongside, and the skipper of it hailed our master in the Dutch.

+Thence Captain Sang turned, very troubled-like, to Catriona; and

+the rest of us crowding about, the nature of the difficulty was

+made plain to all.  The Rose was bound to the port of Rotterdam,

+whither the other passengers were in a great impatience to arrive,

+in view of a conveyance due to leave that very evening in the

+direction of the Upper Germany.  This, with the present half-gale

+of wind, the captain (if no time were lost) declared himself still

+capable to save.  Now James More had trysted in Helvoet with his

+daughter, and the captain had engaged to call before the port and

+place her (according to the custom) in a shore boat.  There was the

+boat, to be sure, and here was Catriona ready:  but both our master

+and the patroon of the boat scrupled at the risk, and the first was

+in no humour to delay.

+

+"Your father," said he, "would be gey an little pleased if we was

+to break a leg to ye, Miss Drummond, let-a-be drowning of you.

+Take my way of it," says he, "and come on-by with the rest of us

+here to Rotterdam.  Ye can get a passage down the Maes in a sailing

+scoot as far as to the Brill, and thence on again, by a place in a

+rattel-waggon, back to Helvoet."

+

+But Catriona would hear of no change.  She looked white-like as she

+beheld the bursting of the sprays, the green seas that sometimes

+poured upon the fore-castle, and the perpetual bounding and

+swooping of the boat among the billows; but she stood firmly by her

+father's orders.  "My father, James More, will have arranged it

+so," was her first word and her last.  I thought it very idle and

+indeed wanton in the girl to be so literal and stand opposite to so

+much kind advice; but the fact is she had a very good reason, if

+she would have told us.  Sailing scoots and rattel-waggons are

+excellent things; only the use of them must first be paid for, and

+all she was possessed of in the world was just two shillings and a

+penny halfpenny sterling.  So it fell out that captain and

+passengers, not knowing of her destitution--and she being too proud

+to tell them--spoke in vain.

+

+"But you ken nae French and nae Dutch neither," said one.

+

+"It is very true," says she, "but since the year '46 there are so

+many of the honest Scotch abroad that I will be doing very well.  I

+thank you."

+

+There was a pretty country simplicity in this that made some laugh,

+others looked the more sorry, and Mr. Gebbie fall outright in a

+passion.  I believe he knew it was his duty (his wife having

+accepted charge of the girl) to have gone ashore with her and seen

+her safe:  nothing would have induced him to have done so, since it

+must have involved the lose of his conveyance; and I think he made

+it up to his conscience by the loudness of his voice.  At least he

+broke out upon Captain Sang, raging and saying the thing was a

+disgrace; that it was mere death to try to leave the ship, and at

+any event we could not cast down an innocent maid in a boatful of

+nasty Holland fishers, and leave her to her fate.  I was thinking

+something of the same; took the mate upon one side, arranged with

+him to send on my chests by track-scoot to an address I had in

+Leyden, and stood up and signalled to the fishers.

+

+"I will go ashore with the young lady, Captain Sang," said I.  "It

+is all one what way I go to Leyden;" and leaped at the same time

+into the boat, which I managed not so elegantly but what I fell

+with two of the fishers in the bilge.

+

+From the boat the business appeared yet more precarious than from

+the ship, she stood so high over us, swung down so swift, and

+menaced us so perpetually with her plunging and passaging upon the

+anchor cable.  I began to think I had made a fool's bargain, that

+it was merely impossible Catriona should be got on board to me, and

+that I stood to be set ashore at Helvoet all by myself and with no

+hope of any reward but the pleasure of embracing James More, if I

+should want to.  But this was to reckon without the lass's courage.

+She had seen me leap with very little appearance (however much

+reality) of hesitation; to be sure, she was not to be beat by her

+discarded friend.  Up she stood on the bulwarks and held by a stay,

+the wind blowing in her petticoats, which made the enterprise more

+dangerous, and gave us rather more of a view of her stockings than

+would be thought genteel in cities.  There was no minute lost, and

+scarce time given for any to interfere if they had wished the same.

+I stood up on the other side and spread my arms; the ship swung

+down on us, the patroon humoured his boat nearer in than was

+perhaps wholly safe, and Catriona leaped into the air.  I was so

+happy as to catch her, and the fishers readily supporting us,

+escaped a fall.  She held to me a moment very tight, breathing

+quick and deep; thence (she still clinging to me with both hands)

+we were passed aft to our places by the steersman; and Captain Sang

+and all the crew and passengers cheering and crying farewell, the

+boat was put about for shore.

+

+As soon as Catriona came a little to herself she unhanded me

+suddenly, but said no word.  No more did I; and indeed the

+whistling of the wind and the breaching of the sprays made it no

+time for speech; and our crew not only toiled excessively but made

+extremely little way, so that the Rose had got her anchor and was

+off again before we had approached the harbour mouth.

+

+We were no sooner in smooth water than the patroon, according to

+their beastly Hollands custom, stopped his boat and required of us

+our fares.  Two guilders was the man's demand--between three and

+four shillings English money--for each passenger.  But at this

+Catriona began to cry out with a vast deal of agitation.  She had

+asked of Captain Sang, she said, and the fare was but an English

+shilling.  "Do you think I will have come on board and not ask

+first?" cries she.  The patroon scolded back upon her in a lingo

+where the oaths were English and the rest right Hollands; till at

+last (seeing her near tears) I privately slipped in the rogue's

+hand six shillings, whereupon he was obliging enough to receive

+from her the other shilling without more complaint.  No doubt I was

+a good deal nettled and ashamed.  I like to see folk thrifty, but

+not with so much passion; and I daresay it would be rather coldly

+that I asked her, as the boat moved on again for shore, where it

+was that she was trysted with her father.

+

+"He is to be inquired of at the house of one Sprott, an honest

+Scotch merchant," says she; and then with the same breath, "I am

+wishing to thank you very much--you are a brave friend to me."

+

+"It will be time enough when I get you to your father," said I,

+little thinking that I spoke so true.  "I can tell him a fine tale

+of a loyal daughter."

+

+"O, I do not think I will be a loyal girl, at all events," she

+cried, with a great deal of painfulness in the expression.  "I do

+not think my heart is true."

+

+"Yet there are very few that would have made that leap, and all to

+obey a father's orders," I observed.

+

+"I cannot have you to be thinking of me so," she cried again.

+"When you had done that same, how would I stop behind?  And at all

+events that was not all the reasons."  Whereupon, with a burning

+face, she told me the plain truth upon her poverty.

+

+"Good guide us!" cried I, "what kind of daft-like proceeding is

+this, to let yourself be launched on the continent of Europe with

+an empty purse--I count it hardly decent--scant decent!" I cried.

+

+"You forget James More, my father, is a poor gentleman," said she.

+"He is a hunted exile."

+

+"But I think not all your friends are hunted exiles," I exclaimed.

+"And was this fair to them that care for you?  Was it fair to me?

+was it fair to Miss Grant that counselled you to go, and would be

+driven fair horn-mad if she could hear of it?  Was it even fair to

+these Gregory folk that you were living with, and used you

+lovingly?  It's a blessing you have fallen in my hands!  Suppose

+your father hindered by an accident, what would become of you here,

+and you your lee-lone in a strange place?  The thought of the thing

+frightens me," I said.

+

+"I will have lied to all of them," she replied.  "I will have told

+them all that I had plenty.  I told HER too.  I could not be

+lowering James More to them."

+

+I found out later on that she must have lowered him in the very

+dust, for the lie was originally the father's, not the daughter's,

+and she thus obliged to persevere in it for the man's reputation.

+But at the time I was ignorant of this, and the mere thought of her

+destitution and the perils in which see must have fallen, had

+ruffled me almost beyond reason.

+

+"Well, well, well," said I, "you will have to learn more sense."

+

+I left her mails for the moment in an inn upon the shore, where I

+got a direction for Sprott's house in my new French, and we walked

+there--it was some little way--beholding the place with wonder as

+we went.  Indeed, there was much for Scots folk to admire:  canals

+and trees being intermingled with the houses; the houses, each

+within itself, of a brave red brick, the colour of a rose, with

+steps and benches of blue marble at the cheek of every door, and

+the whole town so clean you might have dined upon the causeway.

+Sprott was within, upon his ledgers, in a low parlour, very neat

+and clean, and set out with china and pictures, and a globe of the

+earth in a brass frame.  He was a big-chafted, ruddy, lusty man,

+with a crooked hard look to him; and he made us not that much

+civility as offer us a seat.

+

+"Is James More Macgregor now in Helvoet, sir?" says I.

+

+"I ken nobody by such a name," says he, impatient-like.

+

+"Since you are so particular," says I, "I will amend my question,

+and ask you where we are to find in Helvoet one James Drummond,

+alias Macgregor, alias James More, late tenant in Inveronachile?"

+

+"Sir," says he, "he may be in Hell for what I ken, and for my part

+I wish he was."

+

+"The young lady is that gentleman's daughter, sir," said I, "before

+whom, I think you will agree with me, it is not very becoming to

+discuss his character."

+

+"I have nothing to make either with him, or her, or you!" cries he

+in his gross voice.

+

+"Under your favour, Mr. Sprott," said I, "this young lady is come

+from Scotland seeking him, and by whatever mistake, was given the

+name of your house for a direction.  An error it seems to have

+been, but I think this places both you and me--who am but her

+fellow-traveller by accident--under a strong obligation to help our

+countrywoman."

+

+"Will you ding me daft?" he cries.  "I tell ye I ken naething and

+care less either for him or his breed.  I tell ye the man owes me

+money."

+

+"That may very well be, sir," said I, who was now rather more angry

+than himself.  "At least, I owe you nothing; the young lady is

+under my protection; and I am neither at all used with these

+manners, nor in the least content with them."

+

+As I said this, and without particularly thinking what I did, I

+drew a step or two nearer to his table; thus striking, by mere good

+fortune, on the only argument that could at all affect the man.

+The blood left his lusty countenance.

+

+"For the Lord's sake dinna be hasty, sir!" he cried.  "I am truly

+wishfu' no to be offensive.  But ye ken, sir, I'm like a wheen

+guid-natured, honest, canty auld fellows--my bark is waur nor my

+bite.  To hear me, ye micht whiles fancy I was a wee thing dour;

+but na, na! it's a kind auld fallow at heart, Sandie Sprott!  And

+ye could never imagine the fyke and fash this man has been to me."

+

+"Very good, sir," said I.  "Then I will make that much freedom with

+your kindness as trouble you for your last news of Mr. Drummond."

+

+"You're welcome, sir!" said he.  "As for the young leddy (my

+respects to her!), he'll just have clean forgotten her.  I ken the

+man, ye see; I have lost siller by him ere now.  He thinks of

+naebody but just himsel'; clan, king, or dauchter, if he can get

+his wameful, he would give them a' the go-by! ay, or his

+correspondent either.  For there is a sense in whilk I may be

+nearly almost said to be his correspondent.  The fact is, we are

+employed thegether in a business affair, and I think it's like to

+turn out a dear affair for Sandie Sprott.  The man's as guid's my

+pairtner, and I give ye my mere word I ken naething by where he is.

+He micht be coming here to Helvoet; he micht come here the morn, he

+michtnae come for a twalmouth; I would wonder at naething--or just

+at the ae thing, and that's if he was to pay me my siller.  Ye see

+what way I stand with it; and it's clear I'm no very likely to

+meddle up with the young leddy, as ye ca' her.  She cannae stop

+here, that's ae thing certain sure.  Dod, sir, I'm a lone man!  If

+I was to tak her in, its highly possible the hellicat would try and

+gar me marry her when he turned up."

+

+"Enough of this talk," said I.  "I will take the young leddy among

+better friends.  Give me, pen, ink, and paper, and I will leave

+here for James More the address of my correspondent in Leyden.  He

+can inquire from me where he is to seek his daughter."

+

+This word I wrote and sealed; which while I was doing, Sprott of

+his own motion made a welcome offer, to charge himself with Miss

+Drummond's mails, and even send a porter for them to the inn.  I

+advanced him to that effect a dollar or two to be a cover, and he

+gave me an acknowledgment in writing of the sum.

+

+Whereupon (I giving my arm to Catriona) we left the house of this

+unpalatable rascal.  She had said no word throughout, leaving me to

+judge and speak in her place; I, upon my side, had been careful not

+to embarrass her by a glance; and even now, although my heart still

+glowed inside of me with shame and anger, I made it my affair to

+seem quite easy.

+

+"Now," said I, "let us get back to yon same inn where they can

+speak the French, have a piece of dinner, and inquire for

+conveyances to Rotterdam.  I will never be easy till I have you

+safe again in the hands of Mrs. Gebbie."

+

+"I suppose it will have to be," said Catriona, "though whoever will

+be pleased, I do not think it will be her.  And I will remind you

+this once again that I have but one shilling, and three baubees."

+

+"And just this once again," said I, "I will remind you it was a

+blessing that I came alongst with you."

+

+"What else would I be thinking all this time?" says she, and I

+thought weighed a little on my arm.  "It is you that are the good

+friend to me."

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIII--TRAVELS IN HOLLAND

+

+

+

+The rattel-waggon, which is a kind of a long waggon set with

+benches, carried us in four hours of travel to the great city of

+Rotterdam.  It was long past dark by then, but the streets were

+pretty brightly lighted and thronged with wild-like, outlandish

+characters--bearded Hebrews, black men, and the hordes of

+courtesans, most indecently adorned with finery and stopping seamen

+by their very sleeves; the clash of talk about us made our heads to

+whirl; and what was the most unexpected of all, we appeared to be

+no more struck with all these foreigners than they with us.  I made

+the best face I could, for the lass's sake and my own credit; but

+the truth is I felt like a lost sheep, and my heart beat in my

+bosom with anxiety.  Once or twice I inquired after the harbour or

+the berth of the ship Rose:  but either fell on some who spoke only

+Hollands, or my own French failed me.  Trying a street at a

+venture, I came upon a lane of lighted houses, the doors and

+windows thronged with wauf-like painted women; these jostled and

+mocked upon us as we passed, and I was thankful we had nothing of

+their language.  A little after we issued forth upon an open place

+along the harbour.

+

+"We shall be doing now," cries I, as soon as I spied masts.  "Let

+us walk here by the harbour.  We are sure to meet some that has the

+English, and at the best of it we may light upon that very ship."

+

+We did the next best, as happened; for, about nine of the evening,

+whom should we walk into the arms of but Captain Sang?  He told us

+they had made their run in the most incredible brief time, the wind

+holding strong till they reached port; by which means his

+passengers were all gone already on their further travels.  It was

+impossible to chase after the Gebbies into the High Germany, and we

+had no other acquaintance to fall back upon but Captain Sang

+himself.  It was the more gratifying to find the man friendly and

+wishful to assist.  He made it a small affair to find some good

+plain family of merchants, where Catriona might harbour till the

+Rose was loaden; declared he would then blithely carry her back to

+Leith for nothing and see her safe in the hands of Mr. Gregory; and

+in the meanwhile carried us to a late ordinary for the meal we

+stood in need of.  He seemed extremely friendly, as I say, but what

+surprised me a good deal, rather boisterous in the bargain; and the

+cause of this was soon to appear.  For at the ordinary, calling for

+Rhenish wine and drinking of it deep, he soon became unutterably

+tipsy.  In this case, as too common with all men, but especially

+with those of his rough trade, what little sense or manners he

+possessed deserted him; and he behaved himself so scandalous to the

+young lady, jesting most ill-favouredly at the figure she had made

+on the ship's rail, that I had no resource but carry her suddenly

+away.

+

+She came out of the ordinary clinging to me close.  "Take me away,

+David," she said.  "YOU keep me.  I am not afraid with you."

+

+"And have no cause, my little friend!" cried I, and could have

+found it in my heart to weep.

+

+"Where will you be taking me?" she said again.  "Don't leave me at

+all events--never leave me."

+

+"Where am I taking you to?" says I stopping, for I had been staving

+on ahead in mere blindness.  "I must stop and think.  But I'll not

+leave you, Catriona; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I

+should fail or fash you."

+

+She crept close into me by way of a reply.

+

+"Here," I said, "is the stillest place we have hit on yet in this

+busy byke of a city.  Let us sit down here under yon tree and

+consider of our course."

+

+That tree (which I am little like to forget) stood hard by the

+harbour side.  It was like a black night, but lights were in the

+houses, and nearer hand in the quiet ships; there was a shining of

+the city on the one hand, and a buzz hung over it of many thousands

+walking and talking; on the other, it was dark and the water

+bubbled on the sides.  I spread my cloak upon a builder's stone,

+and made her sit there; she would have kept her hold upon me, for

+she still shook with the late affronts; but I wanted to think

+clear, disengaged myself, and paced to and fro before her, in the

+manner of what we call a smuggler's walk, belabouring my brains for

+any remedy.  By the course of these scattering thoughts I was

+brought suddenly face to face with a remembrance that, in the heat

+and haste of our departure, I had left Captain Sang to pay the

+ordinary.  At this I began to laugh out loud, for I thought the man

+well served; and at the same time, by an instinctive movement,

+carried my hand to the pocket where my money was.  I suppose it was

+in the lane where the women jostled us; but there is only the one

+thing certain, that my purse was gone.

+

+"You will have thought of something good," said she, observing me

+to pause.

+

+At the pinch we were in, my mind became suddenly clear as a

+perspective glass, and I saw there was no choice of methods.  I had

+not one doit of coin, but in my pocket-book I had still my letter

+on the Leyden merchant; and there was now but the one way to get to

+Leyden, and that was to walk on our two feet.

+

+"Catriona," said I, "I know you're brave and I believe you're

+strong--do you think you could walk thirty miles on a plain road?"

+We found it, I believe, scarce the two-thirds of that, but such was

+my notion of the distance.

+

+"David," she said, "if you will just keep near, I will go anywhere

+and do anything.  The courage of my heart, it is all broken.  Do

+not be leaving me in this horrible country by myself, and I will do

+all else."

+

+"Can you start now and march all night?" said I.

+

+"I will do all that you can ask of me," she said, "and never ask

+you why.  I have been a bad ungrateful girl to you; and do what you

+please with me now!  And I think Miss Barbara Grant is the best

+lady in the world," she added, "and I do not see what she would

+deny you for at all events."

+

+This was Greek and Hebrew to me; but I had other matters to

+consider, and the first of these was to get clear of that city on

+the Leyden road.  It proved a cruel problem; and it may have been

+one or two at night ere we had solved it.  Once beyond the houses,

+there was neither moon nor stars to guide us; only the whiteness of

+the way in the midst and a blackness of an alley on both hands.

+The walking was besides made most extraordinary difficult by a

+plain black frost that fell suddenly in the small hours and turned

+that highway into one long slide.

+

+"Well, Catriona," said I, "here we are like the king's sons and the

+old wives' daughters in your daft-like Highland tales.  Soon we'll

+be going over the 'SEVEN BENS, THE SEVEN GLENS AND THE SEVEN

+MOUNTAIN MOORS'."  Which was a common byword or overcome in those

+tales of hers that had stuck in my memory.

+

+"Ah," says she, "but here are no glens or mountains!  Though I will

+never be denying but what the trees and some of the plain places

+hereabouts are very pretty.  But our country is the best yet."

+

+"I wish we could say as much for our own folk," says I, recalling

+Sprott and Sang, and perhaps James More himself.

+

+"I will never complain of the country of my friend," said she, and

+spoke it out with an accent so particular that I seemed to see the

+look upon her face.

+

+I caught in my breath sharp and came near falling (for my pains) on

+the black ice.

+

+"I do not know what YOU think, Catriona," said I, when I was a

+little recovered, "but this has been the best day yet!  I think

+shame to say it, when you have met in with such misfortunes and

+disfavours; but for me, it has been the best day yet."

+

+"It was a good day when you showed me so much love," said she.

+

+"And yet I think shame to be happy too," I went on, "and you here

+on the road in the black night."

+

+"Where in the great world would I be else?" she cried.  "I am

+thinking I am safest where I am with you."

+

+"I am quite forgiven, then?" I asked.

+

+"Will you not forgive me that time so much as not to take it in

+your mouth again?" she cried.  "There is nothing in this heart to

+you but thanks.  But I will be honest too," she added, with a kind

+of suddenness, "and I'll never can forgive that girl."

+

+"Is this Miss Grant again?" said I.  "You said yourself she was the

+best lady in the world."

+

+"So she will be, indeed!" says Catriona.  "But I will never forgive

+her for all that.  I will never, never forgive her, and let me hear

+tell of her no more."

+

+"Well," said I, "this beats all that ever came to my knowledge; and

+I wonder that you can indulge yourself in such bairnly whims.  Here

+is a young lady that was the best friend in the world to the both

+of us, that learned us how to dress ourselves, and in a great

+manner how to behave, as anyone can see that knew us both before

+and after."

+

+But Catriona stopped square in the midst of the highway.

+

+"It is this way of it," said she.  "Either you will go on to speak

+of her, and I will go back to yon town, and let come of it what God

+pleases!  Or else you will do me that politeness to talk of other

+things."

+

+I was the most nonplussed person in this world; but I bethought me

+that she depended altogether on my help, that she was of the frail

+sex and not so much beyond a child, and it was for me to be wise

+for the pair of us.

+

+"My dear girl," said I, "I can make neither head nor tails of this;

+but God forbid that I should do anything to set you on the jee.  As

+for talking of Miss Grant, I have no such a mind to it, and I

+believe it was yourself began it.  My only design (if I took you up

+at all) was for your own improvement, for I hate the very look of

+injustice.  Not that I do not wish you to have a good pride and a

+nice female delicacy; they become you well; but here you show them

+to excess."

+

+"Well, then, have you done?" said she.

+

+"I have done," said I.

+

+"A very good thing," said she, and we went on again, but now in

+silence.

+

+It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding

+only shadows and hearing nought but our own steps.  At first, I

+believe our hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity;

+but the darkness and the cold, and the silence, which only the

+cocks sometimes interrupted, or sometimes the farmyard dogs, had

+pretty soon brought down our pride to the dust; and for my own

+particular, I would have jumped at any decent opening for speech.

+

+Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was

+all wiped away from among our feet.  I took my cloak to her and

+sought to hap her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to

+keep it.

+

+"Indeed and I will do no such thing," said I.  "Here am I, a great,

+ugly lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here are you a

+tender, pretty maid!  My dear, you would not put me to a shame?"

+

+Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in

+the darkness, I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost

+like an embrace.

+

+"You must try to be more patient of your friend," said I.

+

+I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against

+my bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.

+

+"There will be no end to your goodness," said she.

+

+And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the

+happiness that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.

+

+The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came

+into the town of Delft.  The red gabled houses made a handsome show

+on either hand of a canal; the servant lassies were out slestering

+and scrubbing at the very stones upon the public highway; smoke

+rose from a hundred kitchens; and it came in upon me strongly it

+was time to break our fasts.

+

+"Catriona," said I, "I believe you have yet a shilling and three

+baubees?"

+

+"Are you wanting it?" said she, and passed me her purse.  "I am

+wishing it was five pounds!  What will you want it for?"

+

+"And what have we been walking for all night, like a pair of waif

+Egyptians!" says I.  "Just because I was robbed of my purse and all

+I possessed in that unchancy town of Rotterdam.  I will tell you of

+it now, because I think the worst is over, but we have still a good

+tramp before us till we get to where my money is, and if you would

+not buy me a piece of bread, I were like to go fasting."

+

+She looked at me with open eyes.  By the light of the new day she

+was all black and pale for weariness, so that my heart smote me for

+her.  But as for her, she broke out laughing.

+

+"My torture! are we beggars then!" she cried.  "You too?  O, I

+could have wished for this same thing!  And I am glad to buy your

+breakfast to you.  But it would be pleisand if I would have had to

+dance to get a meal to you!  For I believe they are not very well

+acquainted with our manner of dancing over here, and might be

+paying for the curiosity of that sight."

+

+I could have kissed her for that word, not with a lover's mind, but

+in a heat of admiration.  For it always warms a man to see a woman

+brave.

+

+We got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the

+town, and in a baker's, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling

+bread, which we ate upon the road as we went on.  That road from

+Delft to the Hague is just five miles of a fine avenue shaded with

+trees, a canal on the one hand, on the other excellent pastures of

+cattle.  It was pleasant here indeed.

+

+"And now, Davie," said she, "what will you do with me at all

+events?"

+

+"It is what we have to speak of," said I, "and the sooner yet the

+better.  I can come by money in Leyden; that will be all well.  But

+the trouble is how to dispose of you until your father come.  I

+thought last night you seemed a little sweir to part from me?"

+

+"It will be more than seeming then," said she.

+

+"You are a very young maid," said I, "and I am but a very young

+callant.  This is a great piece of difficulty.  What way are we to

+manage?  Unless indeed, you could pass to be my sister?"

+

+"And what for no?" said she, "if you would let me!"

+

+"I wish you were so, indeed," I cried.  "I would be a fine man if I

+had such a sister.  But the rub is that you are Catriona Drummond."

+

+"And now I will be Catriona Balfour," she said.  "And who is to

+ken?  They are all strange folk here."

+

+"If you think that it would do," says I.  "I own it troubles me.  I

+would like it very ill, if I advised you at all wrong."

+

+"David, I have no friend here but you," she said.

+

+"The mere truth is, I am too young to be your friend," said I.  "I

+am too young to advise you, or you to be advised.  I see not what

+else we are to do, and yet I ought to warn you."

+

+"I will have no choice left," said she.  "My father James More has

+not used me very well, and it is not the first time, I am cast upon

+your hands like a sack of barley meal, and have nothing else to

+think of but your pleasure.  If you will have me, good and well.

+If you will not"--she turned and touched her hand upon my arm--

+"David, I am afraid," said she.

+

+"No, but I ought to warn you," I began; and then bethought me I was

+the bearer of the purse, and it would never do to seem too

+churlish.  "Catriona," said I, "don't misunderstand me:  I am just

+trying to do my duty by you, girl!  Here am I going alone to this

+strange city, to be a solitary student there; and here is this

+chance arisen that you might dwell with me a bit, and be like my

+sister; you can surely understand this much, my dear, that I would

+just love to have you?"

+

+"Well, and here I am," said she.  "So that's soon settled."

+

+I know I was in duty bounden to have spoke more plain.  I know this

+was a great blot on my character, for which I was lucky that I did

+not pay more dear.  But I minded how easy her delicacy had been

+startled with a word of kissing her in Barbara's letter; now that

+she depended on me, how was I to be more bold?  Besides, the truth

+is, I could see no other feasible method to dispose of her.  And I

+daresay inclination pulled me very strong.

+

+A little beyond the Hague she fell very lame and made the rest of

+the distance heavily enough.  Twice she must rest by the wayside,

+which she did with pretty apologies, calling herself a shame to the

+Highlands and the race she came of, and nothing but a hindrance to

+myself.  It was her excuse, she said, that she was not much used

+with walking shod.  I would have had her strip off her shoes and

+stockings and go barefoot.  But she pointed out to me that the

+women of that country, even in the landward roads, appeared to be

+all shod.

+

+"I must not be disgracing my brother," said she, and was very merry

+with it all, although her face told tales of her.

+

+There is a garden in that city we were bound to, sanded below with

+clean sand, the trees meeting overhead, some of them trimmed, some

+preached, and the whole place beautified with alleys and arbours.

+Here I left Catriona, and went forward by myself to find my

+correspondent.  There I drew on my credit, and asked to be

+recommended to some decent, retired lodging.  My baggage being not

+yet arrived, I told him I supposed I should require his caution

+with the people of the house; and explained that, my sister being

+come for a while to keep house with me, I should be wanting two

+chambers.  This was all very well; but the trouble was that Mr.

+Balfour in his letter of recommendation had condescended on a great

+deal of particulars, and never a word of any sister in the case.  I

+could see my Dutchman was extremely suspicious; and viewing me over

+the rims of a great pair of spectacles--he was a poor, frail body,

+and reminded me of an infirm rabbit--he began to question me close.

+

+Here I fell in a panic.  Suppose he accept my tale (thinks I),

+suppose he invite my sister to his house, and that I bring her.  I

+shall have a fine ravelled pirn to unwind, and may end by

+disgracing both the lassie and myself.  Thereupon I began hastily

+to expound to him my sister's character.  She was of a bashful

+disposition, it appeared, and be extremely fearful of meeting

+strangers that I had left her at that moment sitting in a public

+place alone.  And then, being launched upon the stream of

+falsehood, I must do like all the rest of the world in the same

+circumstance, and plunge in deeper than was any service; adding

+some altogether needless particulars of Miss Balfour's ill-health

+and retirement during childhood.  In the midst of which I awoke to

+a sense of my behaviour, and was turned to one blush.

+

+The old gentleman was not so much deceived but what he discovered a

+willingness to be quit of me.  But he was first of all a man of

+business; and knowing that my money was good enough, however it

+might be with my conduct, he was so far obliging as to send his son

+to be my guide and caution in the matter of a lodging.  This

+implied my presenting of the young man to Catriona.  The poor,

+pretty child was much recovered with resting, looked and behaved to

+perfection, and took my arm and gave me the name of brother more

+easily than I could answer her.  But there was one misfortune:

+thinking to help, she was rather towardly than otherwise to my

+Dutchman.  And I could not but reflect that Miss Balfour had rather

+suddenly outgrown her bashfulness.  And there was another thing,

+the difference of our speech.  I had the Low Country tongue and

+dwelled upon my words; she had a hill voice, spoke with something

+of an English accent, only far more delightful, and was scarce

+quite fit to be called a deacon in the craft of talking English

+grammar; so that, for a brother and sister, we made a most uneven

+pair.  But the young Hollander was a heavy dog, without so much

+spirit in his belly as to remark her prettiness, for which I

+scorned him.  And as soon as he had found a cover to our heads, he

+left us alone, which was the greater service of the two.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIV--FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS

+

+

+

+The place found was in the upper part of a house backed on a canal.

+We had two rooms, the second entering from the first; each had a

+chimney built out into the floor in the Dutch manner; and being

+alongside, each had the same prospect from the window of the top of

+a tree below us in a little court, of a piece of the canal, and of

+houses in the Hollands architecture and a church spire upon the

+further side.  A full set of bells hung in that spire and made

+delightful music; and when there was any sun at all, it shone

+direct in our two chambers.  From a tavern hard by we had good

+meals sent in.

+

+The first night we were both pretty weary, and she extremely so.

+There was little talk between us, and I packed her off to her bed

+as soon as she had eaten.  The first thing in the morning I wrote

+word to Sprott to have her mails sent on, together with a line to

+Alan at his chief's; and had the same despatched, and her breakfast

+ready, ere I waked her.  I was a little abashed when she came forth

+in her one habit, and the mud of the way upon her stockings.  By

+what inquiries I had made, it seemed a good few days must pass

+before her mails could come to hand in Leyden, and it was plainly

+needful she must have a shift of things.  She was unwilling at

+first that I should go to that expense; but I reminded her she was

+now a rich man's sister and must appear suitably in the part, and

+we had not got to the second merchant's before she was entirely

+charmed into the spirit of the thing, and her eyes shining.  It

+pleased me to see her so innocent and thorough in this pleasure.

+What was more extraordinary was the passion into which I fell on it

+myself; being never satisfied that I had bought her enough or fine

+enough, and never weary of beholding her in different attires.

+Indeed, I began to understand some little of Miss Grant's immersion

+in the interest of clothes; for the truth is, when you have the

+ground of a beautiful person to adorn, the whole business becomes

+beautiful.  The Dutch chintzes I should say were extraordinary

+cheap and fine; but I would be ashamed to set down what I paid for

+stockings to her.  Altogether I spent so great a sum upon this

+pleasuring (as I may call it) that I was ashamed for a great while

+to spend more; and by way of a set-off, I left our chambers pretty

+bare.  If we had beds, if Catriona was a little braw, and I had

+light to see her by, we were richly enough lodged for me.

+

+By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the

+door with all our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which

+to read myself a lecture.  Here had I taken under my roof, and as

+good as to my bosom, a young lass extremely beautiful, and whose

+innocence was her peril.  My talk with the old Dutchman, and the

+lies to which I was constrained, had already given me a sense of

+how my conduct must appear to others; and now, after the strong

+admiration I had just experienced and the immoderacy with which I

+had continued my vain purchases, I began to think of it myself as

+very hazarded.  I bethought me, if I had a sister indeed, whether I

+would so expose her; then, judging the case too problematical, I

+varied my question into this, whether I would so trust Catriona in

+the hands of any other Christian being; the answer to which made my

+face to burn.  The more cause, since I had been entrapped and had

+entrapped the girl into an undue situation, that I should behave in

+it with scrupulous nicety.  She depended on me wholly for her bread

+and shelter; in case I should alarm her delicacy, she had no

+retreat.  Besides I was her host and her protector; and the more

+irregularly I had fallen in these positions, the less excuse for me

+if I should profit by the same to forward even the most honest

+suit; for with the opportunities that I enjoyed, and which no wise

+parent would have suffered for a moment, even the most honest suit

+would be unfair.  I saw I must be extremely hold-off in my

+relations; and yet not too much so neither; for if I had no right

+to appear at all in the character of a suitor, I must yet appear

+continually, and if possible agreeably, in that of host.  It was

+plain I should require a great deal of tact and conduct, perhaps

+more than my years afforded.  But I had rushed in where angels

+might have feared to tread, and there was no way out of that

+position save by behaving right while I was in it.  I made a set of

+rules for my guidance; prayed for strength to be enabled to observe

+them, and as a more human aid to the same end purchased a study-

+book in law.  This being all that I could think of, I relaxed from

+these grave considerations; whereupon my mind bubbled at once into

+an effervescency of pleasing spirits, and it was like one treading

+on air that I turned homeward.  As I thought that name of home, and

+recalled the image of that figure awaiting me between four walls,

+my heart beat upon my bosom.

+

+My troubles began with my return.  She ran to greet me with an

+obvious and affecting pleasure.  She was clad, besides, entirely in

+the new clothes that I had bought for her; looked in them beyond

+expression well; and must walk about and drop me curtseys to

+display them and to be admired.  I am sure I did it with an ill

+grace, for I thought to have choked upon the words.

+

+"Well," she said, "if you will not be caring for my pretty clothes,

+see what I have done with our two chambers."  And she showed me the

+place all very finely swept, and the fires glowing in the two

+chimneys.

+

+I was glad of a chance to seem a little more severe than I quite

+felt.  "Catriona," said I, "I am very much displeased with you, and

+you must never again lay a hand upon my room.  One of us two must

+have the rule while we are here together; it is most fit it should

+be I who am both the man and the elder; and I give you that for my

+command."

+

+She dropped me one of her curtseys; which were extraordinary

+taking.  "If you will be cross," said she, "I must be making pretty

+manners at you, Davie.  I will be very obedient, as I should be

+when every stitch upon all there is of me belongs to you.  But you

+will not be very cross either, because now I have not anyone else."

+

+This struck me hard, and I made haste, in a kind of penitence, to

+blot out all the good effect of my last speech.  In this direction

+progress was more easy, being down hill; she led me forward,

+smiling; at the sight of her, in the brightness of the fire and

+with her pretty becks and looks, my heart was altogether melted.

+We made our meal with infinite mirth and tenderness; and the two

+seemed to be commingled into one, so that our very laughter sounded

+like a kindness.

+

+In the midst of which I awoke to better recollections, made a lame

+word of excuse, and set myself boorishly to my studies.  It was a

+substantial, instructive book that I had bought, by the late Dr.

+Heineccius, in which I was to do a great deal reading these next

+few days, and often very glad that I had no one to question me of

+what I read.  Methought she bit her lip at me a little, and that

+cut me.  Indeed it left her wholly solitary, the more as she was

+very little of a reader, and had never a book.  But what was I to

+do?

+

+So the rest of the evening flowed by almost without speech.

+

+I could have beat myself.  I could not lie in my bed that night for

+rage and repentance, but walked to and fro on my bare feet till I

+was nearly perished, for the chimney was gone out and the frost

+keen.  The thought of her in the next room, the thought that she

+might even hear me as I walked, the remembrance of my churlishness

+and that I must continue to practise the same ungrateful course or

+be dishonoured, put me beside my reason.  I stood like a man

+between Scylla and Charybdis:  WHAT MUST SHE THINK OF ME? was my

+one thought that softened me continually into weakness.  WHAT IS TO

+BECOME OF US? the other which steeled me again to resolution.  This

+was my first night of wakefulness and divided counsels, of which I

+was now to pass many, pacing like a madman, sometimes weeping like

+a childish boy, sometimes praying (I fain would hope) like a

+Christian.

+

+But prayer is not very difficult, and the hitch comes in practice.

+In her presence, and above all if I allowed any beginning of

+familiarity, I found I had very little command of what should

+follow.  But to sit all day in the same room with her, and feign to

+be engaged upon Heineccius, surpassed my strength.  So that I fell

+instead upon the expedient of absenting myself so much as I was

+able; taking out classes and sitting there regularly, often with

+small attention, the test of which I found the other day in a note-

+book of that period, where I had left off to follow an edifying

+lecture and actually scribbled in my book some very ill verses,

+though the Latinity is rather better than I thought that I could

+ever have compassed.  The evil of this course was unhappily near as

+great as its advantage.  I had the less time of trial, but I

+believe, while the time lasted, I was tried the more extremely.

+For she being so much left to solitude, she came to greet my return

+with an increasing fervour that came nigh to overmaster me.  These

+friendly offers I must barbarously cast back; and my rejection

+sometimes wounded her so cruelly that I must unbend and seek to

+make it up to her in kindness.  So that our time passed in ups and

+downs, tiffs and disappointments, upon the which I could almost say

+(if it may be said with reverence) that I was crucified.

+

+The base of my trouble was Catriona's extraordinary innocence, at

+which I was not so much surprised as filled with pity and

+admiration.  She seemed to have no thought of our position, no

+sense of my struggles; welcomed any mark of my weakness with

+responsive joy; and when I was drove again to my retrenchments, did

+not always dissemble her chagrin.  There were times when I have

+thought to myself, "If she were over head in love, and set her cap

+to catch me, she would scarce behave much otherwise;" and then I

+would fall again into wonder at the simplicity of woman, from whom

+I felt (in these moments) that I was not worthy to be descended.

+

+There was one point in particular on which our warfare turned, and

+of all things, this was the question of her clothes.  My baggage

+had soon followed me from Rotterdam, and hers from Helvoet.  She

+had now, as it were, two wardrobes; and it grew to be understood

+between us (I could never tell how) that when she was friendly she

+would wear my clothes, and when otherwise her own.  It was meant

+for a buffet, and (as it were) the renunciation of her gratitude;

+and I felt it so in my bosom, but was generally more wise than to

+appear to have observed the circumstance.

+

+Once, indeed, I was betrayed into a childishness greater than her

+own; it fell in this way.  On my return from classes, thinking upon

+her devoutly with a great deal of love and a good deal of annoyance

+in the bargain, the annoyance began to fade away out of my mind;

+and spying in a window one of those forced flowers, of which the

+Hollanders are so skilled in the artifice, I gave way to an impulse

+and bought it for Catriona.  I do not know the name of that flower,

+but it was of the pink colour, and I thought she would admire the

+same, and carried it home to her with a wonderful soft heart.  I

+had left her in my clothes, and when I returned to find her all

+changed and a face to match, I cast but the one look at her from

+head to foot, ground my teeth together, flung the window open, and

+my flower into the court, and then (between rage and prudence)

+myself out of that room again, of which I slammed she door as I

+went out.

+

+On the steep stair I came near falling, and this brought me to

+myself, so that I began at once to see the folly of my conduct.  I

+went, not into the street as I had purposed, but to the house

+court, which was always a solitary place, and where I saw my flower

+(that had cost me vastly more than it was worth) hanging in the

+leafless tree.  I stood by the side of the canal, and looked upon

+the ice.  Country people went by on their skates, and I envied

+them.  I could see no way out of the pickle I was in no way so much

+as to return to the room I had just left.  No doubt was in my mind

+but I had now betrayed the secret of my feelings; and to make

+things worse, I had shown at the same time (and that with wretched

+boyishness) incivility to my helpless guest.

+

+I suppose she must have seen me from the open window.  It did not

+seem to me that I had stood there very long before I heard the

+crunching of footsteps on the frozen snow, and turning somewhat

+angrily (for I was in no spirit to be interrupted) saw Catriona

+drawing near.  She was all changed again, to the clocked stockings.

+

+"Are we not to have our walk to-day?" said she.

+

+I was looking at her in a maze.  "Where is your brooch?" says I.

+

+She carried her hand to her bosom and coloured high.  "I will have

+forgotten it," said she.  "I will run upstairs for it quick, and

+then surely we'll can have our walk?"

+

+There was a note of pleading in that last that staggered me; I had

+neither words nor voice to utter them; I could do no more than nod

+by way of answer; and the moment she had left me, climbed into the

+tree and recovered my flower, which on her return I offered her.

+

+"I bought it for you, Catriona," said I.

+

+She fixed it in the midst of her bosom with the brooch, I could

+have thought tenderly.

+

+"It is none the better of my handling," said I again, and blushed.

+

+"I will be liking it none the worse, you may be sure of that," said

+she.

+

+We did not speak so much that day; she seemed a thought on the

+reserve, though not unkindly.  As for me, all the time of our

+walking, and after we came home, and I had seen her put my flower

+into a pot of water, I was thinking to myself what puzzles women

+were.  I was thinking, the one moment, it was the most stupid thing

+on earth she should not have perceived my love; and the next, that

+she had certainly perceived it long ago, and (being a wise girl

+with the fine female instinct of propriety) concealed her

+knowledge.

+

+We had our walk daily.  Out in the streets I felt more safe; I

+relaxed a little in my guardedness; and for one thing, there was no

+Heineccius.  This made these periods not only a relief to myself,

+but a particular pleasure to my poor child.  When I came back about

+the hour appointed, I would generally find her ready dressed, and

+glowing with anticipation.  She would prolong their duration to the

+extreme, seeming to dread (as I did myself) the hour of the return;

+and there is scarce a field or waterside near Leyden, scarce a

+street or lane there, where we have not lingered.  Outside of

+these, I bade her confine herself entirely to our lodgings; this in

+the fear of her encountering any acquaintance, which would have

+rendered our position very difficult.  From the same apprehension I

+would never suffer her to attend church, nor even go myself; but

+made some kind of shift to hold worship privately in our own

+chamber--I hope with an honest, but I am quite sure with a very

+much divided mind.  Indeed, there was scarce anything that more

+affected me, than thus to kneel down alone with her before God like

+man and wife.

+

+One day it was snowing downright hard.  I had thought it not

+possible that we should venture forth, and was surprised to find

+her waiting for me ready dressed.

+

+"I will not be doing without my walk," she cried.  "You are never a

+good boy, Davie, in the house; I will never be caring for you only

+in the open air.  I think we two will better turn Egyptian and

+dwell by the roadside."

+

+That was the best walk yet of all of them; she clung near to me in

+the falling snow; it beat about and melted on us, and the drops

+stood upon her bright cheeks like tears and ran into her smiling

+mouth.  Strength seemed to come upon me with the sight like a

+giant's; I thought I could have caught her up and run with her into

+the uttermost places in the earth; and we spoke together all that

+time beyond belief for freedom and sweetness.

+

+It was the dark night when we came to the house door.  She pressed

+my arm upon her bosom.  "Thank you kindly for these same good

+hours," said she, on a deep note of her voice.

+

+The concern in which I fell instantly on this address, put me with

+the same swiftness on my guard; and we were no sooner in the

+chamber, and the light made, than she beheld the old, dour,

+stubborn countenance of the student of Heineccius.  Doubtless she

+was more than usually hurt; and I know for myself, I found it more

+than usually difficult to maintain any strangeness.  Even at the

+meal, I durst scarce unbuckle and scarce lift my eyes to her; and

+it was no sooner over than I fell again to my civilian, with more

+seeming abstraction and less understanding than before.  Methought,

+as I read, I could hear my heart strike like an eight-day clock.

+Hard as I feigned to study, there was still some of my eyesight

+that spilled beyond the book upon Catriona.  She sat on the floor

+by the side of my great mail, and the chimney lighted her up, and

+shone and blinked upon her, and made her glow and darken through a

+wonder of fine hues.  Now she would be gazing in the fire, and then

+again at me; and at that I would be plunged in a terror of myself,

+and turn the pages of Heineccius like a man looking for the text in

+church.

+

+Suddenly she called out aloud.  "O, why does not my father come?"

+she cried, and fell at once into a storm of tears.

+

+I leaped up, flung Heineccius fairly in the fire, ran to her side,

+and cast an arm around her sobbing body.

+

+She put me from her sharply, "You do not love your friend," says

+she.  "I could be so happy too, if you would let me!"  And then,

+"O, what will I have done that you should hate me so?"

+

+"Hate you!" cries I, and held her firm.  "You blind less, can you

+not see a little in my wretched heart?  Do you not think when I sit

+there, reading in that fool-book that I have just burned and be

+damned to it, I take ever the least thought of any stricken thing

+but just yourself?  Night after night I could have grat to see you

+sitting there your lone.  And what was I to do?  You are here under

+my honour; would you punish me for that?  Is it for that that you

+would spurn a loving servant?"

+

+At the word, with a small, sudden motion, she clung near to me.  I

+raised her face to mine, I kissed it, and she bowed her brow upon

+my bosom, clasping me tight.  I saw in a mere whirl like a man

+drunken.  Then I heard her voice sound very small and muffled in my

+clothes.

+

+"Did you kiss her truly?" she asked.

+

+There went through me so great a heave of surprise that I was all

+shook with it.

+

+"Miss Grant?" I cried, all in a disorder.  "Yes, I asked her to

+kiss me good-bye, the which she did."

+

+"Ah, well!" said she, "you have kissed me too, at all events."

+

+At the strangeness and sweetness of that word, I saw where we had

+fallen; rose, and set her on her feet.

+

+"This will never do," said I.  "This will never, never do.  O

+Catrine, Catrine!"  Then there came a pause in which I was debarred

+from any speaking.  And then, "Go away to your bed," said I.  "Go

+away to your bed and leave me."

+

+She turned to obey me like a child, and the next I knew of it, had

+stopped in the very doorway.

+

+"Good night, Davie!" said she.

+

+"And O, good night, my love!" I cried, with a great outbreak of my

+soul, and caught her to me again, so that it seemed I must have

+broken her.  The next moment I had thrust her from the room, shut

+to the door even with violence, and stood alone.

+

+The milk was spilt now, the word was out and the truth told.  I had

+crept like an untrusty man into the poor maid's affections; she was

+in my hand like any frail, innocent thing to make or mar; and what

+weapon of defence was left me?  It seemed like a symbol that

+Heineccius, my old protection, was now burned.  I repented, yet

+could not find it in my heart to blame myself for that great

+failure.  It seemed not possible to have resisted the boldness of

+her innocence or that last temptation of her weeping.  And all that

+I had to excuse me did but make my sin appear the greater--it was

+upon a nature so defenceless, and with such advantages of the

+position, that I seemed to have practised.

+

+What was to become of us now?  It seemed we could no longer dwell

+in the one place.  But where was I to go? or where she?  Without

+either choice or fault of ours, life had conspired to wall us

+together in that narrow place.  I had a wild thought of marrying

+out of hand; and the next moment put it from me with revolt.  She

+was a child, she could not tell her own heart; I had surprised her

+weakness, I must never go on to build on that surprisal; I must

+keep her not only clear of reproach, but free as she had come to

+me.

+

+Down I sat before the fire, and reflected, and repented, and beat

+my brains in vain for any means of escape.  About two of the

+morning, there were three red embers left and the house and all the

+city was asleep, when I was aware of a small sound of weeping in

+the next room.  She thought that I slept, the poor soul; she

+regretted her weakness--and what perhaps (God help her!) she called

+her forwardness--and in the dead of the night solaced herself with

+tears.  Tender and bitter feelings, love and penitence and pity,

+struggled in my soul; it seemed I was under bond to heal that

+weeping.

+

+"O, try to forgive me!" I cried out, "try, try to forgive me.  Let

+us forget it all, let us try if we'll no can forget it!"

+

+There came no answer, but the sobbing ceased.  I stood a long while

+with my hands still clasped as I had spoken; then the cold of the

+night laid hold upon me with a shudder, and I think my reason

+reawakened.

+

+"You can make no hand of this, Davie," thinks I.  "To bed with you

+like a wise lad, and try if you can sleep.  To-morrow you may see

+your way."

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXV--THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE

+

+

+

+I was called on the morrow out of a late and troubled slumber by a

+knocking on my door, ran to open it, and had almost swooned with

+the contrariety of my feelings, mostly painful; for on the

+threshold, in a rough wraprascal and an extraordinary big laced

+hat, there stood James More.

+

+I ought to have been glad perhaps without admixture, for there was

+a sense in which the man came like an answer to prayer.  I had been

+saying till my head was weary that Catriona and I must separate,

+and looking till my head ached for any possible means of

+separation.  Here were the means come to me upon two legs, and joy

+was the hindmost of my thoughts.  It is to be considered, however,

+that even if the weight of the future were lifted off me by the

+man's arrival, the present heaved up the more black and menacing;

+so that, as I first stood before him in my shirt and breeches, I

+believe I took a leaping step backward like a person shot.

+

+"Ah," said he, "I have found you, Mr, Balfour."  And offered me his

+large, fine hand, the which (recovering at the same time my post in

+the doorway, as if with some thought of resistance) I took him by

+doubtfully.  "It is a remarkable circumstance how our affairs

+appear to intermingle," he continued.  "I am owing you an apology

+for an unfortunate intrusion upon yours, which I suffered myself to

+be entrapped into by my confidence in that false-face,

+Prestongrange; I think shame to own to you that I was ever trusting

+to a lawyer."  He shrugged his shoulders with a very French air.

+"But indeed the man is very plausible," says he.  "And now it seems

+that you have busied yourself handsomely in the matter of my

+daughter, for whose direction I was remitted to yourself."

+

+"I think, sir," said I, with a very painful air, "that it will be

+necessary we two should have an explanation."

+

+"There is nothing amiss?" he asked.  "My agent, Mr. Sprott--"

+

+"For God's sake moderate your voice!" I cried.  "She must not hear

+till we have had an explanation."

+

+"She is in this place?" cries he.

+

+"That is her chamber door," said I.

+

+"You are here with her alone?" he asked.

+

+"And who else would I have got to stay with us?" cries I.

+

+I will do him the justice to admit that he turned pale.

+

+"This is very unusual," said he.  "This is a very unusual

+circumstance.  You are right, we must hold an explanation."

+

+So saying he passed me by, and I must own the tall old rogue

+appeared at that moment extraordinary dignified.  He had now, for

+the first time, the view of my chamber, which I scanned (I may say)

+with his eyes.  A bit of morning sun glinted in by the window pane,

+and showed it off; my bed, my mails, and washing dish, with some

+disorder of my clothes, and the unlighted chimney, made the only

+plenishing; no mistake but it looked bare and cold, and the most

+unsuitable, beggarly place conceivable to harbour a young lady.  At

+the same time came in on my mind the recollection of the clothes

+that I had bought for her; and I thought this contrast of poverty

+and prodigality bore an ill appearance.

+

+He looked all about the chamber for a seat, and finding nothing

+else to his purpose except my bed, took a place upon the side of

+it; where, after I had closed the door, I could not very well avoid

+joining him.  For however this extraordinary interview might end,

+it must pass if possible without waking Catriona; and the one thing

+needful was that we should sit close and talk low.  But I can

+scarce picture what a pair we made; he in his great coat which the

+coldness of my chamber made extremely suitable; I shivering in my

+shirt and breeks; he with very much the air of a judge; and I

+(whatever I looked) with very much the feelings of a man who has

+heard the last trumpet.

+

+"Well?" says he.

+

+And "Well," I began, but found myself unable to go further.

+

+"You tell me she is here?" said he again, but now with a spice of

+impatience that seemed to brace me up.

+

+"She is in this house," said I, "and I knew the circumstance would

+be called unusual.  But you are to consider how very unusual the

+whole business was from the beginning.  Here is a young lady landed

+on the coast of Europe with two shillings and a penny halfpenny.

+She is directed to yon man Sprott in Helvoet.  I hear you call him

+your agent.  All I can say is he could do nothing but damn and

+swear at the mere mention of your name, and I must fee him out of

+my own pocket even to receive the custody of her effects.  You

+speak of unusual circumstances, Mr. Drummond, if that be the name

+you prefer.  Here was a circumstance, if you like, to which it was

+barbarity to have exposed her."

+

+"But this is what I cannot understand the least," said James.  "My

+daughter was placed into the charge of some responsible persons,

+whose names I have forgot."  "Gebbie was the name," said I; "and

+there is no doubt that Mr. Gebbie should have gone ashore with her

+at Helvoet.  But he did not, Mr. Drummond; and I think you might

+praise God that I was there to offer in his place."

+

+"I shall have a word to say to Mr. Gebbie before long," said he.

+"As for yourself, I think it might have occurred that you were

+somewhat young for such a post."

+

+"But the choice was not between me and somebody else, it was

+between me and nobody," cried I.  "Nobody offered in my place, and

+I must say I think you show a very small degree of gratitude to me

+that did."

+

+"I shall wait until I understand my obligation a little more in the

+particular," says he.

+

+"Indeed, and I think it stares you in the face, then," said I.

+"Your child was deserted, she was clean flung away in the midst of

+Europe, with scarce two shillings, and not two words of any

+language spoken there:  I must say, a bonny business!  I brought

+her to this place.  I gave her the name and the tenderness due to a

+sister.  All this has not gone without expense, but that I scarce

+need to hint at.  They were services due to the young lady's

+character which I respect; and I think it would be a bonny business

+too, if I was to be singing her praises to her father."

+

+"You are a young man," he began.

+

+"So I hear you tell me," said I, with a good deal of heat.

+

+"You are a very young man," he repeated, "or you would have

+understood the significancy of the step."

+

+"I think you speak very much at your ease," cried I.  "What else

+was I to do?  It is a fact I might have hired some decent, poor

+woman to be a third to us, and I declare I never thought of it

+until this moment!  But where was I to find her, that am a

+foreigner myself?  And let me point out to your observation, Mr.

+Drummond, that it would have cost me money out of my pocket.  For

+here is just what it comes to, that I had to pay through the nose

+for your neglect; and there is only the one story to it, just that

+you were so unloving and so careless as to have lost your

+daughter."

+

+"He that lives in a glass house should not be casting stones," says

+he; "and we will finish inquiring into the behaviour of Miss

+Drummond before we go on to sit in judgment on her father."

+

+"But I will be entrapped into no such attitude," said I.  "The

+character of Miss Drummond is far above inquiry, as her father

+ought to know.  So is mine, and I am telling you that.  There are

+but the two ways of it open.  The one is to express your thanks to

+me as one gentleman to another, and to say no more.  The other (if

+you are so difficult as to be still dissatisfied) is to pay me,

+that which I have expended and be done."

+

+He seemed to soothe me with a hand in the air.  "There, there,"

+said he.  "You go too fast, you go too fast, Mr. Balfour.  It is a

+good thing that I have learned to be more patient.  And I believe

+you forget that I have yet to see my daughter."

+

+I began to be a little relieved upon this speech and a change in

+the man's manner that I spied in him as soon as the name of money

+fell between us.

+

+"I was thinking it would be more fit--if you will excuse the

+plainness of my dressing in your presence--that I should go forth

+and leave you to encounter her alone?" said I.

+

+"What I would have looked for at your hands!" says he; and there

+was no mistake but what he said it civilly.

+

+I thought this better and better still, and as I began to pull on

+my hose, recalling the man's impudent mendicancy at

+Prestongrange's, I determined to pursue what seemed to be my

+victory.

+

+"If you have any mind to stay some while in Leyden," said I, "this

+room is very much at your disposal, and I can easy find another for

+myself:  in which way we shall have the least amount of flitting

+possible, there being only one to change."

+

+"Why, sir," said he, making his bosom big, "I think no shame of a

+poverty I have come by in the service of my king; I make no secret

+that my affairs are quite involved; and for the moment, it would be

+even impossible for me to undertake a journey."

+

+"Until you have occasion to communicate with your friends," said I,

+"perhaps it might be convenient for you (as of course it would be

+honourable to myself) if you were to regard yourself in the light

+of my guest?"

+

+"Sir," said he, "when an offer is frankly made, I think I honour

+myself most to imitate that frankness.  Your hand, Mr. David; you

+have the character that I respect the most; you are one of those

+from whom a gentleman can take a favour and no more words about it.

+I am an old soldier," he went on, looking rather disgusted-like

+around my chamber, "and you need not fear I shall prove

+burthensome.  I have ate too often at a dyke-side, drank of the

+ditch, and had no roof but the rain."

+

+"I should be telling you," said I, "that our breakfasts are sent

+customarily in about this time of morning.  I propose I should go

+now to the tavern, and bid them add a cover for yourself and delay

+the meal the matter of an hour, which will give you an interval to

+meet your daughter in."

+

+Methought his nostrils wagged at this.  "O, an hour" says he.

+"That is perhaps superfluous.  Half an hour, Mr. David, or say

+twenty minutes; I shall do very well in that.  And by the way," he

+adds, detaining me by the coat, "what is it you drink in the

+morning, whether ale or wine?"

+

+"To be frank with you, sir," says I, "I drink nothing else but

+spare, cold water."

+

+"Tut-tut," says he, "that is fair destruction to the stomach, take

+an old campaigner's word for it.  Our country spirit at home is

+perhaps the most entirely wholesome; but as that is not come-at-

+able, Rhenish or a white wine of Burgundy will be next best."

+

+"I shall make it my business to see you are supplied," said I.

+

+"Why, very good," said he, "and we shall make a man of you yet, Mr.

+David."

+

+By this time, I can hardly say that I was minding him at all,

+beyond an odd thought of the kind of father-in-law that he was like

+to prove; and all my cares centred about the lass his daughter, to

+whom I determined to convey some warning of her visitor.  I stepped

+to the door accordingly, and cried through the panels, knocking

+thereon at the same time:  "Miss Drummond, here is your father come

+at last."

+

+With that I went forth upon my errand, having (by two words)

+extraordinarily damaged my affairs.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVI--THE THREESOME

+

+

+

+Whether or not I was to be so much blamed, or rather perhaps

+pitied, I must leave others to judge.  My shrewdness (of which I

+have a good deal, too) seems not so great with the ladies.  No

+doubt, at the moment when I awaked her, I was thinking a good deal

+of the effect upon James More; and similarly when I returned and we

+were all sat down to breakfast, I continued to behave to the young

+lady with deference and distance; as I still think to have been

+most wise.  Her father had cast doubts upon the innocence of my

+friendship; and these, it was my first business to allay.  But

+there is a kind of an excuse for Catriona also.  We had shared in a

+scene of some tenderness and passion, and given and received

+caresses:  I had thrust her from me with violence; I had called

+aloud upon her in the night from the one room to the other; she had

+passed hours of wakefulness and weeping; and it is not to be

+supposed I had been absent from her pillow thoughts.  Upon the back

+of this, to be awaked, with unaccustomed formality, under the name

+of Miss Drummond, and to be thenceforth used with a great deal of

+distance and respect, led her entirely in error on my private

+sentiments; and she was indeed so incredibly abused as to imagine

+me repentant and trying to draw off!

+

+The trouble betwixt us seems to have been this:  that whereas I

+(since I had first set eyes on his great hat) thought singly of

+James More, his return and suspicions, she made so little of these

+that I may say she scarce remarked them, and all her troubles and

+doings regarded what had passed between us in the night before.

+This is partly to be explained by the innocence and boldness of her

+character; and partly because James More, having sped so ill in his

+interview with me, or had his mouth closed by my invitation, said

+no word to her upon the subject.  At the breakfast, accordingly, it

+soon appeared we were at cross purposes.  I had looked to find her

+in clothes of her own:  I found her (as if her father were

+forgotten) wearing some of the best that I had bought for her, and

+which she knew (or thought) that I admired her in.  I had looked to

+find her imitate my affectation of distance, and be most precise

+and formal; instead I found her flushed and wild-like, with eyes

+extraordinary bright, and a painful and varying expression, calling

+me by name with a sort of appeal of tenderness, and referring and

+deferring to my thoughts and wishes like an anxious or a suspected

+wife.

+

+But this was not for long.  As I behold her so regardless of her

+own interests, which I had jeopardised and was now endeavouring to

+recover, I redoubled my own coldness in the manner of a lesson to

+the girl.  The more she came forward, the farther I drew back; the

+more she betrayed the closeness of our intimacy, the more pointedly

+civil I became, until even her father (if he had not been so

+engrossed with eating) might have observed the opposition.  In the

+midst of which, of a sudden, she became wholly changed, and I told

+myself, with a good deal of relief, that she had took the hint at

+last.

+

+All day I was at my classes or in quest of my new lodging; and

+though the hour of our customary walk hung miserably on my hands, I

+cannot say but I was happy on the whole to find my way cleared, the

+girl again in proper keeping, the father satisfied or at least

+acquiescent, and myself free to prosecute my love with honour.  At

+supper, as at all our meals, it was James More that did the

+talking.  No doubt but he talked well if anyone could have believed

+him.  But I will speak of him presently more at large.  The meal at

+an end, he rose, got his great coat, and looking (as I thought) at

+me, observed he had affairs abroad.  I took this for a hint that I

+was to be going also, and got up; whereupon the girl, who had

+scarce given me greeting at my entrance, turned her eyes upon me

+wide open with a look that bade me stay.  I stood between them like

+a fish out of water, turning from one to the other; neither seemed

+to observe me, she gazing on the floor, he buttoning his coat:

+which vastly swelled my embarrassment.  This appearance of

+indifference argued, upon her side, a good deal of anger very near

+to burst out.  Upon his, I thought it horribly alarming; I made

+sure there was a tempest brewing there; and considering that to be

+the chief peril, turned towards him and put myself (so to speak) in

+the man's hands.

+

+"Can I do anything for YOU, Mr. Drummond?" says I.

+

+He stifled a yawn, which again I thought to be duplicity.  "Why,

+Mr. David," said he, "since you are so obliging as to propose it,

+you might show me the way to a certain tavern" (of which he gave

+the name) "where I hope to fall in with some old companions in

+arms."

+

+There was no more to say, and I got my hat and cloak to bear him

+company.

+

+"And as for you," say he to his daughter, "you had best go to your

+bed.  I shall be late home, and EARLY TO BED AND EARLY TO RISE,

+GARS BONNY LASSES HAVE BRIGHT EYES."

+

+Whereupon he kissed her with a good deal of tenderness, and ushered

+me before him from the door.  This was so done (I thought on

+purpose) that it was scarce possible there should be any parting

+salutation; but I observed she did not look at me, and set it down

+to terror of James More.

+

+It was some distance to that tavern.  He talked all the way of

+matters which did not interest me the smallest, and at the door

+dismissed me with empty manners.  Thence I walked to my new

+lodging, where I had not so much as a chimney to hold me warm, and

+no society but my own thoughts.  These were still bright enough; I

+did not so much as dream that Catriona was turned against me; I

+thought we were like folk pledged; I thought we had been too near

+and spoke too warmly to be severed, least of all by what were only

+steps in a most needful policy.  And the chief of my concern was

+only the kind of father-in-law that I was getting, which was not at

+all the kind I would have chosen:  and the matter of how soon I

+ought to speak to him, which was a delicate point on several sides.

+In the first place, when I thought how young I was I blushed all

+over, and could almost have found it in my heart to have desisted;

+only that if once I let them go from Leyden without explanation, I

+might lose her altogether.  And in the second place, there was our

+very irregular situation to be kept in view, and the rather scant

+measure of satisfaction I had given James More that morning.  I

+concluded, on the whole, that delay would not hurt anything, yet I

+would not delay too long neither; and got to my cold bed with a

+full heart.

+

+The next day, as James More seemed a little on the complaining hand

+in the matter of my chamber, I offered to have in more furniture;

+and coming in the afternoon, with porters bringing chairs and

+tables, found the girl once more left to herself.  She greeted me

+on my admission civilly, but withdrew at once to her own room, of

+which she shut the door.  I made my disposition, and paid and

+dismissed the men so that she might hear them go, when I supposed

+she would at once come forth again to speak to me.  I waited yet

+awhile, then knocked upon her door.

+

+"Catriona!" said I.

+

+The door was opened so quickly, even before I had the word out,

+that I thought she must have stood behind it listening.  She

+remained there in the interval quite still; but she had a look that

+I cannot put a name on, as of one in a bitter trouble.

+

+"Are we not to have our walk to-day either?" so I faltered.

+

+"I am thanking you," said she.  "I will not be caring much to walk,

+now that my father is come home."

+

+"But I think he has gone out himself and left you here alone," said

+I.

+

+"And do you think that was very kindly said?" she asked.

+

+"It was not unkindly meant," I replied.  "What ails you, Catriona?

+What have I done to you that you should turn from me like this?"

+

+"I do not turn from you at all," she said, speaking very carefully.

+"I will ever be grateful to my friend that was good to me; I will

+ever be his friend in all that I am able.  But now that my father

+James More is come again, there is a difference to be made, and I

+think there are some things said and done that would be better to

+be forgotten.  But I will ever be your friend in all that I am

+able, and if that is not all that . . . . if it is not so much . .

+. . Not that you will be caring!  But I would not have you think of

+me too hard.  It was true what you said to me, that I was too young

+to be advised, and I am hoping you will remember I was just a

+child.  I would not like to lose your friendship, at all events."

+

+She began this very pale; but before she was done, the blood was in

+her face like scarlet, so that not her words only, but her face and

+the trembling of her very hands, besought me to be gentle.  I saw,

+for the first time, how very wrong I had done to place the child in

+that position, where she had been entrapped into a moment's

+weakness, and now stood before me like a person shamed.

+

+"Miss Drummond," I said, and stuck, and made the same beginning

+once again, "I wish you could see into my heart," I cried.  "You

+would read there that my respect is undiminished.  If that were

+possible, I should say it was increased.  This is but the result of

+the mistake we made; and had to come; and the less said of it now

+the better.  Of all of our life here, I promise you it shall never

+pass my lips; I would like to promise you too that I would never

+think of it, but it's a memory that will be always dear to me.  And

+as for a friend, you have one here that would die for you."

+

+"I am thanking you," said she.

+

+We stood awhile silent, and my sorrow for myself began to get the

+upper hand; for here were all my dreams come to a sad tumble, and

+my love lost, and myself alone again in the world as at the

+beginning.

+

+"Well," said I, "we shall be friends always, that's a certain

+thing.  But this is a kind of farewell, too:  it's a kind of a

+farewell after all; I shall always ken Miss Drummond, but this is a

+farewell to my Catriona."

+

+I looked at her; I could hardly say I saw her, but she seemed to

+grow great and brighten in my eyes; and with that I suppose I must

+have lost my head, for I called out her name again and made a step

+at her with my hands reached forth.

+

+She shrank back like a person struck, her face flamed; but the

+blood sprang no faster up into her cheeks, than what it flowed back

+upon my own heart, at sight of it, with penitence and concern.  I

+found no words to excuse myself, but bowed before her very deep,

+and went my ways out of the house with death in my bosom.

+

+I think it was about five days that followed without any change.  I

+saw her scarce ever but at meals, and then of course in the company

+of James More.  If we were alone even for a moment, I made it my

+devoir to behave the more distantly and to multiply respectful

+attentions, having always in my mind's eye that picture of the girl

+shrinking and flaming in a blush, and in my heart more pity for her

+than I could depict in words.  I was sorry enough for myself, I

+need not dwell on that, having fallen all my length and more than

+all my height in a few seconds; but, indeed, I was near as sorry

+for the girl, and sorry enough to be scarce angry with her save by

+fits and starts.  Her plea was good; she had been placed in an

+unfair position; if she had deceived herself and me, it was no more

+than was to have been looked for.

+

+And for another thing she was now very much alone.  Her father,

+when he was by, was rather a caressing parent; but he was very easy

+led away by his affairs and pleasures, neglected her without

+compunction or remark, spent his nights in taverns when he had the

+money, which was more often than I could at all account for; and

+even in the course of these few days, failed once to come to a

+meal, which Catriona and I were at last compelled to partake of

+without him.  It was the evening meal, and I left immediately that

+I had eaten, observing I supposed she would prefer to be alone; to

+which she agreed and (strange as it may seem) I quite believed her.

+Indeed, I thought myself but an eyesore to the girl, and a reminder

+of a moment's weakness that she now abhorred to think of.  So she

+must sit alone in that room where she and I had been so merry, and

+in the blink of that chimney whose light had shone upon our many

+difficult and tender moments.  There she must sit alone, and think

+of herself as of a maid who had most unmaidenly proffered her

+affections and had the same rejected.  And in the meanwhile I would

+be alone some other place, and reading myself (whenever I was

+tempted to be angry) lessons upon human frailty and female

+delicacy.  And altogether I suppose there were never two poor fools

+made themselves more unhappy in a greater misconception.

+

+As for James, he paid not so much heed to us, or to anything in

+nature but his pocket, and his belly, and his own prating talk.

+Before twelve hours were gone he had raised a small loan of me;

+before thirty, he had asked for a second and been refused.  Money

+and refusal he took with the same kind of high good nature.

+Indeed, he had an outside air of magnanimity that was very well

+fitted to impose upon a daughter; and the light in which he was

+constantly presented in his talk, and the man's fine presence and

+great ways went together pretty harmoniously.  So that a man that

+had no business with him, and either very little penetration or a

+furious deal of prejudice, might almost have been taken in.  To me,

+after my first two interviews, he was as plain as print; I saw him

+to be perfectly selfish, with a perfect innocency in the same; and

+I would hearken to his swaggering talk (of arms, and "an old

+soldier," and "a poor Highland gentleman," and "the strength of my

+country and my friends") as I might to the babbling of a parrot.

+

+The odd thing was that I fancy he believed some part of it himself,

+or did at times; I think he was so false all through that he scarce

+knew when he was lying; and for one thing, his moments of dejection

+must have been wholly genuine.  There were times when he would be

+the most silent, affectionate, clinging creature possible, holding

+Catriona's hand like a big baby, and begging of me not to leave if

+I had any love to him; of which, indeed, I had none, but all the

+more to his daughter.  He would press and indeed beseech us to

+entertain him with our talk, a thing very difficult in the state of

+our relations; and again break forth in pitiable regrets for his

+own land and friends, or into Gaelic singing.

+

+"This is one of the melancholy airs of my native land," he would

+say.  "You may think it strange to see a soldier weep, and indeed

+it is to make a near friend of you," says he.  "But the notes of

+this singing are in my blood, and the words come out of my heart.

+And when I mind upon my red mountains and the wild birds calling

+there, and the brave streams of water running down, I would scarce

+think shame to weep before my enemies."  Then he would sing again,

+and translate to me pieces of the song, with a great deal of

+boggling and much expressed contempt against the English language.

+"It says here," he would say, "that the sun is gone down, and the

+battle is at an end, and the brave chiefs are defeated.  And it

+tells here how the stars see them fleeing into strange countries or

+lying dead on the red mountain; and they will never more shout the

+call of battle or wash their feet in the streams of the valley.

+But if you had only some of this language, you would weep also

+because the words of it are beyond all expression, and it is mere

+mockery to tell you it in English."

+

+Well, I thought there was a good deal of mockery in the business,

+one way and another; and yet, there was some feeling too, for which

+I hated him, I think, the worst of all.  And it used to cut me to

+the quick to see Catriona so much concerned for the old rogue, and

+weeping herself to see him weep, when I was sure one half of his

+distress flowed from his last night's drinking in some tavern.

+There were times when I was tempted to lend him a round sum, and

+see the last of him for good; but this would have been to see the

+last of Catriona as well, for which I was scarcely so prepared; and

+besides, it went against my conscience to squander my good money on

+one who was so little of a husband.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVII--A TWOSOME

+

+

+

+I believe it was about the fifth day, and I know at least that

+James was in one of his fits of gloom, when I received three

+letters.  The first was from Alan, offering to visit me in Leyden;

+the other two were out of Scotland and prompted by the same affair,

+which was the death of my uncle and my own complete accession to my

+rights.  Rankeillor's was, of course, wholly in the business view;

+Miss Grant's was like herself, a little more witty than wise, full

+of blame to me for not having written (though how was I to write

+with such intelligence?) and of rallying talk about Catriona, which

+it cut me to the quick to read in her very presence.

+

+For it was of course in my own rooms that I found them, when I came

+to dinner, so that I was surprised out of my news in the very first

+moment of reading it.  This made a welcome diversion for all three

+of us, nor could any have foreseen the ill consequences that

+ensued.  It was accident that brought the three letters the same

+day, and that gave them into my hand in the same room with James

+More; and of all the events that flowed from that accident, and

+which I might have prevented if I had held my tongue, the truth is

+that they were preordained before Agricola came into Scotland or

+Abraham set out upon his travels.

+

+The first that I opened was naturally Alan's; and what more natural

+than that I should comment on his design to visit me? but I

+observed James to sit up with an air of immediate attention.

+

+"Is that not Alan Breck that was suspected of the Appin accident?"

+he inquired.

+

+I told him, "Ay," it was the same; and he withheld me some time

+from my other letters, asking of our acquaintance, of Alan's manner

+of life in France, of which I knew very little, and further of his

+visit as now proposed.

+

+"All we forfeited folk hang a little together," he explained, "and

+besides I know the gentleman:  and though his descent is not the

+thing, and indeed he has no true right to use the name of Stewart,

+he was very much admired in the day of Drummossie.  He did there

+like a soldier; if some that need not be named had done as well,

+the upshot need not have been so melancholy to remember.  There

+were two that did their best that day, and it makes a bond between

+the pair of us," says he.

+

+I could scarce refrain from shooting out my tongue at him, and

+could almost have wished that Alan had been there to have inquired

+a little further into that mention of his birth.  Though, they tell

+me, the same was indeed not wholly regular.

+

+Meanwhile, I had opened Miss Grant's, and could not withhold an

+exclamation.

+

+"Catriona," I cried, forgetting, the first time since her father

+was arrived, to address her by a handle, "I am come into my kingdom

+fairly, I am the laird of Shaws indeed--my uncle is dead at last."

+

+She clapped her hands together leaping from her seat.  The next

+moment it must have come over both of us at once what little cause

+of joy was left to either, and we stood opposite, staring on each

+other sadly.

+

+But James showed himself a ready hypocrite.  "My daughter," says

+he, "is this how my cousin learned you to behave?  Mr. David has

+lost a new friend, and we should first condole with him on his

+bereavement."

+

+"Troth, sir," said I, turning to him in a kind of anger, "I can

+make no such great faces.  His death is as blithe news as ever I

+got."

+

+"It's a good soldier's philosophy," says James.  "'Tis the way of

+flesh, we must all go, all go.  And if the gentleman was so far

+from your favour, why, very well!  But we may at least congratulate

+you on your accession to your estates."

+

+"Nor can I say that either," I replied, with the same heat.  "It is

+a good estate; what matters that to a lone man that has enough

+already?  I had a good revenue before in my frugality; and but for

+the man's death--which gratifies me, shame to me that must confess

+it!--I see not how anyone is to be bettered by this change."

+

+"Come, come," said he, "you are more affected than you let on, or

+you would never make yourself out so lonely.  Here are three

+letters; that means three that wish you well; and I could name two

+more, here in this very chamber.  I have known you not so very

+long, but Catriona, when we are alone, is never done with the

+singing of your praises."

+

+She looked up at him, a little wild at that; and he slid off at

+once into another matter, the extent of my estate, which (during

+the most of the dinner time) he continued to dwell upon with

+interest.  But it was to no purpose he dissembled; he had touched

+the matter with too gross a hand:  and I knew what to expect.

+Dinner was scarce ate when he plainly discovered his designs.  He

+reminded Catriona of an errand, and bid her attend to it.  "I do

+not see you should be one beyond the hour," he added, "and friend

+David will be good enough to bear me company till you return."  She

+made haste to obey him without words.  I do not know if she

+understood, I believe not; but I was completely satisfied, and sat

+strengthening my mind for what should follow.

+

+The door had scarce closed behind her departure, when the man

+leaned back in his chair and addressed me with a good affectation

+of easiness.  Only the one thing betrayed him, and that was his

+face; which suddenly shone all over with fine points of sweat.

+

+"I am rather glad to have a word alone with you," says he, "because

+in our first interview there were some expressions you

+misapprehended and I have long meant to set you right upon.  My

+daughter stands beyond doubt.  So do you, and I would make that

+good with my sword against all gainsayers.  But, my dear David,

+this world is a censorious place--as who should know it better than

+myself, who have lived ever since the days of my late departed

+father, God sain him! in a perfect spate of calumnies?  We have to

+face to that; you and me have to consider of that; we have to

+consider of that."  And he wagged his head like a minister in a

+pulpit.

+

+"To what effect, Mr. Drummond?" said I.  "I would be obliged to you

+if you would approach your point."

+

+"Ay, ay," said he, laughing, "like your character, indeed! and what

+I most admire in it.  But the point, my worthy fellow, is sometimes

+in a kittle bit."  He filled a glass of wine.  "Though between you

+and me, that are such fast friends, it need not bother us long.

+The point, I need scarcely tell you, is my daughter.  And the first

+thing is that I have no thought in my mind of blaming you.  In the

+unfortunate circumstances, what could you do else?  'Deed, and I

+cannot tell."

+

+"I thank you for that," said I, pretty close upon my guard.

+

+"I have besides studied your character," he went on; "your talents

+are fair; you seem to have a moderate competence, which does no

+harm; and one thing with another, I am very happy to have to

+announce to you that I have decided on the latter of the two ways

+open."

+

+"I am afraid I am dull," said I.  "What ways are these?"

+

+He bent his brows upon me formidably and uncrossed his legs.  "Why,

+sir," says he, "I think I need scarce describe them to a gentleman

+of your condition; either that I should cut your throat or that you

+should marry my daughter."

+

+"You are pleased to be quite plain at last," said I.

+

+"And I believe I have been plain from the beginning!" cries he

+robustiously.  "I am a careful parent, Mr. Balfour; but I thank

+God, a patient and deleeborate man.  There is many a father, sir,

+that would have hirsled you at once either to the altar or the

+field.  My esteem for your character--"

+

+"Mr. Drummond," I interrupted, "if you have any esteem for me at

+all, I will beg of you to moderate your voice.  It is quite

+needless to rowt at a gentleman in the same chamber with yourself

+and lending you his best attention."

+

+"Why, very true," says he, with an immediate change.  "And you must

+excuse the agitations of a parent."

+

+"I understand you then," I continued--"for I will take no note of

+your other alternative, which perhaps it was a pity you let fall--I

+understand you rather to offer me encouragement in case I should

+desire to apply for your daughter's hand?"

+

+"It is not possible to express my meaning better," said he, "and I

+see we shall do well together."

+

+"That remains to be yet seen," said I.  "But so much I need make no

+secret of, that I bear the lady you refer to the most tender

+affection, and I could not fancy, even in a dream, a better fortune

+than to get her."

+

+"I was sure of it, I felt certain of you, David," he cried, and

+reached out his hand to me.

+

+I put it by.  "You go too fast, Mr. Drummond," said I.  "There are

+conditions to be made; and there is a difficulty in the path, which

+I see not entirely how we shall come over.  I have told you that,

+upon my side, there is no objection to the marriage, but I have

+good reason to believe there will be much on the young lady's."

+

+"This is all beside the mark," says he.  "I will engage for her

+acceptance."

+

+"I think you forget, Mr. Drummond," said I, "that, even in dealing

+with myself, you have been betrayed into two-three unpalatable

+expressions.  I will have none such employed to the young lady.  I

+am here to speak and think for the two of us; and I give you to

+understand that I would no more let a wife be forced upon myself,

+than what I would let a husband be forced on the young lady."

+

+He sat and glowered at me like one in doubt and a good deal of

+temper.

+

+"So that is to be the way of it," I concluded.  "I will marry Miss

+Drummond, and that blithely, if she is entirely willing.  But if

+there be the least unwillingness, as I have reason to fear--marry

+her will I never."

+

+"Well well," said he, "this is a small affair.  As soon as she

+returns I will sound her a bit, and hope to reassure you--"

+

+But I cut in again.  "Not a finger of you, Mr. Drummond, or I cry

+off, and you can seek a husband to your daughter somewhere else,"

+said I.  "It is I that am to be the only dealer and the only judge.

+I shall satisfy myself exactly; and none else shall anyways meddle-

+-you the least of all."

+

+"Upon my word, sir!" he exclaimed, "and who are you to be the

+judge?"

+

+"The bridegroom, I believe," said I.

+

+"This is to quibble," he cried.  "You turn your back upon the fact.

+The girl, my daughter, has no choice left to exercise.  Her

+character is gone."

+

+"And I ask your pardon," said I, "but while this matter lies

+between her and you and me, that is not so."

+

+"What security have I!" he cried.  "Am I to let my daughter's

+reputation depend upon a chance?"

+

+"You should have thought of all this long ago," said I, "before you

+were so misguided as to lose her; and not afterwards when it is

+quite too late.  I refuse to regard myself as any way accountable

+for your neglect, and I will be browbeat by no man living.  My mind

+is quite made up, and come what may, I will not depart from it a

+hair's breadth.  You and me are to sit here in company till her

+return:  upon which, without either word or look from you, she and

+I are to go forth again to hold our talk.  If she can satisfy me

+that she is willing to this step, I will then make it; and if she

+cannot, I will not."

+

+He leaped out of his chair like a man stung.  "I can spy your

+manoeuvre," he cried; "you would work upon her to refuse!"

+

+"Maybe ay, and maybe no," said I.  "That is the way it is to be,

+whatever."

+

+"And if I refuse?" cries he.

+

+"Then, Mr. Drummond, it will have to come to the throat-cutting,"

+said I.

+

+What with the size of the man, his great length of arm in which he

+came near rivalling his father, and his reputed skill at weapons, I

+did not use this word without trepidation, to say nothing at all of

+the circumstance that he was Catriona's father.  But I might have

+spared myself alarms.  From the poorness of my lodging--he does not

+seem to have remarked his daughter's dresses, which were indeed all

+equally new to him--and from the fact that I had shown myself

+averse to lend, he had embraced a strong idea of my poverty.  The

+sudden news of my estate convinced him of his error, and he had

+made but the one bound of it on this fresh venture, to which he was

+now so wedded, that I believe he would have suffered anything

+rather than fall to the alternative of fighting.

+

+A little while longer he continued to dispute with me, until I hit

+upon a word that silenced him.

+

+"If I find you so averse to let me see the lady by herself," said

+I, "I must suppose you have very good grounds to think me in the

+right about her unwillingness."

+

+He gabbled some kind of an excuse.

+

+"But all this is very exhausting to both of our tempers," I added,

+"and I think we would do better to preserve a judicious silence."

+

+The which we did until the girl returned, and I must suppose would

+have cut a very ridiculous figure had there been any there to view

+us.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVIII--IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE

+

+

+

+I opened the door to Catriona and stopped her on the threshold.

+

+"Your father wishes us to take our walk," said I.

+

+She looked to James More, who nodded, and at that, like a trained

+soldier, she turned to go with me.

+

+We took one of our old ways, where we had gone often together, and

+been more happy than I can tell of in the past.  I came a half a

+step behind, so that I could watch her unobserved.  The knocking of

+her little shoes upon the way sounded extraordinary pretty and sad;

+and I thought it a strange moment that I should be so near both

+ends of it at once, and walk in the midst between two destinies,

+and could not tell whether I was hearing these steps for the last

+time, or whether the sound of them was to go in and out with me

+till death should part us.

+

+She avoided even to look at me, only walked before her, like one

+who had a guess of what was coming.  I saw I must speak soon before

+my courage was run out, but where to begin I knew not.  In this

+painful situation, when the girl was as good as forced into my arms

+and had already besought my forbearance, any excess of pressure

+must have seemed indecent; yet to avoid it wholly would have a very

+cold-like appearance.  Between these extremes I stood helpless, and

+could have bit my fingers; so that, when at last I managed to speak

+at all, it may be said I spoke at random.

+

+"Catriona," said I, "I am in a very painful situation; or rather,

+so we are both; and I would be a good deal obliged to you if you

+would promise to let me speak through first of all, and not to

+interrupt me till I have done."

+

+She promised me that simply.

+

+"Well," said I, "this that I have got to say is very difficult, and

+I know very well I have no right to be saying it.  After what

+passed between the two of us last Friday, I have no manner of

+right.  We have got so ravelled up (and all by my fault) that I

+know very well the least I could do is just to hold my tongue,

+which was what I intended fully, and there was nothing further from

+my thoughts than to have troubled you again.  But, my dear, it has

+become merely necessary, and no way by it.  You see, this estate of

+mine has fallen in, which makes of me rather a better match; and

+the--the business would not have quite the same ridiculous-like

+appearance that it would before.  Besides which, it's supposed that

+our affairs have got so much ravelled up (as I was saying) that it

+would be better to let them be the way they are.  In my view, this

+part of the thing is vastly exagerate, and if I were you I would

+not wear two thoughts on it.  Only it's right I should mention the

+same, because there's no doubt it has some influence on James More.

+Then I think we were none so unhappy when we dwelt together in this

+town before.  I think we did pretty well together.  If you would

+look back, my dear--"

+

+"I will look neither back nor forward," she interrupted.  "Tell me

+the one thing:  this is my father's doing?"

+

+"He approves of it," said I.  "He approved I that I should ask your

+hand in marriage," and was going on again with somewhat more of an

+appeal upon her feelings; but she marked me not, and struck into

+the midst.

+

+"He told you to!" she cried.  "It is no sense denying it, you said

+yourself that there was nothing farther from your thoughts.  He

+told you to."

+

+"He spoke of it the first, if that is what you mean," I began.

+

+She was walking ever the faster, and looking fain in front of her;

+but at this she made a little noise in her head, and I thought she

+would have run.

+

+"Without which," I went on, "after what you said last Friday, I

+would never have been so troublesome as make the offer.  But when

+he as good as asked me, what was I to do?"

+

+She stopped and turned round upon me.

+

+"Well, it is refused at all events," she cried, "and there will be

+an end of that."

+

+And she began again to walk forward.

+

+"I suppose I could expect no better," said I, "but I think you

+might try to be a little kind to me for the last end of it.  I see

+not why you should be harsh.  I have loved you very well, Catriona-

+-no harm that I should call you so for the last time.  I have done

+the best that I could manage, I am trying the same still, and only

+vexed that I can do no better.  It is a strange thing to me that

+you can take any pleasure to be hard to me."

+

+"I am not thinking of you," she said, "I am thinking of that man,

+my father."

+

+"Well, and that way, too!" said I.  "I can be of use to you that

+way, too; I will have to be.  It is very needful, my dear, that we

+should consult about your father; for the way this talk has gone,

+an angry man will be James More."

+

+She stopped again.  "It is because I am disgraced?" she asked.

+

+"That is what he is thinking," I replied, "but I have told you

+already to make nought of it."

+

+"It will be all one to me," she cried.  "I prefer to be disgraced!"

+

+I did not know very well what to answer, and stood silent.

+

+There seemed to be something working in her bosom after that last

+cry; presently she broke out, "And what is the meaning of all this?

+Why is all this shame loundered on my head?  How could you dare it,

+David Balfour?"

+

+"My dear," said I, "what else was I to do?"

+

+"I am not your dear," she said, "and I defy you to be calling me

+these words."

+

+"I am not thinking of my words," said I.  "My heart bleeds for you,

+Miss Drummond.  Whatever I may say, be sure you have my pity in

+your difficult position.  But there is just the one thing that I

+wish you would bear in view, if it was only long enough to discuss

+it quietly; for there is going to be a collieshangie when we two

+get home.  Take my word for it, it will need the two of us to make

+this matter end in peace."

+

+"Ay," said she.  There sprang a patch of red in either of her

+cheeks.  "Was he for fighting you?" said she.

+

+"Well, he was that," said I.

+

+She gave a dreadful kind of laugh.  "At all events, it is

+complete!" she cried.  And then turning on me.  "My father and I

+are a fine pair," said she, "but I am thanking the good God there

+will be somebody worse than what we are.  I am thanking the good

+God that he has let me see you so.  There will never be the girl

+made that will not scorn you."

+

+I had borne a good deal pretty patiently, but this was over the

+mark.

+

+"You have no right to speak to me like that," said I.  "What have I

+done but to be good to you, or try to be?  And here is my

+repayment!  O, it is too much."

+

+She kept looking at me with a hateful smile.  "Coward!" said she.

+

+"The word in your throat and in your father's!" I cried.  "I have

+dared him this day already in your interest.  I will dare him

+again, the nasty pole-cat; little I care which of us should fall!

+Come," said I, "back to the house with us; let us be done with it,

+let me be done with the whole Hieland crew of you!  You will see

+what you think when I am dead."

+

+She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck

+her for.

+

+"O, smile away!" I cried.  "I have seen your bonny father smile on

+the wrong side this day.  Not that I mean he was afraid, of

+course," I added hastily, "but he preferred the other way of it."

+

+"What is this?" she asked.

+

+"When I offered to draw with him," said I.

+

+"You offered to draw upon James More!" she cried.

+

+"And I did so," said I, "and found him backward enough, or how

+would we be here?"

+

+"There is a meaning upon this," said she.  "What is it you are

+meaning?"

+

+"He was to make you take me," I replied, "and I would not have it.

+I said you should be free, and I must speak with you alone; little

+I supposed it would be such a speaking!  'AND WHAT IF I REFUSE?'

+said he.--'THEN IT MUST COME TO THE THROAT-CUTTING,' says I, 'FOR I

+WILL NO MORE HAVE A HUSBAND FORCED ON THAT YOUNG LADY, THAN WHAT I

+WOULD HAVE A WIFE FORCED UPON MYSELF.'  These were my words, they

+were a friend's words; bonnily have I paid for them!  Now you have

+refused me of your own clear free will, and there lives no father

+in the Highlands, or out of them, that can force on this marriage.

+I will see that your wishes are respected; I will make the same my

+business, as I have all through.  But I think you might have that

+decency as to affect some gratitude.  'Deed, and I thought you knew

+me better!  I have not behaved quite well to you, but that was

+weakness.  And to think me a coward, and such a coward as that--O,

+my lass, there was a stab for the last of it!"

+

+"Davie, how would I guess?" she cried.  "O, this is a dreadful

+business!  Me and mine,"--she gave a kind of a wretched cry at the

+word--"me and mine are not fit to speak to you.  O, I could be

+kneeling down to you in the street, I could be kissing your hands

+for forgiveness!"

+

+"I will keep the kisses I have got from you already," cried I.  "I

+will keep the ones I wanted and that were something worth; I will

+not be kissed in penitence."

+

+"What can you be thinking of this miserable girl?" says she.

+

+"What I am trying to tell you all this while!" said I, "that you

+had best leave me alone, whom you can make no more unhappy if you

+tried, and turn your attention to James More, your father, with

+whom you are like to have a queer pirn to wind."

+

+"O, that I must be going out into the world alone with such a man!"

+she cried, and seemed to catch herself in with a great effort.

+"But trouble yourself no more for that," said she.  "He does not

+know what kind of nature is in my heart.  He will pay me dear for

+this day of it; dear, dear, will he pay."

+

+She turned, and began to go home and I to accompany her.  At which

+she stopped.

+

+"I will be going alone," she said.  "It is alone I must be seeing

+him."

+

+Some little time I raged about the streets, and told myself I was

+the worst used lad in Christendom.  Anger choked me; it was all

+very well for me to breathe deep; it seemed there was not air

+enough about Leyden to supply me, and I thought I would have burst

+like a man at the bottom of the sea.  I stopped and laughed at

+myself at a street corner a minute together, laughing out loud, so

+that a passenger looked at me, which brought me to myself.

+

+"Well," I thought, "I have been a gull and a ninny and a soft Tommy

+long enough.  Time it was done.  Here is a good lesson to have

+nothing to do with that accursed sex, that was the ruin of the man

+in the beginning and will be so to the end.  God knows I was happy

+enough before ever I saw her; God knows I can be happy enough again

+when I have seen the last of her."

+

+That seemed to me the chief affair:  to see them go.  I dwelled

+upon the idea fiercely; and presently slipped on, in a kind of

+malevolence, to consider how very poorly they were likely to fare

+when Davie Balfour was no longer by to be their milk-cow; at which,

+to my very own great surprise, the disposition of my mind turned

+bottom up.  I was still angry; I still hated her; and yet I thought

+I owed it to myself that she should suffer nothing.

+

+This carried me home again at once, where I found the mails drawn

+out and ready fastened by the door, and the father and daughter

+with every mark upon them of a recent disagreement.  Catriona was

+like a wooden doll; James More breathed hard, his face was dotted

+with white spots, and his nose upon one side.  As soon as I came

+in, the girl looked at him with a steady, clear, dark look that

+might have been followed by a blow.  It was a hint that was more

+contemptuous than a command, and I was surprised to see James More

+accept it.  It was plain he had had a master talking-to; and I

+could see there must be more of the devil in the girl than I had

+guessed, and more good humour about the man than I had given him

+the credit of.

+

+He began, at least, calling me Mr. Balfour, and plainly speaking

+from a lesson; but he got not very far, for at the first pompous

+swell of his voice, Catriona cut in.

+

+"I will tell you what James More is meaning," said she.  "He means

+we have come to you, beggar-folk, and have not behaved to you very

+well, and we are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill-behaviour.  Now

+we are wanting to go away and be forgotten; and my father will have

+guided his gear so ill, that we cannot even do that unless you will

+give us some more alms.  For that is what we are, at an events,

+beggar-folk and sorners."

+

+"By your leave, Miss Drummond," said I, "I must speak to your

+father by myself."

+

+She went into her own room and shut the door, without a word or a

+look.

+

+"You must excuse her, Mr. Balfour," says James More.  "She has no

+delicacy."

+

+"I am not here to discuss that with you," said I, "but to be quit

+of you.  And to that end I must talk of your position.  Now, Mr.

+Drummond, I have kept the run of your affairs more closely than you

+bargained for.  I know you had money of your own when you were

+borrowing mine.  I know you have had more since you were here in

+Leyden, though you concealed it even from your daughter."

+

+"I bid you beware.  I will stand no more baiting," he broke out.

+"I am sick of her and you.  What kind of a damned trade is this to

+be a parent!  I have had expressions used to me--"  There he broke

+off.  "Sir, this is the heart of a soldier and a parent," he went

+on again, laying his hand on his bosom, "outraged in both

+characters--and I bid you beware."

+

+"If you would have let me finish," says I, "you would have found I

+spoke for your advantage."

+

+"My dear friend," he cried, "I know I might have relied upon the

+generosity of your character."

+

+"Man! will you let me speak?" said I.  "The fact is that I cannot

+win to find out if you are rich or poor.  But it is my idea that

+your means, as they are mysterious in their source, so they are

+something insufficient in amount; and I do not choose your daughter

+to be lacking.  If I durst speak to herself, you may be certain I

+would never dream of trusting it to you; because I know you like

+the back of my hand, and all your blustering talk is that much wind

+to me.  However, I believe in your way you do still care something

+for your daughter after all; and I must just be doing with that

+ground of confidence, such as it is."

+

+Whereupon, I arranged with him that he was to communicate with me,

+as to his whereabouts and Catriona's welfare, in consideration of

+which I was to serve him a small stipend.

+

+He heard the business out with a great deal of eagerness; and when

+it was done, "My dear fellow, my dear son," he cried out, "this is

+more like yourself than any of it yet!  I will serve you with a

+soldier's faithfulness--"

+

+"Let me hear no more of it!" says I.  "You have got me to that

+pitch that the bare name of soldier rises on my stomach.  Our

+traffic is settled; I am now going forth and will return in one

+half-hour, when I expect to find my chambers purged of you."

+

+I gave them good measure of time; it was my one fear that I might

+see Catriona again, because tears and weakness were ready in my

+heart, and I cherished my anger like a piece of dignity.  Perhaps

+an hour went by; the sun had gone down, a little wisp of a new moon

+was following it across a scarlet sunset; already there were stars

+in the east, and in my chambers, when at last I entered them, the

+night lay blue.  I lit a taper and reviewed the rooms; in the first

+there remained nothing so much as to awake a memory of those who

+were gone; but in the second, in a corner of the floor, I spied a

+little heap that brought my heart into my mouth.  She had left

+behind at her departure all that she had ever had of me.  It was

+the blow that I felt sorest, perhaps because it was the last; and I

+fell upon that pile of clothing and behaved myself more foolish

+than I care to tell of.

+

+Late in the night, in a strict frost, and my teeth chattering, I

+came again by some portion of my manhood and considered with

+myself.  The sight of these poor frocks and ribbons, and her

+shifts, and the clocked stockings, was not to be endured; and if I

+were to recover any constancy of mind, I saw I must be rid of them

+ere the morning.  It was my first thought to have made a fire and

+burned them; but my disposition has always been opposed to wastery,

+for one thing; and for another, to have burned these things that

+she had worn so close upon her body seemed in the nature of a

+cruelty.  There was a corner cupboard in that chamber; there I

+determined to bestow them.  The which I did and made it a long

+business, folding them with very little skill indeed but the more

+care; and sometimes dropping them with my tears.  All the heart was

+gone out of me, I was weary as though I had run miles, and sore

+like one beaten; when, as I was folding a kerchief that she wore

+often at her neck, I observed there was a corner neatly cut from

+it.  It was a kerchief of a very pretty hue, on which I had

+frequently remarked; and once that she had it on, I remembered

+telling her (by way of a banter) that she wore my colours.  There

+came a glow of hope and like a tide of sweetness in my bosom; and

+the next moment I was plunged back in a fresh despair.  For there

+was the corner crumpled in a knot and cast down by itself in

+another part of the floor.

+

+But when I argued with myself, I grew more hopeful.  She had cut

+that corner off in some childish freak that was manifestly tender;

+that she had cast it away again was little to be wondered at; and I

+was inclined to dwell more upon the first than upon the second, and

+to be more pleased that she had ever conceived the idea of that

+keepsake, than concerned because she had flung it from her in an

+hour of natural resentment.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIX--WE MEET IN DUNKIRK.

+

+

+

+Altogether, then, I was scare so miserable the next days but what I

+had many hopeful and happy snatches; threw myself with a good deal

+of constancy upon my studies; and made out to endure the time till

+Alan should arrive, or I might hear word of Catriona by the means

+of James More.  I had altogether three letters in the time of our

+separation.  One was to announce their arrival in the town of

+Dunkirk in France, from which place James shortly after started

+alone upon a private mission.  This was to England and to see Lord

+Holderness; and it has always been a bitter thought that my good

+money helped to pay the charges of the same.  But he has need of a

+long spoon who soups with the de'il, or James More either.  During

+this absence, the time was to fall due for another letter; and as

+the letter was the condition of his stipend, he had been so careful

+as to prepare it beforehand and leave it with Catriona to be

+despatched.  The fact of our correspondence aroused her suspicions,

+and he was no sooner gone than she had burst the seal.  What I

+received began accordingly in the writing of James More:

+

+

+"My dear Sir,--Your esteemed favour came to hand duly, and I have

+to acknowledge the inclosure according to agreement.  It shall be

+all faithfully expended on my daughter, who is well, and desires to

+be remembered to her dear friend.  I find her in rather a

+melancholy disposition, but trust in the mercy of God to see her

+re-established.  Our manner of life is very much alone, but we

+solace ourselves with the melancholy tunes of our native mountains,

+and by walking up the margin of the sea that lies next to Scotland.

+It was better days with me when I lay with five wounds upon my body

+on the field of Gladsmuir.  I have found employment here in the

+haras of a French nobleman, where my experience is valued.  But, my

+dear Sir, the wages are so exceedingly unsuitable that I would be

+ashamed to mention them, which makes your remittances the more

+necessary to my daughter's comfort, though I daresay the sight of

+old friends would be still better.

+

+"My dear Sir,

+"Your affectionate, obedient servant,

+"JAMES MACGREGOR DRUMMOND."

+

+

+Below it began again in the hand of Catriona:-

+

+

+"Do not be believing him, it is all lies together,--C. M. D."

+

+

+Not only did she add this postscript, but I think she must have

+come near suppressing the letter; for it came long after date, and

+was closely followed by the third.  In the time betwixt them, Alan

+had arrived, and made another life to me with his merry

+conversation; I had been presented to his cousin of the Scots-

+Dutch, a man that drank more than I could have thought possible and

+was not otherwise of interest; I had been entertained to many

+jovial dinners and given some myself, all with no great change upon

+my sorrow; and we two (by which I mean Alan and myself, and not at

+all the cousin) had discussed a good deal the nature of my

+relations with James More and his daughter.  I was naturally

+diffident to give particulars; and this disposition was not anyway

+lessened by the nature of Alan's commentary upon those I gave.

+

+"I cannae make heed nor tail of it," he would say, "but it sticks

+in my mind ye've made a gowk of yourself.  There's few people that

+has had more experience than Alan Breck:  and I can never call to

+mind to have heard tell of a lassie like this one of yours.  The

+way that you tell it, the thing's fair impossible.  Ye must have

+made a terrible hash of the business, David."

+

+"There are whiles that I am of the same mind," said I.

+

+"The strange thing is that ye seem to have a kind of fancy for her

+too!" said Alan.

+

+"The biggest kind, Alan," said I, "and I think I'll take it to my

+grave with me."

+

+"Well, ye beat me, whatever!" he would conclude.

+

+I showed him the letter with Catriona's postscript.  "And here

+again!" he cried.  "Impossible to deny a kind of decency to this

+Catriona, and sense forby!  As for James More, the man's as boss as

+a drum; he's just a wame and a wheen words; though I'll can never

+deny that he fought reasonably well at Gladsmuir, and it's true

+what he says here about the five wounds.  But the loss of him is

+that the man's boss."

+

+"Ye see, Alan," said I, "it goes against the grain with me to leave

+the maid in such poor hands."

+

+"Ye couldnae weel find poorer," he admitted.  "But what are ye to

+do with it?  It's this way about a man and a woman, ye see, Davie:

+The weemenfolk have got no kind of reason to them.  Either they

+like the man, and then a' goes fine; or else they just detest him,

+and ye may spare your breath--ye can do naething.  There's just the

+two sets of them--them that would sell their coats for ye, and them

+that never look the road ye're on.  That's a' that there is to

+women; and you seem to be such a gomeral that ye cannae tell the

+tane frae the tither."

+

+"Well, and I'm afraid that's true for me," said I.

+

+"And yet there's naething easier!" cried Alan.  "I could easy learn

+ye the science of the thing; but ye seem to me to be born blind,

+and there's where the deefficulty comes in."

+

+"And can YOU no help me?" I asked, "you that are so clever at the

+trade?"

+

+"Ye see, David, I wasnae here," said he.  "I'm like a field officer

+that has naebody but blind men for scouts and eclaireurs; and what

+would he ken?  But it sticks in my mind that ye'll have made some

+kind of bauchle; and if I was you I would have a try at her again."

+

+"Would ye so, man Alan?" said I.

+

+"I would e'en't," says he.

+

+The third letter came to my hand while we were deep in some such

+talk:  and it will be seen how pat it fell to the occasion.  James

+professed to be in some concern upon his daughter's health, which I

+believe was never better; abounded in kind expressions to myself;

+and finally proposed that I should visit them at Dunkirk.

+

+"You will now be enjoying the society of my old comrade Mr.

+Stewart," he wrote.  "Why not accompany him so far in his return to

+France?  I have something very particular for Mr. Stewart's ear;

+and, at any rate, I would be pleased to meet in with an old fellow-

+soldier and one so mettle as himself.  As for you, my dear sir, my

+daughter and I would be proud to receive our benefactor, whom we

+regard as a brother and a son.  The French nobleman has proved a

+person of the most filthy avarice of character, and I have been

+necessitate to leave the haras.  You will find us in consequence a

+little poorly lodged in the auberge of a man Bazin on the dunes;

+but the situation is caller, and I make no doubt but we might spend

+some very pleasant days, when Mr. Stewart and I could recall our

+services, and you and my daughter divert yourselves in a manner

+more befitting your age.  I beg at least that Mr. Stewart would

+come here; my business with him opens a very wide door."

+

+"What does the man want with me?" cried Alan, when he had read.

+"What he wants with you in clear enough--it's siller.  But what can

+he want with Alan Breck?"

+

+"O, it'll be just an excuse," said I.  "He is still after this

+marriage, which I wish from my heart that we could bring about.

+And he asks you because he thinks I would be less likely to come

+wanting you."

+

+"Well, I wish that I kent," says Alan.  "Him and me were never

+onyways pack; we used to girn at ither like a pair of pipers.

+'Something for my ear,' quo' he!  I'll maybe have something for his

+hinder-end, before we're through with it.  Dod, I'm thinking it

+would be a kind of divertisement to gang and see what he'll be

+after!  Forby that I could see your lassie then.  What say ye,

+Davie?  Will ye ride with Alan?"

+

+You may be sure I was not backward, and Alan's furlough running

+towards an end, we set forth presently upon this joint adventure.

+

+It was near dark of a January day when we rode at last into the

+town of Dunkirk.  We left our horses at the post, and found a guide

+to Bazin's Inn, which lay beyond the walls.  Night was quite

+fallen, so that we were the last to leave that fortress, and heard

+the doors of it close behind us as we passed the bridge.  On the

+other side there lay a lighted suburb, which we thridded for a

+while, then turned into a dark lane, and presently found ourselves

+wading in the night among deep sand where we could hear a bullering

+of the sea.  We travelled in this fashion for some while, following

+our conductor mostly by the sound of his voice; and I had begun to

+think he was perhaps misleading us, when we came to the top of a

+small brae, and there appeared out of the darkness a dim light in a

+window.

+

+"Voila l'auberge a Bazin," says the guide.

+

+Alan smacked his lips.  "An unco lonely bit," said he, and I

+thought by his tone he was not wholly pleased.

+

+A little after, and we stood in the lower storey of that house,

+which was all in the one apartment, with a stairs leading to the

+chambers at the side, benches and tables by the wall, the cooking

+fire at the one end of it, and shelves of bottles and the cellar-

+trap at the other.  Here Bazin, who was an ill-looking, big man,

+told us the Scottish gentleman was gone abroad he knew not where,

+but the young lady was above, and he would call her down to us.

+

+I took from my breast that kerchief wanting the corner, and knotted

+it about my throat.  I could hear my heart go; and Alan patting me

+on the shoulder with some of his laughable expressions, I could

+scarce refrain from a sharp word.  But the time was not long to

+wait.  I heard her step pass overhead, and saw her on the stair.

+This she descended very quietly, and greeted me with a pale face

+and a certain seeming of earnestness, or uneasiness, in her manner

+that extremely dashed me.

+

+"My father, James More, will be here soon.  He will be very pleased

+to see you," she said.  And then of a sudden her face flamed, her

+eyes lightened, the speech stopped upon her lips; and I made sure

+she had observed the kerchief.  It was only for a breath that she

+was discomposed; but methought it was with a new animation that she

+turned to welcome Alan.  "And you will be his friend, Alan Breck?"

+she cried.  "Many is the dozen times I will have heard him tell of

+you; and I love you already for all your bravery and goodness."

+

+"Well, well," says Alan, holding her hand in his and viewing her,

+"and so this is the young lady at the last of it!  David, ye're an

+awful poor hand of a description."

+

+I do not know that ever I heard him speak so straight to people's

+hearts; the sound of his voice was like song.

+

+"What? will he have been describing me?" she cried.

+

+"Little else of it since I ever came out of France!" says he,

+"forby a bit of a speciment one night in Scotland in a shaw of wood

+by Silvermills.  But cheer up, my dear! ye're bonnier than what he

+said.  And now there's one thing sure; you and me are to be a pair

+of friends.  I'm a kind of a henchman to Davie here; I'm like a

+tyke at his heels; and whatever he cares for, I've got to care for

+too--and by the holy airn! they've got to care for me!  So now you

+can see what way you stand with Alan Breck, and ye'll find ye'll

+hardly lose on the transaction.  He's no very bonnie, my dear, but

+he's leal to them he loves."

+

+"I thank you from my heart for your good words," said she.  "I have

+that honour for a brave, honest man that I cannot find any to be

+answering with."

+

+Using travellers' freedom, we spared to wait for James More, and

+sat down to meat, we threesome.  Alan had Catriona sit by him and

+wait upon his wants:  he made her drink first out of his glass, he

+surrounded her with continual kind gallantries, and yet never gave

+me the most small occasion to be jealous; and he kept the talk so

+much in his own hand, and that in so merry a note, that neither she

+nor I remembered to be embarrassed.  If any had seen us there, it

+must have been supposed that Alan was the old friend and I the

+stranger.  Indeed, I had often cause to love and to admire the man,

+but I never loved or admired him better than that night; and I

+could not help remarking to myself (what I was sometimes rather in

+danger of forgetting) that he had not only much experience of life,

+but in his own way a great deal of natural ability besides.  As for

+Catriona, she seemed quite carried away; her laugh was like a peal

+of bells, her face gay as a May morning; and I own, although I was

+well pleased, yet I was a little sad also, and thought myself a

+dull, stockish character in comparison of my friend, and very unfit

+to come into a young maid's life, and perhaps ding down her gaiety.

+

+But if that was like to be my part, I found that at least I was not

+alone in it; for, James More returning suddenly, the girl was

+changed into a piece of stone.  Through the rest of that evening,

+until she made an excuse and slipped to bed, I kept an eye upon her

+without cease; and I can bear testimony that she never smiled,

+scarce spoke, and looked mostly on the board in front of her.  So

+that I really marvelled to see so much devotion (as it used to be)

+changed into the very sickness of hate.

+

+Of James More it is unnecessary to say much; you know the man

+already, what there was to know of him; and I am weary of writing

+out his lies.  Enough that he drank a great deal, and told us very

+little that was to any possible purpose.  As for the business with

+Alan, that was to be reserved for the morrow and his private

+hearing.

+

+It was the more easy to be put off, because Alan and I were pretty

+weary with four day's ride, and sat not very late after Catriona.

+

+We were soon alone in a chamber where we were to make-shift with a

+single bed.  Alan looked on me with a queer smile.

+

+"Ye muckle ass!" said he.

+

+"What do ye mean by that?" I cried.

+

+"Mean?  What do I mean!  It's extraordinar, David man," say he,

+"that you should be so mortal stupit."

+

+Again I begged him to speak out.

+

+"Well, it's this of it," said he.  "I told ye there were the two

+kinds of women--them that would sell their shifts for ye, and the

+others.  Just you try for yoursel, my bonny man!  But what's that

+neepkin at your craig?"

+

+I told him.

+

+"I thocht it was something thereabout" said he.

+

+Nor would he say another word though I besieged him long with

+importunities.

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXX--THE LETTER FROM THE SHIP

+

+

+

+Daylight showed us how solitary the inn stood.  It was plainly hard

+upon the sea, yet out of all view of it, and beset on every side

+with scabbit hills of sand.  There was, indeed, only one thing in

+the nature of a prospect, where there stood out over a brae the two

+sails of a windmill, like an ass's ears, but with the ass quite

+hidden.  It was strange (after the wind rose, for at first it was

+dead calm) to see the turning and following of each other of these

+great sails behind the hillock.  Scarce any road came by there; but

+a number of footways travelled among the bents in all directions up

+to Mr. Bazin's door.  The truth is, he was a man of many trades,

+not any one of them honest, and the position of his inn was the

+best of his livelihood.  Smugglers frequented it; political agents

+and forfeited persons bound across the water came there to await

+their passages; and I daresay there was worse behind, for a whole

+family might have been butchered in that house and nobody the

+wiser.

+

+I slept little and ill.  Long ere it was day, I had slipped from

+beside my bedfellow, and was warming myself at the fire or walking

+to and fro before the door.  Dawn broke mighty sullen; but a little

+after, sprang up a wind out of the west, which burst the clouds,

+let through the sun, and set the mill to the turning.  There was

+something of spring in the sunshine, or else it was in my heart;

+and the appearing of the great sails one after another from behind

+the hill, diverted me extremely.  At times I could hear a creak of

+the machinery; and by half-past eight of the day, and I thought

+this dreary, desert place was like a paradise.

+

+For all which, as the day drew on and nobody came near, I began to

+be aware of an uneasiness that I could scarce explain.  It seemed

+there was trouble afoot; the sails of the windmill, as they came up

+and went down over the hill, were like persons spying; and outside

+of all fancy, it was surely a strange neighbourhood and house for a

+young lady to be brought to dwell in.

+

+At breakfast, which we took late, it was manifest that James More

+was in some danger or perplexity; manifest that Alan was alive to

+the same, and watched him close; and this appearance of duplicity

+upon the one side, and vigilance upon the other, held me on live

+coals.  The meal was no sooner over than James seemed to come began

+to make apologies.  He had an appointment of a private nature in

+the town (it was with the French nobleman, he told me), and we

+would please excuse him till about noon.  Meanwhile he carried his

+daughter aside to the far end of the room, where he seemed to speak

+rather earnestly and she to listen with much inclination.

+

+"I am caring less and less about this man James," said Alan.

+"There's something no right with the man James, and I shouldnae

+wonder but what Alan Breck would give an eye to him this day.  I

+would like fine to see yon French nobleman, Davie; and I daresay

+you could find an employ to yoursel, and that would be to speir at

+the lassie for some news o' your affair.  Just tell it to her

+plainly--tell her ye're a muckle ass at the off-set; and then, if I

+were you, and ye could do it naitural, I would just mint to her I

+was in some kind of a danger; a' weemenfolk likes that."

+

+"I cannae lee, Alan, I cannae do it naitural," says I, mocking him.

+

+"The more fool you!" says he.  "Then ye'll can tell her that I

+recommended it; that'll set her to the laughing; and I wouldnae

+wonder but what that was the next best.  But see to the pair of

+them!  If I didnae feel just sure of the lassie, and that she was

+awful pleased and chief with Alan, I would think there was some

+kind of hocus-pocus about you."

+

+"And is she so pleased with ye, then, Alan?" I asked.

+

+"She thinks a heap of me," says he.  "And I'm no like you:  I'm one

+that can tell.  That she does--she thinks a heap of Alan.  And

+troth! I'm thinking a good deal of him mysel; and with your

+permission, Shaws, I'll be getting a wee yont amang the bents, so

+that I can see what way James goes."

+

+One after another went, till I was left alone beside the breakfast

+table; James to Dunkirk, Alan dogging him, Catriona up the stairs

+to her own chamber.  I could very well understand how she should

+avoid to be alone with me; yet was none the better pleased with it

+for that, and bent my mind to entrap her to an interview before the

+men returned.  Upon the whole, the best appeared to me to do like

+Alan.  If I was out of view among the sandhills, the fine morning

+would decoy her forth; and once I had her in the open, I could

+please myself.

+

+No sooner said than done; nor was I long under the bield of a

+hillock before she appeared at the inn door, looked here and there,

+and (seeing nobody) set out by a path that led directly seaward,

+and by which I followed her.  I was in no haste to make my presence

+known; the further she went I made sure of the longer hearing to my

+suit; and the ground being all sandy it was easy to follow her

+unheard.  The path rose and came at last to the head of a knowe.

+Thence I had a picture for the first time of what a desolate

+wilderness that inn stood hidden in; where was no man to be seen,

+nor any house of man, except just Bazin's and the windmill.  Only a

+little further on, the sea appeared and two or three ships upon it,

+pretty as a drawing.  One of these was extremely close in to be so

+great a vessel; and I was aware of a shock of new suspicion, when I

+recognised the trim of the Seahorse.  What should an English ship

+be doing so near in to France?  Why was Alan brought into her

+neighbourhood, and that in a place so far from any hope of rescue?

+and was it by accident, or by design, that the daughter of James

+More should walk that day to the seaside?

+

+Presently I came forth behind her in the front of the sandhills and

+above the beach.  It was here long and solitary; with a man-o'-

+war's boat drawn up about the middle of the prospect, and an

+officer in charge and pacing the sands like one who waited.  I sat

+down where the rough grass a good deal covered me, and looked for

+what should follow.  Catriona went straight to the boat; the

+officer met her with civilities; they had ten words together; I saw

+a letter changing hands; and there was Catriona returning.  At the

+same time, as if this were all her business on the Continent, the

+boat shoved off and was headed for the Seahorse.  But I observed

+the officer to remain behind and disappear among the bents.

+

+I liked the business little; and the more I considered of it, liked

+it less.  Was it Alan the officer was seeking? or Catriona?  She

+drew near with her head down, looking constantly on the sand, and

+made so tender a picture that I could not bear to doubt her

+innocence.  The next, she raised her face and recognised me; seemed

+to hesitate, and then came on again, but more slowly, and I thought

+with a changed colour.  And at that thought, all else that was upon

+my bosom--fears, suspicions, the care of my friend's life--was

+clean swallowed up; and I rose to my feet and stood waiting her in

+a drunkenness of hope.

+

+I gave her "good morning" as she came up, which she returned with a

+good deal of composure.

+

+"Will you forgive my having followed you?" said I.

+

+"I know you are always meaning kindly," she replied; and then, with

+a little outburst, "but why will you be sending money to that man!

+It must not be."

+

+"I never sent it for him," said I, "but for you, as you know well."

+

+"And you have no right to be sending it to either one of us," she

+said.  "David, it is not right."

+

+"It is not, it is all wrong," said I, "and I pray God he will help

+this dull fellow (if it be at all possible) to make it better.

+Catriona, this is no kind of life for you to lead; and I ask your

+pardon for the word, but yon man is no fit father to take care of

+you."

+

+"Do not be speaking of him, even!" was her cry.

+

+"And I need speak of him no more; it is not of him that I am

+thinking, O, be sure of that!" says I.  "I think of the one thing.

+I have been alone now this long time in Leyden; and when I was by

+way of at my studies, still I was thinking of that.  Next Alan

+came, and I went among soldier-men to their big dinners; and still

+I had the same thought.  And it was the same before, when I had her

+there beside me.  Catriona, do you see this napkin at my throat!

+You cut a corner from it once and then cast it from you.  They're

+YOUR colours now; I wear them in my heart.  My dear, I cannot be

+wanting you.  O, try to put up with me!"

+

+I stepped before her so as to intercept her walking on.

+

+"Try to put up with me," I was saying, "try and bear me with a

+little."

+

+Still she had never the word, and a fear began to rise in me like a

+fear of death.

+

+"Catriona," I cried, gazing on her hard, "is it a mistake again?

+Am I quite lost?"

+

+She raised her face to me, breathless.

+

+"Do you want me, Davie, truly?" said she, and I scarce could hear

+her say it.

+

+"I do that," said I.  "O, sure you know it--I do that."

+

+"I have nothing left to give or to keep back," said she.  "I was

+all yours from the first day, if you would have had a gift of me!"

+she said,

+

+This was on the summit of a brae; the place was windy and

+conspicuous, we were to be seen there even from the English ship;

+but I kneeled down before her in the sand, and embraced her knees,

+and burst into that storm of weeping that I thought it must have

+broken me.  All thought was wholly beaten from my mind by the

+vehemency of my discomposure.  I knew not where I was.  I had

+forgot why I was happy; only I knew she stooped, and I felt her

+cherish me to her face and bosom, and heard her words out of a

+whirl.

+

+"Davie," she was saying, "O, Davie, is this what you think of me!

+Is it so that you were caring for poor me!  O, Davie, Davie!"

+

+With that she wept also, and our tears were commingled in a perfect

+gladness.

+

+It might have been ten in the day before I came to a clear sense of

+what a mercy had befallen me; and sitting over against her, with

+her hands in mine, gazed in her face, and laughed out loud for

+pleasure like a child, and called her foolish and kind names.  I

+have never seen the place that looked so pretty as those bents by

+Dunkirk; and the windmill sails, as they bobbed over the knowe,

+were like a tune of music.

+

+I know not how much longer we might have continued to forget all

+else besides ourselves, had I not chanced upon a reference to her

+father, which brought us to reality.

+

+"My little friend," I was calling her again and again, rejoicing to

+summon up the past by the sound of it, and to gaze across on her,

+and to be a little distant--"My little friend, now you are mine

+altogether; mine for good, my little friend and that man's no

+longer at all."

+

+There came a sudden whiteness in her face, she plucked her hands

+from mine.

+

+"Davie, take me away from him!" she cried.  "There's something

+wrong; he's not true.  There will be something wrong; I have a

+dreadful terror here at my heart.  What will he be wanting at all

+events with that King's ship?  What will this word be saying?"  And

+she held the letter forth.  "My mind misgives me, it will be some

+ill to Alan.  Open it, Davie--open it and see."

+

+I took it, and looked at it, and shook my head.

+

+"No," said I, "it goes against me, I cannot open a man's letter."

+

+"Not to save your friend?" she cried.

+

+"I cannae tell," said I.  "I think not.  If I was only sure!"

+

+"And you have but to break the seal!" said she.

+

+"I know it," said I, "but the thing goes against me."

+

+"Give it here," said she, "and I will open it myself."

+

+"Nor you neither," said I.  "You least of all.  It concerns your

+father, and his honour, dear, which we are both misdoubting.  No

+question but the place is dangerous-like, and the English ship

+being here, and your father having word from it, and yon officer

+that stayed ashore.  He would not be alone either; there must be

+more along with him; I daresay we are spied upon this minute.  Ay,

+no doubt, the letter should be opened; but somehow, not by you nor

+me."

+

+I was about thus far with it, and my spirit very much overcome with

+a sense of danger and hidden enemies, when I spied Alan, come back

+again from following James and walking by himself among the sand-

+hills.  He was in his soldier's coat, of course, and mighty fine;

+but I could not avoid to shudder when I thought how little that

+jacket would avail him, if he were once caught and flung in a

+skiff, and carried on board of the Seahorse, a deserter, a rebel,

+and now a condemned murderer.

+

+"There," said I, "there is the man that has the best right to open

+it:  or not, as he thinks fit."

+

+With which I called upon his name, and we both stood up to be a

+mark for him.

+

+"If it is so--if it be more disgrace--will you can bear it?" she

+asked, looking upon me with a burning eye.

+

+"I was asked something of the same question when I had seen you but

+the once," said I.  "What do you think I answered?  That if I liked

+you as I thought I did--and O, but I like you better!--I would

+marry you at his gallows' foot."

+

+The blood rose in her face; she came close up and pressed upon me,

+holding my hand:  and it was so that we awaited Alan.

+

+He came with one of his queer smiles.  "What was I telling ye,

+David?" says he.

+

+"There is a time for all things, Alan," said I, "and this time is

+serious.  How have you sped?  You can speak out plain before this

+friend of ours."

+

+"I have been upon a fool's errand," said he.

+

+"I doubt we have done better than you, then," said I; "and, at

+least, here is a great deal of matter that you must judge of.  Do

+you see that?" I went on, pointing to the ship.  "That is the

+Seahorse, Captain Palliser."

+

+"I should ken her, too," says Alan.  "I had fyke enough with her

+when she was stationed in the Forth.  But what ails the man to come

+so close?"

+

+"I will tell you why he came there first," said I.  "It was to

+bring this letter to James More.  Why he stops here now that it's

+delivered, what it's likely to be about, why there's an officer

+hiding in the bents, and whether or not it's probable that he's

+alone--I would rather you considered for yourself."

+

+"A letter to James More?" said he.

+

+"The same," said I.

+

+"Well, and I can tell ye more than that," said Alan.  "For the last

+night, when you were fast asleep, I heard the man colloguing with

+some one in the French, and then the door of that inn to be opened

+and shut."

+

+"Alan!" cried I, "you slept all night, and I am here to prove it."

+

+"Ay, but I would never trust Alan whether he was asleep or waking!"

+says he.  "But the business looks bad.  Let's see the letter."

+

+I gave it him.

+

+"Catriona," said he, "you have to excuse me, my dear; but there's

+nothing less than my fine bones upon the cast of it, and I'll have

+to break this seal."

+

+"It is my wish," said Catriona.

+

+He opened it, glanced it through, and flung his hand in the air.

+

+"The stinking brock!" says he, and crammed the paper in his pocket.

+"Here, let's get our things together.  This place is fair death to

+me."  And he began to walk towards the inn.

+

+It was Catriona that spoke the first.  "He has sold you?" she

+asked.

+

+"Sold me, my dear," said Alan.  "But thanks to you and Davie, I'll

+can jink him yet.  Just let me win upon my horse," he added.

+

+"Catriona must come with us," said I.  "She can have no more

+traffic with that man.  She and I are to be married."  At which she

+pressed my hand to her side.

+

+"Are ye there with it?" says Alan, looking back.  "The best day's

+work that ever either of you did yet!  And I'm bound to say, my

+dawtie, ye make a real, bonny couple."

+

+The way that he was following brought us close in by the windmill,

+where I was aware of a man in seaman's trousers, who seemed to be

+spying from behind it.  Only, of course, we took him in the rear.

+

+"See, Alan!"

+

+"Wheesht!" said, he, "this is my affairs."

+

+The man was, no doubt, a little deafened by the clattering of the

+mill, and we got up close before he noticed.  Then he turned, and

+we saw he was a big fellow with a mahogany face.

+

+"I think, sir," says Alan, "that you speak the English?"

+

+"Non, monsieur," says he, with an incredible bad accent.

+

+"Non, monsieur," cries Alan, mocking him.  "Is that how they learn

+you French on the Seahorse?  Ye muckle, gutsey hash, here's a Scots

+boot to your English hurdies!"

+

+And bounding on him before he could escape, he dealt the man a kick

+that laid him on his nose.  Then he stood, with a savage smile, and

+watched him scramble to his feet and scamper off into the sand-

+hills.

+

+"But it's high time I was clear of these empty bents!" said Alan;

+and continued his way at top speed, and we still following, to the

+backdoor of Bazin's inn.

+

+It chanced that as we entered by the one door we came face to face

+with James More entering by the other.

+

+"Here!" said I to Catriona, "quick! upstairs with you and make your

+packets; this is no fit scene for you."

+

+In the meanwhile James and Alan had met in the midst of the long

+room.  She passed them close by to reach the stairs; and after she

+was some way up I saw her turn and glance at them again, though

+without pausing.  Indeed, they were worth looking at.  Alan wore as

+they met one of his best appearances of courtesy and friendliness,

+yet with something eminently warlike, so that James smelled danger

+off the man, as folk smell fire in a house, and stood prepared for

+accidents.

+

+Time pressed.  Alan's situation in that solitary place, and his

+enemies about him, might have daunted Caesar.  It made no change in

+him; and it was in his old spirit of mockery and daffing that he

+began the interview.

+

+"A braw good day to ye again, Mr. Drummond," said he.  "What'll yon

+business of yours be just about?"

+

+"Why, the thing being private, and rather of a long story," says

+James, "I think it will keep very well till we have eaten."

+

+"I'm none so sure of that," said Alan.  "It sticks in my mind it's

+either now or never; for the fact is me and Mr. Balfour here have

+gotten a line, and we're thinking of the road."

+

+I saw a little surprise in James's eye; but he held himself

+stoutly.

+

+"I have but the one word to say to cure you of that," said he, "and

+that is the name of my business."

+

+"Say it then," says Alan.  "Hout! wha minds for Davie?"

+

+"It is a matter that would make us both rich men," said James.

+

+"Do you tell me that?" cries Alan.

+

+"I do, sir," said James.  "The plain fact is that it is Cluny's

+Treasure."

+

+"No!" cried Alan.  "Have ye got word of it?"

+

+"I ken the place, Mr. Stewart, and can take you there," said James.

+

+"This crowns all!" says Alan.  "Well, and I'm glad I came to

+Dunkirk.  And so this was your business, was it?  Halvers, I'm

+thinking?"

+

+"That is the business, sir," said James.

+

+"Well, well," said Alan; and then in the same tone of childlike

+interest, "it has naething to do with the Seahorse, then?" he

+asked,

+

+"With what?" says James.

+

+"Or the lad that I have just kicked the bottom of behind yon

+windmill?" pursued Alan.  "Hut, man! have done with your lees!  I

+have Palliser's letter here in my pouch.  You're by with it, James

+More.  You can never show your face again with dacent folk."

+

+James was taken all aback with it.  He stood a second, motionless

+and white, then swelled with the living anger.

+

+"Do you talk to me, you bastard?" he roared out.

+

+"Ye glee'd swine!" cried Alan, and hit him a sounding buffet on the

+mouth, and the next wink of time their blades clashed together.

+

+At the first sound of the bare steel I instinctively leaped back

+from the collision.  The next I saw, James parried a thrust so

+nearly that I thought him killed; and it lowed up in my mind that

+this was the girl's father, and in a manner almost my own, and I

+drew and ran in to sever them.

+

+"Keep back, Davie!  Are ye daft!  Damn ye, keep back!" roared Alan.

+"Your blood be on your ain heid then!"

+

+I beat their blades down twice.  I was knocked reeling against the

+wall; I was back again betwixt them.  They took no heed of me,

+thrusting at each other like two furies.  I can never think how I

+avoided being stabbed myself or stabbing one of these two

+Rodomonts, and the whole business turned about me like a piece of a

+dream; in the midst of which I heard a great cry from the stair,

+and Catriona sprang before her father.  In the same moment the

+point of my sword encountered some thing yielding.  It came back to

+me reddened.  I saw the blood flow on the girl's kerchief, and

+stood sick.

+

+"Will you be killing him before my eyes, and me his daughter after

+all!" she cried.

+

+"My dear, I have done with him," said Alan, and went, and sat on a

+table, with his arms crossed and the sword naked in his hand.

+

+Awhile she stood before the man, panting, with big eyes, then swung

+suddenly about and faced him.

+

+"Begone!" was her word, "take your shame out of my sight; leave me

+with clean folk.  I am a daughter of Alpin!  Shame of the sons of

+Alpin, begone!"

+

+It was said with so much passion as awoke me from the horror of my

+own bloodied sword.  The two stood facing, she with the red stain

+on her kerchief, he white as a rag.  I knew him well enough--I knew

+it must have pierced him in the quick place of his soul; but he

+betook himself to a bravado air.

+

+"Why," says he, sheathing his sword, though still with a bright eye

+on Alan, "if this brawl is over I will but get my portmanteau--"

+

+"There goes no pockmantie out of this place except with me," says

+Alan.

+

+"Sir!" cries James.

+

+"James More," says Alan, "this lady daughter of yours is to marry

+my friend Davie, upon the which account I let you pack with a hale

+carcase.  But take you my advice of it and get that carcase out of

+harm's way or ower late.  Little as you suppose it, there are

+leemits to my temper."

+

+"Be damned, sir, but my money's there!" said James.

+

+"I'm vexed about that, too," says Alan, with his funny face, "but

+now, ye see, it's mines."  And then with more gravity, "Be you

+advised, James More, you leave this house."

+

+James seemed to cast about for a moment in his mind; but it's to be

+thought he had enough of Alan's swordsmanship, for he suddenly put

+off his hat to us and (with a face like one of the damned) bade us

+farewell in a series.  With which he was gone.

+

+At the same time a spell was lifted from me.

+

+"Catriona," I cried, "it was me--it was my sword.  O, are you much

+hurt?"

+

+"I know it, Davie, I am loving you for the pain of it; it was done

+defending that bad man, my father.  See!" she said, and showed me a

+bleeding scratch, "see, you have made a man of me now.  I will

+carry a wound like an old soldier."

+

+Joy that she should be so little hurt, and the love of her brave

+nature, supported me.  I embraced her, I kissed the wound.

+

+"And am I to be out of the kissing, me that never lost a chance?"

+says Alan; and putting me aside and taking Catriona by either

+shoulder, "My dear," he said, "you're a true daughter of Alpin.  By

+all accounts, he was a very fine man, and he may weel be proud of

+you.  If ever I was to get married, it's the marrow of you I would

+be seeking for a mother to my sons.  And I bear's a king's name and

+speak the truth."

+

+He said it with a serious heat of admiration that was honey to the

+girl, and through her, to me.  It seemed to wipe us clean of all

+James More's disgraces.  And the next moment he was just himself

+again.

+

+"And now by your leave, my dawties," said he, "this is a' very

+bonny; but Alan Breck'll be a wee thing nearer to the gallows than

+he's caring for; and Dod! I think this is a grand place to be

+leaving."

+

+The word recalled us to some wisdom.  Alan ran upstairs and

+returned with our saddle-bags and James More's portmanteau; I

+picked up Catriona's bundle where she had dropped it on the stair;

+and we were setting forth out of that dangerous house, when Bazin

+stopped the way with cries and gesticulations.  He had whipped

+under a table when the swords were drawn, but now he was as bold as

+a lion.  There was his bill to be settled, there was a chair

+broken, Alan had sat among his dinner things, James More had fled.

+

+"Here," I cried, "pay yourself," and flung him down some Lewie

+d'ors; for I thought it was no time to be accounting.

+

+He sprang upon that money, and we passed him by, and ran forth into

+the open.  Upon three sides of the house were seamen hasting and

+closing in; a little nearer to us James More waved his hat as if to

+hurry them; and right behind him, like some foolish person holding

+up his hands, were the sails of the windmill turning.

+

+Alan gave but one glance, and laid himself down to run.  He carried

+a great weight in James More's portmanteau; but I think he would as

+soon have lost his life as cast away that booty which was his

+revenge; and he ran so that I was distressed to follow him, and

+marvelled and exulted to see the girl bounding at my side.

+

+As soon as we appeared, they cast off all disguise upon the other

+side; and the seamen pursued us with shouts and view-hullohs.  We

+had a start of some two hundred yards, and they were but bandy-

+legged tarpaulins after all, that could not hope to better us at

+such an exercise.  I suppose they were armed, but did not care to

+use their pistols on French ground.  And as soon as I perceived

+that we not only held our advantage but drew a little away, I began

+to feel quite easy of the issue.  For all which, it was a hot,

+brisk bit of work, so long as it lasted; Dunkirk was still far off;

+and when we popped over a knowe, and found a company of the

+garrison marching on the other side on some manoeuvre, I could very

+well understand the word that Alan had.

+

+He stopped running at once; and mopping at his brow, "They're a

+real bonny folk, the French nation," says he.

+

+

+

+CONCLUSION

+

+

+

+No sooner were we safe within the walls of Dunkirk than we held a

+very necessary council-of-war on our position.  We had taken a

+daughter from her father at the sword's point; any judge would give

+her back to him at once, and by all likelihood clap me and Alan

+into jail; and though we had an argument upon our side in Captain

+Palliser's letter, neither Catriona nor I were very keen to be

+using it in public.  Upon all accounts it seemed the most prudent

+to carry the girl to Paris to the hands of her own chieftain,

+Macgregor of Bohaldie, who would be very willing to help his

+kinswoman, on the one hand, and not at all anxious to dishonour

+James upon other.

+

+We made but a slow journey of it up, for Catriona was not so good

+at the riding as the running, and had scarce sat in the saddle

+since the 'Forty-five.  But we made it out at last, reached Paris

+early of a Sabbath morning, and made all speed, under Alan's

+guidance, to find Bohaldie.  He was finely lodged, and lived in a

+good style, having a pension on the Scots Fund, as well as private

+means; greeted Catriona like one of his own house, and seemed

+altogether very civil and discreet, but not particularly open.  We

+asked of the news of James More.  "Poor James!" said he, and shook

+his head and smiled, so that I thought he knew further than he

+meant to tell.  Then we showed him Palliser's letter, and he drew a

+long face at that.

+

+"Poor James!" said he again.  "Well, there are worse folk than

+James More, too.  But this is dreadful bad.  Tut, tut, he must have

+forgot himself entirely!  This is a most undesirable letter.  But,

+for all that, gentlemen, I cannot see what we would want to make it

+public for.  It's an ill bird that fouls his own nest, and we are

+all Scots folk and all Hieland."

+

+Upon this we all agreed, save perhaps Alan; and still more upon the

+question of our marriage, which Bohaldie took in his own hands, as

+though there had been no such person as James More, and gave

+Catriona away with very pretty manners and agreeable compliments in

+French.  It was not till all was over, and our healths drunk, that

+he told us James was in that city, whither he had preceded us some

+days, and where he now lay sick, and like to die.  I thought I saw

+by my wife's face what way her inclination pointed.

+

+"And let us go see him, then," said I.

+

+"If it is your pleasure," said Catriona.  These were early days.

+

+He was lodged in the same quarter of the city with his chief, in a

+great house upon a corner; and we were guided up to the garret

+where he lay by the sound of Highland piping.  It seemed he had

+just borrowed a set of them from Bohaldie to amuse his sickness;

+though he was no such hand as was his brother Rob, he made good

+music of the kind; and it was strange to observe the French folk

+crowding on the stairs, and some of them laughing.  He lay propped

+in a pallet.  The first look of him I saw he was upon his last

+business; and, doubtless, this was a strange place for him to die

+in.  But even now I find I can scarce dwell upon his end with

+patience.  Doubtless, Bohaldie had prepared him; he seemed to know

+we were married, complimented us on the event, and gave us a

+benediction like a patriarch.

+

+"I have been never understood," said he.  "I forgive you both

+without an afterthought;" after which he spoke for all the world in

+his old manner, was so obliging as to play us a tune or two upon

+his pipes, and borrowed a small sum before I left.

+

+I could not trace even a hint of shame in any part of his

+behaviour; but he was great upon forgiveness; it seemed always

+fresh to him.  I think he forgave me every time we met; and when

+after some four days he passed away in a kind of odour of

+affectionate sanctity, I could have torn my hair out for

+exasperation.  I had him buried; but what to put upon his tomb was

+quite beyond me, till at last I considered the date would look best

+alone.

+

+I thought it wiser to resign all thoughts of Leyden, where we had

+appeared once as brother and sister, and it would certainly look

+strange to return in a new character.  Scotland would be doing for

+us; and thither, after I had recovered that which I had left

+behind, we sailed in a Low Country ship.

+

+

+And now, Miss Barbara Balfour (to set the ladies first), and Mr.

+Alan Balfour younger of Shaws, here is the story brought fairly to

+an end.  A great many of the folk that took a part in it, you will

+find (if you think well) that you have seen and spoken with.

+Alison Hastie in Limekilns was the lass that rocked your cradle

+when you were too small to know of it, and walked abroad with you

+in the policy when you were bigger.  That very fine great lady that

+is Miss Barbara's name-mamma is no other than the same Miss Grant

+that made so much a fool of David Balfour in the house of the Lord

+Advocate.  And I wonder whether you remember a little, lean, lively

+gentleman in a scratch-wig and a wraprascal, that came to Shaws

+very late of a dark night, and whom you were awakened out of your

+beds and brought down to the dining-hall to be presented to, by the

+name of Mr. Jamieson?  Or has Alan forgotten what he did at Mr.

+Jamieson's request--a most disloyal act--for which, by the letter

+of the law, he might be hanged--no less than drinking the king's

+health ACROSS THE WATER?  These were strange doings in a good Whig

+house!  But Mr. Jamieson is a man privileged, and might set fire to

+my corn-barn; and the name they know him by now in France is the

+Chevalier Stewart.

+

+As for Davie and Catriona, I shall watch you pretty close in the

+next days, and see if you are so bold as to be laughing at papa and

+mamma.  It is true we were not so wise as we might have been, and

+made a great deal of sorrow out of nothing; but you will find as

+you grow up that even the artful Miss Barbara, and even the valiant

+Mr. Alan, will be not so very much wiser than their parents.  For

+the life of man upon this world of ours is a funny business.  They

+talk of the angels weeping; but I think they must more often be

+holding their sides as they look on; and there was one thing I

+determined to do when I began this long story, and that was to tell

+out everything as it befell.

+

+

+

+Footnotes

+

+{1}  Conspicuous.

+

+{2}  Country.

+

+{3}  The Fairies.

+

+{4}  Flatteries.

+

+{5}  Trust to.

+

+{6}  This must have reference to Dr. Cameron on his first visit.--

+D. B.

+

+{7}  Sweetheart.

+

+{8}  Child.

+

+{9}  Palm.

+

+{10}  Gallows.

+

+{11}  My Catechism.

+

+{12}  Now Prince's Street.

+

+{13}  A learned folklorist of my acquaintance hereby identifies

+Alan's air.  It has been printed (it seems) in Campbell's Tales of

+the West Highlands, Vol.  II., p. 91.  Upon examination it would

+really seem as if Miss Grant's unrhymed doggrel (see Chapter V.)

+would fit with little humouring to the notes in question.

+

+{14}  A ball placed upon a little mound for convenience of

+striking.

+

+{15}  Patched shoes.

+

+{16}  Shoemaker.

+

+{17}  Tamson's mere--to go afoot.

+

+{18}  Beard.

+

+{19}  Ragged.

+

+{20}  Fine things.

+

+{21}  Catch.

+

+{22}  Victuals.

+

+{23}  Trust.

+

+{24}  Sea fog.

+

+{25}  Bashful.

+

+{26}  Rest.

+

+

+

+

+

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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII">
+<title>Catriona</title>
+</head>
+<body>
+<h2>
+<a href="#startoftext">Catriona, by Robert Louis Stevenson</a>
+</h2>
+<pre>
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Catriona, by Robert Louis Stevenson
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Catriona
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+Release Date: July, 1996  [EBook #589]
+[This file was first posted on May 15, 1996]
+[Most recently updated: May 20, 2002]
+
+Edition: 11
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+</pre>
+<p>
+<a name="startoftext"></a>
+Transcribed from the 1904 Cassell and Company edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CATRIONA<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+DEDICATION.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+TO CHARLES BAXTER, <i>Writer to the Signet.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+</i>My Dear Charles,<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+It is the fate of sequels to disappoint those who have waited for them;
+and my David, having been left to kick his heels for more than a lustre
+in the British Linen Company&rsquo;s office, must expect his late re-appearance
+to be greeted with hoots, if not with missiles.&nbsp; Yet, when I remember
+the days of our explorations, I am not without hope.&nbsp; There should
+be left in our native city some seed of the elect; some long-legged,
+hot-headed youth must repeat to-day our dreams and wanderings of so
+many years ago; he will relish the pleasure, which should have been
+ours, to follow among named streets and numbered houses the country
+walks of David Balfour, to identify Dean, and Silvermills, and Broughton,
+and Hope Park, and Pilrig, and poor old Lochend - if it still be standing,
+and the Figgate Whins - if there be any of them left; or to push (on
+a long holiday) so far afield as Gillane or the Bass.&nbsp; So, perhaps,
+his eye shall be opened to behold the series of the generations, and
+he shall weigh with surprise his momentous and nugatory gift of life.<br>
+<br>
+You are still - as when first I saw, as when I last addressed you -
+in the venerable city which I must always think of as my home.&nbsp;
+And I have come so far; and the sights and thoughts of my youth pursue
+me; and I see like a vision the youth of my father, and of his father,
+and the whole stream of lives flowing down there far in the north, with
+the sound of laughter and tears, to cast me out in the end, as by a
+sudden freshet, on these ultimate islands.&nbsp; And I admire and bow
+my head before the romance of destiny.<br>
+<br>
+R. L. S.<br>
+Vailima, Upolu,<br>
+Samoa, 1892.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CATRIONA - Part I - THE LORD ADVOCATE<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER I - A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David Balfour,
+came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter attending me with
+a bag of money, and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me from
+their doors.&nbsp; Two days before, and even so late as yestermorning,
+I was like a beggar-man by the wayside, clad in rags, brought down to
+my last shillings, my companion a condemned traitor, a price set on
+my own head for a crime with the news of which the country rang.&nbsp;
+To-day I was served heir to my position in life, a landed laird, a bank
+porter by me carrying my gold, recommendations in my pocket, and (in
+the words of the saying) the ball directly at my foot.<br>
+<br>
+There were two circumstances that served me as ballast to so much sail.&nbsp;
+The first was the very difficult and deadly business I had still to
+handle; the second, the place that I was in.&nbsp; The tall, black city,
+and the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world
+for me, after the moorland braes, the sea-sands and the still country-sides
+that I had frequented up to then.&nbsp; The throng of the citizens in
+particular abashed me.&nbsp; Rankeillor&rsquo;s son was short and small
+in the girth; his clothes scarce held on me; and it was plain I was
+ill qualified to strut in the front of a bank-porter.&nbsp; It was plain,
+if I did so, I should but set folk laughing, and (what was worse in
+my case) set them asking questions.&nbsp; So that I behooved to come
+by some clothes of my own, and in the meanwhile to walk by the porter&rsquo;s
+side, and put my hand on his arm as though we were a pair of friends.<br>
+<br>
+At a merchant&rsquo;s in the Luckenbooths I had myself fitted out: none
+too fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback; but
+comely and responsible, so that servants should respect me.&nbsp; Thence
+to an armourer&rsquo;s, where I got a plain sword, to suit with my degree
+in life.&nbsp; I felt safer with the weapon, though (for one so ignorant
+of defence) it might be called an added danger.&nbsp; The porter, who
+was naturally a man of some experience, judged my accoutrement to be
+well chosen.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Naething kenspeckle,&rdquo; <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a>
+said he; &ldquo;plain, dacent claes.&nbsp; As for the rapier, nae doubt
+it sits wi&rsquo; your degree; but an I had been you, I would has waired
+my siller better-gates than that.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he proposed I should
+buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back, that was a cousin
+of his own, and made them &ldquo;extraordinar endurable.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+But I had other matters on my hand more pressing.&nbsp; Here I was in
+this old, black city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-warren,
+not only by the number of its indwellers, but the complication of its
+passages and holes.&nbsp; It was, indeed, a place where no stranger
+had a chance to find a friend, let be another stranger.&nbsp; Suppose
+him even to hit on the right close, people dwelt so thronged in these
+tall houses, he might very well seek a day before he chanced on the
+right door.&nbsp; The ordinary course was to hire a lad they called
+a <i>caddie</i>, who was like a guide or pilot, led you where you had
+occasion, and (your errands being done) brought you again where you
+were lodging.&nbsp; But these caddies, being always employed in the
+same sort of services, and having it for obligation to be well informed
+of every house and person in the city, had grown to form a brotherhood
+of spies; and I knew from tales of Mr. Campbell&rsquo;s how they communicated
+one with another, what a rage of curiosity they conceived as to their
+employer&rsquo;s business, and how they were like eyes and fingers to
+the police.&nbsp; It would be a piece of little wisdom, the way I was
+now placed, to take such a ferret to my tails.&nbsp; I had three visits
+to make, all immediately needful: to my kinsman Mr. Balfour of Pilrig,
+to Stewart the Writer that was Appin&rsquo;s agent, and to William Grant
+Esquire of Prestongrange, Lord Advocate of Scotland.&nbsp; Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s
+was a non-committal visit; and besides (Pilrig being in the country)
+I made bold to find the way to it myself, with the help of my two legs
+and a Scots tongue.&nbsp; But the rest were in a different case.&nbsp;
+Not only was the visit to Appin&rsquo;s agent, in the midst of the cry
+about the Appin murder, dangerous in itself, but it was highly inconsistent
+with the other.&nbsp; I was like to have a bad enough time of it with
+my Lord Advocate Grant, the best of ways; but to go to him hot-foot
+from Appin&rsquo;s agent, was little likely to mend my own affairs,
+and might prove the mere ruin of friend Alan&rsquo;s.&nbsp; The whole
+thing, besides, gave me a look of running with the hare and hunting
+with the hounds that was little to my fancy.&nbsp; I determined, therefore,
+to be done at once with Mr. Stewart and the whole Jacobitical side of
+my business, and to profit for that purpose by the guidance of the porter
+at my side.&nbsp; But it chanced I had scarce given him the address,
+when there came a sprinkle of rain - nothing to hurt, only for my new
+clothes - and we took shelter under a pend at the head of a close or
+alley.<br>
+<br>
+Being strange to what I saw, I stepped a little farther in.&nbsp; The
+narrow paved way descended swiftly.&nbsp; Prodigious tall houses sprang
+upon each side and bulged out, one storey beyond another, as they rose.&nbsp;
+At the top only a ribbon of sky showed in.&nbsp; By what I could spy
+in the windows, and by the respectable persons that passed out and in,
+I saw the houses to be very well occupied; and the whole appearance
+of the place interested me like a tale.<br>
+<br>
+I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in
+time and clash of steel behind me.&nbsp; Turning quickly, I was aware
+of a party of armed soldiers, and, in their midst, a tall man in a great
+coat.&nbsp; He walked with a stoop that was like a piece of courtesy,
+genteel and insinuating: he waved his hands plausibly as he went, and
+his face was sly and handsome.&nbsp; I thought his eye took me in, but
+could not meet it.&nbsp; This procession went by to a door in the close,
+which a serving-man in a fine livery set open; and two of the soldier-lads
+carried the prisoner within, the rest lingering with their firelocks
+by the door.<br>
+<br>
+There can nothing pass in the streets of a city without some following
+of idle folk and children.&nbsp; It was so now; but the more part melted
+away incontinent until but three were left.&nbsp; One was a girl; she
+was dressed like a lady, and had a screen of the Drummond colours on
+her head; but her comrades or (I should say) followers were ragged gillies,
+such as I had seen the matches of by the dozen in my Highland journey.&nbsp;
+They all spoke together earnestly in Gaelic, the sound of which was
+pleasant in my ears for the sake of Alan; and, though the rain was by
+again, and my porter plucked at me to be going, I even drew nearer where
+they were, to listen.&nbsp; The lady scolded sharply, the others making
+apologies and cringeing before her, so that I made sure she was come
+of a chief&rsquo;s house.&nbsp; All the while the three of them sought
+in their pockets, and by what I could make out, they had the matter
+of half a farthing among the party; which made me smile a little to
+see all Highland folk alike for fine obeisances and empty sporrans.<br>
+<br>
+It chanced the girl turned suddenly about, so that I saw her face for
+the first time.&nbsp; There is no greater wonder than the way the face
+of a young woman fits in a man&rsquo;s mind, and stays there, and he
+could never tell you why; it just seems it was the thing he wanted.&nbsp;
+She had wonderful bright eyes like stars, and I daresay the eyes had
+a part in it; but what I remember the most clearly was the way her lips
+were a trifle open as she turned.&nbsp; And, whatever was the cause,
+I stood there staring like a fool.&nbsp; On her side, as she had not
+known there was anyone so near, she looked at me a little longer, and
+perhaps with more surprise, than was entirely civil.<br>
+<br>
+It went through my country head she might be wondering at my new clothes;
+with that, I blushed to my hair, and at the sight of my colouring it
+is to be supposed she drew her own conclusions, for she moved her gillies
+farther down the close, and they fell again to this dispute, where I
+could hear no more of it.<br>
+<br>
+I had often admired a lassie before then, if scarce so sudden and strong;
+and it was rather my disposition to withdraw than to come forward, for
+I was much in fear of mockery from the womenkind.&nbsp; You would have
+thought I had now all the more reason to pursue my common practice,
+since I had met this young lady in the city street, seemingly following
+a prisoner, and accompanied with two very ragged indecent-like Highlandmen.&nbsp;
+But there was here a different ingredient; it was plain the girl thought
+I had been prying in her secrets; and with my new clothes and sword,
+and at the top of my new fortunes, this was more than I could swallow.&nbsp;
+The beggar on horseback could not bear to be thrust down so low, or,
+at least of it, not by this young lady.<br>
+<br>
+I followed, accordingly, and took off my new hat to her the best that
+I was able.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I think it only fair to myself to
+let you understand I have no Gaelic.&nbsp; It is true I was listening,
+for I have friends of my own across the Highland line, and the sound
+of that tongue comes friendly; but for your private affairs, if you
+had spoken Greek, I might have had more guess at them.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She made me a little, distant curtsey.&nbsp; &ldquo;There is no harm
+done,&rdquo; said she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but
+more agreeable).&nbsp; &ldquo;A cat may look at a king.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do not mean to offend,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have no
+skill of city manners; I never before this day set foot inside the doors
+of Edinburgh.&nbsp; Take me for a country lad - it&rsquo;s what I am;
+and I would rather I told you than you found it out.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking
+to each other on the causeway,&rdquo; she replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+if you are landward <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a>
+bred it will be different.&nbsp; I am as landward as yourself; I am
+Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther from my home.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is not yet a week since I passed the line,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Less than a week ago I was on the braes of Balwhidder.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Balwhither?&rdquo; she cries.&nbsp; &ldquo;Come ye from Balwhither!&nbsp;
+The name of it makes all there is of me rejoice.&nbsp; You will not
+have been long there, and not known some of our friends or family?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren,&rdquo;
+I replied.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, I know Duncan, and you give him the true name!&rdquo; she
+said; &ldquo;and if he is an honest man, his wife is honest indeed.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;they are fine people, and the place
+is a bonny place.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Where in the great world is such another!&rdquo; she cries; &ldquo;I
+am loving the smell of that place and the roots that grow there.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I was infinitely taken with the spirit of the maid.&nbsp; &ldquo;I could
+be wishing I had brought you a spray of that heather,&rdquo; says I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And, though I did ill to speak with you at the first, now it
+seems we have common acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not
+forget me.&nbsp; David Balfour is the name I am known by.&nbsp; This
+is my lucky day, when I have just come into a landed estate, and am
+not very long out of a deadly peril.&nbsp; I wish you would keep my
+name in mind for the sake of Balwhidder,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I
+will yours for the sake of my lucky day.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My name is not spoken,&rdquo; she replied, with a great deal
+of haughtiness.&nbsp; &ldquo;More than a hundred years it has not gone
+upon men&rsquo;s tongues, save for a blink.&nbsp; I am nameless, like
+the Folk of Peace. <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a>&nbsp;
+Catriona Drummond is the one I use.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Now indeed I knew where I was standing.&nbsp; In all broad Scotland
+there was but the one name proscribed, and that was the name of the
+Macgregors.&nbsp; Yet so far from fleeing this undesirable acquaintancy,
+I plunged the deeper in.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with yourself,&rdquo;
+said I, &ldquo;and I think he will be one of your friends.&nbsp; They
+called him Robin Oig.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Did ye so?&rdquo; cries she.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ye met Rob?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I passed the night with him,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He is a fowl of the night,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There was a set of pipes there,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;so you
+may judge if the time passed.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You should be no enemy, at all events,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;That was his brother there a moment since, with the red soldiers
+round him.&nbsp; It is him that I call father.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is it so?&rdquo; cried I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Are you a daughter of
+James More&rsquo;s?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;All the daughter that he has,&rdquo; says she: &ldquo;the daughter
+of a prisoner; that I should forget it so, even for one hour, to talk
+with strangers!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Here one of the gillies addressed her in what he had of English, to
+know what &ldquo;she&rdquo; (meaning by that himself) was to do about
+&ldquo;ta sneeshin.&rdquo;&nbsp; I took some note of him for a short,
+bandy-legged, red-haired, big-headed man, that I was to know more of
+to my cost.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There can be none the day, Neil,&rdquo; she replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;How
+will you get &lsquo;sneeshin,&rsquo; wanting siller!&nbsp; It will teach
+you another time to be more careful; and I think James More will not
+be very well pleased with Neil of the Tom.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Miss Drummond,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I told you I was in my lucky
+day.&nbsp; Here I am, and a bank-porter at my tail.&nbsp; And remember
+I have had the hospitality of your own country of Balwhidder.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It was not one of my people gave it,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but I am owing your uncle at
+least for some springs upon the pipes.&nbsp; Besides which, I have offered
+myself to be your friend, and you have been so forgetful that you did
+not refuse me in the proper time.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If it had been a great sum, it might have done you honour,&rdquo;
+said she; &ldquo;but I will tell you what this is.&nbsp; James More
+lies shackled in prison; but this time past they will be bringing him
+down here daily to the Advocate&rsquo;s. . . .&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The Advocate&rsquo;s!&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Is that .
+. . ?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is the house of the Lord Advocate Grant of Prestongrange,&rdquo;
+said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;There they bring my father one time and another,
+for what purpose I have no thought in my mind; but it seems there is
+some hope dawned for him.&nbsp; All this same time they will not let
+me be seeing him, nor yet him write; and we wait upon the King&rsquo;s
+street to catch him; and now we give him his snuff as he goes by, and
+now something else.&nbsp; And here is this son of trouble, Neil, son
+of Duncan, has lost my four-penny piece that was to buy that snuff,
+and James More must go wanting, and will think his daughter has forgotten
+him.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I took sixpence from my pocket, gave it to Neil, and bade him go about
+his errand.&nbsp; Then to her, &ldquo;That sixpence came with me by
+Balwhidder,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you are a friend to the Gregara!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would not like to deceive you, either,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I know very little of the Gregara and less of James More and
+his doings, but since the while I have been standing in this close,
+I seem to know something of yourself; and if you will just say &lsquo;a
+friend to Miss Catriona&rsquo; I will see you are the less cheated.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The one cannot be without the other,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will even try,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what will you be thinking of myself!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;to
+be holding my hand to the first stranger!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am thinking nothing but that you are a good daughter,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I must not be without repaying it,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;where
+is it you stop!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;To tell the truth, I am stopping nowhere yet,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;being not full three hours in the city; but if you will give
+me your direction, I will he no bold as come seeking my sixpence for
+myself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Will I can trust you for that?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You need have little fear,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;James More could not bear it else,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+stop beyond the village of Dean, on the north side of the water, with
+Mrs. Drummond-Ogilvy of Allardyce, who is my near friend and will be
+glad to thank you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are to see me, then, so soon as what I have to do permits,&rdquo;
+said I; and, the remembrance of Alan rolling in again upon my mind,
+I made haste to say farewell.<br>
+<br>
+I could not but think, even as I did so, that we had made extraordinary
+free upon short acquaintance, and that a really wise young lady would
+have shown herself more backward.&nbsp; I think it was the bank-porter
+that put me from this ungallant train of thought.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I thoucht ye had been a lad of some kind o&rsquo; sense,&rdquo;
+he began, shooting out his lips.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ye&rsquo;re no likely
+to gang far this gate.&nbsp; A fule and his siller&rsquo;s shune parted.&nbsp;
+Eh, but ye&rsquo;re a green callant!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;an&rsquo;
+a veecious, tae!&nbsp; Cleikin&rsquo; up wi&rsquo; baubeejoes!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If you dare to speak of the young lady. . . &rdquo; I began.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Leddy!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Haud us and safe us, whatten
+leddy?&nbsp; Ca&rsquo;<i> thon </i>a leddy?&nbsp; The toun&rsquo;s fu&rsquo;
+o&rsquo; them.&nbsp; Leddies!&nbsp; Man, its weel seen ye&rsquo;re no
+very acquant in Embro!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+A clap of anger took me.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;lead me where I told you, and keep
+your foul mouth shut!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He did not wholly obey me, for, though he no more addressed me directly,
+he very impudent sang at me as he went in a manner of innuendo, and
+with an exceedingly ill voice and ear -<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;As Mally Lee cam doun the street, her capuchin did flee,<br>
+She cuist a look ahint her to see her negligee.<br>
+And we&rsquo;re a&rsquo; gaun east and wast, we&rsquo;re a&rsquo; gann
+ajee,<br>
+We&rsquo;re a&rsquo; gaun east and wast courtin&rsquo; Mally Lee.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER II - THE HIGHLAND WRITER<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer dwelt at the top of the longest stair
+ever mason set a hand to; fifteen flights of it, no less; and when I
+had come to his door, and a clerk had opened it, and told me his master
+was within, I had scarce breath enough to send my porter packing.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Awa&rsquo; east and west wi&rsquo; ye!&rdquo; said I, took the
+money bag out of his hands, and followed the clerk in.<br>
+<br>
+The outer room was an office with the clerk&rsquo;s chair at a table
+spread with law papers.&nbsp; In the inner chamber, which opened from
+it, a little brisk man sat poring on a deed, from which he scarce raised
+his eyes on my entrance; indeed, he still kept his finger in the place,
+as though prepared to show me out and fall again to his studies.&nbsp;
+This pleased me little enough; and what pleased me less, I thought the
+clerk was in a good posture to overhear what should pass between us.<br>
+<br>
+I asked if he was Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The same,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;and, if the question is equally
+fair, who may you be yourself?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You never heard tell of my name nor of me either,&rdquo; said
+I, &ldquo;but I bring you a token from a friend that you know well.&nbsp;
+That you know well,&rdquo; I repeated, lowering my voice, &ldquo;but
+maybe are not just so keen to hear from at this present being.&nbsp;
+And the bits of business that I have to propone to you are rather in
+the nature of being confidential.&nbsp; In short, I would like to think
+we were quite private.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He rose without more words, casting down his paper like a man ill-pleased,
+sent forth his clerk of an errand, and shut to the house-door behind
+him.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Now, sir,&rdquo; said he, returning, &ldquo;speak out your mind
+and fear nothing; though before you begin,&rdquo; he cries out, &ldquo;I
+tell you mine misgives me!&nbsp; I tell you beforehand, ye&rsquo;re
+either a Stewart or a Stewart sent ye.&nbsp; A good name it is, and
+one it would ill-become my father&rsquo;s son to lightly.&nbsp; But
+I begin to grue at the sound of it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My name is called Balfour,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;David Balfour
+of Shaws.&nbsp; As for him that sent me, I will let his token speak.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And I showed the silver button.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Put it in your pocket, sir!&rdquo; cries he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ye
+need name no names.&nbsp; The deevil&rsquo;s buckie, I ken the button
+of him!&nbsp; And de&rsquo;il hae&rsquo;t!&nbsp; Where is he now!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I told him I knew not where Alan was, but he had some sure place (or
+thought he had) about the north side, where he was to lie until a ship
+was found for him; and how and where he had appointed to be spoken with.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been always my opinion that I would hang in a tow
+for this family of mine,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;and, dod!&nbsp; I believe
+the day&rsquo;s come now!&nbsp; Get a ship for him, quot&rsquo; he!&nbsp;
+And who&rsquo;s to pay for it?&nbsp; The man&rsquo;s daft!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That is my part of the affair, Mr. Stewart,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Here is a bag of good money, and if more be wanted, more is to
+be had where it came from.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I needn&rsquo;t ask your politics,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye need not,&rdquo; said I, smiling, &ldquo;for I&rsquo;m as
+big a Whig as grows.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Stop a bit, stop a bit,&rdquo; says Mr. Stewart.&nbsp; &ldquo;What&rsquo;s
+all this?&nbsp; A Whig?&nbsp; Then why are you here with Alan&rsquo;s
+button? and what kind of a black-foot traffic is this that I find ye
+out in, Mr. Whig?&nbsp; Here is a forfeited rebel and an accused murderer,
+with two hundred pounds on his life, and ye ask me to meddle in his
+business, and then tell me ye&rsquo;re a Whig!&nbsp; I have no mind
+of any such Whigs before, though I&rsquo;ve kent plenty of them.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a forfeited rebel, the more&rsquo;s the pity,&rdquo;
+said I, &ldquo;for the man&rsquo;s my friend.&nbsp; I can only wish
+he had been better guided.&nbsp; And an accused murderer, that he is
+too, for his misfortune; but wrongfully accused.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I hear you say so,&rdquo; said Stewart.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;More than you are to hear me say so, before long,&rdquo; said
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Alan Breck is innocent, and so is James.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;the two cases hang together.&nbsp;
+If Alan is out, James can never be in.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Hereupon I told him briefly of my acquaintance with Alan, of the accident
+that brought me present at the Appin murder, and the various passages
+of our escape among the heather, and my recovery of my estate.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;So, sir, you have now the whole train of these events,&rdquo;
+I went on, &ldquo;and can see for yourself how I come to be so much
+mingled up with the affairs of your family and friends, which (for all
+of our sakes) I wish had been plainer and less bloody.&nbsp; You can
+see for yourself, too, that I have certain pieces of business depending,
+which were scarcely fit to lay before a lawyer chosen at random.&nbsp;
+No more remains, but to ask if you will undertake my service?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have no great mind to it; but coming as you do with Alan&rsquo;s
+button, the choice is scarcely left me,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;What
+are your instructions?&rdquo; he added, and took up his pen.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The first point is to smuggle Alan forth of this country,&rdquo;
+said I, &ldquo;but I need not be repeating that.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am little likely to forget it,&rdquo; said Stewart.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The next thing is the bit money I am owing to Cluny,&rdquo; I
+went on.&nbsp; &ldquo;It would be ill for me to find a conveyance, but
+that should be no stick to you.&nbsp; It was two pounds five shillings
+and three-halfpence farthing sterling.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He noted it.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a Mr. Henderland, a
+licensed preacher and missionary in Ardgour, that I would like well
+to get some snuff into the hands of; and, as I daresay you keep touch
+with your friends in Appin (so near by), it&rsquo;s a job you could
+doubtless overtake with the other.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;How much snuff are we to say?&rdquo; he asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I was thinking of two pounds,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Two,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Then there&rsquo;s the lass Alison Hastie, in Lime Kilns,&rdquo;
+said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Her that helped Alan and me across the Forth.&nbsp;
+I was thinking if I could get her a good Sunday gown, such as she could
+wear with decency in her degree, it would be an ease to my conscience;
+for the mere truth is, we owe her our two lives.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am glad so see you are thrifty, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; says he,
+making his notes.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would think shame to be otherwise the first day of my fortune,&rdquo;
+said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;And now, if you will compute the outlay and your
+own proper charges, I would be glad to know if I could get some spending-money
+back.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not that I grudge the whole of it to get Alan
+safe; it&rsquo;s not that I lack more; but having drawn so much the
+one day, I think it would have a very ill appearance if I was back again
+seeking, the next.&nbsp; Only be sure you have enough,&rdquo; I added,
+&ldquo;for I am very undesirous to meet with you again.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, and I&rsquo;m pleased to see you&rsquo;re cautious, too,&rdquo;
+said the Writer.&nbsp; &ldquo;But I think ye take a risk to lay so considerable
+a sum at my discretion.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He said this with a plain sneer.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll have to run the hazard,&rdquo; I replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;O,
+and there&rsquo;s another service I would ask, and that&rsquo;s to direct
+me to a lodging, for I have no roof to my head.&nbsp; But it must be
+a lodging I may seem to have hit upon by accident, for it would never
+do if the Lord Advocate were to get any jealousy of our acquaintance.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye may set your weary spirit at rest,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+will never name your name, sir; and it&rsquo;s my belief the Advocate
+is still so much to be sympathised with that he doesnae ken of your
+existence.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I saw I had got to the wrong side of the man.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a braw day coming for him, then,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;for he&rsquo;ll have to learn of it on the deaf side of his head
+no later than to-morrow, when I call on him.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;When ye <i>call</i> on him!&rdquo; repeated Mr. Stewart.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Am I daft, or are you!&nbsp; What takes ye near the Advocate!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, just to give myself up,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;are ye making a mock of
+me?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;though I think you have allowed
+yourself some such freedom with myself.&nbsp; But I give you to understand
+once and for all that I am in no jesting spirit.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Nor yet me,&rdquo; says Stewart.&nbsp; &ldquo;And I give yon
+to understand (if that&rsquo;s to be the word) that I like the looks
+of your behaviour less and less.&nbsp; You come here to me with all
+sorts of propositions, which will put me in a train of very doubtful
+acts and bring me among very undesirable persons this many a day to
+come.&nbsp; And then you tell me you&rsquo;re going straight out of
+my office to make your peace with the Advocate!&nbsp; Alan&rsquo;s button
+here or Alan&rsquo;s button there, the four quarters of Alan wouldnae
+bribe me further in.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would take it with a little more temper,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and
+perhaps we can avoid what you object to.&nbsp; I can see no way for
+it but to give myself up, but perhaps you can see another; and if you
+could, I could never deny but what I would be rather relieved.&nbsp;
+For I think my traffic with his lordship is little likely to agree with
+my health.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s just the one thing clear, that I have
+to give my evidence; for I hope it&rsquo;ll save Alan&rsquo;s character
+(what&rsquo;s left of it), and James&rsquo;s neck, which is the more
+immediate.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He was silent for a breathing-space, and then, &ldquo;My man,&rdquo;
+said he, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll never be allowed to give such evidence.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have to see about that,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+stiff-necked when I like.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye muckle ass!&rdquo; cried Stewart, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s James
+they want; James has got to hang - Alan, too, if they could catch him
+- but James whatever!&nbsp; Go near the Advocate with any such business,
+and you&rsquo;ll see! he&rsquo;ll find a way to muzzle, ye.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think better of the Advocate than that,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The Advocate be dammed!&rdquo; cries he.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+the Campbells, man!&nbsp; You&rsquo;ll have the whole clanjamfry of
+them on your back; and so will the Advocate too, poor body!&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
+extraordinar ye cannot see where ye stand!&nbsp; If there&rsquo;s no
+fair way to stop your gab, there&rsquo;s a foul one gaping.&nbsp; They
+can put ye in the dock, do ye no see that?&rdquo; he cried, and stabbed
+me with one finger in the leg.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I was told that same no further back
+than this morning by another lawyer.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And who was he?&rdquo; asked Stewart, &ldquo;He spoke sense at
+least.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I told I must be excused from naming him, for he was a decent stout
+old Whig, and had little mind to be mixed up in such affairs.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think all the world seems to be mixed up in it!&rdquo; cries
+Stewart.&nbsp; &ldquo;But what said you?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I told him what had passed between Rankeillor and myself before
+the house of Shaws.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, and so ye will hang!&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ye&rsquo;ll
+hang beside James Stewart.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s your fortune told.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I hope better of it yet than that,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;but
+I could never deny there was a risk.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Risk!&rdquo; says he, and then sat silent again.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+ought to thank you for you staunchness to my friends, to whom you show
+a very good spirit,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;if you have the strength
+to stand by it.&nbsp; But I warn you that you&rsquo;re wading deep.&nbsp;
+I wouldn&rsquo;t put myself in your place (me that&rsquo;s a Stewart
+born!) for all the Stewarts that ever there were since Noah.&nbsp; Risk?
+ay, I take over-many; but to be tried in court before a Campbell jury
+and a Campbell judge, and that in a Campbell country and upon a Campbell
+quarrel - think what you like of me, Balfour, it&rsquo;s beyond me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a different way of thinking, I suppose,&rdquo; said
+I; &ldquo;I was brought up to this one by my father before me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Glory to his bones! he has left a decent son to his name,&rdquo;
+says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yet I would not have you judge me over-sorely.&nbsp;
+My case is dooms hard.&nbsp; See, sir, ye tell me ye&rsquo;re a Whig:
+I wonder what I am.&nbsp; No Whig to be sure; I couldnae be just that.&nbsp;
+But - laigh in your ear, man - I&rsquo;m maybe no very keen on the other
+side.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is that a fact?&rdquo; cried I.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s what
+I would think of a man of your intelligence.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Hut! none of your whillywhas!&rdquo; <a name="citation4"></a><a href="#footnote4">{4}</a>
+cries he.&nbsp; &ldquo;There&rsquo;s intelligence upon both sides.&nbsp;
+But for my private part I have no particular desire to harm King George;
+and as for King James, God bless him! he does very well for me across
+the water.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m a lawyer, ye see: fond of my books and my
+bottle, a good plea, a well-drawn deed, a crack in the Parliament House
+with other lawyer bodies, and perhaps a turn at the golf on a Saturday
+at e&rsquo;en.&nbsp; Where do ye come in with your Hieland plaids and
+claymores?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a fact ye have little
+of the wild Highlandman.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Little?&rdquo; quoth he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Nothing, man!&nbsp; And
+yet I&rsquo;m Hieland born, and when the clan pipes, who but me has
+to dance!&nbsp; The clan and the name, that goes by all.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
+just what you said yourself; my father learned it to me, and a bonny
+trade I have of it.&nbsp; Treason and traitors, and the smuggling of
+them out and in; and the French recruiting, weary fall it! and the smuggling
+through of the recruits; and their pleas - a sorrow of their pleas!&nbsp;
+Here have I been moving one for young Ardsheil, my cousin; claimed the
+estate under the marriage contract - a forfeited estate!&nbsp; I told
+them it was nonsense: muckle they cared!&nbsp; And there was I cocking
+behind a yadvocate that liked the business as little as myself, for
+it was fair ruin to the pair of us - a black mark, <i>disaffected, </i>branded
+on our hurdies, like folk&rsquo;s names upon their kye!&nbsp; And what
+can I do?&nbsp; I&rsquo;m a Stewart, ye see, and must fend for my clan
+and family.&nbsp; Then no later by than yesterday there was one of our
+Stewart lads carried to the Castle.&nbsp; What for?&nbsp; I ken fine:
+Act of 1736: recruiting for King Lewie.&nbsp; And you&rsquo;ll see,
+he&rsquo;ll whistle me in to be his lawyer, and there&rsquo;ll be another
+black mark on my chara&rsquo;ter!&nbsp; I tell you fair: if I but kent
+the heid of a Hebrew word from the hurdies of it, be dammed but I would
+fling the whole thing up and turn minister!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s rather a hard position,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Dooms hard!&rdquo; cries he.&nbsp; &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s what
+makes me think so much of ye - you that&rsquo;s no Stewart - to stick
+your head so deep in Stewart business.&nbsp; And for what, I do not
+know: unless it was the sense of duty.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I hope it will be that,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a grand quality.&nbsp;
+But here is my clerk back; and, by your leave, we&rsquo;ll pick a bit
+of dinner, all the three of us.&nbsp; When that&rsquo;s done, I&rsquo;ll
+give you the direction of a very decent man, that&rsquo;ll be very fain
+to have you for a lodger.&nbsp; And I&rsquo;ll fill your pockets to
+ye, forbye, out of your ain bag.&nbsp; For this business&rsquo;ll not
+be near as dear as ye suppose - not even the ship part of it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I made him a sign that his clerk was within hearing.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Hoot, ye neednae mind for Robbie,&rdquo; cries he.&nbsp; &ldquo;A
+Stewart, too, puir deevil! and has smuggled out more French recruits
+and trafficking Papists than what he has hairs upon his face.&nbsp;
+Why, it&rsquo;s Robin that manages that branch of my affairs.&nbsp;
+Who will we have now, Rob, for across the water!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;ll be Andie Scougal, in the <i>Thristle</i>,&rdquo;
+replied Rob.&nbsp; &ldquo;I saw Hoseason the other day, but it seems
+he&rsquo;s wanting the ship.&nbsp; Then there&rsquo;ll be Tam Stobo;
+but I&rsquo;m none so sure of Tam.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve seen him colloguing
+with some gey queer acquaintances; and if was anybody important, I would
+give Tam the go-by.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The head&rsquo;s worth two hundred pounds, Robin,&rdquo; said
+Stewart.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Gosh, that&rsquo;ll no be Alan Breck!&rdquo; cried the clerk.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Just Alan,&rdquo; said his master.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Weary winds! that&rsquo;s sayrious,&rdquo; cried Robin.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll try Andie, then; Andie&rsquo;ll be the best.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It seems it&rsquo;s quite a big business,&rdquo; I observed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Mr. Balfour, there&rsquo;s no end to it,&rdquo; said Stewart.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There was a name your clerk mentioned,&rdquo; I went on: &ldquo;Hoseason.&nbsp;
+That must be my man, I think: Hoseason, of the brig <i>Covenant</i>.&nbsp;
+Would you set your trust on him?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He didnae behave very well to you and Alan,&rdquo; said Mr. Stewart;
+&ldquo;but my mind of the man in general is rather otherwise.&nbsp;
+If he had taken Alan on board his ship on an agreement, it&rsquo;s my
+notion he would have proved a just dealer.&nbsp; How say ye, Rob?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No more honest skipper in the trade than Eli,&rdquo; said the
+clerk.&nbsp; &ldquo;I would lippen to <a name="citation5"></a><a href="#footnote5">{5}</a>
+Eli&rsquo;s word - ay, if it was the Chevalier, or Appin himsel&rsquo;,&rdquo;
+he added.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And it was him that brought the doctor, wasnae&rsquo;t?&rdquo;
+asked the master.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He was the very man,&rdquo; said the clerk.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I think he took the doctor back?&rdquo; says Stewart.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, with his sporran full!&rdquo; cried Robin.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+Eli kent of that!&rdquo; <a name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6">{6}</a><br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, it seems it&rsquo;s hard to ken folk rightly,&rdquo; said
+I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That was just what I forgot when ye came in, Mr. Balfour!&rdquo;
+says the Writer.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER III - I GO TO PILRIG<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The next morning, I was no sooner awake in my new lodging than I was
+up and into my new clothes; and no sooner the breakfast swallowed, than
+I was forth on my adventurers.&nbsp; Alan, I could hope, was fended
+for; James was like to be a more difficult affair, and I could not but
+think that enterprise might cost me dear, even as everybody said to
+whom I had opened my opinion.&nbsp; It seemed I was come to the top
+of the mountain only to cast myself down; that I had clambered up, through
+so many and hard trials, to be rich, to be recognised, to wear city
+clothes and a sword to my side, all to commit mere suicide at the last
+end of it, and the worst kind of suicide, besides, which is to get hanged
+at the King&rsquo;s charges.<br>
+<br>
+What was I doing it for? I asked, as I went down the high Street and
+out north by Leith Wynd.&nbsp; First I said it was to save James Stewart;
+and no doubt the memory of his distress, and his wife&rsquo;s cries,
+and a word or so I had let drop on that occasion worked upon me strongly.&nbsp;
+At the same time I reflected that it was (or ought to be) the most indifferent
+matter to my father&rsquo;s son, whether James died in his bed or from
+a scaffold.&nbsp; He was Alan&rsquo;s cousin, to be sure; but so far
+as regarded Alan, the best thing would be to lie low, and let the King,
+and his Grace of Argyll, and the corbie crows, pick the bones of his
+kinsman their own way.&nbsp; Nor could I forget that, while we were
+all in the pot together, James had shown no such particular anxiety
+whether for Alan or me.<br>
+<br>
+Next it came upon me I was acting for the sake of justice: and I thought
+that a fine word, and reasoned it out that (since we dwelt in polities,
+at some discomfort to each one of us) the main thing of all must still
+be justice, and the death of any innocent man a wound upon the whole
+community.&nbsp; Next, again, it was the Accuser of the Brethren that
+gave me a turn of his argument; bade me think shame for pretending myself
+concerned in these high matters, and told me I was but a prating vain
+child, who had spoken big words to Rankeillor and to Stewart, and held
+myself bound upon my vanity to make good that boastfulness.&nbsp; Nay,
+and he hit me with the other end of the stick; for he accused me of
+a kind of artful cowardice, going about at the expense of a little risk
+to purchase greater safety.&nbsp; No doubt, until I had declared and
+cleared myself, I might any day encounter Mungo Campbell or the sheriff&rsquo;s
+officer, and be recognised, and dragged into the Appin murder by the
+heels; and, no doubt, in case I could manage my declaration with success,
+I should breathe more free for ever after.&nbsp; But when I looked this
+argument full in the face I could see nothing to be ashamed of.&nbsp;
+As for the rest, &ldquo;Here are the two roads,&rdquo; I thought, &ldquo;and
+both go to the same place.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s unjust that James should
+hang if I can save him; and it would be ridiculous in me to have talked
+so much and then do nothing.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s lucky for James of the
+Glens that I have boasted beforehand; and none so unlucky for myself,
+because now I&rsquo;m committed to do right.&nbsp; I have the name of
+a gentleman and the means of one; it would be a poor duty that I was
+wanting in the essence.&rdquo;&nbsp; And then I thought this was a Pagan
+spirit, and said a prayer in to myself, asking for what courage I might
+lack, and that I might go straight to my duty like a soldier to battle,
+and come off again scatheless, as so many do.<br>
+<br>
+This train of reasoning brought me to a more resolved complexion; though
+it was far from closing up my sense of the dangers that surrounded me,
+nor of how very apt I was (if I went on) to stumble on the ladder of
+the gallows.&nbsp; It was a plain, fair morning, but the wind in the
+east.&nbsp; The little chill of it sang in my blood, and gave me a feeling
+of the autumn, and the dead leaves, and dead folks&rsquo; bodies in
+their graves.&nbsp; It seemed the devil was in it, if I was to die in
+that tide of my fortunes and for other folks&rsquo; affairs.&nbsp; On
+the top of the Calton Hill, though it was not the customary time of
+year for that diversion, some children were crying and running with
+their kites.&nbsp; These toys appeared very plain against the sky; I
+remarked a great one soar on the wind to a high altitude and then plump
+among the whins; and I thought to myself at sight of it, &ldquo;There
+goes Davie.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+My way lay over Mouter&rsquo;s Hill, and through an end of a clachan
+on the braeside among fields.&nbsp; There was a whirr of looms in it
+went from house to house; bees bummed in the gardens; the neighbours
+that I saw at the doorsteps talked in a strange tongue; and I found
+out later that this was Picardy, a village where the French weavers
+wrought for the Linen Company.&nbsp; Here I got a fresh direction for
+Pilrig, my destination; and a little beyond, on the wayside, came by
+a gibbet and two men hanged in chains.&nbsp; They were dipped in tar,
+as the manner is; the wind span them, the chains clattered, and the
+birds hung about the uncanny jumping-jacks and cried.&nbsp; The sight
+coming on me suddenly, like an illustration of my fears, I could scarce
+be done with examining it and drinking in discomfort.&nbsp; And, as
+I thus turned and turned about the gibbet, what should I strike on,
+but a weird old wife, that sat behind a leg of it, and nodded, and talked
+aloud to herself with becks and courtesies.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Who are these two, mother?&rdquo; I asked, and pointed to the
+corpses.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;A blessing on your precious face!&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Twa
+joes <a name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7">{7}</a> o&rsquo;mine:
+just two o&rsquo; my old joes, my hinny dear.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What did they suffer for?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ou, just for the guid cause,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;Aften
+I spaed to them the way that it would end.&nbsp; Twa shillin&rsquo;
+Scots: no pickle mair; and there are twa bonny callants hingin&rsquo;
+for &rsquo;t!&nbsp; They took it frae a wean <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8">{8}</a>
+belanged to Brouchton.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay!&rdquo; said I to myself, and not to the daft limmer, &ldquo;and
+did they come to such a figure for so poor a business?&nbsp; This is
+to lose all indeed.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Gie&rsquo;s your loof, <a name="citation9"></a><a href="#footnote9">{9}</a>
+hinny,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;and let me spae your weird to ye.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No, mother,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I see far enough the way I
+am.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s an unco thing to see too far in front.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I read it in your bree,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+a bonnie lassie that has bricht een, and there&rsquo;s a wee man in
+a braw coat, and a big man in a pouthered wig, and there&rsquo;s the
+shadow of the wuddy, <a name="citation10"></a><a href="#footnote10">{10}</a>
+joe, that lies braid across your path.&nbsp; Gie&rsquo;s your loof,
+hinny, and let Auld Merren spae it to ye bonny.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The two chance shots that seemed to point at Alan and the daughter of
+James More struck me hard; and I fled from the eldritch creature, casting
+her a baubee, which she continued to sit and play with under the moving
+shadows of the hanged.<br>
+<br>
+My way down the causeway of Leith Walk would have been more pleasant
+to me but for this encounter.&nbsp; The old rampart ran among fields,
+the like of them I had never seen for artfulness of agriculture; I was
+pleased, besides, to be so far in the still countryside; but the shackles
+of the gibbet clattered in my head; and the mope and mows of the old
+witch, and the thought of the dead men, hag-rode my spirits.&nbsp; To
+hang on a gallows, that seemed a hard case; and whether a man came to
+hang there for two shillings Scots, or (as Mr. Stewart had it) from
+the sense of duty, once he was tarred and shackled and hung up, the
+difference seemed small.&nbsp; There might David Balfour hang, and other
+lads pass on their errands and think light of him; and old daft limmers
+sit at a leg-foot and spae their fortunes; and the clean genty maids
+go by, and look to the other aide, and hold a nose.&nbsp; I saw them
+plain, and they had grey eyes, and their screens upon their heads were
+of the Drummed colours.<br>
+<br>
+I was thus in the poorest of spirits, though still pretty resolved,
+when I came in view of Pilrig, a pleasant gabled house set by the walkside
+among some brave young woods.&nbsp; The laird&rsquo;s horse was standing
+saddled at the door as I came up, but himself was in the study, where
+he received me in the midst of learned works and musical instruments,
+for he was not only a deep philosopher but much of a musician.&nbsp;
+He greeted me at first pretty well, and when he had read Rankeillor&rsquo;s
+letter, placed himself obligingly at my disposal.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what is it, cousin David!&rdquo; said he - &ldquo;since it
+appears that we are cousins - what is this that I can do for you!&nbsp;
+A word to Prestongrange!&nbsp; Doubtless that is easily given.&nbsp;
+But what should be the word?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;if I were to tell you my whole
+story the way it fell out, it&rsquo;s my opinion (and it was Rankeillor&rsquo;s
+before me) that you would be very little made up with it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am sorry to hear this of you, kinsman,&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I must not take that at your hands, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said
+I; &ldquo;I have nothing to my charge to make me sorry, or you for me,
+but just the common infirmities of mankind.&nbsp; &lsquo;The guilt of
+Adam&rsquo;s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the
+corruption of my whole nature,&rsquo; so much I must answer for, and
+I hope I have been taught where to look for help,&rdquo; I said; for
+I judged from the look of the man he would think the better of me if
+I knew my questions. <a name="citation11"></a><a href="#footnote11">{11}</a>&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But in the way of worldly honour I have no great stumble to reproach
+myself with; and my difficulties have befallen me very much against
+my will and (by all that I can see) without my fault.&nbsp; My trouble
+is to have become dipped in a political complication, which it is judged
+you would be blythe to avoid a knowledge of.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why, very well, Mr. David,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;I am pleased
+to see you are all that Rankeillor represented.&nbsp; And for what you
+say of political complications, you do me no more than justice.&nbsp;
+It is my study to be beyond suspicion, and indeed outside the field
+of it.&nbsp; The question is,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;how, if I am to
+know nothing of the matter, I can very well assist you?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why sir,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I propose you should write to
+his lordship, that I am a young man of reasonable good family and of
+good means: both of which I believe to be the case.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have Rankeillor&rsquo;s word for it,&rdquo; said Mr. Balfour,
+&ldquo;and I count that a warran-dice against all deadly.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;To which you might add (if you will take my word for so much)
+that I am a good churchman, loyal to King George, and so brought up,&rdquo;
+I went on.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;None of which will do you any harm,&rdquo; said Mr. Balfour.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Then you might go on to say that I sought his lordship on a matter
+of great moment, connected with His Majesty&rsquo;s service and the
+administration of justice,&rdquo; I suggested.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;As I am not to hear the matter,&rdquo; says the laird, &ldquo;I
+will not take upon myself to qualify its weight.&nbsp; &lsquo;Great
+moment&rsquo; therefore falls, and &lsquo;moment&rsquo; along with it.&nbsp;
+For the rest I might express myself much as you propose.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And then, sir,&rdquo; said I, and rubbed my neck a little with
+my thumb, &ldquo;then I would be very desirous if you could slip in
+a word that might perhaps tell for my protection.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Protection?&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;for your protection!&nbsp;
+Here is a phrase that somewhat dampens me.&nbsp; If the matter be so
+dangerous, I own I would be a little loath to move in it blindfold.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I believe I could indicate in two words where the thing sticks,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Perhaps that would be the best,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s the Appin murder,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+He held up both his hands.&nbsp; &ldquo;Sirs! sirs!&rdquo; cried he.<br>
+<br>
+I thought by the expression of his face and voice that I had lost my
+helper.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Let me explain. . .&rdquo; I began.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I thank you kindly, I will hear no more of it,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I decline <i>in</i> <i>toto </i>to hear more of it.&nbsp; For
+your name&rsquo;s sake and Rankeillor&rsquo;s, and perhaps a little
+for your own, I will do what I can to help you; but I will hear no more
+upon the facts.&nbsp; And it is my first clear duty to warn you.&nbsp;
+These are deep waters, Mr. David, and you are a young man.&nbsp; Be
+cautious and think twice.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is to be supposed I will have thought oftener than that, Mr.
+Balfour,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I will direct your attention again
+to Rankeillor&rsquo;s letter, where (I hope and believe) he has registered
+his approval of that which I design.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said he; and then again, &ldquo;Well, well!&nbsp;
+I will do what I can for you.&rdquo;&nbsp; There with he took a pen
+and paper, sat a while in thought, and began to write with much consideration.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I understand that Rankeillor approved of what you have in mind?&rdquo;
+he asked presently.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;After some discussion, sir, he bade me to go forward in God&rsquo;s
+name,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That is the name to go in,&rdquo; said Mr. Balfour, and resumed
+his writing.&nbsp; Presently, he signed, re-read what he had written,
+and addressed me again.&nbsp; &ldquo;Now here, Mr. David,&rdquo; said
+he, &ldquo;is a letter of introduction, which I will seal without closing,
+and give into your hands open, as the form requires.&nbsp; But, since
+I am acting in the dark, I will just read it to you, so that you may
+see if it will secure your end -<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;PILRIG, <i>August</i> 26th, 1751.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My Lord, - This is to bring to your notice my namesake and cousin,
+David Balfour Esquire of Shaws, a young gentleman of unblemished descent
+and good estate.&nbsp; He has enjoyed, besides, the more valuable advantages
+of a godly training, and his political principles are all that your
+lordship can desire.&nbsp; I am not in Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s confidence,
+but I understand him to have a matter to declare, touching His Majesty&rsquo;s
+service and the administration of justice; purposes for which your Lordship&rsquo;s
+zeal is known.&nbsp; I should add that the young gentleman&rsquo;s intention
+is known to and approved by some of his friends, who will watch with
+hopeful anxiety the event of his success or failure.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Whereupon,&rdquo; continued Mr. Balfour, &ldquo;I have subscribed
+myself with the usual compliments.&nbsp; You observe I have said &lsquo;some
+of your friends&rsquo;; I hope you can justify my plural?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Perfectly, sir; my purpose is known and approved by more than
+one,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;And your letter, which I take a pleasure
+to thank you for, is all I could have hoped.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It was all I could squeeze out,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and from
+what I know of the matter you design to meddle in, I can only pray God
+that it may prove sufficient.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER IV - LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGRANGE<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+My kinsman kept me to a meal, &ldquo;for the honour of the roof,&rdquo;
+he said; and I believe I made the better speed on my return.&nbsp; I
+had no thought but to be done with the next stage, and have myself fully
+committed; to a person circumstanced as I was, the appearance of closing
+a door on hesitation and temptation was itself extremely tempting; and
+I was the more disappointed, when I came to Prestongrange&rsquo;s house,
+to be informed he was abroad.&nbsp; I believe it was true at the moment,
+and for some hours after; and then I have no doubt the Advocate came
+home again, and enjoyed himself in a neighbouring chamber among friends,
+while perhaps the very fact of my arrival was forgotten.&nbsp; I would
+have gone away a dozen times, only for this strong drawing to have done
+with my declaration out of hand and be able to lay me down to sleep
+with a free conscience.&nbsp; At first I read, for the little cabinet
+where I was left contained a variety of books.&nbsp; But I fear I read
+with little profit; and the weather falling cloudy, the dusk coming
+up earlier than usual, and my cabinet being lighted with but a loophole
+of a window, I was at last obliged to desist from this diversion (such
+as it was), and pass the rest of my time of waiting in a very burthensome
+vacuity.&nbsp; The sound of people talking in a near chamber, the pleasant
+note of a harpsichord, and once the voice of a lady singing, bore me
+a kind of company.<br>
+<br>
+I do not know the hour, but the darkness was long come, when the door
+of the cabinet opened, and I was aware, by the light behind him, of
+a tall figure of a man upon the threshold.&nbsp; I rose at once.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is anybody there?&rdquo; he asked.&nbsp; &ldquo;Who in that?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am bearer of a letter from the laird of Pilrig to the Lord
+Advocate,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Have you been here long?&rdquo; he asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would not like to hazard an estimate of how many hours,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is the first I hear of it,&rdquo; he replied, with a chuckle.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;The lads must have forgotten you.&nbsp; But you are in the bit
+at last, for I am Prestongrange.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+So saying, he passed before me into the next room, whither (upon his
+sign) I followed him, and where he lit a candle and took his place before
+a business-table.&nbsp; It was a long room, of a good proportion, wholly
+lined with books.&nbsp; That small spark of light in a corner struck
+out the man&rsquo;s handsome person and strong face.&nbsp; He was flushed,
+his eye watered and sparkled, and before he sat down I observed him
+to sway back and forth.&nbsp; No doubt, he had been supping liberally;
+but his mind and tongue were under full control.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, sir, sit ye down,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and let us see
+Pilrig&rsquo;s letter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He glanced it through in the beginning carelessly, looking up and bowing
+when he came to my name; but at the last words I thought I observed
+his attention to redouble, and I made sure he read them twice.&nbsp;
+All this while you are to suppose my heart was beating, for I had now
+crossed my Rubicon and was come fairly on the field of battle.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; he
+said, when he had done.&nbsp; &ldquo;Let me offer you a glass of claret.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Under your favour, my lord, I think it would scarce be fair on
+me,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have come here, as the letter will
+have mentioned, on a business of some gravity to myself; and, as I am
+little used with wine, I might be the sooner affected.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You shall be the judge,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;But if you
+will permit, I believe I will even have the bottle in myself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He touched a bell, and a footman came, as at a signal, bringing wine
+and glasses.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are sure you will not join me?&rdquo; asked the Advocate.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Well, here is to our better acquaintance!&nbsp; In what way can
+I serve you?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I should, perhaps, begin by telling you, my lord, that I am here
+at your own pressing invitation,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You have the advantage of me somewhere,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;for
+I profess I think I never heard of you before this evening.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Right, my lord; the name is, indeed, new to you,&rdquo; said
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;And yet you have been for some time extremely wishful
+to make my acquaintance, and have declared the same in public.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I wish you would afford me a clue,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+am no Daniel.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It will perhaps serve for such,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that if
+I was in a jesting humour - which is far from the case - I believe I
+might lay a claim on your lordship for two hundred pounds.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;In what sense?&rdquo; he inquired.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;In the sense of rewards offered for my person,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+He thrust away his glass once and for all, and sat straight up in the
+chair where he had been previously lolling.&nbsp; &ldquo;What am I to
+understand?&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;<i>A tall strong lad of about eighteen</i>,&rdquo; I quoted,
+&ldquo;<i>speaks like </i>a <i>Lowlander and</i> <i>has no beard</i>.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I recognise those words,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;which, if you
+have come here with any ill-judged intention of amusing yourself, are
+like to prove extremely prejudicial to your safety.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My purpose in this,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;is just entirely
+as serious as life and death, and you have understood me perfectly.&nbsp;
+I am the boy who was speaking with Glenure when he was shot.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I can only suppose (seeing you here) that you claim to be innocent,&rdquo;
+said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The inference is clear,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am a very
+loyal subject to King George, but if I had anything to reproach myself
+with, I would have had more discretion than to walk into your den.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am glad of that,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;This horrid crime,
+Mr. Balfour, is of a dye which cannot permit any clemency.&nbsp; Blood
+has been barbarously shed.&nbsp; It has been shed in direct opposition
+to his Majesty and our whole frame of laws, by those who are their known
+and public oppugnants.&nbsp; I take a very high sense of this.&nbsp;
+I will not deny that I consider the crime as directly personal to his
+Majesty.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And unfortunately, my lord,&rdquo; I added, a little drily, &ldquo;directly
+personal to another great personage who may be nameless.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If you mean anything by those words, I must tell you I consider
+them unfit for a good subject; and were they spoke publicly I should
+make it my business to take note of them,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
+do not appear to me to recognise the gravity of your situation, or you
+would be more careful not to pejorate the same by words which glance
+upon the purity of justice.&nbsp; Justice, in this country, and in my
+poor hands, is no respecter of persons.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You give me too great a share in my own speech, my lord,&rdquo;
+said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I did but repeat the common talk of the country,
+which I have heard everywhere, and from men of all opinions as I came
+along.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;When you are come to more discretion you will understand such
+talk in not to be listened to, how much less repeated,&rdquo; says the
+Advocate.&nbsp; &ldquo;But I acquit you of an ill intention.&nbsp; That
+nobleman, whom we all honour, and who has indeed been wounded in a near
+place by the late barbarity, sits too high to be reached by these aspersions.&nbsp;
+The Duke of Argyle - you see that I deal plainly with you - takes it
+to heart as I do, and as we are both bound to do by our judicial functions
+and the service of his Majesty; and I could wish that all hands, in
+this ill age, were equally clean of family rancour.&nbsp; But from the
+accident that this is a Campbell who has fallen martyr to his duty -
+as who else but the Campbells have ever put themselves foremost on that
+path? - I may say it, who am no Campbell - and that the chief of that
+great house happens (for all our advantages) to be the present head
+of the College of Justice, small minds and disaffected tongues are set
+agog in every changehouse in the country; and I find a young gentleman
+like Mr. Balfour so ill-advised as to make himself their echo.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+So much he spoke with a very oratorical delivery, as if in court, and
+then declined again upon the manner of a gentleman.&nbsp; &ldquo;All
+this apart,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;It now remains that I should
+learn what I am to do with you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I had thought it was rather I that should learn the same from
+your lordship,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, true,&rdquo; says the Advocate.&nbsp; &ldquo;But, you see,
+you come to me well recommended.&nbsp; There is a good honest Whig name
+to this letter,&rdquo; says he, picking it up a moment from the table.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And - extra-judicially, Mr, Balfour - there is always the possibility
+of some arrangement, I tell you, and I tell you beforehand that you
+may be the more upon your guard, your fate lies with me singly.&nbsp;
+In such a matter (be it said with reverence) I am more powerful than
+the King&rsquo;s Majesty; and should you please me - and of course satisfy
+my conscience - in what remains to be held of our interview, I tell
+you it may remain between ourselves.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Meaning how?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why, I mean it thus, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that
+if you give satisfaction, no soul need know so much as that you visited
+my house; and you may observe that I do not even call my clerk.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I saw what way he was driving.&nbsp; &ldquo;I suppose it is needless
+anyone should be informed upon my visit,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;though
+the precise nature of my gains by that I cannot see.&nbsp; I am not
+at all ashamed of coming here.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And have no cause to be,&rdquo; says he, encouragingly.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Nor yet (if you are careful) to fear the consequences.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;speaking under your correction,
+I am not very easy to be frightened.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I am sure I do not seek to frighten you,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But to the interrogation; and let me warn you to volunteer nothing
+beyond the questions I shall ask you.&nbsp; It may consist very immediately
+with your safety.&nbsp; I have a great discretion, it is true, but there
+are bounds to it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I shall try to follow your lordship&rsquo;s advice,&rdquo; said
+I.<br>
+<br>
+He spread a sheet of paper on the table and wrote a heading.&nbsp; &ldquo;It
+appears you were present, by the way, in the wood of Lettermore at the
+moment of the fatal shot,&rdquo; he began.&nbsp; &ldquo;Was this by
+accident?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;By accident,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;How came you in speech with Colin Campbell?&rdquo; he asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I was inquiring my way of him to Aucharn,&rdquo; I replied.<br>
+<br>
+I observed he did not write this answer down.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m, true,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I had forgotten that.&nbsp;
+And do you know, Mr. Balfour, I would dwell, if I were you, as little
+as might be on your relations with these Stewarts.&nbsp; It might be
+found to complicate our business.&nbsp; I am not yet inclined to regard
+these matters as essential.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I had thought, my lord, that all points of fact were equally
+material in such a case,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You forget we are now trying these Stewarts,&rdquo; he replied,
+with great significance.&nbsp; &ldquo;If we should ever come to be trying
+you, it will be very different; and I shall press these very questions
+that I am now willing to glide upon.&nbsp; But to resume: I have it
+here in Mr. Mungo Campbell&rsquo;s precognition that you ran immediately
+up the brae.&nbsp; How came that?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Not immediately, my lord, and the cause was my seeing of the
+murderer.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You saw him, then?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;As plain as I see your lordship, though not so near hand.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You know him?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I should know him again.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;In your pursuit you were not so fortunate, then, as to overtake
+him?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I was not.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Was he alone?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He was alone.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There was no one else in that neighbourhood?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Alan Breck Stewart was not far off, in a piece of a wood.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The Advocate laid his pen down.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think we are playing
+at cross purposes,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;which you will find to prove
+a very ill amusement for yourself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I content myself with following your lordship&rsquo;s advice,
+and answering what I am asked,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Be so wise as to bethink yourself in time,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I
+use you with the most anxious tenderness, which you scarce seem to appreciate,
+and which (unless you be more careful) may prove to be in vain.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do appreciate your tenderness, but conceive it to be mistaken,&rdquo;
+I replied, with something of a falter, for I saw we were come to grips
+at last.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am here to lay before you certain information,
+by which I shall convince you Alan had no hand whatever in the killing
+of Glenure.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The Advocate appeared for a moment at a stick, sitting with pursed lips,
+and blinking his eyes upon me like an angry cat.&nbsp; &ldquo;Mr. Balfour,&rdquo;
+he said at last, &ldquo;I tell you pointedly you go an ill way for your
+own interests.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I am as free of the charge of
+considering my own interests in this matter as your lordship.&nbsp;
+As God judges me, I have but the one design, and that is to see justice
+executed and the innocent go clear.&nbsp; If in pursuit of that I come
+to fall under your lordship&rsquo;s displeasure, I must bear it as I
+may.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+At this he rose from his chair, lit a second candle, and for a while
+gazed upon me steadily.&nbsp; I was surprised to see a great change
+of gravity fallen upon his face, and I could have almost thought he
+was a little pale.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are either very simple, or extremely the reverse, and I see
+that I must deal with you more confidentially,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;This is a political case - ah, yes, Mr. Balfour! whether we like
+it or no, the case is political - and I tremble when I think what issues
+may depend from it.&nbsp; To a political case, I need scarce tell a
+young man of your education, we approach with very different thoughts
+from one which is criminal only.&nbsp; <i>Salus populi suprema lex </i>is
+a maxim susceptible of great abuse, but it has that force which we find
+elsewhere only in the laws of nature: I mean it has the force of necessity.&nbsp;
+I will open this out to you, if you will allow me, at more length.&nbsp;
+You would have me believe - &rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Under your pardon, my lord, I would have you to believe nothing
+but that which I can prove,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Tut! tut; young gentleman,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;be not so pragmatical,
+and suffer a man who might be your father (if it was nothing more) to
+employ his own imperfect language, and express his own poor thoughts,
+even when they have the misfortune not to coincide with Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
+You would have me to believe Breck innocent.&nbsp; I would think this
+of little account, the more so as we cannot catch our man.&nbsp; But
+the matter of Breck&rsquo;s innocence shoots beyond itself.&nbsp; Once
+admitted, it would destroy the whole presumptions of our case against
+another and a very different criminal; a man grown old in treason, already
+twice in arms against his king and already twice forgiven; a fomentor
+of discontent, and (whoever may have fired the shot) the unmistakable
+original of the deed in question.&nbsp; I need not tell you that I mean
+James Stewart.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I can just say plainly that the innocence of Alan and of
+James is what I am here to declare in private to your lordship, and
+what I am prepared to establish at the trial by my testimony,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;To which I can only answer by an equal plainness, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo;
+said he, &ldquo;that (in that case) your testimony will not be called
+by me, and I desire you to withhold it altogether.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are at the head of Justice in this country,&rdquo; I cried,
+&ldquo;and you propose to me a crime!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country,&rdquo;
+he replied, &ldquo;and I press on you a political necessity.&nbsp; Patriotism
+is not always moral in the formal sense.&nbsp; You might be glad of
+it, I think: it is your own protection; the facts are heavy against
+you; and if I am still trying to except you from a very dangerous place,
+it is in part of course because I am not insensible to your honesty
+in coming here; in part because of Pilrig&rsquo;s letter; but in part,
+and in chief part, because I regard in this matter my political duty
+first and my judicial duty only second.&nbsp; For the same reason -
+I repeat it to you in the same frank words - I do not want your testimony.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I desire not to be thought to make a repartee, when I express
+only the plain sense of our position,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+if your lordship has no need of my testimony, I believe the other side
+would be extremely blythe to get it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Prestongrange arose and began to pace to and fro in the room.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;You are not so young,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but what you must
+remember very clearly the year &lsquo;45 and the shock that went about
+the country.&nbsp; I read in Pilrig&rsquo;s letter that you are sound
+in Kirk and State.&nbsp; Who saved them in that fatal year?&nbsp; I
+do not refer to His Royal Highness and his ramrods, which were extremely
+useful in their day; but the country had been saved and the field won
+before ever Cumberland came upon Drummossie.&nbsp; Who saved it?&nbsp;
+I repeat; who saved the Protestant religion and the whole frame of our
+civil institutions?&nbsp; The late Lord President Culloden, for one;
+he played a man&rsquo;s part, and small thanks he got for it - even
+as I, whom you see before you, straining every nerve in the same service,
+look for no reward beyond the conscience of my duties done.&nbsp; After
+the President, who else?&nbsp; You know the answer as well as I do;
+&rsquo;tis partly a scandal, and you glanced at it yourself, and I reproved
+you for it, when you first came in.&nbsp; It was the Duke and the great
+clan of Campbell.&nbsp; Now here is a Campbell foully murdered, and
+that in the King&rsquo;s service.&nbsp; The Duke and I are Highlanders.&nbsp;
+But we are Highlanders civilised, and it is not so with the great mass
+of our clans and families.&nbsp; They have still savage virtues and
+defects.&nbsp; They are still barbarians, like these Stewarts; only
+the Campbells were barbarians on the right side, and the Stewarts were
+barbarians on the wrong.&nbsp; Now be you the judge.&nbsp; The Campbells
+expect vengeance.&nbsp; If they do not get it - if this man James escape
+- there will be trouble with the Campbells.&nbsp; That means disturbance
+in the Highlands, which are uneasy and very far from being disarmed:
+the disarming is a farce. . .&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I can bear you out in that,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Disturbance in the Highlands makes the hour of our old watchful
+enemy,&rdquo; pursued his lordship, holding out a finger as he paced;
+&ldquo;and I give you my word we may have a &lsquo;45 again with the
+Campbells on the other side.&nbsp; To protect the life of this man Stewart
+- which is forfeit already on half-a-dozen different counts if not on
+this - do you propose to plunge your country in war, to jeopardise the
+faith of your fathers, and to expose the lives and fortunes of how many
+thousand innocent persons? . . .&nbsp; These are considerations that
+weigh with me, and that I hope will weigh no less with yourself, Mr.
+Balfour, as a lover of your country, good government, and religious
+truth.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it,&rdquo;
+said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will try on my side to be no less honest.&nbsp;
+I believe your policy to be sound.&nbsp; I believe these deep duties
+may lie upon your lordship; I believe you may have laid them on your
+conscience when you took the oath of the high office which you hold.&nbsp;
+But for me, who am just a plain man - or scarce a man yet - the plain
+duties must suffice.&nbsp; I can think but of two things, of a poor
+soul in the immediate and unjust danger of a shameful death, and of
+the cries and tears of his wife that still tingle in my head.&nbsp;
+I cannot see beyond, my lord.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s the way that I am made.&nbsp;
+If the country has to fall, it has to fall.&nbsp; And I pray God, if
+this be wilful blindness, that He may enlighten me before too late.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He had heard me motionless, and stood so a while longer.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is an unexpected obstacle,&rdquo; says he, aloud, but to
+himself.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And how is your lordship to dispose of me?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If I wished,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you know that you might sleep
+in gaol?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have slept in worse places.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, my boy,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;there is one thing appears
+very plainly from our interview, that I may rely on your pledged word.&nbsp;
+Give me your honour that you will be wholly secret, not only on what
+has passed to-night, but in the matter of the Appin case, and I let
+you go free.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will give it till to-morrow or any other near day that you
+may please to set,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I would not be thought
+too wily; but if I gave the promise without qualification your lordship
+would have attained his end.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I had no thought to entrap you,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am sure of that,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Let me see,&rdquo; he continued.&nbsp; &ldquo;To-morrow is the
+Sabbath.&nbsp; Come to me on Monday by eight in the morning, and give
+me our promise until then.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Freely given, my lord,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;And with regard
+to what has fallen from yourself, I will give it for an long as it shall
+please God to spare your days.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You will observe,&rdquo; he said next, &ldquo;that I have made
+no employment of menaces.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It was like your lordship&rsquo;s nobility,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Yet I am not altogether so dull but what I can perceive the nature
+of those you have not uttered.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;good-night to you.&nbsp; May you
+sleep well, for I think it is more than I am like to do.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+With that he sighed, took up a candle, and gave me his conveyance as
+far as the street door.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER V - IN THE ADVOCATE&rsquo;S HOUSE<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The next day, Sabbath, August 27th, I had the occasion I had long looked
+forward to, to hear some of the famous Edinburgh preachers, all well
+known to me already by the report of Mr Campbell.&nbsp; Alas! and I
+might just as well have been at Essendean, and sitting under Mr. Campbell&rsquo;s
+worthy self! the turmoil of my thoughts, which dwelt continually on
+the interview with Prestongrange, inhibiting me from all attention.&nbsp;
+I was indeed much less impressed by the reasoning of the divines than
+by the spectacle of the thronged congregation in the churches, like
+what I imagined of a theatre or (in my then disposition) of an assize
+of trial; above all at the West Kirk, with its three tiers of galleries,
+where I went in the vain hope that I might see Miss Drummond.<br>
+<br>
+On the Monday I betook me for the first time to a barber&rsquo;s, and
+was very well pleased with the result.&nbsp; Thence to the Advocate&rsquo;s,
+where the red coats of the soldiers showed again about his door, making
+a bright place in the close.&nbsp; I looked about for the young lady
+and her gillies: there was never a sign of them.&nbsp; But I was no
+sooner shown into the cabinet or antechamber where I had spent so wearyful
+a time upon the Saturday, than I was aware of the tall figure of James
+More in a corner.&nbsp; He seemed a prey to a painful uneasiness, reaching
+forth his feet and hands, and his eyes speeding here and there without
+rest about the walls of the small chamber, which recalled to me with
+a sense of pity the man&rsquo;s wretched situation.&nbsp; I suppose
+it was partly this, and partly my strong continuing interest in his
+daughter, that moved me to accost him.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Give you a good-morning, sir,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And a good-morning to you, sir,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You bide tryst with Prestongrange?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do, sir, and I pray your business with that gentleman be more
+agreeable than mine,&rdquo; was his reply.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I hope at least that yours will be brief, for I suppose you pass
+before me,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;All pass before me,&rdquo; he said, with a shrug and a gesture
+upward of the open hands.&nbsp; &ldquo;It was not always so, sir, but
+times change.&nbsp; It was not so when the sword was in the scale, young
+gentleman, and the virtues of the soldier might sustain themselves.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+There came a kind of Highland snuffle out of the man that raised my
+dander strangely.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, Mr. Macgregor,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I understand the main
+thing for a soldier is to be silent, and the first of his virtues never
+to complain.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You have my name, I perceive&rdquo; - he bowed to me with his
+arms crossed - &ldquo;though it&rsquo;s one I must not use myself.&nbsp;
+Well, there is a publicity - I have shown my face and told my name too
+often in the beards of my enemies.&nbsp; I must not wonder if both should
+be known to many that I know not.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That you know not in the least, sir,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;nor
+yet anybody else; but the name I am called, if you care to hear it,
+is Balfour.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is a good name,&rdquo; he replied, civilly; &ldquo;there are
+many decent folk that use it.&nbsp; And now that I call to mind, there
+was a young gentleman, your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year
+&lsquo;45 with my battalion.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I believe that would be a brother to Balfour of Baith,&rdquo;
+said I, for I was ready for the surgeon now.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The same, sir,&rdquo; said James More.&nbsp; &ldquo;And since
+I have been fellow-soldier with your kinsman, you must suffer me to
+grasp your hand.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He shook hands with me long and tenderly, beaming on me the while as
+though he had found a brother.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;these are changed days since your
+cousin and I heard the balls whistle in our lugs.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think he was a very far-away cousin,&rdquo; said I, drily,
+&ldquo;and I ought to tell you that I never clapped eyes upon the man.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;it makes no change.&nbsp;
+And you - I do not think you were out yourself, sir - I have no clear
+mind of your face, which is one not probable to be forgotten.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;In the year you refer to, Mr. Macgregor, I was getting skelped
+in the parish school,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;So young!&rdquo; cries he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ah, then, you will never
+be able to think what this meeting is to me.&nbsp; In the hour of my
+adversity, and here in the house of my enemy, to meet in with the blood
+of an old brother-in-arms - it heartens me, Mr. Balfour, like the skirting
+of the highland pipes!&nbsp; Sir, this is a sad look back that many
+of us have to make: some with falling tears.&nbsp; I have lived in my
+own country like a king; my sword, my mountains, and the faith of my
+friends and kinsmen sufficed for me.&nbsp; Now I lie in a stinking dungeon;
+and do you know, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; he went on, taking my arm and beginning
+to lead me about, &ldquo;do you know, sir, that I lack mere ne<i>cess</i>aries?&nbsp;
+The malice of my foes has quite sequestered my resources.&nbsp; I lie,
+as you know, sir, on a trumped-up charge, of which I am as innocent
+as yourself.&nbsp; They dare not bring me to my trial, and in the meanwhile
+I am held naked in my prison.&nbsp; I could have wished it was your
+cousin I had met, or his brother Baith himself.&nbsp; Either would,
+I know, have been rejoiced to help me; while a comparative stranger
+like yourself - &rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this beggarly
+vein, or the very short and grudging answers that I made to him.&nbsp;
+There were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small
+change; but whether it was from shame or pride - whether it was for
+my own sake or Catriona&rsquo;s - whether it was because I thought him
+no fit father for his daughter, or because I resented that grossness
+of immediate falsity that clung about the man himself - the thing was
+clean beyond me.&nbsp; And I was still being wheedled and preached to,
+and still being marched to and fro, three steps and a turn, in that
+small chamber, and had already, by some very short replies, highly incensed,
+although not finally discouraged, my beggar, when Prestongrange appeared
+in the doorway and bade me eagerly into his big chamber.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have a moment&rsquo;s engagements,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and
+that you may not sit empty-handed I am going to present you to my three
+braw daughters, of whom perhaps you may have heard, for I think they
+are more famous than papa.&nbsp; This way.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He led me into another long room above, where a dry old lady sat at
+a frame of embroidery, and the three handsomest young women (I suppose)
+in Scotland stood together by a window.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is my new friend, Mr Balfour,&rdquo; said he, presenting
+me by the arm, &ldquo;David, here is my sister, Miss Grant, who is so
+good as keep my house for me, and will be very pleased if she can help
+you.&nbsp; And here,&rdquo; says he, turning to the three younger ladies,
+&ldquo;here are my <i>three braw dauchters.&nbsp; </i>A fair question
+to ye, Mr. Davie: which of the three is the best favoured?&nbsp; And
+I wager he will never have the impudence to propound honest Alan Ramsay&rsquo;s
+answer!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Hereupon all three, and the old Miss Grant as well, cried out against
+this sally, which (as I was acquainted with the verses he referred to)
+brought shame into my own check.&nbsp; It seemed to me a citation unpardonable
+in a father, and I was amazed that these ladies could laugh even while
+they reproved, or made believe to.<br>
+<br>
+Under cover of this mirth, Prestongrange got forth of the chamber, and
+I was left, like a fish upon dry land, in that very unsuitable society.&nbsp;
+I could never deny, in looking back upon what followed, that I was eminently
+stockish; and I must say the ladies were well drilled to have so long
+a patience with me.&nbsp; The aunt indeed sat close at her embroidery,
+only looking now and again and smiling; but the misses, and especially
+the eldest, who was besides the most handsome, paid me a score of attentions
+which I was very ill able to repay.&nbsp; It was all in vain to tell
+myself I was a young follow of some worth as well as a good estate,
+and had no call to feel abashed before these lasses, the eldest not
+so much older than myself, and no one of them by any probability half
+as learned.&nbsp; Reasoning would not change the fact; and there were
+times when the colour came into my face to think I was shaved that day
+for the first time.<br>
+<br>
+The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest
+took pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she
+was a passed mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and
+singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more
+at my ease, and being reminded of Alan&rsquo;s air that he had taught
+me in the hole near Carriden, I made so bold as to whistle a bar or
+two, and ask if she knew that.<br>
+<br>
+She shook her head.&nbsp; &ldquo;I never heard a note of it,&rdquo;
+said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;Whistle it all through.&nbsp; And now once again,&rdquo;
+she added, after I had done so.<br>
+<br>
+Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise) instantly
+enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as she played,
+with a very droll expression and broad accent -<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Haenae I got just the lilt of it?<br>
+Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You see,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;I can do the poetry too, only
+it won&rsquo;t rhyme.&nbsp; And then again:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:<br>
+You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what do you call the name of it?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do not know the real name,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I just
+call it <i>Alan&rsquo;s air</i>.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She looked at me directly in the face.&nbsp; &ldquo;I shall call it
+<i>David&rsquo;s air</i>,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;though if it&rsquo;s
+the least like what your namesake of Israel played to Saul I would never
+wonder that the king got little good by it, for it&rsquo;s but melancholy
+music.&nbsp; Your other name I do not like; so if you was ever wishing
+to hear your tune again you are to ask for it by mine.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why
+that, Miss Grant?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;if ever you should come to get hanged,
+I will set your last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing
+it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story
+and peril.&nbsp; How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess.&nbsp;
+It was plain she knew there was something of danger in the name of Alan,
+and thus warned me to leave it out of reference; and plain she knew
+that I stood under some criminal suspicion.&nbsp; I judged besides that
+the harshness of her last speech (which besides she had followed up
+immediately with a very noisy piece of music) was to put an end to the
+present conversation.&nbsp; I stood beside her, affecting to listen
+and admire, but truly whirled away by my own thoughts.&nbsp; I have
+always found this young lady to be a lover of the mysterious; and certainly
+this first interview made a mystery that was beyond my plummet.&nbsp;
+One thing I learned long after, the hours of the Sunday had been well
+employed, the bank porter had been found and examined, my visit to Charles
+Stewart was discovered, and the deduction made that I was pretty deep
+with James and Alan, and most likely in a continued correspondence with
+the last.&nbsp; Hence this broad hint that was given me across the harpsichord.<br>
+<br>
+In the midst of the piece of music, one of the younger misses, who was
+at a window over the close, cried on her sisters to come quick, for
+there was &ldquo;<i>Grey</i> <i>eyes </i>again.&rdquo;&nbsp; The whole
+family trooped there at once, and crowded one another for a look.&nbsp;
+The window whither they ran was in an odd corner of that room, gave
+above the entrance door, and flanked up the close.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Come, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; they cried, &ldquo;come and see.&nbsp;
+She is the most beautiful creature!&nbsp; She hangs round the close-head
+these last days, always with some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems
+quite a lady.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long.&nbsp; I was
+afraid she might have seen me there, looking down upon her from that
+chamber of music, and she without, and her father in the same house,
+perhaps begging for his life with tears, and myself come but newly from
+rejecting his petitions.&nbsp; But even that glance set me in a better
+conceit of myself and much less awe of the young ladies.&nbsp; They
+were beautiful, that was beyond question, but Catriona was beautiful
+too, and had a kind of brightness in her like a coal of fire.&nbsp;
+As much as the others cast me down, she lifted me up.&nbsp; I remembered
+I had talked easily with her.&nbsp; If I could make no hand of it with
+these fine maids, it was perhaps something their own fault.&nbsp; My
+embarrassment began to be a little mingled and lightened with a sense
+of fun; and when the aunt smiled at me from her embroidery, and the
+three daughters unbent to me like a baby, all with &ldquo;papa&rsquo;s
+orders&rdquo; written on their faces, there were times when I could
+have found it in my heart to smile myself.<br>
+<br>
+Presently papa returned, the same kind, happy-like, pleasant-spoken
+man.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Now, girls,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I must take Mr. Balfour away
+again; but I hope you have been able to persuade him to return where
+I shall be always gratified to find him.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+So they each made me a little farthing compliment, and I was led away.<br>
+<br>
+If this visit to the family had been meant to soften my resistance,
+it was the worst of failures.&nbsp; I was no such ass but what I understood
+how poor a figure I had made, and that the girls would be yawning their
+jaws off as soon as my stiff back was turned.&nbsp; I felt I had shown
+how little I had in me of what was soft and graceful; and I longed for
+a chance to prove that I had something of the other stuff, the stern
+and dangerous.<br>
+<br>
+Well, I was to be served to my desire, for the scene to which he was
+conducting me was of a different character.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER VI - UMQUILE THE MASTER OF LOVAT<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+There was a man waiting us in Prestongrange&rsquo;s study, whom I distasted
+at the first look, as we distaste a ferret or an earwig.&nbsp; He was
+bitter ugly, but seemed very much of a gentleman; had still manners,
+but capable of sudden leaps and violences; and a small voice, which
+could ring out shrill and dangerous when he so desired.<br>
+<br>
+The Advocate presented us in a familiar, friendly way.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Here, Fraser,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;here is Mr. Balfour whom
+we talked about.&nbsp; Mr. David, this is Mr. Simon Fraser, whom we
+used to call by another title, but that is an old song.&nbsp; Mr. Fraser
+has an errand to you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+With that he stepped aside to his book-shelves, and made believe to
+consult a quarto volume in the far end.<br>
+<br>
+I was thus left (in a sense) alone with perhaps the last person in the
+world I had expected.&nbsp; There was no doubt upon the terms of introduction;
+this could be no other than the forfeited Master of Lovat and chief
+of the great clan Fraser.&nbsp; I knew he had led his men in the Rebellion;
+I knew his father&rsquo;s head - my old lord&rsquo;s, that grey fox
+of the mountains - to have fallen on the block for that offence, the
+lands of the family to have been seized, and their nobility attainted.&nbsp;
+I could not conceive what he should be doing in Grant&rsquo;s house;
+I could not conceive that he had been called to the bar, had eaten all
+his principles, and was now currying favour with the Government even
+to the extent of acting Advocate-Depute in the Appin murder.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;what is all this I
+hear of ye?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It would not become me to prejudge,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but
+if the Advocate was your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case,&rdquo; he went
+on; &ldquo;I am to appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of
+the precognitions I can assure you your opinions are erroneous.&nbsp;
+The guilt of Breck is manifest; and your testimony, in which you admit
+you saw him on the hill at the very moment, will certify his hanging.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It will be rather ill to hang him till you catch him,&rdquo;
+I observed.&nbsp; &ldquo;And for other matters I very willingly leave
+you to your own impressions.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The Duke has been informed,&rdquo; he went on.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+have just come from his Grace, and he expressed himself before me with
+an honest freedom like the great nobleman he is.&nbsp; He spoke of you
+by name, Mr. Balfour, and declared his gratitude beforehand in case
+you would be led by those who understand your own interests and those
+of the country so much better than yourself.&nbsp; Gratitude is no empty
+expression in that mouth: <i>experto-crede</i>.&nbsp; I daresay you
+know something of my name and clan, and the damnable example and lamented
+end of my late father, to say nothing of my own errata.&nbsp; Well,
+I have made my peace with that good Duke; he has intervened for me with
+our friend Prestongrange; and here I am with my foot in the stirrup
+again and some of the responsibility shared into my hand of prosecuting
+King George&rsquo;s enemies and avenging the late daring and barefaced
+insult to his Majesty.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Doubtless a proud position for your father&rsquo;s son,&rdquo;
+says I.<br>
+<br>
+He wagged his bald eyebrows at me.&nbsp; &ldquo;You are pleased to make
+experiments in the ironical, I think,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+I am here upon duty, I am here to discharge my errand in good faith,
+it is in vain you think to divert me.&nbsp; And let me tell you, for
+a young fellow of spirit and ambition like yourself, a good shove in
+the beginning will do more than ten years&rsquo; drudgery.&nbsp; The
+shove is now at your command; choose what you will to be advanced in,
+the Duke will watch upon you with the affectionate disposition of a
+father.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am thinking that I lack the docility of the son,&rdquo; says
+I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole policy of this
+country is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill-mannered
+colt of a boy?&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;This has been made a test
+case, all who would prosper in the future must put a shoulder to the
+wheel.&nbsp; Look at me!&nbsp; Do you suppose it is for my pleasure
+that I put myself in the highly invidious position of persecuting a
+man that I have drawn the sword alongside of?&nbsp; The choice is not
+left me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice when you mixed
+in with that unnatural rebellion,&rdquo; I remarked.&nbsp; &ldquo;My
+case is happily otherwise; I am a true man, and can look either the
+Duke or King George in the face without concern.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is it so the wind sits?&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I protest
+you are fallen in the worst sort of error.&nbsp; Prestongrange has been
+hitherto so civil (he tells me) as not to combat your allegations; but
+you must not think they are not looked upon with strong suspicion.&nbsp;
+You say you are innocent.&nbsp; My dear sir, the facts declare you guilty.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I was waiting for you there,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion
+of the murder; your long course of secresy - my good young man!&rdquo;
+said Mr. Simon, &ldquo;here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let
+be a David Balfour!&nbsp; I shall be upon that trial; my voice shall
+be raised; I shall then speak much otherwise from what I do to-day,
+and far less to your gratification, little as you like it now!&nbsp;
+Ah, you look white!&rdquo; cries he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have found the key
+of your impudent heart.&nbsp; You look pale, your eyes waver, Mr. David!&nbsp;
+You see the grave and the gallows nearer by than you had fancied.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I own to a natural weakness,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think
+no shame for that.&nbsp; Shame. . .&rdquo;&nbsp; I was going on.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Shame waits for you on the gibbet,&rdquo; he broke in.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Where I shall but be even&rsquo;d with my lord your father,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Aha, but not so!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;and you do not yet see
+to the bottom of this business.&nbsp; My father suffered in a great
+cause, and for dealing in the affairs of kings.&nbsp; You are to hang
+for a dirty murder about boddle-pieces.&nbsp; Your personal part in
+it, the treacherous one of holding the poor wretch in talk, your accomplices
+a pack of ragged Highland gillies.&nbsp; And it can be shown, my great
+Mr. Balfour - it can be shown, and it <i>will</i> be shown, trust <i>me</i>
+that has a finger in the pie - it can be shown, and shall be shown,
+that you were paid to do it.&nbsp; I think I can see the looks go round
+the court when I adduce my evidence, and it shall appear that you, a
+young man of education, let yourself be corrupted to this shocking act
+for a suit of cast clothes, a bottle of Highland spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny
+in copper money.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like a
+blow: clothes, a bottle of <i>usquebaugh, </i>and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny
+in change made up, indeed, the most of what Alan and I had carried from
+Auchurn; and I saw that some of James&rsquo;s people had been blabbing
+in their dungeons.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You see I know more than you fancied,&rdquo; he resumed in triumph.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And as for giving it this turn, great Mr. David, you must not
+suppose the Government of Great Britain and Ireland will ever be stuck
+for want of evidence.&nbsp; We have men here in prison who will swear
+out their lives as we direct them; as I direct, if you prefer the phrase.&nbsp;
+So now you are to guess your part of glory if you choose to die.&nbsp;
+On the one hand, life, wine, women, and a duke to be your handgun: on
+the other, a rope to your craig, and a gibbet to clatter your bones
+on, and the lousiest, lowest story to hand down to your namesakes in
+the future that was ever told about a hired assassin.&nbsp; And see
+here!&rdquo; he cried, with a formidable shrill voice, &ldquo;see this
+paper that I pull out of my pocket.&nbsp; Look at the name there: it
+is the name of the great David, I believe, the ink scarce dry yet.&nbsp;
+Can you guess its nature?&nbsp; It is the warrant for your arrest, which
+I have but to touch this bell beside me to have executed on the spot.&nbsp;
+Once in the Tolbooth upon this paper, may God help you, for the die
+is cast!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I must never deny that I was greatly horrified by so much baseness,
+and much unmanned by the immediacy and ugliness of my danger.&nbsp;
+Mr. Simon had already gloried in the changes of my hue; I make no doubt
+I was now no ruddier than my shirt; my speech besides trembled.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is a gentleman in this room,&rdquo; cried I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+appeal to him.&nbsp; I put my life and credit in his hands.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Prestongrange shut his book with a snap.&nbsp; &ldquo;I told you so,
+Simon,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;you have played your hand for all it was
+worth, and you have lost.&nbsp; Mr. David,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;I
+wish you to believe it was by no choice of mine you were subjected to
+this proof.&nbsp; I wish you could understand how glad I am you should
+come forth from it with so much credit.&nbsp; You may not quite see
+how, but it is a little of a service to myself.&nbsp; For had our friend
+here been more successful than I was last night, it might have appeared
+that he was a better judge of men than I; it might have appeared we
+were altogether in the wrong situations, Mr. Simon and myself.&nbsp;
+And I know our friend Simon to be ambitious,&rdquo; says he, striking
+lightly on Fraser&rsquo;s shoulder.&nbsp; &ldquo;As for this stage play,
+it is over; my sentiments are very much engaged in your behalf; and
+whatever issue we can find to this unfortunate affair, I shall make
+it my business to see it is adopted with tenderness to you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+These were very good words, and I could see besides that there was little
+love, and perhaps a spice of genuine ill-will, between these two who
+were opposed to me.&nbsp; For all that, it was unmistakable this interview
+had been designed, perhaps rehearsed, with the consent of both; it was
+plain my adversaries were in earnest to try me by all methods; and now
+(persuasion, flattery, and menaces having been tried in vain) I could
+not but wonder what would be their next expedient.&nbsp; My eyes besides
+were still troubled, and my knees loose under me, with the distress
+of the late ordeal; and I could do no more than stammer the same form
+of words: &ldquo;I put my life and credit in your hands.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;we must try to save them.&nbsp;
+And in the meanwhile let us return to gentler methods.&nbsp; You must
+not bear any grudge upon my friend, Mr. Simon, who did but speak by
+his brief.&nbsp; And even if you did conceive some malice against myself,
+who stood by and seemed rather to hold a candle, I must not let that
+extend to innocent members of my family.&nbsp; These are greatly engaged
+to see more of you, and I cannot consent to have my young womenfolk
+disappointed.&nbsp; To-morrow they will be going to Hope Park, where
+I think it very proper you should make your bow.&nbsp; Call for me first,
+when I may possibly have something for your private hearing; then you
+shall be turned abroad again under the conduct of my misses; and until
+that time repeat to me your promise of secrecy.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was beside
+the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how;
+and when I was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind
+me, was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face.&nbsp; That horrid
+apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Simon rang in my memory, as a sudden
+noise rings after it is over in the ear.&nbsp; Tales of the man&rsquo;s
+father, of his falseness, of his manifold perpetual treacheries, rose
+before me from all that I had heard and read, and joined on with what
+I had just experienced of himself.&nbsp; Each time it occurred to me,
+the ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon
+my character startled me afresh.&nbsp; The case of the man upon the
+gibbet by Leith Walk appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was
+now to consider as my own.&nbsp; To rob a child of so little more than
+nothing was certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men; but my
+own tale, as it was to be represented in a court by Simon Fraser, appeared
+a fair second in every possible point of view of sordidness and cowardice.<br>
+<br>
+The voices of two of Prestongrange&rsquo;s liveried men upon his doorstep
+recalled me to myself.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ha&rsquo;e,&rdquo; said the one, &ldquo;this billet as fast as
+ye can link to the captain.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is that for the cateran back again?&rdquo; asked the other.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It would seem sae,&rdquo; returned the first.&nbsp; &ldquo;Him
+and Simon are seeking him.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think Prestongrange is gane gyte,&rdquo; says the second.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll have James More in bed with him next.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Weel, it&rsquo;s neither your affair nor mine&rsquo;s,&rdquo;
+said the first.<br>
+<br>
+And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into the
+house.<br>
+<br>
+This looked as ill as possible.&nbsp; I was scarce gone and they were
+sending already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must have
+pointed when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives
+by all extremities.&nbsp; My scalp curdled among my hair, and the next
+moment the blood leaped in me to remember Catriona.&nbsp; Poor lass!
+her father stood to be hanged for pretty indefensible misconduct.&nbsp;
+What was yet more unpalatable, it now seemed he was prepared to save
+his four quarters by the worst of shame and the most foul of cowardly
+murders - murder by the false oath; and to complete our misfortunes,
+it seemed myself was picked out to be the victim.<br>
+<br>
+I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire for
+movement, air, and the open country.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER VII - I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I came forth, I vow I know not how, on the <i>Lang Dykes </i><a name="citation12"></a><a href="#footnote12">{12}</a>.&nbsp;
+This is a rural road which runs on the north side over against the city.&nbsp;
+Thence I could see the whole black length of it tail down, from where
+the castle stands upon its crags above the loch in a long line of spires
+and gable ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the sight my heart swelled
+in my bosom.&nbsp; My youth, as I have told, was already inured to dangers;
+but such danger as I had seen the face of but that morning, in the midst
+of what they call the safety of a town, shook me beyond experience.&nbsp;
+Peril of slavery, peril of shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had
+stood all of these without discredit; but the peril there was in the
+sharp voice and the fat face of Simon, property Lord Lovat, daunted
+me wholly.<br>
+<br>
+I sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into the
+water, and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples.&nbsp; If I
+could have done so with any remains of self-esteem, I would now have
+fled from my foolhardy enterprise.&nbsp; But (call it courage or cowardice,
+and I believe it was both the one and the other) I decided I was ventured
+out beyond the possibility of a retreat.&nbsp; I had out-faced these
+men, I would continue to out-face them; come what might, I would stand
+by the word spoken.<br>
+<br>
+The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not
+much.&nbsp; At the best of it there was an icy place about my heart,
+and life seemed a black business to be at all engaged in.&nbsp; For
+two souls in particular my pity flowed.&nbsp; The one was myself, to
+be so friendless and lost among dangers.&nbsp; The other was the girl,
+the daughter of James More.&nbsp; I had seen but little of her; yet
+my view was taken and my judgment made.&nbsp; I thought her a lass of
+a clean honour, like a man&rsquo;s; I thought her one to die of a disgrace;
+and now I believed her father to be at that moment bargaining his vile
+life for mine.&nbsp; It made a bond in my thoughts betwixt the girl
+and me.&nbsp; I had seen her before only as a wayside appearance, though
+one that pleased me strangely; I saw her now in a sudden nearness of
+relation, as the daughter of my blood foe, and I might say, my murderer.&nbsp;
+I reflected it was hard I should be so plagued and persecuted all my
+days for other folks&rsquo; affairs, and have no manner of pleasure
+myself.&nbsp; I got meals and a bed to sleep in when my concerns would
+suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to me.&nbsp; If I was
+to hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not to hang but to
+escape out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me ere I was
+done with them.&nbsp; Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory, the
+way I had first seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness came
+in my bosom and strength into my legs; and I set resolutely forward
+on the way to Dean.&nbsp; If I was to hang to-morrow, and it was sure
+enough I might very likely sleep that night in a dungeon, I determined
+I should hear and speak once more with Catriona.<br>
+<br>
+The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me
+yet more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit.&nbsp; In the
+village of Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river,
+I inquired my way of a miller&rsquo;s man, who sent me up the hill upon
+the farther side by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house
+in a garden of lawns and apple-trees.&nbsp; My heart beat high as I
+stepped inside the garden hedge, but it fell low indeed when I came
+face to face with a grim and fierce old lady, walking there in a white
+mutch with a man&rsquo;s hat strapped upon the top of it.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What do ye come seeking here?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+I told her I was after Miss Drummond.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?&rdquo; says
+she.<br>
+<br>
+I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as
+to render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady&rsquo;s
+invitation.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, so you&rsquo;re Saxpence!&rdquo; she cried, with a very sneering
+manner.&nbsp; &ldquo;A braw gift, a bonny gentleman.&nbsp; And hae ye
+ony ither name and designation, or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?&rdquo;
+she asked.<br>
+<br>
+I told my name.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Preserve me!&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Has Ebenezer gotten
+a son?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am a son of Alexander&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
+It&rsquo;s I that am the Laird of Shaws.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;ll find your work cut out for ye to establish that,&rdquo;
+quoth she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I perceive you know my uncle,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and I daresay
+you may be the better pleased to hear that business is arranged.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?&rdquo; she pursued.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m come after my saxpence, mem,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+to be thought, being my uncle&rsquo;s nephew, I would be found a careful
+lad.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;So ye have a spark of sleeness in ye?&rdquo; observed the old
+lady, with some approval.&nbsp; &ldquo;I thought ye had just been a
+cuif - you and your saxpence, and your <i>lucky day </i>and your <i>sake
+of Balwhidder</i>&rdquo; - from which I was gratified to learn that
+Catriona had not forgotten some of our talk.&nbsp; &ldquo;But all this
+is by the purpose,&rdquo; she resumed.&nbsp; &ldquo;Am I to understand
+that ye come here keeping company?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is surely rather an early question,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;The maid is young, so am I, worse fortune.&nbsp; I have but seen
+her the once.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll not deny,&rdquo; I added, making up my
+mind to try her with some frankness, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll not deny but
+she has run in my head a good deal since I met in with her.&nbsp; That
+is one thing; but it would be quite another, and I think I would look
+very like a fool, to commit myself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You can speak out of your mouth, I see,&rdquo; said the old lady.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Praise God, and so can I!&nbsp; I was fool enough to take charge
+of this rogue&rsquo;s daughter: a fine charge I have gotten; but it&rsquo;s
+mine, and I&rsquo;ll carry it the way I want to.&nbsp; Do ye mean to
+tell me, Mr. Balfour of Shaws, that you would marry James More&rsquo;s
+daughter, and him hanged!&nbsp; Well, then, where there&rsquo;s no possible
+marriage there shall be no manner of carryings on, and take that for
+said.&nbsp; Lasses are bruckle things,&rdquo; she added, with a nod;
+&ldquo;and though ye would never think it by my wrunkled chafts, I was
+a lassie mysel&rsquo;, and a bonny one.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Lady Allardyce,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;for that I suppose to be
+your name, you seem to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very
+poor manner to come to an agreement.&nbsp; You give me rather a home
+thrust when you ask if I would marry, at the gallow&rsquo;s foot, a
+young lady whom I have seen but once.&nbsp; I have told you already
+I would never be so untenty as to commit myself.&nbsp; And yet I&rsquo;ll
+go some way with you.&nbsp; If I continue to like the lass as well as
+I have reason to expect, it will be something more than her father,
+or the gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart.&nbsp; As for
+my family, I found it by the wayside like a lost bawbee!&nbsp; I owe
+less than nothing to my uncle and if ever I marry, it will be to please
+one person: that&rsquo;s myself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have heard this kind of talk before ye were born,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Ogilvy, &ldquo;which is perhaps the reason that I think of it so
+little.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s much to be considered.&nbsp; This James
+More is a kinsman of mine, to my shame be it spoken.&nbsp; But the better
+the family, the mair men hanged or headed, that&rsquo;s always been
+poor Scotland&rsquo;s story.&nbsp; And if it was just the hanging!&nbsp;
+For my part I think I would be best pleased with James upon the gallows,
+which would be at least an end to him.&nbsp; Catrine&rsquo;s a good
+lass enough, and a good-hearted, and lets herself be deaved all day
+with a runt of an auld wife like me.&nbsp; But, ye see, there&rsquo;s
+the weak bit.&nbsp; She&rsquo;s daft about that long, false, fleeching
+beggar of a father of hers, and red-mad about the Gregara, and proscribed
+names, and King James, and a wheen blethers.&nbsp; And you might think
+ye could guide her, ye would find yourself sore mista&rsquo;en.&nbsp;
+Ye say ye&rsquo;ve seen her but the once. . .&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Spoke with her but the once, I should have said,&rdquo; I interrupted.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I saw her again this morning from a window at Prestongrange&rsquo;s.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+This I daresay I put in because it sounded well; but I was properly
+paid for my ostentation on the return.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this of it?&rdquo; cries the old lady, with a sudden
+pucker of her face.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think it was at the Advocate&rsquo;s
+door-cheek that ye met her first.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I told her that was so.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m,&rdquo; she said; and then suddenly, upon rather a
+scolding tone, &ldquo;I have your bare word for it,&rdquo; she cries,
+&ldquo;as to who and what you are.&nbsp; By your way of it, you&rsquo;re
+Balfour of the Shaws; but for what I ken you may be Balfour of the Deevil&rsquo;s
+oxter.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s possible ye may come here for what ye say, and
+it&rsquo;s equally possible ye may come here for deil care what!&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;m good enough Whig to sit quiet, and to have keepit all my men-folk&rsquo;s
+heads upon their shoulders.&nbsp; But I&rsquo;m not just a good enough
+Whig to be made a fool of neither.&nbsp; And I tell you fairly, there&rsquo;s
+too much Advocate&rsquo;s door and Advocate&rsquo;s window here for
+a man that comes taigling after a Macgregor&rsquo;s daughter.&nbsp;
+Ye can tell that to the Advocate that sent ye, with my fond love.&nbsp;
+And I kiss my loof to ye, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; says she, suiting the
+action to the word; &ldquo;and a braw journey to ye back to where ye
+cam frae.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If you think me a spy,&rdquo; I broke out, and speech stuck in
+my throat.&nbsp; I stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space,
+then bowed and turned away.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Here!&nbsp; Hoots!&nbsp; The callant&rsquo;s in a creel!&rdquo;
+she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Think ye a spy? what else would I think ye -
+me that kens naething by ye?&nbsp; But I see that I was wrong; and as
+I cannot fight, I&rsquo;ll have to apologise.&nbsp; A bonny figure I
+would be with a broadsword.&nbsp; Ay! ay!&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re
+none such a bad lad in your way; I think ye&rsquo;ll have some redeeming
+vices.&nbsp; But, O! Davit Balfour, ye&rsquo;re damned countryfeed.&nbsp;
+Ye&rsquo;ll have to win over that, lad; ye&rsquo;ll have to soople your
+back-bone, and think a wee pickle less of your dainty self; and ye&rsquo;ll
+have to try to find out that women-folk are nae grenadiers.&nbsp; But
+that can never be.&nbsp; To your last day you&rsquo;ll ken no more of
+women-folk than what I do of sow-gelding.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I had never been used with such expressions from a lady&rsquo;s tongue,
+the only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being
+most devout and most particular women; and I suppose my amazement must
+have been depicted in my countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst forth suddenly
+in a fit of laughter.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Keep me!&rdquo; she cried, struggling with her mirth, &ldquo;you
+have the finest timber face - and you to marry the daughter of a Hieland
+cateran!&nbsp; Davie, my dear, I think we&rsquo;ll have to make a match
+of it - if it was just to see the weans.&nbsp; And now,&rdquo; she went
+on, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s no manner of service in your daidling here,
+for the young woman is from home, and it&rsquo;s my fear that the old
+woman is no suitable companion for your father&rsquo;s son.&nbsp; Forbye
+that I have nobody but myself to look after my reputation, and have
+been long enough alone with a sedooctive youth.&nbsp; And come back
+another day for your saxpence!&rdquo; she cried after me as I left.<br>
+<br>
+My skirmish with this disconcerting lady gave my thoughts a boldness
+they had otherwise wanted.&nbsp; For two days the image of Catriona
+had mixed in all my meditations; she made their background, so that
+I scarce enjoyed my own company without a glint of her in a corner of
+my mind.&nbsp; But now she came immediately near; I seemed to touch
+her, whom I had never touched but the once; I let myself flow out to
+her in a happy weakness, and looking all about, and before and behind,
+saw the world like an undesirable desert, where men go as soldiers on
+a march, following their duty with what constancy they have, and Catriona
+alone there to offer me some pleasure of my days.&nbsp; I wondered at
+myself that I could dwell on such considerations in that time of my
+peril and disgrace; and when I remembered my youth I was ashamed.&nbsp;
+I had my studies to complete: I had to be called into some useful business;
+I had yet to take my part of service in a place where all must serve;
+I had yet to learn, and know, and prove myself a man; and I had so much
+sense as blush that I should be already tempted with these further-on
+and holier delights and duties.&nbsp; My education spoke home to me
+sharply; I was never brought up on sugar biscuits but on the hard food
+of the truth.&nbsp; I knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who
+was not prepared to be a father also; and for a boy like me to play
+the father was a mere derision.<br>
+<br>
+When I was in the midst of these thoughts and about half-way back to
+town I saw a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my heart was
+heightened.&nbsp; It seemed I had everything in the world to say to
+her, but nothing to say first; and remembering how tongue-tied I had
+been that morning at the Advocate&rsquo;s I made sure that I would find
+myself struck dumb.&nbsp; But when she came up my fears fled away; not
+even the consciousness of what I had been privately thinking disconcerted
+me the least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally
+as I might with Alan.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;you have been seeking your sixpence;
+did you get it?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I told her no; but now I had met with her my walk was not in vain.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Though I have seen you to-day already,&rdquo; said I, and told
+her where and when.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I did not see you,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;My eyes are
+big, but there are better than mine at seeing far.&nbsp; Only I heard
+singing in the house.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That was Miss Grant,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;the eldest and the
+bonniest.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;They say they are all beautiful,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;They think the same of you, Miss Drummond,&rdquo; I replied,
+&ldquo;and were all crowding to the window to observe you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is a pity about my being so blind,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;or
+I might have seen them too.&nbsp; And you were in the house?&nbsp; You
+must have been having the fine time with the fine music and the pretty
+ladies.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is just where you are wrong,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;for
+I was as uncouth as a sea-fish upon the brae of a mountain.&nbsp; The
+truth is that I am better fitted to go about with rudas men than pretty
+ladies.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, I would think so too, at all events!&rdquo; said she, at
+which we both of us laughed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is a strange thing, now,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am
+not the least afraid with you, yet I could have run from the Miss Grants.&nbsp;
+And I was afraid of your cousin too.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, I think any man will be afraid of her,&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;My father is afraid of her himself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The name of her father brought me to a stop.&nbsp; I looked at her as
+she walked by my side; I recalled the man, and the little I knew and
+the much I guessed of him; and comparing the one with the other, felt
+like a traitor to be silent.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Speaking of which,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I met your father no
+later than this morning.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Did you?&rdquo; she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to
+mock at me.&nbsp; &ldquo;You saw James More?&nbsp; You will have spoken
+with him then?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I did even that,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+Then I think things went the worst way for me that was humanly possible.&nbsp;
+She gave me a look of mere gratitude.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ah, thank you for
+that!&rdquo; says she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You thank me for very little,&rdquo; said I, and then stopped.&nbsp;
+But it seemed when I was holding back so much, something at least had
+to come out.&nbsp; &ldquo;I spoke rather ill to him,&rdquo; said I;
+&ldquo;I did no like him very much; I spoke him rather ill, and he was
+angry.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think you had little to do then, and less to tell it to his
+daughter!&rdquo; she cried out.&nbsp; &ldquo;But those that do not love
+and cherish him I will not know.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will take the freedom of a word yet,&rdquo; said I, beginning
+to tremble.&nbsp; &ldquo;Perhaps neither your father nor I are in the
+best of spirits at Prestongrange&rsquo;s.&nbsp; I daresay we both have
+anxious business there, for it&rsquo;s a dangerous house.&nbsp; I was
+sorry for him too, and spoke to him the first, if I could but have spoken
+the wiser.&nbsp; And for one thing, in my opinion, you will soon find
+that his affairs are mending.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It will not be through your friendship, I am thinking,&rdquo;
+said she; &ldquo;and he is much made up to you for your sorrow.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Miss Drummond,&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;I am alone in this world.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I am not wondering at that,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, let me speak!&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will speak but
+the once, and then leave you, if you will, for ever.&nbsp; I came this
+day in the hopes of a kind word that I am sore in want of.&nbsp; I know
+that what I said must hurt you, and I knew it then.&nbsp; It would have
+been easy to have spoken smooth, easy to lie to you; can you not think
+how I was tempted to the same?&nbsp; Cannot you see the truth of my
+heart shine out?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think here is a great deal of work, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said
+she.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think we will have met but the once, and will can
+part like gentle folk.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, let me have one to believe in me!&rdquo; I pleaded, &ldquo;I
+cannae bear it else.&nbsp; The whole world is clanned against me.&nbsp;
+How am I to go through with my dreadful fate?&nbsp; If there&rsquo;s
+to be none to believe in me I cannot do it.&nbsp; The man must just
+die, for I cannot do it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She had still looked straight in front of her, head in air; but at my
+words or the tone of my voice she came to a stop.&nbsp; &ldquo;What
+is this you say?&rdquo; she asked.&nbsp; &ldquo;What are you talking
+of?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is my testimony which may save an innocent life,&rdquo; said
+I, &ldquo;and they will not suffer me to bear it.&nbsp; What would you
+do yourself?&nbsp; You know what this is, whose father lies in danger.&nbsp;
+Would you desert the poor soul?&nbsp; They have tried all ways with
+me.&nbsp; They have sought to bribe me; they offered me hills and valleys.&nbsp;
+And to-day that sleuth-hound told me how I stood, and to what a length
+he would go to butcher and disgrace me.&nbsp; I am to be brought in
+a party to the murder; I am to have held Glenure in talk for money and
+old clothes; I am to be killed and shamed.&nbsp; If this is the way
+I am to fall, and me scarce a man - if this is the story to be told
+of me in all Scotland - if you are to believe it too, and my name is
+to be nothing but a by-word - Catriona, how can I go through with it?&nbsp;
+The thing&rsquo;s not possible; it&rsquo;s more than a man has in his
+heart.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I poured my words out in a whirl, one upon the other; and when I stopped
+I found her gazing on me with a startled face.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Glenure!&nbsp; It is the Appin murder,&rdquo; she said softly,
+but with a very deep surprise.<br>
+<br>
+I had turned back to bear her company, and we were now come near the
+head of the brae above Dean village.&nbsp; At this word I stepped in
+front of her like one suddenly distracted.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake!&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;for God&rsquo;s
+sake, what is this that I have done?&rdquo; and carried my fists to
+my temples.&nbsp; &ldquo;What made me do it?&nbsp; Sure, I am bewitched
+to say these things!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;In the name of heaven, what ails you now!&rdquo; she cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I gave my honour,&rdquo; I groaned, &ldquo;I gave my honour and
+now I have broke it.&nbsp; O, Catriona!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am asking you what it is,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;was it these
+things you should not have spoken?&nbsp; And do you think I have no
+honour, then? or that I am one that would betray a friend?&nbsp; I hold
+up my right hand to you and swear.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, I knew you would be true!&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+me - it&rsquo;s here.&nbsp; I that stood but this morning and out-faced
+them, that risked rather to die disgraced upon the gallows than do wrong
+- and a few hours after I throw my honour away by the roadside in common
+talk!&nbsp; &lsquo;There is one thing clear upon our interview,&rsquo;
+says he, &lsquo;that I can rely on your pledged word.&rsquo;&nbsp; Where
+is my word now?&nbsp; Who could believe me now?&nbsp; You could not
+believe me.&nbsp; I am clean fallen down; I had best die!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+All this I said with a weeping voice, but I had no tears in my body.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My heart is sore for you,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;but be sure
+you are too nice.&nbsp; I would not believe you, do you say?&nbsp; I
+would trust you with anything.&nbsp; And these men?&nbsp; I would not
+be thinking of them!&nbsp; Men who go about to entrap and to destroy
+you!&nbsp; Fy! this is no time to crouch.&nbsp; Look up!&nbsp; Do you
+not think I will be admiring you like a great hero of the good - and
+you a boy not much older than myself?&nbsp; And because you said a word
+too much in a friend&rsquo;s ear, that would die ere she betrayed you
+- to make such a matter!&nbsp; It is one thing that we must both forget.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, looking at her, hang-dog, &ldquo;is
+this true of it?&nbsp; Would ye trust me yet?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Will you not believe the tears upon my face?&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;It is the world I am thinking of you, Mr. David Balfour.&nbsp;
+Let them hang you; I will never forget, I will grow old and still remember
+you.&nbsp; I think it is great to die so: I will envy you that gallows.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And maybe all this while I am but a child frighted with bogles,&rdquo;
+said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Maybe they but make a mock of me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is what I must know,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I must
+hear the whole.&nbsp; The harm is done at all events, and I must hear
+the whole.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I had sat down on the wayside, where she took a place beside me, and
+I told her all that matter much as I have written it, my thoughts about
+her father&rsquo;s dealings being alone omitted.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, when I had finished, &ldquo;you are a
+hero, surely, and I never would have thought that same!&nbsp; And I
+think you are in peril, too.&nbsp; O, Simon Fraser! to think upon that
+man!&nbsp; For his life and the dirty money, to be dealing in such traffic!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And just then she called out aloud with a queer word that was common
+with her, and belongs, I believe, to her own language.&nbsp; &ldquo;My
+torture!&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;look at the sun!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Indeed, it was already dipping towards the mountains.<br>
+<br>
+She bid me come again soon, gave me her hand, and left me in a turmoil
+of glad spirits.&nbsp; I delayed to go home to my lodging, for I had
+a terror of immediate arrest; but got some supper at a change house,
+and the better part of that night walked by myself in the barley-fields,
+and had such a sense of Catriona&rsquo;s presence that I seemed to bear
+her in my arms.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER VIII - THE BRAVO<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The next day, August 29th, I kept my appointment at the Advocate&rsquo;s
+in a coat that I had made to my own measure, and was but newly ready,<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Aha,&rdquo; says Prestongrange, &ldquo;you are very fine to-day;
+my misses are to have a fine cavalier.&nbsp; Come, I take that kind
+of you.&nbsp; I take that kind of you, Mr. David.&nbsp; O, we shall
+do very well yet, and I believe your troubles are nearly at an end.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You have news for me?&rdquo; cried I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Beyond anticipation,&rdquo; he replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;Your testimony
+is after all to be received; and you may go, if you will, in my company
+to the trial, which in to be held at Inverary, Thursday, 21st <i>proximo</i>.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I was too much amazed to find words.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;In the meanwhile,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;though I will not
+ask you to renew your pledge, I must caution you strictly to be reticent.&nbsp;
+To-morrow your precognition must be taken; and outside of that, do you
+know, I think least said will be soonest mended.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I shall try to go discreetly,&rsquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I believe
+it is yourself that I must thank for this crowning mercy, and I do thank
+you gratefully.&nbsp; After yesterday, my lord, this is like the doors
+of Heaven.&nbsp; I cannot find it in my heart to get the thing believed.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, but you must try and manage, you must try and manage to believe
+it,&rdquo; says he, soothing-like, &ldquo;and I am very glad to hear
+your acknowledgment of obligation, for I think you may be able to repay
+me very shortly&rdquo; - he coughed - &ldquo;or even now.&nbsp; The
+matter is much changed.&nbsp; Your testimony, which I shall not trouble
+you for to-day, will doubtless alter the complexion of the case for
+all concerned, and this makes it less delicate for me to enter with
+you on a side issue.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My Lord,&rdquo; I interrupted, &ldquo;excuse me for interrupting
+you, but how has this been brought about?&nbsp; The obstacles you told
+me of on Saturday appeared even to me to be quite insurmountable; how
+has it been contrived?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My dear Mr. David,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;it would never do for
+me to divulge (even to you, as you say) the councils of the Government;
+and you must content yourself, if you please, with the gross fact.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He smiled upon me like a father as he spoke, playing the while with
+a new pen; methought it was impossible there could be any shadow of
+deception in the man: yet when he drew to him a sheet of paper, dipped
+his pen among the ink, and began again to address me, I was somehow
+not so certain, and fell instinctively into an attitude of guard.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is a point I wish to touch upon,&rdquo; he began.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I purposely left it before upon one side, which need be now no
+longer necessary.&nbsp; This is not, of course, a part of your examination,
+which is to follow by another hand; this is a private interest of my
+own.&nbsp; You say you encountered Alan Breck upon the hill?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I did, my lord,&rdquo; said I<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This was immediately after the murder?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It was.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Did you speak to him?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I did.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You had known him before, I think?&rdquo; says my lord, carelessly.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I cannot guess your reason for so thinking, my lord,&rdquo; I
+replied, &ldquo;but such in the fact.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And when did you part with him again?&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I reserve my answer,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;The question
+will be put to me at the assize.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will you not understand that
+all this is without prejudice to yourself?&nbsp; I have promised you
+life and honour; and, believe me, I can keep my word.&nbsp; You are
+therefore clear of all anxiety.&nbsp; Alan, it appears, you suppose
+you can protect; and you talk to me of your gratitude, which I think
+(if you push me) is not ill-deserved.&nbsp; There are a great many different
+considerations all pointing the same way; and I will never be persuaded
+that you could not help us (if you chose) to put salt on Alan&rsquo;s
+tail.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I give you my word I do not so
+much as guess where Alan is.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He paused a breath.&nbsp; &ldquo;Nor how he might be found?&rdquo; he
+asked.<br>
+<br>
+I sat before him like a log of wood.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And so much for your gratitude, Mr. David!&rdquo; he observed.&nbsp;
+Again there was a piece of silence.&nbsp; &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he,
+rising, &ldquo;I am not fortunate, and we are a couple at cross purposes.&nbsp;
+Let us speak of it no more; you will receive notice when, where, and
+by whom, we are to take your precognition.&nbsp; And in the meantime,
+my misses must be waiting you.&nbsp; They will never forgive me if I
+detain their cavalier.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Into the hands of these Graces I was accordingly offered up, and found
+them dressed beyond what I had thought possible, and looking fair as
+a posy.<br>
+<br>
+As we went forth from the doors a small circumstance occurred which
+came afterwards to look extremely big.&nbsp; I heard a whistle sound
+loud and brief like a signal, and looking all about, spied for one moment
+the red head of Neil of the Tom, the son of Duncan.&nbsp; The next moment
+he was gone again, nor could I see so much as the skirt-tail of Catriona,
+upon whom I naturally supposed him to be then attending.<br>
+<br>
+My three keepers led me out by Bristo and the Bruntsfield Links; whence
+a path carried us to Hope Park, a beautiful pleasance, laid with gravel-walks,
+furnished with seats and summer-sheds, and warded by a keeper.&nbsp;
+The way there was a little longsome; the two younger misses affected
+an air of genteel weariness that damped me cruelly, the eldest considered
+me with something that at times appeared like mirth; and though I thought
+I did myself more justice than the day before, it was not without some
+effort.&nbsp; Upon our reaching the park I was launched on a bevy of
+eight or ten young gentlemen (some of them cockaded officers, the rest
+chiefly advocates) who crowded to attend upon these beauties; and though
+I was presented to all of them in very good words, it seemed I was by
+all immediately forgotten.&nbsp; Young folk in a company are like to
+savage animals: they fall upon or scorn a stranger without civility,
+or I may say, humanity; and I am sure, if I had been among baboons,
+they would have shown me quite as much of both.&nbsp; Some of the advocates
+set up to be wits, and some of the soldiers to be rattles; and I could
+not tell which of these extremes annoyed me most.&nbsp; All had a manner
+of handling their swords and coat-skirts, for the which (in mere black
+envy) I could have kicked them from the park.&nbsp; I daresay, upon
+their side, they grudged me extremely the fine company in which I had
+arrived; and altogether I had soon fallen behind, and stepped stiffly
+in the rear of all that merriment with my own thoughts.<br>
+<br>
+From these I was recalled by one of the officers, Lieutenant Hector
+Duncansby, a gawky, leering Highland boy, asking if my name was not
+&ldquo;Palfour.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I told him it was, not very kindly, for his manner was scant civil.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ha, Palfour,&rdquo; says he, and then, repeating it, &ldquo;Palfour,
+Palfour!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am afraid you do not like my name, sir,&rdquo; says I, annoyed
+with myself to be annoyed with such a rustical fellow.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;but I wass thinking.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would not advise you to make a practice of that, sir,&rdquo;
+says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I feel sure you would not find it to agree with
+you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Tit you effer hear where Alan Grigor fand the tangs?&rdquo; said
+he.<br>
+<br>
+I asked him what he could possibly mean, and he answered, with a heckling
+laugh, that he thought I must have found the poker in the same place
+and swallowed it.<br>
+<br>
+There could be no mistake about this, and my cheek burned.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Before I went about to put affronts on gentlemen,&rdquo; said
+I, &ldquo;I think I would learn the English language first.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He took me by the sleeve with a nod and a wink and led me quietly outside
+Hope Park.&nbsp; But no sooner were we beyond the view of the promenaders,
+than the fashion of his countenance changed.&nbsp; &ldquo;You tam lowland
+scoon&rsquo;rel!&rdquo; cries he, and hit me a buffet on the jaw with
+his closed fist.<br>
+<br>
+I paid him as good or better on the return; whereupon he stepped a little
+back and took off his hat to me decorously.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Enough plows I think,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will be
+the offended shentleman, for who effer heard of such suffeeciency as
+tell a shentlemans that is the king&rsquo;s officer he cannae speak
+Cot&rsquo;s English?&nbsp; We have swords at our hurdles, and here is
+the King&rsquo;s Park at hand.&nbsp; Will ye walk first, or let me show
+ye the way?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I returned his bow, told him to go first, and followed him.&nbsp; As
+he went I heard him grumble to himself about <i>Cot&rsquo;s English
+</i>and the <i>King&rsquo;s coat</i>, so that I might have supposed
+him to be seriously offended.&nbsp; But his manner at the beginning
+of our interview was there to belie him.&nbsp; It was manifest he had
+come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me, right or wrong; manifest that
+I was taken in a fresh contrivance of my enemies; and to me (conscious
+as I was of my deficiencies) manifest enough that I should be the one
+to fall in our encounter.<br>
+<br>
+As we came into that rough rocky desert of the King&rsquo;s Park I was
+tempted half-a-dozen times to take to my heels and run for it, so loath
+was I to show my ignorance in fencing, and so much averse to die or
+even to be wounded.&nbsp; But I considered if their malice went as far
+as this, it would likely stick at nothing; and that to fall by the sword,
+however ungracefully, was still an improvement on the gallows.&nbsp;
+I considered besides that by the unguarded pertness of my words and
+the quickness of my blow I had put myself quite out of court; and that
+even if I ran, my adversary would probably pursue and catch me, which
+would add disgrace to my misfortune.&nbsp; So that, taking all in all,
+I continued marching behind him, much as a man follows the hangman,
+and certainly with no more hope.<br>
+<br>
+We went about the end of the long craigs, and came into the Hunter&rsquo;s
+Bog.&nbsp; Here, on a piece of fair turf, my adversary drew.&nbsp; There
+was nobody there to see us but some birds; and no resource for me but
+to follow his example, and stand on guard with the best face I could
+display.&nbsp; It seems it was not good enough for Mr. Dancansby, who
+spied some flaw in my manoeuvres, paused, looked upon me sharply, and
+came off and on, and menaced me with his blade in the air.&nbsp; As
+I had seen no such proceedings from Alan, and was besides a good deal
+affected with the proximity of death, I grew quite bewildered, stood
+helpless, and could have longed to run away.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Fat deil ails her?&rdquo; cries the lieutenant.<br>
+<br>
+And suddenly engaging, he twitched the sword out of my grasp and sent
+it flying far among the rushes.<br>
+<br>
+Twice was this manoeuvre repeated; and the third time when I brought
+back my humiliated weapon, I found he had returned his own to the scabbard,
+and stood awaiting me with a face of some anger, and his hands clasped
+under his skirt.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Pe tamned if I touch you!&rdquo; he cried, and asked me bitterly
+what right I had to stand up before &ldquo;shentlemans&rdquo; when I
+did not know the back of a sword from the front of it.<br>
+<br>
+I answered that was the fault of my upbringing; and would he do me the
+justice to say I had given him all the satisfaction it was unfortunately
+in my power to offer, and had stood up like a man?<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And that is the truth,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am fery
+prave myself, and pold as a lions.&nbsp; But to stand up there - and
+you ken naething of fence! - the way that you did, I declare it was
+peyond me.&nbsp; And I am sorry for the plow; though I declare I pelief
+your own was the elder brother, and my heid still sings with it.&nbsp;
+And I declare if I had kent what way it wass, I would not put a hand
+to such a piece of pusiness.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That is handsomely said,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;and I am sure
+you will not stand up a second time to be the actor for my private enemies.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Indeed, no, Palfour,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and I think I was
+used extremely suffeeciently myself to be set up to fecht with an auld
+wife, or all the same as a bairn whateffer!&nbsp; And I will tell the
+Master so, and fecht him, by Cot, himself!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And if you knew the nature of Mr. Simon&rsquo;s quarrel with
+me,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you would be yet the more affronted to be
+mingled up with such affairs.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He swore he could well believe it; that all the Lovats were made of
+the same meal and the devil was the miller that ground that; then suddenly
+shaking me by the hand, he vowed I was a pretty enough fellow after
+all, that it was a thousand pities I had been neglected, and that if
+he could find the time, he would give an eye himself to have me educated.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You can do me a better service than even what you propose,&rdquo;
+said I; and when he had asked its nature - &ldquo;Come with me to the
+house of one of my enemies, and testify how I have carried myself this
+day,&rdquo; I told him.&nbsp; &ldquo;That will be the true service.&nbsp;
+For though he has sent me a gallant adversary for the first, the thought
+in Mr. Simon&rsquo;s mind is merely murder.&nbsp; There will be a second
+and then a third; and by what you have seen of my cleverness with the
+cold steel, you can judge for yourself what is like to be the upshot.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I would not like it myself, if I was no more of a man than
+what you wass!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;But I will do you right,
+Palfour.&nbsp; Lead on!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+If I had walked slowly on the way into that accursed park my heels were
+light enough on the way out.&nbsp; They kept time to a very good old
+air, that is as ancient as the Bible, and the words of it are: &ldquo;<i>Surely
+the bitterness of death is</i> <i>passed</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; I mind that
+I was extremely thirsty, and had a drink at Saint Margaret&rsquo;s well
+on the road down, and the sweetness of that water passed belief.&nbsp;
+We went through the sanctuary, up the Canongate, in by the Netherbow,
+and straight to Prestongrange&rsquo;s door, talking as we came and arranging
+the details of our affair.&nbsp; The footman owned his master was at
+home, but declared him engaged with other gentlemen on very private
+business, and his door forbidden.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My business is but for three minutes, and it cannot wait,&rdquo;
+said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;You may say it is by no means private, and I shall
+be even glad to have some witnesses.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+As the man departed unwillingly enough upon this errand, we made so
+bold as to follow him to the ante-chamber, whence I could hear for a
+while the murmuring of several voices in the room within.&nbsp; The
+truth is, they were three at the one table - Prestongrange, Simon Fraser,
+and Mr. Erskine, Sheriff of Perth; and as they were met in consultation
+on the very business of the Appin murder, they were a little disturbed
+at my appearance, but decided to receive me.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, well, Mr. Balfour, and what brings you here again? and
+who is this you bring with you?&rdquo; says Prestongrange.<br>
+<br>
+As for Fraser, he looked before him on the table.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He is here to bear a little testimony in my favour, my lord,
+which I think it very needful you should hear,&rdquo; said I, and turned
+to Duncansby.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have only to say this,&rdquo; said the lieutenant, &ldquo;that
+I stood up this day with Palfour in the Hunter&rsquo;s Pog, which I
+am now fery sorry for, and he behaved himself as pretty as a shentlemans
+could ask it.&nbsp; And I have creat respects for Palfour,&rdquo; he
+added.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I thank you for your honest expressions,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+Whereupon Duncansby made his bow to the company, and left the chamber,
+as we had agreed upon before.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What have I to do with this?&rdquo; says Prestongrange.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will tell your lordship in two words,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I have brought this gentleman, a King&rsquo;s officer, to do
+me so much justice.&nbsp; Now I think my character in covered, and until
+a certain date, which your lordship can very well supply, it will be
+quite in vain to despatch against me any more officers.&nbsp; I will
+not consent to fight my way through the garrison of the castle.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The veins swelled on Prestongrange&rsquo;s brow, and he regarded me
+with fury.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think the devil uncoupled this dog of a lad between my legs!&rdquo;
+he cried; and then, turning fiercely on his neighbour, &ldquo;This is
+some of your work, Simon,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I spy your hand
+in the business, and, let me tell you, I resent it.&nbsp; It is disloyal,
+when we are agreed upon one expedient, to follow another in the dark.&nbsp;
+You are disloyal to me.&nbsp; What! you let me send this lad to the
+place with my very daughters!&nbsp; And because I let drop a word to
+you..... Fy, sir, keep your dishonours to yourself!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Simon was deadly pale.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will be a kick-ball between you
+and the Duke no longer,&rdquo; he exclaimed.&nbsp; &ldquo;Either come
+to an agreement, or come to a differ, and have it out among yourselves.&nbsp;
+But I will no longer fetch and carry, and get your contrary instructions,
+and be blamed by both.&nbsp; For if I were to tell you what I think
+of all your Hanover business it would make your head sing.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+But Sheriff Erskine had preserved his temper, and now intervened smoothly.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And in the meantime,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I think we should
+tell Mr. Balfour that his character for valour is quite established.&nbsp;
+He may sleep in peace.&nbsp; Until the date he was so good as to refer
+to it shall be put to the proof no more.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+His coolness brought the others to their prudence; and they made haste,
+with a somewhat distracted civility, to pack me from the house.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER IX - THE HEATHER ON FIRE<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+When I left Prestongrange that afternoon I was for the first time angry.&nbsp;
+The Advocate had made a mock of me.&nbsp; He had pretended my testimony
+was to be received and myself respected; and in that very hour, not
+only was Simon practising against my life by the hands of the Highland
+soldier, but (as appeared from his own language) Prestongrange himself
+had some design in operation.&nbsp; I counted my enemies; Prestongrange
+with all the King&rsquo;s authority behind him; and the Duke with the
+power of the West Highlands; and the Lovat interest by their side to
+help them with so great a force in the north, and the whole clan of
+old Jacobite spies and traffickers.&nbsp; And when I remembered James
+More, and the red head of Neil the son of Duncan, I thought there was
+perhaps a fourth in the confederacy, and what remained of Rob Roy&rsquo;s
+old desperate sept of caterans would be banded against me with the others.&nbsp;
+One thing was requisite - some strong friend or wise adviser.&nbsp;
+The country must be full of such, both able and eager to support me,
+or Lovat and the Duke and Prestongrange had not been nosing for expedients;
+and it made me rage to think that I might brush against my champions
+in the street and be no wiser.<br>
+<br>
+And just then (like an answer) a gentleman brushed against me going
+by, gave me a meaning look, and turned into a close.&nbsp; I knew him
+with the tail of my eye - it was Stewart the Writer; and, blessing my
+good fortune, turned in to follow him.&nbsp; As soon as I had entered
+the close I saw him standing in the mouth of a stair, where he made
+me a signal and immediately vanished.&nbsp; Seven storeys up, there
+he was again in a house door, the which he looked behind us after we
+had entered.&nbsp; The house was quite dismantled, with not a stick
+of furniture; indeed, it was one of which Stewart had the letting in
+his hands.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have to sit upon the floor,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;but
+we&rsquo;re safe here for the time being, and I&rsquo;ve been wearying
+to see ye, Mr. Balfour.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;How&rsquo;s it with Alan?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Brawly,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Andie picks him up at Gillane
+sands to-morrow, Wednesday.&nbsp; He was keen to say good-bye to ye,
+but the way that things were going, I was feared the pair of ye was
+maybe best apart.&nbsp; And that brings me to the essential: how does
+your business speed?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I was told only this morning that
+my testimony was accepted, and I was to travel to Inverary with the
+Advocate, no less.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Hout awa!&rdquo; cried Stewart.&nbsp; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll never
+believe that.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have maybe a suspicion of my own,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;but
+I would like fine to hear your reasons.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, I tell ye fairly, I&rsquo;m horn-mad,&rdquo; cries Stewart.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;If my one hand could pull their Government down I would pluck
+it like a rotten apple.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m doer for Appin and for James
+of the Glens; and, of course, it&rsquo;s my duty to defend my kinsman
+for his life.&nbsp; Hear how it goes with me, and I&rsquo;ll leave the
+judgment of it to yourself.&nbsp; The first thing they have to do is
+to get rid of Alan.&nbsp; They cannae bring in James as art and part
+until they&rsquo;ve brought in Alan first as principal; that&rsquo;s
+sound law: they could never put the cart before the horse.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And how are they to bring in Alan till they can catch him?&rdquo;
+says I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, but there is a way to evite that arrestment,&rdquo; said
+he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Sound law, too.&nbsp; It would be a bonny thing if,
+by the escape of one ill-doer another was to go scatheless, and the
+remeid is to summon the principal and put him to outlawry for the non-compearance.&nbsp;
+Now there&rsquo;s four places where a person can be summoned: at his
+dwelling-house; at a place where he has resided forty days; at the head
+burgh of the shire where he ordinarily resorts; or lastly (if there
+be ground to think him forth of Scotland) <i>at the cross of Edinburgh,</i>
+<i>and the pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days.&nbsp; </i>The purpose
+of which last provision is evident upon its face: being that outgoing
+ships may have time to carry news of the transaction, and the summonsing
+be something other than a form.&nbsp; Now take the case of Alan.&nbsp;
+He has no dwelling-house that ever I could hear of; I would be obliged
+if anyone would show me where he has lived forty days together since
+the &lsquo;45; there is no shire where he resorts whether ordinarily
+or extraordinarily; if he has a domicile at all, which I misdoubt, it
+must be with his regiment in France; and if he is not yet forth of Scotland
+(as we happen to know and they happen to guess) it must be evident to
+the most dull it&rsquo;s what he&rsquo;s aiming for.&nbsp; Where, then,
+and what way should he be summoned?&nbsp; I ask it at yourself, a layman.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You have given the very words,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Here
+at the cross, and at the pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;re a sounder Scots lawyer than Prestongrange, then!&rdquo;
+cries the Writer.&nbsp; &ldquo;He has had Alan summoned once; that was
+on the twenty-fifth, the day that we first met.&nbsp; Once, and done
+with it.&nbsp; And where?&nbsp; Where, but at the cross of Inverary,
+the head burgh of the Campbells?&nbsp; A word in your ear, Mr. Balfour
+- they&rsquo;re not seeking Alan.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not seeking him?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;By the best that I can make of it,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not
+wanting to find him, in my poor thought.&nbsp; They think perhaps he
+might set up a fair defence, upon the back of which James, the man they&rsquo;re
+really after, might climb out.&nbsp; This is not a case, ye see, it&rsquo;s
+a conspiracy.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Yet I can tell you Prestongrange asked after Alan keenly,&rdquo;
+said I; &ldquo;though, when I come to think of it, he was something
+of the easiest put by.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;See that!&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;But there!&nbsp; I may
+be right or wrong, that&rsquo;s guesswork at the best, and let me get
+to my facts again.&nbsp; It comes to my ears that James and the witnesses
+- the witnesses, Mr. Balfour! - lay in close dungeons, and shackled
+forbye, in the military prison at Fort William; none allowed in to them,
+nor they to write.&nbsp; The witnesses, Mr. Balfour; heard ye ever the
+match of that?&nbsp; I assure ye, no old, crooked Stewart of the gang
+ever out-faced the law more impudently.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s clean in the
+two eyes of the Act of Parliament of 1700, anent wrongous imprisonment.&nbsp;
+No sooner did I get the news than I petitioned the Lord Justice Clerk.&nbsp;
+I have his word to-day.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s law for ye! here&rsquo;s
+justice!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He put a paper in my hand, that same mealy-mouthed, false-faced paper
+that was printed since in the pamphlet &ldquo;by a bystander,&rdquo;
+for behoof (as the title says) of James&rsquo;s &ldquo;poor widow and
+five children.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;See,&rdquo; said Stewart, &ldquo;he couldn&rsquo;t dare to refuse
+me access to my client, so he <i>recommends the commanding officer to
+let me in</i>.&nbsp; Recommends! - the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland
+recommends.&nbsp; Is not the purpose of such language plain?&nbsp; They
+hope the officer may be so dull, or so very much the reverse, as to
+refuse the recommendation.&nbsp; I would have to make the journey back
+again betwixt here and Fort William.&nbsp; Then would follow a fresh
+delay till I got fresh authority, and they had disavowed the officer
+- military man, notoriously ignorant of the law, and that - I ken the
+cant of it.&nbsp; Then the journey a third time; and there we should
+be on the immediate heels of the trial before I had received my first
+instruction.&nbsp; Am I not right to call this a conspiracy?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It will bear that colour,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll go on to prove it you outright,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;They have the right to hold James in prison, yet they cannot
+deny me to visit him.&nbsp; They have no right to hold the witnesses;
+but am I to get a sight of them, that should be as free as the Lord
+Justice Clerk himself!&nbsp; See - read: <i>For the rest, refuses to</i>
+<i>give any orders to keepers of prisons who are not accused as having
+done anything</i> <i>contrary to the duties of their office</i>.&nbsp;
+Anything contrary!&nbsp; Sirs!&nbsp; And the Act of seventeen hunner?&nbsp;
+Mr. Balfour, this makes my heart to burst; the heather is on fire inside
+my wame.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And the plain English of that phrase,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;is
+that the witnesses are still to lie in prison and you are not to see
+them?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I am not to see them until Inverary, when the court is set!&rdquo;
+cries he, &ldquo;and then to hear Prestongrange upon <i>the anxious
+responsibilities of his office and</i> <i>the great facilities afforded
+the defence</i>!&nbsp; But I&rsquo;ll begowk them there, Mr. David.&nbsp;
+I have a plan to waylay the witnesses upon the road, and see if I cannae
+get I a little harle of justice out of the <i>military man notoriously
+ignorant of the</i> <i>law </i>that shall command the party.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+It was actually so - it was actually on the wayside near Tynedrum, and
+by the connivance of a soldier officer, that Mr. Stewart first saw the
+witnesses upon the case.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is nothing that would surprise me in this business,&rdquo;
+I remarked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll surprise you ere I&rsquo;m done!&rdquo; cries he.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Do ye see this?&rdquo; - producing a print still wet from the
+press.&nbsp; &ldquo;This is the libel: see, there&rsquo;s Prestongrange&rsquo;s
+name to the list of witnesses, and I find no word of any Balfour.&nbsp;
+But here is not the question.&nbsp; Who do ye think paid for the printing
+of this paper?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I suppose it would likely be King George,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But it happens it was me!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not but
+it was printed by and for themselves, for the Grants and the Erskines,
+and yon thief of the black midnight, Simon Fraser.&nbsp; But could <i>I</i>
+win to get a copy!&nbsp; No!&nbsp; I was to go blindfold to my defence;
+I was to hear the charges for the first time in court alongst the jury.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is not this against the law?&rdquo; I asked<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I cannot say so much,&rdquo; he replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;It was
+a favour so natural and so constantly rendered (till this nonesuch business)
+that the law has never looked to it.&nbsp; And now admire the hand of
+Providence!&nbsp; A stranger is in Fleming&rsquo;s printing house, spies
+a proof on the floor, picks it up, and carries it to me.&nbsp; Of all
+things, it was just this libel.&nbsp; Whereupon I had it set again -
+printed at the expense of the defence: <i>sumptibus moesti rei</i>;
+heard ever man the like of it? - and here it is for anybody, the muckle
+secret out - all may see it now.&nbsp; But how do you think I would
+enjoy this, that has the life of my kinsman on my conscience?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Troth, I think you would enjoy it ill,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And now you see how it is,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;and why,
+when you tell me your evidence is to be let in, I laugh aloud in your
+face.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+It was now my turn.&nbsp; I laid before him in brief Mr. Simon&rsquo;s
+threats and offers, and the whole incident of the bravo, with the subsequent
+scene at Prestongrange&rsquo;s.&nbsp; Of my first talk, according to
+promise, I said nothing, nor indeed was it necessary.&nbsp; All the
+time I was talking Stewart nodded his head like a mechanical figure;
+and no sooner had my voice ceased, than he opened his mouth and gave
+me his opinion in two words, dwelling strong on both of them.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Disappear yourself,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do not take you,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll carry you there,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;By
+my view of it you&rsquo;re to disappear whatever.&nbsp; O, that&rsquo;s
+outside debate.&nbsp; The Advocate, who is not without some spunks of
+a remainder decency, has wrung your life-safe out of Simon and the Duke.&nbsp;
+He has refused to put you on your trial, and refused to have you killed;
+and there is the clue to their ill words together, for Simon and the
+Duke can keep faith with neither friend nor enemy.&nbsp; Ye&rsquo;re
+not to be tried then, and ye&rsquo;re not to be murdered; but I&rsquo;m
+in bitter error if ye&rsquo;re not to be kidnapped and carried away
+like the Lady Grange.&nbsp; Bet me what ye please - there was their
+<i>expedient</i>!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You make me think,&rdquo; said I, and told him of the whistle
+and the red-headed retainer, Neil.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Wherever James More is there&rsquo;s one big rogue, never be
+deceived on that,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;His father was none so
+ill a man, though a kenning on the wrong side of the law, and no friend
+to my family, that I should waste my breath to be defending him!&nbsp;
+But as for James he&rsquo;s a brock and a blagyard.&nbsp; I like the
+appearance of this red-headed Neil as little as yourself.&nbsp; It looks
+uncanny: fiegh! it smells bad.&nbsp; It was old Lovat that managed the
+Lady Grange affair; if young Lovat is to handle yours, it&rsquo;ll be
+all in the family.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s James More in prison for?&nbsp;
+The same offence: abduction.&nbsp; His men have had practice in the
+business.&nbsp; He&rsquo;ll be to lend them to be Simon&rsquo;s instruments;
+and the next thing we&rsquo;ll be hearing, James will have made his
+peace, or else he&rsquo;ll have escaped; and you&rsquo;ll be in Benbecula
+or Applecross.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye make a strong case,&rdquo; I admitted.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what I want,&rdquo; he resumed, &ldquo;is that you should
+disappear yourself ere they can get their hands upon ye.&nbsp; Lie quiet
+until just before the trial, and spring upon them at the last of it
+when they&rsquo;ll be looking for you least.&nbsp; This is always supposing
+Mr. Balfour, that your evidence is worth so very great a measure of
+both risk and fash.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will tell you one thing,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I saw
+the murderer and it was not Alan.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Then, by God, my cousin&rsquo;s saved!&rdquo; cried Stewart.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;You have his life upon your tongue; and there&rsquo;s neither
+time, risk, nor money to be spared to bring you to the trial.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+He emptied his pockets on the floor.&nbsp; &ldquo;Here is all that I
+have by me,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;Take it, ye&rsquo;ll want it ere
+ye&rsquo;re through.&nbsp; Go straight down this close, there&rsquo;s
+a way out by there to the Lang Dykes, and by my will of it! see no more
+of Edinburgh till the clash is over.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Where am I to go, then?&rdquo; I inquired.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I wish that I could tell ye!&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;but all
+the places that I could send ye to, would be just the places they would
+seek.&nbsp; No, ye must fend for yourself, and God be your guiding!&nbsp;
+Five days before the trial, September the sixteen, get word to me at
+the <i>King Arms </i>in Stirling; and if ye&rsquo;ve managed for yourself
+as long as that, I&rsquo;ll see that ye reach Inverary.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;One thing more,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Can I no see Alan?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He seemed boggled.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hech, I would rather you wouldnae,&rdquo;
+said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;But I can never deny that Alan is extremely keen
+of it, and is to lie this night by Silvermills on purpose.&nbsp; If
+you&rsquo;re sure that you&rsquo;re not followed, Mr. Balfour - but
+make sure of that - lie in a good place and watch your road for a clear
+hour before ye risk it.&nbsp; It would be a dreadful business if both
+you and him was to miscarry!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER X - THE RED-HEADED MAN<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+It was about half-past three when I came forth on the Lang Dykes.&nbsp;
+Dean was where I wanted to go.&nbsp; Since Catriona dwelled there, and
+her kinsfolk the Glengyle Macgregors appeared almost certainly to be
+employed against me, it was just one of the few places I should have
+kept away from; and being a very young man, and beginning to be very
+much in love, I turned my face in that direction without pause.&nbsp;
+As a slave to my conscience and common sense, however, I took a measure
+of precaution.&nbsp; Coming over the crown of a bit of a rise in the
+road, I clapped down suddenly among the barley and lay waiting.&nbsp;
+After a while, a man went by that looked to be a Highlandman, but I
+had never seen him till that hour.&nbsp; Presently after came Neil of
+the red head.&nbsp; The next to go past was a miller&rsquo;s cart, and
+after that nothing but manifest country people.&nbsp; Here was enough
+to have turned the most foolhardy from his purpose, but my inclination
+ran too strong the other way.&nbsp; I argued it out that if Neil was
+on that road, it was the right road to find him in, leading direct to
+his chief&rsquo;s daughter; as for the other Highlandman, if I was to
+be startled off by every Highlandman I saw, I would scarce reach anywhere.&nbsp;
+And having quite satisfied myself with this disingenuous debate, I made
+the better speed of it, and came a little after four to Mrs. Drumond-Ogilvy&rsquo;s.<br>
+<br>
+Both ladies were within the house; and upon my perceiving them together
+by the open door, I plucked off my hat and said, &ldquo;Here was a lad
+come seeking saxpence,&rdquo; which I thought might please the dowager.<br>
+<br>
+Catriona ran out to greet me heartily, and, to my surprise, the old
+lady seemed scarce less forward than herself.&nbsp; I learned long afterwards
+that she had despatched a horseman by daylight to Rankeillor at the
+Queensferry, whom she knew to be the doer for Shaws, and had then in
+her pocket a letter from that good friend of mine, presenting, in the
+most favourable view, my character and prospects.&nbsp; But had I read
+it I could scarce have seen more clear in her designs.&nbsp; Maybe I
+was <i>countryfeed; </i>at least, I was not so much so as she thought;
+and it was even to my homespun wits, that she was bent to hammer up
+a match between her cousin and a beardless boy that was something of
+a laird in Lothian.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine,&rdquo; says
+she.&nbsp; &ldquo;Run and tell the lasses.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+And for the little while we were alone was at a good deal of pains to
+flatter me; always cleverly, always with the appearance of a banter,
+still calling me Saxpence, but with such a turn that should rather uplift
+me in my own opinion.&nbsp; When Catriona returned, the design became
+if possible more obvious; and she showed off the girl&rsquo;s advantages
+like a horse-couper with a horse.&nbsp; My face flamed that she should
+think me so obtuse.&nbsp; Now I would fancy the girl was being innocently
+made a show of, and then I could have beaten the old carline wife with
+a cudgel; and now, that perhaps these two had set their heads together
+to entrap me, and at that I sat and gloomed betwixt them like the very
+image of ill-will.&nbsp; At last the matchmaker had a better device,
+which was to leave the pair of us alone.&nbsp; When my suspicions are
+anyway roused it is sometimes a little the wrong side of easy to allay
+them.&nbsp; But though I knew what breed she was of, and that was a
+breed of thieves, I could never look in Catriona&rsquo;s face and disbelieve
+her.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I must not ask?&rdquo; says she, eagerly, the same moment we
+were left alone.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, but to-day I can talk with a free conscience,&rdquo; I replied.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I am lightened of my pledge, and indeed (after what has come
+and gone since morning) I would not have renewed it were it asked.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;My cousin will not be
+so long.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the
+last of it, making it as mirthful as I could, and, indeed, there was
+matter of mirth in that absurdity.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudas men as
+for the pretty ladies, after all!&rdquo; says she, when I had done.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But what was your father that he could not learn you to draw
+the sword!&nbsp; It is most ungentle; I have not heard the match of
+that in anyone.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is most misconvenient at least,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and
+I think my father (honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn
+me Latin in the place of it.&nbsp; But you see I do the best I can,
+and just stand up like Lot&rsquo;s wife and let them hammer at me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Do you know what makes me smile?&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;Well,
+it is this.&nbsp; I am made this way, that I should have been a man
+child.&nbsp; In my own thoughts it is so I am always; and I go on telling
+myself about this thing that is to befall and that.&nbsp; Then it comes
+to the place of the fighting, and it comes over me that I am only a
+girl at all events, and cannot hold a sword or give one good blow; and
+then I have to twist my story round about, so that the fighting is to
+stop, and yet me have the best of it, just like you and the lieutenant;
+and I am the boy that makes the fine speeches all through, like Mr.
+David Balfour.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are a bloodthirsty maid,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers,&rdquo;
+she said, &ldquo;but if you were to do nothing else in the great world,
+I think you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not
+that I want to kill, I think.&nbsp; Did ever you kill anyone?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That I have, as it chances.&nbsp; Two, no less, and me still
+a lad that should be at the college,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+yet, in the look-back, I take no shame for it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But how did you feel, then - after it?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&lsquo;&rdquo;Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I know that, too,&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;I feel where
+these tears should come from.&nbsp; And at any rate, I would not wish
+to kill, only to be Catherine Douglas that put her arm through the staples
+of the bolt, where it was broken.&nbsp; That is my chief hero.&nbsp;
+Would you not love to die so - for your king?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Troth,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;my affection for my king, God bless
+the puggy face of him, is under more control; and I thought I saw death
+so near to me this day already, that I am rather taken up with the notion
+of living.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Right,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;the right mind of a man!&nbsp;
+Only you must learn arms; I would not like to have a friend that cannot
+strike.&nbsp; But it will not have been with the sword that you killed
+these two?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Indeed, no,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but with a pair of pistols.&nbsp;
+And a fortunate thing it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I
+am about as clever with the pistols as I am with the sword.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+So then she drew from me the story of our battle in the brig, which
+I had omitted in my first account of my affairs.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;you are brave.&nbsp; And your friend,
+I admire and love him.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, and I think anyone would!&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;He
+has his faults like other folk; but he is brave and staunch and kind,
+God bless him!&nbsp; That will be a strange day when I forget Alan.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And the thought of him, and that it was within my choice to speak with
+him that night, had almost overcome me.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And where will my head be gone that I have not told my news!&rdquo;
+she cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she might
+visit him to-morrow in the castle whither he was now transferred, and
+that his affairs were mending.&nbsp; &ldquo;You do not like to hear
+it,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;Will you judge my father and not know
+him?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am a thousand miles from judging,&rdquo; I replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+I give you my word I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened.&nbsp;
+If my face fell at all, as I suppose it must, you will allow this is
+rather an ill day for compositions, and the people in power extremely
+ill persons to be compounding with.&nbsp; I have Simon Fraser extremely
+heavy on my stomach still.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;you will not be evening these two;
+and you should bear in mind that Prestongrange and James More, my father,
+are of the one blood.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I never heard tell of that,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is rather singular how little you are acquainted with,&rdquo;
+said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;One part may call themselves Grant, and one Macgregor,
+but they are still of the same clan.&nbsp; They are all the sons of
+Alpin, from whom, I think, our country has its name.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What country is that?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My country and yours,&rdquo; said she<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is my day for discovering I think,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;for
+I always thought the name of it was Scotland.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Scotland is the name of what you call Ireland,&rdquo; she replied.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But the old ancient true name of this place that we have our
+foot-soles on, and that our bones are made of, will be Alban.&nbsp;
+It was Alban they called it when our forefathers will be fighting for
+it against Rome and Alexander; and it is called so still in your own
+tongue that you forget.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Troth,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and that I never learned!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+For I lacked heart to take her up about the Macedonian.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But your fathers and mothers talked it, one generation with another,&rdquo;
+said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;And it was sung about the cradles before you
+or me were ever dreamed of; and your name remembers it still.&nbsp;
+Ah, if you could talk that language you would find me another girl.&nbsp;
+The heart speaks in that tongue.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I had a meal with the two ladies, all very good, served in fine old
+plate, and the wine excellent, for it seems that Mrs. Ogilvy was rich.&nbsp;
+Our talk, too, was pleasant enough; but as soon as I saw the sun decline
+sharply and the shadows to run out long, I rose to take my leave.&nbsp;
+For my mind was now made up to say farewell to Alan; and it was needful
+I should see the trysting wood, and reconnoitre it, by daylight.&nbsp;
+Catriona came with me as far as to the garden gate.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is long till I see you now?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is beyond my judging,&rdquo; I replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;It will
+be long, it may be never.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It may be so,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;And you are sorry?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I bowed my head, looking upon her.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;So am I, at all events,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have
+seen you but a small time, but I put you very high.&nbsp; You are true,
+you are brave; in time I think you will be more of a man yet.&nbsp;
+I will be proud to hear of that.&nbsp; If you should speed worse, if
+it will come to fall as we are afraid - O well! think you have the one
+friend.&nbsp; Long after you are dead and me an old wife, I will be
+telling the bairns about David Balfour, and my tears running.&nbsp;
+I will be telling how we parted, and what I said to you, and did to
+you.&nbsp; <i>God go with you and guide you, prays your little friend:
+</i>so I said - I will be telling them - and here is what I did.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She took up my hand and kissed it.&nbsp; This so surprised my spirits
+that I cried out like one hurt.&nbsp; The colour came strong in her
+face, and she looked at me and nodded.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O yes, Mr. David,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;that is what I think
+of you.&nbsp; The head goes with the lips.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I could read in her face high spirit, and a chivalry like a brave child&rsquo;s;
+not anything besides.&nbsp; She kissed my hand, as she had kissed Prince
+Charlie&rsquo;s, with a higher passion than the common kind of clay
+has any sense of.&nbsp; Nothing before had taught me how deep I was
+her lover, nor how far I had yet to climb to make her think of me in
+such a character.&nbsp; Yet I could tell myself I had advanced some
+way, and that her heart had beat and her blood flowed at thoughts of
+me.<br>
+<br>
+After that honour she had done me I could offer no more trivial civility.&nbsp;
+It was even hard for me to speak; a certain lifting in her voice had
+knocked directly at the door of my own tears.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I praise God for your kindness, dear,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Farewell,
+my little friend!&rdquo; giving her that name which she had given to
+herself; with which I bowed and left her.<br>
+<br>
+My way was down the glen of the Leith River, towards Stockbridge and
+Silvermills.&nbsp; A path led in the foot of it, the water bickered
+and sang in the midst; the sunbeams overhead struck out of the west
+among long shadows and (as the valley turned) made like a new scene
+and a new world of it at every corner.&nbsp; With Catriona behind and
+Alan before me, I was like one lifted up.&nbsp; The place besides, and
+the hour, and the talking of the water, infinitely pleased me; and I
+lingered in my steps and looked before and behind me as I went.&nbsp;
+This was the cause, under Providence, that I spied a little in my rear
+a red head among some bushes.<br>
+<br>
+Anger sprang in my heart, and I turned straight about and walked at
+a stiff pace to where I came from.&nbsp; The path lay close by the bushes
+where I had remarked the head.&nbsp; The cover came to the wayside,
+and as I passed I was all strung up to meet and to resist an onfall.&nbsp;
+No such thing befell, I went by unmeddled with; and at that fear increased
+upon me.&nbsp; It was still day indeed, but the place exceeding solitary.&nbsp;
+If my haunters had let slip that fair occasion I could but judge they
+aimed at something more than David Balfour.&nbsp; The lives of Alan
+and James weighed upon my spirit with the weight of two grown bullocks.<br>
+<br>
+Catriona was yet in the garden walking by herself.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you see me back again.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;With a changed face,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I carry two men&rsquo;s lives besides my own,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;It would be a sin and shame not to walk carefully.&nbsp; I was
+doubtful whether I did right to come here.&nbsp; I would like it ill,
+if it was by that means we were brought to harm.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I could tell you one that would be liking it less, and will like
+little enough to hear you talking at this very same time,&rdquo; she
+cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;What have I done, at all events?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, you I you are not alone,&rdquo; I replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+since I went off I have been dogged again, and I can give you the name
+of him that follows me.&nbsp; It is Neil, son of Duncan, your man or
+your father&rsquo;s.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;To be sure you are mistaken there,&rdquo; she said, with a white
+face.&nbsp; &ldquo;Neil is in Edinburgh on errands from my father.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is what I fear,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;the last of it.&nbsp;
+But for his being in Edinburgh I think I can show you another of that.&nbsp;
+For sure you have some signal, a signal of need, such as would bring
+him to your help, if he was anywhere within the reach of ears and legs?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why, how will you know that?&rdquo; says she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;By means of a magical talisman God gave to me when I was born,
+and the name they call it by is Common-sense,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oblige
+me so far as make your signal, and I will show you the red head of Neil.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+No doubt but I spoke bitter and sharp.&nbsp; My heart was bitter.&nbsp;
+I blamed myself and the girl and hated both of us: her for the vile
+crew that she was come of, myself for my wanton folly to have stuck
+my head in such a byke of wasps.<br>
+<br>
+Catriona set her fingers to her lips and whistled once, with an exceeding
+clear, strong, mounting note, as full as a ploughman&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
+A while we stood silent; and I was about to ask her to repeat the same,
+when I heard the sound of some one bursting through the bushes below
+on the braeside.&nbsp; I pointed in that direction with a smile, and
+presently Neil leaped into the garden.&nbsp; His eyes burned, and he
+had a black knife (as they call it on the Highland side) naked in his
+hand; but, seeing me beside his mistress, stood like a man struck.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He has come to your call,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;judge how near
+he was to Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father&rsquo;s errands.&nbsp;
+Ask himself.&nbsp; If I am to lose my life, or the lives of those that
+hang by me, through the means of your clan, let me go where I have to
+go with my eyes open.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic.&nbsp; Remembering Alan&rsquo;s
+anxious civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for
+bitterness; here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was the hour
+she should have stuck by English.<br>
+<br>
+Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil
+(for all his obsequiousness) was an angry man.<br>
+<br>
+Then she turned to me.&nbsp; &ldquo;He swears it is not,&rdquo; she
+said.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;do you believe the man yourself?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She made a gesture like wringing the hands.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;How will I can know?&rdquo; she cried.<br>
+<br>
+But I must find some means to know,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I cannot
+continue to go dovering round in the black night with two men&rsquo;s
+lives at my girdle!&nbsp; Catriona, try to put yourself in my place,
+as I vow to God I try hard to put myself in yours.&nbsp; This is no
+kind of talk that should ever have fallen between me and you; no kind
+of talk; my heart is sick with it.&nbsp; See, keep him here till two
+of the morning, and I care not.&nbsp; Try him with that.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+They spoke together once more in the Gaelic.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He says he has James More my father&rsquo;s errand,&rdquo; said
+she.&nbsp; She was whiter than ever, and her voice faltered as she said
+it.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is pretty plain now,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and may God forgive
+the wicked!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with the
+same white face.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is a fine business,&rdquo; said I again.&nbsp; &ldquo;Am
+I to fall, then, and those two along with me?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, what am I to do?&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Could I go
+against my father&rsquo;s orders, him in prison, in the danger of his
+life!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But perhaps we go too fast,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;This
+may be a lie too.&nbsp; He may have no right orders; all may be contrived
+by Simon, and your father knowing nothing.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She burst out weeping between the pair of us; and my heart smote me
+hard, for I thought this girl was in a dreadful situation.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;keep him but the one hour; and I&rsquo;ll
+chance it, and may God bless you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She put out her hand to me, &ldquo;I will he needing one good word,&rdquo;
+she sobbed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The full hour, then?&rdquo; said I, keeping her hand in mine.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Three lives of it, my lass!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The full hour!&rdquo; she said, and cried aloud on her Redeemer
+to forgive her.<br>
+<br>
+I thought it no fit place for me, and fled.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XI - THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I lost no time, but down through the valley and by Stockbridge and Silvermills
+as hard as I could stave.&nbsp; It was Alan&rsquo;s tryst to be every
+night between twelve and two &ldquo;in a bit scrog of wood by east of
+Silvermills and by south the south mill-lade.&rdquo;&nbsp; This I found
+easy enough, where it grew on a steep brae, with the mill-lade flowing
+swift and deep along the foot of it; and here I began to walk slower
+and to reflect more reasonably on my employment.&nbsp; I saw I had made
+but a fool&rsquo;s bargain with Catriona.&nbsp; It was not to be supposed
+that Neil was sent alone upon his errand, but perhaps he was the only
+man belonging to James More; in which case I should have done all I
+could to hang Catriona&rsquo;s father, and nothing the least material
+to help myself.&nbsp; To tell the truth, I fancied neither one of these
+ideas.&nbsp; Suppose by holding back Neil, the girl should have helped
+to hang her father, I thought she would never forgive herself this side
+of time.&nbsp; And suppose there were others pursuing me that moment,
+what kind of a gift was I come bringing to Alan? and how would I like
+that?<br>
+<br>
+I was up with the west end of that wood when these two considerations
+struck me like a cudgel.&nbsp; My feet stopped of themselves and my
+heart along with them.&nbsp; &ldquo;What wild game is this that I have
+been playing?&rdquo; thought I; and turned instantly upon my heels to
+go elsewhere.<br>
+<br>
+This brought my face to Silvermills; the path came past the village
+with a crook, but all plainly visible; and, Highland or Lowland, there
+was nobody stirring.&nbsp; Here was my advantage, here was just such
+a conjuncture as Stewart had counselled me to profit by, and I ran by
+the side of the mill-lade, fetched about beyond the east corner of the
+wood, threaded through the midst of it, and returned to the west selvage,
+whence I could again command the path, and yet be myself unseen.&nbsp;
+Again it was all empty, and my heart began to rise.<br>
+<br>
+For more than an hour I sat close in the border of the trees, and no
+hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch.&nbsp; When that
+hour began the sun was already set, but the sky still all golden and
+the daylight clear; before the hour was done it had fallen to be half
+mirk, the images and distances of things were mingled, and observation
+began to be difficult.&nbsp; All that time not a foot of man had come
+east from Silvermills, and the few that had gone west were honest countryfolk
+and their wives upon the road to bed.&nbsp; If I were tracked by the
+most cunning spies in Europe, I judged it was beyond the course of nature
+they could have any jealousy of where I was: and going a little further
+home into the wood I lay down to wait for Alan.<br>
+<br>
+The strain of my attention had been great, for I had watched not the
+path only, but every bush and field within my vision.&nbsp; That was
+now at an end.&nbsp; The moon, which was in her first quarter, glinted
+a little in the wood; all round there was a stillness of the country;
+and as I lay there on my back, the next three or four hours, I had a
+fine occasion to review my conduct.<br>
+<br>
+Two things became plain to me first: that I had no right to go that
+day to Dean, and (having gone there) had now no right to be lying where
+I was.&nbsp; This (where Alan was to come) was just the one wood in
+all broad Scotland that was, by every proper feeling, closed against
+me; I admitted that, and yet stayed on, wondering at myself.&nbsp; I
+thought of the measure with which I had meted to Catriona that same
+night; how I had prated of the two lives I carried, and had thus forced
+her to enjeopardy her father&rsquo;s; and how I was here exposing them
+again, it seemed in wantonness.&nbsp; A good conscience is eight parts
+of courage.&nbsp; No sooner had I lost conceit of my behaviour, than
+I seemed to stand disarmed amidst a throng of terrors.&nbsp; Of a sudden
+I sat up.&nbsp; How if I went now to Prestongrange, caught him (as I
+still easily might) before he slept, and made a full submission?&nbsp;
+Who could blame me?&nbsp; Not Stewart the Writer; I had but to say that
+I was followed, despaired of getting clear, and so gave in.&nbsp; Not
+Catriona: here, too, I had my answer ready; that I could not bear she
+should expose her father.&nbsp; So, in a moment, I could lay all these
+troubles by, which were after all and truly none of mine; swim clear
+of the Appin Murder; get forth out of hand-stroke of all the Stewarts
+and Campbells, all the Whigs and Tories, in the land; and live henceforth
+to my own mind, and be able to enjoy and to improve my fortunes, and
+devote some hours of my youth to courting Catriona, which would be surely
+a more suitable occupation than to hide and run and be followed like
+a hunted thief, and begin over again the dreadful miseries of my escape
+with Alan.<br>
+<br>
+At first I thought no shame of this capitulation; I was only amazed
+I had not thought upon the thing and done it earlier; and began to inquire
+into the causes of the change.&nbsp; These I traced to my lowness of
+spirits, that back to my late recklessness, and that again to the common,
+old, public, disconsidered sin of self-indulgence.&nbsp; Instantly the
+text came in my head, &ldquo;<i>How</i> <i>can Satan</i> <i>cast out
+Satan</i>?&rdquo;&nbsp; What? (I thought) I had, by self-indulgence;
+and the following of pleasant paths, and the lure of a young maid, cast
+myself wholly out of conceit with my own character, and jeopardised
+the lives of James and Alan?&nbsp; And I was to seek the way out by
+the same road as I had entered in?&nbsp; No; the hurt that had been
+caused by self-indulgence must be cured by self-denial; the flesh I
+had pampered must be crucified.&nbsp; I looked about me for that course
+which I least liked to follow: this was to leave the wood without waiting
+to see Alan, and go forth again alone, in the dark and in the midst
+of my perplexed and dangerous fortunes.<br>
+<br>
+I have been the more careful to narrate this passage of my reflections,
+because I think it is of some utility, and may serve as an example to
+young men.&nbsp; But there is reason (they say) in planting kale, and
+even in ethic and religion, room for common sense.&nbsp; It was already
+close on Alan&rsquo;s hour, and the moon was down.&nbsp; If I left (as
+I could not very decently whistle to my spies to follow me) they might
+miss me in the dark and tack themselves to Alan by mistake.&nbsp; If
+I stayed, I could at the least of it set my friend upon his guard which
+might prove his mere salvation.&nbsp; I had adventured other peoples&rsquo;
+safety in a course of self-indulgence; to have endangered them again,
+and now on a mere design of penance, would have been scarce rational.&nbsp;
+Accordingly, I had scarce risen from my place ere I sat down again,
+but already in a different frame of spirits, and equally marvelling
+at my past weakness and rejoicing in my present composure.<br>
+<br>
+Presently after came a crackling in the thicket.&nbsp; Putting my mouth
+near down to the ground, I whistled a note or two, of Alan&rsquo;s air;
+an answer came in the like guarded tone, and soon we had knocked together
+in the dark.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is this you at last, Davie?&rdquo; he whispered.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Just myself,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;God, man, but I&rsquo;ve been wearying to see ye!&rdquo; says
+he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had the longest kind of a time.&nbsp; A&rsquo;
+day, I&rsquo;ve had my dwelling into the inside of a stack of hay, where
+I couldnae see the nebs of my ten fingers; and then two hours of it
+waiting here for you, and you never coming!&nbsp; Dod, and ye&rsquo;re
+none too soon the way it is, with me to sail the morn!&nbsp; The morn?
+what am I saying? - the day, I mean.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, Alan, man, the day, sure enough,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+past twelve now, surely, and ye sail the day.&nbsp; This&rsquo;ll be
+a long road you have before you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have a long crack of it first,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, indeed, and I have a good deal it will be telling you to
+hear,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+And I told him what behooved, making rather a jumble of it, but clear
+enough when done.&nbsp; He heard me out with very few questions, laughing
+here and there like a man delighted: and the sound of his laughing (above
+all there, in the dark, where neither one of us could see the other)
+was extraordinary friendly to my heart.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, Davie, ye&rsquo;re a queer character,&rdquo; says he, when
+I had done: &ldquo;a queer bitch after a&rsquo;, and I have no mind
+of meeting with the like of ye.&nbsp; As for your story, Prestongrange
+is a Whig like yoursel&rsquo;, so I&rsquo;ll say the less of him; and,
+dod! I believe he was the best friend ye had, if ye could only trust
+him.&nbsp; But Simon Fraser and James More are my ain kind of cattle,
+and I&rsquo;ll give them the name that they deserve.&nbsp; The muckle
+black deil was father to the Frasers, a&rsquo;body kens that; and as
+for the Gregara, I never could abye the reek of them since I could stotter
+on two feet.&nbsp; I bloodied the nose of one, I mind, when I was still
+so wambly on my legs that I cowped upon the top of him.&nbsp; A proud
+man was my father that day, God rest him! and I think he had the cause.&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;ll never can deny but what Robin was something of a piper,&rdquo;
+he added; &ldquo;but as for James More, the deil guide him for me!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;One thing we have to consider,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Was
+Charles Stewart right or wrong?&nbsp; Is it only me they&rsquo;re after,
+or the pair of us?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what&rsquo;s your ain opinion, you that&rsquo;s a man of
+so much experience?&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It passes me,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And me too,&rdquo; says Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;Do ye think this lass
+would keep her word to ye?&rdquo; he asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do that,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, there&rsquo;s nae telling,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+anyway, that&rsquo;s over and done: he&rsquo;ll be joined to the rest
+of them lang syne.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;How many would ye think there would be of them?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That depends,&rdquo; said Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;If it was only you,
+they would likely send two-three lively, brisk young birkies, and if
+they thought that I was to appear in the employ, I daresay ten or twelve,&rdquo;
+said he.<br>
+<br>
+It was no use, I gave a little crack of laughter.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I think your own two eyes will have seen me drive that number,
+or the double of it, nearer hand!&rdquo; cries he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It matters the less,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;because I am well
+rid of them for this time.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Nae doubt that&rsquo;s your opinion,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;but
+I wouldnae be the least surprised if they were hunkering this wood.&nbsp;
+Ye see, David man; they&rsquo;ll be Hieland folk.&nbsp; There&rsquo;ll
+be some Frasers, I&rsquo;m thinking, and some of the Gregara; and I
+would never deny but what the both of them, and the Gregara in especial,
+were clever experienced persons.&nbsp; A man kens little till he&rsquo;s
+driven a spreagh of neat cattle (say) ten miles through a throng lowland
+country and the black soldiers maybe at his tail.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s there
+that I learned a great part of my penetration.&nbsp; And ye need nae
+tell me: it&rsquo;s better than war; which is the next best, however,
+though generally rather a bauchle of a business.&nbsp; Now the Gregara
+have had grand practice.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No doubt that&rsquo;s a branch of education that was left out
+with me,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly,&rdquo; said
+Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s the strange thing about you folk
+of the college learning: ye&rsquo;re ignorat, and ye cannae see &rsquo;t.&nbsp;
+Wae&rsquo;s me for my Greek and Hebrew; but, man, I ken that I dinnae
+ken them - there&rsquo;s the differ of it.&nbsp; Now, here&rsquo;s you.&nbsp;
+Ye lie on your wame a bittie in the bield of this wood, and ye tell
+me that ye&rsquo;ve cuist off these Frasers and Macgregors.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp;
+<i>Because I couldnae see them</i>, says you.&nbsp; Ye blockhead, that&rsquo;s
+their livelihood.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Take the worst of it,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and what are we to
+do?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am thinking of that same,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;We might
+twine.&nbsp; It wouldnae be greatly to my taste; and forbye that, I
+see reasons against it.&nbsp; First, it&rsquo;s now unco dark, and it&rsquo;s
+just humanly possible we might give them the clean slip.&nbsp; If we
+keep together, we make but the ae line of it; if we gang separate, we
+make twae of them: the more likelihood to stave in upon some of these
+gentry of yours.&nbsp; And then, second, if they keep the track of us,
+it may come to a fecht for it yet, Davie; and then, I&rsquo;ll confess
+I would be blythe to have you at my oxter, and I think you would be
+none the worse of having me at yours.&nbsp; So, by my way of it, we
+should creep out of this wood no further gone than just the inside of
+next minute, and hold away east for Gillane, where I&rsquo;m to find
+my ship.&nbsp; It&rsquo;ll be like old days while it lasts, Davie; and
+(come the time) we&rsquo;ll have to think what you should be doing.&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;m wae to leave ye here, wanting me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Have with ye, then!&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Do ye gang back
+where you were stopping?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Deil a fear!&rdquo; said Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;They were good folks
+to me, but I think they would be a good deal disappointed if they saw
+my bonny face again.&nbsp; For (the way times go) I amnae just what
+ye could call a Walcome Guest.&nbsp; Which makes me the keener for your
+company, Mr. David Balfour of the Shaws, and set ye up!&nbsp; For, leave
+aside twa cracks here in the wood with Charlie Stewart, I have scarce
+said black or white since the day we parted at Corstorphine.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+With which he rose from his place, and we began to move quietly eastward
+through the wood.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XII - ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+It was likely between one and two; the moon (as I have said) was down;
+a strongish wind, carrying a heavy wrack of cloud, had set in suddenly
+from the west; and we began our movement in as black a night as ever
+a fugitive or a murderer wanted.&nbsp; The whiteness of the path guided
+us into the sleeping town of Broughton, thence through Picardy, and
+beside my old acquaintance the gibbet of the two thieves.&nbsp; A little
+beyond we made a useful beacon, which was a light in an upper window
+of Lochend.&nbsp; Steering by this, but a good deal at random, and with
+some trampling of the harvest, and stumbling and falling down upon the
+banks, we made our way across country, and won forth at last upon the
+linky, boggy muirland that they call the Figgate Whins.&nbsp; Here,
+under a bush of whin, we lay down the remainder of that night and slumbered.<br>
+<br>
+The day called us about five.&nbsp; A beautiful morning it was, the
+high westerly wind still blowing strong, but the clouds all blown away
+to Europe.&nbsp; Alan was already sitting up and smiling to himself.&nbsp;
+It was my first sight of my friend since we were parted, and I looked
+upon him with enjoyment.&nbsp; He had still the same big great-coat
+on his back; but (what was new) he had now a pair of knitted boot-hose
+drawn above the knee.&nbsp; Doubtless these were intended for disguise;
+but, as the day promised to be warm, he made a most unseasonable figure.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, Davie,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;is this no a bonny morning?&nbsp;
+Here is a day that looks the way that a day ought to.&nbsp; This is
+a great change of it from the belly of my haystack; and while you were
+there sottering and sleeping I have done a thing that maybe I do very
+seldom.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what was that?&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, just said my prayers,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And where are my gentry, as ye call them?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Gude kens,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;and the short and the long
+of it is that we must take our chance of them.&nbsp; Up with your foot-soles,
+Davie!&nbsp; Forth, Fortune, once again of it!&nbsp; And a bonny walk
+we are like to have.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans
+were smoking in by the Esk mouth.&nbsp; No doubt there was a by-ordinary
+bonny blink of morning sun on Arthur&rsquo;s Seat and the green Pentlands;
+and the pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I feel like a gomeral,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;to be leaving Scotland
+on a day like this.&nbsp; It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it
+better to stay here and hing.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, but ye wouldnae, Alan,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No, but what France is a good place too,&rdquo; he explained;
+&ldquo;but it&rsquo;s some way no the same.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s brawer
+I believe, but it&rsquo;s no Scotland.&nbsp; I like it fine when I&rsquo;m
+there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and the Scots peat-reek.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s all you have to complain of, Alan, it&rsquo;s
+no such great affair,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And it sets me ill to be complaining, whatever,&rdquo; said he,
+&ldquo;and me but new out of yon deil&rsquo;s haystack.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And so you were unco weary of your haystack?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Weary&rsquo;s nae word for it,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+not just precisely a man that&rsquo;s easily cast down; but I do better
+with caller air and the lift above my head.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m like the
+auld Black Douglas (wasnae&rsquo;t?) that likit better to hear the laverock
+sing than the mouse cheep.&nbsp; And yon place, ye see, Davie - whilk
+was a very suitable place to hide in, as I&rsquo;m free to own - was
+pit mirk from dawn to gloaming.&nbsp; There were days (or nights, for
+how would I tell one from other?) that seemed to me as long as a long
+winter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;How did you know the hour to bide your tryst?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle-dowp
+to eat it by, about eleeven,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;So, when I
+had swallowed a bit, it would he time to be getting to the wood.&nbsp;
+There I lay and wearied for ye sore, Davie,&rdquo; says he, laying his
+hand on my shoulder &ldquo;and guessed when the two hours would be about
+by - unless Charlie Stewart would come and tell me on his watch - and
+then back to the dooms haystack.&nbsp; Na, it was a driech employ, and
+praise the Lord that I have warstled through with it!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What did you do with yourself?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Faith,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;the best I could!&nbsp; Whiles
+I played at the knucklebones.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m an extraordinar good hand
+at the knucklebones, but it&rsquo;s a poor piece of business playing
+with naebody to admire ye.&nbsp; And whiles I would make songs.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What were they about?&rdquo; says I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, about the deer and the heather,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and
+about the ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and
+just about what songs are about in general.&nbsp; And then whiles I
+would make believe I had a set of pipes and I was playing.&nbsp; I played
+some grand springs, and I thought I played them awful bonny; I vow whiles
+that I could hear the squeal of them!&nbsp; But the great affair is
+that it&rsquo;s done with.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all over
+again with more particularity, and extraordinary approval, swearing
+at intervals that I was &ldquo;a queer character of a callant.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;So ye were frich&rsquo;ened of Sim Fraser?&rdquo; he asked once.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;In troth was I!&rdquo; cried I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;So would I have been, Davie,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+that is indeed a driedful man.&nbsp; But it is only proper to give the
+deil his due: and I can tell you he is a most respectable person on
+the field of war.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is he so brave?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Brave!&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;He is as brave as my steel
+sword.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The story of my duel set him beside himself.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;To think of that!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;I showed ye the
+trick in Corrynakiegh too.&nbsp; And three times - three times disarmed!&nbsp;
+It&rsquo;s a disgrace upon my character that learned ye!&nbsp; Here,
+stand up, out with your airn; ye shall walk no step beyond this place
+upon the road till ye can do yoursel&rsquo; and me mair credit.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Alan,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this is midsummer madness.&nbsp;
+Here is no time for fencing lessons.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I cannae well say no to that,&rdquo; he admitted.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+three times, man!&nbsp; And you standing there like a straw bogle and
+rinning to fetch your ain sword like a doggie with a pocket-napkin!&nbsp;
+David, this man Duncansby must be something altogether by-ordinar!&nbsp;
+He maun be extraordinar skilly.&nbsp; If I had the time, I would gang
+straight back and try a turn at him mysel&rsquo;.&nbsp; The man must
+be a provost.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You silly fellow,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you forget it was just
+me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Na,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;but three times!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;When ye ken yourself that I am fair incompetent,&rdquo; I cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, I never heard tell the equal of it,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I promise you the one thing, Alan,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
+next time that we forgather, I&rsquo;ll be better learned.&nbsp; You
+shall not continue to bear the disgrace of a friend that cannot strike.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, the next time!&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;And when will
+that be, I would like to ken?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, Alan, I have had some thoughts of that, too,&rdquo; said
+I; &ldquo;and my plan is this.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s my opinion to be called
+an advocate.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s but a weary trade, Davie,&rdquo; says Alan, &ldquo;and
+rather a blagyard one forby.&nbsp; Ye would be better in a king&rsquo;s
+coat than that.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And no doubt that would be the way to have us meet,&rdquo; cried
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;But as you&rsquo;ll be in King Lewie&rsquo;s coat, and
+I&rsquo;ll be in King Geordie&rsquo;s, we&rsquo;ll have a dainty meeting
+of it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s some sense in that,&rdquo; he admitted<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;An advocate, then, it&rsquo;ll have to be,&rdquo; I continued,
+&ldquo;and I think it a more suitable trade for a gentleman that was
+<i>three times </i>disarmed.&nbsp; But the beauty of the thing is this:
+that one of the best colleges for that kind of learning - and the one
+where my kinsman, Pilrig, made his studies - is the college of Leyden
+in Holland.&nbsp; Now, what say you, Alan?&nbsp; Could not a cadet of
+<i>Royal Ecossais</i> get a furlough, slip over the marches, and call
+in upon a Leyden student?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, and I would think he could!&rdquo; cried he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ye
+see, I stand well in with my colonel, Count Drummond-Melfort; and, what&rsquo;s
+mair to the purpose I have a cousin of mine lieutenant-colonel in a
+regiment of the Scots-Dutch.&nbsp; Naething could be mair proper than
+what I would get a leave to see Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of Halkett&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
+And Lord Melfort, who is a very scienteefic kind of a man, and writes
+books like Caesar, would be doubtless very pleased to have the advantage
+of my observes.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is Lord Meloort an author, then?&rdquo; I asked, for much as
+Alan thought of soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The very same, Davie,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;One would
+think a colonel would have something better to attend to.&nbsp; But
+what can I say that make songs?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;it only remains you should
+give me an address to write you at in France; and as soon as I am got
+to Leyden I will send you mine.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The best will be to write me in the care of my chieftain,&rdquo;
+said he, &ldquo;Charles Stewart, of Ardsheil, Esquire, at the town of
+Melons, in the Isle of France.&nbsp; It might take long, or it might
+take short, but it would aye get to my hands at the last of it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+We had a haddock to our breakfast in Musselburgh, where it amused me
+vastly to hear Alan.&nbsp; His great-coat and boot-hose were extremely
+remarkable this warm morning, and perhaps some hint of an explanation
+had been wise; but Alan went into that matter like a business, or I
+should rather say, like a diversion.&nbsp; He engaged the goodwife of
+the house with some compliments upon the rizzoring of our haddocks;
+and the whole of the rest of our stay held her in talk about a cold
+he had taken on his stomach, gravely relating all manner of symptoms
+and sufferings, and hearing with a vast show of interest all the old
+wives&rsquo; remedies she could supply him with in return.<br>
+<br>
+We left Musselburgh before the first ninepenny coach was due from Edinburgh
+for (as Alan said) that was a rencounter we might very well avoid.&nbsp;
+The wind although still high, was very mild, the sun shone strong, and
+Alan began to suffer in proportion.&nbsp; From Prestonpans he had me
+aside to the field of Gladsmuir, where he exerted himself a great deal
+more than needful to describe the stages of the battle.&nbsp; Thence,
+at his old round pace, we travelled to Cockenzie.&nbsp; Though they
+were building herring-busses there at Mrs. Cadell&rsquo;s, it seemed
+a desert-like, back-going town, about half full of ruined houses; but
+the ale-house was clean, and Alan, who was now in a glowing heat, must
+indulge himself with a bottle of ale, and carry on to the new luckie
+with the old story of the cold upon his stomach, only now the symptoms
+were all different.<br>
+<br>
+I sat listening; and it came in my mind that I had scarce ever heard
+him address three serious words to any woman, but he was always drolling
+and fleering and making a private mock of them, and yet brought to that
+business a remarkable degree of energy and interest.&nbsp; Something
+to this effect I remarked to him, when the good-wife (as chanced) was
+called away.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What do ye want?&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;A man should aye
+put his best foot forrit with the womankind; he should aye give them
+a bit of a story to divert them, the poor lambs!&nbsp; It&rsquo;s what
+ye should learn to attend to, David; ye should get the principles, it&rsquo;s
+like a trade.&nbsp; Now, if this had been a young lassie, or onyways
+bonnie, she would never have heard tell of my stomach, Davie.&nbsp;
+But aince they&rsquo;re too old to be seeking joes, they a&rsquo; set
+up to be apotecaries.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; What do I ken?&nbsp; They&rsquo;ll
+be just the way God made them, I suppose.&nbsp; But I think a man would
+be a gomeral that didnae give his attention to the same.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+And here, the luckie coming back, he turned from me as if with impatience
+to renew their former conversation.&nbsp; The lady had branched some
+while before from Alan&rsquo;s stomach to the case of a goodbrother
+of her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing
+at extraordinary length.&nbsp; Sometimes it was merely dull, sometimes
+both dull and awful, for she talked with unction.&nbsp; The upshot was
+that I fell in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the road,
+and scarce marking what I saw.&nbsp; Presently had any been looking
+they might have seen me to start.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;We pit a fomentation to his feet,&rdquo; the good-wife was saying,
+&ldquo;and a het stane to his wame, and we gied him hyssop and water
+of pennyroyal, and fine, clean balsam of sulphur for the hoast. . .
+&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; says I, cutting very quietly in, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s
+a friend of mine gone by the house.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is that e&rsquo;en sae?&rdquo; replies Alan, as though it were
+a thing of small account.&nbsp; And then, &ldquo;Ye were saying, mem?&rdquo;
+says he; and the wearyful wife went on.<br>
+<br>
+Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she must
+go forth after the change.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Was it him with the red head?&rdquo; asked Alan.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye have it,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What did I tell you in the wood?&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+yet it&rsquo;s strange he should be here too!&nbsp; Was he his lane?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;His lee-lane for what I could see,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Did he gang by?&rdquo; he asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Straight by,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and looked neither to the
+right nor left.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And that&rsquo;s queerer yet,&rdquo; said Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;It
+sticks in my mind, Davie, that we should be stirring.&nbsp; But where
+to? - deil hae&rsquo;t!&nbsp; This is like old days fairly,&rdquo; cries
+he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is one big differ, though,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that now
+we have money in our pockets.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And another big differ, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;that
+now we have dogs at our tail.&nbsp; They&rsquo;re on the scent; they&rsquo;re
+in full cry, David.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a bad business and be damned to
+it.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he sat thinking hard with a look of his that I
+knew well.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m saying, Luckie,&rdquo; says he, when the goodwife returned,
+&ldquo;have ye a back road out of this change house?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She told him there was and where it led to.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Then, sir,&rdquo; says he to me, &ldquo;I think that will be
+the shortest road for us.&nbsp; And here&rsquo;s good-bye to ye, my
+braw woman; and I&rsquo;ll no forget thon of the cinnamon water.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+We went out by way of the woman&rsquo;s kale yard, and up a lane among
+fields.&nbsp; Alan looked sharply to all sides, and seeing we were in
+a little hollow place of the country, out of view of men, sat down.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Now for a council of war, Davie,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+first of all, a bit lesson to ye.&nbsp; Suppose that I had been like
+you, what would yon old wife have minded of the pair of us!&nbsp; Just
+that we had gone out by the back gate.&nbsp; And what does she mind
+now?&nbsp; A fine, canty, friendly, cracky man, that suffered with the
+stomach, poor body! and was real ta&rsquo;en up about the goodbrother.&nbsp;
+O man, David, try and learn to have some kind of intelligence!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll try, Alan,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And now for him of the red head,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;was he
+gaun fast or slow?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Betwixt and between,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No kind of a hurry about the man?&rdquo; he asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Never a sign of it,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Nhm!&rdquo; said Alan, &ldquo;it looks queer.&nbsp; We saw nothing
+of them this morning on the Whins; he&rsquo;s passed us by, he doesnae
+seem to be looking, and yet here he is on our road!&nbsp; Dod, Davie,
+I begin to take a notion.&nbsp; I think it&rsquo;s no you they&rsquo;re
+seeking, I think it&rsquo;s me; and I think they ken fine where they&rsquo;re
+gaun.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;They ken?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think Andie Scougal&rsquo;s sold me - him or his mate wha kent
+some part of the affair - or else Charlie&rsquo;s clerk callant, which
+would be a pity too,&rdquo; says Alan; &ldquo;and if you askit me for
+just my inward private conviction, I think there&rsquo;ll be heads cracked
+on Gillane sands.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Alan,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;if you&rsquo;re at all right there&rsquo;ll
+be folk there and to spare.&nbsp; It&rsquo;ll be small service to crack
+heads.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It would aye be a satisfaction though,&rdquo; says Alan.&nbsp;
+But bide a bit; bide a bit; I&rsquo;m thinking - and thanks to this
+bonny westland wind, I believe I&rsquo;ve still a chance of it.&nbsp;
+It&rsquo;s this way, Davie.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m no trysted with this man
+Scougal till the gloaming comes.&nbsp; <i>But</i>,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;<i>if
+I can get a bit of a wind out of the west I&rsquo;ll be there long or
+that</i>,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;<i>and lie-to for ye behind the Isle
+of Fidra</i>.&nbsp; Now if your gentry kens the place, they ken the
+time forbye.&nbsp; Do ye see me coming, Davie? Thanks to Johnnie Cope
+and other red-coat gomerals, I should ken this country like the back
+of my hand; and if ye&rsquo;re ready for another bit run with Alan Breck,
+we&rsquo;ll can cast back inshore, and come to the seaside again by
+Dirleton.&nbsp; If the ship&rsquo;s there, we&rsquo;ll try and get on
+board of her.&nbsp; If she&rsquo;s no there, I&rsquo;ll just have to
+get back to my weary haystack.&nbsp; But either way of it, I think we
+will leave your gentry whistling on their thumbs.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I believe there&rsquo;s some chance in it,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Have on with ye, Alan!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XIII - GILLANE SANDS<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I did not profit by Alan&rsquo;s pilotage as he had done by his marchings
+under General Cope; for I can scarce tell what way we went.&nbsp; It
+is my excuse that we travelled exceeding fast.&nbsp; Some part we ran,
+some trotted, and the rest walked at a vengeance of a pace.&nbsp; Twice,
+while we were at top speed, we ran against country-folk; but though
+we plumped into the first from round a corner, Alan was as ready as
+a loaded musket.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Has ye seen my horse?&rdquo; he gasped.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Na, man, I haenae seen nae horse the day,&rdquo; replied the
+countryman.<br>
+<br>
+And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling &ldquo;ride
+and tie&rdquo;; that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he had
+gone home to Linton.&nbsp; Not only that, but he expended some breath
+(of which he had not very much left) to curse his own misfortune and
+my stupidity which was said to be its cause.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Them that cannae tell the truth,&rdquo; he observed to myself
+as we went on again, &ldquo;should be aye mindful to leave an honest,
+handy lee behind them.&nbsp; If folk dinnae ken what ye&rsquo;re doing,
+Davie, they&rsquo;re terrible taken up with it; but if they think they
+ken, they care nae mair for it than what I do for pease porridge.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+As we had first made inland, so our road came in the end to lie very
+near due north; the old Kirk of Aberlady for a landmark on the left;
+on the right, the top of the Berwick Law; and it was thus we struck
+the shore again, not far from Dirleton.&nbsp; From north Berwick west
+to Gillane Ness there runs a string of four small islets, Craiglieth,
+the Lamb, Fidra, and Eyebrough, notable by their diversity of size and
+shape.&nbsp; Fidra is the most particular, being a strange grey islet
+of two humps, made the more conspicuous by a piece of ruin; and I mind
+that (as we drew closer to it) by some door or window of these ruins
+the sea peeped through like a man&rsquo;s eye.&nbsp; Under the lee of
+Fidra there is a good anchorage in westerly winds, and there, from a
+far way off, we could see the <i>Thistle </i>riding.<br>
+<br>
+The shore in face of these islets is altogether waste.&nbsp; Here is
+no dwelling of man, and scarce any passage, or at most of vagabond children
+running at their play.&nbsp; Gillane is a small place on the far side
+of the Ness, the folk of Dirleton go to their business in the inland
+fields, and those of North Berwick straight to the sea-fishing from
+their haven; so that few parts of the coast are lonelier.&nbsp; But
+I mind, as we crawled upon our bellies into that multiplicity of heights
+and hollows, keeping a bright eye upon all sides, and our hearts hammering
+at our ribs, there was such a shining of the sun and the sea, such a
+stir of the wind in the bent grass, and such a bustle of down-popping
+rabbits and up-flying gulls, that the desert seemed to me, like a place
+alive.&nbsp; No doubt it was in all ways well chosen for a secret embarcation,
+if the secret had been kept; and even now that it was out, and the place
+watched, we were able to creep unperceived to the front of the sandhills,
+where they look down immediately on the beach and sea.<br>
+<br>
+But here Alan came to a full stop.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Davie,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this is a kittle passage!&nbsp;
+As long as we lie here we&rsquo;re safe; but I&rsquo;m nane sae muckle
+nearer to my ship or the coast of France.&nbsp; And as soon as we stand
+up and signal the brig, it&rsquo;s another matter.&nbsp; For where will
+your gentry be, think ye?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Maybe they&rsquo;re no come yet,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+even if they are, there&rsquo;s one clear matter in our favour.&nbsp;
+They&rsquo;ll be all arranged to take us, that&rsquo;s true.&nbsp; But
+they&rsquo;ll have arranged for our coming from the east and here we
+are upon their west.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; says Alan, &ldquo;I wish we were in some force, and
+this was a battle, we would have bonnily out-manoeuvred them!&nbsp;
+But it isnae, Davit; and the way it is, is a wee thing less inspiring
+to Alan Breck.&nbsp; I swither, Davie.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Time flies, Alan,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I ken that,&rdquo; said Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;I ken naething else,
+as the French folk say.&nbsp; But this is a dreidful case of heids or
+tails.&nbsp; O! if I could but ken where your gentry were!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Alan,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this is no like you.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
+got to be now or never.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is no me, quo&rsquo; he,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+sang Alan, with a queer face betwixt shame and drollery.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Neither you nor me, quo&rsquo; he, neither you nor me.<br>
+Wow, na, Johnnie man! neither you nor me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+And then of a sudden he stood straight up where he was, and with a handkerchief
+flying in his right hand, marched down upon the beach.&nbsp; I stood
+up myself, but lingered behind him, scanning the sand-hills to the east.&nbsp;
+His appearance was at first unremarked: Scougal not expecting him so
+early, and <i>my gentry </i>watching on the other side.&nbsp; Then they
+awoke on board the <i>Thistle, </i>and it seemed they had all in readiness,
+for there was scarce a second&rsquo;s bustle on the deck before we saw
+a skiff put round her stern and begin to pull lively for the coast.&nbsp;
+Almost at the same moment of time, and perhaps half a mile away towards
+Gillane Ness, the figure of a man appeared for a blink upon a sandhill,
+waving with his arms; and though he was gone again in the same flash,
+the gulls in that part continued a little longer to fly wild.<br>
+<br>
+Alan had not seen this, looking straight to seaward at the ship and
+skiff.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It maun be as it will!&rdquo; said he, when I had told him, &ldquo;Weel
+may yon boatie row, or my craig&rsquo;ll have to thole a raxing.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+That part of the beach was long and flat, and excellent walking when
+the tide was down; a little cressy burn flowed over it in one place
+to the sea; and the sandhills ran along the head of it like the rampart
+of a town.&nbsp; No eye of ours could spy what was passing behind there
+in the bents, no hurry of ours could mend the speed of the boat&rsquo;s
+coming: time stood still with us through that uncanny period of waiting.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is one thing I would like to ken,&rdquo; say Alan.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I would like to ken these gentry&rsquo;s orders.&nbsp; We&rsquo;re
+worth four hunner pound the pair of us: how if they took the guns to
+us, Davie!&nbsp; They would get a bonny shot from the top of that lang
+sandy bank.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Morally impossible,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;The point is
+that they can have no guns.&nbsp; This thing has been gone about too
+secret; pistols they may have, but never guns.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I believe ye&rsquo;ll be in the right,&rdquo; says Alan.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;For all which I am wearing a good deal for yon boat.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+And he snapped his fingers and whistled to it like a dog.<br>
+<br>
+It was now perhaps a third of the way in, and we ourselves already hard
+on the margin of the sea, so that the soft sand rose over my shoes.&nbsp;
+There was no more to do whatever but to wait, to look as much as we
+were able at the creeping nearer of the boat, and as little as we could
+manage at the long impenetrable front of the sandhills, over which the
+gulls twinkled and behind which our enemies were doubtless marshalling.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is a fine, bright, caller place to get shot in,&rdquo; says
+Alan suddenly; &ldquo;and, man, I wish that I had your courage!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Alan!&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;what kind of talk is this of it!&nbsp;
+You&rsquo;re just made of courage; it&rsquo;s the character of the man,
+as I could prove myself if there was nobody else.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And you would be the more mistaken,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;What
+makes the differ with me is just my great penetration and knowledge
+of affairs.&nbsp; But for auld, cauld, dour, deadly courage, I am not
+fit to hold a candle to yourself.&nbsp; Look at us two here upon the
+sands.&nbsp; Here am I, fair hotching to be off; here&rsquo;s you (for
+all that I ken) in two minds of it whether you&rsquo;ll no stop.&nbsp;
+Do you think that I could do that, or would?&nbsp; No me!&nbsp; Firstly,
+because I havenae got the courage and wouldnae daur; and secondly, because
+I am a man of so much penetration and would see ye damned first.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s there ye&rsquo;re coming, is it?&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Ah, man Alan, you can wile your old wives, but you never can
+wile me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Remembrance of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have a tryst to keep,&rdquo; I continued.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am
+trysted with your cousin Charlie; I have passed my word.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Braw trysts that you&rsquo;ll can keep,&rdquo; said Alan.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;ll just mistryst aince and for a&rsquo; with the gentry
+in the bents.&nbsp; And what for?&rdquo; he went on with an extreme
+threatening gravity.&nbsp; &ldquo;Just tell me that, my mannie!&nbsp;
+Are ye to be speerited away like Lady Grange?&nbsp; Are they to drive
+a dirk in your inside and bury ye in the bents?&nbsp; Or is it to be
+the other way, and are they to bring ye in with James?&nbsp; Are they
+folk to be trustit?&nbsp; Would ye stick your head in the mouth of Sim
+Fraser and the ither Whigs?&rdquo; he added with extraordinary bitterness.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Alan,&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;they&rsquo;re all rogues and liars,
+and I&rsquo;m with ye there.&nbsp; The more reason there should be one
+decent man in such a land of thieves!&nbsp; My word in passed, and I&rsquo;ll
+stick to it.&nbsp; I said long syne to your kinswoman that I would stumble
+at no risk.&nbsp; Do ye mind of that? - the night Red Colin fell, it
+was.&nbsp; No more I will, then.&nbsp; Here I stop.&nbsp; Prestongrange
+promised me my life: if he&rsquo;s to be mansworn, here I&rsquo;ll have
+to die.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Aweel aweel,&rdquo; said Alan.<br>
+<br>
+All this time we had seen or heard no more of our pursuers.&nbsp; In
+truth we had caught them unawares; their whole party (as I was to learn
+afterwards) had not yet reached the scene; what there was of them was
+spread among the bents towards Gillane.&nbsp; It was quite an affair
+to call them in and bring them over, and the boat was making speed.&nbsp;
+They were besides but cowardly fellows: a mere leash of Highland cattle-thieves,
+of several clans, no gentleman there to be the captain and the more
+they looked at Alan and me upon the beach, the less (I must suppose)
+they liked the look of us.<br>
+<br>
+Whoever had betrayed Alan it was not the captain: he was in the skiff
+himself, steering and stirring up his oarsmen, like a man with his heart
+in his employ.&nbsp; Already he was near in, and the boat securing -
+already Alan&rsquo;s face had flamed crimson with the excitement of
+his deliverance, when our friends in the bents, either in their despair
+to see their prey escape them or with some hope of scaring Andie, raised
+suddenly a shrill cry of several voices.<br>
+<br>
+This sound, arising from what appeared to be a quite deserted coast,
+was really very daunting, and the men in the boat held water instantly.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this of it?&rdquo; sings out the captain, for he
+was come within an easy hail.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Freens o&rsquo;mine,&rdquo; says Alan, and began immediately
+to wade forth in the shallow water towards the boat.&nbsp; &ldquo;Davie,&rdquo;
+he said, pausing, &ldquo;Davie, are ye no coming?&nbsp; I am swier to
+leave ye.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Not a hair of me,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He stood part of a second where he was to his knees in the salt
+water, hesitating.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar,&rdquo; said he, and swashing
+in deeper than his waist, was hauled into the skiff, which was immediately
+directed for the ship.<br>
+<br>
+I stood where he had left me, with my hands behind my back; Alan sat
+with his head turned watching me; and the boat drew smoothly away.&nbsp;
+Of a sudden I came the nearest hand to shedding tears, and seemed to
+myself the most deserted solitary lad in Scotland.&nbsp; With that I
+turned my back upon the sea and faced the sandhills.&nbsp; There was
+no sight or sound of man; the sun shone on the wet sand and the dry,
+the wind blew in the bents, the gulls made a dreary piping.&nbsp; As
+I passed higher up the beach, the sand-lice were hopping nimbly about
+the stranded tangles.&nbsp; The devil any other sight or sound in that
+unchancy place.&nbsp; And yet I knew there were folk there, observing
+me, upon some secret purpose.&nbsp; They were no soldiers, or they would
+have fallen on and taken us ere now; doubtless they were some common
+rogues hired for my undoing, perhaps to kidnap, perhaps to murder me
+outright.&nbsp; From the position of those engaged, the first was the
+more likely; from what I knew of their character and ardency in this
+business, I thought the second very possible; and the blood ran cold
+about my heart.<br>
+<br>
+I had a mad idea to loosen my sword in the scabbard; for though I was
+very unfit to stand up like a gentleman blade to blade, I thought I
+could do some scathe in a random combat.&nbsp; But I perceived in time
+the folly of resistance.&nbsp; This was no doubt the joint &ldquo;expedient&rdquo;
+on which Prestongrange and Fraser were agreed.&nbsp; The first, I was
+very sure, had done something to secure my life; the second was pretty
+likely to have slipped in some contrary hints into the ears of Neil
+and his companions; and it I were to show bare steel I might play straight
+into the hands of my worst enemy and seal my own doom.<br>
+<br>
+These thoughts brought me to the head of the beach.&nbsp; I cast a look
+behind, the boat was nearing the brig, and Alan flew his handkerchief
+for a farewell, which I replied to with the waving of my hand.&nbsp;
+But Alan himself was shrunk to a small thing in my view, alongside of
+this pass that lay in front of me.&nbsp; I set my hat hard on my head,
+clenched my teeth, and went right before me up the face of the sand-wreath.&nbsp;
+It made a hard climb, being steep, and the sand like water underfoot.&nbsp;
+But I caught hold at last by the long bent-grass on the brae-top, and
+pulled myself to a good footing.&nbsp; The same moment men stirred and
+stood up here and there, six or seven of them, ragged-like knaves, each
+with a dagger in his hand.&nbsp; The fair truth is, I shut my eyes and
+prayed.&nbsp; When I opened them again, the rogues were crept the least
+thing nearer without speech or hurry.&nbsp; Every eye was upon mine,
+which struck me with a strange sensation of their brightness, and of
+the fear with which they continued to approach me.&nbsp; I held out
+my hands empty; whereupon one asked, with a strong Highland brogue,
+if I surrendered.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Under protest,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;if ye ken what that means,
+which I misdoubt.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+At that word, they came all in upon me like a flight of birds upon a
+carrion, seized me, took my sword, and all the money from my pockets,
+bound me hand and foot with some strong line, and cast me on a tussock
+of bent.&nbsp; There they sat about their captive in a part of a circle
+and gazed upon him silently like something dangerous, perhaps a lion
+or a tiger on the spring.&nbsp; Presently this attention was relaxed.&nbsp;
+They drew nearer together, fell to speech in the Gaelic, and very cynically
+divided my property before my eyes.&nbsp; It was my diversion in this
+time that I could watch from my place the progress of my friend&rsquo;s
+escape.&nbsp; I saw the boat come to the brig and be hoisted in, the
+sails fill, and the ship pass out seaward behind the isles and by North
+Berwick.<br>
+<br>
+In the course of two hours or so, more and more ragged Highlandmen kept
+collecting.&nbsp; Neil among the first, until the party must have numbered
+near a score.&nbsp; With each new arrival there was a fresh bout of
+talk, that sounded like complaints and explanations; but I observed
+one thing, none of those who came late had any share in the division
+of my spoils.&nbsp; The last discussion was very violent and eager,
+so that once I thought they would have quarrelled; on the heels of which
+their company parted, the bulk of them returning westward in a troop,
+and only three, Neil and two others, remaining sentries on the prisoner.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I could name one who would be very ill pleased with your day&rsquo;s
+work, Neil Duncanson,&rdquo; said I, when the rest had moved away.<br>
+<br>
+He assured me in answer I should be tenderly used, for he knew he was
+&ldquo;acquent wi&rsquo; the leddy.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+This was all our talk, nor did any other son of man appear upon that
+portion of the coast until the sun had gone down among the Highland
+mountains, and the gloaming was beginning to grow dark.&nbsp; At which
+hour I was aware of a long, lean, bony-like Lothian man of a very swarthy
+countenance, that came towards us among the bents on a farm horse.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Lads,&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;has ye a paper like this?&rdquo;
+and held up one in his hand.&nbsp; Neil produced a second, which the
+newcomer studied through a pair of horn spectacles, and saying all was
+right and we were the folk he was seeking, immediately dismounted.&nbsp;
+I was then set in his place, my feet tied under the horse&rsquo;s belly,
+and we set forth under the guidance of the Lowlander.&nbsp; His path
+must have been very well chosen, for we met but one pair - a pair of
+lovers - the whole way, and these, perhaps taking us to be free-traders,
+fled on our approach.&nbsp; We were at one time close at the foot of
+Berwick Law on the south side; at another, as we passed over some open
+hills, I spied the lights of a clachan and the old tower of a church
+among some trees not far off, but too far to cry for help, if I had
+dreamed of it.&nbsp; At last we came again within sound of the sea.&nbsp;
+There was moonlight, though not much; and by this I could see the three
+huge towers and broken battlements of Tantallon, that old chief place
+of the Red Douglases.&nbsp; The horse was picketed in the bottom of
+the ditch to graze, and I was led within, and forth into the court,
+and thence into the tumble-down stone hall.&nbsp; Here my conductors
+built a brisk fire in the midst of the pavement, for there was a chill
+in the night.&nbsp; My hands were loosed, I was set by the wall in the
+inner end, and (the Lowlander having produced provisions) I was given
+oatmeal bread and a pitcher of French brandy.&nbsp; This done, I was
+left once more alone with my three Highlandmen.&nbsp; They sat close
+by the fire drinking and talking; the wind blew in by the breaches,
+cast about the smoke and flames, and sang in the tops of the towers;
+I could hear the sea under the cliffs, and, my mind being reassured
+as to my life, and my body and spirits wearied with the day&rsquo;s
+employment, I turned upon one side and slumbered.<br>
+<br>
+I had no means of guessing at what hour I was wakened, only the moon
+was down and the fire was low.&nbsp; My feet were now loosed, and I
+was carried through the ruins and down the cliff-side by a precipitous
+path to where I found a fisher&rsquo;s boat in a haven of the rocks.&nbsp;
+This I was had on board of, and we began to put forth from the shore
+in a fine starlight<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XIV - THE BASS<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I had no thought where they were taking me; only looked here and there
+for the appearance of a ship; and there ran the while in my head a word
+of Ransome&rsquo;s - the<i> twenty-pounders.&nbsp; </i>If I were to
+be exposed a second time to that same former danger of the plantations,
+I judged it must turn ill with me; there was no second Alan; and no
+second shipwreck and spare yard to be expected now; and I saw myself
+hoe tobacco under the whip&rsquo;s lash.&nbsp; The thought chilled me;
+the air was sharp upon the water, the stretchers of the boat drenched
+with a cold dew: and I shivered in my place beside the steersman.&nbsp;
+This was the dark man whom I have called hitherto the Lowlander; his
+name was Dale, ordinarily called Black Andie.&nbsp; Feeling the thrill
+of my shiver, he very kindly handed me a rough jacket full of fish-scales,
+with which I was glad to cover myself.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I thank you for this kindness,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and will
+make so free as to repay it with a warning.&nbsp; You take a high responsibility
+in this affair.&nbsp; You are not like these ignorant, barbarous Highlanders,
+but know what the law is and the risks of those that break it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am no just exactly what ye would ca&rsquo; an extremist for
+the law,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;at the best of times; but in this business
+I act with a good warranty.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What are you going to do with me?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Nae harm,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;nae harm ava&rsquo;.&nbsp; Ye&rsquo;ll
+have strong freens, I&rsquo;m thinking.&nbsp; Ye&rsquo;ll be richt eneuch
+yet.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+There began to fall a greyness on the face of the sea; little dabs of
+pink and red, like coals of slow fire, came in the east; and at the
+same time the geese awakened, and began crying about the top of the
+Bass.&nbsp; It is just the one crag of rock, as everybody knows, but
+great enough to carve a city from.&nbsp; The sea was extremely little,
+but there went a hollow plowter round the base of it.&nbsp; With the
+growing of the dawn I could see it clearer and clearer; the straight
+crags painted with sea-birds&rsquo; droppings like a morning frost,
+the sloping top of it green with grass, the clan of white geese that
+cried about the sides, and the black, broken buildings of the prison
+sitting close on the sea&rsquo;s edge.<br>
+<br>
+At the sight the truth came in upon me in a clap.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s there you&rsquo;re taking me!&rdquo; I cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Just to the Bass, mannie,&rdquo; said he: &ldquo;Whaur the auld
+saints were afore ye, and I misdoubt if ye have come so fairly by your
+preeson.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But none dwells there now,&rdquo; I cried; &ldquo;the place is
+long a ruin.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be the mair pleisand a change for the solan geese,
+then,&rdquo; quoth Andie dryly.<br>
+<br>
+The day coming slowly brighter I observed on the bilge, among the big
+stones with which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs and baskets,
+and a provision of fuel.&nbsp; All these were discharged upon the crag.&nbsp;
+Andie, myself, and my three Highlanders (I call them mine, although
+it was the other way about), landed along with them.&nbsp; The sun was
+not yet up when the boat moved away again, the noise of the oars on
+the thole-pins echoing from the cliffs, and left us in our singular
+reclusion:<br>
+<br>
+Andie Dale was the Prefect (as I would jocularly call him) of the Bass,
+being at once the shepherd and the gamekeeper of that small and rich
+estate.&nbsp; He had to mind the dozen or so of sheep that fed and fattened
+on the grass of the sloping part of it, like beasts grazing the roof
+of a cathedral.&nbsp; He had charge besides of the solan geese that
+roosted in the crags; and from these an extraordinary income is derived.&nbsp;
+The young are dainty eating, as much as two shillings a-piece being
+a common price, and paid willingly by epicures; even the grown birds
+are valuable for their oil and feathers; and a part of the minister&rsquo;s
+stipend of North Berwick is paid to this day in solan geese, which makes
+it (in some folks&rsquo; eyes) a parish to be coveted.&nbsp; To perform
+these several businesses, as well as to protect the geese from poachers,
+Andie had frequent occasion to sleep and pass days together on the crag;
+and we found the man at home there like a farmer in his steading.&nbsp;
+Bidding us all shoulder some of the packages, a matter in which I made
+haste to bear a hand, he led us in by a looked gate, which was the only
+admission to the island, and through the ruins of the fortress, to the
+governor&rsquo;s house.&nbsp; There we saw by the ashes in the chimney
+and a standing bed-place in one corner, that he made his usual occupation.<br>
+<br>
+This bed he now offered me to use, saying he supposed I would set up
+to be gentry.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My gentrice has nothing to do with where I lie,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I bless God I have lain hard ere now, and can do the same again
+with thankfulness.&nbsp; While I am here, Mr. Andie, if that be your
+name, I will do my part and take my place beside the rest of you; and
+I ask you on the other hand to spare me your mockery, which I own I
+like ill.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He grumbled a little at this speech, but seemed upon reflection to approve
+it.&nbsp; Indeed, he was a long-headed, sensible man, and a good Whig
+and Presbyterian; read daily in a pocket Bible, and was both able and
+eager to converse seriously on religion, leaning more than a little
+towards the Cameronian extremes.&nbsp; His morals were of a more doubtful
+colour.&nbsp; I found he was deep in the free trade, and used the rains
+of Tantallon for a magazine of smuggled merchandise.&nbsp; As for a
+gauger, I do not believe he valued the life of one at half-a-farthing.&nbsp;
+But that part of the coast of Lothian is to this day as wild a place,
+and the commons there as rough a crew, as any in Scotland.<br>
+<br>
+One incident of my imprisonment is made memorable by a consequence it
+had long after.&nbsp; There was a warship at this time stationed in
+the Firth, the <i>Seahorse</i>, Captain Palliser.&nbsp; It chanced she
+was cruising in the month of September, plying between Fife and Lothian,
+and sounding for sunk dangers.&nbsp; Early one fine morning she was
+seen about two miles to east of us, where she lowered a boat, and seemed
+to examine the Wildfire Rocks and Satan&rsquo;s Bush, famous dangers
+of that coast.&nbsp; And presently after having got her boat again,
+she came before the wind and was headed directly for the Base.&nbsp;
+This was very troublesome to Andie and the Highlanders; the whole business
+of my sequestration was designed for privacy, and here, with a navy
+captain perhaps blundering ashore, it looked to become public enough,
+if it were nothing worse.&nbsp; I was in a minority of one, I am no
+Alan to fall upon so many, and I was far from sure that a warship was
+the least likely to improve my condition.&nbsp; All which considered,
+I gave Andie my parole of good behaviour and obedience, and was had
+briskly to the summit of the rock, where we all lay down, at the cliff&rsquo;s
+edge, in different places of observation and concealment.&nbsp; The<i>
+Seahorse </i>came straight on till I thought she would have struck,
+and we (looking giddily down) could see the ship&rsquo;s company at
+their quarters and hear the leadsman singing at the lead.&nbsp; Then
+she suddenly wore and let fly a volley of I know not how many great
+guns.&nbsp; The rock was shaken with the thunder of the sound, the smoke
+flowed over our heads, and the geese rose in number beyond computation
+or belief.&nbsp; To hear their screaming and to see the twinkling of
+their wings, made a most inimitable curiosity; and I suppose it was
+after this somewhat childish pleasure that Captain Palliser had come
+so near the Bass.&nbsp; He was to pay dear for it in time.&nbsp; During
+his approach I had the opportunity to make a remark upon the rigging
+of that ship by which I ever after knew it miles away; and this was
+a means (under Providence) of my averting from a friend a great calamity,
+and inflicting on Captain Palliser himself a sensible disappointment.<br>
+<br>
+All the time of my stay on the rock we lived well.&nbsp; We had small
+ale and brandy, and oatmeal, of which we made our porridge night and
+morning.&nbsp; At times a boat came from the Castleton and brought us
+a quarter of mutton, for the sheep upon the rock we must not touch,
+these being specially fed to market.&nbsp; The geese were unfortunately
+out of season, and we let them be.&nbsp; We fished ourselves, and yet
+more often made the geese to fish for us: observing one when he had
+made a capture and searing him from his prey ere he had swallowed it.<br>
+<br>
+The strange nature of this place, and the curiosities with which it
+abounded, held me busy and amused.&nbsp; Escape being impossible, I
+was allowed my entire liberty, and continually explored the surface
+of the isle wherever it might support the foot of man.&nbsp; The old
+garden of the prison was still to be observed, with flowers and pot-herbs
+running wild, and some ripe cherries on a bush.&nbsp; A little lower
+stood a chapel or a hermit&rsquo;s cell; who built or dwelt in it, none
+may know, and the thought of its age made a ground of many meditations.&nbsp;
+The prison, too, where I now bivouacked with Highland cattle-thieves,
+was a place full of history, both human and divine.&nbsp; I thought
+it strange so many saints and martyrs should have gone by there so recently,
+and left not so much as a leaf out of their Bibles, or a name carved
+upon the wall, while the rough soldier lads that mounted guard upon
+the battlements had filled the neighbourhood with their mementoes -
+broken tobacco-pipes for the most part, and that in a surprising plenty,
+but also metal buttons from their coats.&nbsp; There were times when
+I thought I could have heard the pious sound of psalms out of the martyr&rsquo;s
+dungeons, and seen the soldiers tramp the ramparts with their glinting
+pipes, and the dawn rising behind them out of the North Sea.<br>
+<br>
+No doubt it was a good deal Andie and his tales that put these fancies
+in my head.&nbsp; He was extraordinarily well acquainted with the story
+of the rock in all particulars, down to the names of private soldiers,
+his father having served there in that same capacity.&nbsp; He was gifted
+besides with a natural genius for narration, so that the people seemed
+to speak and the things to be done before your face.&nbsp; This gift
+of his and my assiduity to listen brought us the more close together.&nbsp;
+I could not honestly deny but what I liked him; I soon saw that he liked
+me; and indeed, from the first I had set myself out to capture his good-will.&nbsp;
+An odd circumstance (to be told presently) effected this beyond my expectation;
+but even in early days we made a friendly pair to be a prisoner and
+his gaoler.<br>
+<br>
+I should trifle with my conscience if I pretended my stay upon the Bass
+was wholly disagreeable.&nbsp; It seemed to me a safe place, as though
+I was escaped there out of my troubles.&nbsp; No harm was to be offered
+me; a material impossibility, rock and the deep sea, prevented me from
+fresh attempts; I felt I had my life safe and my honour safe, and there
+were times when I allowed myself to gloat on them like stolen waters.&nbsp;
+At other times my thoughts were very different, I recalled how strong
+I had expressed myself both to Rankeillor and to Stewart; I reflected
+that my captivity upon the Bass, in view of a great part of the coasts
+of Fife and Lothian, was a thing I should be thought more likely to
+have invented than endured; and in the eyes of these two gentlemen,
+at least, I must pass for a boaster and a coward.&nbsp; Now I would
+take this lightly enough; tell myself that so long as I stood well with
+Catriona Drummond, the opinion of the rest of man was but moonshine
+and spilled water; and thence pass off into those meditations of a lover
+which are so delightful to himself and must always appear so surprisingly
+idle to a reader.&nbsp; But anon the fear would take me otherwise; I
+would be shaken with a perfect panic of self-esteem, and these supposed
+hard judgments appear an injustice impossible to be supported.&nbsp;
+With that another train of thought would he presented, and I had scarce
+begun to be concerned about men&rsquo;s judgments of myself, than I
+was haunted with the remembrance of James Stewart in his dungeon and
+the lamentations of his wife.&nbsp; Then, indeed, passion began to work
+in me; I could not forgive myself to sit there idle: it seemed (if I
+were a man at all) that I could fly or swim out of my place of safety;
+and it was in such humours and to amuse my self-reproaches that I would
+set the more particularly to win the good side of Andie Dale.<br>
+<br>
+At last, when we two were alone on the summit of the rock on a bright
+morning, I put in some hint about a bribe.&nbsp; He looked at me, cast
+back his head, and laughed out loud.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, you&rsquo;re funny, Mr. Dale,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but perhaps
+if you&rsquo;ll glance an eye upon that paper you may change your note.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The stupid Highlanders had taken from me at the time of my seizure nothing
+but hard money, and the paper I now showed Andie was an acknowledgment
+from the British Linen Company for a considerable sum.<br>
+<br>
+He read it.&nbsp; &ldquo;Troth, and ye&rsquo;re nane sae ill aff,&rdquo;
+said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I thought that would maybe vary your opinions,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Hout!&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;It shows me ye can bribe;
+but I&rsquo;m no to be bribit.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll see about that yet a while,&rdquo; says I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And first, I&rsquo;ll show you that I know what I am talking.&nbsp;
+You have orders to detain me here till after Thursday, 21st September.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye&rsquo;re no a&rsquo;thegether wrong either,&rdquo; says Andie.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m to let you gang, bar orders contrair, on Saturday,
+the 23rd.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I could not but feel there was something extremely insidious in this
+arrangement.&nbsp; That I was to re-appear precisely in time to be too
+late would cast the more discredit on my tale, if I were minded to tell
+one; and this screwed me to fighting point.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Now then, Andie, you that kens the world, listen to me, and think
+while ye listen,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I know there are great
+folks in the business, and I make no doubt you have their names to go
+upon.&nbsp; I have seen some of them myself since this affair began,
+and said my say into their faces too.&nbsp; But what kind of a crime
+would this be that I had committed? or what kind of a process is this
+that I am fallen under?&nbsp; To be apprehended by some ragged John-Hielandman
+on August 30th, carried to a rickle of old stones that is now neither
+fort nor gaol (whatever it once was) but just the gamekeeper&rsquo;s
+lodge of the Bass Rock, and set free again, September 23rd, as secretly
+as I was first arrested - does that sound like law to you? or does it
+sound like justice? or does it not sound honestly like a piece of some
+low dirty intrigue, of which the very folk that meddle with it are ashamed?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I canna gainsay ye, Shaws.&nbsp; It looks unco underhand,&rdquo;
+says Andie.&nbsp; &ldquo;And werenae the folk guid sound Whigs and true-blue
+Presbyterians I would has seen them ayont Jordan and Jeroozlem or I
+would have set hand to it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The Master of Lovat&rsquo;ll be a braw Whig,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;and
+a grand Presbyterian.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I ken naething by him,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I hae nae
+trokings wi&rsquo; Lovats.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No, it&rsquo;ll be Prestongrange that you&rsquo;ll be dealing
+with,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, but I&rsquo;ll no tell ye that,&rdquo; said Andie.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Little need when I ken,&rdquo; was my retort.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s just the ae thing ye can be fairly sure of, Shaws,&rdquo;
+says Andie.&nbsp; &ldquo;And that is that (try as ye please) I&rsquo;m
+no dealing wi&rsquo; yoursel&rsquo;; nor yet I amnae goin&rsquo; to,&rdquo;
+he added.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, Andie, I see I&rsquo;ll have to be speak out plain with
+you,&rdquo; I replied.&nbsp; And told him so much as I thought needful
+of the facts.<br>
+<br>
+He heard me out with some serious interest, and when I had done, seemed
+to consider a little with himself.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Shaws,&rdquo; said he at last, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll deal with the
+naked hand.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a queer tale, and no very creditable, the
+way you tell it; and I&rsquo;m far frae minting that is other than the
+way that ye believe it.&nbsp; As for yoursel&rsquo;, ye seem to me rather
+a dacent-like young man.&nbsp; But me, that&rsquo;s aulder and mair
+judeecious, see perhaps a wee bit further forrit in the job than what
+ye can dae.&nbsp; And here the maitter clear and plain to ye.&nbsp;
+There&rsquo;ll be nae skaith to yoursel&rsquo; if I keep ye here; far
+free that, I think ye&rsquo;ll be a hantle better by it.&nbsp; There&rsquo;ll
+be nae skaith to the kintry - just ae mair Hielantman hangit - Gude
+kens, a guid riddance!&nbsp; On the ither hand, it would be considerable
+skaith to me if I would let you free.&nbsp; Sae, speakin&rsquo; as a
+guid Whig, an honest freen&rsquo; to you, and an anxious freen&rsquo;
+to my ainsel&rsquo;, the plain fact is that I think ye&rsquo;ll just
+have to bide here wi&rsquo; Andie an&rsquo; the solans.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Andie,&rdquo; said I, laying my hand upon his knee, &ldquo;this
+Hielantman&rsquo;s innocent.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, it&rsquo;s a peety about that,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+ye see, in this warld, the way God made it, we cannae just get a&rsquo;thing
+that we want.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XV - BLACK ANDIE&rsquo;S TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I have yet said little of the Highlanders.&nbsp; They were all three
+of the followers of James More, which bound the accusation very tight
+about their master&rsquo;s neck.&nbsp; All understood a word or two
+of English, but Neil was the only one who judged he had enough of it
+for general converse, in which (when once he got embarked) his company
+was often tempted to the contrary opinion.&nbsp; They were tractable,
+simple creatures; showed much more courtesy than might have been expected
+from their raggedness and their uncouth appearance, and fell spontaneously
+to be like three servants for Andie and myself.<br>
+<br>
+Dwelling in that isolated place, in the old falling ruins of a prison,
+and among endless strange sounds of the sea and the sea-birds, I thought
+I perceived in them early the effects of superstitious fear.&nbsp; When
+there was nothing doing they would either lie and sleep, for which their
+appetite appeared insatiable, or Neil would entertain the others with
+stories which seemed always of a terrifying strain.&nbsp; If neither
+of these delights were within reach - if perhaps two were sleeping and
+the third could find no means to follow their example - I would see
+him sit and listen and look about him in a progression of uneasiness,
+starting, his face blenching, his hands clutched, a man strung like
+a bow.&nbsp; The nature of these fears I had never an occasion to find
+out, but the sight of them was catching, and the nature of the place
+that we were in favourable to alarms.&nbsp; I can find no word for it
+in the English, but Andie had an expression for it in the Scots from
+which he never varied.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; he would say, &ldquo;<i>its an unco place, the Bass</i>.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+It is so I always think of it.&nbsp; It was an unco place by night,
+unco by day; and these were unco sounds, of the calling of the solans,
+and the plash of the sea and the rock echoes, that hung continually
+in our ears.&nbsp; It was chiefly so in moderate weather.&nbsp; When
+the waves were anyway great they roared about the rock like thunder
+and the drums of armies, dreadful but merry to hear; and it was in the
+calm days that a man could daunt himself with listening - not a Highlandman
+only, as I several times experimented on myself, so many still, hollow
+noises haunted and reverberated in the porches of the rock.<br>
+<br>
+This brings me to a story I heard, and a scene I took part in, which
+quite changed our terms of living, and had a great effect on my departure.&nbsp;
+It chanced one night I fell in a muse beside the fire and (that little
+air of Alan&rsquo;s coming back to my memory) began to whistle.&nbsp;
+A hand was laid upon my arm, and the voice of Neil bade me to stop,
+for it was not &ldquo;canny musics.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Not canny?&rdquo; I asked.&nbsp; &ldquo;How can that be?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Na,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;it will be made by a bogle and her
+wanting ta heid upon his body.&rdquo; <a name="citation13"></a><a href="#footnote13">{13}</a><br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;there can be no bogles here, Neil;
+for it&rsquo;s not likely they would fash themselves to frighten geese.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay?&rdquo; says Andie, &ldquo;is that what ye think of it!&nbsp;
+But I&rsquo;ll can tell ye there&rsquo;s been waur nor bogles here.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s waur than bogles, Andie?&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Warlocks,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Or a warlock at the least
+of it.&nbsp; And that&rsquo;s a queer tale, too,&rdquo; he added.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And if ye would like, I&rsquo;ll tell it ye.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+To be sure we were all of the one mind, and even the Highlander that
+had the least English of the three set himself to listen with all his
+might.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+THE TALE OF TOD LAPRAIK<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+MY faither, Tam Dale, peace to his banes, was a wild, sploring lad in
+his young days, wi&rsquo; little wisdom and little grace.&nbsp; He was
+fond of a lass and fond of a glass, and fond of a ran-dan; but I could
+never hear tell that he was muckle use for honest employment.&nbsp;
+Frae ae thing to anither, he listed at last for a sodger and was in
+the garrison of this fort, which was the first way that ony of the Dales
+cam to set foot upon the Bass.&nbsp; Sorrow upon that service!&nbsp;
+The governor brewed his ain ale; it seems it was the warst conceivable.&nbsp;
+The rock was proveesioned free the shore with vivers, the thing was
+ill-guided, and there were whiles when they but to fish and shoot solans
+for their diet.&nbsp; To crown a&rsquo;, thir was the Days of the Persecution.&nbsp;
+The perishin&rsquo; cauld chalmers were all occupeed wi&rsquo; sants
+and martyrs, the saut of the yearth, of which it wasnae worthy.&nbsp;
+And though Tam Dale carried a firelock there, a single sodger, and liked
+a lass and a glass, as I was sayin,&rsquo; the mind of the man was mair
+just than set with his position.&nbsp; He had glints of the glory of
+the kirk; there were whiles when his dander rase to see the Lord&rsquo;s
+sants misguided, and shame covered him that he should be haulding a
+can&rsquo;le (or carrying a firelock) in so black a business.&nbsp;
+There were nights of it when he was here on sentry, the place a&rsquo;
+wheesht, the frosts o&rsquo; winter maybe riving in the wa&rsquo;s,
+and he would hear ane o&rsquo; the prisoners strike up a psalm, and
+the rest join in, and the blessed sounds rising from the different chalmers
+- or dungeons, I would raither say - so that this auld craig in the
+sea was like a pairt of Heev&rsquo;n.&nbsp; Black shame was on his saul;
+his sins hove up before him muckle as the Bass, and above a&rsquo;,
+that chief sin, that he should have a hand in hagging and hashing at
+Christ&rsquo;s Kirk.&nbsp; But the truth is that he resisted the spirit.&nbsp;
+Day cam, there were the rousing compainions, and his guid resolves depairtit.<br>
+<br>
+In thir days, dwalled upon the Bass a man of God, Peden the Prophet
+was his name.&nbsp; Ye&rsquo;ll have heard tell of Prophet Peden.&nbsp;
+There was never the wale of him sinsyne, and it&rsquo;s a question wi&rsquo;
+mony if there ever was his like afore.&nbsp; He was wild&rsquo;s a peat-hag,
+fearsome to look at, fearsome to hear, his face like the day of judgment.&nbsp;
+The voice of him was like a solan&rsquo;s and dinnle&rsquo;d in folks&rsquo;
+lugs, and the words of him like coals of fire.<br>
+<br>
+Now there was a lass on the rock, and I think she had little to do,
+for it was nae place far decent weemen; but it seems she was bonny,
+and her and Tam Dale were very well agreed.&nbsp; It befell that Peden
+was in the gairden his lane at the praying when Tam and the lass cam
+by; and what should the lassie do but mock with laughter at the sant&rsquo;s
+devotions?&nbsp; He rose and lookit at the twa o&rsquo; them, and Tam&rsquo;s
+knees knoitered thegether at the look of him.&nbsp; But whan he spak,
+it was mair in sorrow than in anger.&nbsp; &lsquo;Poor thing, poor thing!&rdquo;
+says he, and it was the lass he lookit at, &ldquo;I hear you skirl and
+laugh,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but the Lord has a deid shot prepared
+for you, and at that surprising judgment ye shall skirl but the ae time!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Shortly thereafter she was daundering on the craigs wi&rsquo; twa-three
+sodgers, and it was a blawy day.&nbsp; There cam a gowst of wind, claught
+her by the coats, and awa&rsquo; wi&rsquo; her bag and baggage.&nbsp;
+And it was remarked by the sodgers that she gied but the ae skirl.<br>
+<br>
+Nae doubt this judgment had some weicht upon Tam Dale; but it passed
+again and him none the better.&nbsp; Ae day he was flyting wi&rsquo;
+anither sodger-lad.&nbsp; &ldquo;Deil hae me!&rdquo; quo&rsquo; Tam,
+for he was a profane swearer.&nbsp; And there was Peden glowering at
+him, gash an&rsquo; waefu&rsquo;; Peden wi&rsquo; his lang chafts an&rsquo;
+luntin&rsquo; een, the maud happed about his kist, and the hand of him
+held out wi&rsquo; the black nails upon the finger-nebs - for he had
+nae care of the body.&nbsp; &ldquo;Fy, fy, poor man!&rdquo; cries he,
+&ldquo;the poor fool man!&nbsp; <i>Deil hae me, </i>quo&rsquo; he; an&rsquo;
+I see the deil at his oxter.&rdquo;&nbsp; The conviction of guilt and
+grace cam in on Tam like the deep sea; he flang doun the pike that was
+in his hands - &ldquo;I will nae mair lift arms against the cause o&rsquo;
+Christ!&rdquo; says he, and was as gude&rsquo;s word.&nbsp; There was
+a sair fyke in the beginning, but the governor, seeing him resolved,
+gied him his discharge, and he went and dwallt and merried in North
+Berwick, and had aye a gude name with honest folk free that day on.<br>
+<br>
+It was in the year seeventeen hunner and sax that the Bass cam in the
+hands o&rsquo; the Da&rsquo;rymples, and there was twa men soucht the
+chairge of it.&nbsp; Baith were weel qualified, for they had baith been
+sodgers in the garrison, and kent the gate to handle solans, and the
+seasons and values of them.&nbsp; Forby that they were baith - or they
+baith seemed - earnest professors and men of comely conversation.&nbsp;
+The first of them was just Tam Dale, my faither.&nbsp; The second was
+ane Lapraik, whom the folk ca&rsquo;d Tod Lapraik maistly, but whether
+for his name or his nature I could never hear tell.&nbsp; Weel, Tam
+gaed to see Lapraik upon this business, and took me, that was a toddlin&rsquo;
+laddie, by the hand.&nbsp; Tod had his dwallin&rsquo; in the lang loan
+benorth the kirkyaird.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a dark uncanny loan, forby that
+the kirk has aye had an ill name since the days o&rsquo; James the Saxt
+and the deevil&rsquo;s cantrips played therein when the Queen was on
+the seas; and as for Tod&rsquo;s house, it was in the mirkest end, and
+was little liked by some that kenned the best.&nbsp; The door was on
+the sneck that day, and me and my faither gaed straucht in.&nbsp; Tod
+was a wabster to his trade; his loom stood in the but.&nbsp; There he
+sat, a muckle fat, white hash of a man like creish, wi&rsquo; a kind
+of a holy smile that gart me scunner.&nbsp; The hand of him aye cawed
+the shuttle, but his een was steeked.&nbsp; We cried to him by his name,
+we skirted in the deid lug of him, we shook him by the shou&rsquo;ther.&nbsp;
+Nae mainner o&rsquo; service!&nbsp; There he sat on his dowp, an&rsquo;
+cawed the shuttle and smiled like creish.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;God be guid to us,&rdquo; says Tam Dale, &ldquo;this is no canny?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He had jimp said the word, when Tod Lapraik cam to himsel&rsquo;.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is this you, Tam?&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Haith, man!&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;m blythe to see ye.&nbsp; I whiles fa&rsquo; into a bit dwam
+like this,&rdquo; he says; &ldquo;its frae the stamach.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Weel, they began to crack about the Bass and which of them twa was to
+get the warding o&rsquo;t, and little by little cam to very ill words,
+and twined in anger.&nbsp; I mind weel that as my faither and me gaed
+hame again, he cam ower and ower the same expression, how little he
+likit Tod Lapraik and his dwams.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Dwam!&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think folk hae brunt for
+dwams like yon.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Aweel, my faither got the Bass and Tod had to go wantin&rsquo;.&nbsp;
+It was remembered sinsyne what way he had ta&rsquo;en the thing.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Tam,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;ye hae gotten the better o&rsquo;
+me aince mair, and I hope,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;ye&rsquo;ll find at
+least a&rsquo; that ye expeckit at the Bass.&rdquo;&nbsp; Which have
+since been thought remarkable expressions.&nbsp; At last the time came
+for Tam Dale to take young solans.&nbsp; This was a business he was
+weel used wi&rsquo;, he had been a craigsman frae a laddie, and trustit
+nane but himsel&rsquo;.&nbsp; So there was he hingin&rsquo; by a line
+an&rsquo; speldering on the craig face, whaur its hieest and steighest.&nbsp;
+Fower tenty lads were on the tap, hauldin&rsquo; the line and mindin&rsquo;
+for his signals.&nbsp; But whaur Tam hung there was naething but the
+craig, and the sea belaw, and the solans skirlin and flying.&nbsp; It
+was a braw spring morn, and Tam whustled as he claught in the young
+geese.&nbsp; Mony&rsquo;s the time I&rsquo;ve heard him tell of this
+experience, and aye the swat ran upon the man.<br>
+<br>
+It chanced, ye see, that Tam keeked up, and he was awaur of a muckle
+solan, and the solan pyking at the line.&nbsp; He thocht this by-ordinar
+and outside the creature&rsquo;s habits.&nbsp; He minded that ropes
+was unco saft things, and the solan&rsquo;s neb and the Bass Rock unco
+hard, and that twa hunner feet were raither mair than he would care
+to fa&rsquo;.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Shoo!&rdquo; says Tam.&nbsp; &ldquo;Awa&rsquo;, bird!&nbsp; Shoo,
+awa&rsquo; wi&rsquo; ye!&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+The solan keekit doon into Tam&rsquo;s face, and there was something
+unco in the creature&rsquo;s ee.&nbsp; Just the ae keek it gied, and
+back to the rope.&nbsp; But now it wroucht and warstl&rsquo;t like a
+thing dementit.&nbsp; There never was the solan made that wroucht as
+that solan wroucht; and it seemed to understand its employ brawly, birzing
+the saft rope between the neb of it and a crunkled jag o&rsquo; stane.<br>
+<br>
+There gaed a cauld stend o&rsquo; fear into Tam&rsquo;s heart.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;This thing is nae bird,&rdquo; thinks he.&nbsp; His een turnt
+backward in his heid and the day gaed black aboot him.&nbsp; &ldquo;If
+I get a dwam here,&rdquo; he toucht, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s by wi&rsquo;
+Tam Dale.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he signalled for the lads to pu&rsquo; him
+up.<br>
+<br>
+And it seemed the solan understood about signals.&nbsp; For nae sooner
+was the signal made than he let be the rope, spried his wings, squawked
+out loud, took a turn flying, and dashed straucht at Tam Dale&rsquo;s
+een.&nbsp; Tam had a knife, he gart the cauld steel glitter.&nbsp; And
+it seemed the solan understood about knives, for nae suner did the steel
+glint in the sun than he gied the ae squawk, but laighter, like a body
+disappointit, and flegged aff about the roundness of the craig, and
+Tam saw him nae mair.&nbsp; And as sune as that thing was gane, Tam&rsquo;s
+heid drapt upon his shouther, and they pu&rsquo;d him up like a deid
+corp, dadding on the craig.<br>
+<br>
+A dram of brandy (which he went never without) broucht him to his mind,
+or what was left of it.&nbsp; Up he sat.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Rin, Geordie, rin to the boat, mak&rsquo; sure of the boat, man
+- rin!&rdquo; he cries, &ldquo;or yon solan&rsquo;ll have it awa&rsquo;,&rdquo;
+says he.<br>
+<br>
+The fower lads stared at ither, an&rsquo; tried to whilly-wha him to
+be quiet.&nbsp; But naething would satisfy Tam Dale, till ane o&rsquo;
+them had startit on aheid to stand sentry on the boat.&nbsp; The ithers
+askit if he was for down again.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Na,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and niether you nor me,&rdquo; says
+he, &ldquo;and as sune as I can win to stand on my twa feet we&rsquo;ll
+be aff frae this craig o&rsquo; Sawtan.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Sure eneuch, nae time was lost, and that was ower muckle; for before
+they won to North Berwick Tam was in a crying fever.&nbsp; He lay a&rsquo;
+the simmer; and wha was sae kind as come speiring for him, but Tod Lapraik!&nbsp;
+Folk thocht afterwards that ilka time Tod cam near the house the fever
+had worsened.&nbsp; I kenna for that; but what I ken the best, that
+was the end of it.<br>
+<br>
+It was about this time o&rsquo; the year; my grandfaither was out at
+the white fishing; and like a bairn, I but to gang wi&rsquo; him.&nbsp;
+We had a grand take, I mind, and the way that the fish lay broucht us
+near in by the Bass, whaur we foregaithered wi&rsquo; anither boat that
+belanged to a man Sandie Fletcher in Castleton.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s no
+lang deid neither, or ye could speir at himsel&rsquo;.&nbsp; Weel, Sandie
+hailed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s yon on the Bass?&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;On the Bass?&rdquo; says grandfaither.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; says Sandie, &ldquo;on the green side o&rsquo;t.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Whatten kind of a thing?&rdquo; says grandfaither.&nbsp; &ldquo;There
+cannae be naething on the Bass but just the sheep.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It looks unco like a body,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; Sandie, who was
+nearer in.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;A body!&rdquo; says we, and we none of us likit that.&nbsp; For
+there was nae boat that could have brought a man, and the key o&rsquo;
+the prison yett hung ower my faither&rsquo;s at hame in the press bed.<br>
+<br>
+We keept the twa boats close for company, and crap in nearer hand.&nbsp;
+Grandfaither had a gless, for he had been a sailor, and the captain
+of a smack, and had lost her on the sands of Tay.&nbsp; And when we
+took the glass to it, sure eneuch there was a man.&nbsp; He was in a
+crunkle o&rsquo; green brae, a wee below the chaipel, a&rsquo; by his
+lee lane, and lowped and flang and danced like a daft quean at a waddin&rsquo;.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s Tod,&rdquo; says grandfather, and passed the gless
+to Sandie.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, it&rsquo;s him,&rdquo; says Sandie.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Or ane in the likeness o&rsquo; him,&rdquo; says grandfaither.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Sma&rsquo; is the differ,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; Sandie.&nbsp; &ldquo;De&rsquo;il
+or warlock, I&rsquo;ll try the gun at him,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; he, and
+broucht up a fowling-piece that he aye carried, for Sandie was a notable
+famous shot in all that country.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Haud your hand, Sandie,&rdquo; says grandfaither; &ldquo;we maun
+see clearer first,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;or this may be a dear day&rsquo;s
+wark to the baith of us.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Hout!&rdquo; says Sandie, &ldquo;this is the Lord&rsquo;s judgment
+surely, and be damned to it,&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Maybe ay, and maybe no,&rdquo; says my grandfaither, worthy man!&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But have you a mind of the Procurator Fiscal, that I think ye&rsquo;ll
+have foregaithered wi&rsquo; before,&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+This was ower true, and Sandie was a wee thing set ajee.&nbsp; &ldquo;Aweel,
+Edie,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and what would be your way of it?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ou, just this,&rdquo; says grandfaither.&nbsp; &ldquo;Let me
+that has the fastest boat gang back to North Berwick, and let you bide
+here and keep an eye on Thon.&nbsp; If I cannae find Lapraik, I&rsquo;ll
+join ye and the twa of us&rsquo;ll have a crack wi&rsquo; him.&nbsp;
+But if Lapraik&rsquo;s at hame, I&rsquo;ll rin up the flag at the harbour,
+and ye can try Thon Thing wi&rsquo; the gun.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Aweel, so it was agreed between them twa.&nbsp; I was just a bairn,
+an&rsquo; clum in Sandie&rsquo;s boat, whaur I thoucht I would see the
+best of the employ.&nbsp; My grandsire gied Sandie a siller tester to
+pit in his gun wi&rsquo; the leid draps, bein mair deidly again bogles.&nbsp;
+And then the as boat set aff for North Berwick, an&rsquo; the tither
+lay whaur it was and watched the wanchancy thing on the brae-side.<br>
+<br>
+A&rsquo; the time we lay there it lowped and flang and capered and span
+like a teetotum, and whiles we could hear it skelloch as it span.&nbsp;
+I hae seen lassies, the daft queans, that would lowp and dance a winter&rsquo;s
+nicht, and still be lowping and dancing when the winter&rsquo;s day
+cam in.&nbsp; But there would be fowk there to hauld them company, and
+the lads to egg them on; and this thing was its lee-lane.&nbsp; And
+there would be a fiddler diddling his elbock in the chimney-side; and
+this thing had nae music but the skirling of the solans.&nbsp; And the
+lassies were bits o&rsquo; young things wi&rsquo; the reid life dinnling
+and stending in their members; and this was a muckle, fat, creishy man,
+and him fa&rsquo;n in the vale o&rsquo; years.&nbsp; Say what ye like,
+I maun say what I believe.&nbsp; It was joy was in the creature&rsquo;s
+heart, the joy o&rsquo; hell, I daursay: joy whatever.&nbsp; Mony a
+time I have askit mysel&rsquo; why witches and warlocks should sell
+their sauls (whilk are their maist dear possessions) and be auld, duddy,
+wrunkl&rsquo;t wives or auld, feckless, doddered men; and then I mind
+upon Tod Lapraik dancing a&rsquo; the hours by his lane in the black
+glory of his heart.&nbsp; Nae doubt they burn for it muckle in hell,
+but they have a grand time here of it, whatever! - and the Lord forgie
+us!<br>
+<br>
+Weel, at the hinder end, we saw the wee flag yirk up to the mast-heid
+upon the harbour rocks.&nbsp; That was a&rsquo; Sandie waited for.&nbsp;
+He up wi&rsquo; the gun, took a deleeberate aim, an&rsquo; pu&rsquo;d
+the trigger.&nbsp; There cam&rsquo; a bang and then ae waefu&rsquo;
+skirl frae the Bass.&nbsp; And there were we rubbin&rsquo; our een and
+lookin&rsquo; at ither like daft folk.&nbsp; For wi&rsquo; the bang
+and the skirl the thing had clean disappeared.&nbsp; The sun glintit,
+the wund blew, and there was the bare yaird whaur the Wonder had been
+lowping and flinging but ae second syne.<br>
+<br>
+The hale way hame I roared and grat wi&rsquo; the terror o&rsquo; that
+dispensation.&nbsp; The grawn folk were nane sae muckle better; there
+was little said in Sandie&rsquo;s boat but just the name of God; and
+when we won in by the pier, the harbour rocks were fair black wi&rsquo;
+the folk waitin&rsquo; us.&nbsp; It seems they had fund Lapraik in ane
+of his dwams, cawing the shuttle and smiling.&nbsp; Ae lad they sent
+to hoist the flag, and the rest abode there in the wabster&rsquo;s house.&nbsp;
+You may be sure they liked it little; but it was a means of grace to
+severals that stood there praying in to themsel&rsquo;s (for nane cared
+to pray out loud) and looking on thon awesome thing as it cawed the
+shuttle.&nbsp; Syne, upon a suddenty, and wi&rsquo; the ae dreidfu&rsquo;
+skelloch, Tod sprang up frae his hinderlands and fell forrit on the
+wab, a bluidy corp.<br>
+<br>
+When the corp was examined the leid draps hadnae played buff upon the
+warlock&rsquo;s body; sorrow a leid drap was to be fund! but there was
+grandfaither&rsquo;s siller tester in the puddock&rsquo;s heart of him.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Andie had scarce done when there befell a mighty silly affair that had
+its consequence.&nbsp; Neil, as I have said, was himself a great narrator.&nbsp;
+I have heard since that he knew all the stories in the Highlands; and
+thought much of himself, and was thought much of by others on the strength
+of it.&nbsp; Now Andie&rsquo;s tale reminded him of one he had already
+heard.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;She would ken that story afore,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; &ldquo;She
+was the story of Uistean More M&rsquo;Gillie Phadrig and the Gavar Vore.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is no sic a thing,&rdquo; cried Andie.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is
+the story of my faither (now wi&rsquo; God) and Tod Lapraik.&nbsp; And
+the same in your beard,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;and keep the tongue of
+ye inside your Hielant chafts!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+In dealing with Highlanders it will be found, and has been shown in
+history, how well it goes with Lowland gentlefolk; but the thing appears
+scarce feasible for Lowland commons.&nbsp; I had already remarked that
+Andie was continually on the point of quarrelling with our three MacGregors,
+and now, sure enough, it was to come.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Thir will be no words to use to shentlemans,&rdquo; says Neil.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Shentlemans!&rdquo; cries Andie.&nbsp; &ldquo;Shentlemans, ye
+hielant stot!&nbsp; If God would give ye the grace to see yoursel&rsquo;
+the way that ithers see ye, ye would throw your denner up.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+There came some kind of a Gaelic oath from Neil, and the black knife
+was in his hand that moment.<br>
+<br>
+There was no time to think; and I caught the Highlander by the leg,
+and had him down, and his armed hand pinned out, before I knew what
+I was doing.&nbsp; His comrades sprang to rescue him, Andie and I were
+without weapons, the Gregara three to two.&nbsp; It seemed we were beyond
+salvation, when Neil screamed in his own tongue, ordering the others
+back, and made his submission to myself in a manner the most abject,
+even giving me up his knife which (upon a repetition of his promises)
+I returned to him on the morrow.<br>
+<br>
+Two things I saw plain: the first, that I must not build too high on
+Andie, who had shrunk against the wall and stood there, as pale as death,
+till the affair was over; the second, the strength of my own position
+with the Highlanders, who must have received extraordinary charges to
+be tender of my safety.&nbsp; But if I thought Andie came not very well
+out in courage, I had no fault to find with him upon the account of
+gratitude.&nbsp; It was not so much that he troubled me with thanks,
+as that his whole mind and manner appeared changed; and as he preserved
+ever after a great timidity of our companions, he and I were yet more
+constantly together.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XVI - THE MISSING WITNESS<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+On the seventeenth, the day I was trysted with the Writer, I had much
+rebellion against fate.&nbsp; The thought of him waiting in the <i>King&rsquo;s
+Arms, </i>and of what he would think, and what he would say when next
+we met, tormented and oppressed me. The truth was unbelievable, so much
+I had to grant, and it seemed cruel hard I should be posted as a liar
+and a coward, and have never consciously omitted what it was possible
+that I should do.&nbsp; I repeated this form of words with a kind of
+bitter relish, and re-examined in that light the steps of my behaviour.&nbsp;
+It seemed I had behaved to James Stewart as a brother might; all the
+past was a picture that I could be proud of, and there was only the
+present to consider.&nbsp; I could not swim the sea, nor yet fly in
+the air, but there was always Andie.&nbsp; I had done him a service,
+he liked me; I had a lever there to work on; if it were just for decency,
+I must try once more with Andie.<br>
+<br>
+It was late afternoon; there was no sound in all the Bass but the lap
+and bubble of a very quiet sea; and my four companions were all crept
+apart, the three Macgregors higher on the rock, and Andie with his Bible
+to a sunny place among the ruins; there I found him in deep sleep, and,
+as soon as he was awake, appealed to him with some fervour of manner
+and a good show of argument.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If I thoucht it was to do guid to ye, Shaws!&rdquo; said he,
+staring at me over his spectacles.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s to save another,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and to redeem
+my word.&nbsp; What would be more good than that?&nbsp; Do ye no mind
+the scripture, Andie?&nbsp; And you with the Book upon your lap!<i>&nbsp;
+What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world</i>?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s grand for you.&nbsp;
+But where do I come in!&nbsp; I have my word to redeem the same&rsquo;s
+yoursel&rsquo;.&nbsp; And what are ye asking me to do, but just to sell
+it ye for siller?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Andie! have I named the name of siller?&rdquo; cried I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ou, the name&rsquo;s naething&rdquo;, said he; &ldquo;the thing
+is there, whatever.&nbsp; It just comes to this; if I am to service
+ye the way that you propose, I&rsquo;ll lose my lifelihood.&nbsp; Then
+it&rsquo;s clear ye&rsquo;ll have to make it up to me, and a pickle
+mair, for your ain credit like.&nbsp; And what&rsquo;s that but just
+a bribe?&nbsp; And if even I was certain of the bribe!&nbsp; But by
+a&rsquo; that I can learn, it&rsquo;s far frae that; and if <i>you</i>
+were to hang, where would <i>I</i> be?&nbsp; Na: the thing&rsquo;s no
+possible.&nbsp; And just awa&rsquo; wi&rsquo; ye like a bonny lad! and
+let Andie read his chapter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I remember I was at bottom a good deal gratified with this result; and
+the next humour I fell into was one (I had near said) of gratitude to
+Prestongrange, who had saved me, in this violent, illegal manner, out
+of the midst of my dangers, temptations, and perplexities.&nbsp; But
+this was both too flimsy and too cowardly to last me long, and the remembrance
+of James began to succeed to the possession of my spirits.&nbsp; The
+21st, the day set for the trial, I passed in such misery of mind as
+I can scarce recall to have endured, save perhaps upon Isle Earraid
+only.&nbsp; Much of the time I lay on a brae-side betwixt sleep and
+waking, my body motionless, my mind full of violent thoughts.&nbsp;
+Sometimes I slept indeed; but the court-house of Inverary and the prisoner
+glancing on all sides to find his missing witness, followed me in slumber;
+and I would wake again with a start to darkness of spirit and distress
+of body.&nbsp; I thought Andie seemed to observe me, but I paid him
+little heed.&nbsp; Verily, my bread was bitter to me, and my days a
+burthen.<br>
+<br>
+Early the next morning (Friday, 22nd) a boat came with provisions, and
+Andie placed a packet in my hand.&nbsp; The cover was without address
+but sealed with a Government seal.&nbsp; It enclosed two notes.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Mr. Balfour can now see for himself it is too late to meddle.&nbsp;
+His conduct will be observed and his discretion rewarded.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+So ran the first, which seemed to be laboriously writ with the left
+hand.&nbsp; There was certainly nothing in these expressions to compromise
+the writer, even if that person could be found; the seal, which formidably
+served instead of signature, was affixed to a separate sheet on which
+there was no scratch of writing; and I had to confess that (so far)
+my adversaries knew what they were doing, and to digest as well as I
+was able the threat that peeped under the promise.<br>
+<br>
+But the second enclosure was by far the more surprising.&nbsp; It was
+in a lady&rsquo;s hand of writ.&nbsp; &ldquo;<i>Maister</i> <i>Dauvit
+Balfour is informed a friend was speiring for</i> <i>him</i> <i>and</i>
+<i>her eyes were of the grey</i>,&rdquo; it ran - and seemed so extraordinary
+a piece to come to my hands at such a moment and under cover of a Government
+seal, that I stood stupid.&nbsp; Catriona&rsquo;s grey eyes shone in
+my remembrance.&nbsp; I thought, with a bound of pleasure, she must
+be the friend.&nbsp; But who should the writer be, to have her billet
+thus enclosed with Prestongrange&rsquo;s?&nbsp; And of all wonders,
+why was it thought needful to give me this pleasing but most inconsequent
+intelligence upon the Bass?&nbsp; For the writer, I could hit upon none
+possible except Miss Grant.&nbsp; Her family, I remembered, had remarked
+on Catriona&rsquo;s eyes and even named her for their colour; and she
+herself had been much in the habit to address me with a broad pronunciation,
+by way of a sniff, I supposed, at my rusticity.&nbsp; No doubt, besides,
+but she lived in the same house as this letter came from.&nbsp; So there
+remained but one step to be accounted for; and that was how Prestongrange
+should have permitted her at all in an affair so secret, or let her
+daft-like billet go in the same cover with his own.&nbsp; But even here
+I had a glimmering.&nbsp; For, first of all, there was something rather
+alarming about the young lady, and papa might be more under her domination
+than I knew.&nbsp; And, second, there was the man&rsquo;s continual
+policy to be remembered, how his conduct had been continually mingled
+with caresses, and he had scarce ever, in the midst of so much contention,
+laid aside a mask of friendship.&nbsp; He must conceive that my imprisonment
+had incensed me.&nbsp; Perhaps this little jesting, friendly message
+was intended to disarm my rancour?<br>
+<br>
+I will be honest - and I think it did.&nbsp; I felt a sudden warmth
+towards that beautiful Miss Grant, that she should stoop to so much
+interest in my affairs.&nbsp; The summoning up of Catriona moved me
+of itself to milder and more cowardly counsels.&nbsp; If the Advocate
+knew of her and our acquaintance - if I should please him by some of
+that &ldquo;discretion&rdquo; at which his letter pointed - to what
+might not this lead!&nbsp; <i>In vain is the net prepared in</i> <i>the
+sight of any fowl</i>, the Scripture says.&nbsp; Well, fowls must be
+wiser than folk!&nbsp; For I thought I perceived the policy, and yet
+fell in with it.<br>
+<br>
+I was in this frame, my heart beating, the grey eyes plain before me
+like two stars, when Andie broke in upon my musing.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I see ye has gotten guid news,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+I found him looking curiously in my face; with that there came before
+me like a vision of James Stewart and the court of Inverary; and my
+mind turned at once like a door upon its hinges.&nbsp; Trials, I reflected,
+sometimes draw out longer than is looked for.&nbsp; Even if I came to
+Inverary just too late, something might yet be attempted in the interests
+of James - and in those of my own character, the best would be accomplished.&nbsp;
+In a moment, it seemed without thought, I had a plan devised.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Andie,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;is it still to be to-morrow?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He told me nothing was changed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Was anything said about the hour?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+He told me it was to be two o&rsquo;clock afternoon.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And about the place?&rdquo; I pursued.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Whatten place?&rdquo; says Andie.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The place I am to be landed at?&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+He owned there was nothing as to that.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;this shall be mine to
+arrange.&nbsp; The wind is in the east, my road lies westward: keep
+your boat, I hire it; let us work up the Forth all day; and land me
+at two o&rsquo;clock to-morrow at the westmost we&rsquo;ll can have
+reached.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye daft callant!&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;ye would try for Inverary
+after a&rsquo;!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Just that, Andie,&rdquo; says I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Weel, ye&rsquo;re ill to beat!&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+I was a kind o&rsquo; sorry for ye a&rsquo; day yesterday,&rdquo; he
+added.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ye see, I was never entirely sure till then, which
+way of it ye really wantit.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Here was a spur to a lame horse!<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;A word in your ear, Andie,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;This plan
+of mine has another advantage yet.&nbsp; We can leave these Hielandman
+behind us on the rock, and one of your boats from the Castleton can
+bring them off to-morrow.&nbsp; Yon Neil has a queer eye when he regards
+you; maybe, if I was once out of the gate there might be knives again;
+these red-shanks are unco grudgeful.&nbsp; And if there should come
+to be any question, here is your excuse.&nbsp; Our lives were in danger
+by these savages; being answerable for my safety, you chose the part
+to bring me from their neighbourhood and detain me the rest of the time
+on board your boat: and do you know, Andie?&rdquo; says I, with a smile,
+&ldquo;I think it was very wisely chosen,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The truth is I have nae goo for Neil,&rdquo; says Andie, &ldquo;nor
+he for me, I&rsquo;m thinking; and I would like ill to come to my hands
+wi&rsquo; the man.&nbsp; Tam Anster will make a better hand of it with
+the cattle onyway.&rdquo;&nbsp; (For this man, Anster, came from Fife,
+where the Gaelic is still spoken.)&nbsp; &ldquo;Ay, ay!&rdquo; says
+Andie, &ldquo;Tam&rsquo;ll can deal with them the best.&nbsp; And troth!
+the mair I think of it, the less I see we would be required.&nbsp; The
+place - ay, feggs! they had forgot the place.&nbsp; Eh, Shaws, ye&rsquo;re
+a lang-heided chield when ye like!&nbsp; Forby that I&rsquo;m awing
+ye my life,&rdquo; he added, with more solemnity, and offered me his
+hand upon the bargain.<br>
+<br>
+Whereupon, with scarce more words, we stepped suddenly on board the
+boat, cast off, and set the lug.&nbsp; The Gregara were then busy upon
+breakfast, for the cookery was their usual part; but, one of them stepping
+to the battlements, our flight was observed before we were twenty fathoms
+from the rock; and the three of them ran about the ruins and the landing-shelf,
+for all the world like ants about a broken nest, hailing and crying
+on us to return.&nbsp; We were still in both the lee and the shadow
+of the rock, which last lay broad upon the waters, but presently came
+forth in almost the same moment into the wind and sunshine; the sail
+filled, the boat heeled to the gunwale, and we swept immediately beyond
+sound of the men&rsquo;s voices.&nbsp; To what terrors they endured
+upon the rock, where they were now deserted without the countenance
+of any civilised person or so much as the protection of a Bible, no
+limit can be set; nor had they any brandy left to be their consolation,
+for even in the haste and secrecy of our departure Andie had managed
+to remove it.<br>
+<br>
+It was our first care to set Anster ashore in a cove by the Glenteithy
+Rocks, so that the deliverance of our maroons might be duly seen to
+the next day.&nbsp; Thence we kept away up Firth.&nbsp; The breeze,
+which was then so spirited, swiftly declined, but never wholly failed
+us.&nbsp; All day we kept moving, though often not much more; and it
+was after dark ere we were up with the Queensferry.&nbsp; To keep the
+letter of Andie&rsquo;s engagement (or what was left of it) I must remain
+on board, but I thought no harm to communicate with the shore in writing.&nbsp;
+On Prestongrange&rsquo;s cover, where the Government seal must have
+a good deal surprised my correspondent, I writ, by the boat&rsquo;s
+lantern, a few necessary words, aboard and Andie carried them to Rankeillor.&nbsp;
+In about an hour he came again, with a purse of money and the assurance
+that a good horse should be standing saddled for me by two to-morrow
+at Clackmannan Pool.&nbsp; This done, and the boat riding by her stone
+anchor, we lay down to sleep under the sail.<br>
+<br>
+We were in the Pool the next day long ere two; and there was nothing
+left for me but to sit and wait.&nbsp; I felt little alacrity upon my
+errand.&nbsp; I would have been glad of any passable excuse to lay it
+down; but none being to be found, my uneasiness was no less great than
+if I had been running to some desired pleasure.&nbsp; By shortly after
+one the horse was at the waterside, and I could see a man walking it
+to and fro till I should land, which vastly swelled my impatience.&nbsp;
+Andie ran the moment of my liberation very fine, showing himself a man
+of his bare word, but scarce serving his employers with a heaped measure;
+and by about fifty seconds after two I was in the saddle and on the
+full stretch for Stirling.&nbsp; In a little more than an hour I had
+passed that town, and was already mounting Alan Water side, when the
+weather broke in a small tempest.&nbsp; The rain blinded me, the wind
+had nearly beat me from the saddle, and the first darkness of the night
+surprised me in a wilderness still some way east of Balwhidder, not
+very sure of my direction and mounted on a horse that began already
+to be weary.<br>
+<br>
+In the press of my hurry, and to be spared the delay and annoyance of
+a guide, I had followed (so far as it was possible for any horseman)
+the line of my journey with Alan.&nbsp; This I did with open eyes, foreseeing
+a great risk in it, which the tempest had now brought to a reality.&nbsp;
+The last that I knew of where I was, I think it must have been about
+Uam Var; the hour perhaps six at night.&nbsp; I must still think it
+great good fortune that I got about eleven to my destination, the house
+of Duncan Dhu.&nbsp; Where I had wandered in the interval perhaps the
+horse could tell.&nbsp; I know we were twice down, and once over the
+saddle and for a moment carried away in a roaring burn.&nbsp; Steed
+and rider were bemired up to the eyes.<br>
+<br>
+From Duncan I had news of the trial.&nbsp; It was followed in all these
+Highland regions with religious interest; news of it spread from Inverary
+as swift as men could travel; and I was rejoiced to learn that, up to
+a late hour that Saturday it was not yet concluded; and all men began
+to suppose it must spread over the Monday.&nbsp; Under the spur of this
+intelligence I would not sit to eat; but, Duncan having agreed to be
+my guide, took the road again on foot, with the piece in my hand and
+munching as I went.&nbsp; Duncan brought with him a flask of usquebaugh
+and a hand-lantern; which last enlightened us just so long as we could
+find houses where to rekindle it, for the thing leaked outrageously
+and blew out with every gust.&nbsp; The more part of the night we walked
+blindfold among sheets of rain, and day found us aimless on the mountains.&nbsp;
+Hard by we struck a hut on a burn-side, where we got bite and a direction;
+and, a little before the end of the sermon, came to the kirk doors of
+Inverary.<br>
+<br>
+The rain had somewhat washed the upper parts of me, but I was still
+bogged as high as to the knees; I streamed water; I was so weary I could
+hardly limp, and my face was like a ghost&rsquo;s.&nbsp; I stood certainly
+more in need of a change of raiment and a bed to lie on, than of all
+the benefits in Christianity.&nbsp; For all which (being persuaded the
+chief point for me was to make myself immediately public) I set the
+door of the church with the dirty Duncan at my tails, and finding a
+vacant place sat down.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Thirteently, my brethren, and in parenthesis, the law itself
+must be regarded as a means of grace,&rdquo; the minister was saying,
+in the voice of one delighting to pursue an argument.<br>
+<br>
+The sermon was in English on account of the assize.&nbsp; The judges
+were present with their armed attendants, the halberts glittered in
+a corner by the door, and the seats were thronged beyond custom with
+the array of lawyers.&nbsp; The text was in Romans 5th and 13th - the
+minister a skilled hand; and the whole of that able churchful - from
+Argyle, and my Lords Elchies and Kilkerran, down to the halbertmen that
+came in their attendance - was sunk with gathered brows in a profound
+critical attention.&nbsp; The minister himself and a sprinkling of those
+about the door observed our entrance at the moment and immediately forgot
+the same; the rest either did not hear or would not hear or would not
+be heard; and I sat amongst my friends and enemies unremarked.<br>
+<br>
+The first that I singled out was Prestongrange.&nbsp; He sat well forward,
+like an eager horseman in the saddle, his lips moving with relish, his
+eyes glued on the minister; the doctrine was clearly to his mind.&nbsp;
+Charles Stewart, on the other hand, was half asleep, and looked harassed
+and pale.&nbsp; As for Simon Fraser, he appeared like a blot, and almost
+a scandal, in the midst of that attentive congregation, digging his
+hands in his pockets, shifting his legs, clearing his throat, and rolling
+up his bald eyebrows and shooting out his eyes to right and left, now
+with a yawn, now with a secret smile.&nbsp; At times, too, he would
+take the Bible in front of him, run it through, seem to read a bit,
+run it through again, and stop and yawn prodigiously: the whole as if
+for exercise.<br>
+<br>
+In the course of this restlessness his eye alighted on myself.&nbsp;
+He sat a second stupefied, then tore a half-leaf out of the Bible, scrawled
+upon it with a pencil, and passed it with a whispered word to his next
+neighbour.&nbsp; The note came to Prestongrange, who gave me but the
+one look; thence it voyaged to the hands of Mr. Erskine; thence again
+to Argyle, where he sat between the other two lords of session, and
+his Grace turned and fixed me with an arrogant eye.&nbsp; The last of
+those interested in my presence was Charlie Stewart, and he too began
+to pencil and hand about dispatches, none of which I was able to trace
+to their destination in the crowd.<br>
+<br>
+But the passage of these notes had aroused notice; all who were in the
+secret (or supposed themselves to be so) were whispering information
+- the rest questions; and the minister himself seemed quite discountenanced
+by the flutter in the church and sudden stir and whispering.&nbsp; His
+voice changed, he plainly faltered, nor did he again recover the easy
+conviction and full tones of his delivery.&nbsp; It would be a puzzle
+to him till his dying day, why a sermon that had gone with triumph through
+four parts, should this miscarry in the fifth.<br>
+<br>
+As for me, I continued to sit there, very wet and weary, and a good
+deal anxious as to what should happen next, but greatly exulting in
+my success.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XVII - THE MEMORIAL<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The last word of the blessing was scarce out of the minister&rsquo;s
+mouth before Stewart had me by the arm.&nbsp; We were the first to be
+forth of the church, and he made such extraordinary expedition that
+we were safe within the four walls of a house before the street had
+begun to be thronged with the home-going congregation.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Am I yet in time?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay and no,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;The case is over; the
+jury is enclosed, and will so kind as let us ken their view of it to-morrow
+in the morning, the same as I could have told it my own self three days
+ago before the play began.&nbsp; The thing has been public from the
+start.&nbsp; The panel kent it, &lsquo;<i>Ye may do what ye</i> <i>will
+for me</i>,&rsquo; whispers he two days ago.&nbsp; &lsquo;<i>Ye ken
+my fate by what the Duke of Argyle has just said to Mr. Macintosh</i>.&rsquo;&nbsp;
+O, it&rsquo;s been a scandal!<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The great Agyle he gaed before,<br>
+He gart the cannons and guns to roar,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+and the very macer cried &lsquo;Cruachan!&rsquo;&nbsp; But now that
+I have got you again I&rsquo;ll never despair.&nbsp; The oak shall go
+over the myrtle yet; we&rsquo;ll ding the Campbells yet in their own
+town.&nbsp; Praise God that I should see the day!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He was leaping with excitement, emptied out his mails upon the floor
+that I might have a change of clothes, and incommoded me with his assistance
+as I changed.&nbsp; What remained to be done, or how I was to do it,
+was what he never told me nor, I believe, so much as thought of.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll ding the Campbells yet!&rdquo; that was still his
+overcome.&nbsp; And it was forced home upon my mind how this, that had
+the externals of a sober process of law, was in its essence a clan battle
+between savage clans.&nbsp; I thought my friend the Writer none of the
+least savage.&nbsp; Who that had only seen him at a counsel&rsquo;s
+back before the Lord Ordinary or following a golf ball and laying down
+his clubs on Bruntsfield links, could have recognised for the same person
+this voluble and violent clansman?<br>
+<br>
+James Stewart&rsquo;s counsel were four in number - Sheriffs Brown of
+Colstoun and Miller, Mr. Robert Macintosh, and Mr. Stewart younger of
+Stewart Hall.&nbsp; These were covenanted to dine with the Writer after
+sermon, and I was very obligingly included of the party.&nbsp; No sooner
+the cloth lifted, and the first bowl very artfully compounded by Sheriff
+Miller, than we fell to the subject in hand.&nbsp; I made a short narration
+of my seizure and captivity, and was then examined and re-examined upon
+the circumstances of the murder.&nbsp; It will be remembered this was
+the first time I had had my say out, or the matter at all handled, among
+lawyers; and the consequence was very dispiriting to the others and
+(I must own) disappointing to myself.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;To sum up,&rdquo; said Colstoun, &ldquo;you prove that Alan was
+on the spot; you have heard him proffer menaces against Glenure; and
+though you assure us he was not the man who fired, you leave a strong
+impression that he was in league with him, and consenting, perhaps immediately
+assisting, in the act.&nbsp; You show him besides, at the risk of his
+own liberty, actively furthering the criminal&rsquo;s escape.&nbsp;
+And the rest of your testimony (so far as the least material) depends
+on the bare word of Alan or of James, the two accused.&nbsp; In short,
+you do not at all break, but only lengthen by one personage, the chain
+that binds our client to the murderer; and I need scarcely say that
+the introduction of a third accomplice rather aggravates that appearance
+of a conspiracy which has been our stumbling block from the beginning.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am of the same opinion,&rdquo; said Sheriff Miller.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+think we may all be very much obliged to Prestongrange for taking a
+most uncomfortable witness out of our way.&nbsp; And chiefly, I think,
+Mr. Balfour himself might be obliged.&nbsp; For you talk of a third
+accomplice, but Mr. Balfour (in my view) has very much the appearance
+of a fourth.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Allow me, sirs!&rdquo; interposed Stewart the Writer.&nbsp; &ldquo;There
+is another view.&nbsp; Here we have a witness - never fash whether material
+or not - a witness in this cause, kidnapped by that old, lawless, bandit
+crew of the Glengyle Macgregors, and sequestered for near upon a month
+in a bourock of old ruins on the Bass.&nbsp; Move that and see what
+dirt you fling on the proceedings!&nbsp; Sirs, this is a tale to make
+the world ring with!&nbsp; It would be strange, with such a grip as
+this, if we couldnae squeeze out a pardon for my client.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And suppose we took up Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s cause to-morrow?&rdquo;
+said Stewart Hall.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am much deceived or we should find
+so many impediments thrown in our path, as that James should have been
+hanged before we had found a court to hear us.&nbsp; This is a great
+scandal, but I suppose we have none of us forgot a greater still, I
+mean the matter of the Lady Grange.&nbsp; The woman was still in durance;
+my friend Mr. Hope of Rankeillor did what was humanly possible; and
+how did he speed? He never got a warrant!&nbsp; Well, it&rsquo;ll be
+the same now; the same weapons will be used.&nbsp; This is a scene,
+gentleman, of clan animosity.&nbsp; The hatred of the name which I have
+the honour to bear, rages in high quarters.&nbsp; There is nothing here
+to be viewed but naked Campbell spite and scurvy Campbell intrigue.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+You may be sure this was to touch a welcome topic, and I sat for some
+time in the midst of my learned counsel, almost deaved with their talk
+but extremely little the wiser for its purport.&nbsp; The Writer was
+led into some hot expressions; Colstoun must take him up and set him
+right; the rest joined in on different sides, but all pretty noisy;
+the Duke of Argyle was beaten like a blanket; King George came in for
+a few digs in the by-going and a great deal of rather elaborate defence;
+and there was only one person that seemed to be forgotten, and that
+was James of the Glens.<br>
+<br>
+Through all this Mr. Miller sat quiet.&nbsp; He was a slip of an oldish
+gentleman, ruddy and twinkling; he spoke in a smooth rich voice, with
+an infinite effect of pawkiness, dealing out each word the way an actor
+does, to give the most expression possible; and even now, when he was
+silent, and sat there with his wig laid aside, his glass in both hands,
+his mouth funnily pursed, and his chin out, he seemed the mere picture
+of a merry slyness.&nbsp; It was plain he had a word to say, and waited
+for the fit occasion.<br>
+<br>
+It came presently.&nbsp; Colstoun had wound up one of his speeches with
+some expression of their duty to their client.&nbsp; His brother sheriff
+was pleased, I suppose, with the transition.&nbsp; He took the table
+in his confidence with a gesture and a look.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That suggests to me a consideration which seems overlooked,&rdquo;
+said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;The interest of our client goes certainly before
+all, but the world does not come to an end with James Stewart.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Whereat he cocked his eye.&nbsp; &ldquo;I might condescend, <i>exempli
+gratia</i>, upon a Mr. George Brown, a Mr. Thomas Miller, and a Mr.
+David Balfour.&nbsp; Mr. David Balfour has a very good ground of complaint,
+and I think, gentlemen - if his story was properly redd out - I think
+there would be a number of wigs on the green.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The whole table turned to him with a common movement.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Properly handled and carefully redd out, his is a story that
+could scarcely fail to have some consequence,&rdquo; he continued.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;The whole administration of justice, from its highest officer
+downward, would be totally discredited; and it looks to me as if they
+would need to be replaced.&rdquo;&nbsp; He seemed to shine with cunning
+as he said it.&nbsp; &ldquo;And I need not point out to ye that this
+of Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s would be a remarkable bonny cause to appear in,&rdquo;
+he added.<br>
+<br>
+Well, there they all were started on another hare; Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s
+cause, and what kind of speeches could be there delivered, and what
+officials could be thus turned out, and who would succeed to their positions.&nbsp;
+I shall give but the two specimens.&nbsp; It was proposed to approach
+Simon Fraser, whose testimony, if it could be obtained, would prove
+certainly fatal to Argyle and to Prestongrange.&nbsp; Miller highly
+approved of the attempt.&nbsp; &ldquo;We have here before us a dreeping
+roast,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;here is cut-and-come-again for all.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And methought all licked their lips.&nbsp; The other was already near
+the end.&nbsp; Stewart the Writer was out of the body with delight,
+smelling vengeance on his chief enemy, the Duke.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; cried he, charging his glass, &ldquo;here is
+to Sheriff Miller.&nbsp; His legal abilities are known to all.&nbsp;
+His culinary, this bowl in front of us is here to speak for.&nbsp; But
+when it comes to the poleetical!&rdquo; - cries he, and drains the glass.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, but it will hardly prove politics in your meaning, my friend,&rdquo;
+said the gratified Miller.&nbsp; &ldquo;A revolution, if you like, and
+I think I can promise you that historical writers shall date from Mr.
+Balfour&rsquo;s cause.&nbsp; But properly guided, Mr. Stewart, tenderly
+guided, it shall prove a peaceful revolution.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And if the damned Campbells get their ears rubbed, what care
+I?&rdquo; cries Stewart, smiting down his fist.<br>
+<br>
+It will be thought I was not very well pleased with all this, though
+I could scarce forbear smiling at a kind of innocency in these old intriguers.&nbsp;
+But it was not my view to have undergone so many sorrows for the advancement
+of Sheriff Miller or to make a revolution in the Parliament House: and
+I interposed accordingly with as much simplicity of manner as I could
+assume.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have to thank you, gentlemen, for your advice,&rdquo; said
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;And now I would like, by your leave, to set you two
+or three questions.&nbsp; There is one thing that has fallen rather
+on one aide, for instance: Will this cause do any good to our friend
+James of the Glens?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+They seemed all a hair set back, and gave various answers, but concurring
+practically in one point, that James had now no hope but in the King&rsquo;s
+mercy.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;To proceed, then,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;will it do any good to
+Scotland?&nbsp; We have a saying that it is an ill bird that fouls his
+own nest.&nbsp; I remember hearing we had a riot in Edinburgh when I
+was an infant child, which gave occasion to the late Queen to call this
+country barbarous; and I always understood that we had rather lost than
+gained by that.&nbsp; Then came the year &lsquo;Forty-five, which made
+Scotland to be talked of everywhere; but I never heard it said we had
+anyway gained by the &lsquo;Forty-five.&nbsp; And now we come to this
+cause of Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s, as you call it.&nbsp; Sheriff Miller tells
+us historical writers are to date from it, and I would not wonder.&nbsp;
+It is only my fear they would date from it as a period of calamity and
+public reproach.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The nimble-witted Miller had already smelt where I was travelling to,
+and made haste to get on the same road.&nbsp; &ldquo;Forcibly put, Mr.
+Balfour,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;A weighty observe, sir.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;We have next to ask ourselves if it will be good for King George,&rdquo;
+I pursued.&nbsp; &ldquo;Sheriff Miller appears pretty easy upon this;
+but I doubt you will scarce be able to pull down the house from under
+him, without his Majesty coming by a knock or two, one of which might
+easily prove fatal.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I have them a chance to answer, but none volunteered.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Of those for whom the case was to be profitable,&rdquo; I went
+on, &ldquo;Sheriff Miller gave us the names of several, among the which
+he was good enough to mention mine.&nbsp; I hope he will pardon me if
+I think otherwise.&nbsp; I believe I hung not the least back in this
+affair while there was life to be saved; but I own I thought myself
+extremely hazarded, and I own I think it would be a pity for a young
+man, with some idea of coming to the Bar, to ingrain upon himself the
+character of a turbulent, factious fellow before he was yet twenty.&nbsp;
+As for James, it seems - at this date of the proceedings, with the sentence
+as good as pronounced - he has no hope but in the King&rsquo;s mercy.&nbsp;
+May not his Majesty, then, be more pointedly addressed, the characters
+of these high officers sheltered from the public, and myself kept out
+of a position which I think spells ruin for me?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+They all sat and gazed into their glasses, and I could see they found
+my attitude on the affair unpalatable.&nbsp; But Miller was ready at
+all events.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If I may be allowed to put my young friend&rsquo;s notion in
+more formal shape,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I understand him to propose
+that we should embody the fact of his sequestration, and perhaps some
+heads of the testimony he was prepared to offer, in a memorial to the
+Crown.&nbsp; This plan has elements of success.&nbsp; It is as likely
+as any other (and perhaps likelier) to help our client.&nbsp; Perhaps
+his Majesty would have the goodness to feel a certain gratitude to all
+concerned in such a memorial, which might be construed into an expression
+of a very delicate loyalty; and I think, in the drafting of the same,
+this view might be brought forward.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+They all nodded to each other, not without sighs, for the former alternative
+was doubtless more after their inclination.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Paper, then, Mr. Stewart, if you please,&rdquo; pursued Miller;
+&ldquo;and I think it might very fittingly be signed by the five of
+us here present, as procurators for the condemned man.&rdquo;&rsquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It can do none of us any harm, at least,&rdquo; says Colstoun,
+heaving another sigh, for he had seen himself Lord Advocate the last
+ten minutes.<br>
+<br>
+Thereupon they set themselves, not very enthusiastically, to draft the
+memorial - a process in the course of which they soon caught fire; and
+I had no more ado but to sit looking on and answer an occasional question.&nbsp;
+The paper was very well expressed; beginning with a recitation of the
+facts about myself, the reward offered for my apprehension, my surrender,
+the pressure brought to bear upon me; my sequestration; and my arrival
+at Inverary in time to be too late; going on to explain the reasons
+of loyalty and public interest for which it was agreed to waive any
+right of action; and winding up with a forcible appeal to the King&rsquo;s
+mercy on behalf of James.<br>
+<br>
+Methought I was a good deal sacrificed, and rather represented in the
+light of a firebrand of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had restrained
+with difficulty from extremes.&nbsp; But I let it pass, and made but
+the one suggestion, that I should be described as ready to deliver my
+own evidence and adduce that of others before any commission of inquiry
+- and the one demand, that I should be immediately furnished with a
+copy.<br>
+<br>
+Colstoun hummed and hawed.&nbsp; &ldquo;This is a very confidential
+document,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And my position towards Prestongrange is highly peculiar,&rdquo;
+I replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;No question but I must have touched his heart
+at our first interview, so that he has since stood my friend consistently.&nbsp;
+But for him, gentlemen, I must now be lying dead or awaiting my sentence
+alongside poor James.&nbsp; For which reason I choose to communicate
+to him the fact of this memorial as soon as it is copied.&nbsp; You
+are to consider also that this step will make for my protection.&nbsp;
+I have enemies here accustomed to drive hard; his Grace is in his own
+country, Lovat by his side; and if there should hang any ambiguity over
+our proceedings I think I might very well awake in gaol.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Not finding any very ready answer to these considerations, my company
+of advisers were at the last persuaded to consent, and made only this
+condition that I was to lay the paper before Prestongrange with the
+express compliments of all concerned.<br>
+<br>
+The Advocate was at the castle dining with his Grace.&nbsp; By the hand
+of one of Colstoun&rsquo;s servants I sent him a billet asking for an
+interview, and received a summons to meet him at once in a private house
+of the town.&nbsp; Here I found him alone in a chamber; from his face
+there was nothing to be gleaned; yet I was not so unobservant but what
+I spied some halberts in the hall, and not so stupid but what I could
+gather he was prepared to arrest me there and then, should it appear
+advisable.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;So, Mr. David, this is you?&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Where I fear I am not overly welcome, my lord,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And I would like before I go further to express my sense of your
+lordship&rsquo;s good offices, even should they now cease.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have heard of your gratitude before,&rdquo; he replied drily,
+&ldquo;and I think this can scarce be the matter you called me from
+my wine to listen to.&nbsp; I would remember also, if I were you, that
+you still stand on a very boggy foundation.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Not now, my lord, I think,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and if your
+lordship will but glance an eye along this, you will perhaps think as
+I do.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He read it sedulously through, frowning heavily; then turned back to
+one part and another which he seemed to weigh and compare the effect
+of.&nbsp; His face a little lightened.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is not so bad but what it might be worse,&rdquo; said he;
+&ldquo;though I am still likely to pay dear for my acquaintance with
+Mr. David Balfour.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Rather for your indulgence to that unlucky young man, my lord,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+He still skimmed the paper, and all the while his spirits seemed to
+mend.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And to whom am I indebted for this?&rdquo; he asked presently.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Other counsels must have been discussed, I think.&nbsp; Who was
+it proposed this private method?&nbsp; Was it Miller?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My lord, it was myself,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;These gentlemen
+have shown me no such consideration, as that I should deny myself any
+credit I can fairly claim, or spare them any responsibility they should
+properly bear.&nbsp; And the mere truth is, that they were all in favour
+of a process which should have remarkable consequences in the Parliament
+House, and prove for them (in one of their own expressions) a dripping
+roast.&nbsp; Before I intervened, I think they were on the point of
+sharing out the different law appointments.&nbsp; Our friend Mr. Simon
+was to be taken in upon some composition.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Prestongrange smiled.&nbsp; &ldquo;These are our friends,&rdquo; said
+he.&nbsp; &ldquo;And what were your reasons for dissenting, Mr. David?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I told them without concealment, expressing, however, with more force
+and volume those which regarded Prestongrange himself.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You do me no more than justice,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+have fought as hard in your interest as you have fought against mine.&nbsp;
+And how came you here to-day?&rdquo; he asked.&nbsp; &ldquo;As the case
+drew out, I began to grow uneasy that I had clipped the period so fine,
+and I was even expecting you to-morrow.&nbsp; But to-day - I never dreamed
+of it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I was not of course, going to betray Andie.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I suspect there is some very weary cattle by the road,&rdquo;
+said I<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If I had known you were such a mosstrooper you should have tasted
+longer of the Bass,&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Speaking of which, my lord, I return your letter.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And I gave him the enclosure in the counterfeit hand.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There was the cover also with the seal,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have it not,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;It bore not even an
+address, and could not compromise a cat.&nbsp; The second enclosure
+I have, and with your permission, I desire to keep it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I thought he winced a little, but he said nothing to the point.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;To-morrow,&rdquo; he resumed, &ldquo;our business here is to
+be finished, and I proceed by Glasgow.&nbsp; I would be very glad to
+have you of my party, Mr David.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My lord . . .&rdquo; I began.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do not deny it will be of service to me,&rdquo; he interrupted.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I desire even that, when we shall come to Edinburgh, you should
+alight at my house.&nbsp; You have very warm friends in the Miss Grants,
+who will be overjoyed to have you to themselves.&nbsp; If you think
+I have been of use to you, you can thus easily repay me, and so far
+from losing, may reap some advantage by the way.&nbsp; It is not every
+strange young man who is presented in society by the King&rsquo;s Advocate.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Often enough already (in our brief relations) this gentleman had caused
+my head to spin; no doubt but what for a moment he did so again now.&nbsp;
+Here was the old fiction still maintained of my particular favour with
+his daughters, one of whom had been so good as to laugh at me, while
+the other two had scarce deigned to remark the fact of my existence.&nbsp;
+And now I was to ride with my lord to Glasgow; I was to dwell with him
+in Edinburgh; I was to be brought into society under his protection!&nbsp;
+That he should have so much good-nature as to forgive me was surprising
+enough; that he could wish to take me up and serve me seemed impossible;
+and I began to seek some ulterior meaning.&nbsp; One was plain.&nbsp;
+If I became his guest, repentance was excluded; I could never think
+better of my present design and bring any action.&nbsp; And besides,
+would not my presence in his house draw out the whole pungency of the
+memorial?&nbsp; For that complaint could not be very seriously regarded,
+if the person chiefly injured was the guest of the official most incriminated.&nbsp;
+As I thought upon this I could not quite refrain from smiling.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is in the nature of a countercheck to the memorial?&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are cunning, Mr. David,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and you do
+not wholly guess wrong the fact will be of use to me in my defence.&nbsp;
+Perhaps, however, you underrate friendly sentiments, which are perfectly
+genuine.&nbsp; I have a respect for you, David, mingled with awe,&rdquo;
+says he, smiling.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am more than willing, I am earnestly desirous to meet your
+wishes,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is my design to be called to
+the Bar, where your lordship&rsquo;s countenance would be invaluable;
+and I am besides sincerely grateful to yourself and family for different
+marks of interest and of indulgence.&nbsp; The difficulty is here.&nbsp;
+There is one point in which we pull two ways.&nbsp; You are trying to
+hang James Stewart, I am trying to save him.&nbsp; In so far as my riding
+with you would better your lordship&rsquo;s defence, I am at your lordships
+orders; but in so far as it would help to hang James Stewart, you see
+me at a stick.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I thought he swore to himself.&nbsp; &ldquo;You should certainly be
+called; the Bar is the true scene for your talents,&rdquo; says he,
+bitterly, and then fell a while silent.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will tell you,&rdquo;
+he presently resumed, &ldquo;there is no question of James Stewart,
+for or against, James is a dead man; his life is given and taken - bought
+(if you like it better) and sold; no memorial can help - no defalcation
+of a faithful Mr. David hurt him.&nbsp; Blow high, blow low, there will
+be no pardon for James Stewart: and take that for said!&nbsp; The question
+is now of myself: am I to stand or fall? and I do not deny to you that
+I am in some danger.&nbsp; But will Mr. David Balfour consider why?&nbsp;
+It is not because I pushed the case unduly against James; for that,
+I am sure of condonation.&nbsp; And it is not because I have sequestered
+Mr. David on a rock, though it will pass under that colour; but because
+I did not take the ready and plain path, to which I was pressed repeatedly,
+and send Mr. David to his grave or to the gallows.&nbsp; Hence the scandal
+- hence this damned memorial,&rdquo; striking the paper on his leg.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;My tenderness for you has brought me in this difficulty.&nbsp;
+I wish to know if your tenderness to your own conscience is too great
+to let you help me out of it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+No doubt but there was much of the truth in what he said; if James was
+past helping, whom was it more natural that I should turn to help than
+just the man before me, who had helped myself so often, and was even
+now setting me a pattern of patience?&nbsp; I was besides not only weary,
+but beginning to be ashamed, of my perpetual attitude of suspicion and
+refusal<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If you will name the time and place, I will be punctually ready
+to attend your lordship,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+He shook hands with me.&nbsp; &ldquo;And I think my misses have some
+news for you,&rdquo; says he, dismissing me.<br>
+<br>
+I came away, vastly pleased to have my peace made, yet a little concerned
+in conscience; nor could I help wondering, as I went back, whether,
+perhaps, I had not been a scruple too good-natured.&nbsp; But there
+was the fact, that this was a man that might have been my father, an
+able man, a great dignitary, and one that, in the hour of my need, had
+reached a hand to my assistance.&nbsp; I was in the better humour to
+enjoy the remainder of that evening, which I passed with the advocates,
+in excellent company no doubt, but perhaps with rather more than a sufficiency
+of punch: for though I went early to bed I have no clear mind of how
+I got there.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XVIII - THE TEE&rsquo;D BALL<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+On the morrow, from the justices&rsquo; private room, where none could
+see me, I heard the verdict given in and judgment rendered upon James.&nbsp;
+The Duke&rsquo;s words I am quite sure I have correctly; and since that
+famous passage has been made a subject of dispute, I may as well commemorate
+my version.&nbsp; Having referred to the year &lsquo;45, the chief of
+the Campbells, sitting as Justice-General upon the bench, thus addressed
+the unfortunate Stewart before him: &ldquo;If you had been successful
+in that rebellion, you might have been giving the law where you have
+now received the judgment of it; we, who are this day your judges, might
+have been tried before one of your mock courts of judicature; and then
+you might have been satiated with the blood of any name or clan to which
+you had an aversion.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is to let the cat out of the bag, indeed,&rdquo; thought
+I.&nbsp; And that was the general impression.&nbsp; It was extraordinary
+how the young advocate lads took hold and made a mock of this speech,
+and how scarce a meal passed but what someone would get in the words:
+&ldquo;And then you might have been satiated.&rdquo;&nbsp; Many songs
+were made in time for the hour&rsquo;s diversion, and are near all forgot.&nbsp;
+I remember one began:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What do ye want the bluid of, bluid of?<br>
+Is it a name, or is it a clan,<br>
+Or is it an aefauld Hielandman,<br>
+That ye want the bluid of, bluid of?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Another went to my old favourite air, <i>The House of Airlie</i>, and
+began thus:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It fell on a day when Argyle was on the bench,<br>
+That they served him a Stewart for his denner.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+And one of the verses ran:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Then up and spak&rsquo; the Duke, and flyted on his cook,<br>
+I regard it as a sensible aspersion,<br>
+That I would sup ava&rsquo;, an&rsquo; satiate my maw,<br>
+With the bluid of ony clan of my aversion.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+James was as fairly murdered as though the Duke had got a fowling-piece
+and stalked him.&nbsp; So much of course I knew: but others knew not
+so much, and were more affected by the items of scandal that came to
+light in the progress of the cause.&nbsp; One of the chief was certainly
+this sally of the justice&rsquo;s.&nbsp; It was run hard by another
+of a juryman, who had struck into the midst of Coulston&rsquo;s speech
+for the defence with a &ldquo;Pray, sir, cut it short, we are quite
+weary,&rdquo; which seemed the very excess of impudence and simplicity.&nbsp;
+But some of my new lawyer friends were still more staggered with an
+innovation that had disgraced and even vitiated the proceedings.&nbsp;
+One witness was never called.&nbsp; His name, indeed, was printed, where
+it may still be seen on the fourth page of the list: &ldquo;James Drummond,
+<i>alias</i> Macgregor, <i>alias</i> James More, late tenant in Inveronachile&rdquo;;
+and his precognition had been taken, as the manner is, in writing.&nbsp;
+He had remembered or invented (God help him) matter which was lead in
+James Stewart&rsquo;s shoes, and I saw was like to prove wings to his
+own.&nbsp; This testimony it was highly desirable to bring to the notice
+of the jury, without exposing the man himself to the perils of cross-examination;
+and the way it was brought about was a matter of surprise to all.&nbsp;
+For the paper was handed round (like a curiosity) in court; passed through
+the jury-box, where it did its work; and disappeared again (as though
+by accident) before it reached the counsel for the prisoner.&nbsp; This
+was counted a most insidious device; and that the name of James More
+should be mingled up with it filled me with shame for Catriona and concern
+for myself.<br>
+<br>
+The following day, Prestongrange and I, with a considerable company,
+set out for Glasgow, where (to my impatience) we continued to linger
+some time in a mixture of pleasure and affairs.&nbsp; I lodged with
+my lord, with whom I was encouraged to familiarity; had my place at
+entertainments; was presented to the chief guests; and altogether made
+more of than I thought accorded either with my parts or station; so
+that, on strangers being present, I would often blush for Prestongrange.&nbsp;
+It must be owned the view I had taken of the world in these last months
+was fit to cast a gloom upon my character.&nbsp; I had met many men,
+some of them leaders in Israel whether by their birth or talents; and
+who among them all had shown clean hands?&nbsp; As for the Browns and
+Millers, I had seen their self-seeking, I could never again respect
+them.&nbsp; Prestongrange was the best yet; he had saved me, spared
+me rather, when others had it in their minds to murder me outright;
+but the blood of James lay at his door; and I thought his present dissimulation
+with myself a thing below pardon.&nbsp; That he should affect to find
+pleasure in my discourse almost surprised me out of my patience.&nbsp;
+I would sit and watch him with a kind of a slow fire of anger in my
+bowels.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ah, friend, friend,&rdquo; I would think to myself,
+&ldquo;if you were but through with this affair of the memorial, would
+you not kick me in the streets?&rdquo;&nbsp; Here I did him, as events
+have proved, the most grave injustice; and I think he was at once far
+more sincere, and a far more artful performer, than I supposed.<br>
+<br>
+But I had some warrant for my incredulity in the behaviour of that court
+of young advocates that hung about in the hope of patronage.&nbsp; The
+sudden favour of a lad not previously heard of troubled them at first
+out of measure; but two days were not gone by before I found myself
+surrounded with flattery and attention.&nbsp; I was the same young man,
+and neither better nor bonnier, that they had rejected a month before;
+and now there was no civility too fine for me!&nbsp; The same, do I
+say?&nbsp; It was not so; and the by-name by which I went behind my
+back confirmed it.&nbsp; Seeing me so firm with the Advocate, and persuaded
+that I was to fly high and far, they had taken a word from the golfing
+green, and called me <i>the Tee&rsquo;d Ball</i>. <a name="citation14"></a><a href="#footnote14">{14}</a>&nbsp;
+I was told I was now &ldquo;one of themselves&rdquo;; I was to taste
+of their soft lining, who had already made my own experience of the
+roughness of the outer husk; and one, to whom I had been presented in
+Hope Park, was so aspired as even to remind me of that meeting.&nbsp;
+I told him I had not the pleasure of remembering it.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;it was Miss Grant herself presented
+me!&nbsp; My name is so-and-so.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It may very well be, sir,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;but I have kept
+no mind of it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+At which he desisted; and in the midst of the disgust that commonly
+overflowed my spirits I had a glisk of pleasure.<br>
+<br>
+But I have not patience to dwell upon that time at length.&nbsp; When
+I was in company with these young politics I was borne down with shame
+for myself and my own plain ways, and scorn for them and their duplicity.&nbsp;
+Of the two evils, I thought Prestongrange to be the least; and while
+I was always as stiff as buckram to the young bloods, I made rather
+a dissimulation of my hard feelings towards the Advocate, and was (in
+old Mr. Campbell&rsquo;s word) &ldquo;soople to the laird.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Himself commented on the difference, and bid me be more of my age, and
+make friends with my young comrades.<br>
+<br>
+I told him I was slow of making friends.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will take the word back,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;But there
+is such a thing as <i>Fair gude</i> <i>s&rsquo;en</i> <i>and</i> <i>fair
+gude day, </i>Mr. David.&nbsp; These are the same young men with whom
+you are to pass your days and get through life: your backwardness has
+a look of arrogance; and unless you can assume a little more lightness
+of manner, I fear you will meet difficulties in the path.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It will be an ill job to make a silk purse of a sow&rsquo;s ear,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+On the morning of October 1st I was awakened by the clattering in of
+an express; and getting to my window almost before he had dismounted,
+I saw the messenger had ridden hard.&nbsp; Somewhile after I was called
+to Prestongrange, where he was sitting in his bedgown and nightcap,
+with his letters round him.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Mr. David,&rdquo; add he, &ldquo;I have a piece of news for you.&nbsp;
+It concerns some friends of yours, of whom I sometimes think you are
+a little ashamed, for you have never referred to their existence.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I suppose I blushed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;See you understand, since you make the answering signal,&rdquo;
+said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;And I must compliment you on your excellent taste
+in beauty.&nbsp; But do you know, Mr. David? this seems to me a very
+enterprising lass.&nbsp; She crops up from every side.&nbsp; The Government
+of Scotland appears unable to proceed for Mistress Katrine Drummond,
+which was somewhat the case (no great while back) with a certain Mr.
+David Balfour.&nbsp; Should not these make a good match?&nbsp; Her first
+intromission in politics - but I must not tell you that story, the authorities
+have decided you are to hear it otherwise and from a livelier narrator.&nbsp;
+This new example is more serious, however; and I am afraid I must alarm
+you with the intelligence that she is now in prison.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I cried out.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;the little lady is in prison.&nbsp;
+But I would not have you to despair.&nbsp; Unless you (with your friends
+and memorials) shall procure my downfall, she is to suffer nothing.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But what has she done?&nbsp; What is her offence?&rdquo; I cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It might be almost construed a high treason,&rdquo; he returned,
+&ldquo;for she has broke the king&rsquo;s Castle of Edinburgh.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The lady is much my friend,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I know
+you would not mock me if the thing were serious.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And yet it is serious in a sense,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;for
+this rogue of a Katrine - or Cateran, as we may call her - has set adrift
+again upon the world that very doubtful character, her papa.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Here was one of my previsions justified: James More was once again at
+liberty.&nbsp; He had lent his men to keep me a prisoner; he had volunteered
+his testimony in the Appin case, and the same (no matter by what subterfuge)
+had been employed to influence the jury.&nbsp; Now came his reward,
+and he was free.&nbsp; It might please the authorities to give to it
+the colour of an escape; but I knew better - I knew it must be the fulfilment
+of a bargain.&nbsp; The same course of thought relieved me of the least
+alarm for Catriona.&nbsp; She might be thought to have broke prison
+for her father; she might have believed so herself.&nbsp; But the chief
+hand in the whole business was that of Prestongrange; and I was sure,
+so far from letting her come to punishment, he would not suffer her
+to be even tried.&nbsp; Whereupon thus came out of me the not very politic
+ejaculation:<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah! I was expecting that!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You have at times a great deal of discretion, too!&rdquo; says
+Prestongrange.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what is my lord pleased to mean by that?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I was just marvelling&rdquo;, he replied, &ldquo;that being so
+clever as to draw these inferences, you should not be clever enough
+to keep them to yourself.&nbsp; But I think you would like to hear the
+details of the affair.&nbsp; I have received two versions: and the least
+official is the more full and far the more entertaining, being from
+the lively pen of my eldest daughter.&nbsp; &lsquo;Here is all the town
+bizzing with a fine piece of work,&rsquo; she writes, &lsquo;and what
+would make the thing more noted (if it were only known) the malefactor
+is a <i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;e</i> of his lordship my papa.&nbsp; I
+am sure your heart is too much in your duty (if it were nothing else)
+to have forgotten Grey Eyes.&nbsp; What does she do, but get a broad
+hat with the flaps open, a long hairy-like man&rsquo;s greatcoat, and
+a big gravatt; kilt her coats up to <i>Gude kens whaur</i>, clap two
+pair of boot-hose upon her legs, take a pair of <i>clouted brogues</i>
+<a name="citation15"></a><a href="#footnote15">{15}</a> in her hand,
+and off to the Castle!&nbsp; Here she gives herself out to be a soutar
+<a name="citation16"></a><a href="#footnote16">{16}</a> in the employ
+of James More, and gets admitted to his cell, the lieutenant (who seems
+to have been full of pleasantry) making sport among his soldiers of
+the soutar&rsquo;s greatcoat.&nbsp; Presently they hear disputation
+and the sound of blows inside.&nbsp; Out flies the cobbler, his coat
+flying, the flaps of his hat beat about his face, and the lieutenant
+and his soldiers mock at him as he runs off.&nbsp; They laughed no so
+hearty the next time they had occasion to visit the cell and found nobody
+but a tall, pretty, grey-eyed lass in the female habit!&nbsp; As for
+the cobbler, he was &lsquo;over the hills ayout Dumblane,&rsquo; and
+it&rsquo;s thought that poor Scotland will have to console herself without
+him.&nbsp; I drank Catriona&rsquo;s health this night in public.<br>
+<br>
+Indeed, the whole town admires her; and I think the beaux would wear
+bits of her garters in their button-holes if they could only get them.&nbsp;
+I would have gone to visit her in prison too, only I remembered in time
+I was papa&rsquo;s daughter; so I wrote her a billet instead, which
+I entrusted to the faithful Doig, and I hope you will admit I can be
+political when I please.&nbsp; The same faithful gomeral is to despatch
+this letter by the express along with those of the wiseacres, so that
+you may hear Tom Fool in company with Solomon.&nbsp; Talking of <i>gomerals,</i>
+do tell <i>Dauvit Balfour.&nbsp; </i>I would I could see the face of
+him at the thought of a long-legged lass in such a predicament; to say
+nothing of the levities of your affectionate daughter, and his respectful
+friend.&rsquo;&nbsp; So my rascal signs herself!&rdquo; continued Prestongrange.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And you see, Mr. David, it is quite true what I tell you, that
+my daughters regard you with the most affectionate playfulness.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The gomeral is much obliged,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And was not this prettily done!&rdquo; he went on.&nbsp; &ldquo;Is
+not this Highland maid a piece of a heroine?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I was always sure she had a great heart,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And I wager she guessed nothing . . . But I beg your pardon,
+this is to tread upon forbidden subjects.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will go bail she did not,&rdquo; he returned, quite openly.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I will go bail she thought she was flying straight into King
+George&rsquo;s face.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Remembrance of Catriona and the thought of her lying in captivity, moved
+me strangely.&nbsp; I could see that even Prestongrange admired, and
+could not withhold his lips from smiling when he considered her behaviour.&nbsp;
+As for Miss Grant, for all her ill habit of mockery, her admiration
+shone out plain.&nbsp; A kind of a heat came on me.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am not your lordship&rsquo;s daughter. . . &rdquo; I began.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That I know of!&rdquo; he put in, smiling.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I speak like a fool,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;or rather I began
+wrong.&nbsp; It would doubtless be unwise in Mistress Grant to go to
+her in prison; but for me, I think I would look like a half-hearted
+friend if I did not fly there instantly.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;So-ho, Mr. David,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;I thought that you and
+I were in a bargain?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;when I made that bargain I was
+a good deal affected by your goodness, but I&rsquo;ll never can deny
+that I was moved besides by my own interest.&nbsp; There was self-seeking
+in my heart, and I think shame of it now.&nbsp; It may be for your lordship&rsquo;s
+safety to say this fashious Davie Balfour is your friend and housemate.&nbsp;
+Say it then; I&rsquo;ll never contradict you.&nbsp; But as for your
+patronage, I give it all back.&nbsp; I ask but the one thing - let me
+go, and give me a pass to see her in her prison.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He looked at me with a hard eye.&nbsp; &ldquo;You put the cart before
+the horse, I think,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;That which I had given
+was a portion of my liking, which your thankless nature does not seem
+to have remarked.&nbsp; But for my patronage, it is not given, nor (to
+be exact) is it yet offered.&rdquo;&nbsp; He paused a bit.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+I warn you, you do not know yourself,&rdquo; he added.&nbsp; &ldquo;Youth
+is a hasty season; you will think better of all this before a year.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, and I would like to be that kind of youth!&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I have seen too much of the other party in these young advocates
+that fawn upon your lordship and are even at the pains to fawn on me.&nbsp;
+And I have seen it in the old ones also.&nbsp; They are all for by-ends,
+the whole clan of them!&nbsp; It&rsquo;s this that makes me seem to
+misdoubt your lordship&rsquo;s liking.&nbsp; Why would I think that
+you would like me?&nbsp; But ye told me yourself ye had an interest!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I stopped at this, confounded that I had run so far; he was observing
+me with an unfathomable face.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My lord, I ask your pardon,&rdquo; I resumed.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+have nothing in my chafts but a rough country tongue.&nbsp; I think
+it would be only decent-like if I would go to see my friend in her captivity;
+but I&rsquo;m owing you my life - I&rsquo;ll never forget that; and
+if it&rsquo;s for your lordship&rsquo;s good, here I&rsquo;ll stay.&nbsp;
+That&rsquo;s barely gratitude.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This might have been reached in fewer words,&rdquo; says Prestongrange
+grimly.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is easy, and it is at times gracious, to say
+a plain Scots &lsquo;ay&rsquo;.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, but, my lord, I think ye take me not yet entirely!&rdquo;
+cried I.&nbsp; &ldquo;For <i>your</i> sake, for my life-safe, and the
+kindness that ye say ye bear to me - for these, I&rsquo;ll consent;
+but not for any good that might be coming to myself.&nbsp; If I stand
+aside when this young maid is in her trial, it&rsquo;s a thing I will
+be noways advantaged by; I will lose by it, I will never gain.&nbsp;
+I would rather make a shipwreck wholly than to build on that foundation.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He was a minute serious, then smiled.&nbsp; &ldquo;You mind me of the
+man with the long nose,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;was you to see the moon
+by a telescope you would see David Balfour there!&nbsp; But you shall
+have your way of it.&nbsp; I will ask at you one service, and then set
+you free: My clerks are overdriven; be so good as copy me these few
+pages, and when that is done, I shall bid you God speed!&nbsp; I would
+never charge myself with Mr. David&rsquo;s conscience; and if you could
+cast some part of it (as you went by) in a moss hag, you would find
+yourself to ride much easier without it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Perhaps not just entirely in the same direction though, my lord!&rdquo;
+says I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And you shall have the last word, too!&rdquo; cries he gaily.<br>
+<br>
+Indeed, he had some cause for gaiety, having now found the means to
+gain his purpose.&nbsp; To lessen the weight of the memorial, or to
+have a readier answer at his hand, he desired I should appear publicly
+in the character of his intimate.&nbsp; But if I were to appear with
+the same publicity as a visitor to Catriona in her prison the world
+would scarce stint to draw conclusions, and the true nature of James
+More&rsquo;s escape must become evident to all.&nbsp; This was the little
+problem I had to set him of a sudden, and to which he had so briskly
+found an answer.&nbsp; I was to be tethered in Glasgow by that job of
+copying, which in mere outward decency I could not well refuse; and
+during these hours of employment Catriona was privately got rid of.&nbsp;
+I think shame to write of this man that loaded me with so many goodnesses.&nbsp;
+He was kind to me as any father, yet I ever thought him as false as
+a cracked bell.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XIX - I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The copying was a weary business, the more so as I perceived very early
+there was no sort of urgency in the matters treated, and began very
+early to consider my employment a pretext.&nbsp; I had no sooner finished
+than I got to horse, used what remained of daylight to the best purpose,
+and being at last fairly benighted, slept in a house by Almond-Water
+side.&nbsp; I was in the saddle again before the day, and the Edinburgh
+booths were just opening when I clattered in by the West Bow and drew
+up a smoking horse at my lord Advocate&rsquo;s door.&nbsp; I had a written
+word for Doig, my lord&rsquo;s private hand that was thought to be in
+all his secrets - a worthy little plain man, all fat and snuff and self-sufficiency.&nbsp;
+Him I found already at his desk and already bedabbled with maccabaw,
+in the same anteroom where I rencountered with James More.&nbsp; He
+read the note scrupulously through like a chapter in his Bible.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;ye come a wee thing ahint-hand,
+Mr. Balfour.&nbsp; The bird&rsquo;s flaen - we hae letten her out.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Miss Drummond is set free?&rdquo; I cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Achy!&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;What would we keep her for,
+ye ken?&nbsp; To hae made a steer about the bairn would has pleased
+naebody.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And where&rsquo;ll she be now?&rdquo; says I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Gude kens!&rdquo; says Doig, with a shrug.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;ll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I&rsquo;m thinking,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;ll be it,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll gang there straight,&rdquo; says I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But ye&rsquo;ll be for a bite or ye go?&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Neither bite nor sup,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I had a good
+wauch of milk in by Ratho.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Aweel, aweel,&rdquo; says Doig.&nbsp; &ldquo;But ye&rsquo;ll
+can leave your horse here and your bags, for it seems we&rsquo;re to
+have your up-put.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Na, na&rdquo;, said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Tamson&rsquo;s mear <a name="citation17"></a><a href="#footnote17">{17}</a>
+would never be the thing for me this day of all days.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an accent
+much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect a good deal
+broader, indeed, than I have written it down; and I was the more ashamed
+when another voice joined in behind me with a scrap of a ballad:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Gae saddle me the bonny black,<br>
+Gae saddle sune and mak&rsquo; him ready<br>
+For I will down the Gatehope-slack,<br>
+And a&rsquo; to see my bonny leddy.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and her
+hands muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance.&nbsp; Yet
+I could not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she saw
+me.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My best respects to you, Mistress Grant,&rdquo; said I, bowing.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The like to yourself, Mr. David,&rdquo; she replied with a deep
+courtesy.&nbsp; &ldquo;And I beg to remind you of an old musty saw,
+that meat and mass never hindered man.&nbsp; The mass I cannot afford
+you, for we are all good Protestants.&nbsp; But the meat I press on
+your attention.&nbsp; And I would not wonder but I could find something
+for your private ear that would be worth the stopping for.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Mistress Grant,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I believe I am already
+your debtor for some merry words - and I think they were kind too -
+on a piece of unsigned paper.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Unsigned paper?&rdquo; says she, and made a droll face, which
+was likewise wondrous beautiful, as of one trying to remember.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Or else I am the more deceived,&rdquo; I went on.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+to be sure, we shall have the time to speak of these, since your father
+is so good as to make me for a while your inmate; and the <i>gomeral
+</i>begs you at this time only for the favour of his liberty,&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You give yourself hard names,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Mr. Doig and I would be blythe to take harder at your clever
+pen,&rdquo; says I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Once more I have to admire the discretion of all men-folk,&rdquo;
+she replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;But if you will not eat, off with you at once;
+you will be back the sooner, for you go on a fool&rsquo;s errand.&nbsp;
+Off with you, Mr. David,&rdquo; she continued, opening the door.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He has lowpen on his bonny grey,<br>
+He rade the richt gate and the ready<br>
+I trow he would neither stint nor stay,<br>
+For he was seeking his bonny leddy.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I did not wait to be twice bidden, and did justice to Miss Grant&rsquo;s
+citation on the way to Dean.<br>
+<br>
+Old Lady Allardyce walked there alone in the garden, in her hat and
+mutch, and having a silver-mounted staff of some black wood to lean
+upon.&nbsp; As I alighted from my horse, and drew near to her with <i>congees,
+</i>I could see the blood come in her face, and her head fling into
+the air like what I had conceived of empresses.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What brings you to my poor door?&rdquo; she cried, speaking high
+through her nose.&nbsp; &ldquo;I cannot bar it.&nbsp; The males of my
+house are dead and buried; I have neither son nor husband to stand in
+the gate for me; any beggar can pluck me by the baird <a name="citation18"></a><a href="#footnote18">{18}</a>
+- and a baird there is, and that&rsquo;s the worst of it yet?&rdquo;
+she added partly to herself.<br>
+<br>
+I was extremely put out at this reception, and the last remark, which
+seemed like a daft wife&rsquo;s, left me near hand speechless.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I see I have fallen under your displeasure, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo;
+said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yet I will still be so bold as ask after Mistress
+Drummond.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She considered me with a burning eye, her lips pressed close together
+into twenty creases, her hand shaking on her staff.&nbsp; &ldquo;This
+cows all!&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ye come to me to speir for
+her?&nbsp; Would God I knew!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;She is not here?&rdquo; I cried.<br>
+<br>
+She threw up her chin and made a step and a cry at me, so that I fell
+back incontinent.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Out upon your leeing throat!&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;What!
+ye come and speir at me!&nbsp; She&rsquo;s in jyle, whaur ye took her
+to - that&rsquo;s all there is to it.&nbsp; And of a&rsquo; the beings
+ever I beheld in breeks, to think it should be to you!&nbsp; Ye timmer
+scoun&rsquo;rel, if I had a male left to my name I would have your jaicket
+dustit till ye raired.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I thought it not good to delay longer in that place, because I remarked
+her passion to be rising.&nbsp; As I turned to the horse-post she even
+followed me; and I make no shame to confess that I rode away with the
+one stirrup on and scrambling for the other.<br>
+<br>
+As I knew no other quarter where I could push my inquiries, there was
+nothing left me but to return to the Advocate&rsquo;s.&nbsp; I was well
+received by the four ladies, who were now in company together, and must
+give the news of Prestongrange and what word went in the west country,
+at the most inordinate length and with great weariness to myself; while
+all the time that young lady, with whom I so much desired to be alone
+again, observed me quizzically and seemed to find pleasure in the sight
+of my impatience.&nbsp; At last, after I had endured a meal with them,
+and was come very near the point of appealing for an interview before
+her aunt, she went and stood by the music-case, and picking out a tune,
+sang to it on a high key - &ldquo;He that will not when he may, When
+he will he shall have nay.&rdquo;&nbsp; But this was the end of her
+rigours, and presently, after making some excuse of which I have no
+mind, she carried me away in private to her father&rsquo;s library.&nbsp;
+I should not fail to say she was dressed to the nines, and appeared
+extraordinary handsome.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Now, Mr. David, sit ye down here and let us have a two-handed
+crack,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;For I have much to tell you, and
+it appears besides that I have been grossly unjust to your good taste.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;In what manner, Mistress Grant?&rdquo; I asked.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+trust I have never seemed to fail in due respect.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will be your surety, Mr, David,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;Your
+respect, whether to yourself or your poor neighbours, has been always
+and most fortunately beyond imitation.&nbsp; But that is by the question.&nbsp;
+You got a note from me?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I was so bold as to suppose so upon inference,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;and it was kindly thought upon.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It must have prodigiously surprised you,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But let us begin with the beginning.&nbsp; You have not perhaps
+forgot a day when you were so kind as to escort three very tedious misses
+to Hope Park?&nbsp; I have the less cause to forget it myself, because
+you was so particular obliging as to introduce me to some of the principles
+of the Latin grammar, a thing which wrote itself profoundly on my gratitude.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I fear I was sadly pedantical,&rdquo; said I, overcome with confusion
+at the memory.&nbsp; &ldquo;You are only to consider I am quite unused
+with the society of ladies.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will say the less about the grammar then,&rdquo; she replied.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But how came you to desert your charge?&nbsp; &lsquo;He has thrown
+her out, overboard, his ain dear Annie!&rsquo;&rdquo; she hummed; &ldquo;and
+his ain dear Annie and her two sisters had to taigle home by theirselves
+like a string of green geese!&nbsp; It seems you returned to my papa&rsquo;s,
+where you showed yourself excessively martial, and then on to realms
+unknown, with an eye (it appears) to the Bass Rock; solan geese being
+perhaps more to your mind than bonny lasses.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Through all this raillery there was something indulgent in the lady&rsquo;s
+eye which made me suppose there might be better coming.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You take a pleasure to torment me,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and
+I make a very feckless plaything; but let me ask you to be more merciful.&nbsp;
+At this time there is but the one thing that I care to hear of, and
+that will be news of Catriona.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Do you call her by that name to her face, Mr. Balfour?&rdquo;
+she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;In troth, and I am not very sure,&rdquo; I stammered.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would not do so in any case to strangers,&rdquo; said Miss
+Grant.&nbsp; &ldquo;And why are you so much immersed in the affairs
+of this young lady?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I heard she was in prison,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, and now you hear that she is out of it,&rdquo; she replied,
+&ldquo;and what more would you have?&nbsp; She has no need of any further
+champion.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I may have the greater need of her, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said
+I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Come, this is better!&rdquo; says Miss Grant.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+look me fairly in the face; am I not bonnier than she?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would be the last to be denying it,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;There
+is not your marrow in all Scotland.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, here you have the pick of the two at your hand, and must
+needs speak of the other,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;This is never
+the way to please the ladies, Mr. Balfour.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But, mistress,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;there are surely other things
+besides mere beauty.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;By which I am to understand that I am no better than I should
+be, perhaps?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;By which you will please understand that I am like the cock in
+the midden in the fable book,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I see the
+braw jewel - and I like fine to see it too - but I have more need of
+the pickle corn.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Bravissimo!&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;There is a word well
+said at last, and I will reward you for it with my story.&nbsp; That
+same night of your desertion I came late from a friend&rsquo;s house
+- where I was excessively admired, whatever you may think of it - and
+what should I hear but that a lass in a tartan screen desired to speak
+with me?&nbsp; She had been there an hour or better, said the servant-lass,
+and she grat in to herself as she sat waiting.&nbsp; I went to her direct;
+she rose as I came in, and I knew her at a look.&nbsp; &lsquo;<i>Grey
+Eyes</i>!&rsquo; says I to myself, but was more wise than to let on.&nbsp;
+<i>You will be Miss Grant at last? </i>she says, rising and looking
+at me hard and pitiful.&nbsp; <i>Ay,</i> <i>it was true he said, you
+are bonny at all events. - The</i> <i>way God made me, my dear, </i>I
+said, <i>but I would be gey and obliged if you could tell me</i> <i>what
+brought you here at such a time of the night. - Lady, </i>she said,
+<i>we are kinsfolk, we are both come of the blood of the sons of Alpin.
+- My dear, </i>I replied, <i>I think no more of Alpin</i> <i>or his
+sons</i> <i>than</i> <i>what I do of a kalestock.</i>&nbsp; <i>You have</i>
+<i>a better argument in these tears upon your bonny face.&nbsp; </i>And
+at that I was so weak-minded as to kiss her, which is what you would
+like to do dearly, and I wager will never find the courage of.&nbsp;
+I say it was weak-minded of me, for I knew no more of her than the outside;
+but it was the wisest stroke I could have hit upon.&nbsp; She is a very
+staunch, brave nature, but I think she has been little used with tenderness;
+and at that caress (though to say the truth, it was but lightly given)
+her heart went out to me.&nbsp; I will never betray the secrets of my
+sex, Mr. Davie; I will never tell you the way she turned me round her
+thumb, because it is the same she will use to twist yourself.&nbsp;
+Ay, it is a fine lass!&nbsp; She is as clean as hill well water.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;She is e&rsquo;en&rsquo;t!&rdquo; I cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, then, she told me her concerns,&rdquo; pursued Miss Grant,
+&ldquo;and in what a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking
+about yourself, with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she
+had found herself after you was gone away.&nbsp; <i>And then I minded
+at long last, </i>says she, <i>that we were kinswomen, and that</i>
+<i>Mr. David should have given you the name of the bonniest of the bonny,
+and I was</i> <i>thinking to myself </i>&lsquo;<i>If she is so bonny
+she will be good at all events</i>&rsquo;; <i>and I took up</i> <i>my
+foot soles out of that.&nbsp; </i>That was when I forgave yourself,
+Mr. Davie.&nbsp; When you was in my society, you seemed upon hot iron:
+by all marks, if ever I saw a young man that wanted to be gone, it was
+yourself, and I and my two sisters were the ladies you were so desirous
+to be gone from; and now it appeared you had given me some notice in
+the by-going, and was so kind as to comment on my attractions!&nbsp;
+From that hour you may date our friendship, and I began to think with
+tenderness upon the Latin grammar.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You will have many hours to rally me in,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and
+I think besides you do yourself injustice.&nbsp; I think it was Catriona
+turned your heart in my direction.&nbsp; She is too simple to perceive
+as you do the stiffness of her friend.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would not like to wager upon that, Mr. David,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;The lasses have clear eyes.&nbsp; But at least she is your friend
+entirely, as I was to see.&nbsp; I carried her in to his lordship my
+papa; and his Advocacy being in a favourable stage of claret, was so
+good as to receive the pair of us.&nbsp; <i>Here is Grey Eyes that</i>
+<i>you have been deaved with these days past, </i>said I, <i>she is
+come to prove that we</i> <i>spoke true, and I lay the prettiest lass
+in</i> <i>the three Lothians at your feet</i> - making a papistical
+reservation of myself.&nbsp; She suited her action to my words: down
+she went upon her knees to him - I would not like to swear but he saw
+two of her, which doubtless made her appeal the more irresistible, for
+you are all a pack of Mahomedans - told him what had passed that night,
+and how she had withheld her father&rsquo;s man from following of you,
+and what a case she was in about her father, and what a flutter for
+yourself; and begged with weeping for the lives of both of you (neither
+of which was in the slightest danger), till I vow I was proud of my
+sex because it was done so pretty, and ashamed for it because of the
+smallness of the occasion.&nbsp; She had not gone far, I assure you,
+before the Advocate was wholly sober, to see his inmost politics ravelled
+out by a young lass and discovered to the most unruly of his daughters.&nbsp;
+But we took him in hand, the pair of us, and brought that matter straight.&nbsp;
+Properly managed - and that means managed by me - there is no one to
+compare with my papa.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He has been a good man to me,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, he was a good man to Katrine, and I was there to see to
+it,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And she pled for me?&rdquo; say I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;She did that, and very movingly,&rdquo; said Miss Grant.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I would not like to tell you what she said - I find you vain
+enough already.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;God reward her for it!&rdquo; cried I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;With Mr. David Balfour, I suppose?&rdquo; says she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You do me too much injustice at the last!&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I would tremble to think of her in such hard hands.&nbsp; Do
+you think I would presume, because she begged my life?&nbsp; She would
+do that for a new whelped puppy!&nbsp; I have had more than that to
+set me up, if you but ken&rsquo;d.&nbsp; She kissed that hand of mine.&nbsp;
+Ay, but she did.&nbsp; And why? because she thought I was playing a
+brave part and might be going to my death.&nbsp; It was not for my sake
+- but I need not be telling that to you, that cannot look at me without
+laughter.&nbsp; It was for the love of what she thought was bravery.&nbsp;
+I believe there is none but me and poor Prince Charlie had that honour
+done them.&nbsp; Was this not to make a god of me? and do you not think
+my heart would quake when I remember it?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do laugh at you a good deal, and a good deal more than is quite
+civil,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;but I will tell you one thing: if you
+speak to her like that, you have some glimmerings of a chance.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Me?&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;I would never dare.&nbsp; I can speak
+to you, Miss Grant, because it&rsquo;s a matter of indifference what
+ye think of me.&nbsp; But her? no fear!&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think you have the largest feet in all broad Scotland,&rdquo;
+says she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Troth they are no very small,&rdquo; said I, looking down.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, poor Catriona!&rdquo; cries Miss Grant.<br>
+<br>
+And I could but stare upon her; for though I now see very well what
+she was driving at (and perhaps some justification for the same), I
+was never swift at the uptake in such flimsy talk.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah well, Mr. David,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it goes sore against
+my conscience, but I see I shall have to be your speaking board.&nbsp;
+She shall know you came to her straight upon the news of her imprisonment;
+she shall know you would not pause to eat; and of our conversation she
+shall hear just so much as I think convenient for a maid of her age
+and inexperience.&nbsp; Believe me, you will be in that way much better
+served than you could serve yourself, for I will keep the big feet out
+of the platter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You know where she is, then?&rdquo; I exclaimed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That I do, Mr. David, and will never tell,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why that?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am a good friend, as you will
+soon discover; and the chief of those that I am friend to is my papa.&nbsp;
+I assure you, you will never heat nor melt me out of that, so you may
+spare me your sheep&rsquo;s eyes; and adieu to your David-Balfourship
+for the now.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But there is yet one thing more,&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;There
+is one thing that must be stopped, being mere ruin to herself, and to
+me too.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;be brief; I have spent half the
+day on you already.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My Lady Allardyce believes,&rdquo; I began - &ldquo;she supposes
+- she thinks that I abducted her.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The colour came into Miss Grant&rsquo;s face, so that at first I was
+quite abashed to find her ear so delicate, till I bethought me she was
+struggling rather with mirth, a notion in which I was altogether confirmed
+by the shaking of her voice as she replied -<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will take up the defence of your reputation,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;You may leave it in my hands.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+And with that she withdrew out of the library.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XX - I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+For about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange&rsquo;s
+family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar, and
+the flower of Edinburgh company.&nbsp; You are not to suppose my education
+was neglected; on the contrary, I was kept extremely busy.&nbsp; I studied
+the French, so as to be more prepared to go to Leyden; I set myself
+to the fencing, and wrought hard, sometimes three hours in the day,
+with notable advancement; at the suggestion of my cousin, Pilrig, who
+was an apt musician, I was put to a singing class; and by the orders
+of my Miss Grant, to one for the dancing, at which I must say I proved
+far from ornamental.&nbsp; However, all were good enough to say it gave
+me an address a little more genteel; and there is no question but I
+learned to manage my coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and
+to stand in a room as though the same belonged to me.&nbsp; My clothes
+themselves were all earnestly re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance,
+such as where I should tie my hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated
+among the three misses like a thing of weight.&nbsp; One way with another,
+no doubt I was a good deal improved to look at, and acquired a bit of
+modest air that would have surprised the good folks at Essendean.<br>
+<br>
+The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my habiliment,
+because that was in the line of their chief thoughts.&nbsp; I cannot
+say that they appeared any other way conscious of my presence; and though
+always more than civil, with a kind of heartless cordiality, could not
+hide how much I wearied them.&nbsp; As for the aunt, she was a wonderful
+still woman; and I think she gave me much the same attention as she
+gave the rest of the family, which was little enough.&nbsp; The eldest
+daughter and the Advocate himself were thus my principal friends, and
+our familiarity was much increased by a pleasure that we took in common.&nbsp;
+Before the court met we spent a day or two at the house of Grange, living
+very nobly with an open table, and here it was that we three began to
+ride out together in the fields, a practice afterwards maintained in
+Edinburgh, so far as the Advocate&rsquo;s continual affairs permitted.&nbsp;
+When we were put in a good frame by the briskness of the exercise, the
+difficulties of the way, or the accidents of bad weather, my shyness
+wore entirely off; we forgot that we were strangers, and speech not
+being required, it flowed the more naturally on.&nbsp; Then it was that
+they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the time that I left Essendean,
+with my voyage and battle in the <i>Covenant, </i>wanderings in the
+heather, etc.; and from the interest they found in my adventures sprung
+the circumstance of a jaunt we made a little later on, on a day when
+the courts were not sitting, and of which I will tell a trifle more
+at length.<br>
+<br>
+We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where it
+stood smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet early
+in the day.&nbsp; Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his horse,
+an proceeded alone to visit my uncle.&nbsp; My heart, I remember, swelled
+up bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the thought
+of the old miser sitting chittering within in the cold kitchen!<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is my home,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and my family.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Poor David Balfour!&rdquo; said Miss Grant.<br>
+<br>
+What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would doubtless
+not be very agreeable to Ebenezer, for when the Advocate came forth
+again his face was dark.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr. Davie,&rdquo;
+says he, turning half about with the one foot in the stirrup.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will never pretend sorrow,&rdquo; said I; and, to say the truth,
+during his absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place
+in fancy with plantations, parterres, and a terrace - much as I have
+since carried out in fact.<br>
+<br>
+Thence we pushed to the Queensferry, where Rankeillor gave us a good
+welcome, being indeed out of the body to receive so great a visitor.&nbsp;
+Here the Advocate was so unaffectedly good as to go quite fully over
+my affairs, sitting perhaps two hours with the Writer in his study,
+and expressing (I was told) a great esteem for myself and concern for
+my fortunes.&nbsp; To while this time, Miss Grant and I and young Rankeillor
+took boat and passed the Hope to Limekilns.&nbsp; Rankeillor made himself
+very ridiculous (and, I thought, offensive) with his admiration for
+the young lady, and to my wonder (only it is so common a weakness of
+her sex) she seemed, if anything, to be a little gratified.&nbsp; One
+use it had: for when we were come to the other side, she laid her commands
+on him to mind the boat, while she and I passed a little further to
+the alehouse.&nbsp; This was her own thought, for she had been taken
+with my account of Alison Hastie, and desired to see the lass herself.&nbsp;
+We found her once more alone - indeed, I believe her father wrought
+all day in the fields - and she curtsied dutifully to the gentry-folk
+and the beautiful young lady in the riding-coat.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is this all the welcome I am to get?&rdquo; said I, holding out
+my hand.&nbsp; &ldquo;And have you no more memory of old friends?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Keep me! wha&rsquo;s this of it?&rdquo; she cried, and then,
+&ldquo;God&rsquo;s truth, it&rsquo;s the tautit <a name="citation19"></a><a href="#footnote19">{19}</a>
+laddie!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The very same,&rdquo; says<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Mony&rsquo;s the time I&rsquo;ve thocht upon you and your freen,
+and blythe am I to see in your braws,&rdquo; <a name="citation20"></a><a href="#footnote20">{20}</a>
+she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Though I kent ye were come to your ain folk
+by the grand present that ye sent me and that I thank ye for with a&rsquo;
+my heart.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There,&rdquo; said Miss Grant to me, &ldquo;run out by with ye,
+like a guid bairn.&nbsp; I didnae come here to stand and haud a candle;
+it&rsquo;s her and me that are to crack.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I suppose she stayed ten minutes in the house, but when she came forth
+I observed two things - that her eyes were reddened, and a silver brooch
+was gone out of her bosom.&nbsp; This very much affected me.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I never saw you so well adorned,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O Davie man, dinna be a pompous gowk!&rdquo; said she, and was
+more than usually sharp to me the remainder of the day.<br>
+<br>
+About candlelight we came home from this excursion.<br>
+<br>
+For a good while I heard nothing further of Catriona - my Miss Grant
+remaining quite impenetrable, and stopping my mouth with pleasantries.&nbsp;
+At last, one day that she returned from walking and found me alone in
+the parlour over my French, I thought there was something unusual in
+her looks; the colour heightened, the eyes sparkling high, and a bit
+of a smile continually bitten in as she regarded me.&nbsp; She seemed
+indeed like the very spirit of mischief, and, walking briskly in the
+room, had soon involved me in a kind of quarrel over nothing and (at
+the least) with nothing intended on my side.&nbsp; I was like Christian
+in the slough - the more I tried to clamber out upon the side, the deeper
+I became involved; until at last I heard her declare, with a great deal
+of passion, that she would take that answer from the hands of none,
+and I must down upon my knees for pardon.<br>
+<br>
+The causelessness of all this fuff stirred my own bile.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+have said nothing you can properly object to,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and
+as for my knees, that is an attitude I keep for God.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And as a goddess I am to be served!&rdquo; she cried, shaking
+her brown locks at me and with a bright colour.&nbsp; &ldquo;Every man
+that comes within waft of my petticoats shall use me so!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will go so far as ask your pardon for the fashion&rsquo;s sake,
+although I vow I know not why,&rdquo; I replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;But for
+these play-acting postures, you can go to others.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O Davie!&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not if I was to beg you?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I bethought me I was fighting with a woman, which is the same as to
+say a child, and that upon a point entirely formal.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think it a bairnly thing,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;not worthy
+in you to ask, or me to render.&nbsp; Yet I will not refuse you, neither,&rdquo;
+said I; &ldquo;and the stain, if there be any, rests with yourself.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And at that I kneeled fairly down.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;There is the proper station,
+there is where I have been manoeuvring to bring you.&rdquo;&nbsp; And
+then, suddenly, &ldquo;Kep,&rdquo; <a name="citation21"></a><a href="#footnote21">{21}</a>
+said she, flung me a folded billet, and ran from the apartment laughing.<br>
+<br>
+The billet had neither place nor date.&nbsp; &ldquo;Dear Mr. David,&rdquo;
+it began, &ldquo;I get your news continually by my cousin, Miss Grant,
+and it is a pleisand hearing.&nbsp; I am very well, in a good place,
+among good folk, but necessitated to be quite private, though I am hoping
+that at long last we may meet again.&nbsp; All your friendships have
+been told me by my loving cousin, who loves us both.&nbsp; She bids
+me to send you this writing, and oversees the same.&nbsp; I will be
+asking you to do all her commands, and rest your affectionate friend,
+Catriona Macgregor-Drummond.&nbsp; P.S. - Will you not see my cousin,
+Allardyce?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I think it not the least brave of my campaigns (as the soldiers say)
+that I should have done as I was here bidden and gone forthright to
+the house by Dean.&nbsp; But the old lady was now entirely changed and
+supple as a glove.&nbsp; By what means Miss Grant had brought this round
+I could never guess; I am sure, at least, she dared not to appear openly
+in the affair, for her papa was compromised in it pretty deep.&nbsp;
+It was he, indeed, who had persuaded Catriona to leave, or rather, not
+to return, to her cousin&rsquo;s, placing her instead with a family
+of Gregorys - decent people, quite at the Advocate&rsquo;s disposition,
+and in whom she might have the more confidence because they were of
+his own clan and family.&nbsp; These kept her private till all was ripe,
+heated and helped her to attempt her father&rsquo;s rescue, and after
+she was discharged from prison received her again into the same secrecy.&nbsp;
+Thus Prestongrange obtained and used his instrument; nor did there leak
+out the smallest word of his acquaintance with the daughter of James
+More.&nbsp; There was some whispering, of course, upon the escape of
+that discredited person; but the Government replied by a show of rigour,
+one of the cell porters was flogged, the lieutenant of the guard (my
+poor friend, Duncansby) was broken of his rank, and as for Catriona,
+all men were well enough pleased that her fault should be passed by
+in silence.<br>
+<br>
+I could never induce Miss Grant to carry back an answer.&nbsp; &ldquo;No,&rdquo;
+she would say, when I persisted, &ldquo;I am going to keep the big feet
+out of the platter.&rdquo;&nbsp; This was the more hard to bear, as
+I was aware she saw my little friend many times in the week, and carried
+her my news whenever (as she said) I &ldquo;had behaved myself.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+At last she treated me to what she called an indulgence, and I thought
+rather more of a banter.&nbsp; She was certainly a strong, almost a
+violent, friend to all she liked, chief among whom was a certain frail
+old gentlewoman, very blind and very witty, who dwelt on the top of
+a tall land on a strait close, with a nest of linnets in a cage, and
+thronged all day with visitors.&nbsp; Miss Grant was very fond to carry
+me there and put me to entertain her friend with the narrative of my
+misfortunes: and Miss Tibbie Ramsay (that was her name) was particular
+kind, and told me a great deal that was worth knowledge of old folks
+and past affairs in Scotland.&nbsp; I should say that from her chamber
+window, and not three feet away, such is the straitness of that close,
+it was possible to look into a barred loophole lighting the stairway
+of the opposite house.<br>
+<br>
+Here, upon some pretext, Miss Grant left me one day alone with Miss
+Ramsay.&nbsp; I mind I thought that lady inattentive and like one preoccupied.&nbsp;
+I was besides very uncomfortable, for the window, contrary to custom,
+was left open and the day was cold.&nbsp; All at once the voice of Miss
+Grant sounded in my ears as from a distance.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Here, Shaws!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;keek out of the window
+and see what I have broughten you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I think it was the prettiest sight that ever I beheld.&nbsp; The well
+of the close was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly,
+the walls very black and dingy; and there from the barred loophole I
+saw two faces smiling across at me - Miss Grant&rsquo;s and Catriona&rsquo;s.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There!&rdquo; says Miss Grant, &ldquo;I wanted her to see you
+in your braws like the lass of Limekilns.&nbsp; I wanted her to see
+what I could make of you, when I buckled to the job in earnest!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+It came in my mind that she had been more than common particular that
+day upon my dress; and I think that some of the same care had been bestowed
+upon Catriona.&nbsp; For so merry and sensible a lady, Miss Grant was
+certainly wonderful taken up with duds.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona!&rdquo; was all I could get out.<br>
+<br>
+As for her, she said nothing in the world, but only waved her hand and
+smiled to me, and was suddenly carried away again from before the loophole.<br>
+<br>
+That vision was no sooner lost than I ran to the house door, where I
+found I was locked in; thence back to Miss Ramsay, crying for the key,
+but might as well have cried upon the castle rock.&nbsp; She had passed
+her word, she said, and I must be a good lad.&nbsp; It was impossible
+to burst the door, even if it had been mannerly; it was impossible I
+should leap from the window, being seven storeys above ground.&nbsp;
+All I could do was to crane over the close and watch for their reappearance
+from the stair.&nbsp; It was little to see, being no more than the tops
+of their two heads each on a ridiculous bobbin of skirts, like to a
+pair of pincushions.&nbsp; Nor did Catriona so much as look up for a
+farewell; being prevented (as I heard afterwards) by Miss Grant, who
+told her folk were never seen to less advantage than from above downward.<br>
+<br>
+On the way home, as soon as I was set free, I upbraided Miss Grant with
+her cruelty.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am sorry you was disappointed,&rdquo; says she demurely.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;For my part I was very pleased.&nbsp; You looked better than
+I dreaded; you looked - if it will not make you vain - a mighty pretty
+young man when you appeared in the window.&nbsp; You are to remember
+that she could not see your feet,&rdquo; says she, with the manner of
+one reassuring me.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O!&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;leave my feet be - they are no bigger
+than my neighbours&rsquo;.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;They are even smaller than some,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;but
+I speak in parables like a Hebrew prophet.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I marvel little they were sometimes stoned!&rdquo; says I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But, you miserable girl, how could you do it?&nbsp; Why should
+you care to tantalise me with a moment?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Love is like folk,&rdquo; says she; &ldquo;it needs some kind
+of vivers.&rdquo; <a name="citation22"></a><a href="#footnote22">{22}</a><br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Oh, Barbara, let me see her properly!&rdquo; I pleaded.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;<i>You </i>can - you see her when you please; let me have half
+an hour.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Who is it that is managing this love affair!&nbsp; You!&nbsp;
+Or me?&rdquo; she asked, and as I continued to press her with my instances,
+fell back upon a deadly expedient: that of imitating the tones of my
+voice when I called on Catriona by name; with which, indeed, she held
+me in subjection for some days to follow.<br>
+<br>
+There was never the least word heard of the memorial, or none by me.&nbsp;
+Prestongrange and his grace the Lord President may have heard of it
+(for what I know) on the deafest sides of their heads; they kept it
+to themselves, at least - the public was none the wiser; and in course
+of time, on November 8th, and in the midst of a prodigious storm of
+wind and rain, poor James of the Glens was duly hanged at Lettermore
+by Ballachulish.<br>
+<br>
+So there was the final upshot of my politics!&nbsp; Innocent men have
+perished before James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite of
+all our wisdom) till the end of time.&nbsp; And till the end of time
+young folk (who are not yet used with the duplicity of life and men)
+will struggle as I did, and make heroical resolves, and take long risks;
+and the course of events will push them upon the one side and go on
+like a marching army.&nbsp; James was hanged; and here was I dwelling
+in the house of Prestongrange, and grateful to him for his fatherly
+attention.&nbsp; He was hanged; and behold! when I met Mr. Simon in
+the causeway, I was fain to pull off my beaver to him like a good little
+boy before his dominie.&nbsp; He had been hanged by fraud and violence,
+and the world wagged along, and there was not a pennyweight of difference;
+and the villains of that horrid plot were decent, kind, respectable
+fathers of families, who went to kirk and took the sacrament!<br>
+<br>
+But I had had my view of that detestable business they call politics
+- I had seen it from behind, when it is all bones and blackness; and
+I was cured for life of any temptations to take part in it again.&nbsp;
+A plain, quiet, private path was that which I was ambitious to walk
+in, when I might keep my head out of the way of dangers and my conscience
+out of the road of temptation.&nbsp; For, upon a retrospect, it appeared
+I had not done so grandly, after all; but with the greatest possible
+amount of big speech and preparation, had accomplished nothing.<br>
+<br>
+The 25th of the same month a ship was advertised to sail from Leith;
+and I was suddenly recommended to make up my mails for Leyden.&nbsp;
+To Prestongrange I could, of course, say nothing; for I had already
+been a long while sorning on his house and table.&nbsp; But with his
+daughter I was more open, bewailing my fate that I should be sent out
+of the country, and assuring her, unless she should bring me to farewell
+with Catriona, I would refuse at the last hour.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Have I not given you my advice?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I know you have,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I know how much I
+am beholden to you already, and that I am bidden to obey your orders.&nbsp;
+But you must confess you are something too merry a lass at times to
+lippen <a name="citation23"></a><a href="#footnote23">{23}</a> to entirely.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will tell you, then,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;Be you on
+board by nine o&rsquo;clock forenoon; the ship does not sail before
+one; keep your boat alongside; and if you are not pleased with my farewells
+when I shall send them, you can come ashore again and seek Katrine for
+yourself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Since I could make no more of her, I was fain to be content with this.<br>
+<br>
+The day came round at last when she and I were to separate.&nbsp; We
+had been extremely intimate and familiar; I was much in her debt; and
+what way we were to part was a thing that put me from my sleep, like
+the vails I was to give to the domestic servants.&nbsp; I knew she considered
+me too backward, and rather desired to rise in her opinion on that head.&nbsp;
+Besides which, after so much affection shown and (I believe) felt upon
+both sides, it would have looked cold-like to be anyways stiff.&nbsp;
+Accordingly, I got my courage up and my words ready, and the last chance
+we were like to be alone, asked pretty boldly to be allowed to salute
+her in farewell.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You forget yourself strangely, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I cannot call to mind that I have given you any right to presume
+on our acquaintancy.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I stood before her like a stopped clock, and knew not what to think,
+far less to say, when of a sudden she cast her arms about my neck and
+kissed me with the best will in the world.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You inimitable bairn?&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Did you
+think that I would let us part like strangers?&nbsp; Because I can never
+keep my gravity at you five minutes on end, you must not dream I do
+not love you very well: I am all love and laughter, every time I cast
+an eye on you!&nbsp; And now I will give you an advice to conclude your
+education, which you will have need of before it&rsquo;s very long.<br>
+<br>
+Never <i>ask</i> womenfolk.&nbsp; They&rsquo;re bound to answer &lsquo;No&rsquo;;
+God never made the lass that could resist the temptation.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
+supposed by divines to be the curse of Eve: because she did not say
+it when the devil offered her the apple, her daughters can say nothing
+else.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Since I am so soon to lose my bonny professor,&rdquo; I began.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is gallant, indeed,&rdquo; says she curtseying.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would put the one question,&rdquo; I went on.&nbsp; &ldquo;May
+I ask a lass to marry to me?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You think you could not marry her without!&rdquo; she asked.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Or else get her to offer?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You see you cannot be serious,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I shall be very serious in one thing, David,&rdquo; said she:
+&ldquo;I shall always be your friend.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+As I got to my horse the next morning, the four ladies were all at that
+same window whence we had once looked down on Catriona, and all cried
+farewell and waved their pocket napkins as I rode away.&nbsp; One out
+of the four I knew was truly sorry; and at the thought of that, and
+how I had come to the door three months ago for the first time, sorrow
+and gratitude made a confusion in my mind.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+PART II - FATHER AND DAUGHTER<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XXI - THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The ship lay at a single anchor, well outside the pier of Leith, so
+that all we passengers must come to it by the means of skiffs.&nbsp;
+This was very little troublesome, for the reason that the day was a
+flat calm, very frosty and cloudy, and with a low shifting fog upon
+the water.&nbsp; The body of the vessel was thus quite hid as I drew
+near, but the tall spars of her stood high and bright in a sunshine
+like the flickering of a fire.&nbsp; She proved to be a very roomy,
+commodious merchant, but somewhat blunt in the bows, and loaden extraordinary
+deep with salt, salted salmon, and fine white linen stockings for the
+Dutch.&nbsp; Upon my coming on board, the captain welcomed me - one
+Sang (out of Lesmahago, I believe), a very hearty, friendly tarpaulin
+of a man, but at the moment in rather of a bustle.&nbsp; There had no
+other of the passengers yet appeared, so that I was left to walk about
+upon the deck, viewing the prospect and wondering a good deal what these
+farewells should be which I was promised.<br>
+<br>
+All Edinburgh and the Pentland Hills glinted above me in a kind of smuisty
+brightness, now and again overcome with blots of cloud; of Leith there
+was no more than the tops of chimneys visible, and on the face of the
+water, where the haar <a name="citation24"></a><a href="#footnote24">{24}</a>
+lay, nothing at all.&nbsp; Out of this I was presently aware of a sound
+of oars pulling, and a little after (as if out of the smoke of a fire)
+a boat issued.&nbsp; There sat a grave man in the stern sheets, well
+muffled from the cold, and by his side a tall, pretty, tender figure
+of a maid that brought my heart to a stand.&nbsp; I had scarce the time
+to catch my breath in, and be ready to meet her, as she stepped upon
+the deck, smiling, and making my best bow, which was now vastly finer
+than some months before, when first I made it to her ladyship.&nbsp;
+No doubt we were both a good deal changed: she seemed to have shot up
+like a young, comely tree.&nbsp; She had now a kind of pretty backwardness
+that became her well as of one that regarded herself more highly and
+was fairly woman; and for another thing, the hand of the same magician
+had been at work upon the pair of us, and Miss Grant had made us both
+<i>braw, </i>if she could make but the one <i>bonny</i>.<br>
+<br>
+The same cry, in words not very different, came from both of us, that
+the other was come in compliment to say farewell, and then we perceived
+in a flash we were to ship together.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, why will not Baby have been telling me!&rdquo; she cried;
+and then remembered a letter she had been given, on the condition of
+not opening it till she was well on board.&nbsp; Within was an enclosure
+for myself, and ran thus:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;DEAR DAVIE, - What do you think of my farewell? and what do you
+say to your fellow passenger?&nbsp; Did you kiss, or did you ask?&nbsp;
+I was about to have signed here, but that would leave the purport of
+my question doubtful, and in my own case <i>I</i> <i>ken the answer</i>.&nbsp;
+So fill up here with good advice.&nbsp; Do not be too blate, <a name="citation25"></a><a href="#footnote25">{25}</a>
+and for God&rsquo;s sake do not try to be too forward; nothing acts
+you worse.&nbsp; I am<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Your affectionate friend and governess,<br>
+&ldquo;BARBARA GRANT.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my pocketbook,
+put it in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed the whole with
+my new signet of the Balfour arms, and despatched it by the hand of
+Prestongrange&rsquo;s servant that still waited in my boat.<br>
+<br>
+Then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure, which we had
+not done for a piece of a minute before (upon a common impulse) we shook
+hands again.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona?&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; It seemed that was the first and
+last word of my eloquence.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You will be glad to see me again?&rdquo; says she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I think that is an idle word,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;We
+are too deep friends to make speech upon such trifles.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is she not the girl of all the world?&rdquo; she cried again.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I was never knowing such a girl so honest and so beautiful.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And yet she cared no more for Alpin than what she did for a kale-stock,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, she will say so indeed!&rdquo; cries Catriona.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yet
+it was for the name and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and
+was so good to me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, I will tell you why it was,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;There
+are all sorts of people&rsquo;s faces in this world.&nbsp; There is
+Barbara&rsquo;s face, that everyone must look at and admire, and think
+her a fine, brave, merry girl.&nbsp; And then there is your face, which
+is quite different - I never knew how different till to-day.&nbsp; You
+cannot see yourself, and that is why you do not understand; but it was
+for the love of your face that she took you up and was so good to you.&nbsp;
+And everybody in the world would do the same.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Everybody?&rdquo; says she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Every living soul?&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, then, that will be why the soldiers at the castle took me
+up!&rdquo; she cried,<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Barbara has been teaching you to catch me,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;She will have taught me more than that at all events.&nbsp; She
+will have taught me a great deal about Mr. David - all the ill of him,
+and a little that was not so ill either, now and then,&rdquo; she said,
+smiling.&nbsp; &ldquo;She will have told me all there was of Mr. David,
+only just that he would sail upon this very same ship.&nbsp; And why
+it is you go?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I told her.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;we will be some days in company
+and then (I suppose) good-bye for altogether!&nbsp; I go to meet my
+father at a place of the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France,
+to be exiles by the side of our chieftain.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I could say no more than just &ldquo;O!&rdquo; the name of James More
+always drying up my very voice.<br>
+<br>
+She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my thought.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David,&rdquo;
+said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to
+you altogether very well.&nbsp; And the one of them two is James More,
+my father, and the other is the Laird of Prestongrange.&nbsp; Prestongrange
+will have spoken by himself, or his daughter in the place of him.&nbsp;
+But for James More, my father, I have this much to say: he lay shackled
+in a prison; he is a plain honest soldier and a plain Highland gentleman;
+what they would be after he would never be guessing; but if he had understood
+it was to be some prejudice to a young gentleman like yourself, he would
+have died first.&nbsp; And for the sake of all your friendships, I will
+be asking you to pardon my father and family for that same mistake.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what that mistake was I do not
+care to know.&nbsp; I know but the one thing - that you went to Prestongrange
+and begged my life upon your knees.&nbsp; O, I ken well enough it was
+for your father that you went, but when you were there you pleaded for
+me also.&nbsp; It is a thing I cannot speak of.&nbsp; There are two
+things I cannot think of into myself: and the one is your good words
+when you called yourself my little friend, and the other that you pleaded
+for my life.&nbsp; Let us never speak more, we two, of pardon or offence.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on her;
+and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up in
+the nor&rsquo;-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in
+upon the anchor.<br>
+<br>
+There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it a
+full cabin.&nbsp; Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkcaldy,
+and Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany.&nbsp;
+One was a Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants&rsquo; wives,
+to the charge of one of whom Catriona was recommended.&nbsp; Mrs. Gebbie
+(for that was her name) was by great good fortune heavily incommoded
+by the sea, and lay day and night on the broad of her back.&nbsp; We
+were besides the only creatures at all young on board the <i>Rose, </i>except
+a white-faced boy that did my old duty to attend upon the table; and
+it came about that Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves.&nbsp;
+We had the next seats together at the table, where I waited on her with
+extraordinary pleasure.&nbsp; On deck, I made her a soft place with
+my cloak; and the weather being singularly fine for that season, with
+bright frosty days and nights, a steady, gentle wind, and scarce a sheet
+started all the way through the North Sea, we sat there (only now and
+again walking to and fro for warmth) from the first blink of the sun
+till eight or nine at night under the clear stars.&nbsp; The merchants
+or Captain Sang would sometimes glance and smile upon us, or pass a
+merry word or two and give us the go-by again; but the most part of
+the time they were deep in herring and chintzes and linen, or in computations
+of the slowness of the passage, and left us to our own concerns, which
+were very little important to any but ourselves.<br>
+<br>
+At the first, we had a great deal to say, and thought ourselves pretty
+witty; and I was at a little pains to be the <i>beau, </i>and she (I
+believe) to play the young lady of experience.&nbsp; But soon we grew
+plainer with each other.&nbsp; I laid aside my high, clipped English
+(what little there was left of it) and forgot to make my Edinburgh bows
+and scrapes; she, upon her side, fell into a sort of kind familiarity;
+and we dwelt together like those of the same household, only (upon my
+side) with a more deep emotion.&nbsp; About the same time the bottom
+seemed to fall out of our conversation, and neither one of us the less
+pleased.&nbsp; Whiles she would tell me old wives&rsquo; tales, of which
+she had a wonderful variety, many of them from my friend red-headed
+Niel.&nbsp; She told them very pretty, and they were pretty enough childish
+tales; but the pleasure to myself was in the sound of her voice, and
+the thought that she was telling and I listening.&nbsp; Whiles, again,
+we would sit entirely silent, not communicating even with a look, and
+tasting pleasure enough in the sweetness of that neighbourhood.&nbsp;
+I speak here only for myself.&nbsp; Of what was in the maid&rsquo;s
+mind, I am not very sure that ever I asked myself; and what was in my
+own, I was afraid to consider.&nbsp; I need make no secret of it now,
+either to myself or to the reader; I was fallen totally in love.&nbsp;
+She came between me and the sun.&nbsp; She had grown suddenly taller,
+as I say, but with a wholesome growth; she seemed all health, and lightness,
+and brave spirits; and I thought she walked like a young deer, and stood
+like a birch upon the mountains.&nbsp; It was enough for me to sit near
+by her on the deck; and I declare I scarce spent two thoughts upon the
+future, and was so well content with what I then enjoyed that I was
+never at the pains to imagine any further step; unless perhaps that
+I would be sometimes tempted to take her hand in mine and hold it there.&nbsp;
+But I was too like a miser of what joys I had, and would venture nothing
+on a hazard.<br>
+<br>
+What we spoke was usually of ourselves or of each other, so that if
+anyone had been at so much pains as overhear us, he must have supposed
+us the most egotistical persons in the world.&nbsp; It befell one day
+when we were at this practice, that we came on a discourse of friends
+and friendship, and I think now that we were sailing near the wind.&nbsp;
+We said what a fine thing friendship was, and how little we had guessed
+of it, and how it made life a new thing, and a thousand covered things
+of the same kind that will have been said, since the foundation of the
+world, by young folk in the same predicament.&nbsp; Then we remarked
+upon the strangeness of that circumstance, that friends came together
+in the beginning as if they were there for the first time, and yet each
+had been alive a good while, losing time with other people.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is not much that I have done,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;and
+I could be telling you the five-fifths of it in two-three words.&nbsp;
+It is only a girl I am, and what can befall a girl, at all events?&nbsp;
+But I went with the clan in the year &lsquo;45.&nbsp; The men marched
+with swords and fire-locks, and some of them in brigades in the same
+set of tartan; they were not backward at the marching, I can tell you.&nbsp;
+And there were gentlemen from the Low Country, with their tenants mounted
+and trumpets to sound, and there was a grant skirling of war-pipes.&nbsp;
+I rode on a little Highland horse on the right hand of my father, James
+More, and of Glengyle himself.&nbsp; And here is one fine thing that
+I remember, that Glengyle kissed me in the face, because (says he) &lsquo;my
+kinswoman, you are the only lady of the clan that has come out,&rsquo;
+and me a little maid of maybe twelve years old!&nbsp; I saw Prince Charlie
+too, and the blue eyes of him; he was pretty indeed!&nbsp; I had his
+hand to kiss in front of the army.&nbsp; O, well, these were the good
+days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and then awakened.&nbsp;
+It went what way you very well know; and these were the worst days of
+all, when the red-coat soldiers were out, and my father and uncles lay
+in the hill, and I was to be carrying them their meat in the middle
+night, or at the short sight of day when the cocks crow.&nbsp; Yes,
+I have walked in the night, many&rsquo;s the time, and my heart great
+in me for terror of the darkness.&nbsp; It is a strange thing I will
+never have been meddled with by a bogle; but they say a maid goes safe.&nbsp;
+Next there was my uncle&rsquo;s marriage, and that was a dreadful affair
+beyond all.&nbsp; Jean Kay was that woman&rsquo;s name; and she had
+me in the room with her that night at Inversnaid, the night we took
+her from her friends in the old, ancient manner.&nbsp; She would and
+she wouldn&rsquo;t; she was for marrying Rob the one minute, and the
+next she would be for none of him.&nbsp; I will never have seen such
+a feckless creature of a woman; surely all there was of her would tell
+her ay or no.&nbsp; Well, she was a widow; and I can never be thinking
+a widow a good woman.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona!&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;how do you make out that?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do not know,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;I am only telling you
+the seeming in my heart.&nbsp; And then to marry a new man!&nbsp; Fy!&nbsp;
+But that was her; and she was married again upon my Uncle Robin, and
+went with him awhile to kirk and market; and then wearied, or else her
+friends got claught of her and talked her round, or maybe she turned
+ashamed; at the least of it, she ran away, and went back to her own
+folk, and said we had held her in the lake, and I will never tell you
+all what.&nbsp; I have never thought much of any females since that
+day.&nbsp; And so in the end my father, James More, came to be cast
+in prison, and you know the rest of it an well as me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And through all you had no friends?&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;I have been pretty chief with two-three
+lasses on the braes, but not to call it friends.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, mine is a plain tale,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I never
+had a friend to my name till I met in with you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And that brave Mr. Stewart?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, yes, I was forgetting him,&rdquo; I said.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+he in a man, and that in very different.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would think so,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;O, yes, it is
+quite different.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And then there was one other,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I once
+thought I had a friend, but it proved a disappointment.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She asked me who she was?<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It was a he, then,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;We were the two
+best lads at my father&rsquo;s school, and we thought we loved each
+other dearly.&nbsp; Well, the time came when he went to Glasgow to a
+merchant&rsquo;s house, that was his second cousin once removed; and
+wrote me two-three times by the carrier; and then he found new friends,
+and I might write till I was tired, he took no notice.&nbsp; Eh, Catriona,
+it took me a long while to forgive the world.&nbsp; There is not anything
+more bitter than to lose a fancied friend.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Then she began to question me close upon his looks and character, for
+we were each a great deal concerned in all that touched the other; till
+at last, in a very evil hour, I minded of his letters and went and fetched
+the bundle from the cabin.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Here are his letters,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and all the letters
+that ever I got.&nbsp; That will be the last I&rsquo;ll can tell of
+myself; ye know the lave <a name="citation26"></a><a href="#footnote26">{26}</a>
+as well as I do.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Will you let me read them, then?&rdquo; says she.<br>
+<br>
+I told her, <i>if she would be at the pains</i>; and she bade me go
+away and she would read them from the one end to the other.&nbsp; Now,
+in this bundle that I gave her, there were packed together not only
+all the letters of my false friend, but one or two of Mr. Campbell&rsquo;s
+when he was in town at the Assembly, and to make a complete roll of
+all that ever was written to me, Catriona&rsquo;s little word, and the
+two I had received from Miss Grant, one when I was on the Bass and one
+on board that ship.&nbsp; But of these last I had no particular mind
+at the moment.<br>
+<br>
+I was in that state of subjection to the thought of my friend that it
+mattered not what I did, nor scarce whether I was in her presence or
+out of it; I had caught her like some kind of a noble fever that lived
+continually in my bosom, by night and by day, and whether I was waking
+or asleep.&nbsp; So it befell that after I was come into the fore-part
+of the ship where the broad bows splashed into the billows, I was in
+no such hurry to return as you might fancy; rather prolonged my absence
+like a variety in pleasure.&nbsp; I do not think I am by nature much
+of an Epicurean: and there had come till then so small a share of pleasure
+in my way that I might be excused perhaps to dwell on it unduly.<br>
+<br>
+When I returned to her again, I had a faint, painful impression as of
+a buckle slipped, so coldly she returned the packet.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You have read them?&rdquo; said I; and I thought my voice sounded
+not wholly natural, for I was turning in my mind for what could ail
+her.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Did you mean me to read all?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+I told her &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; with a drooping voice.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The last of them as well?&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+I knew where we were now; yet I would not lie to her either.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+gave them all without afterthought,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;as I supposed
+that you would read them.&nbsp; I see no harm in any.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will be differently made,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;I thank
+God I am differently made.&nbsp; It was not a fit letter to be shown
+me.&nbsp; It was not fit to be written.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think you are speaking of your own friend, Barbara Grant?&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There will not be anything as bitter as to lose a fancied friend,&rdquo;
+said she, quoting my own expression.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied!&rdquo;
+I cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;What kind of justice do you call this, to blame
+me for some words that a tomfool of a madcap lass has written down upon
+a piece of paper?&nbsp; You know yourself with what respect I have behaved
+- and would do always.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Yet you would show me that same letter!&rdquo; says she.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I want no such friends.&nbsp; I can be doing very well, Mr. Balfour,
+without her - or you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is your fine gratitude!&rdquo; says I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am very much obliged to you,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+will be asking you to take away your - letters.&rdquo;&nbsp; She seemed
+to choke upon the word, so that it sounded like an oath.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You shall never ask twice,&rdquo; said I; picked up that bundle,
+walked a little way forward and cast them as far as possible into the
+sea.&nbsp; For a very little more I could have cast myself after them.<br>
+<br>
+The rest of the day I walked up and down raging.&nbsp; There were few
+names so ill but what I gave her them in my own mind before the sun
+went down.&nbsp; All that I had ever heard of Highland pride seemed
+quite outdone; that a girl (scarce grown) should resent so trifling
+an allusion, and that from her next friend, that she had near wearied
+me with praising of!&nbsp; I had bitter, sharp, hard thoughts of her,
+like an angry boy&rsquo;s.&nbsp; If I had kissed her indeed (I thought),
+perhaps she would have taken it pretty well; and only because it had
+been written down, and with a spice of jocularity, up she must fuff
+in this ridiculous passion.&nbsp; It seemed to me there was a want of
+penetration in the female sex, to make angels weep over the case of
+the poor men.<br>
+<br>
+We were side by side again at supper, and what a change was there!&nbsp;
+She was like curdled milk to me; her face was like a wooden doll&rsquo;s;
+I could have indifferently smitten her or grovelled at her feet, but
+she gave me not the least occasion to do either.&nbsp; No sooner the
+meal done than she betook herself to attend on Mrs. Gebbie, which I
+think she had a little neglected heretofore.&nbsp; But she was to make
+up for lost time, and in what remained of the passage was extraordinary
+assiduous with the old lady, and on deck began to make a great deal
+more than I thought wise of Captain Sang.&nbsp; Not but what the Captain
+seemed a worthy, fatherly man; but I hated to behold her in the least
+familiarity with anyone except myself.<br>
+<br>
+Altogether, she was so quick to avoid me, and so constant to keep herself
+surrounded with others, that I must watch a long while before I could
+find my opportunity; and after it was found, I made not much of it,
+as you are now to hear.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have no guess how I have offended,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;it
+should scarce be beyond pardon, then.&nbsp; O, try if you can pardon
+me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have no pardon to give,&rdquo; said she; and the words seemed
+to come out of her throat like marbles.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will be very
+much obliged for all your friendships.&rdquo;&nbsp; And she made me
+an eighth part of a curtsey.<br>
+<br>
+But I had schooled myself beforehand to say more, and I was going to
+say it too.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is one thing,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;If I have shocked
+your particularity by the showing of that letter, it cannot touch Miss
+Grant.&nbsp; She wrote not to you, but to a poor, common, ordinary lad,
+who might have had more sense than show it.&nbsp; If you are to blame
+me - &rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will advise you to say no more about that girl, at all events!&rdquo;
+said Catriona.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is her I will never look the road of,
+not if she lay dying.&rdquo;&nbsp; She turned away from me, and suddenly
+back.&nbsp; &ldquo;Will you swear you will have no more to deal with
+her?&rdquo; she cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Indeed, and I will never be so unjust then,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;nor
+yet so ungrateful.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+And now it was I that turned away.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XXII - HELVOETSLUYS<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The weather in the end considerably worsened; the wind sang in the shrouds,
+the sea swelled higher, and the ship began to labour and cry out among
+the billows.&nbsp; The song of the leadsman in the chains was now scarce
+ceasing, for we thrid all the way among shoals.&nbsp; About nine in
+the morning, in a burst of wintry sun between two squalls of hail, I
+had my first look of Holland - a line of windmills birling in the breeze.&nbsp;
+It was besides my first knowledge of these daft-like contrivances, which
+gave me a near sense of foreign travel and a new world and life.&nbsp;
+We came to an anchor about half-past eleven, outside the harbour of
+Helvoetsluys, in a place where the sea sometimes broke and the ship
+pitched outrageously.&nbsp; You may be sure we were all on deck save
+Mrs. Gebbie, some of us in cloaks, others mantled in the ship&rsquo;s
+tarpaulins, all clinging on by ropes, and jesting the most like old
+sailor-folk that we could imitate.<br>
+<br>
+Presently a boat, that was backed like a partancrab, came gingerly alongside,
+and the skipper of it hailed our master in the Dutch.&nbsp; Thence Captain
+Sang turned, very troubled-like, to Catriona; and the rest of us crowding
+about, the nature of the difficulty was made plain to all.&nbsp; The
+<i>Rose </i>was bound to the port of Rotterdam, whither the other passengers
+were in a great impatience to arrive, in view of a conveyance due to
+leave that very evening in the direction of the Upper Germany.&nbsp;
+This, with the present half-gale of wind, the captain (if no time were
+lost) declared himself still capable to save.&nbsp; Now James More had
+trysted in Helvoet with his daughter, and the captain had engaged to
+call before the port and place her (according to the custom) in a shore
+boat.&nbsp; There was the boat, to be sure, and here was Catriona ready:
+but both our master and the patroon of the boat scrupled at the risk,
+and the first was in no humour to delay.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Your father,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;would be gey an little pleased
+if we was to break a leg to ye, Miss Drummond, let-a-be drowning of
+you.&nbsp; Take my way of it,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and come on-by
+with the rest of us here to Rotterdam.&nbsp; Ye can get a passage down
+the Maes in a sailing scoot as far as to the Brill, and thence on again,
+by a place in a rattel-waggon, back to Helvoet.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+But Catriona would hear of no change.&nbsp; She looked white-like as
+she beheld the bursting of the sprays, the green seas that sometimes
+poured upon the fore-castle, and the perpetual bounding and swooping
+of the boat among the billows; but she stood firmly by her father&rsquo;s
+orders.&nbsp; &ldquo;My father, James More, will have arranged it so,&rdquo;
+was her first word and her last.&nbsp; I thought it very idle and indeed
+wanton in the girl to be so literal and stand opposite to so much kind
+advice; but the fact is she had a very good reason, if she would have
+told us.&nbsp; Sailing scoots and rattel-waggons are excellent things;
+only the use of them must first be paid for, and all she was possessed
+of in the world was just two shillings and a penny halfpenny sterling.&nbsp;
+So it fell out that captain and passengers, not knowing of her destitution
+- and she being too proud to tell them - spoke in vain.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But you ken nae French and nae Dutch neither,&rdquo; said one.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is very true,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;but since the year &lsquo;46
+there are so many of the honest Scotch abroad that I will be doing very
+well.&nbsp; I thank you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+There was a pretty country simplicity in this that made some laugh,
+others looked the more sorry, and Mr. Gebbie fall outright in a passion.&nbsp;
+I believe he knew it was his duty (his wife having accepted charge of
+the girl) to have gone ashore with her and seen her safe: nothing would
+have induced him to have done so, since it must have involved the lose
+of his conveyance; and I think he made it up to his conscience by the
+loudness of his voice.&nbsp; At least he broke out upon Captain Sang,
+raging and saying the thing was a disgrace; that it was mere death to
+try to leave the ship, and at any event we could not cast down an innocent
+maid in a boatful of nasty Holland fishers, and leave her to her fate.&nbsp;
+I was thinking something of the same; took the mate upon one side, arranged
+with him to send on my chests by track-scoot to an address I had in
+Leyden, and stood up and signalled to the fishers.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will go ashore with the young lady, Captain Sang,&rdquo; said
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is all one what way I go to Leyden;&rdquo; and leaped
+at the same time into the boat, which I managed not so elegantly but
+what I fell with two of the fishers in the bilge.<br>
+<br>
+From the boat the business appeared yet more precarious than from the
+ship, she stood so high over us, swung down so swift, and menaced us
+so perpetually with her plunging and passaging upon the anchor cable.&nbsp;
+I began to think I had made a fool&rsquo;s bargain, that it was merely
+impossible Catriona should be got on board to me, and that I stood to
+be set ashore at Helvoet all by myself and with no hope of any reward
+but the pleasure of embracing James More, if I should want to.&nbsp;
+But this was to reckon without the lass&rsquo;s courage.&nbsp; She had
+seen me leap with very little appearance (however much reality) of hesitation;
+to be sure, she was not to be beat by her discarded friend.&nbsp; Up
+she stood on the bulwarks and held by a stay, the wind blowing in her
+petticoats, which made the enterprise more dangerous, and gave us rather
+more of a view of her stockings than would be thought genteel in cities.&nbsp;
+There was no minute lost, and scarce time given for any to interfere
+if they had wished the same.&nbsp; I stood up on the other side and
+spread my arms; the ship swung down on us, the patroon humoured his
+boat nearer in than was perhaps wholly safe, and Catriona leaped into
+the air.&nbsp; I was so happy as to catch her, and the fishers readily
+supporting us, escaped a fall.&nbsp; She held to me a moment very tight,
+breathing quick and deep; thence (she still clinging to me with both
+hands) we were passed aft to our places by the steersman; and Captain
+Sang and all the crew and passengers cheering and crying farewell, the
+boat was put about for shore.<br>
+<br>
+As soon as Catriona came a little to herself she unhanded me suddenly,
+but said no word.&nbsp; No more did I; and indeed the whistling of the
+wind and the breaching of the sprays made it no time for speech; and
+our crew not only toiled excessively but made extremely little way,
+so that the <i>Rose </i>had got her anchor and was off again before
+we had approached the harbour mouth.<br>
+<br>
+We were no sooner in smooth water than the patroon, according to their
+beastly Hollands custom, stopped his boat and required of us our fares.&nbsp;
+Two guilders was the man&rsquo;s demand - between three and four shillings
+English money - for each passenger.&nbsp; But at this Catriona began
+to cry out with a vast deal of agitation.&nbsp; She had asked of Captain
+Sang, she said, and the fare was but an English shilling.&nbsp; &ldquo;Do
+you think I will have come on board and not ask first?&rdquo; cries
+she.&nbsp; The patroon scolded back upon her in a lingo where the oaths
+were English and the rest right Hollands; till at last (seeing her near
+tears) I privately slipped in the rogue&rsquo;s hand six shillings,
+whereupon he was obliging enough to receive from her the other shilling
+without more complaint.&nbsp; No doubt I was a good deal nettled and
+ashamed.&nbsp; I like to see folk thrifty, but not with so much passion;
+and I daresay it would be rather coldly that I asked her, as the boat
+moved on again for shore, where it was that she was trysted with her
+father.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He is to be inquired of at the house of one Sprott, an honest
+Scotch merchant,&rdquo; says she; and then with the same breath, &ldquo;I
+am wishing to thank you very much - you are a brave friend to me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It will be time enough when I get you to your father,&rdquo;
+said I, little thinking that I spoke so true.&nbsp; &ldquo;I can tell
+him a fine tale of a loyal daughter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, I do not think I will be a loyal girl, at all events,&rdquo;
+she cried, with a great deal of painfulness in the expression.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I do not think my heart is true.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Yet there are very few that would have made that leap, and all
+to obey a father&rsquo;s orders,&rdquo; I observed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I cannot have you to be thinking of me so,&rdquo; she cried again.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;When you had done that same, how would I stop behind?&nbsp; And
+at all events that was not all the reasons.&rdquo;&nbsp; Whereupon,
+with a burning face, she told me the plain truth upon her poverty.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Good guide us!&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;what kind of daft-like
+proceeding is this, to let yourself be launched on the continent of
+Europe with an empty purse - I count it hardly decent - scant decent!&rdquo;
+I cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You forget James More, my father, is a poor gentleman,&rdquo;
+said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;He is a hunted exile.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But I think not all your friends are hunted exiles,&rdquo; I
+exclaimed.&nbsp; &ldquo;And was this fair to them that care for you?&nbsp;
+Was it fair to me? was it fair to Miss Grant that counselled you to
+go, and would be driven fair horn-mad if she could hear of it?&nbsp;
+Was it even fair to these Gregory folk that you were living with, and
+used you lovingly?&nbsp; It&rsquo;s a blessing you have fallen in my
+hands!&nbsp; Suppose your father hindered by an accident, what would
+become of you here, and you your lee-lone in a strange place?&nbsp;
+The thought of the thing frightens me,&rdquo; I said.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will have lied to all of them,&rdquo; she replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+will have told them all that I had plenty.&nbsp; I told <i>her</i> too.&nbsp;
+I could not be lowering James More to them.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I found out later on that she must have lowered him in the very dust,
+for the lie was originally the father&rsquo;s, not the daughter&rsquo;s,
+and she thus obliged to persevere in it for the man&rsquo;s reputation.&nbsp;
+But at the time I was ignorant of this, and the mere thought of her
+destitution and the perils in which see must have fallen, had ruffled
+me almost beyond reason.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, well, well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you will have to learn
+more sense.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I left her mails for the moment in an inn upon the shore, where I got
+a direction for Sprott&rsquo;s house in my new French, and we walked
+there - it was some little way - beholding the place with wonder as
+we went.&nbsp; Indeed, there was much for Scots folk to admire: canals
+and trees being intermingled with the houses; the houses, each within
+itself, of a brave red brick, the colour of a rose, with steps and benches
+of blue marble at the cheek of every door, and the whole town so clean
+you might have dined upon the causeway.&nbsp; Sprott was within, upon
+his ledgers, in a low parlour, very neat and clean, and set out with
+china and pictures, and a globe of the earth in a brass frame.&nbsp;
+He was a big-chafted, ruddy, lusty man, with a crooked hard look to
+him; and he made us not that much civility as offer us a seat.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is James More Macgregor now in Helvoet, sir?&rdquo; says I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I ken nobody by such a name,&rdquo; says he, impatient-like.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Since you are so particular,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;I will amend
+my question, and ask you where we are to find in Helvoet one James Drummond,
+<i>alias</i> Macgregor, <i>alias</i> James More, late tenant in Inveronachile?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;he may be in Hell for what I ken,
+and for my part I wish he was.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The young lady is that gentleman&rsquo;s daughter, sir,&rdquo;
+said I, &ldquo;before whom, I think you will agree with me, it is not
+very becoming to discuss his character.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have nothing to make either with him, or her, or you!&rdquo;
+cries he in his gross voice.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Under your favour, Mr. Sprott,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this young
+lady is come from Scotland seeking him, and by whatever mistake, was
+given the name of your house for a direction.&nbsp; An error it seems
+to have been, but I think this places both you and me - who am but her
+fellow-traveller by accident - under a strong obligation to help our
+countrywoman.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Will you ding me daft?&rdquo; he cries.&nbsp; &ldquo;I tell ye
+I ken naething and care less either for him or his breed.&nbsp; I tell
+ye the man owes me money.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That may very well be, sir,&rdquo; said I, who was now rather
+more angry than himself.&nbsp; &ldquo;At least, I owe you nothing; the
+young lady is under my protection; and I am neither at all used with
+these manners, nor in the least content with them.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+As I said this, and without particularly thinking what I did, I drew
+a step or two nearer to his table; thus striking, by mere good fortune,
+on the only argument that could at all affect the man.&nbsp; The blood
+left his lusty countenance.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;For the Lord&rsquo;s sake dinna be hasty, sir!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I am truly wishfu&rsquo; no to be offensive.&nbsp; But ye ken,
+sir, I&rsquo;m like a wheen guid-natured, honest, canty auld fellows
+- my bark is waur nor my bite.&nbsp; To hear me, ye micht whiles fancy
+I was a wee thing dour; but na, na! it&rsquo;s a kind auld fallow at
+heart, Sandie Sprott!&nbsp; And ye could never imagine the fyke and
+fash this man has been to me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Very good, sir,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Then I will make
+that much freedom with your kindness as trouble you for your last news
+of Mr. Drummond.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re welcome, sir!&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;As for
+the young leddy (my respects to her!), he&rsquo;ll just have clean forgotten
+her.&nbsp; I ken the man, ye see; I have lost siller by him ere now.&nbsp;
+He thinks of naebody but just himsel&rsquo;; clan, king, or dauchter,
+if he can get his wameful, he would give them a&rsquo; the go-by! ay,
+or his correspondent either.&nbsp; For there is a sense in whilk I may
+be nearly almost said to be his correspondent.&nbsp; The fact is, we
+are employed thegether in a business affair, and I think it&rsquo;s
+like to turn out a dear affair for Sandie Sprott.&nbsp; The man&rsquo;s
+as guid&rsquo;s my pairtner, and I give ye my mere word I ken naething
+by where he is.&nbsp; He micht be coming here to Helvoet; he micht come
+here the morn, he michtnae come for a twalmouth; I would wonder at naething
+- or just at the ae thing, and that&rsquo;s if he was to pay me my siller.&nbsp;
+Ye see what way I stand with it; and it&rsquo;s clear I&rsquo;m no very
+likely to meddle up with the young leddy, as ye ca&rsquo; her.&nbsp;
+She cannae stop here, that&rsquo;s ae thing certain sure.&nbsp; Dod,
+sir, I&rsquo;m a lone man!&nbsp; If I was to tak her in, its highly
+possible the hellicat would try and gar me marry her when he turned
+up.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Enough of this talk,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will take
+the young leddy among better friends.&nbsp; Give me, pen, ink, and paper,
+and I will leave here for James More the address of my correspondent
+in Leyden.&nbsp; He can inquire from me where he is to seek his daughter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+This word I wrote and sealed; which while I was doing, Sprott of his
+own motion made a welcome offer, to charge himself with Miss Drummond&rsquo;s
+mails, and even send a porter for them to the inn.&nbsp; I advanced
+him to that effect a dollar or two to be a cover, and he gave me an
+acknowledgment in writing of the sum.<br>
+<br>
+Whereupon (I giving my arm to Catriona) we left the house of this unpalatable
+rascal.&nbsp; She had said no word throughout, leaving me to judge and
+speak in her place; I, upon my side, had been careful not to embarrass
+her by a glance; and even now, although my heart still glowed inside
+of me with shame and anger, I made it my affair to seem quite easy.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;let us get back to yon same inn where
+they can speak the French, have a piece of dinner, and inquire for conveyances
+to Rotterdam.&nbsp; I will never be easy till I have you safe again
+in the hands of Mrs. Gebbie.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I suppose it will have to be,&rdquo; said Catriona, &ldquo;though
+whoever will be pleased, I do not think it will be her.&nbsp; And I
+will remind you this once again that I have but one shilling, and three
+baubees.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And just this once again,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I will remind
+you it was a blessing that I came alongst with you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What else would I be thinking all this time?&rdquo; says she,
+and I thought weighed a little on my arm.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is you that
+are the good friend to me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XXIII - TRAVELS IN HOLLAND<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The rattel-waggon, which is a kind of a long waggon set with benches,
+carried us in four hours of travel to the great city of Rotterdam.&nbsp;
+It was long past dark by then, but the streets were pretty brightly
+lighted and thronged with wild-like, outlandish characters - bearded
+Hebrews, black men, and the hordes of courtesans, most indecently adorned
+with finery and stopping seamen by their very sleeves; the clash of
+talk about us made our heads to whirl; and what was the most unexpected
+of all, we appeared to be no more struck with all these foreigners than
+they with us.&nbsp; I made the best face I could, for the lass&rsquo;s
+sake and my own credit; but the truth is I felt like a lost sheep, and
+my heart beat in my bosom with anxiety.&nbsp; Once or twice I inquired
+after the harbour or the berth of the ship <i>Rose</i>: but either fell
+on some who spoke only Hollands, or my own French failed me.&nbsp; Trying
+a street at a venture, I came upon a lane of lighted houses, the doors
+and windows thronged with wauf-like painted women; these jostled and
+mocked upon us as we passed, and I was thankful we had nothing of their
+language.&nbsp; A little after we issued forth upon an open place along
+the harbour.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;We shall be doing now,&rdquo; cries I, as soon as I spied masts.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Let us walk here by the harbour.&nbsp; We are sure to meet some
+that has the English, and at the best of it we may light upon that very
+ship.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+We did the next best, as happened; for, about nine of the evening, whom
+should we walk into the arms of but Captain Sang?&nbsp; He told us they
+had made their run in the most incredible brief time, the wind holding
+strong till they reached port; by which means his passengers were all
+gone already on their further travels.&nbsp; It was impossible to chase
+after the Gebbies into the High Germany, and we had no other acquaintance
+to fall back upon but Captain Sang himself.&nbsp; It was the more gratifying
+to find the man friendly and wishful to assist.&nbsp; He made it a small
+affair to find some good plain family of merchants, where Catriona might
+harbour till the <i>Rose </i>was loaden; declared he would then blithely
+carry her back to Leith for nothing and see her safe in the hands of
+Mr. Gregory; and in the meanwhile carried us to a late ordinary for
+the meal we stood in need of.&nbsp; He seemed extremely friendly, as
+I say, but what surprised me a good deal, rather boisterous in the bargain;
+and the cause of this was soon to appear.&nbsp; For at the ordinary,
+calling for Rhenish wine and drinking of it deep, he soon became unutterably
+tipsy.&nbsp; In this case, as too common with all men, but especially
+with those of his rough trade, what little sense or manners he possessed
+deserted him; and he behaved himself so scandalous to the young lady,
+jesting most ill-favouredly at the figure she had made on the ship&rsquo;s
+rail, that I had no resource but carry her suddenly away.<br>
+<br>
+She came out of the ordinary clinging to me close.&nbsp; &ldquo;Take
+me away, David,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;<i>You</i> keep me.&nbsp;
+I am not afraid with you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And have no cause, my little friend!&rdquo; cried I, and could
+have found it in my heart to weep.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Where will you be taking me?&rdquo; she said again.&nbsp; &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+leave me at all events - never leave me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Where am I taking you to?&rdquo; says I stopping, for I had been
+staving on ahead in mere blindness.&nbsp; &ldquo;I must stop and think.&nbsp;
+But I&rsquo;ll not leave you, Catriona; the Lord do so to me, and more
+also, if I should fail or fash you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She crept close into me by way of a reply.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;is the stillest place we have hit
+on yet in this busy byke of a city.&nbsp; Let us sit down here under
+yon tree and consider of our course.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+That tree (which I am little like to forget) stood hard by the harbour
+side.&nbsp; It was like a black night, but lights were in the houses,
+and nearer hand in the quiet ships; there was a shining of the city
+on the one hand, and a buzz hung over it of many thousands walking and
+talking; on the other, it was dark and the water bubbled on the sides.&nbsp;
+I spread my cloak upon a builder&rsquo;s stone, and made her sit there;
+she would have kept her hold upon me, for she still shook with the late
+affronts; but I wanted to think clear, disengaged myself, and paced
+to and fro before her, in the manner of what we call a smuggler&rsquo;s
+walk, belabouring my brains for any remedy.&nbsp; By the course of these
+scattering thoughts I was brought suddenly face to face with a remembrance
+that, in the heat and haste of our departure, I had left Captain Sang
+to pay the ordinary.&nbsp; At this I began to laugh out loud, for I
+thought the man well served; and at the same time, by an instinctive
+movement, carried my hand to the pocket where my money was.&nbsp; I
+suppose it was in the lane where the women jostled us; but there is
+only the one thing certain, that my purse was gone.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You will have thought of something good,&rdquo; said she, observing
+me to pause.<br>
+<br>
+At the pinch we were in, my mind became suddenly clear as a perspective
+glass, and I saw there was no choice of methods.&nbsp; I had not one
+doit of coin, but in my pocket-book I had still my letter on the Leyden
+merchant; and there was now but the one way to get to Leyden, and that
+was to walk on our two feet.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I know you&rsquo;re brave and
+I believe you&rsquo;re strong - do you think you could walk thirty miles
+on a plain road?&rdquo;&nbsp; We found it, I believe, scarce the two-thirds
+of that, but such was my notion of the distance.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;David,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you will just keep near, I
+will go anywhere and do anything.&nbsp; The courage of my heart, it
+is all broken.&nbsp; Do not be leaving me in this horrible country by
+myself, and I will do all else.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Can you start now and march all night?&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will do all that you can ask of me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and
+never ask you why.&nbsp; I have been a bad ungrateful girl to you; and
+do what you please with me now!&nbsp; And I think Miss Barbara Grant
+is the best lady in the world,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;and I do not
+see what she would deny you for at all events.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+This was Greek and Hebrew to me; but I had other matters to consider,
+and the first of these was to get clear of that city on the Leyden road.&nbsp;
+It proved a cruel problem; and it may have been one or two at night
+ere we had solved it.&nbsp; Once beyond the houses, there was neither
+moon nor stars to guide us; only the whiteness of the way in the midst
+and a blackness of an alley on both hands.&nbsp; The walking was besides
+made most extraordinary difficult by a plain black frost that fell suddenly
+in the small hours and turned that highway into one long slide.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;here we are like the king&rsquo;s
+sons and the old wives&rsquo; daughters in your daft-like Highland tales.&nbsp;
+Soon we&rsquo;ll be going over the &lsquo;<i>seven</i> <i>Bens, the
+seven glens and the seven mountain moors</i>&rsquo;.&rdquo;&nbsp; Which
+was a common byword or overcome in those tales of hers that had stuck
+in my memory.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;but here are no glens or mountains!&nbsp;
+Though I will never be denying but what the trees and some of the plain
+places hereabouts are very pretty.&nbsp; But our country is the best
+yet.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I wish we could say as much for our own folk,&rdquo; says I,
+recalling Sprott and Sang, and perhaps James More himself.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will never complain of the country of my friend,&rdquo; said
+she, and spoke it out with an accent so particular that I seemed to
+see the look upon her face.<br>
+<br>
+I caught in my breath sharp and came near falling (for my pains) on
+the black ice.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do not know what <i>you</i> think, Catriona,&rdquo; said I,
+when I was a little recovered, &ldquo;but this has been the best day
+yet!&nbsp; I think shame to say it, when you have met in with such misfortunes
+and disfavours; but for me, it has been the best day yet.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It was a good day when you showed me so much love,&rdquo; said
+she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And yet I think shame to be happy too,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;and
+you here on the road in the black night.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Where in the great world would I be else?&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I am thinking I am safest where I am with you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am quite forgiven, then?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Will you not forgive me that time so much as not to take it in
+your mouth again?&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;There is nothing in
+this heart to you but thanks.&nbsp; But I will be honest too,&rdquo;
+she added, with a kind of suddenness, &ldquo;and I&rsquo;ll never can
+forgive that girl.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is this Miss Grant again?&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;You said
+yourself she was the best lady in the world.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;So she will be, indeed!&rdquo; says Catriona.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+I will never forgive her for all that.&nbsp; I will never, never forgive
+her, and let me hear tell of her no more.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this beats all that ever came to
+my knowledge; and I wonder that you can indulge yourself in such bairnly
+whims.&nbsp; Here is a young lady that was the best friend in the world
+to the both of us, that learned us how to dress ourselves, and in a
+great manner how to behave, as anyone can see that knew us both before
+and after.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+But Catriona stopped square in the midst of the highway.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is this way of it,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;Either you
+will go on to speak of her, and I will go back to yon town, and let
+come of it what God pleases!&nbsp; Or else you will do me that politeness
+to talk of other things.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I was the most nonplussed person in this world; but I bethought me that
+she depended altogether on my help, that she was of the frail sex and
+not so much beyond a child, and it was for me to be wise for the pair
+of us.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My dear girl,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I can make neither head nor
+tails of this; but God forbid that I should do anything to set you on
+the jee.&nbsp; As for talking of Miss Grant, I have no such a mind to
+it, and I believe it was yourself began it.&nbsp; My only design (if
+I took you up at all) was for your own improvement, for I hate the very
+look of injustice.&nbsp; Not that I do not wish you to have a good pride
+and a nice female delicacy; they become you well; but here you show
+them to excess.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, then, have you done?&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have done,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;A very good thing,&rdquo; said she, and we went on again, but
+now in silence.<br>
+<br>
+It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding only
+shadows and hearing nought but our own steps.&nbsp; At first, I believe
+our hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity; but the
+darkness and the cold, and the silence, which only the cocks sometimes
+interrupted, or sometimes the farmyard dogs, had pretty soon brought
+down our pride to the dust; and for my own particular, I would have
+jumped at any decent opening for speech.<br>
+<br>
+Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was all
+wiped away from among our feet.&nbsp; I took my cloak to her and sought
+to hap her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to keep it.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Indeed and I will do no such thing,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Here
+am I, a great, ugly lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here
+are you a tender, pretty maid!&nbsp; My dear, you would not put me to
+a shame?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in the
+darkness, I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost like an
+embrace.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You must try to be more patient of your friend,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against my
+bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There will be no end to your goodness,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the happiness
+that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.<br>
+<br>
+The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came into
+the town of Delft.&nbsp; The red gabled houses made a handsome show
+on either hand of a canal; the servant lassies were out slestering and
+scrubbing at the very stones upon the public highway; smoke rose from
+a hundred kitchens; and it came in upon me strongly it was time to break
+our fasts.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I believe you have yet a shilling
+and three baubees?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Are you wanting it?&rdquo; said she, and passed me her purse.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I am wishing it was five pounds!&nbsp; What will you want it
+for?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what have we been walking for all night, like a pair of waif
+Egyptians!&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Just because I was robbed of
+my purse and all I possessed in that unchancy town of Rotterdam.&nbsp;
+I will tell you of it now, because I think the worst is over, but we
+have still a good tramp before us till we get to where my money is,
+and if you would not buy me a piece of bread, I were like to go fasting.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She looked at me with open eyes.&nbsp; By the light of the new day she
+was all black and pale for weariness, so that my heart smote me for
+her.&nbsp; But as for her, she broke out laughing.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My torture! are we beggars then!&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
+too?&nbsp; O, I could have wished for this same thing!&nbsp; And I am
+glad to buy your breakfast to you.&nbsp; But it would be pleisand if
+I would have had to dance to get a meal to you!&nbsp; For I believe
+they are not very well acquainted with our manner of dancing over here,
+and might be paying for the curiosity of that sight.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I could have kissed her for that word, not with a lover&rsquo;s mind,
+but in a heat of admiration.&nbsp; For it always warms a man to see
+a woman brave.<br>
+<br>
+We got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the town,
+and in a baker&rsquo;s, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling bread,
+which we ate upon the road as we went on.&nbsp; That road from Delft
+to the Hague is just five miles of a fine avenue shaded with trees,
+a canal on the one hand, on the other excellent pastures of cattle.&nbsp;
+It was pleasant here indeed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And now, Davie,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;what will you do with
+me at all events?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is what we have to speak of,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and the
+sooner yet the better.&nbsp; I can come by money in Leyden; that will
+be all well.&nbsp; But the trouble is how to dispose of you until your
+father come.&nbsp; I thought last night you seemed a little sweir to
+part from me?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It will be more than seeming then,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are a very young maid,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I am but
+a very young callant.&nbsp; This is a great piece of difficulty.&nbsp;
+What way are we to manage?&nbsp; Unless indeed, you could pass to be
+my sister?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And what for no?&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;if you would let me!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I wish you were so, indeed,&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;I would
+be a fine man if I had such a sister.&nbsp; But the rub is that you
+are Catriona Drummond.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And now I will be Catriona Balfour,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+who is to ken?&nbsp; They are all strange folk here.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If you think that it would do,&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+own it troubles me.&nbsp; I would like it very ill, if I advised you
+at all wrong.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;David, I have no friend here but you,&rdquo; she said.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The mere truth is, I am too young to be your friend,&rdquo; said
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am too young to advise you, or you to be advised.&nbsp;
+I see not what else we are to do, and yet I ought to warn you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will have no choice left,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;My
+father James More has not used me very well, and it is not the first
+time, I am cast upon your hands like a sack of barley meal, and have
+nothing else to think of but your pleasure.&nbsp; If you will have me,
+good and well.&nbsp; If you will not&rdquo; - she turned and touched
+her hand upon my arm - &ldquo;David, I am afraid,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No, but I ought to warn you,&rdquo; I began; and then bethought
+me I was the bearer of the purse, and it would never do to seem too
+churlish.&nbsp; &ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t misunderstand
+me: I am just trying to do my duty by you, girl!&nbsp; Here am I going
+alone to this strange city, to be a solitary student there; and here
+is this chance arisen that you might dwell with me a bit, and be like
+my sister; you can surely understand this much, my dear, that I would
+just love to have you?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, and here I am,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;So that&rsquo;s
+soon settled.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I know I was in duty bounden to have spoke more plain.&nbsp; I know
+this was a great blot on my character, for which I was lucky that I
+did not pay more dear.&nbsp; But I minded how easy her delicacy had
+been startled with a word of kissing her in Barbara&rsquo;s letter;
+now that she depended on me, how was I to be more bold?&nbsp; Besides,
+the truth is, I could see no other feasible method to dispose of her.&nbsp;
+And I daresay inclination pulled me very strong.<br>
+<br>
+A little beyond the Hague she fell very lame and made the rest of the
+distance heavily enough.&nbsp; Twice she must rest by the wayside, which
+she did with pretty apologies, calling herself a shame to the Highlands
+and the race she came of, and nothing but a hindrance to myself.&nbsp;
+It was her excuse, she said, that she was not much used with walking
+shod.&nbsp; I would have had her strip off her shoes and stockings and
+go barefoot.&nbsp; But she pointed out to me that the women of that
+country, even in the landward roads, appeared to be all shod.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I must not be disgracing my brother,&rdquo; said she, and was
+very merry with it all, although her face told tales of her.<br>
+<br>
+There is a garden in that city we were bound to, sanded below with clean
+sand, the trees meeting overhead, some of them trimmed, some preached,
+and the whole place beautified with alleys and arbours.&nbsp; Here I
+left Catriona, and went forward by myself to find my correspondent.&nbsp;
+There I drew on my credit, and asked to be recommended to some decent,
+retired lodging.&nbsp; My baggage being not yet arrived, I told him
+I supposed I should require his caution with the people of the house;
+and explained that, my sister being come for a while to keep house with
+me, I should be wanting two chambers.&nbsp; This was all very well;
+but the trouble was that Mr. Balfour in his letter of recommendation
+had condescended on a great deal of particulars, and never a word of
+any sister in the case.&nbsp; I could see my Dutchman was extremely
+suspicious; and viewing me over the rims of a great pair of spectacles
+- he was a poor, frail body, and reminded me of an infirm rabbit - he
+began to question me close.<br>
+<br>
+Here I fell in a panic.&nbsp; Suppose he accept my tale (thinks I),
+suppose he invite my sister to his house, and that I bring her.&nbsp;
+I shall have a fine ravelled pirn to unwind, and may end by disgracing
+both the lassie and myself.&nbsp; Thereupon I began hastily to expound
+to him my sister&rsquo;s character.&nbsp; She was of a bashful disposition,
+it appeared, and be extremely fearful of meeting strangers that I had
+left her at that moment sitting in a public place alone.&nbsp; And then,
+being launched upon the stream of falsehood, I must do like all the
+rest of the world in the same circumstance, and plunge in deeper than
+was any service; adding some altogether needless particulars of Miss
+Balfour&rsquo;s ill-health and retirement during childhood.&nbsp; In
+the midst of which I awoke to a sense of my behaviour, and was turned
+to one blush.<br>
+<br>
+The old gentleman was not so much deceived but what he discovered a
+willingness to be quit of me.&nbsp; But he was first of all a man of
+business; and knowing that my money was good enough, however it might
+be with my conduct, he was so far obliging as to send his son to be
+my guide and caution in the matter of a lodging.&nbsp; This implied
+my presenting of the young man to Catriona.&nbsp; The poor, pretty child
+was much recovered with resting, looked and behaved to perfection, and
+took my arm and gave me the name of brother more easily than I could
+answer her.&nbsp; But there was one misfortune: thinking to help, she
+was rather towardly than otherwise to my Dutchman.&nbsp; And I could
+not but reflect that Miss Balfour had rather suddenly outgrown her bashfulness.&nbsp;
+And there was another thing, the difference of our speech.&nbsp; I had
+the Low Country tongue and dwelled upon my words; she had a hill voice,
+spoke with something of an English accent, only far more delightful,
+and was scarce quite fit to be called a deacon in the craft of talking
+English grammar; so that, for a brother and sister, we made a most uneven
+pair.&nbsp; But the young Hollander was a heavy dog, without so much
+spirit in his belly as to remark her prettiness, for which I scorned
+him.&nbsp; And as soon as he had found a cover to our heads, he left
+us alone, which was the greater service of the two.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XXIV - FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+The place found was in the upper part of a house backed on a canal.&nbsp;
+We had two rooms, the second entering from the first; each had a chimney
+built out into the floor in the Dutch manner; and being alongside, each
+had the same prospect from the window of the top of a tree below us
+in a little court, of a piece of the canal, and of houses in the Hollands
+architecture and a church spire upon the further side.&nbsp; A full
+set of bells hung in that spire and made delightful music; and when
+there was any sun at all, it shone direct in our two chambers.&nbsp;
+From a tavern hard by we had good meals sent in.<br>
+<br>
+The first night we were both pretty weary, and she extremely so.&nbsp;
+There was little talk between us, and I packed her off to her bed as
+soon as she had eaten.&nbsp; The first thing in the morning I wrote
+word to Sprott to have her mails sent on, together with a line to Alan
+at his chief&rsquo;s; and had the same despatched, and her breakfast
+ready, ere I waked her.&nbsp; I was a little abashed when she came forth
+in her one habit, and the mud of the way upon her stockings.&nbsp; By
+what inquiries I had made, it seemed a good few days must pass before
+her mails could come to hand in Leyden, and it was plainly needful she
+must have a shift of things.&nbsp; She was unwilling at first that I
+should go to that expense; but I reminded her she was now a rich man&rsquo;s
+sister and must appear suitably in the part, and we had not got to the
+second merchant&rsquo;s before she was entirely charmed into the spirit
+of the thing, and her eyes shining.&nbsp; It pleased me to see her so
+innocent and thorough in this pleasure.&nbsp; What was more extraordinary
+was the passion into which I fell on it myself; being never satisfied
+that I had bought her enough or fine enough, and never weary of beholding
+her in different attires.&nbsp; Indeed, I began to understand some little
+of Miss Grant&rsquo;s immersion in the interest of clothes; for the
+truth is, when you have the ground of a beautiful person to adorn, the
+whole business becomes beautiful.&nbsp; The Dutch chintzes I should
+say were extraordinary cheap and fine; but I would be ashamed to set
+down what I paid for stockings to her.&nbsp; Altogether I spent so great
+a sum upon this pleasuring (as I may call it) that I was ashamed for
+a great while to spend more; and by way of a set-off, I left our chambers
+pretty bare.&nbsp; If we had beds, if Catriona was a little braw, and
+I had light to see her by, we were richly enough lodged for me.<br>
+<br>
+By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the door
+with all our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which to read
+myself a lecture.&nbsp; Here had I taken under my roof, and as good
+as to my bosom, a young lass extremely beautiful, and whose innocence
+was her peril.&nbsp; My talk with the old Dutchman, and the lies to
+which I was constrained, had already given me a sense of how my conduct
+must appear to others; and now, after the strong admiration I had just
+experienced and the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain purchases,
+I began to think of it myself as very hazarded.&nbsp; I bethought me,
+if I had a sister indeed, whether I would so expose her; then, judging
+the case too problematical, I varied my question into this, whether
+I would so trust Catriona in the hands of any other Christian being;
+the answer to which made my face to burn.&nbsp; The more cause, since
+I had been entrapped and had entrapped the girl into an undue situation,
+that I should behave in it with scrupulous nicety.&nbsp; She depended
+on me wholly for her bread and shelter; in case I should alarm her delicacy,
+she had no retreat.&nbsp; Besides I was her host and her protector;
+and the more irregularly I had fallen in these positions, the less excuse
+for me if I should profit by the same to forward even the most honest
+suit; for with the opportunities that I enjoyed, and which no wise parent
+would have suffered for a moment, even the most honest suit would be
+unfair.&nbsp; I saw I must be extremely hold-off in my relations; and
+yet not too much so neither; for if I had no right to appear at all
+in the character of a suitor, I must yet appear continually, and if
+possible agreeably, in that of host.&nbsp; It was plain I should require
+a great deal of tact and conduct, perhaps more than my years afforded.&nbsp;
+But I had rushed in where angels might have feared to tread, and there
+was no way out of that position save by behaving right while I was in
+it.&nbsp; I made a set of rules for my guidance; prayed for strength
+to be enabled to observe them, and as a more human aid to the same end
+purchased a study-book in law.&nbsp; This being all that I could think
+of, I relaxed from these grave considerations; whereupon my mind bubbled
+at once into an effervescency of pleasing spirits, and it was like one
+treading on air that I turned homeward.&nbsp; As I thought that name
+of home, and recalled the image of that figure awaiting me between four
+walls, my heart beat upon my bosom.<br>
+<br>
+My troubles began with my return.&nbsp; She ran to greet me with an
+obvious and affecting pleasure.&nbsp; She was clad, besides, entirely
+in the new clothes that I had bought for her; looked in them beyond
+expression well; and must walk about and drop me curtseys to display
+them and to be admired.&nbsp; I am sure I did it with an ill grace,
+for I thought to have choked upon the words.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you will not be caring for my
+pretty clothes, see what I have done with our two chambers.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And she showed me the place all very finely swept, and the fires glowing
+in the two chimneys.<br>
+<br>
+I was glad of a chance to seem a little more severe than I quite felt.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I am very much displeased with
+you, and you must never again lay a hand upon my room.&nbsp; One of
+us two must have the rule while we are here together; it is most fit
+it should be I who am both the man and the elder; and I give you that
+for my command.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She dropped me one of her curtseys; which were extraordinary taking.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;If you will be cross,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;I must be making
+pretty manners at you, Davie.&nbsp; I will be very obedient, as I should
+be when every stitch upon all there is of me belongs to you.&nbsp; But
+you will not be very cross either, because now I have not anyone else.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+This struck me hard, and I made haste, in a kind of penitence, to blot
+out all the good effect of my last speech.&nbsp; In this direction progress
+was more easy, being down hill; she led me forward, smiling; at the
+sight of her, in the brightness of the fire and with her pretty becks
+and looks, my heart was altogether melted.&nbsp; We made our meal with
+infinite mirth and tenderness; and the two seemed to be commingled into
+one, so that our very laughter sounded like a kindness.<br>
+<br>
+In the midst of which I awoke to better recollections, made a lame word
+of excuse, and set myself boorishly to my studies.&nbsp; It was a substantial,
+instructive book that I had bought, by the late Dr. Heineccius, in which
+I was to do a great deal reading these next few days, and often very
+glad that I had no one to question me of what I read.&nbsp; Methought
+she bit her lip at me a little, and that cut me.&nbsp; Indeed it left
+her wholly solitary, the more as she was very little of a reader, and
+had never a book.&nbsp; But what was I to do?<br>
+<br>
+So the rest of the evening flowed by almost without speech.<br>
+<br>
+I could have beat myself.&nbsp; I could not lie in my bed that night
+for rage and repentance, but walked to and fro on my bare feet till
+I was nearly perished, for the chimney was gone out and the frost keen.&nbsp;
+The thought of her in the next room, the thought that she might even
+hear me as I walked, the remembrance of my churlishness and that I must
+continue to practise the same ungrateful course or be dishonoured, put
+me beside my reason.&nbsp; I stood like a man between Scylla and Charybdis:
+<i>What must she think of me</i>? was my one thought that softened me
+continually into weakness.&nbsp; <i>What is to become of us</i>? the
+other which steeled me again to resolution.&nbsp; This was my first
+night of wakefulness and divided counsels, of which I was now to pass
+many, pacing like a madman, sometimes weeping like a childish boy, sometimes
+praying (I fain would hope) like a Christian.<br>
+<br>
+But prayer is not very difficult, and the hitch comes in practice.&nbsp;
+In her presence, and above all if I allowed any beginning of familiarity,
+I found I had very little command of what should follow.&nbsp; But to
+sit all day in the same room with her, and feign to be engaged upon
+Heineccius, surpassed my strength.&nbsp; So that I fell instead upon
+the expedient of absenting myself so much as I was able; taking out
+classes and sitting there regularly, often with small attention, the
+test of which I found the other day in a note-book of that period, where
+I had left off to follow an edifying lecture and actually scribbled
+in my book some very ill verses, though the Latinity is rather better
+than I thought that I could ever have compassed.&nbsp; The evil of this
+course was unhappily near as great as its advantage.&nbsp; I had the
+less time of trial, but I believe, while the time lasted, I was tried
+the more extremely.&nbsp; For she being so much left to solitude, she
+came to greet my return with an increasing fervour that came nigh to
+overmaster me.&nbsp; These friendly offers I must barbarously cast back;
+and my rejection sometimes wounded her so cruelly that I must unbend
+and seek to make it up to her in kindness.&nbsp; So that our time passed
+in ups and downs, tiffs and disappointments, upon the which I could
+almost say (if it may be said with reverence) that I was crucified.<br>
+<br>
+The base of my trouble was Catriona&rsquo;s extraordinary innocence,
+at which I was not so much surprised as filled with pity and admiration.&nbsp;
+She seemed to have no thought of our position, no sense of my struggles;
+welcomed any mark of my weakness with responsive joy; and when I was
+drove again to my retrenchments, did not always dissemble her chagrin.&nbsp;
+There were times when I have thought to myself, &ldquo;If she were over
+head in love, and set her cap to catch me, she would scarce behave much
+otherwise;&rdquo; and then I would fall again into wonder at the simplicity
+of woman, from whom I felt (in these moments) that I was not worthy
+to be descended.<br>
+<br>
+There was one point in particular on which our warfare turned, and of
+all things, this was the question of her clothes.&nbsp; My baggage had
+soon followed me from Rotterdam, and hers from Helvoet.&nbsp; She had
+now, as it were, two wardrobes; and it grew to be understood between
+us (I could never tell how) that when she was friendly she would wear
+my clothes, and when otherwise her own.&nbsp; It was meant for a buffet,
+and (as it were) the renunciation of her gratitude; and I felt it so
+in my bosom, but was generally more wise than to appear to have observed
+the circumstance.<br>
+<br>
+Once, indeed, I was betrayed into a childishness greater than her own;
+it fell in this way.&nbsp; On my return from classes, thinking upon
+her devoutly with a great deal of love and a good deal of annoyance
+in the bargain, the annoyance began to fade away out of my mind; and
+spying in a window one of those forced flowers, of which the Hollanders
+are so skilled in the artifice, I gave way to an impulse and bought
+it for Catriona.&nbsp; I do not know the name of that flower, but it
+was of the pink colour, and I thought she would admire the same, and
+carried it home to her with a wonderful soft heart.&nbsp; I had left
+her in my clothes, and when I returned to find her all changed and a
+face to match, I cast but the one look at her from head to foot, ground
+my teeth together, flung the window open, and my flower into the court,
+and then (between rage and prudence) myself out of that room again,
+of which I slammed she door as I went out.<br>
+<br>
+On the steep stair I came near falling, and this brought me to myself,
+so that I began at once to see the folly of my conduct.&nbsp; I went,
+not into the street as I had purposed, but to the house court, which
+was always a solitary place, and where I saw my flower (that had cost
+me vastly more than it was worth) hanging in the leafless tree.&nbsp;
+I stood by the side of the canal, and looked upon the ice.&nbsp; Country
+people went by on their skates, and I envied them.&nbsp; I could see
+no way out of the pickle I was in no way so much as to return to the
+room I had just left.&nbsp; No doubt was in my mind but I had now betrayed
+the secret of my feelings; and to make things worse, I had shown at
+the same time (and that with wretched boyishness) incivility to my helpless
+guest.<br>
+<br>
+I suppose she must have seen me from the open window.&nbsp; It did not
+seem to me that I had stood there very long before I heard the crunching
+of footsteps on the frozen snow, and turning somewhat angrily (for I
+was in no spirit to be interrupted) saw Catriona drawing near.&nbsp;
+She was all changed again, to the clocked stockings.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Are we not to have our walk to-day?&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+I was looking at her in a maze.&nbsp; &ldquo;Where is your brooch?&rdquo;
+says I.<br>
+<br>
+She carried her hand to her bosom and coloured high.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+will have forgotten it,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will run upstairs
+for it quick, and then surely we&rsquo;ll can have our walk?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+There was a note of pleading in that last that staggered me; I had neither
+words nor voice to utter them; I could do no more than nod by way of
+answer; and the moment she had left me, climbed into the tree and recovered
+my flower, which on her return I offered her.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I bought it for you, Catriona,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+She fixed it in the midst of her bosom with the brooch, I could have
+thought tenderly.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is none the better of my handling,&rdquo; said I again, and
+blushed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will be liking it none the worse, you may be sure of that,&rdquo;
+said she.<br>
+<br>
+We did not speak so much that day; she seemed a thought on the reserve,
+though not unkindly.&nbsp; As for me, all the time of our walking, and
+after we came home, and I had seen her put my flower into a pot of water,
+I was thinking to myself what puzzles women were.&nbsp; I was thinking,
+the one moment, it was the most stupid thing on earth she should not
+have perceived my love; and the next, that she had certainly perceived
+it long ago, and (being a wise girl with the fine female instinct of
+propriety) concealed her knowledge.<br>
+<br>
+We had our walk daily.&nbsp; Out in the streets I felt more safe; I
+relaxed a little in my guardedness; and for one thing, there was no
+Heineccius.&nbsp; This made these periods not only a relief to myself,
+but a particular pleasure to my poor child.&nbsp; When I came back about
+the hour appointed, I would generally find her ready dressed, and glowing
+with anticipation.&nbsp; She would prolong their duration to the extreme,
+seeming to dread (as I did myself) the hour of the return; and there
+is scarce a field or waterside near Leyden, scarce a street or lane
+there, where we have not lingered.&nbsp; Outside of these, I bade her
+confine herself entirely to our lodgings; this in the fear of her encountering
+any acquaintance, which would have rendered our position very difficult.&nbsp;
+From the same apprehension I would never suffer her to attend church,
+nor even go myself; but made some kind of shift to hold worship privately
+in our own chamber - I hope with an honest, but I am quite sure with
+a very much divided mind.&nbsp; Indeed, there was scarce anything that
+more affected me, than thus to kneel down alone with her before God
+like man and wife.<br>
+<br>
+One day it was snowing downright hard.&nbsp; I had thought it not possible
+that we should venture forth, and was surprised to find her waiting
+for me ready dressed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will not be doing without my walk,&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;You are never a good boy, Davie, in the house; I will never be
+caring for you only in the open air.&nbsp; I think we two will better
+turn Egyptian and dwell by the roadside.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+That was the best walk yet of all of them; she clung near to me in the
+falling snow; it beat about and melted on us, and the drops stood upon
+her bright cheeks like tears and ran into her smiling mouth.&nbsp; Strength
+seemed to come upon me with the sight like a giant&rsquo;s; I thought
+I could have caught her up and run with her into the uttermost places
+in the earth; and we spoke together all that time beyond belief for
+freedom and sweetness.<br>
+<br>
+It was the dark night when we came to the house door.&nbsp; She pressed
+my arm upon her bosom.&nbsp; &ldquo;Thank you kindly for these same
+good hours,&rdquo; said she, on a deep note of her voice.<br>
+<br>
+The concern in which I fell instantly on this address, put me with the
+same swiftness on my guard; and we were no sooner in the chamber, and
+the light made, than she beheld the old, dour, stubborn countenance
+of the student of Heineccius.&nbsp; Doubtless she was more than usually
+hurt; and I know for myself, I found it more than usually difficult
+to maintain any strangeness.&nbsp; Even at the meal, I durst scarce
+unbuckle and scarce lift my eyes to her; and it was no sooner over than
+I fell again to my civilian, with more seeming abstraction and less
+understanding than before.&nbsp; Methought, as I read, I could hear
+my heart strike like an eight-day clock.&nbsp; Hard as I feigned to
+study, there was still some of my eyesight that spilled beyond the book
+upon Catriona.&nbsp; She sat on the floor by the side of my great mail,
+and the chimney lighted her up, and shone and blinked upon her, and
+made her glow and darken through a wonder of fine hues.&nbsp; Now she
+would be gazing in the fire, and then again at me; and at that I would
+be plunged in a terror of myself, and turn the pages of Heineccius like
+a man looking for the text in church.<br>
+<br>
+Suddenly she called out aloud.&nbsp; &ldquo;O, why does not my father
+come?&rdquo; she cried, and fell at once into a storm of tears.<br>
+<br>
+I leaped up, flung Heineccius fairly in the fire, ran to her side, and
+cast an arm around her sobbing body.<br>
+<br>
+She put me from her sharply, &ldquo;You do not love your friend,&rdquo;
+says she.&nbsp; &ldquo;I could be so happy too, if you would let me!&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And then, &ldquo;O, what will I have done that you should hate me so?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Hate you!&rdquo; cries I, and held her firm.&nbsp; &ldquo;You
+blind less, can you not see a little in my wretched heart?&nbsp; Do
+you not think when I sit there, reading in that fool-book that I have
+just burned and be damned to it, I take ever the least thought of any
+stricken thing but just yourself?&nbsp; Night after night I could have
+grat to see you sitting there your lone.&nbsp; And what was I to do?&nbsp;
+You are here under my honour; would you punish me for that?&nbsp; Is
+it for that that you would spurn a loving servant?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+At the word, with a small, sudden motion, she clung near to me.&nbsp;
+I raised her face to mine, I kissed it, and she bowed her brow upon
+my bosom, clasping me tight.&nbsp; I saw in a mere whirl like a man
+drunken.&nbsp; Then I heard her voice sound very small and muffled in
+my clothes.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Did you kiss her truly?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+There went through me so great a heave of surprise that I was all shook
+with it.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Miss Grant?&rdquo; I cried, all in a disorder.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,
+I asked her to kiss me good-bye, the which she did.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah, well!&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;you have kissed me too, at
+all events.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+At the strangeness and sweetness of that word, I saw where we had fallen;
+rose, and set her on her feet.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This will never do,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;This will never,
+never do.&nbsp; O Catrine, Catrine!&rdquo;&nbsp; Then there came a pause
+in which I was debarred from any speaking.&nbsp; And then, &ldquo;Go
+away to your bed,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Go away to your bed and
+leave me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She turned to obey me like a child, and the next I knew of it, had stopped
+in the very doorway.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Good night, Davie!&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And O, good night, my love!&rdquo; I cried, with a great outbreak
+of my soul, and caught her to me again, so that it seemed I must have
+broken her.&nbsp; The next moment I had thrust her from the room, shut
+to the door even with violence, and stood alone.<br>
+<br>
+The milk was spilt now, the word was out and the truth told.&nbsp; I
+had crept like an untrusty man into the poor maid&rsquo;s affections;
+she was in my hand like any frail, innocent thing to make or mar; and
+what weapon of defence was left me?&nbsp; It seemed like a symbol that
+Heineccius, my old protection, was now burned.&nbsp; I repented, yet
+could not find it in my heart to blame myself for that great failure.&nbsp;
+It seemed not possible to have resisted the boldness of her innocence
+or that last temptation of her weeping.&nbsp; And all that I had to
+excuse me did but make my sin appear the greater - it was upon a nature
+so defenceless, and with such advantages of the position, that I seemed
+to have practised.<br>
+<br>
+What was to become of us now?&nbsp; It seemed we could no longer dwell
+in the one place.&nbsp; But where was I to go? or where she?&nbsp; Without
+either choice or fault of ours, life had conspired to wall us together
+in that narrow place.&nbsp; I had a wild thought of marrying out of
+hand; and the next moment put it from me with revolt.&nbsp; She was
+a child, she could not tell her own heart; I had surprised her weakness,
+I must never go on to build on that surprisal; I must keep her not only
+clear of reproach, but free as she had come to me.<br>
+<br>
+Down I sat before the fire, and reflected, and repented, and beat my
+brains in vain for any means of escape.&nbsp; About two of the morning,
+there were three red embers left and the house and all the city was
+asleep, when I was aware of a small sound of weeping in the next room.&nbsp;
+She thought that I slept, the poor soul; she regretted her weakness
+- and what perhaps (God help her!) she called her forwardness - and
+in the dead of the night solaced herself with tears.&nbsp; Tender and
+bitter feelings, love and penitence and pity, struggled in my soul;
+it seemed I was under bond to heal that weeping.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, try to forgive me!&rdquo; I cried out, &ldquo;try, try to
+forgive me.&nbsp; Let us forget it all, let us try if we&rsquo;ll no
+can forget it!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+There came no answer, but the sobbing ceased.&nbsp; I stood a long while
+with my hands still clasped as I had spoken; then the cold of the night
+laid hold upon me with a shudder, and I think my reason reawakened.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You can make no hand of this, Davie,&rdquo; thinks I.&nbsp; &ldquo;To
+bed with you like a wise lad, and try if you can sleep.&nbsp; To-morrow
+you may see your way.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XXV - THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I was called on the morrow out of a late and troubled slumber by a knocking
+on my door, ran to open it, and had almost swooned with the contrariety
+of my feelings, mostly painful; for on the threshold, in a rough wraprascal
+and an extraordinary big laced hat, there stood James More.<br>
+<br>
+I ought to have been glad perhaps without admixture, for there was a
+sense in which the man came like an answer to prayer.&nbsp; I had been
+saying till my head was weary that Catriona and I must separate, and
+looking till my head ached for any possible means of separation.&nbsp;
+Here were the means come to me upon two legs, and joy was the hindmost
+of my thoughts.&nbsp; It is to be considered, however, that even if
+the weight of the future were lifted off me by the man&rsquo;s arrival,
+the present heaved up the more black and menacing; so that, as I first
+stood before him in my shirt and breeches, I believe I took a leaping
+step backward like a person shot.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I have found you, Mr, Balfour.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+And offered me his large, fine hand, the which (recovering at the same
+time my post in the doorway, as if with some thought of resistance)
+I took him by doubtfully.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is a remarkable circumstance
+how our affairs appear to intermingle,&rdquo; he continued.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+am owing you an apology for an unfortunate intrusion upon yours, which
+I suffered myself to be entrapped into by my confidence in that false-face,
+Prestongrange; I think shame to own to you that I was ever trusting
+to a lawyer.&rdquo;&nbsp; He shrugged his shoulders with a very French
+air.&nbsp; &ldquo;But indeed the man is very plausible,&rdquo; says
+he.&nbsp; &ldquo;And now it seems that you have busied yourself handsomely
+in the matter of my daughter, for whose direction I was remitted to
+yourself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think, sir,&rdquo; said I, with a very painful air, &ldquo;that
+it will be necessary we two should have an explanation.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is nothing amiss?&rdquo; he asked.&nbsp; &ldquo;My agent,
+Mr. Sprott - &rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake moderate your voice!&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;She must not hear till we have had an explanation.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;She is in this place?&rdquo; cries he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That is her chamber door,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are here with her alone?&rdquo; he asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And who else would I have got to stay with us?&rdquo; cries I.<br>
+<br>
+I will do him the justice to admit that he turned pale.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is very unusual,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;This is a
+very unusual circumstance.&nbsp; You are right, we must hold an explanation.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+So saying he passed me by, and I must own the tall old rogue appeared
+at that moment extraordinary dignified.&nbsp; He had now, for the first
+time, the view of my chamber, which I scanned (I may say) with his eyes.&nbsp;
+A bit of morning sun glinted in by the window pane, and showed it off;
+my bed, my mails, and washing dish, with some disorder of my clothes,
+and the unlighted chimney, made the only plenishing; no mistake but
+it looked bare and cold, and the most unsuitable, beggarly place conceivable
+to harbour a young lady.&nbsp; At the same time came in on my mind the
+recollection of the clothes that I had bought for her; and I thought
+this contrast of poverty and prodigality bore an ill appearance.<br>
+<br>
+He looked all about the chamber for a seat, and finding nothing else
+to his purpose except my bed, took a place upon the side of it; where,
+after I had closed the door, I could not very well avoid joining him.&nbsp;
+For however this extraordinary interview might end, it must pass if
+possible without waking Catriona; and the one thing needful was that
+we should sit close and talk low.&nbsp; But I can scarce picture what
+a pair we made; he in his great coat which the coldness of my chamber
+made extremely suitable; I shivering in my shirt and breeks; he with
+very much the air of a judge; and I (whatever I looked) with very much
+the feelings of a man who has heard the last trumpet.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+And &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I began, but found myself unable to go further.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You tell me she is here?&rdquo; said he again, but now with a
+spice of impatience that seemed to brace me up.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;She is in this house,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I knew the circumstance
+would be called unusual.&nbsp; But you are to consider how very unusual
+the whole business was from the beginning.&nbsp; Here is a young lady
+landed on the coast of Europe with two shillings and a penny halfpenny.&nbsp;
+She is directed to yon man Sprott in Helvoet.&nbsp; I hear you call
+him your agent.&nbsp; All I can say is he could do nothing but damn
+and swear at the mere mention of your name, and I must fee him out of
+my own pocket even to receive the custody of her effects.&nbsp; You
+speak of unusual circumstances, Mr. Drummond, if that be the name you
+prefer.&nbsp; Here was a circumstance, if you like, to which it was
+barbarity to have exposed her.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But this is what I cannot understand the least,&rdquo; said James.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;My daughter was placed into the charge of some responsible persons,
+whose names I have forgot.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Gebbie was the name,&rdquo;
+said I; &ldquo;and there is no doubt that Mr. Gebbie should have gone
+ashore with her at Helvoet.&nbsp; But he did not, Mr. Drummond; and
+I think you might praise God that I was there to offer in his place.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I shall have a word to say to Mr. Gebbie before long,&rdquo;
+said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;As for yourself, I think it might have occurred
+that you were somewhat young for such a post.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But the choice was not between me and somebody else, it was between
+me and nobody,&rdquo; cried I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Nobody offered in my place,
+and I must say I think you show a very small degree of gratitude to
+me that did.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I shall wait until I understand my obligation a little more in
+the particular,&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Indeed, and I think it stares you in the face, then,&rdquo; said
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;Your child was deserted, she was clean flung away in
+the midst of Europe, with scarce two shillings, and not two words of
+any language spoken there: I must say, a bonny business!&nbsp; I brought
+her to this place.&nbsp; I gave her the name and the tenderness due
+to a sister.&nbsp; All this has not gone without expense, but that I
+scarce need to hint at.&nbsp; They were services due to the young lady&rsquo;s
+character which I respect; and I think it would be a bonny business
+too, if I was to be singing her praises to her father.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are a young man,&rdquo; he began.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;So I hear you tell me,&rdquo; said I, with a good deal of heat.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are a very young man,&rdquo; he repeated, &ldquo;or you would
+have understood the significancy of the step.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think you speak very much at your ease,&rdquo; cried I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;What else was I to do?&nbsp; It is a fact I might have hired
+some decent, poor woman to be a third to us, and I declare I never thought
+of it until this moment!&nbsp; But where was I to find her, that am
+a foreigner myself?&nbsp; And let me point out to your observation,
+Mr. Drummond, that it would have cost me money out of my pocket.&nbsp;
+For here is just what it comes to, that I had to pay through the nose
+for your neglect; and there is only the one story to it, just that you
+were so unloving and so careless as to have lost your daughter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He that lives in a glass house should not be casting stones,&rdquo;
+says he; &ldquo;and we will finish inquiring into the behaviour of Miss
+Drummond before we go on to sit in judgment on her father.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But I will be entrapped into no such attitude,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;The character of Miss Drummond is far above inquiry, as her father
+ought to know.&nbsp; So is mine, and I am telling you that.&nbsp; There
+are but the two ways of it open.&nbsp; The one is to express your thanks
+to me as one gentleman to another, and to say no more.&nbsp; The other
+(if you are so difficult as to be still dissatisfied) is to pay me,
+that which I have expended and be done.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He seemed to soothe me with a hand in the air.&nbsp; &ldquo;There, there,&rdquo;
+said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;You go too fast, you go too fast, Mr. Balfour.&nbsp;
+It is a good thing that I have learned to be more patient.&nbsp; And
+I believe you forget that I have yet to see my daughter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I began to be a little relieved upon this speech and a change in the
+man&rsquo;s manner that I spied in him as soon as the name of money
+fell between us.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I was thinking it would be more fit - if you will excuse the
+plainness of my dressing in your presence - that I should go forth and
+leave you to encounter her alone?&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What I would have looked for at your hands!&rdquo; says he; and
+there was no mistake but what he said it civilly.<br>
+<br>
+I thought this better and better still, and as I began to pull on my
+hose, recalling the man&rsquo;s impudent mendicancy at Prestongrange&rsquo;s,
+I determined to pursue what seemed to be my victory.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If you have any mind to stay some while in Leyden,&rdquo; said
+I, &ldquo;this room is very much at your disposal, and I can easy find
+another for myself: in which way we shall have the least amount of flitting
+possible, there being only one to change.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why, sir,&rdquo; said he, making his bosom big, &ldquo;I think
+no shame of a poverty I have come by in the service of my king; I make
+no secret that my affairs are quite involved; and for the moment, it
+would be even impossible for me to undertake a journey.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Until you have occasion to communicate with your friends,&rdquo;
+said I, &ldquo;perhaps it might be convenient for you (as of course
+it would be honourable to myself) if you were to regard yourself in
+the light of my guest?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;when an offer is frankly made, I
+think I honour myself most to imitate that frankness.&nbsp; Your hand,
+Mr. David; you have the character that I respect the most; you are one
+of those from whom a gentleman can take a favour and no more words about
+it.&nbsp; I am an old soldier,&rdquo; he went on, looking rather disgusted-like
+around my chamber, &ldquo;and you need not fear I shall prove burthensome.&nbsp;
+I have ate too often at a dyke-side, drank of the ditch, and had no
+roof but the rain.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I should be telling you,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that our breakfasts
+are sent customarily in about this time of morning.&nbsp; I propose
+I should go now to the tavern, and bid them add a cover for yourself
+and delay the meal the matter of an hour, which will give you an interval
+to meet your daughter in.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Methought his nostrils wagged at this.&nbsp; &ldquo;O, an hour&rdquo;
+says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;That is perhaps superfluous.&nbsp; Half an hour,
+Mr. David, or say twenty minutes; I shall do very well in that.&nbsp;
+And by the way,&rdquo; he adds, detaining me by the coat, &ldquo;what
+is it you drink in the morning, whether ale or wine?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;To be frank with you, sir,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;I drink nothing
+else but spare, cold water.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Tut-tut,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;that is fair destruction to the
+stomach, take an old campaigner&rsquo;s word for it.&nbsp; Our country
+spirit at home is perhaps the most entirely wholesome; but as that is
+not come-at-able, Rhenish or a white wine of Burgundy will be next best.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I shall make it my business to see you are supplied,&rdquo; said
+I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why, very good,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and we shall make a man
+of you yet, Mr. David.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+By this time, I can hardly say that I was minding him at all, beyond
+an odd thought of the kind of father-in-law that he was like to prove;
+and all my cares centred about the lass his daughter, to whom I determined
+to convey some warning of her visitor.&nbsp; I stepped to the door accordingly,
+and cried through the panels, knocking thereon at the same time: &ldquo;Miss
+Drummond, here is your father come at last.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+With that I went forth upon my errand, having (by two words) extraordinarily
+damaged my affairs.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XXVI - THE THREESOME<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Whether or not I was to be so much blamed, or rather perhaps pitied,
+I must leave others to judge.&nbsp; My shrewdness (of which I have a
+good deal, too) seems not so great with the ladies.&nbsp; No doubt,
+at the moment when I awaked her, I was thinking a good deal of the effect
+upon James More; and similarly when I returned and we were all sat down
+to breakfast, I continued to behave to the young lady with deference
+and distance; as I still think to have been most wise.&nbsp; Her father
+had cast doubts upon the innocence of my friendship; and these, it was
+my first business to allay.&nbsp; But there is a kind of an excuse for
+Catriona also.&nbsp; We had shared in a scene of some tenderness and
+passion, and given and received caresses: I had thrust her from me with
+violence; I had called aloud upon her in the night from the one room
+to the other; she had passed hours of wakefulness and weeping; and it
+is not to be supposed I had been absent from her pillow thoughts.&nbsp;
+Upon the back of this, to be awaked, with unaccustomed formality, under
+the name of Miss Drummond, and to be thenceforth used with a great deal
+of distance and respect, led her entirely in error on my private sentiments;
+and she was indeed so incredibly abused as to imagine me repentant and
+trying to draw off!<br>
+<br>
+The trouble betwixt us seems to have been this: that whereas I (since
+I had first set eyes on his great hat) thought singly of James More,
+his return and suspicions, she made so little of these that I may say
+she scarce remarked them, and all her troubles and doings regarded what
+had passed between us in the night before.&nbsp; This is partly to be
+explained by the innocence and boldness of her character; and partly
+because James More, having sped so ill in his interview with me, or
+had his mouth closed by my invitation, said no word to her upon the
+subject.&nbsp; At the breakfast, accordingly, it soon appeared we were
+at cross purposes.&nbsp; I had looked to find her in clothes of her
+own: I found her (as if her father were forgotten) wearing some of the
+best that I had bought for her, and which she knew (or thought) that
+I admired her in.&nbsp; I had looked to find her imitate my affectation
+of distance, and be most precise and formal; instead I found her flushed
+and wild-like, with eyes extraordinary bright, and a painful and varying
+expression, calling me by name with a sort of appeal of tenderness,
+and referring and deferring to my thoughts and wishes like an anxious
+or a suspected wife.<br>
+<br>
+But this was not for long.&nbsp; As I behold her so regardless of her
+own interests, which I had jeopardised and was now endeavouring to recover,
+I redoubled my own coldness in the manner of a lesson to the girl.&nbsp;
+The more she came forward, the farther I drew back; the more she betrayed
+the closeness of our intimacy, the more pointedly civil I became, until
+even her father (if he had not been so engrossed with eating) might
+have observed the opposition.&nbsp; In the midst of which, of a sudden,
+she became wholly changed, and I told myself, with a good deal of relief,
+that she had took the hint at last.<br>
+<br>
+All day I was at my classes or in quest of my new lodging; and though
+the hour of our customary walk hung miserably on my hands, I cannot
+say but I was happy on the whole to find my way cleared, the girl again
+in proper keeping, the father satisfied or at least acquiescent, and
+myself free to prosecute my love with honour.&nbsp; At supper, as at
+all our meals, it was James More that did the talking.&nbsp; No doubt
+but he talked well if anyone could have believed him.&nbsp; But I will
+speak of him presently more at large.&nbsp; The meal at an end, he rose,
+got his great coat, and looking (as I thought) at me, observed he had
+affairs abroad.&nbsp; I took this for a hint that I was to be going
+also, and got up; whereupon the girl, who had scarce given me greeting
+at my entrance, turned her eyes upon me wide open with a look that bade
+me stay.&nbsp; I stood between them like a fish out of water, turning
+from one to the other; neither seemed to observe me, she gazing on the
+floor, he buttoning his coat: which vastly swelled my embarrassment.&nbsp;
+This appearance of indifference argued, upon her side, a good deal of
+anger very near to burst out.&nbsp; Upon his, I thought it horribly
+alarming; I made sure there was a tempest brewing there; and considering
+that to be the chief peril, turned towards him and put myself (so to
+speak) in the man&rsquo;s hands.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Can I do anything for <i>you</i>, Mr. Drummond?&rdquo; says I.<br>
+<br>
+He stifled a yawn, which again I thought to be duplicity.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why,
+Mr. David,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;since you are so obliging as to propose
+it, you might show me the way to a certain tavern&rdquo; (of which he
+gave the name) &ldquo;where I hope to fall in with some old companions
+in arms.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+There was no more to say, and I got my hat and cloak to bear him company.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And as for you,&rdquo; say he to his daughter, &ldquo;you had
+best go to your bed.&nbsp; I shall be late home, and <i>Early to bed
+and early to rise, gars bonny lasses have bright eyes</i>.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Whereupon he kissed her with a good deal of tenderness, and ushered
+me before him from the door.&nbsp; This was so done (I thought on purpose)
+that it was scarce possible there should be any parting salutation;
+but I observed she did not look at me, and set it down to terror of
+James More.<br>
+<br>
+It was some distance to that tavern.&nbsp; He talked all the way of
+matters which did not interest me the smallest, and at the door dismissed
+me with empty manners.&nbsp; Thence I walked to my new lodging, where
+I had not so much as a chimney to hold me warm, and no society but my
+own thoughts.&nbsp; These were still bright enough; I did not so much
+as dream that Catriona was turned against me; I thought we were like
+folk pledged; I thought we had been too near and spoke too warmly to
+be severed, least of all by what were only steps in a most needful policy.&nbsp;
+And the chief of my concern was only the kind of father-in-law that
+I was getting, which was not at all the kind I would have chosen: and
+the matter of how soon I ought to speak to him, which was a delicate
+point on several sides.&nbsp; In the first place, when I thought how
+young I was I blushed all over, and could almost have found it in my
+heart to have desisted; only that if once I let them go from Leyden
+without explanation, I might lose her altogether.&nbsp; And in the second
+place, there was our very irregular situation to be kept in view, and
+the rather scant measure of satisfaction I had given James More that
+morning.&nbsp; I concluded, on the whole, that delay would not hurt
+anything, yet I would not delay too long neither; and got to my cold
+bed with a full heart.<br>
+<br>
+The next day, as James More seemed a little on the complaining hand
+in the matter of my chamber, I offered to have in more furniture; and
+coming in the afternoon, with porters bringing chairs and tables, found
+the girl once more left to herself.&nbsp; She greeted me on my admission
+civilly, but withdrew at once to her own room, of which she shut the
+door.&nbsp; I made my disposition, and paid and dismissed the men so
+that she might hear them go, when I supposed she would at once come
+forth again to speak to me.&nbsp; I waited yet awhile, then knocked
+upon her door.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona!&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+The door was opened so quickly, even before I had the word out, that
+I thought she must have stood behind it listening.&nbsp; She remained
+there in the interval quite still; but she had a look that I cannot
+put a name on, as of one in a bitter trouble.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Are we not to have our walk to-day either?&rdquo; so I faltered.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am thanking you,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will not be
+caring much to walk, now that my father is come home.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But I think he has gone out himself and left you here alone,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And do you think that was very kindly said?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It was not unkindly meant,&rdquo; I replied.&nbsp; &ldquo;What
+ails you, Catriona?&nbsp; What have I done to you that you should turn
+from me like this?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do not turn from you at all,&rdquo; she said, speaking very
+carefully.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will ever be grateful to my friend that was
+good to me; I will ever be his friend in all that I am able.&nbsp; But
+now that my father James More is come again, there is a difference to
+be made, and I think there are some things said and done that would
+be better to be forgotten.&nbsp; But I will ever be your friend in all
+that I am able, and if that is not all that . . . . if it is not so
+much . . . . Not that you will be caring!&nbsp; But I would not have
+you think of me too hard.&nbsp; It was true what you said to me, that
+I was too young to be advised, and I am hoping you will remember I was
+just a child.&nbsp; I would not like to lose your friendship, at all
+events.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She began this very pale; but before she was done, the blood was in
+her face like scarlet, so that not her words only, but her face and
+the trembling of her very hands, besought me to be gentle.&nbsp; I saw,
+for the first time, how very wrong I had done to place the child in
+that position, where she had been entrapped into a moment&rsquo;s weakness,
+and now stood before me like a person shamed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Miss Drummond,&rdquo; I said, and stuck, and made the same beginning
+once again, &ldquo;I wish you could see into my heart,&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;You would read there that my respect is undiminished.&nbsp; If
+that were possible, I should say it was increased.&nbsp; This is but
+the result of the mistake we made; and had to come; and the less said
+of it now the better.&nbsp; Of all of our life here, I promise you it
+shall never pass my lips; I would like to promise you too that I would
+never think of it, but it&rsquo;s a memory that will be always dear
+to me.&nbsp; And as for a friend, you have one here that would die for
+you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am thanking you,&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+We stood awhile silent, and my sorrow for myself began to get the upper
+hand; for here were all my dreams come to a sad tumble, and my love
+lost, and myself alone again in the world as at the beginning.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;we shall be friends always, that&rsquo;s
+a certain thing.&nbsp; But this is a kind of farewell, too: it&rsquo;s
+a kind of a farewell after all; I shall always ken Miss Drummond, but
+this is a farewell to my Catriona.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I looked at her; I could hardly say I saw her, but she seemed to grow
+great and brighten in my eyes; and with that I suppose I must have lost
+my head, for I called out her name again and made a step at her with
+my hands reached forth.<br>
+<br>
+She shrank back like a person struck, her face flamed; but the blood
+sprang no faster up into her cheeks, than what it flowed back upon my
+own heart, at sight of it, with penitence and concern.&nbsp; I found
+no words to excuse myself, but bowed before her very deep, and went
+my ways out of the house with death in my bosom.<br>
+<br>
+I think it was about five days that followed without any change.&nbsp;
+I saw her scarce ever but at meals, and then of course in the company
+of James More.&nbsp; If we were alone even for a moment, I made it my
+devoir to behave the more distantly and to multiply respectful attentions,
+having always in my mind&rsquo;s eye that picture of the girl shrinking
+and flaming in a blush, and in my heart more pity for her than I could
+depict in words.&nbsp; I was sorry enough for myself, I need not dwell
+on that, having fallen all my length and more than all my height in
+a few seconds; but, indeed, I was near as sorry for the girl, and sorry
+enough to be scarce angry with her save by fits and starts.&nbsp; Her
+plea was good; she had been placed in an unfair position; if she had
+deceived herself and me, it was no more than was to have been looked
+for.<br>
+<br>
+And for another thing she was now very much alone.&nbsp; Her father,
+when he was by, was rather a caressing parent; but he was very easy
+led away by his affairs and pleasures, neglected her without compunction
+or remark, spent his nights in taverns when he had the money, which
+was more often than I could at all account for; and even in the course
+of these few days, failed once to come to a meal, which Catriona and
+I were at last compelled to partake of without him.&nbsp; It was the
+evening meal, and I left immediately that I had eaten, observing I supposed
+she would prefer to be alone; to which she agreed and (strange as it
+may seem) I quite believed her.&nbsp; Indeed, I thought myself but an
+eyesore to the girl, and a reminder of a moment&rsquo;s weakness that
+she now abhorred to think of.&nbsp; So she must sit alone in that room
+where she and I had been so merry, and in the blink of that chimney
+whose light had shone upon our many difficult and tender moments.&nbsp;
+There she must sit alone, and think of herself as of a maid who had
+most unmaidenly proffered her affections and had the same rejected.&nbsp;
+And in the meanwhile I would be alone some other place, and reading
+myself (whenever I was tempted to be angry) lessons upon human frailty
+and female delicacy.&nbsp; And altogether I suppose there were never
+two poor fools made themselves more unhappy in a greater misconception.<br>
+<br>
+As for James, he paid not so much heed to us, or to anything in nature
+but his pocket, and his belly, and his own prating talk.&nbsp; Before
+twelve hours were gone he had raised a small loan of me; before thirty,
+he had asked for a second and been refused.&nbsp; Money and refusal
+he took with the same kind of high good nature.&nbsp; Indeed, he had
+an outside air of magnanimity that was very well fitted to impose upon
+a daughter; and the light in which he was constantly presented in his
+talk, and the man&rsquo;s fine presence and great ways went together
+pretty harmoniously.&nbsp; So that a man that had no business with him,
+and either very little penetration or a furious deal of prejudice, might
+almost have been taken in.&nbsp; To me, after my first two interviews,
+he was as plain as print; I saw him to be perfectly selfish, with a
+perfect innocency in the same; and I would hearken to his swaggering
+talk (of arms, and &ldquo;an old soldier,&rdquo; and &ldquo;a poor Highland
+gentleman,&rdquo; and &ldquo;the strength of my country and my friends&rdquo;)
+as I might to the babbling of a parrot.<br>
+<br>
+The odd thing was that I fancy he believed some part of it himself,
+or did at times; I think he was so false all through that he scarce
+knew when he was lying; and for one thing, his moments of dejection
+must have been wholly genuine.&nbsp; There were times when he would
+be the most silent, affectionate, clinging creature possible, holding
+Catriona&rsquo;s hand like a big baby, and begging of me not to leave
+if I had any love to him; of which, indeed, I had none, but all the
+more to his daughter.&nbsp; He would press and indeed beseech us to
+entertain him with our talk, a thing very difficult in the state of
+our relations; and again break forth in pitiable regrets for his own
+land and friends, or into Gaelic singing.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is one of the melancholy airs of my native land,&rdquo;
+he would say.&nbsp; &ldquo;You may think it strange to see a soldier
+weep, and indeed it is to make a near friend of you,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But the notes of this singing are in my blood, and the words
+come out of my heart.&nbsp; And when I mind upon my red mountains and
+the wild birds calling there, and the brave streams of water running
+down, I would scarce think shame to weep before my enemies.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+Then he would sing again, and translate to me pieces of the song, with
+a great deal of boggling and much expressed contempt against the English
+language.&nbsp; &ldquo;It says here,&rdquo; he would say, &ldquo;that
+the sun is gone down, and the battle is at an end, and the brave chiefs
+are defeated.&nbsp; And it tells here how the stars see them fleeing
+into strange countries or lying dead on the red mountain; and they will
+never more shout the call of battle or wash their feet in the streams
+of the valley.&nbsp; But if you had only some of this language, you
+would weep also because the words of it are beyond all expression, and
+it is mere mockery to tell you it in English.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Well, I thought there was a good deal of mockery in the business, one
+way and another; and yet, there was some feeling too, for which I hated
+him, I think, the worst of all.&nbsp; And it used to cut me to the quick
+to see Catriona so much concerned for the old rogue, and weeping herself
+to see him weep, when I was sure one half of his distress flowed from
+his last night&rsquo;s drinking in some tavern.&nbsp; There were times
+when I was tempted to lend him a round sum, and see the last of him
+for good; but this would have been to see the last of Catriona as well,
+for which I was scarcely so prepared; and besides, it went against my
+conscience to squander my good money on one who was so little of a husband.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XXVII - A TWOSOME<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I believe it was about the fifth day, and I know at least that James
+was in one of his fits of gloom, when I received three letters.&nbsp;
+The first was from Alan, offering to visit me in Leyden; the other two
+were out of Scotland and prompted by the same affair, which was the
+death of my uncle and my own complete accession to my rights.&nbsp;
+Rankeillor&rsquo;s was, of course, wholly in the business view; Miss
+Grant&rsquo;s was like herself, a little more witty than wise, full
+of blame to me for not having written (though how was I to write with
+such intelligence?) and of rallying talk about Catriona, which it cut
+me to the quick to read in her very presence.<br>
+<br>
+For it was of course in my own rooms that I found them, when I came
+to dinner, so that I was surprised out of my news in the very first
+moment of reading it.&nbsp; This made a welcome diversion for all three
+of us, nor could any have foreseen the ill consequences that ensued.&nbsp;
+It was accident that brought the three letters the same day, and that
+gave them into my hand in the same room with James More; and of all
+the events that flowed from that accident, and which I might have prevented
+if I had held my tongue, the truth is that they were preordained before
+Agricola came into Scotland or Abraham set out upon his travels.<br>
+<br>
+The first that I opened was naturally Alan&rsquo;s; and what more natural
+than that I should comment on his design to visit me? but I observed
+James to sit up with an air of immediate attention.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Is that not Alan Breck that was suspected of the Appin accident?&rdquo;
+he inquired.<br>
+<br>
+I told him, &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; it was the same; and he withheld me some
+time from my other letters, asking of our acquaintance, of Alan&rsquo;s
+manner of life in France, of which I knew very little, and further of
+his visit as now proposed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;All we forfeited folk hang a little together,&rdquo; he explained,
+&ldquo;and besides I know the gentleman: and though his descent is not
+the thing, and indeed he has no true right to use the name of Stewart,
+he was very much admired in the day of Drummossie.&nbsp; He did there
+like a soldier; if some that need not be named had done as well, the
+upshot need not have been so melancholy to remember.&nbsp; There were
+two that did their best that day, and it makes a bond between the pair
+of us,&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+I could scarce refrain from shooting out my tongue at him, and could
+almost have wished that Alan had been there to have inquired a little
+further into that mention of his birth.&nbsp; Though, they tell me,
+the same was indeed not wholly regular.<br>
+<br>
+Meanwhile, I had opened Miss Grant&rsquo;s, and could not withhold an
+exclamation.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; I cried, forgetting, the first time since her
+father was arrived, to address her by a handle, &ldquo;I am come into
+my kingdom fairly, I am the laird of Shaws indeed - my uncle is dead
+at last.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She clapped her hands together leaping from her seat.&nbsp; The next
+moment it must have come over both of us at once what little cause of
+joy was left to either, and we stood opposite, staring on each other
+sadly.<br>
+<br>
+But James showed himself a ready hypocrite.&nbsp; &ldquo;My daughter,&rdquo;
+says he, &ldquo;is this how my cousin learned you to behave?&nbsp; Mr.
+David has lost a new friend, and we should first condole with him on
+his bereavement.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Troth, sir,&rdquo; said I, turning to him in a kind of anger,
+&ldquo;I can make no such great faces.&nbsp; His death is as blithe
+news as ever I got.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good soldier&rsquo;s philosophy,&rdquo; says James.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Tis the way of flesh, we must all go, all go.&nbsp; And
+if the gentleman was so far from your favour, why, very well!&nbsp;
+But we may at least congratulate you on your accession to your estates.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Nor can I say that either,&rdquo; I replied, with the same heat.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;It is a good estate; what matters that to a lone man that has
+enough already?&nbsp; I had a good revenue before in my frugality; and
+but for the man&rsquo;s death - which gratifies me, shame to me that
+must confess it! - I see not how anyone is to be bettered by this change.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Come, come,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you are more affected than
+you let on, or you would never make yourself out so lonely.&nbsp; Here
+are three letters; that means three that wish you well; and I could
+name two more, here in this very chamber.&nbsp; I have known you not
+so very long, but Catriona, when we are alone, is never done with the
+singing of your praises.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She looked up at him, a little wild at that; and he slid off at once
+into another matter, the extent of my estate, which (during the most
+of the dinner time) he continued to dwell upon with interest.&nbsp;
+But it was to no purpose he dissembled; he had touched the matter with
+too gross a hand: and I knew what to expect.&nbsp; Dinner was scarce
+ate when he plainly discovered his designs.&nbsp; He reminded Catriona
+of an errand, and bid her attend to it.&nbsp; &ldquo;I do not see you
+should be one beyond the hour,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;and friend David
+will be good enough to bear me company till you return.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+She made haste to obey him without words.&nbsp; I do not know if she
+understood, I believe not; but I was completely satisfied, and sat strengthening
+my mind for what should follow.<br>
+<br>
+The door had scarce closed behind her departure, when the man leaned
+back in his chair and addressed me with a good affectation of easiness.&nbsp;
+Only the one thing betrayed him, and that was his face; which suddenly
+shone all over with fine points of sweat.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am rather glad to have a word alone with you,&rdquo; says he,
+&ldquo;because in our first interview there were some expressions you
+misapprehended and I have long meant to set you right upon.&nbsp; My
+daughter stands beyond doubt.&nbsp; So do you, and I would make that
+good with my sword against all gainsayers.&nbsp; But, my dear David,
+this world is a censorious place - as who should know it better than
+myself, who have lived ever since the days of my late departed father,
+God sain him! in a perfect spate of calumnies?&nbsp; We have to face
+to that; you and me have to consider of that; we have to consider of
+that.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he wagged his head like a minister in a pulpit.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;To what effect, Mr. Drummond?&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I would
+be obliged to you if you would approach your point.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, ay,&rdquo; said he, laughing, &ldquo;like your character,
+indeed! and what I most admire in it.&nbsp; But the point, my worthy
+fellow, is sometimes in a kittle bit.&rdquo;&nbsp; He filled a glass
+of wine.&nbsp; &ldquo;Though between you and me, that are such fast
+friends, it need not bother us long.&nbsp; The point, I need scarcely
+tell you, is my daughter.&nbsp; And the first thing is that I have no
+thought in my mind of blaming you.&nbsp; In the unfortunate circumstances,
+what could you do else?&nbsp; &rsquo;Deed, and I cannot tell.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I thank you for that,&rdquo; said I, pretty close upon my guard.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have besides studied your character,&rdquo; he went on; &ldquo;your
+talents are fair; you seem to have a moderate competence, which does
+no harm; and one thing with another, I am very happy to have to announce
+to you that I have decided on the latter of the two ways open.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am afraid I am dull,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;What ways
+are these?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He bent his brows upon me formidably and uncrossed his legs.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why,
+sir,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I think I need scarce describe them to a
+gentleman of your condition; either that I should cut your throat or
+that you should marry my daughter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You are pleased to be quite plain at last,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I believe I have been plain from the beginning!&rdquo; cries
+he robustiously.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am a careful parent, Mr. Balfour; but
+I thank God, a patient and deleeborate man.&nbsp; There is many a father,
+sir, that would have hirsled you at once either to the altar or the
+field.&nbsp; My esteem for your character - &rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Mr. Drummond,&rdquo; I interrupted, &ldquo;if you have any esteem
+for me at all, I will beg of you to moderate your voice.&nbsp; It is
+quite needless to rowt at a gentleman in the same chamber with yourself
+and lending you his best attention.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why, very true,&rdquo; says he, with an immediate change.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;And you must excuse the agitations of a parent.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I understand you then,&rdquo; I continued - &ldquo;for I will
+take no note of your other alternative, which perhaps it was a pity
+you let fall - I understand you rather to offer me encouragement in
+case I should desire to apply for your daughter&rsquo;s hand?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is not possible to express my meaning better,&rdquo; said
+he, &ldquo;and I see we shall do well together.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That remains to be yet seen,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+so much I need make no secret of, that I bear the lady you refer to
+the most tender affection, and I could not fancy, even in a dream, a
+better fortune than to get her.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I was sure of it, I felt certain of you, David,&rdquo; he cried,
+and reached out his hand to me.<br>
+<br>
+I put it by.&nbsp; &ldquo;You go too fast, Mr. Drummond,&rdquo; said
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;There are conditions to be made; and there is a difficulty
+in the path, which I see not entirely how we shall come over.&nbsp;
+I have told you that, upon my side, there is no objection to the marriage,
+but I have good reason to believe there will be much on the young lady&rsquo;s.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is all beside the mark,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will
+engage for her acceptance.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think you forget, Mr. Drummond,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that,
+even in dealing with myself, you have been betrayed into two-three unpalatable
+expressions.&nbsp; I will have none such employed to the young lady.&nbsp;
+I am here to speak and think for the two of us; and I give you to understand
+that I would no more let a wife be forced upon myself, than what I would
+let a husband be forced on the young lady.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He sat and glowered at me like one in doubt and a good deal of temper.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;So that is to be the way of it,&rdquo; I concluded.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+will marry Miss Drummond, and that blithely, if she is entirely willing.&nbsp;
+But if there be the least unwillingness, as I have reason to fear -
+marry her will I never.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this is a small affair.&nbsp;
+As soon as she returns I will sound her a bit, and hope to reassure
+you - &rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+But I cut in again.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not a finger of you, Mr. Drummond,
+or I cry off, and you can seek a husband to your daughter somewhere
+else,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is I that am to be the only dealer
+and the only judge.&nbsp; I shall satisfy myself exactly; and none else
+shall anyways meddle - you the least of all.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Upon my word, sir!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;and who are you
+to be the judge?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The bridegroom, I believe,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This is to quibble,&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;You turn your
+back upon the fact.&nbsp; The girl, my daughter, has no choice left
+to exercise.&nbsp; Her character is gone.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I ask your pardon,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but while this matter
+lies between her and you and me, that is not so.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What security have I!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Am I to let
+my daughter&rsquo;s reputation depend upon a chance?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You should have thought of all this long ago,&rdquo; said I,
+&ldquo;before you were so misguided as to lose her; and not afterwards
+when it is quite too late.&nbsp; I refuse to regard myself as any way
+accountable for your neglect, and I will be browbeat by no man living.&nbsp;
+My mind is quite made up, and come what may, I will not depart from
+it a hair&rsquo;s breadth.&nbsp; You and me are to sit here in company
+till her return: upon which, without either word or look from you, she
+and I are to go forth again to hold our talk.&nbsp; If she can satisfy
+me that she is willing to this step, I will then make it; and if she
+cannot, I will not.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He leaped out of his chair like a man stung.&nbsp; &ldquo;I can spy
+your manoeuvre,&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;you would work upon her to refuse!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Maybe ay, and maybe no,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;That is the
+way it is to be, whatever.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And if I refuse?&rdquo; cries he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Then, Mr. Drummond, it will have to come to the throat-cutting,&rdquo;
+said I.<br>
+<br>
+What with the size of the man, his great length of arm in which he came
+near rivalling his father, and his reputed skill at weapons, I did not
+use this word without trepidation, to say nothing at all of the circumstance
+that he was Catriona&rsquo;s father.&nbsp; But I might have spared myself
+alarms.&nbsp; From the poorness of my lodging - he does not seem to
+have remarked his daughter&rsquo;s dresses, which were indeed all equally
+new to him - and from the fact that I had shown myself averse to lend,
+he had embraced a strong idea of my poverty.&nbsp; The sudden news of
+my estate convinced him of his error, and he had made but the one bound
+of it on this fresh venture, to which he was now so wedded, that I believe
+he would have suffered anything rather than fall to the alternative
+of fighting.<br>
+<br>
+A little while longer he continued to dispute with me, until I hit upon
+a word that silenced him.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If I find you so averse to let me see the lady by herself,&rdquo;
+said I, &ldquo;I must suppose you have very good grounds to think me
+in the right about her unwillingness.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He gabbled some kind of an excuse.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But all this is very exhausting to both of our tempers,&rdquo;
+I added, &ldquo;and I think we would do better to preserve a judicious
+silence.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The which we did until the girl returned, and I must suppose would have
+cut a very ridiculous figure had there been any there to view us.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XXVIII - IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+I opened the door to Catriona and stopped her on the threshold.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Your father wishes us to take our walk,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+She looked to James More, who nodded, and at that, like a trained soldier,
+she turned to go with me.<br>
+<br>
+We took one of our old ways, where we had gone often together, and been
+more happy than I can tell of in the past.&nbsp; I came a half a step
+behind, so that I could watch her unobserved.&nbsp; The knocking of
+her little shoes upon the way sounded extraordinary pretty and sad;
+and I thought it a strange moment that I should be so near both ends
+of it at once, and walk in the midst between two destinies, and could
+not tell whether I was hearing these steps for the last time, or whether
+the sound of them was to go in and out with me till death should part
+us.<br>
+<br>
+She avoided even to look at me, only walked before her, like one who
+had a guess of what was coming.&nbsp; I saw I must speak soon before
+my courage was run out, but where to begin I knew not.&nbsp; In this
+painful situation, when the girl was as good as forced into my arms
+and had already besought my forbearance, any excess of pressure must
+have seemed indecent; yet to avoid it wholly would have a very cold-like
+appearance.&nbsp; Between these extremes I stood helpless, and could
+have bit my fingers; so that, when at last I managed to speak at all,
+it may be said I spoke at random.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I am in a very painful situation;
+or rather, so we are both; and I would be a good deal obliged to you
+if you would promise to let me speak through first of all, and not to
+interrupt me till I have done.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She promised me that simply.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this that I have got to say is very
+difficult, and I know very well I have no right to be saying it.&nbsp;
+After what passed between the two of us last Friday, I have no manner
+of right.&nbsp; We have got so ravelled up (and all by my fault) that
+I know very well the least I could do is just to hold my tongue, which
+was what I intended fully, and there was nothing further from my thoughts
+than to have troubled you again.&nbsp; But, my dear, it has become merely
+necessary, and no way by it.&nbsp; You see, this estate of mine has
+fallen in, which makes of me rather a better match; and the - the business
+would not have quite the same ridiculous-like appearance that it would
+before.&nbsp; Besides which, it&rsquo;s supposed that our affairs have
+got so much ravelled up (as I was saying) that it would be better to
+let them be the way they are.&nbsp; In my view, this part of the thing
+is vastly exagerate, and if I were you I would not wear two thoughts
+on it.&nbsp; Only it&rsquo;s right I should mention the same, because
+there&rsquo;s no doubt it has some influence on James More.&nbsp; Then
+I think we were none so unhappy when we dwelt together in this town
+before.&nbsp; I think we did pretty well together.&nbsp; If you would
+look back, my dear - &rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will look neither back nor forward,&rdquo; she interrupted.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Tell me the one thing: this is my father&rsquo;s doing?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He approves of it,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;He approved I
+that I should ask your hand in marriage,&rdquo; and was going on again
+with somewhat more of an appeal upon her feelings; but she marked me
+not, and struck into the midst.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He told you to!&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is no sense
+denying it, you said yourself that there was nothing farther from your
+thoughts.&nbsp; He told you to.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He spoke of it the first, if that is what you mean,&rdquo; I
+began.<br>
+<br>
+She was walking ever the faster, and looking fain in front of her; but
+at this she made a little noise in her head, and I thought she would
+have run.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Without which,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;after what you said last
+Friday, I would never have been so troublesome as make the offer.&nbsp;
+But when he as good as asked me, what was I to do?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She stopped and turned round upon me.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, it is refused at all events,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;and
+there will be an end of that.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+And she began again to walk forward.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I suppose I could expect no better,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but
+I think you might try to be a little kind to me for the last end of
+it.&nbsp; I see not why you should be harsh.&nbsp; I have loved you
+very well, Catriona - no harm that I should call you so for the last
+time.&nbsp; I have done the best that I could manage, I am trying the
+same still, and only vexed that I can do no better.&nbsp; It is a strange
+thing to me that you can take any pleasure to be hard to me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am not thinking of you,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am thinking
+of that man, my father.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, and that way, too!&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I can be
+of use to you that way, too; I will have to be.&nbsp; It is very needful,
+my dear, that we should consult about your father; for the way this
+talk has gone, an angry man will be James More.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She stopped again.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is because I am disgraced?&rdquo;
+she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That is what he is thinking,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;but I have
+told you already to make nought of it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It will be all one to me,&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;I prefer
+to be disgraced!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I did not know very well what to answer, and stood silent.<br>
+<br>
+There seemed to be something working in her bosom after that last cry;
+presently she broke out, &ldquo;And what is the meaning of all this?&nbsp;
+Why is all this shame loundered on my head?&nbsp; How could you dare
+it, David Balfour?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what else was I to do?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am not your dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I defy you to
+be calling me these words.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am not thinking of my words,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;My
+heart bleeds for you, Miss Drummond.&nbsp; Whatever I may say, be sure
+you have my pity in your difficult position.&nbsp; But there is just
+the one thing that I wish you would bear in view, if it was only long
+enough to discuss it quietly; for there is going to be a collieshangie
+when we two get home.&nbsp; Take my word for it, it will need the two
+of us to make this matter end in peace.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; There sprang a patch of red in either
+of her cheeks.&nbsp; &ldquo;Was he for fighting you?&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, he was that,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+She gave a dreadful kind of laugh.&nbsp; &ldquo;At all events, it is
+complete!&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; And then turning on me.&nbsp; &ldquo;My
+father and I are a fine pair,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;but I am thanking
+the good God there will be somebody worse than what we are.&nbsp; I
+am thanking the good God that he has let me see you so.&nbsp; There
+will never be the girl made that will not scorn you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I had borne a good deal pretty patiently, but this was over the mark.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You have no right to speak to me like that,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;What have I done but to be good to you, or try to be?&nbsp; And
+here is my repayment!&nbsp; O, it is too much.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She kept looking at me with a hateful smile.&nbsp; &ldquo;Coward!&rdquo;
+said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The word in your throat and in your father&rsquo;s!&rdquo; I
+cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have dared him this day already in your interest.&nbsp;
+I will dare him again, the nasty pole-cat; little I care which of us
+should fall!&nbsp; Come,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;back to the house with
+us; let us be done with it, let me be done with the whole Hieland crew
+of you!&nbsp; You will see what you think when I am dead.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck her
+for.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, smile away!&rdquo; I cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have seen your
+bonny father smile on the wrong side this day.&nbsp; Not that I mean
+he was afraid, of course,&rdquo; I added hastily, &ldquo;but he preferred
+the other way of it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What is this?&rdquo; she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;When I offered to draw with him,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You offered to draw upon James More!&rdquo; she cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I did so,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and found him backward enough,
+or how would we be here?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is a meaning upon this,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp; &ldquo;What
+is it you are meaning?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;He was to make you take me,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;and I would
+not have it.&nbsp; I said you should be free, and I must speak with
+you alone; little I supposed it would be such a speaking!&nbsp; &lsquo;<i>And
+what if I refuse</i>?&rsquo; said he. - &lsquo;<i>Then it must come
+to the throat-cutting</i>,&rsquo; says I, &lsquo;<i>for I will no more
+have a husband forced on that young lady, than</i> <i>what I would have
+a wife forced upon myself</i>.&rsquo;&nbsp; These were my words, they
+were a friend&rsquo;s words; bonnily have I paid for them!&nbsp; Now
+you have refused me of your own clear free will, and there lives no
+father in the Highlands, or out of them, that can force on this marriage.&nbsp;
+I will see that your wishes are respected; I will make the same my business,
+as I have all through.&nbsp; But I think you might have that decency
+as to affect some gratitude.&nbsp; &rsquo;Deed, and I thought you knew
+me better!&nbsp; I have not behaved quite well to you, but that was
+weakness.&nbsp; And to think me a coward, and such a coward as that
+- O, my lass, there was a stab for the last of it!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Davie, how would I guess?&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;O, this
+is a dreadful business!&nbsp; Me and mine,&rdquo; - she gave a kind
+of a wretched cry at the word - &ldquo;me and mine are not fit to speak
+to you.&nbsp; O, I could be kneeling down to you in the street, I could
+be kissing your hands for forgiveness!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will keep the kisses I have got from you already,&rdquo; cried
+I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I will keep the ones I wanted and that were something
+worth; I will not be kissed in penitence.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What can you be thinking of this miserable girl?&rdquo; says
+she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What I am trying to tell you all this while!&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that
+you had best leave me alone, whom you can make no more unhappy if you
+tried, and turn your attention to James More, your father, with whom
+you are like to have a queer pirn to wind.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, that I must be going out into the world alone with such a
+man!&rdquo; she cried, and seemed to catch herself in with a great effort.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;But trouble yourself no more for that,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;He does not know what kind of nature is in my heart.&nbsp; He
+will pay me dear for this day of it; dear, dear, will he pay.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She turned, and began to go home and I to accompany her.&nbsp; At which
+she stopped.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will be going alone,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is alone
+I must be seeing him.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Some little time I raged about the streets, and told myself I was the
+worst used lad in Christendom.&nbsp; Anger choked me; it was all very
+well for me to breathe deep; it seemed there was not air enough about
+Leyden to supply me, and I thought I would have burst like a man at
+the bottom of the sea.&nbsp; I stopped and laughed at myself at a street
+corner a minute together, laughing out loud, so that a passenger looked
+at me, which brought me to myself.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I thought, &ldquo;I have been a gull and a ninny
+and a soft Tommy long enough.&nbsp; Time it was done.&nbsp; Here is
+a good lesson to have nothing to do with that accursed sex, that was
+the ruin of the man in the beginning and will be so to the end.&nbsp;
+God knows I was happy enough before ever I saw her; God knows I can
+be happy enough again when I have seen the last of her.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+That seemed to me the chief affair: to see them go.&nbsp; I dwelled
+upon the idea fiercely; and presently slipped on, in a kind of malevolence,
+to consider how very poorly they were likely to fare when Davie Balfour
+was no longer by to be their milk-cow; at which, to my very own great
+surprise, the disposition of my mind turned bottom up.&nbsp; I was still
+angry; I still hated her; and yet I thought I owed it to myself that
+she should suffer nothing.<br>
+<br>
+This carried me home again at once, where I found the mails drawn out
+and ready fastened by the door, and the father and daughter with every
+mark upon them of a recent disagreement.&nbsp; Catriona was like a wooden
+doll; James More breathed hard, his face was dotted with white spots,
+and his nose upon one side.&nbsp; As soon as I came in, the girl looked
+at him with a steady, clear, dark look that might have been followed
+by a blow.&nbsp; It was a hint that was more contemptuous than a command,
+and I was surprised to see James More accept it.&nbsp; It was plain
+he had had a master talking-to; and I could see there must be more of
+the devil in the girl than I had guessed, and more good humour about
+the man than I had given him the credit of.<br>
+<br>
+He began, at least, calling me Mr. Balfour, and plainly speaking from
+a lesson; but he got not very far, for at the first pompous swell of
+his voice, Catriona cut in.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will tell you what James More is meaning,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;He means we have come to you, beggar-folk, and have not behaved
+to you very well, and we are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill-behaviour.&nbsp;
+Now we are wanting to go away and be forgotten; and my father will have
+guided his gear so ill, that we cannot even do that unless you will
+give us some more alms.&nbsp; For that is what we are, at an events,
+beggar-folk and sorners.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;By your leave, Miss Drummond,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I must speak
+to your father by myself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She went into her own room and shut the door, without a word or a look.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You must excuse her, Mr. Balfour,&rdquo; says James More.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;She has no delicacy.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am not here to discuss that with you,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but
+to be quit of you.&nbsp; And to that end I must talk of your position.&nbsp;
+Now, Mr. Drummond, I have kept the run of your affairs more closely
+than you bargained for.&nbsp; I know you had money of your own when
+you were borrowing mine.&nbsp; I know you have had more since you were
+here in Leyden, though you concealed it even from your daughter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I bid you beware.&nbsp; I will stand no more baiting,&rdquo;
+he broke out.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am sick of her and you.&nbsp; What kind
+of a damned trade is this to be a parent!&nbsp; I have had expressions
+used to me - &rdquo;&nbsp; There he broke off.&nbsp; &ldquo;Sir, this
+is the heart of a soldier and a parent,&rdquo; he went on again, laying
+his hand on his bosom, &ldquo;outraged in both characters - and I bid
+you beware.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If you would have let me finish,&rdquo; says I, &ldquo;you would
+have found I spoke for your advantage.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My dear friend,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I know I might have relied
+upon the generosity of your character.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Man! will you let me speak?&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;The fact
+is that I cannot win to find out if you are rich or poor.&nbsp; But
+it is my idea that your means, as they are mysterious in their source,
+so they are something insufficient in amount; and I do not choose your
+daughter to be lacking.&nbsp; If I durst speak to herself, you may be
+certain I would never dream of trusting it to you; because I know you
+like the back of my hand, and all your blustering talk is that much
+wind to me.&nbsp; However, I believe in your way you do still care something
+for your daughter after all; and I must just be doing with that ground
+of confidence, such as it is.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Whereupon, I arranged with him that he was to communicate with me, as
+to his whereabouts and Catriona&rsquo;s welfare, in consideration of
+which I was to serve him a small stipend.<br>
+<br>
+He heard the business out with a great deal of eagerness; and when it
+was done, &ldquo;My dear fellow, my dear son,&rdquo; he cried out, &ldquo;this
+is more like yourself than any of it yet!&nbsp; I will serve you with
+a soldier&rsquo;s faithfulness - &rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Let me hear no more of it!&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;You have
+got me to that pitch that the bare name of soldier rises on my stomach.&nbsp;
+Our traffic is settled; I am now going forth and will return in one
+half-hour, when I expect to find my chambers purged of you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I gave them good measure of time; it was my one fear that I might see
+Catriona again, because tears and weakness were ready in my heart, and
+I cherished my anger like a piece of dignity.&nbsp; Perhaps an hour
+went by; the sun had gone down, a little wisp of a new moon was following
+it across a scarlet sunset; already there were stars in the east, and
+in my chambers, when at last I entered them, the night lay blue.&nbsp;
+I lit a taper and reviewed the rooms; in the first there remained nothing
+so much as to awake a memory of those who were gone; but in the second,
+in a corner of the floor, I spied a little heap that brought my heart
+into my mouth.&nbsp; She had left behind at her departure all that she
+had ever had of me.&nbsp; It was the blow that I felt sorest, perhaps
+because it was the last; and I fell upon that pile of clothing and behaved
+myself more foolish than I care to tell of.<br>
+<br>
+Late in the night, in a strict frost, and my teeth chattering, I came
+again by some portion of my manhood and considered with myself.&nbsp;
+The sight of these poor frocks and ribbons, and her shifts, and the
+clocked stockings, was not to be endured; and if I were to recover any
+constancy of mind, I saw I must be rid of them ere the morning.&nbsp;
+It was my first thought to have made a fire and burned them; but my
+disposition has always been opposed to wastery, for one thing; and for
+another, to have burned these things that she had worn so close upon
+her body seemed in the nature of a cruelty.&nbsp; There was a corner
+cupboard in that chamber; there I determined to bestow them.&nbsp; The
+which I did and made it a long business, folding them with very little
+skill indeed but the more care; and sometimes dropping them with my
+tears.&nbsp; All the heart was gone out of me, I was weary as though
+I had run miles, and sore like one beaten; when, as I was folding a
+kerchief that she wore often at her neck, I observed there was a corner
+neatly cut from it.&nbsp; It was a kerchief of a very pretty hue, on
+which I had frequently remarked; and once that she had it on, I remembered
+telling her (by way of a banter) that she wore my colours.&nbsp; There
+came a glow of hope and like a tide of sweetness in my bosom; and the
+next moment I was plunged back in a fresh despair.&nbsp; For there was
+the corner crumpled in a knot and cast down by itself in another part
+of the floor.<br>
+<br>
+But when I argued with myself, I grew more hopeful.&nbsp; She had cut
+that corner off in some childish freak that was manifestly tender; that
+she had cast it away again was little to be wondered at; and I was inclined
+to dwell more upon the first than upon the second, and to be more pleased
+that she had ever conceived the idea of that keepsake, than concerned
+because she had flung it from her in an hour of natural resentment.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XXIX - WE MEET IN DUNKIRK.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Altogether, then, I was scare so miserable the next days but what I
+had many hopeful and happy snatches; threw myself with a good deal of
+constancy upon my studies; and made out to endure the time till Alan
+should arrive, or I might hear word of Catriona by the means of James
+More.&nbsp; I had altogether three letters in the time of our separation.&nbsp;
+One was to announce their arrival in the town of Dunkirk in France,
+from which place James shortly after started alone upon a private mission.&nbsp;
+This was to England and to see Lord Holderness; and it has always been
+a bitter thought that my good money helped to pay the charges of the
+same.&nbsp; But he has need of a long spoon who soups with the de&rsquo;il,
+or James More either.&nbsp; During this absence, the time was to fall
+due for another letter; and as the letter was the condition of his stipend,
+he had been so careful as to prepare it beforehand and leave it with
+Catriona to be despatched.&nbsp; The fact of our correspondence aroused
+her suspicions, and he was no sooner gone than she had burst the seal.&nbsp;
+What I received began accordingly in the writing of James More:<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My dear Sir, - Your esteemed favour came to hand duly, and I
+have to acknowledge the inclosure according to agreement.&nbsp; It shall
+be all faithfully expended on my daughter, who is well, and desires
+to be remembered to her dear friend.&nbsp; I find her in rather a melancholy
+disposition, but trust in the mercy of God to see her re-established.&nbsp;
+Our manner of life is very much alone, but we solace ourselves with
+the melancholy tunes of our native mountains, and by walking up the
+margin of the sea that lies next to Scotland.&nbsp; It was better days
+with me when I lay with five wounds upon my body on the field of Gladsmuir.&nbsp;
+I have found employment here in the <i>haras</i> of a French nobleman,
+where my experience is valued.&nbsp; But, my dear Sir, the wages are
+so exceedingly unsuitable that I would be ashamed to mention them, which
+makes your remittances the more necessary to my daughter&rsquo;s comfort,
+though I daresay the sight of old friends would be still better.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My dear Sir,<br>
+&ldquo;Your affectionate, obedient servant,<br>
+&ldquo;JAMES MACGREGOR DRUMMOND.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Below it began again in the hand of Catriona:-<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Do not be believing him, it is all lies together, - C. M. D.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Not only did she add this postscript, but I think she must have come
+near suppressing the letter; for it came long after date, and was closely
+followed by the third.&nbsp; In the time betwixt them, Alan had arrived,
+and made another life to me with his merry conversation; I had been
+presented to his cousin of the Scots-Dutch, a man that drank more than
+I could have thought possible and was not otherwise of interest; I had
+been entertained to many jovial dinners and given some myself, all with
+no great change upon my sorrow; and we two (by which I mean Alan and
+myself, and not at all the cousin) had discussed a good deal the nature
+of my relations with James More and his daughter.&nbsp; I was naturally
+diffident to give particulars; and this disposition was not anyway lessened
+by the nature of Alan&rsquo;s commentary upon those I gave.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I cannae make heed nor tail of it,&rdquo; he would say, &ldquo;but
+it sticks in my mind ye&rsquo;ve made a gowk of yourself.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s
+few people that has had more experience than Alan Breck: and I can never
+call to mind to have heard tell of a lassie like this one of yours.&nbsp;
+The way that you tell it, the thing&rsquo;s fair impossible.&nbsp; Ye
+must have made a terrible hash of the business, David.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There are whiles that I am of the same mind,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The strange thing is that ye seem to have a kind of fancy for
+her too!&rdquo; said Alan.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The biggest kind, Alan,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I think I&rsquo;ll
+take it to my grave with me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, ye beat me, whatever!&rdquo; he would conclude.<br>
+<br>
+I showed him the letter with Catriona&rsquo;s postscript.&nbsp; &ldquo;And
+here again!&rdquo; he cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Impossible to deny a kind
+of decency to this Catriona, and sense forby!&nbsp; As for James More,
+the man&rsquo;s as boss as a drum; he&rsquo;s just a wame and a wheen
+words; though I&rsquo;ll can never deny that he fought reasonably well
+at Gladsmuir, and it&rsquo;s true what he says here about the five wounds.&nbsp;
+But the loss of him is that the man&rsquo;s boss.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye see, Alan,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;it goes against the grain
+with me to leave the maid in such poor hands.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye couldnae weel find poorer,&rdquo; he admitted.&nbsp; &ldquo;But
+what are ye to do with it?&nbsp; It&rsquo;s this way about a man and
+a woman, ye see, Davie: The weemenfolk have got no kind of reason to
+them.&nbsp; Either they like the man, and then a&rsquo; goes fine; or
+else they just detest him, and ye may spare your breath - ye can do
+naething.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s just the two sets of them - them that
+would sell their coats for ye, and them that never look the road ye&rsquo;re
+on.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s a&rsquo; that there is to women; and you seem
+to be such a gomeral that ye cannae tell the tane frae the tither.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, and I&rsquo;m afraid that&rsquo;s true for me,&rdquo; said
+I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And yet there&rsquo;s naething easier!&rdquo; cried Alan.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I could easy learn ye the science of the thing; but ye seem to
+me to be born blind, and there&rsquo;s where the deefficulty comes in.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And can <i>you</i> no help me?&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;you that
+are so clever at the trade?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye see, David, I wasnae here,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+like a field officer that has naebody but blind men for scouts and <i>&eacute;claireurs</i>;
+and what would he ken?&nbsp; But it sticks in my mind that ye&rsquo;ll
+have made some kind of bauchle; and if I was you I would have a try
+at her again.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Would ye so, man Alan?&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I would e&rsquo;en&rsquo;t,&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+The third letter came to my hand while we were deep in some such talk:
+and it will be seen how pat it fell to the occasion.&nbsp; James professed
+to be in some concern upon his daughter&rsquo;s health, which I believe
+was never better; abounded in kind expressions to myself; and finally
+proposed that I should visit them at Dunkirk.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;You will now be enjoying the society of my old comrade Mr. Stewart,&rdquo;
+he wrote.&nbsp; &ldquo;Why not accompany him so far in his return to
+France?&nbsp; I have something very particular for Mr. Stewart&rsquo;s
+ear; and, at any rate, I would be pleased to meet in with an old fellow-soldier
+and one so mettle as himself.&nbsp; As for you, my dear sir, my daughter
+and I would be proud to receive our benefactor, whom we regard as a
+brother and a son.&nbsp; The French nobleman has proved a person of
+the most filthy avarice of character, and I have been necessitate to
+leave the <i>haras.&nbsp; </i>You will find us in consequence a little
+poorly lodged in the <i>auberge </i>of a man Bazin on the dunes; but
+the situation is caller, and I make no doubt but we might spend some
+very pleasant days, when Mr. Stewart and I could recall our services,
+and you and my daughter divert yourselves in a manner more befitting
+your age.&nbsp; I beg at least that Mr. Stewart would come here; my
+business with him opens a very wide door.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What does the man want with me?&rdquo; cried Alan, when he had
+read.&nbsp; &ldquo;What he wants with you in clear enough - it&rsquo;s
+siller.&nbsp; But what can he want with Alan Breck?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;O, it&rsquo;ll be just an excuse,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;He
+is still after this marriage, which I wish from my heart that we could
+bring about.&nbsp; And he asks you because he thinks I would be less
+likely to come wanting you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, I wish that I kent,&rdquo; says Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;Him
+and me were never onyways pack; we used to girn at ither like a pair
+of pipers.&nbsp; &lsquo;Something for my ear,&rsquo; quo&rsquo; he!&nbsp;
+I&rsquo;ll maybe have something for his hinder-end, before we&rsquo;re
+through with it.&nbsp; Dod, I&rsquo;m thinking it would be a kind of
+divertisement to gang and see what he&rsquo;ll be after!&nbsp; Forby
+that I could see your lassie then.&nbsp; What say ye, Davie?&nbsp; Will
+ye ride with Alan?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+You may be sure I was not backward, and Alan&rsquo;s furlough running
+towards an end, we set forth presently upon this joint adventure.<br>
+<br>
+It was near dark of a January day when we rode at last into the town
+of Dunkirk.&nbsp; We left our horses at the post, and found a guide
+to Bazin&rsquo;s Inn, which lay beyond the walls.&nbsp; Night was quite
+fallen, so that we were the last to leave that fortress, and heard the
+doors of it close behind us as we passed the bridge.&nbsp; On the other
+side there lay a lighted suburb, which we thridded for a while, then
+turned into a dark lane, and presently found ourselves wading in the
+night among deep sand where we could hear a bullering of the sea.&nbsp;
+We travelled in this fashion for some while, following our conductor
+mostly by the sound of his voice; and I had begun to think he was perhaps
+misleading us, when we came to the top of a small brae, and there appeared
+out of the darkness a dim light in a window.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;<i>Voil&agrave; l&rsquo;auberge &agrave; Bazin</i>,&rdquo; says
+the guide.<br>
+<br>
+Alan smacked his lips.&nbsp; &ldquo;An unco lonely bit,&rdquo; said
+he, and I thought by his tone he was not wholly pleased.<br>
+<br>
+A little after, and we stood in the lower storey of that house, which
+was all in the one apartment, with a stairs leading to the chambers
+at the side, benches and tables by the wall, the cooking fire at the
+one end of it, and shelves of bottles and the cellar-trap at the other.&nbsp;
+Here Bazin, who was an ill-looking, big man, told us the Scottish gentleman
+was gone abroad he knew not where, but the young lady was above, and
+he would call her down to us.<br>
+<br>
+I took from my breast that kerchief wanting the corner, and knotted
+it about my throat.&nbsp; I could hear my heart go; and Alan patting
+me on the shoulder with some of his laughable expressions, I could scarce
+refrain from a sharp word.&nbsp; But the time was not long to wait.&nbsp;
+I heard her step pass overhead, and saw her on the stair.&nbsp; This
+she descended very quietly, and greeted me with a pale face and a certain
+seeming of earnestness, or uneasiness, in her manner that extremely
+dashed me.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My father, James More, will be here soon.&nbsp; He will be very
+pleased to see you,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; And then of a sudden her
+face flamed, her eyes lightened, the speech stopped upon her lips; and
+I made sure she had observed the kerchief.&nbsp; It was only for a breath
+that she was discomposed; but methought it was with a new animation
+that she turned to welcome Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;And you will be his friend,
+Alan Breck?&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;Many is the dozen times I
+will have heard him tell of you; and I love you already for all your
+bravery and goodness.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; says Alan, holding her hand in his and viewing
+her, &ldquo;and so this is the young lady at the last of it!&nbsp; David,
+ye&rsquo;re an awful poor hand of a description.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I do not know that ever I heard him speak so straight to people&rsquo;s
+hearts; the sound of his voice was like song.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What? will he have been describing me?&rdquo; she cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Little else of it since I ever came out of France!&rdquo; says
+he, &ldquo;forby a bit of a speciment one night in Scotland in a shaw
+of wood by Silvermills.&nbsp; But cheer up, my dear! ye&rsquo;re bonnier
+than what he said.&nbsp; And now there&rsquo;s one thing sure; you and
+me are to be a pair of friends.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m a kind of a henchman
+to Davie here; I&rsquo;m like a tyke at his heels; and whatever he cares
+for, I&rsquo;ve got to care for too - and by the holy airn! they&rsquo;ve
+got to care for me!&nbsp; So now you can see what way you stand with
+Alan Breck, and ye&rsquo;ll find ye&rsquo;ll hardly lose on the transaction.&nbsp;
+He&rsquo;s no very bonnie, my dear, but he&rsquo;s leal to them he loves.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I thank you from my heart for your good words,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I have that honour for a brave, honest man that I cannot find
+any to be answering with.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Using travellers&rsquo; freedom, we spared to wait for James More, and
+sat down to meat, we threesome.&nbsp; Alan had Catriona sit by him and
+wait upon his wants: he made her drink first out of his glass, he surrounded
+her with continual kind gallantries, and yet never gave me the most
+small occasion to be jealous; and he kept the talk so much in his own
+hand, and that in so merry a note, that neither she nor I remembered
+to be embarrassed.&nbsp; If any had seen us there, it must have been
+supposed that Alan was the old friend and I the stranger.&nbsp; Indeed,
+I had often cause to love and to admire the man, but I never loved or
+admired him better than that night; and I could not help remarking to
+myself (what I was sometimes rather in danger of forgetting) that he
+had not only much experience of life, but in his own way a great deal
+of natural ability besides.&nbsp; As for Catriona, she seemed quite
+carried away; her laugh was like a peal of bells, her face gay as a
+May morning; and I own, although I was well pleased, yet I was a little
+sad also, and thought myself a dull, stockish character in comparison
+of my friend, and very unfit to come into a young maid&rsquo;s life,
+and perhaps ding down her gaiety.<br>
+<br>
+But if that was like to be my part, I found that at least I was not
+alone in it; for, James More returning suddenly, the girl was changed
+into a piece of stone.&nbsp; Through the rest of that evening, until
+she made an excuse and slipped to bed, I kept an eye upon her without
+cease; and I can bear testimony that she never smiled, scarce spoke,
+and looked mostly on the board in front of her.&nbsp; So that I really
+marvelled to see so much devotion (as it used to be) changed into the
+very sickness of hate.<br>
+<br>
+Of James More it is unnecessary to say much; you know the man already,
+what there was to know of him; and I am weary of writing out his lies.&nbsp;
+Enough that he drank a great deal, and told us very little that was
+to any possible purpose.&nbsp; As for the business with Alan, that was
+to be reserved for the morrow and his private hearing.<br>
+<br>
+It was the more easy to be put off, because Alan and I were pretty weary
+with four day&rsquo;s ride, and sat not very late after Catriona.<br>
+<br>
+We were soon alone in a chamber where we were to make-shift with a single
+bed.&nbsp; Alan looked on me with a queer smile.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye muckle ass!&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;What do ye mean by that?&rdquo; I cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Mean?&nbsp; What do I mean!&nbsp; It&rsquo;s extraordinar, David
+man,&rdquo; say he, &ldquo;that you should be so mortal stupit.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Again I begged him to speak out.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s this of it,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I told
+ye there were the two kinds of women - them that would sell their shifts
+for ye, and the others.&nbsp; Just you try for yoursel, my bonny man!&nbsp;
+But what&rsquo;s that neepkin at your craig?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I told him.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I thocht it was something thereabout&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+Nor would he say another word though I besieged him long with importunities.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CHAPTER XXX - THE LETTER FROM THE SHIP<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Daylight showed us how solitary the inn stood.&nbsp; It was plainly
+hard upon the sea, yet out of all view of it, and beset on every side
+with scabbit hills of sand.&nbsp; There was, indeed, only one thing
+in the nature of a prospect, where there stood out over a brae the two
+sails of a windmill, like an ass&rsquo;s ears, but with the ass quite
+hidden.&nbsp; It was strange (after the wind rose, for at first it was
+dead calm) to see the turning and following of each other of these great
+sails behind the hillock.&nbsp; Scarce any road came by there; but a
+number of footways travelled among the bents in all directions up to
+Mr. Bazin&rsquo;s door.&nbsp; The truth is, he was a man of many trades,
+not any one of them honest, and the position of his inn was the best
+of his livelihood.&nbsp; Smugglers frequented it; political agents and
+forfeited persons bound across the water came there to await their passages;
+and I daresay there was worse behind, for a whole family might have
+been butchered in that house and nobody the wiser.<br>
+<br>
+I slept little and ill.&nbsp; Long ere it was day, I had slipped from
+beside my bedfellow, and was warming myself at the fire or walking to
+and fro before the door.&nbsp; Dawn broke mighty sullen; but a little
+after, sprang up a wind out of the west, which burst the clouds, let
+through the sun, and set the mill to the turning.&nbsp; There was something
+of spring in the sunshine, or else it was in my heart; and the appearing
+of the great sails one after another from behind the hill, diverted
+me extremely.&nbsp; At times I could hear a creak of the machinery;
+and by half-past eight of the day, and I thought this dreary, desert
+place was like a paradise.<br>
+<br>
+For all which, as the day drew on and nobody came near, I began to be
+aware of an uneasiness that I could scarce explain.&nbsp; It seemed
+there was trouble afoot; the sails of the windmill, as they came up
+and went down over the hill, were like persons spying; and outside of
+all fancy, it was surely a strange neighbourhood and house for a young
+lady to be brought to dwell in.<br>
+<br>
+At breakfast, which we took late, it was manifest that James More was
+in some danger or perplexity; manifest that Alan was alive to the same,
+and watched him close; and this appearance of duplicity upon the one
+side, and vigilance upon the other, held me on live coals.&nbsp; The
+meal was no sooner over than James seemed to come began to make apologies.&nbsp;
+He had an appointment of a private nature in the town (it was with the
+French nobleman, he told me), and we would please excuse him till about
+noon.&nbsp; Meanwhile he carried his daughter aside to the far end of
+the room, where he seemed to speak rather earnestly and she to listen
+with much inclination.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I am caring less and less about this man James,&rdquo; said Alan.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s something no right with the man James, and I shouldnae
+wonder but what Alan Breck would give an eye to him this day.&nbsp;
+I would like fine to see yon French nobleman, Davie; and I daresay you
+could find an employ to yoursel, and that would be to speir at the lassie
+for some news o&rsquo; your affair.&nbsp; Just tell it to her plainly
+- tell her ye&rsquo;re a muckle ass at the off-set; and then, if I were
+you, and ye could do it naitural, I would just mint to her I was in
+some kind of a danger; a&rsquo; weemenfolk likes that.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I cannae lee, Alan, I cannae do it naitural,&rdquo; says I, mocking
+him.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The more fool you!&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;Then ye&rsquo;ll
+can tell her that I recommended it; that&rsquo;ll set her to the laughing;
+and I wouldnae wonder but what that was the next best.&nbsp; But see
+to the pair of them!&nbsp; If I didnae feel just sure of the lassie,
+and that she was awful pleased and chief with Alan, I would think there
+was some kind of hocus-pocus about you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And is she so pleased with ye, then, Alan?&rdquo; I asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;She thinks a heap of me,&rdquo; says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;And I&rsquo;m
+no like you: I&rsquo;m one that can tell.&nbsp; That she does - she
+thinks a heap of Alan.&nbsp; And troth! I&rsquo;m thinking a good deal
+of him mysel; and with your permission, Shaws, I&rsquo;ll be getting
+a wee yont amang the bents, so that I can see what way James goes.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+One after another went, till I was left alone beside the breakfast table;
+James to Dunkirk, Alan dogging him, Catriona up the stairs to her own
+chamber.&nbsp; I could very well understand how she should avoid to
+be alone with me; yet was none the better pleased with it for that,
+and bent my mind to entrap her to an interview before the men returned.&nbsp;
+Upon the whole, the best appeared to me to do like Alan.&nbsp; If I
+was out of view among the sandhills, the fine morning would decoy her
+forth; and once I had her in the open, I could please myself.<br>
+<br>
+No sooner said than done; nor was I long under the bield of a hillock
+before she appeared at the inn door, looked here and there, and (seeing
+nobody) set out by a path that led directly seaward, and by which I
+followed her.&nbsp; I was in no haste to make my presence known; the
+further she went I made sure of the longer hearing to my suit; and the
+ground being all sandy it was easy to follow her unheard.&nbsp; The
+path rose and came at last to the head of a knowe.&nbsp; Thence I had
+a picture for the first time of what a desolate wilderness that inn
+stood hidden in; where was no man to be seen, nor any house of man,
+except just Bazin&rsquo;s and the windmill.&nbsp; Only a little further
+on, the sea appeared and two or three ships upon it, pretty as a drawing.&nbsp;
+One of these was extremely close in to be so great a vessel; and I was
+aware of a shock of new suspicion, when I recognised the trim of the
+<i>Seahorse.&nbsp; </i>What should an English ship be doing so near
+in to France?&nbsp; Why was Alan brought into her neighbourhood, and
+that in a place so far from any hope of rescue? and was it by accident,
+or by design, that the daughter of James More should walk that day to
+the seaside?<br>
+<br>
+Presently I came forth behind her in the front of the sandhills and
+above the beach.&nbsp; It was here long and solitary; with a man-o&rsquo;-war&rsquo;s
+boat drawn up about the middle of the prospect, and an officer in charge
+and pacing the sands like one who waited.&nbsp; I sat down where the
+rough grass a good deal covered me, and looked for what should follow.&nbsp;
+Catriona went straight to the boat; the officer met her with civilities;
+they had ten words together; I saw a letter changing hands; and there
+was Catriona returning.&nbsp; At the same time, as if this were all
+her business on the Continent, the boat shoved off and was headed for
+the <i>Seahorse.&nbsp; </i>But I observed the officer to remain behind
+and disappear among the bents.<br>
+<br>
+I liked the business little; and the more I considered of it, liked
+it less.&nbsp; Was it Alan the officer was seeking? or Catriona?&nbsp;
+She drew near with her head down, looking constantly on the sand, and
+made so tender a picture that I could not bear to doubt her innocence.&nbsp;
+The next, she raised her face and recognised me; seemed to hesitate,
+and then came on again, but more slowly, and I thought with a changed
+colour.&nbsp; And at that thought, all else that was upon my bosom -
+fears, suspicions, the care of my friend&rsquo;s life - was clean swallowed
+up; and I rose to my feet and stood waiting her in a drunkenness of
+hope.<br>
+<br>
+I gave her &ldquo;good morning&rdquo; as she came up, which she returned
+with a good deal of composure.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Will you forgive my having followed you?&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I know you are always meaning kindly,&rdquo; she replied; and
+then, with a little outburst, &ldquo;but why will you be sending money
+to that man!&nbsp; It must not be.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I never sent it for him,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but for you, as
+you know well.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And you have no right to be sending it to either one of us,&rdquo;
+she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;David, it is not right.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is not, it is all wrong,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and I pray
+God he will help this dull fellow (if it be at all possible) to make
+it better.&nbsp; Catriona, this is no kind of life for you to lead;
+and I ask your pardon for the word, but yon man is no fit father to
+take care of you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Do not be speaking of him, even!&rdquo; was her cry.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And I need speak of him no more; it is not of him that I am thinking,
+O, be sure of that!&rdquo; says I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think of the one thing.&nbsp;
+I have been alone now this long time in Leyden; and when I was by way
+of at my studies, still I was thinking of that.&nbsp; Next Alan came,
+and I went among soldier-men to their big dinners; and still I had the
+same thought.&nbsp; And it was the same before, when I had her there
+beside me.&nbsp; Catriona, do you see this napkin at my throat!&nbsp;
+You cut a corner from it once and then cast it from you.&nbsp; They&rsquo;re
+<i>your</i> colours now; I wear them in my heart.&nbsp; My dear, I cannot
+be wanting you.&nbsp; O, try to put up with me!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I stepped before her so as to intercept her walking on.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Try to put up with me,&rdquo; I was saying, &ldquo;try and bear
+me with a little.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Still she had never the word, and a fear began to rise in me like a
+fear of death.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; I cried, gazing on her hard, &ldquo;is it a
+mistake again?&nbsp; Am I quite lost?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+She raised her face to me, breathless.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Do you want me, Davie, truly?&rdquo; said she, and I scarce could
+hear her say it.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do that,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;O, sure you know it -
+I do that.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have nothing left to give or to keep back,&rdquo; said she.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;I was all yours from the first day, if you would have had a gift
+of me!&rdquo; she said,<br>
+<br>
+This was on the summit of a brae; the place was windy and conspicuous,
+we were to be seen there even from the English ship; but I kneeled down
+before her in the sand, and embraced her knees, and burst into that
+storm of weeping that I thought it must have broken me.&nbsp; All thought
+was wholly beaten from my mind by the vehemency of my discomposure.&nbsp;
+I knew not where I was.&nbsp; I had forgot why I was happy; only I knew
+she stooped, and I felt her cherish me to her face and bosom, and heard
+her words out of a whirl.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Davie,&rdquo; she was saying, &ldquo;O, Davie, is this what you
+think of me!&nbsp; Is it so that you were caring for poor me!&nbsp;
+O, Davie, Davie!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+With that she wept also, and our tears were commingled in a perfect
+gladness.<br>
+<br>
+It might have been ten in the day before I came to a clear sense of
+what a mercy had befallen me; and sitting over against her, with her
+hands in mine, gazed in her face, and laughed out loud for pleasure
+like a child, and called her foolish and kind names.&nbsp; I have never
+seen the place that looked so pretty as those bents by Dunkirk; and
+the windmill sails, as they bobbed over the knowe, were like a tune
+of music.<br>
+<br>
+I know not how much longer we might have continued to forget all else
+besides ourselves, had I not chanced upon a reference to her father,
+which brought us to reality.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My little friend,&rdquo; I was calling her again and again, rejoicing
+to summon up the past by the sound of it, and to gaze across on her,
+and to be a little distant - &ldquo;My little friend, now you are mine
+altogether; mine for good, my little friend and that man&rsquo;s no
+longer at all.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+There came a sudden whiteness in her face, she plucked her hands from
+mine.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Davie, take me away from him!&rdquo; she cried.&nbsp; &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+something wrong; he&rsquo;s not true.&nbsp; There will be something
+wrong; I have a dreadful terror here at my heart.&nbsp; What will he
+be wanting at all events with that King&rsquo;s ship?&nbsp; What will
+this word be saying?&rdquo;&nbsp; And she held the letter forth.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;My mind misgives me, it will be some ill to Alan.&nbsp; Open
+it, Davie - open it and see.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I took it, and looked at it, and shook my head.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;it goes against me, I cannot open a
+man&rsquo;s letter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Not to save your friend?&rdquo; she cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I cannae tell,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think not.&nbsp;
+If I was only sure!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And you have but to break the seal!&rdquo; said she.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but the thing goes against me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Give it here,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;and I will open it myself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Nor you neither,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;You least of all.&nbsp;
+It concerns your father, and his honour, dear, which we are both misdoubting.&nbsp;
+No question but the place is dangerous-like, and the English ship being
+here, and your father having word from it, and yon officer that stayed
+ashore.&nbsp; He would not be alone either; there must be more along
+with him; I daresay we are spied upon this minute.&nbsp; Ay, no doubt,
+the letter should be opened; but somehow, not by you nor me.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I was about thus far with it, and my spirit very much overcome with
+a sense of danger and hidden enemies, when I spied Alan, come back again
+from following James and walking by himself among the sand-hills.&nbsp;
+He was in his soldier&rsquo;s coat, of course, and mighty fine; but
+I could not avoid to shudder when I thought how little that jacket would
+avail him, if he were once caught and flung in a skiff, and carried
+on board of the <i>Seahorse, </i>a deserter, a rebel, and now a condemned
+murderer.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;there is the man that has the best
+right to open it: or not, as he thinks fit.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+With which I called upon his name, and we both stood up to be a mark
+for him.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If it is so - if it be more disgrace - will you can bear it?&rdquo;
+she asked, looking upon me with a burning eye.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I was asked something of the same question when I had seen you
+but the once,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;What do you think I answered?&nbsp;
+That if I liked you as I thought I did - and O, but I like you better!
+- I would marry you at his gallows&rsquo; foot.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The blood rose in her face; she came close up and pressed upon me, holding
+my hand: and it was so that we awaited Alan.<br>
+<br>
+He came with one of his queer smiles.&nbsp; &ldquo;What was I telling
+ye, David?&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There is a time for all things, Alan,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and
+this time is serious.&nbsp; How have you sped?&nbsp; You can speak out
+plain before this friend of ours.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have been upon a fool&rsquo;s errand,&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I doubt we have done better than you, then,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and,
+at least, here is a great deal of matter that you must judge of.&nbsp;
+Do you see that?&rdquo; I went on, pointing to the ship.&nbsp; &ldquo;That
+is the <i>Seahorse, </i>Captain Palliser.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I should ken her, too,&rdquo; says Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;I had fyke
+enough with her when she was stationed in the Forth.&nbsp; But what
+ails the man to come so close?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I will tell you why he came there first,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;It was to bring this letter to James More.&nbsp; Why he stops
+here now that it&rsquo;s delivered, what it&rsquo;s likely to be about,
+why there&rsquo;s an officer hiding in the bents, and whether or not
+it&rsquo;s probable that he&rsquo;s alone - I would rather you considered
+for yourself.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;A letter to James More?&rdquo; said he.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The same,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, and I can tell ye more than that,&rdquo; said Alan.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;For the last night, when you were fast asleep, I heard the man
+colloguing with some one in the French, and then the door of that inn
+to be opened and shut.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Alan!&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;you slept all night, and I am here
+to prove it.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ay, but I would never trust Alan whether he was asleep or waking!&rdquo;
+says he.&nbsp; &ldquo;But the business looks bad.&nbsp; Let&rsquo;s
+see the letter.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I gave it him.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you have to excuse me, my dear;
+but there&rsquo;s nothing less than my fine bones upon the cast of it,
+and I&rsquo;ll have to break this seal.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is my wish,&rdquo; said Catriona.<br>
+<br>
+He opened it, glanced it through, and flung his hand in the air.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;The stinking brock!&rdquo; says he, and crammed the paper in
+his pocket.&nbsp; &ldquo;Here, let&rsquo;s get our things together.&nbsp;
+This place is fair death to me.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he began to walk towards
+the inn.<br>
+<br>
+It was Catriona that spoke the first.&nbsp; &ldquo;He has sold you?&rdquo;
+she asked.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Sold me, my dear,&rdquo; said Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;But thanks to
+you and Davie, I&rsquo;ll can jink him yet.&nbsp; Just let me win upon
+my horse,&rdquo; he added.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona must come with us,&rdquo; said I.&nbsp; &ldquo;She can
+have no more traffic with that man.&nbsp; She and I are to be married.&rdquo;&nbsp;
+At which she pressed my hand to her side.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Are ye there with it?&rdquo; says Alan, looking back.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
+best day&rsquo;s work that ever either of you did yet!&nbsp; And I&rsquo;m
+bound to say, my dawtie, ye make a real, bonny couple.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The way that he was following brought us close in by the windmill, where
+I was aware of a man in seaman&rsquo;s trousers, who seemed to be spying
+from behind it.&nbsp; Only, of course, we took him in the rear.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;See, Alan!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Wheesht!&rdquo; said, he, &ldquo;this is my affairs.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The man was, no doubt, a little deafened by the clattering of the mill,
+and we got up close before he noticed.&nbsp; Then he turned, and we
+saw he was a big fellow with a mahogany face.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I think, sir,&rdquo; says Alan, &ldquo;that you speak the English?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;<i>Non, monsieur</i>,&rdquo; says he, with an incredible bad
+accent.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;<i>Non, monsieur</i>,&rdquo; cries Alan, mocking him.&nbsp; &ldquo;Is
+that how they learn you French on the <i>Seahorse</i>?&nbsp; Ye muckle,
+gutsey hash, here&rsquo;s a Scots boot to your English hurdies!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+And bounding on him before he could escape, he dealt the man a kick
+that laid him on his nose.&nbsp; Then he stood, with a savage smile,
+and watched him scramble to his feet and scamper off into the sand-hills.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;But it&rsquo;s high time I was clear of these empty bents!&rdquo;
+said Alan; and continued his way at top speed, and we still following,
+to the backdoor of Bazin&rsquo;s inn.<br>
+<br>
+It chanced that as we entered by the one door we came face to face with
+James More entering by the other.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Here!&rdquo; said I to Catriona, &ldquo;quick! upstairs with
+you and make your packets; this is no fit scene for you.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+In the meanwhile James and Alan had met in the midst of the long room.&nbsp;
+She passed them close by to reach the stairs; and after she was some
+way up I saw her turn and glance at them again, though without pausing.&nbsp;
+Indeed, they were worth looking at.&nbsp; Alan wore as they met one
+of his best appearances of courtesy and friendliness, yet with something
+eminently warlike, so that James smelled danger off the man, as folk
+smell fire in a house, and stood prepared for accidents.<br>
+<br>
+Time pressed.&nbsp; Alan&rsquo;s situation in that solitary place, and
+his enemies about him, might have daunted Caesar.&nbsp; It made no change
+in him; and it was in his old spirit of mockery and daffing that he
+began the interview.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;A braw good day to ye again, Mr. Drummond,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;ll yon business of yours be just about?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why, the thing being private, and rather of a long story,&rdquo;
+says James, &ldquo;I think it will keep very well till we have eaten.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m none so sure of that,&rdquo; said Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;It
+sticks in my mind it&rsquo;s either now or never; for the fact is me
+and Mr. Balfour here have gotten a line, and we&rsquo;re thinking of
+the road.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I saw a little surprise in James&rsquo;s eye; but he held himself stoutly.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have but the one word to say to cure you of that,&rdquo; said
+he, &ldquo;and that is the name of my business.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Say it then,&rdquo; says Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hout! wha minds for
+Davie?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;It is a matter that would make us both rich men,&rdquo; said
+James.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Do you tell me that?&rdquo; cries Alan.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I do, sir,&rdquo; said James.&nbsp; &ldquo;The plain fact is
+that it is Cluny&rsquo;s Treasure.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; cried Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;Have ye got word of it?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I ken the place, Mr. Stewart, and can take you there,&rdquo;
+said James.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;This crowns all!&rdquo; says Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;Well, and I&rsquo;m
+glad I came to Dunkirk.&nbsp; And so this was your business, was it?&nbsp;
+Halvers, I&rsquo;m thinking?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;That is the business, sir,&rdquo; said James.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said Alan; and then in the same tone of childlike
+interest, &ldquo;it has naething to do with the <i>Seahorse, </i>then?&rdquo;
+he asked,<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;With what?&rdquo; says James.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Or the lad that I have just kicked the bottom of behind yon windmill?&rdquo;
+pursued Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;Hut, man! have done with your lees!&nbsp;
+I have Palliser&rsquo;s letter here in my pouch.&nbsp; You&rsquo;re
+by with it, James More.&nbsp; You can never show your face again with
+dacent folk.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+James was taken all aback with it.&nbsp; He stood a second, motionless
+and white, then swelled with the living anger.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Do you talk to me, you bastard?&rdquo; he roared out.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Ye glee&rsquo;d swine!&rdquo; cried Alan, and hit him a sounding
+buffet on the mouth, and the next wink of time their blades clashed
+together.<br>
+<br>
+At the first sound of the bare steel I instinctively leaped back from
+the collision.&nbsp; The next I saw, James parried a thrust so nearly
+that I thought him killed; and it lowed up in my mind that this was
+the girl&rsquo;s father, and in a manner almost my own, and I drew and
+ran in to sever them.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Keep back, Davie!&nbsp; Are ye daft!&nbsp; Damn ye, keep back!&rdquo;
+roared Alan.&nbsp; &ldquo;Your blood be on your ain heid then!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+I beat their blades down twice.&nbsp; I was knocked reeling against
+the wall; I was back again betwixt them.&nbsp; They took no heed of
+me, thrusting at each other like two furies.&nbsp; I can never think
+how I avoided being stabbed myself or stabbing one of these two Rodomonts,
+and the whole business turned about me like a piece of a dream; in the
+midst of which I heard a great cry from the stair, and Catriona sprang
+before her father.&nbsp; In the same moment the point of my sword encountered
+some thing yielding.&nbsp; It came back to me reddened.&nbsp; I saw
+the blood flow on the girl&rsquo;s kerchief, and stood sick.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Will you be killing him before my eyes, and me his daughter after
+all!&rdquo; she cried.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;My dear, I have done with him,&rdquo; said Alan, and went, and
+sat on a table, with his arms crossed and the sword naked in his hand.<br>
+<br>
+Awhile she stood before the man, panting, with big eyes, then swung
+suddenly about and faced him.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Begone!&rdquo; was her word, &ldquo;take your shame out of my
+sight; leave me with clean folk.&nbsp; I am a daughter of Alpin!&nbsp;
+Shame of the sons of Alpin, begone!&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+It was said with so much passion as awoke me from the horror of my own
+bloodied sword.&nbsp; The two stood facing, she with the red stain on
+her kerchief, he white as a rag.&nbsp; I knew him well enough - I knew
+it must have pierced him in the quick place of his soul; but he betook
+himself to a bravado air.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; says he, sheathing his sword, though still with a
+bright eye on Alan, &ldquo;if this brawl is over I will but get my portmanteau
+- &rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;There goes no pockmantie out of this place except with me,&rdquo;
+says Alan.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Sir!&rdquo; cries James.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;James More,&rdquo; says Alan, &ldquo;this lady daughter of yours
+is to marry my friend Davie, upon the which account I let you pack with
+a hale carcase.&nbsp; But take you my advice of it and get that carcase
+out of harm&rsquo;s way or ower late.&nbsp; Little as you suppose it,
+there are leemits to my temper.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Be damned, sir, but my money&rsquo;s there!&rdquo; said James.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m vexed about that, too,&rdquo; says Alan, with his funny
+face, &ldquo;but now, ye see, it&rsquo;s mines.&rdquo;&nbsp; And then
+with more gravity, &ldquo;Be you advised, James More, you leave this
+house.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+James seemed to cast about for a moment in his mind; but it&rsquo;s
+to be thought he had enough of Alan&rsquo;s swordsmanship, for he suddenly
+put off his hat to us and (with a face like one of the damned) bade
+us farewell in a series.&nbsp; With which he was gone.<br>
+<br>
+At the same time a spell was lifted from me.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;it was me - it was my sword.&nbsp;
+O, are you much hurt?&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I know it, Davie, I am loving you for the pain of it; it was
+done defending that bad man, my father.&nbsp; See!&rdquo; she said,
+and showed me a bleeding scratch, &ldquo;see, you have made a man of
+me now.&nbsp; I will carry a wound like an old soldier.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Joy that she should be so little hurt, and the love of her brave nature,
+supported me.&nbsp; I embraced her, I kissed the wound.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And am I to be out of the kissing, me that never lost a chance?&rdquo;
+says Alan; and putting me aside and taking Catriona by either shoulder,
+&ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re a true daughter
+of Alpin.&nbsp; By all accounts, he was a very fine man, and he may
+weel be proud of you.&nbsp; If ever I was to get married, it&rsquo;s
+the marrow of you I would be seeking for a mother to my sons.&nbsp;
+And I bear&rsquo;s a king&rsquo;s name and speak the truth.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+He said it with a serious heat of admiration that was honey to the girl,
+and through her, to me.&nbsp; It seemed to wipe us clean of all James
+More&rsquo;s disgraces.&nbsp; And the next moment he was just himself
+again.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And now by your leave, my dawties,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this
+is a&rsquo; very bonny; but Alan Breck&rsquo;ll be a wee thing nearer
+to the gallows than he&rsquo;s caring for; and Dod! I think this is
+a grand place to be leaving.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+The word recalled us to some wisdom.&nbsp; Alan ran upstairs and returned
+with our saddle-bags and James More&rsquo;s portmanteau; I picked up
+Catriona&rsquo;s bundle where she had dropped it on the stair; and we
+were setting forth out of that dangerous house, when Bazin stopped the
+way with cries and gesticulations.&nbsp; He had whipped under a table
+when the swords were drawn, but now he was as bold as a lion.&nbsp;
+There was his bill to be settled, there was a chair broken, Alan had
+sat among his dinner things, James More had fled.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;pay yourself,&rdquo; and flung him
+down some Lewie d&rsquo;ors; for I thought it was no time to be accounting.<br>
+<br>
+He sprang upon that money, and we passed him by, and ran forth into
+the open.&nbsp; Upon three sides of the house were seamen hasting and
+closing in; a little nearer to us James More waved his hat as if to
+hurry them; and right behind him, like some foolish person holding up
+his hands, were the sails of the windmill turning.<br>
+<br>
+Alan gave but one glance, and laid himself down to run.&nbsp; He carried
+a great weight in James More&rsquo;s portmanteau; but I think he would
+as soon have lost his life as cast away that booty which was his revenge;
+and he ran so that I was distressed to follow him, and marvelled and
+exulted to see the girl bounding at my side.<br>
+<br>
+As soon as we appeared, they cast off all disguise upon the other side;
+and the seamen pursued us with shouts and view-hullohs.&nbsp; We had
+a start of some two hundred yards, and they were but bandy-legged tarpaulins
+after all, that could not hope to better us at such an exercise.&nbsp;
+I suppose they were armed, but did not care to use their pistols on
+French ground.&nbsp; And as soon as I perceived that we not only held
+our advantage but drew a little away, I began to feel quite easy of
+the issue.&nbsp; For all which, it was a hot, brisk bit of work, so
+long as it lasted; Dunkirk was still far off; and when we popped over
+a knowe, and found a company of the garrison marching on the other side
+on some manoeuvre, I could very well understand the word that Alan had.<br>
+<br>
+He stopped running at once; and mopping at his brow, &ldquo;They&rsquo;re
+a real bonny folk, the French nation,&rdquo; says he.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+CONCLUSION<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+No sooner were we safe within the walls of Dunkirk than we held a very
+necessary council-of-war on our position.&nbsp; We had taken a daughter
+from her father at the sword&rsquo;s point; any judge would give her
+back to him at once, and by all likelihood clap me and Alan into jail;
+and though we had an argument upon our side in Captain Palliser&rsquo;s
+letter, neither Catriona nor I were very keen to be using it in public.&nbsp;
+Upon all accounts it seemed the most prudent to carry the girl to Paris
+to the hands of her own chieftain, Macgregor of Bohaldie, who would
+be very willing to help his kinswoman, on the one hand, and not at all
+anxious to dishonour James upon other.<br>
+<br>
+We made but a slow journey of it up, for Catriona was not so good at
+the riding as the running, and had scarce sat in the saddle since the
+&lsquo;Forty-five.&nbsp; But we made it out at last, reached Paris early
+of a Sabbath morning, and made all speed, under Alan&rsquo;s guidance,
+to find Bohaldie.&nbsp; He was finely lodged, and lived in a good style,
+having a pension on the Scots Fund, as well as private means; greeted
+Catriona like one of his own house, and seemed altogether very civil
+and discreet, but not particularly open.&nbsp; We asked of the news
+of James More.&nbsp; &ldquo;Poor James!&rdquo; said he, and shook his
+head and smiled, so that I thought he knew further than he meant to
+tell.&nbsp; Then we showed him Palliser&rsquo;s letter, and he drew
+a long face at that.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;Poor James!&rdquo; said he again.&nbsp; &ldquo;Well, there are
+worse folk than James More, too.&nbsp; But this is dreadful bad.&nbsp;
+Tut, tut, he must have forgot himself entirely!&nbsp; This is a most
+undesirable letter.&nbsp; But, for all that, gentlemen, I cannot see
+what we would want to make it public for.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s an ill bird
+that fouls his own nest, and we are all Scots folk and all Hieland.&rdquo;<br>
+<br>
+Upon this we all agreed, save perhaps Alan; and still more upon the
+question of our marriage, which Bohaldie took in his own hands, as though
+there had been no such person as James More, and gave Catriona away
+with very pretty manners and agreeable compliments in French.&nbsp;
+It was not till all was over, and our healths drunk, that he told us
+James was in that city, whither he had preceded us some days, and where
+he now lay sick, and like to die.&nbsp; I thought I saw by my wife&rsquo;s
+face what way her inclination pointed.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;And let us go see him, then,&rdquo; said I.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;If it is your pleasure,&rdquo; said Catriona.&nbsp; These were
+early days.<br>
+<br>
+He was lodged in the same quarter of the city with his chief, in a great
+house upon a corner; and we were guided up to the garret where he lay
+by the sound of Highland piping.&nbsp; It seemed he had just borrowed
+a set of them from Bohaldie to amuse his sickness; though he was no
+such hand as was his brother Rob, he made good music of the kind; and
+it was strange to observe the French folk crowding on the stairs, and
+some of them laughing.&nbsp; He lay propped in a pallet.&nbsp; The first
+look of him I saw he was upon his last business; and, doubtless, this
+was a strange place for him to die in.&nbsp; But even now I find I can
+scarce dwell upon his end with patience.&nbsp; Doubtless, Bohaldie had
+prepared him; he seemed to know we were married, complimented us on
+the event, and gave us a benediction like a patriarch.<br>
+<br>
+&ldquo;I have been never understood,&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
+forgive you both without an afterthought;&rdquo; after which he spoke
+for all the world in his old manner, was so obliging as to play us a
+tune or two upon his pipes, and borrowed a small sum before I left.<br>
+<br>
+I could not trace even a hint of shame in any part of his behaviour;
+but he was great upon forgiveness; it seemed always fresh to him.&nbsp;
+I think he forgave me every time we met; and when after some four days
+he passed away in a kind of odour of affectionate sanctity, I could
+have torn my hair out for exasperation.&nbsp; I had him buried; but
+what to put upon his tomb was quite beyond me, till at last I considered
+the date would look best alone.<br>
+<br>
+I thought it wiser to resign all thoughts of Leyden, where we had appeared
+once as brother and sister, and it would certainly look strange to return
+in a new character.&nbsp; Scotland would be doing for us; and thither,
+after I had recovered that which I had left behind, we sailed in a Low
+Country ship.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+And now, Miss Barbara Balfour (to set the ladies first), and Mr. Alan
+Balfour younger of Shaws, here is the story brought fairly to an end.&nbsp;
+A great many of the folk that took a part in it, you will find (if you
+think well) that you have seen and spoken with.&nbsp; Alison Hastie
+in Limekilns was the lass that rocked your cradle when you were too
+small to know of it, and walked abroad with you in the policy when you
+were bigger.&nbsp; That very fine great lady that is Miss Barbara&rsquo;s
+name-mamma is no other than the same Miss Grant that made so much a
+fool of David Balfour in the house of the Lord Advocate.&nbsp; And I
+wonder whether you remember a little, lean, lively gentleman in a scratch-wig
+and a wraprascal, that came to Shaws very late of a dark night, and
+whom you were awakened out of your beds and brought down to the dining-hall
+to be presented to, by the name of Mr. Jamieson?&nbsp; Or has Alan forgotten
+what he did at Mr. Jamieson&rsquo;s request - a most disloyal act -
+for which, by the letter of the law, he might be hanged - no less than
+drinking the king&rsquo;s health <i>across</i> <i>the water</i>?&nbsp;
+These were strange doings in a good Whig house!&nbsp; But Mr. Jamieson
+is a man privileged, and might set fire to my corn-barn; and the name
+they know him by now in France is the Chevalier Stewart.<br>
+<br>
+As for Davie and Catriona, I shall watch you pretty close in the next
+days, and see if you are so bold as to be laughing at papa and mamma.&nbsp;
+It is true we were not so wise as we might have been, and made a great
+deal of sorrow out of nothing; but you will find as you grow up that
+even the artful Miss Barbara, and even the valiant Mr. Alan, will be
+not so very much wiser than their parents.&nbsp; For the life of man
+upon this world of ours is a funny business.&nbsp; They talk of the
+angels weeping; but I think they must more often be holding their sides
+as they look on; and there was one thing I determined to do when I began
+this long story, and that was to tell out everything as it befell.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Footnotes<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a>&nbsp; Conspicuous.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a>&nbsp; Country.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a>&nbsp; The Fairies.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4">{4}</a>&nbsp; Flatteries.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5">{5}</a>&nbsp; Trust to.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6">{6}</a>&nbsp; This must
+have reference to Dr. Cameron on his first visit. - D. B.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7">{7}</a>&nbsp; Sweetheart.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8">{8}</a>&nbsp; Child.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote9"></a><a href="#citation9">{9}</a>&nbsp; Palm.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10">{10}</a>&nbsp; Gallows.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11">{11}</a>&nbsp; My Catechism.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote12"></a><a href="#citation12">{12}</a>&nbsp; Now Prince&rsquo;s
+Street.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote13"></a><a href="#citation13">{13}</a>&nbsp; A learned
+folklorist of my acquaintance hereby identifies Alan&rsquo;s air.&nbsp;
+It has been printed (it seems) in Campbell&rsquo;s <i>Tales of the West
+Highlands</i>, Vol.&nbsp; II., p. 91.&nbsp; Upon examination it would
+really seem as if Miss Grant&rsquo;s unrhymed doggrel (see Chapter V.)
+would fit with little humouring to the notes in question.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote14"></a><a href="#citation14">{14}</a>&nbsp; A ball
+placed upon a little mound for convenience of striking.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote15"></a><a href="#citation15">{15}</a>&nbsp; Patched
+shoes.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote16"></a><a href="#citation16">{16}</a>&nbsp; Shoemaker.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote17"></a><a href="#citation17">{17}</a>&nbsp; Tamson&rsquo;s
+mere - to go afoot.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote18"></a><a href="#citation18">{18}</a>&nbsp; Beard.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote19"></a><a href="#citation19">{19}</a>&nbsp; Ragged.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote20"></a><a href="#citation20">{20}</a>&nbsp; Fine things.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote21"></a><a href="#citation21">{21}</a>&nbsp; Catch.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote22"></a><a href="#citation22">{22}</a>&nbsp; Victuals.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote23"></a><a href="#citation23">{23}</a>&nbsp; Trust.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote24"></a><a href="#citation24">{24}</a>&nbsp; Sea fog.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote25"></a><a href="#citation25">{25}</a>&nbsp; Bashful.<br>
+<br>
+<a name="footnote26"></a><a href="#citation26">{26}</a>&nbsp; Rest.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CATRIONA ***<br>
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+</pre></body>
+</html>
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