THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES .'^-" £& *> THE ADVENTURES OF DAVID BALFOUR. PART TWO: CATKIONA. ,- • » BY TEE SAME AUTEOli. Edinburgh : Picturesque Notes. An Island Voyage. Travels with a Donkev. ViRGINIBUS PDERISQUE. Familiar Studies of Men and Books. New Arabian Nights. Treasure Island. The Silverado Squatters. A Child's Garden oe Verses. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The Black Arrow. Prince Otto. The Merry Men. Underwoods. The Adventures of David Balfour. Part I. : KiDN.APPED. Memories .vnd Portraits. The Master of Ballantrae. Father Damien; an Open Letter. Ballads. Across the Plains. A Footnote to History. Island Nights' Entertainments. {With Mrs. Steicnson.) More New Arabian Nights : The Dynamiter. (With Mr. Lloyd Oshourne.) The Wrong Box. The Wrecker. The Ebb Tide. " SIIK DKDl'l'lilJ MK ONE 01' HEK CUllTSIiVS, WliKll '.VEUE EXTHAOUDINAKY TAKING '' (p. 'iSTj. THE ADVENTURES OF DAVID BALFOUn CATEIONA A SEQUEL TO "KIDNAPPED" BEING MEMOIl^S OF THE FUETHER ADVENTTTKES OF DAVID BALFOUE AT HOME AND ABROAD In which are set forth his Misfortunes nnent the Appin Murder ; his Troubles with Lord Advocate Gkant; Cajjlivity on the Jlass Rock; Journey into Holland and France; and singular Relations with Jajies MoEE Dkummond or MacGreooe, a Son of the notorious Rob Roy, a)ul his Daughter Cateiona. Written by Himself, and now set forth by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON With SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS hu W. B. HOLE, U.S.A. TWENTY-FIFTH THOUSAND CASSELL AND COMPANY. LrMiTKD LONDON. PARIS .0 MELBOURNE 1895 ALL KliiUXS KKSKKVED DEDICATION. ®0 CHARLES BAXTER, Writer to the Signet. My Dear Charles, It is the fate of sequels to disappoint those who have waited for thein ; and my David, having been left to kick his heels for more than a lustre in the British Linen Compan3'^'s office, must expect his late re-appearance to be greeted Avith 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 IJalfour, to identify Dean, and Si 1 von nil Is, and Ih-oughton, and Hope Park, unci Pih'ig, and poor old Lochend — if it still be standing, and the Figgate Whins — if there be any of 6267S3 VI DEDICATION 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 hfe. 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, Zfpolu, Samoa, 1892. CONTENTS. GG ,\T Lapkaik PART I. THE LORD ADVOaAlli. CHAPTER I. A liKGGAR ON Horseback II. The Highland Writer . HI. I go to Piluig . IV. Lord Advocate Prestongranc v. In the Advocate's House VI. Umquile the Master of Lov. VII. I MAKE A Fault in Honour VIII. The Bravo ... IX. The Heather on Fire . X. The Red-headed Man . XI. The Wood by Silvermills XII. On the March again with Alan XIII. Gillane Sands XIV, The Bass .... XV. Black Andie's Tale of Tod XVI. The Missing Witness XVII. The IMemoiual . XVIII. The Teed Ball XIX. I AM MUCH IN the HANDS OF THE LaDIES XX. I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY . PART II. FATHER AND DAUGHriUl. XXI. The Voyage into Holland . XXII. Helvoetsi.uys XXIII. Travels in Holland XXIV. Full Story of a Copy of Heineccius XXV. The Retuun of James More XXVI. The Threesome XXVII. A Twosome XXVIII. In which I am Left Alone XXIX. We meet in Dunkirk XXX. The Letter from the Snir Conclusion PAUE 1 13 2.J 35 50 60 69 84 96 106 118 127 139 151 162 177 189 205 218 231 245 260 270 284 299 307 318 327 339 349 367 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE " All the while the three of them sought in their pockets " . .5 " ' What did they suffer for ? ' I asked " 28 " ' And see here ! ' he cried, with a formidable shrill voice . . . ' It is the warrant for your ari'est ' " . . . . .05 " ' Tit you effer hear where Alan Grigor fand the taugs r " said he " 88 " ' Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine,' says she " 107 " ' The good man brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle-do wp to eat it by, about eleeven,' said he " . .129 "With that I turned my back upon the sea and faced the sand- hills" 146 " There he sat, a muckle, fat, wliite hash of a man, like creish " . 167 "There is nothing here to be viewed but naked Campbell spite and scurvy Campbell intrigue " . . . . . .192 " Down she went upon her knees to him " 227 " All Edinbtu'gh and the Pentland Hills glinted above me " . 246 " Up she stood on the bulwarks, and held by a stay " . . . 263 " She dropped me one of her cmtseys, which wore extraordinary taking " . . .287 "* You tell me she is here f ' said he again " . . . .301 " ' Keep back, Davie ! Are ye daft ? '" 362 " Whom you wore awakened out of your buds and brought down to the dining-hall to be presented to " , . . . 370 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 hke 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 Avhich 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 B 2 CATEIONA, diiHcLilt 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 moor- land 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 Avalk 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 my- self fitted out : none too fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback ; but comely and ]-esponsible, so that servants should respect me. Thence to an armourer's, where I got a plain sword, to suit with mj^ degree in life. I felt safer Avitli 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 clacs. As for the rapier, nae doubt it sits wi' your degree ; but an I had been you, I would hae waired my siller better-gates than that." And he proposed I should buy winter-hosen from a wife * Conspicuous. A I5EGGAR 0\ IIOILSEBACK. 3 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 press- ing. Here I w^as in this old, black city, wdiich 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 obliga- tion 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. Camjibell'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 tack such a ferret to my tails. I had three visits to make, all immediately needful: to my kinsman Mr. Balfour of Pilrifi^, to Stewart the Writer that was Appin's agent, and to William Grant Esquire of Prestongrange, Lord Advo- cate of Scotland. Mr. Balfour's was a non-committal visit ; and besides (Pilrig being in the countr}-) I made bold to find the way to it myself, with the help B 2 -+ CATRIONA. of my two legs and a Scots tongue. But the rest were in a diiferent 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 m 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. 1 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 "all THK WIIU.E THE TlIliKK or TllKM SOIGIIT IN IIIKIK IMKKI'.Ts" [p. 5). A BEGGAR ON H0RSE15ACK. 5 great-coat. He walked with a stoop that was hke 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 lirelocks 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 aAvay in- continent until but three Avere left. One Avas 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 High- land 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 Avas by again, and my porter plucked at me to be going, I even drcAV nearer Avhere they Avere, to listen. The lady scolded sharply, the others making apologies and cringeing before her, so that I made sure she Avas come of a chiefs house. All the while the three of them sought in their pockets, and by Avhat I could make out, they had the matter of half a farthing among the party ; Avhich 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 saAV her face for the first time. There is no greater 6 CATRIONA. 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 dare- say 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 loio^vn 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 bo 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 dis- position 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 the least of it, not by this young lady. A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK. 7 I followed, accordingly, and took oft" n^y new hat to her, the best that I was able. " Madam," said I, " I think it only fair to rayselt to let you understand I have no Gaelic. It is true I was listening, for I have friends of ray 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 1 told you than you found it out." " Indeed, it Avill 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 lialwhidder." " l^alwhither ? " she cries. " Come ye from Bal- whither ? 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 ? " • Country, 8 CATllIONA- " I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhii 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 forcet 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 ])rummond is the one I use." Now indeed I knew where I was standing. In all broad Scotland there was but the one name pro- scribed, and that was the name of the Macgregors. Yet so far from fleemg this undesirable acquaintancy, I plunged the deeper in. *Tht! Fairies. A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK. 9 " 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 Eob ? " " 1 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 3'ou 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 M ore'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 snecshin." I took some note of him for a short, bandy-legged, red- haired, big-headed man, that I was to know luore of to my cost. "There can be none the day, Neil," she replied. " How will you get ' sneeshin,' wanting siller ? It Avill teach you another time to be more careful ; and I think James ]\Iore will not be very well pleased with Neil of the Tom." " Miss Drummond," I said, " I told you I was in my lucky da}^ Here I am, and a bank-porter at my tail And remember I have had the hospitality of your own country of Balwhiddcr." 10 CATRIONA. " II was not one of my people gave it," said she. " All, 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 3'^ou 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 Avill 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 some- thing else. And here is this son of trouble, Neil, son of Duncan, has lost my fourpenny-piece that was to buy that snuff', and James More must go wanting, and Avill 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 mo by Balwhiddci'," said I. " Ah ! " she said, " you are a Iriend 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 A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK. 11 Standing in this close, I seem to know something ot 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 kmd o' 12 CATRIONA. 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' baubee- joes ! " " 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, it's weel seen ye're no very acquant in Einbro ! " 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 sang at me as he went in a very impudent manner of innuendo, and with an exceedingly ill voice and ear — " As Mally Lee cam doun the street, her capuchiu did flee, She cuist a look ahiut her to see her negligee. And we're a' gaun east aud wast, we're a' gaun ajee. We're a' gauu east aud wast coiu'tiu' Mally Loe.' CHAPTER II. THE HIGHLAND WRITER. Mr. Charles Stewart the ^A'riter dwelt at the top of the longest stair that 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 wast wi' ye ! " said I, took the money bag out of his hands, and folloAvcd 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 upon 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 14 CATRIONA. 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 3^ou 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 hiis token speak." And I showed the silver button. " Put it in your pocket, sir ! " cries he. " Ye need name no names. The dcevil'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 ho 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 sliip for THE UIGHLAND WRITER. 15 him, quot' be ! And who's to pay for it ? Tlic 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 pohtics," said he. " Ye need not," said I, smihng, " 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 hero ■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 poimds 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 j^assagcs of our escape among the heather, and my recovery of my 16 CATRIONA. 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 ah. 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. " Wliat 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 shillmgs and three-halfpence farthing sterling." He noted it. "Then," soid 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 over- take 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 Ilastie, in Lnne- THE HIGHLAND WRITER, 17 kilns," said I. " Her that helped Alan and me across the Forth. I was thinkincr if I could jret her a jrood Sunday govm, 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 to 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 spcnding- 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 dra^vn so nmch the one day, I think it would have a very ill appearance if I was back again seeking, the next. Only bo 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, " J3ut 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 acquaint- ance." " 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 nnich to be sympathised with that he doesnae ken of your existence." c 18 CATRIONA. 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." " Wlien ye call on him ! " repeated Mr. Stewart. " Am I daft, or are you ? What takes ye near the Advocate ? " " 0, 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 ])ut I give you to understand once and for all that I am in no jesting spirit." " Nor yet me," says Stewart. " And I give you 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 mo further in." " 1 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 THE HIGHLAND WIUTER. 19 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, Avhich is the more immediate." He was silent for a breathing-space, and then, " My man," said he, " you'U never be allowed to give such evidence." " We'll have to see about that," said I ; " I'm stiff- necked Avlien 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 tho 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 damned ! " 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 ho ? " 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 1 " cries Stewart. " But what said you ? " c 2 20 CATRIONA, I told liim wliat 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. " T 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 hke 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, yo tell me ye're a Whig : I wonder what I am. No AVhig 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." "ifut! none of your whillywhas ! "* cries ha * LlatU-'iies. THE HIGHLAND WHITER. 21 "Tlierc'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 law}^er 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. " Nothmg, man ! And yet I'm Hieland born, and when the clan pipes, Avho 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 Ardshiel, 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 mj^self, 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 173G : recruiting for King 22 CATRIONA. Lewie. And vou'll see, he'll whistle me in to he 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 hurdics of it, be damned but I would fling the whole thing uj) 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 de^p in Stewart business. And for what, I do not laiow : unless it was the sense of duty." " I hope it Avill 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 dumer, all the three of us. When that's done, I'll give you the direction of a ver}'- 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 '11 not bo 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 dcevil ! 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 Audio Scougal, in the Thristle," replied Rob. "I saAv Hoseason the other day, but it seems he's wanting the ship. Then there'll be Tarn THE niGHLAND WHITER. 23 Stobo ; but I'm none so sure of Tarn. I've scon him colloguing with some gey queer acquaintances ; and if was anybody important, I would give Tarn tlio go-by." " The head's worth two hundred pounds, Robin," said Stewart. "Gosh, that'll no bo Alan Breck?" cried the clerk. " Just Alan," said his master. " Weary winds ! that's sayrious," cried Robin. " I'll try Andie, then ; Andie '11 be the best." "It seems it's quite a big business," I observed. " Mr. Balfour, there's no end to it," r>aid 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 3-ou 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, was- nae't ? " asked the master, " He was the very man," said the clerk, " And I think he took the doctor bad: ? " says Stewart • Trii.':ied to them the way that it would end. Twa shiilin' Scots : no pick' r ; and there are twa "~ " "oits hingin' i.r l: They took it firae a .....1.^ ^.--uiged to Brouchton." "Ay!" said I to myself, and not to the daft -er, " and did they come to such a figure for so poor a business ? This is to lose all indeed." "Gie's your looft hinny," says she, "and let me spae your weird to ye." t Chiii ; Palm. WHAT DID TKET sCfrZK FOR r * I i5KED " ^p. -i>;. I GO TO PILRia. 20 " No, mother," said I, " I sec far enoiigh the way I am. It's an unco thing to see too far in front." " I read it in your brec," 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 pouthored wig, and there's the shadow of the wuddy,"^ joe, that hes braid across your path. Gic's your loof, Jainny, and let Auld Men-en 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, castin2f her a baubee, which she continued to sit and play with under the movincr shadows of the hansfcd. 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 mops 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 miirht David ]]alfour 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 geuty maids go by, and look to the other side, and hold a nose. I saw them plain, and they had grey eyes, and * Gill Iowa. so CATRIONA. their screens upon tlieir heads were of the Druiii- mond colours. I was thus in the jDoorest of spirits, though still pretty resolved, when I came in view of Pilrig, a pleasant gabled house set by the Avalkside among some brave young woods. The laird's horse was standing saddled at the door as I came up, but him- self 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 gi'eeted me at first pretty well, and when he had read Kankeillor's letter, placed himself obligingly at my disposal. " And what is it, cousin David ? " says he — " since it appears that we are cousins — what is this that I can do for you ? A word to Prestongrange ? Doubt- less 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 Kankeillor'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 baid ; for I judged from the look of the man he would I GO TO PILRIG. 31 think the better of me if I knew my questions.* " But in tlio way of worldly honour I have no great stumble to reproach myself with ; and my difficulties have bcftillen me very much against my will and (by all that I can see) without my faidt. 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 arc all that Rankeillor repre- sented. And for what you say of political complica- tions, 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 warrandice 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 ^lajcsty's service and the administration of justice," I suggested. * My Catechism. S2 CATRIONA. " As I am not to liear the matter," says tlio laird, " 1 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 the 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 iii ioto to hear more of it. For your name's sake and Kankcillor'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, IMr. Balfour," said I, "and I will direct your I GO TO PILRIG. 33 attention again to Rankcillor's letter, Avhere (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." Therewith ho took a pen and paper, sat awhile in thought, and began to write with much consideration. " I under- stand that Rankeillor approves 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 a^ain. " Now hero, Mr. David," said he, " is a letter of intro- duction, which I will seal Avithout closing, and give into your hands open, as the form requires. But since I am acting in the dark, I will just read it t,o you, so that you may see if it will secure your end — " PiLRlo, August 26th, 1751. " My Lord, — This is to bring' to your notice my namesake and cousin, David Balfour Esquire of Sliaws, a young gentleman of unblemished descent and good estate. Ho ]ias 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 in- tention is known to and ajiproved by some of his friends, who will watch with hopeful anxiety the event of his success or failure. " Whereupon," continued Mr. Balfour, " I have 34 CATRIONA. 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 knoAvn 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 n:)eddle in, I can only pray God that it may prove sufficient." CIlAriER 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 temp- tation was itself extremely tempting ; and I was the more disappointed, when I came to Prestongi-ange'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 iirst I read, for the little cabinet where I was left con- tained 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 th^ rest of my time of waiting in a very D 2 36 CATRIONA. burtliensome 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 is that ? " " I am bearer o± a letter from the laird of Pilrisf to the Lord Advocate," said I. " Have you been here long ? " he asked. " 1 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 Prcstongrange." So saying, he passed before mo into the next room, whither (upon his sign) I followed him, and where he lit a candle and took his j)lace before a business-table. It was a long room, of a good pro- portion, 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 ibrth. 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 tlirough in the beginning carelessly, LOUD ADVOCA'lE I'llESTONGRANGE. 87 looking up and bowing Avhen lie came to my name ; but at the last words I thought I observed his atten- tion to redouble, and I made sure he read them twice. All this while you are to suppose my heart was beat- ing, for I had now crossed my Eubicon 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 acquaint- ance ! 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 3^et you have been for some time extremely wishful to make my acquaintance, and have declared the same in public." 38 CATRIONA. " 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 Avhere he had been previously loUing. " What am I to understand ? " said he. " A tall strong lad of about eighteen," 1 quoted, " speaks like a Lowlander, and has no heard." " 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 preju- dicial 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 sj)eaking Avith Glcnure when he was shot." " I can only suppose (seeing you here) that you claim to be innogent," said he. " The inference is clear," I said. " I am a very loyal subject to King George, but if 1 had anything to reproach myself with, I would have had more dis- cretion than to Avalk into your den." " I am glad of that," said he. " This horrid crime, ^Ir. Balfour, is of a dye Avhich cannot permit any clemency. Blood has been barbarously shed. It has been shed in direct opposition to his jyiajcsty and our LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGRANGE. 39 wliole frame of laws, by those who are their known and pubHc oppiignants. 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 every- where, and from men of all opinions as I came along." "When you arc come to more discretion you will understand such talk is 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 40 CATRIONA. 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 dis- affected tongues are set agog in every changehouse m 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 m court, and then declined again upon the manner of a gentleman. "All this apart," said he. " It now re- mains that I should learn what I am to do Avith you." " I had thoui^ht 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, pickmg 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 — m what remains to be held of our interview, I tell you it may remain between ourselves." " ]\Ieaning how ? " I asked. " Why, I mean it thus, Mr. Balfour," said he, " that if you give satisfaction, no soul need know so much aa LORD ADVOCATE PKESTONGRAXGE. 41 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 42 CATRIOXA, 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 immedi- ately 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 sec your lordship, though not so near hand." " You know him ? " " I should know him again." " In your pursuit you Avere 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 ? " " Ahm 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 lind to prove a very ill anuisement for yourself" " I content myself with following your lordship's advice, and answering what I am asked," said I. LORD ADVOCATE I'llESTONGRANGE. 43 " Be SO wise as to bethink yourself in time," said he, " I use you "with the most anxious tenderness, Avhich 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 inform.ation, 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 mterests." "My lord," I said, "I am as free of the charge of considering my owa 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 fixll under your lordship's displeasure, I nuist bear it as I may." At this he rose from his chair, lit a second candle, and for a Avhile gazed upon me steadily. I was sur- prised to see a great change of gravity fallen upon his face, and I could have almost thought he Avas 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. Baltbur ! whether we like it or no, the case is political — and I tremble when I think what issues may 44 CATRIONA. depend from it. To ;i 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 suscep- tible of great abuse, but it has that force which we find elsewhere only in the laAvs 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 im- perfect 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 thmk this of little account, the more so as we cannot catch our man. But the matter of Brock's innocence shoots beyond itself. Once admitted, it would destroy the whole pre- sumptions 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 fomenter of discontent, and (who- ever 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. LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGllANGE. 45 " To Avliicli I can only answer by an equal plain- ness, Mr, lialfoiir," said he, " that (in that case) your testimony will not be called by me, and I desire you to Avithhold it altogether." " You are at the head of Justice m this country," I cried, " and you propose to me a crime ! " " I am a man nursins: Avitli both hands the in- terests of this country," he replied, "and I press on you a political necessity. Patriotism is not ahvays 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 testi- mony." " 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 road in Pilrig's letter that you are sound in Kirk )xnd State. Who saved them in that fatal year ? I 46 CATRIONA, do not refer to His Royal Highness and liis 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 con- science 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 High- landers. 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 Avill bo trouble with the Campbells. That means disturbance in the Highlands, which are uneasy and very far from being disarmed : the disarming is a tarce. . ." " I can bear you out in that," said I. "Disturbance in the Highlands makes the hour of our old watchful enemy," pursued his lordship, LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONORANGE. 47 holding out a finger as ho 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 ditierent 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 relisiious 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 be- lieve you may have laid them on your conscience when you took the oaths 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 tino-le 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." lie had heard me motionless, and stood so a while longer. " This is an unexpected obstacle," says he, aloud, put to himself. 48 CATRIONA. " 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 jjassed 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," ho 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 as 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 iuw not altogctlicr so dull but what I can perceive the nature of those you have not uttered." LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGRANGE. 49 " Well," said he, " good-night to you. May you sleep well, for I think it is more than I am like to do." Willi 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 27tli, 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 Essendcan, 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 Avas very well pleased Avith 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 tliem. But I was no sooner shown into the cabinet or antechamber where I had spent so wcaryful a time upon the IN THE advocate's HOUSE. 51 Saturday, than I was aware of the tall figure of James Jiloro in a corner. He seemed a prey to a painful uneasiness, reaching forth his feet and hands, and his eyes speeding here and there Avithout rest about the walls of the small cliamber, 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 Avith Prestongrange ? " I asked. " I do, sir, and I pray your business Avith that gentleman be more agreeable than mine," Avas his reply. " I hope at least that yours Avill be brief, for I suppose you pass before me," said I. " All pass before me," he said, with a shrug and a gesture upAvard of the open hands. "It Avas not ahvays so, sir, but times change. It Avas not so Avhen the sword Avas in the scale, young gentleman, and the virtues of the soldier might sustain them- selves." 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 ncA'er to complain." "You have my name, I perceiA'e" — he boAA-ed to mo with his arms crossed — " though it's one I must not use myself Well, there is a publicity — I have shoAvn my face and told my name too often in tlio 52 CATRIONA. 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 m the year '45 Avith 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 clapjied 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 I " cries he. " Ah, then, you will never ly THE advocate's house. 53 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 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 Avished it was your cousin I had met, or his brother Baith himself. Either would, I knoAv, 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 rrrudsrinGf answers that I made to him. There were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small chanalfoiu' of Shaws, tliat you would marry Jainos ]\Iorc's daughter, and liiin hanged? Well, then, where there's no possible marriage there shall be no I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR. 73 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 wrunklcd chafts, I was a hissie myscl', and a boniiy one." " Lady Allardycc," said 1, " 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 Avhcn you ask if I would marry, at the gallows' foot, a young lady whom I have seen but the 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 bo something more than her father, or the gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart. As for my fixmily, 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 con- sidered. This James More is a kinsman of mine, to my shame be it spoken. But the better the family, the mair men hanged or heidcd, that's always been poor Scotland's story. And if it was just the hanging! For my part, I thiiilc 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 bo dcaved all day with a runt of an auld wife like me. But, ye see, there's the weak bit. She's daft 74 CATRIONA, about that long, false, fleeching beggar of a father of hers, and red-mad about the Gregara, and pro- scribed 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 scoldmg 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 food 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." I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR. 75 " 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 Avent on, "you're none such a bad lad in your way ; I think ye'll have some redeeming vices. But, ! Davit Balfour, ye're damned countryfeed. Ye'll have to win over that, lad ; ye'll have to soople your back-bono, 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 counten- ance, 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 hero, for the young woman is from home, and it's my fear 76 CATRIONA. 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 un- desirable 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 dis- grace ; 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 I MAKE A FAULT IX HONOUR. 77 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 tonirue-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 thinkinn;' disconcerted me the least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally as I might with Alan. " ; " 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 Avhen. " I did not see you," she said. " My eyes are big, but there are better than mine at seeing far. Only I heard sin 196 CATRIONA. " 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 volun- teered. " Of those for whom the case was to be profitable,'' I went on, "Sheiitf 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 3'oung 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 pro- nounced — he has no hope but in the King's mercy. May not his Majesty, then, be more pointedly ad- dressed, the characters of these hic^h 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 un- palatable. But Miller was ready at all events. "If I may be allowed to put our young friend's noiion 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 THE MEMORIAL. 197 testimony he was prepared to otlcr, 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 miszht bo 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 enthusias- tically, 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 Avell expressed ; begin- ning with a recitation of the facts about my.self, the rcAvard offered for my apprelicnsion, my surrender, the pressure brought to bear upon me ; my sequestra- tion ; 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 Jamea 198 CATRIONA. Methouglit I was a good deal sacrificed, and rather represented in the Hght of a firebrand of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had restrained with diffi- culty from extremes. But I let it pass, and made but the one suggestion, that I shoukl bo described as ready to deliver my OAvn 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 Prcstongrange 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 consistentl}^ But for him, gentlemen, I must now be lying dead or await- ing 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 con- siderations, my company of advisers were at the last persuaded to consent, and made only this condition that I was to lay the paper before Prcstongrange 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 a,n interview, and received THE MEMORIAL. 199 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 halbcrts 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. " 'NMiere 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 continued 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 re- member 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 200 CATRIONA. presently. " Other counsels must have been discussed, I think. Wlio was it proposed this private method ? Was it Miller ? " " My lord, it was myself," said I. " These gentle- men 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." PrestonOTanofe smiled. " These are our friends ! " said he. " And what were your reasons for dissenting, Mr. David ? " I told them without concealment, expressing, how- ever, with more force and volume those which resfarded Prcstong^rantje himself. " You do me no more than j ustice," said he. " I have fouglit as hard in your interest as you have fought against mine. And how came you here to-day ? " ho 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 THE MEMORIAL. 201 you should have tasted longer of the Bass," says he. " Speaking of Avhieh, my lord, I return your letter." And I gave him the enclcouro in the counterfeit hand. " There was the coA^er also with the seal," said he, "I have it not," said 1. "It bore not oven 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 v>'ould be very glad to have you of my party, Mr. David." " ]\[y 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 overjo^^ed 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 hut what for a moment he did so again now. Hero was the old fiction still maintained of my particular favour with his daughters, one of whom had been so jrood as lauirh at me, while the other two had scarce deigned to remark the fact of my existence. And 202 CATRIONA, now I was to ride with my lord to Glasgow ; I was to dwell with hiin in Edinburofh ; I was to be brouo'ht into society under his protection ! That he should have so much good-nature as to forgive mo was sur- prising enough ; that he could wish to take mo up and serve me seemed impossible ; and I began to seek for some ulterior meaning. One Avas 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 memo- rial ? 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 my friendly sentiments, which are perfectly genuine. I have a respect for you, Mr. David, mingled with awe," says he, smilmg. " I am more than willing, I am earnestly desirous to meet your wishes," said I. "It is my design to bo called to the bar, where your lordship's countenance would be invaluable; and I am besides sincerely grateful to yourself and family for diflerent marks of interest and of indulgence. The difficulty is here. There is one pomt 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 THE MEMORIzVL. 203 your lordship's defence, I am at your lordship's orders ; but in so far as it would help to hang James Stewart, you see me at a stick." I thouiidit 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," ho 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. DaA'id 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. Jjut will Mr. David Balfour consider why ? It is not because I have 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 re- peatedly, and send Mr. David to his grave or to the gallows. Hence the scandal — hence this danmcd memorial," striking the jiapcr on his leg. " My tenderness for you has brought me in this diiiiculty. I wish to know if your tenderness to your o-wn con- science 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 204 CATRIONA. 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 ho, 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. ClIArTER XYIII. THE TEE'D ball. On the morrow, from the justices' ])rivate room, where none could see me, I heard the vcrcHct 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 dis- pute, 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 ad- dressed the unfortunate Stewart before him : " If you had been successful in that rebellion, you might have been giving the law Avhere you have now received the judgment of it; Ave, 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, indei^d," thought T. 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 some one would get in the words : " And then you might have been satiated.'' Many songs were made in that time for the hour's 20G CATRIONA. V diversion, and arc near all for'j^ot. I remember one becfan : What do ye want tlie bluid of, bluicl of ? Is it a name, or is it a clan, Or is it an aefauld Hiclandiuan, 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 Avhen Arafyle was on the bench, TLat they served him a Stewart for his denuer. And one of the verses ran : Then up and spak the Duke, and flyted on his cook, I regaird 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 Avas certainly this sally of the justice's. It was rim hard by another of a juryman, who had struck into the midst of Colstoun'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 dis- graced 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 : THE TEE'D liALL. 207 "James Dnimmond, alias Macgregor, alias James More, late tenant in Inveronachile ; " and his precog- nition had been taken, as the manner is, in MTiting. He had remembered or invented (God help him) matter which was lead in James Stewart's shoes, and I saw was like to ])rovc 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 Avas 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, Avhero it did its Avork ; 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 ii[) with it tilled me Avith shame for Catriona and concern for myself. The following day, Prestongrange and I, Avith a considerable company, set out for Glasgow, Avhcrc (to my impatience) Ave continued to linger some time in a mixtia-e of pleasure and affairs. I lodged Avith my lord, Avith Avhom I Avas encouraged to familiarity ; had my place at entcrtamment-s ; Avas presented to the chief guests ; and altogether made more of than I thought accorded either Avith my parts or station ; so that, on strangers being present, I Avould often blush for Prestongrange. It must be OAAmed the vicAv I had taken of the Avorld in these last montlis Avas fit to cast a gloom upon my character. I had met many men, some of them leaders in Israel Avhether by their birth or talents ; and who among them all had shoAvn clean hands ? As for the BroAvns and i\Iillers, I had seen 208 CATRTONA.. their self-seeking, I could never again respect tliem. Prestongrange was the best yet ; he had saved me, had 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 sur- prised 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 my- self, " if you were but through with this affair of the memorial, would 3'ou 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 him 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 tlie Advocate, and per- suaded that I was to fly high and far, they had taken a word from the golfing green, and called me the Teed Ball* I was told I was noAV " one of them- • A ball placed upon a little mound for convenience of striking. TUE tee'd ball. 209 Bclves " ; 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 assured as even to remind me of that meeting. I told him I liad 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 pohtics 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 wliilo I was always as still" as buckram to the young bloods, I made rather a dis- simulation 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. " Put there is such a thing as Fair gude e'en and fair (jiide day, Mr. David. These are the same young men Avith 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 o 210 CATRIONA- manner, I fear you will meet clifFiculties in tho path." "It will be an ill job to make a silk purse of a sow's ear," said I. On tlie 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 Prestongrango, where he was sitting in his bedgown and nightcap), with his letters round him. " Mr. David," said 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. " I see you understand, since you make the answering signal," said he. " And I must compli- ment 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 Govermnent of Scotland appears unable to pro- ceed for Mistress Katrine Drummond, which was somewhat the case (no great while back) with a certam 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 arc 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 oicd out. THE TEE'D BALI* 211 " Yes," said he, " the Kttle lady is in p-rison. But I would not have you to despair. Unless you (with your friends and memorials) shall procure my down- fall, she is to suffer nothing." " But what has she done ? What is her offence ? " I cried. " It might be almost construed a high treason," lie returned, " for she has broke the King's ("astle ot Edinburgh." "The lady is much my friend," I said. "I know 3'ou 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 testi- mony in the Appin case, and the same (no matter by what subterfuge) had been employed to influence the jury. Now came his reward, and ho 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 barg^ain. The same course of thought relieved me of the least alarm for Catriona. She might bo 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 : o 2 212 CATRIONA. " All ! 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 enter- taining, 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 docs she do, but get a broad hat with the Haps open, a long hairy-like man's greatcoat, and a big gravatt ; kilt her coats up to Gude kens ivhaur, clap two pair of boot-hose upon her legs, take a pair of clouted hrocjiioi^ in her hand, and oil" to the Castle ! Here she gives herself out to be a soutarf 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 (he soutar's greatcoat. Presently they hear disputation and the sound of blows inside. Out Hies the cobbler, his coat flying, the flaps of liis hat beat about his face, and the lieutenant and his soldiers mock at ♦ Patched shoes. t Shoemaker. THE TEE'D ball. 213 him as he runs off. They laughed not 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 ayont Dumblane," and it's thought that poor Scotland Avill have to console herself with- out 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 remeuibcred 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 gome- rals, do tell Dauvit Balfour. I would I could see the face of him at the thousfht of a loncf-les:2fed lass in such a predicament ! to say nothing of the levities of your affectionate daughter, and his respectt\d 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 nuich obliged," said I. " And wiis not this prettily done ? " he went on. "Is not this Highland maid a piece of a heroine V " I was always sure she had a great heart," said I "And I waircr she cfuesscd nothiu<.r . . . l)UtI beiif your pardon, this is to tread upon forbidden suljects." 214 CATIUUNA. " I will go bail she did not," he returned, qiiito 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 Avould doubtless be unwise in Mistress Grant to go to her in prison ; but for mo, 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 Avere in a bargain ? " " My lord," I said, " when I made that bargain I was a good deal aftccted 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 iashious Davie Balfour is your friend and housemate. Say it then ; I'll never con- tradict 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 THE tee'd ball. 215 I had given was a portion of my liking, wliich j'our thankless nature docs not seem to have reinarkcd. But for my patronage, it is not given, nor (to le 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 3'our lordship and are even at the pains to faAvn 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 3'our 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. " ^ly lord, I ask your pardon," I resumed. " I have nothing in my chafts but a rough country tongue. I think it Avould 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 })lain Scots ' ay '." " Ah, but, my lord, I think 3-e take me not yet entirely ! " cried I. " For your sake, for m}- life-safe, and the kindness that ye say ye bear to me — for 216 CATRIONA, 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 look at 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," says he, visibly swithering among some huge rolls of manuscripts, " 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 J ou shall have the last word, too !" cries he gaily. Indeed he had some cause for gaiety, having now found the i.ieans to gain his purpose. To lessen the weight of the memorial, or to have a readier answer at his hand, ho desired I should appear publicly in the character of his intimate. But if 1 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 nuist become evident to all This was the little problem I had THE tee'd ball. 217 set him of a sudden, and to which he liad so briskly found an answer. I was to be tethered in Ghxsgow by that job of copying, which in mere outward decency I could not well refuse ; and during these hours of my emploj'nient Catriona was privately got rid of. I think shame to Avrite 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, tlie 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 day- light 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 Edmburgh 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 ante-room 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 — Ave hae lettcn 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 hae pleased naebody." I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES. 219 " And whcrc'll she be now ? " says I. "Gudo kens ! " says ]3oig, Avith a sliruG^. " She'll havG gone homo to Lady Allardycc, I'ln thinking," said I, " That'll bo it," said he. " Then I'll gang there straight," says I. " But ye'U be for a bite or ye go ? " said he. " Neither bite nor sup," said I. " I had a good wancht of milk in by Eatho." " Awecl, aweel," says Doig. " But ye'll can leave your horse here and 3'our 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 afiect — 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 : " Gao saddle mo tlie bonny ])lack, Gae saddle sane and mak' him ready, For I will down the Gatchope-slack, And a' to see my bonny loddy." The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and her hands nuiflled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance. Yet I could not but think there was kindness in tlie eye with which slie saw me. " My best respects to you, Mistress Grant," said I, bowmg. • Tamson's mare — to go afo<:it. 220 CATRIONA. "The like to yourself, Mr. David," she rephed, 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 Avonder 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 Avent on. " But to bo 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 Hberty." " You give yourself hard names," said she. " Mr. Doig and I would be blytlie to take harder at your clever pen," says 1. " Once more I have to admire the discretion of all men-folk," she replied. " But if you will not eat, olf with you at once ; you will bo back the sooner, for you go on a fool's errand. Off with you, Mr. David," she continued, opening the door. " Ho has lowpoii ou his bunny groy, Ho r;ulc tho riclit, <,'iito and tlio ready; 1 trow he would noitlier stint nor stay, For he was seeking his bonny leddy." I AM MUCH IN TUE HANDS OF THE LADIES. 221 I did not wait to be twice bidden, and did justice to ]\ri.ss Grant's citation on the way to Dean. Old Lady Allardyce walked tlicre alone in the garden, in licr 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 flinir 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 rcuiark, which seemed like a daft wife's, left me near hand speechless. "I see I have fallen under 3^our 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 p.nd a cry at me, so that I fell back incontinent. " Out upon your Iccing throat ! " she cried, * Buard. 222 CATRIONA. "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 bo you ! Ye timmer scoun'rel, if I had a male left to my name I would have your jaicket dastit 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, Avith 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 nuisic- 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 liave no mind, she carried me away in private to her father's library. I should not fail to s-ay that she was dressed to the nines, and appeared extraordinary handsome. I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES. 2 2.*? " 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 ajopears besides that I have been grossly unjust to your good taste." " In what manner, ]\[istress Grant ? " I asked. " I trust I have never seemed to fail in due respect." " I will be your surety, ^Ir. David," said slie. " 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 v.'as 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 jorofoundly 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 1' " she hummed ; " and his ain dear Annie and her two sisters had to taiglc home by theirselves like a string of green geese ! It seems you returned to my jiapa's, where you showed yourself excessively martial, and then on to realms unknown, with an eye (it 224 CATRIONA. appears) to tlie Bass Rock ; solan geese being perha]is 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 Avould 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, ]\Ir. Balfour." " But, mistress," said I, " there are surely other things besides mere beauty." I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF TUE LADIES. 225 " 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 se^ it too — but I have more need of the pickle corn," " Bravissimo ! " she cried. " There is a word well Raid at last, and I will reward you for it Avifh my story. That same nioht of your desertion I came late from a friend's house — where I vras 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 buen 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 he Miss Grant at last ? she says, rising and looking at me hard and pitiful Ay, it u-as true he said, you are honny at all events. — TJte way God nnade me, ray dear, I said, hut I would he gey and ohligcd if ye could tell me what hrought you Jtere at suck a time of the oiight. — Lady, she said, we are kinsfolk, we are hoth come of the hlood of the sons of Alpin. — My dear, I replied, / think no more of Alpin or his sons than luliat I do of a kalestock. You have a hetter argu- ment in these tears wpon your honny face. And at that I was so Aveak-minded as to kiss her, Avhich is what }ou would like to do dearly, and I Avager Avill never find the courage of I say it Avas Avcak- liiinded of me, for I knew no more of her than P 226 CATllIONA. the outside ; but it was the wisest stroke I could have Jiit upon. She is a very staunch, brave nature, but I think she has been Httle used with tenderness; and at that caress (though to say the truth, it was but hghtly 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 tAvist 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, tJiat 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 tliat. 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 sonie notice in the bygoing, and was so kind as to conmient on my attractions ! From that hour you may date our friendship, and 1 began to think with tenderness upon the Latin grammar." DOW.N SllK WENT Ul'OX HER KNEES TO HIM'" {p. 227). I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES. 227 " 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 direc- tion. She is too simple to perceive as you do the stiffness of her friend." " I Avould 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 tJiat yoiL luLve been cleaved witli these days past, said I, site is come to prove that we spoke true, and I lay the preillest 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 Ma- homedans — 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 lather, and what aflutter 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 Avas 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, T assure you, before the Advocate vras 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 p 2 228 CATRIONA. straight. Properly managed— and that means man- aged by me — there is no one to compare with my papa." "He has been a good man to me," said I. " Well, he Avas a good man to Katrine, and I was there to see to it," said she. " And she pled for me ! " say I. " She (lid 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 bo going to my death. It was not for my sake — but I need not be telhug 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 (juake 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 havo some gliumicrings of a chance." I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES. 229 " Mc ? " I cried, " I would never dare. I can speak to you, i\Iiss Grant, because it's a matter of indiilcrence 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 dovrn. " 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 ]ny papa. I assure you, you will never heat nor melt me out of that, so 3'ou may spare me your sheep's eyes ; and adieu to your David-Balfourship for the now." 230 CATRIONA. "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," said she. " Y ou may leave it in my hands." And Avith 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 Prestongrango's family, where I bettered ra}- acquaint- ance with the bench, the bar, and the flower of Edinburgh company. You are not to suppose my education Avas neglected ; on the contrary, I was kept extremely busy. I studied the French, so as to be more prepared to go to Lcyden ; I set myself to the fencing, and wrought hard, some- times three hours in the da}', with notable ad- vancement ; 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 Avhich I nuist 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. j\Iy clotiies 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 Avay with another, no doubt I was a good deal iin[)roved to look at, and acquired a bit of a modish air thut Avould have surprised the good folks at Essendcan. 232 CATRIOXA. 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 pres- ence ; and though alwaj^s 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 Avas 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 adven- tures 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 lenerth. We took horse early, and passed first by tlie house of Shaves, where it stood smokeless in a t.'-reat field of I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY. 233 wliito frost, for it was yet early in the clay. Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave mo his horse, and proceeded alone to visit my uncle. My heart, I re- member, swelled up bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the thought of the old miser sitting chittering Avithin 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 Quecnsferry, 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 atfairs, 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 Lime- kilns. Rankeillor made himself very ridiculous (and, I thought, ott'ensive) with his admiration for the young lady, and to my wonder (only it is so common a 234 CATRIONA. weakness of her sex) she seemed, if anything, to be a Httle o-ratificd. One use it had : for when we were come O to the other side, she Laid her commands on him to mind the boat, while she and I passed a httle further to the alehouse. This was her o\vn 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 I. " Mony's the time I've tliocht upon 3'ou and your freen, and bly the am I to see in yoiu' braws," -j- she cried. " Though I kent 3^0 Avere 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 good bairn. I didnae come here to stand and hand a candle ; it's her and me that arc to craclc" 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 aftccted me. " I never saw you so well adorned," said I. * Ragged. t Fine things. I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY. 235 " Davie man, dinna bo a pompous gowk ! " said she, and was more than usually sharp to mo the remainder of the day. About candlelight we came home from this ex- cursion. 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 somcthing'unusual in her looks ; the colour heightened, the eyes sparlding high, and a bit of a smile continually bitten in as she rcGr^^rdcd me. She seemed indeed like O 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 1 heard her declare, with a great deal of passion, that she Avould take that answer at 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 notlimg you can properl}'' 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 Avith a briLrht colour. " Every man that comes within waft of my petticoat^ 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. 236 CATRIONA. "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 manosuvring 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 A^riting, and oversees the same. I will be asking you to do all her conunands, and rest your affectionate friend, Catriona Macgregor-Drummond. P.S. — Will you not see my cousin, Allardycc ? " 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 mean? Miss Grant * Catch. I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY. 2137 had brought tliis round I could never guess ; I am sure, at least, she dared not to appear openly in the alVair, 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 her 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 rreston;r friend," s-aid 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 i80 CATRIONA. James More has not used me very well, and it is not the first time. I am cast upon your hands hke 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 that 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 mo, 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 High- lands and the race she came of, and nothing but a TRAVELS IN HOLLAND. 281 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 meetins: over- head, some of them trimmed, some pleached, 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 not being yet arrived, I told him I sup- posed 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 recom- mendation 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 282 CATRIONA, 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 so 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 mo the name of brother more easily than I could answer her. But there war^ 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 bashfulnos!!. And there was another thing, the difference of our speech. I had the Lov/ 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 TRAVELS IN HOLLAND. 283 scarce quite fit to be called a deacon in the craft of talking English gi-ainmar ; 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 along- side, each had the same prospect from the wmdow 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 j^retty weary, and she extremely so. There was httle 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 chiefs ; 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. FULL STORY OF A COPY OF IIEIMECCIUS. 2S5 She was unwilling at first that I should go to that exj^enso ; 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 Avas 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 be- holding her in different attires. Indeed, I began to understand some little of Miss Grant's immersion in that 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 gi'eat 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. Hero 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 Dutch- man, and the hes to which I was constrained, had ah-eady given me a sense of how my conduct must appear to others ; and now, after the strong admiration 286 CATRIONA. I had just experienced and the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain purchases, I began to think of it myself as very hasarded. 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 wdiich 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. FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS. 287 This being all that I could thhik of, I relaxed from these grscvG 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,"bcsidcs, 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, sco what I have done Avith our two chambers." And she showed me the place all very finely swept and the fires glowing in the two chinmeys. 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, whicli were extraordinary taking, " If you will be cross," said she, " I must be making pretty manners at 3^ou, Davi'J. I will be very obedient, as I should be when every stitch upon all there is of me belongs to you. 288 CATRIONA, But you will not be very cross either, because now 1 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 recollec- tions, 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 of reading these next days, and often very glad that I had no one to question me of what I read. Me- thought she bit her Hp 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 with- out 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 ray bare feet till I was nearly perished, for the chinmcy 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 FULL STORY OF A COPY OF llEINECCIUS. 289 continue to practise the same ungrateful course or be dishonoured, put ine beside my reason. I stood hke a man between Scylla and Charybdis : Wltat must site think of me ? was my one thought that softened me continually into weakness. Wlud 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 Avas now to pass many, 2)acing like a madman, sometimes weeping like a childish boy, sometimes praying (I would fam 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 m}- book some very ill verses, though the Latinity is ratlier better than I thouijht I could ever have com- passed. The evil of this course Avas unhappily near as sfreat as its advantacfc. I liad the loss t'uiw. of trial, but I believe, while that time lasted, I was trietl the more extremely. For she being so uuicli left to solitude, she came to greet my return Avith an increar-;- ini; fervour that came niyh to overmaster me. These friendly oft'ers I must bai'barously cast back ; and my T 290 CATRIONA. rejection sometimes wounded her so cruelly that I must unbend and seek to make it up to her in kind- ness. 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 1 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 retrench- ments, 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 Avorthy 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 inore wise than to appear to have observed the circumstance. Once, indeed, I was betrayed into a childishness FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS. 291 greater than her own ; it fell in this way. On my return from classes, thinking iijwn 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 Howers, 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 champed and a face to match, I cast but the one look at her from head to foot, ground my teeth together, ilung tlie window open, and my flower into the court, and then (between rage and prudence) myself out of that room again, of which I slammed the door as I went out. On the steep stair T came near falling, and this brought me to myself, so that 1 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 Avas 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, T had shown at the same time (and that with wretched boyishness) incivility to my helpless guest. T 2 292 CATRIONA. I suppose she must have seen rae from the open window. It did not seem to me that I had stood there very long before I heard tlie crunching of foot- steps 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 ofl'ered 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 acjain, and blushed. " I will be liking it none the worse, you may bo 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 Avalking, 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 FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS. 293 were. I was thinking, the one moment, it was the most stupid thing on earth she should not have per- ceived 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 guardedncss ; and for one thing, there was no Heineccius. This made these periods not only a relief to myself, but a par- ticular 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 Leydcn, 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 W'ould never suffer her to attend church, nor even go mjself ; but made some kind of shift to hold worship privately in our own chamber — I hope with an honest, but I am (piitc sure with a very nuich 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 Avas surprised to find her waiting for me ready dressed. 294 CATRIONA. "I will not be doinnf 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 Ave two will better turn Egyptian and dAvell by the roadside." That was the best walk yet of all of them; she clung near to me in the falhng 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 beHef for freedom and sweetness. It was the dark night Avhen 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 uddrcss, put me with the same swiftness on my guard ; and Ave Avere no sooner in the chamber, and the ligfht 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 my strangeness. Even at the meal, I durst scarce unbuckle and scarce lift my eyes to her ; and it Avas no sooner over than I fell again to my civilian, Avith more seeming abstraction and less undcrstandinor than before. Methought, as I read, I could hear my heart strike like an eight-day clock. Hard as I tcigned to study, there Avas still some of ray eyesight FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS. 295 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 bHnked 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. " 0^ 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 sobbmg 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 Avill I have done that you should hate me so ? " " Hate you ! " cries I, and held her firm. " You blind lass, can you not see a little in m}^ wretched heart ? Do you 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 hero under my honour ; would you punish me for that ? Is it for that that you would spurn a loving servant ? " At the word, Avith 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 sul in a more whirl like a man drunken. 296 CATRIONA. 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 Avas 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. 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 little child, and the next I laiew of it, had stopped in the very doorway. " Good night, Davie ! " said she. "And 0, good night, my love!" I cried, with a great outbreak of my soul, and caught her to mo 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 hke any frail, innocent thing to make or mar ; and what weapon of defence was left me ? It seemed like FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS. 297 a symbol that HcinGCciiis, my old protection, was now burned. I repented, yet could not find it in my heart to blame myself for that great faihire. It seemed not possible to have resisted the boldness of her innocence or that last temptation of her weeping. And all tliat 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 whei'e 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 marry- ing 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 m^ans 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 wealoiess — and what perhaps (God help her !) she called her forwardness — and in the dead of the night solaced herself Avith tears. Tender and bitter feelings, love and penitence and pity, struggled in my soul ; it seemed I was under bond to heal that weeping. 298 CATRIONA. " 0, 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 Avise lad, and try if you can sleep. To-morrow you may see your way." CHAPTER XXV. THE RETURN OF JAMES MOKE. I WAS called on the morrow out of a latn 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 Avraprascal and an extraordmary big laced hat, there stood James More. I ought to have been glad perhaps without admix- ture, 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 bla(;k 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 iound you, Mr, Balfour." And oli'ered me his large, tine hand, the which (recover- ing 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 300 CATRIONA. 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 exjjlanation," " 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. " Tliis 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 ' VOU TELL ME SHE IS HEllE ? ' SAID HE AOAIN " (p. 301). THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE. 301 eyes. A bit of morning sun glinted in by the Avindow 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 extraordinarv 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 brocks ; 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 irom the beginning. Here is a young lady landed on 302 CATRIONA. the coast of Europe with two shillings and a penny half- penny. She is directed to yon man Sprott in Helvoet I hear you call him your agent. All I can say is he could do nothmg 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 circum- stance, if you hke, 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 ofter 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 betAveen me and nobody," I cried. " No- body 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 THE RETURN OF JiMES MORE. 303 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 Avcre 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 nie," said I, with a good deal of heat. " You are a very young man," he repeated, " or you would have understood the signiticancy 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 lind her, that am a foreigner myself? And let mo point out to your observation, Mr. Drummond, that it would have cost me money out of my pocket. For hero 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." " Ho that hves 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." " l)Ut I will be entrapped into no such attitude," said 1. "The character of Miss Drummond is far 804 CATRIONA. 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 opea 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 thincr 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 m 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 Prcstongrangc's, I determined to pursue what seemed to be my victory. " If you have any mind to stay some while in T,C3'dcn," 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 THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE. 305 think no shamo of a poverty I have come by in tlio service of my king ; I make no secret that my affairs are quite involved; and for the moment, it u'ould 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 my- self) if you Avere 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 frank- ness. 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 cham- ber, " and you need not fear I shall prove burthen- some. 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 break- fasts 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 Avell 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 ? " 80G CATRIONA. "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 Avhite 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." AVith that I went forth upon my errand, having (by *.wo words) extraordinarily damaged my atfairs. 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 aAvaked her, I was thinkmg a good deal of the effect upon James More; and similarly when I returned and we were all sat down to break- fast, 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 re- ceived 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 liad 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 u 2 308 CATRIONA. 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 httle 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 extra- ordinary 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 beheld her so regardless of her own interests, which I had jeopard- ised and was now endeavouring to recover, I redoubled my own coldness Ln the manner of a lesson to the girl. The more she came forward, the further I drew back; the more she betrayed the closeness of our intimacy, the more pointedly civil I became, until THE THREESOME. 309 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 cfointjf also, and got up ; whereupon the girl, who had scarce given me greeting at my entrance, turned her eyes on 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, ho buttoning his coat : which vastly swelled my embarrassment. This appearance of indiftcrcncc 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. 310 CATRIONA. V He stifled a yawn, whicli again I thought to be duplicity. " Why, Mr. David," said he, " since you are so obHging as to ^^I'opose it, you might show mo 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," says he to his daughter, " you had best go to your bed. I shall be late home, and Early to heel and early to rise, gars honny 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 Avith 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 dreani that Catriona was turned against me ; I thought we were like folk pledged ; I thought wc 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 THE THllEESOME. 311 speak to him, which was a deHcate point on several sides. In the first place, when I thought how young I Avas, I blushed all over, and could almost have found it m my heart to have desisted ; only that if once I let them go from Lcyden 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 satis- faction I had given James More that morning. I conckided, on the whole, that delay would not hiu't 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 complaming hand m 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 312 CATRIONA. caring mucli 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, speak- ing 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 noAV 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 1 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. THE THREESOME. 313 " Miss Drummond," I said, and stuck, and mado 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 pos- sible, 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 T, " we shall be friends always, that's a certain thing. But this is a kind of a farewell too : it's a kind of a farewell after all ; I shall alwa3's 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 sj^rang no faster up mto 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 814 CATRIONA. 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 m}^ 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 was but a child ; 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 com- punction 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 THE THREESOME. 315 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 Avhose light had shone upon our many difficult and tender moments. There she must sit alone, and think of herself as of a maid Avho had most unmaidcnly proft'crcd 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 u^Jon human frailty and female dehcacy. 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, oi to anj'thing 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 magnani- mity 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 barken to his swaggering talk (of arms, and "an old soldier," and "a poor Highland 816 CATRIONA- V, 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, cling- ing 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 THE THREESOME. 317 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, Avhen I was sure one half of his distress flowed from his last night's drinkincr 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. T 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, offer uig to visit me in Ley den ; the other two were out of Scotland and prompted by the same affair, which was the death of my uncle and my own com- plete 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 tharc accident, and which I miVdit have prevented if I had held my tongue., the truth is that they were pre-ordained before Agricola came into Scotland or Abraham set out upon his travels. A TWOSOME. 319 The first til at I o]-)ened was naiiirally Alan's : and what more natural than that I should comment or. 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, " A}''," it was the same ; and he with- held 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 wc forfeited folk hani]^ a little tos^ether," 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 Drunnnossie. 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 Avished 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 Avithhold 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." 320 CATRIONA. 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 near friend, and we should first condole with him on his bereavement." " Troth, sir," said 1, turning to him in a kind of anger, " I can make no such facea His death is as bhthe 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 kno-vvn 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 A TWOSOME. 321 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 Avitli interest. But it was to no pur^jose 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 dis- covered his dcsiirns. He reminded Catriona of an errand, and bid her attend to it. " I do not see you should be gone 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 with- out 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 Avith 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 lace to that ; you and mo have to consider of that ; we have to consider of that." And he wagged his head like a minister in a pulpit V 322 CATRIONA. " To what efiect, Mr. Drummond ? " said I. " I would be obliged to you if you would approach your point." " Ay, ay," says he, laughing, " hke your character indeed ! and what I most admire in it. But the point, my worthy fellow, is sometimes in a kittle bit." Ho 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 un- fortunate 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 un- crossed his legs. " Why, sir," says he, " I think I need scarce describe them to a gentleman of your condi- tion : 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 be- ginning ! " cries he robustiously. " I am a careful parent, Mv- Balfour ; but I thank God, a patient and A TR'OSOME. 323 deleeberate man. There is many a father, sir, that would have hirslcd 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 gentle- jnan in the same chamber with yourself and lending you his best attention." "AVhy, 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 per- haps it was a pity you let fall — I understand you rather to offer me encouraijement 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 thcvo is a difliculty 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 Dn the young lady's." V 2 324 catriona. " This is all besido 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 emj^loyed 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 this is to be the way of it," I concluded. " I will marry Miss Drummond, and that blithely, if she is entirely willing. But if thore be the least un- willingness, as I have reason to fear — marry her Avill 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 tliat 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 facts. The girl, my daughter, has no choice left to exercise. Her character is gone." A ITN'OSOME. S25 " And I ask your pardon," said I, " but while this matter Ues between her and you and me, that is not so." " ANHiat security have I ! " he cried. " Am I to let my daughter's reputation depend upon a chance ? " " You should have thouo^ht of all this loner a"-o " 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 Avord 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, ] will then make it ; and if she cannot, I will not." He leaped out of his seat like a man stung. " 1 can spy your manoBuvre," he cried ; " 3-ou 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. Drununond, it will have to come to the throat-cutting," said I. AVhat with the size of the man, his OTcat lenofth of arm in which he came near rivalling his father, and his reputed skill at weapons, I did not use this word without some 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 326 CATRIONA. remarked liis daiigliter's dresses, wliicli were indeed all equally new to liim — 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 alterna- tive of fif^htino-. A httle 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 grovmds to think me in the right about her un- willingness." 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 iather -wislies 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 heen 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 knockmg 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 nmst 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 for- bearance, any excess of pressure must have seemed indecent ; yet to avoid it wholly would have a very 828 CATRIONA. 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 situa- tion ; 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 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 flilly, and there was nothing further from my thou2;-hts 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, wliich makes of me rather a better match ; and the — the business would not have quite the same i-idiculous-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 exaggerate, 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 1 think wo were none so unhaj^py when we dwelt together in this IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE. 329 to^m. before. I think we did pretty well together. If you would look back, my dear " "1 will look neither back nor forward," she in- terrupted. " Tell me the one thing : this is my father's doing ? " " He approves of it," said I. " He approved 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 fair in front of her ; but at this she made a little noise in her head, and I thought she Avould have run. "Without which," I went on, "after Avhat you said last Friday, 1 would never have been so trouble- some 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 Avill be an end of that." And she began again to Avalk 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 siiould call you so for the last time. I have done the best that I could manage, I am trying the same still, S30 CATRIONA. 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 dis- graced ? " she asked. " That is what he is thinking," I rephed, " but I have told you ahcady 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 Avhat 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, " Avhat else was I to do ? " " I am not your dear," she said, " and I defy you to be calling mo 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 jiity 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 IN WHICU I AM LEFT ALONE. 331 collicshan<:,aG when avc 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 lighting 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 g-ood God that he has let me see you so. There will never be the girl made that would 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 hero is my repayment ! 0, 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 Avith the whole Hicland crew of you ! You will see what you think Avhen I am dead." She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck her for. " 0, smile away ! " I cried. " I have seen your bonny father smile on the wrong side this day. Not 332 CATRIONA. 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 j^ou should be free, and I must speak with you alone ; little I supposed it would be such a speaking ! ' And what if I refuse f ' says ho, — ' Then it must come to the throat-cutting, says I, for I will no more have a Jtushand forced on that young lady, ilian tvhat I woidd have a wife forced upon myself! These were my words, they were a friend's words ; bonnily have I been 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 arc 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 mo better ! I have not be- haved quite well to you, but that was weakness. And to thhik 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 wretched cry at the word — " me and mine are IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE. 333 not fit to speak to you. O, I could be kneeling clo^^^l to you in the street, I could be kissing your hands for your 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 3'ou tried, and turn your attention to James More, your father, with whom you are like to have a queer pirn to Avind." " 0, 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 while I raged about the streets, and told myself I was the worst used lad in Christen- dom. 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 Hke a man at the bottom of the sea. I stopped and laughed at myself at a street comer 334 CATRIOXA. 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 numy 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 becjinning 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 like to fare when Davie Balfour was no longer by to be their milk-cow ; at Avhich, to my own very 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 stead}^, clear, dark look that might very well have been followed by a blow. It was a hint that was more contemptuous than a command, and I Avas 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^ IN WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE. 335 and more cfood-humour about the man tlian I had fjiven him the credit of. He began, at least, calhng 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 toll 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 Ave are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill-behaviour. Now we are wanting to go away and be forgo-tten ; 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 all 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 bar- gained 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 bait- incr," he broke out. " I am sick of her and yoa What kind of a damned trade is this to be a 336 CATRIONA. 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, " outrasfed 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," ho 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 Avay 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 Avhcn it was done, " My dear fellow, my dear son," he cried out, " this is more like yourself than any of it yet ! I wiU serve you with a soldier's faithfulness " " Let me hear no more of it ! " says I. " You have IX WHICH I AM LEFT ALONE. 337 got me to that pitch that the bare name of soldier rises on my stomach. Our traflic 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 httle 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 Avho were gone ; but in the second, in a corner of the floor, I spied a little heap that brought my heart into my mouth. Slie had left be- hind at her departure all that ever she 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 man- hood 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 1 were to recover any constancy of mind, I saw I must be rid of them ere the morning. It was my lirst thought to have made a fire and burned them ; but my disposition has always been opposed to Avastery, for one thing ; and for another, to have burned these things that she had worn so close upon her body seemed w 338 CATRIONA. in the nature of a cruelty. There was a corner cup- board in that chamber ; there I determined to bestow thenx 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 foldmg 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 itseit' 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 inchned 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 nat ural resentment CHAPTER XXIX. WE MEET IN DUNKIRK. Altogether, then, I was scare so miserable tlio 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 ot Catriona by the means of James More. I had alto- gether 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 Avas 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 ho has need of a long spoon who sups with the deil, 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, ho had been so carefnl as to prepare it beforehand and leave it with Catriona to be despatcliecl 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 esteoraed favour came to baud duly, and I liave to acknowledge the iiiclosurc according to agreemout. W 2 340 CATRIONA. It shall be all faitlifully expended on my daughter, who is well, and desires to be remembered to her dear friend. I find lier in rather a melancholy disposition, bnt trust in the mercy of God to see her re-established. Our uiauuer of life is very much alone, but we solace ourselves with tlie melancholy tunes of our native mountains, and by walking upon tlie 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 Frencli noble- man, whei'6 my experience is valued. But, my dear Sir, the wages are so exceedingly unsuitable tliat 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 stiU 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. "CM. 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 thouglit 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 WE MEET IN DUNKIRK. 341 James More and his daughter. I was naturally diffi- dent to give particulars ; and this disposition -was not anyway lessened by the nature of Alan's commentary upon those I gave. " I cannae make head 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 ex- perience 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 teirible 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 a 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 con- clude. 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 ^lore, 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 Glads- muir, and it's true what he says here about the tive 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 couldnao wecl find poorer," he admitted 342 CATRIONA. " 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 hke 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's 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 L " I would e'cn'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 WE MEET IN DUXKIllK. 343 " You will now be enjoying the society of my old comrade, Mr. Stewart," he wrote. " Why not accom- pany him so far in his return to France ? I have some- thing 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 tilthy 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 your- selves in a manner more befitting your age. I beg at least that ]\[r. Stewart Avould come here ; my business with him opens a very Avide door." " "What does the man want with me ? " cried Alan, when he had read. "What he Avants with you is clear enough — it's siller. But what can he want with Alan 15rcck?" " 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. " ITim and me were never onyways pack ; we used to girn at ithcr like a pair of jiipers. 'Something for my ear,' quo' he ! I'll maybe have somethmg for his 844 CATRIOXA. hinder-end, before we're through with it. Dod, I'm thinking it would be a kind, of a divertisement to gang and see what he'll be after ! Forby that I could see your lassie then. What say jg, 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 pre- sently 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 for- tress, 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 tiu'ued into a dark lane, and presently found ourselves Avading 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. " Voild I'auherge d 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 Avas all in the one apartment, with a stair leading to the chambers at the side, benches and tables by the Avail, the cooking fire at the one end of it, and shelves of bottles and the cellar-trap at the WE MEET IN' DUNKIRK. 345 Other. Here Bazin, who was an ill-looking, big man, told us the Scottish gentleman was gone abroad ho knew not where, but the young lady was above, and he would call her doAvn 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 Avait. 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 lather, James More, will bo here soon. He will be very pleased to see you," she said. And then of a sudden her face flamed, her eyes lightened, tlie speech stopped upon her lips ; and I made sure she had observed the I'orchicf It Avas only for a breath tliat she was discomposed ; but methought it was with a new animation that she turned to welcome Alan. " And you will be his friend, Alan ]^»reck ?" she cried. " ^lany 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 hke song. 846 CATRIONA. " 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 sjjeciment one night in Scotland in a shaw of Avood by Silvermills. But cheer up, my dear I 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'U find ye'U hardly lose on the transaction. He's no very bonnie, my dear, but he's leal to them he loves." " I thank you with 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, Ave threesome. Alan had Catriona sit by him and Avait upon his Avants : he made her drink first out of his glass, he surrounded her Avith continual kind gallantries, and yet never gave me the most small occasion to be jealous ; and he kept the talk so much in his OAvn hand, and that in so merry a note, that neither she nor I remembered to bo embarrassed. If any had seen us there, it must have been supposed that Alan Avas 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 remark- ing to myself (Avliat I Avas sometimes rather in danger of forgetting) that he had not only much experionco WE MEET IX DUNKIRK. 347 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 very well pleased, yet I Avas a little sad also, and thought myself a dull, stockish character in com- parison of my friend, and very unfit to come into a 3'oung maid's life, and perhaps ding down her gaiety. But if that was like to be my part, I found at least that I was not alone in it ; for, James ^fore 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 reall}- 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, Avhat 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 tlie morrow and his private hearing. It was the more easy to be put off, because Alan and I were pretty weary with our day's ride, and sat not very late after Catriona. We were soon alone in a chamber where we were to make shift Avith a single bed. Alan looked on mo with a queer smile. " Ye mucklc ass ! " said he. 348 CATRIONA. " What do ye mean by that ? " I cried " Mean ? What do I mean ? It's extraordinar, David man," says 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, "Ithocht 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 ns how soUtary 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 pros- pect, where there stood out over a brae the two sails of a windmill, like an ass's cars, 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 followinsf 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 bedfelloAV, and was warming myself at the fire or walking to and fro before the door. Da"svn broke mighty sullen ; but a little after, sprang up a wind out of the west, which burst the 350 CATRIONA. clouds, let through the sun, and set the mill to the turning. There was something of spring in the sun- shine, 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, Catriona began to sing in the house. At this I would have cast my hat in the air ; 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 neigh- bourhood 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 to a resolve, aad began to make apol- ogies. He had an appointment of a private nature in the town (it was with the French nobleman, he told me), and we would [)lcase 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 without much inclination. " " I am caring less and less about this man James," said Alan. "There's something no righ*" Avith the THE LETTER FROM THE SHIP. 351 man James, and I woiildnao wonder but wliat Alan ]3reck would give an eye to him this day. I would like fine to &ce yon French nobleman, Davie ; and I daresay you could find an employ to yourscl, and that would be to speir at the lassie for some news of 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 Avas 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 yon." " And is she so pleased with ye, then, Alan ? " I asked. " She thmks a heap of me," says he. "And I'm no like you : I'm one that can tell. That she docs — she thinks a heap of Alan. And troth ! I'm thinkino- a good deal of him mysel ; and with your permission, Shaws, I'U. be getting a wee yont amang the bents, so that I can see what way James goes." One after another went, till I Avas left alone beside the breakfast table ; James to Dunkirk, Alan dof