Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson (page 2)

grudge upon my friend, Mr. Simon, who did but speak by his brief. And even if you did conceive some malice against myself, who stood by and seemed rather to hold a candle, I must not let that extend to innocent members of my family. These are greatly engaged to see more of you, and I cannot consent to have my young womenfolk disappointed. To-morrow they will be going to Hope Park, where I think it very proper you should make your bow. Call for me first, when I may possibly have something for your private hearing; then you shall be turned abroad again under the conduct of my misses; and until that time repeat to me your promise of secrecy.”

I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was beside the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how; and when I was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind me, was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face. That horrid apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Simon rang in my memory, as a sudden noise rings after it is over in the ear. Tales of the man’s father, of his falseness, of his manifold perpetual treacheries, rose before me from all that I had heard and read, and joined on with what I had just experienced of himself. Each time it occurred to me, the ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon my character startled me afresh. The case of the man upon the gibbet by Leith Walk appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was now to consider as my own. To rob a child of so little more than nothing was certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men; but my own tale, as it was to be represented in a court by Simon Fraser, appeared a fair second in every possible point of view of sordidness and cowardice.

The voices of two of Prestongrange’s liveried men upon his doorstep recalled me to myself.

“Ha’e,” said the one, “this billet as fast as ye can link to the captain.”

“Is that for the cateran back again?” asked the other.

“It would seem sae,” returned the first. “Him and Simon are seeking him.”

“I think Prestongrange is gane gyte,” says the second. “He’ll have James More in bed with him next.”

“Weel, it’s neither your affair nor mine’s,” said the first.

And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into the house.

This looked as ill as possible. I was scarce gone and they were sending already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must have pointed when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives by all extremities. My scalp curdled among my hair, and the next moment the blood leaped in me to remember Catriona. Poor lass! her father stood to be hanged for pretty indefensible misconduct. What was yet more unpalatable, it now seemed he was prepared to save his four quarters by the worst of shame and the most foul of cowardly murders–murder by the false oath; and to complete our misfortunes, it seemed myself was picked out to be the victim.

I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire for movement, air, and the open country.

CHAPTER VII–I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR

I came forth, I vow I know not how, on the Lang Dykes {12}. This is a rural road which runs on the north side over against the city. Thence I could see the whole black length of it tail down, from where the castle stands upon its crags above the loch in a long line of spires and gable ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the sight my heart swelled in my bosom. My youth, as I have told, was already inured to dangers; but such danger as I had seen the face of but that morning, in the midst of what they call the safety of a town, shook me beyond experience. Peril of slavery, peril of shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had stood all of these without discredit; but the peril there was in the sharp voice and the fat face of Simon, property Lord Lovat, daunted me wholly.

I sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into the water, and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples. If I could have done so with any remains of self-esteem, I would now have fled from my foolhardy enterprise. But (call it courage or cowardice, and I believe it was both the one and the other) I decided I was ventured out beyond the possibility of a retreat. I had out-faced these men, I would continue to out-face them; come what might, I would stand by the word spoken.

The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not much. At the best of it there was an icy place about my heart, and life seemed a black business to be at all engaged in. For two souls in particular my pity flowed. The one was myself, to be so friendless and lost among dangers. The other was the girl, the daughter of James More. I had seen but little of her; yet my view was taken and my judgment made. I thought her a lass of a clean honour, like a man’s; I thought her one to die of a disgrace; and now I believed her father to be at that moment bargaining his vile life for mine. It made a bond in my thoughts betwixt the girl and me. I had seen her before only as a wayside appearance, though one that pleased me strangely; I saw her now in a sudden nearness of relation, as the daughter of my blood foe, and I might say, my murderer. I reflected it was hard I should be so plagued and persecuted all my days for other folks’ affairs, and have no manner of pleasure myself. I got meals and a bed to sleep in when my concerns would suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to me. If I was to hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not to hang but to escape out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me ere I was done with them. Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory, the way I had first seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness came in my bosom and strength into my legs; and I set resolutely forward on the way to Dean. If I was to hang to- morrow, and it was sure enough I might very likely sleep that night in a dungeon, I determined I should hear and speak once more with Catriona.

The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me yet more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit. In the village of Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I inquired my way of a miller’s man, who sent me up the hill upon the farther side by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house in a garden of lawns and apple-trees. My heart beat high as I stepped inside the garden hedge, but it fell low indeed when I came face to face with a grim and fierce old lady, walking there in a white mutch with a man’s hat strapped upon the top of it.

“What do ye come seeking here?” she asked.

I told her I was after Miss Drummond.

“And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?” says she.

I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady’s invitation.

“O, so you’re Saxpence!” she cried, with a very sneering manner. “A braw gift, a bonny gentleman. And hae ye ony ither name and designation, or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?” she asked.

I told my name.

“Preserve me!” she cried. “Has Ebenezer gotten a son?”

“No, ma’am,” said I. “I am a son of Alexander’s. It’s I that am the Laird of Shaws.”

“Ye’ll find your work cut out for ye to establish that,” quoth she.

“I perceive you know my uncle,” said I; “and I daresay you may be the better pleased to hear that business is arranged.”

“And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?” she pursued.

“I’m come after my saxpence, mem,” said I. “It’s to be thought, being my uncle’s nephew, I would be found a careful lad.”

“So ye have a spark of sleeness in ye?” observed the old lady, with some approval. “I thought ye had just been a cuif–you and your saxpence, and your LUCKY DAY and your SAKE OF BALWHIDDER”–from which I was gratified to learn that Catriona had not forgotten some of our talk. “But all this is by the purpose,” she resumed. “Am I to understand that ye come here keeping company?”

“This is surely rather an early question,” said I. “The maid is young, so am I, worse fortune. I have but seen her the once. I’ll not deny,” I added, making up my mind to try her with some frankness, “I’ll not deny but she has run in my head a good deal since I met in with her. That is one thing; but it would be quite another, and I think I would look very like a fool, to commit myself.”

“You can speak out of your mouth, I see,” said the old lady. “Praise God, and so can I! I was fool enough to take charge of this rogue’s daughter: a fine charge I have gotten; but it’s mine, and I’ll carry it the way I want to. Do ye mean to tell me, Mr. Balfour of Shaws, that you would marry James More’s daughter, and him hanged! Well, then, where there’s no possible marriage there shall be no manner of carryings on, and take that for said. Lasses are bruckle things,” she added, with a nod; “and though ye would never think it by my wrunkled chafts, I was a lassie mysel’, and a bonny one.”

“Lady Allardyce,” said I, “for that I suppose to be your name, you seem to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very poor manner to come to an agreement. You give me rather a home thrust when you ask if I would marry, at the gallow’s foot, a young lady whom I have seen but once. I have told you already I would never be so untenty as to commit myself. And yet I’ll go some way with you. If I continue to like the lass as well as I have reason to expect, it will be something more than her father, or the gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart. As for my family, I found it by the wayside like a lost bawbee! I owe less than nothing to my uncle and if ever I marry, it will be to please one person: that’s myself.”

“I have heard this kind of talk before ye were born,” said Mrs. Ogilvy, “which is perhaps the reason that I think of it so little. There’s much to be considered. This James More is a kinsman of mine, to my shame be it spoken. But the better the family, the mair men hanged or headed, that’s always been poor Scotland’s story. And if it was just the hanging! For my part I think I would be best pleased with James upon the gallows, which would be at least an end to him. Catrine’s a good lass enough, and a good- hearted, and lets herself be deaved all day with a runt of an auld wife like me. But, ye see, there’s the weak bit. She’s daft about that long, false, fleeching beggar of a father of hers, and red-mad about the Gregara, and proscribed names, and King James, and a wheen blethers. And you might think ye could guide her, ye would find yourself sore mista’en. Ye say ye’ve seen her but the once. . .”

“Spoke with her but the once, I should have said,” I interrupted. “I saw her again this morning from a window at Prestongrange’s.”

This I daresay I put in because it sounded well; but I was properly paid for my ostentation on the return.

“What’s this of it?” cries the old lady, with a sudden pucker of her face. “I think it was at the Advocate’s door-cheek that ye met her first.”

I told her that was so.

“H’m,” she said; and then suddenly, upon rather a scolding tone, “I have your bare word for it,” she cries, “as to who and what you are. By your way of it, you’re Balfour of the Shaws; but for what I ken you may be Balfour of the Deevil’s oxter. It’s possible ye may come here for what ye say, and it’s equally possible ye may come here for deil care what! I’m good enough Whig to sit quiet, and to have keepit all my men-folk’s heads upon their shoulders. But I’m not just a good enough Whig to be made a fool of neither. And I tell you fairly, there’s too much Advocate’s door and Advocate’s window here for a man that comes taigling after a Macgregor’s daughter. Ye can tell that to the Advocate that sent ye, with my fond love. And I kiss my loof to ye, Mr. Balfour,” says she, suiting the action to the word; “and a braw journey to ye back to where ye cam frae.”

“If you think me a spy,” I broke out, and speech stuck in my throat. I stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space, then bowed and turned away.

“Here! Hoots! The callant’s in a creel!” she cried. “Think ye a spy? what else would I think ye–me that kens naething by ye? But I see that I was wrong; and as I cannot fight, I’ll have to apologise. A bonny figure I would be with a broadsword. Ay! ay!” she went on, “you’re none such a bad lad in your way; I think ye’ll have some redeeming vices. But, O! Davit Balfour, ye’re damned countryfeed. Ye’ll have to win over that, lad; ye’ll have to soople your back-bone, and think a wee pickle less of your dainty self; and ye’ll have to try to find out that women-folk are nae grenadiers. But that can never be. To your last day you’ll ken no more of women-folk than what I do of sow-gelding.”

I had never been used with such expressions from a lady’s tongue, the only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being most devout and most particular women; and I suppose my amazement must have been depicted in my countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst forth suddenly in a fit of laughter.

“Keep me!” she cried, struggling with her mirth, “you have the finest timber face–and you to marry the daughter of a Hieland cateran! Davie, my dear, I think we’ll have to make a match of it- -if it was just to see the weans. And now,” she went on, “there’s no manner of service in your daidling here, for the young woman is from home, and it’s my fear that the old woman is no suitable companion for your father’s son. Forbye that I have nobody but myself to look after my reputation, and have been long enough alone with a sedooctive youth. And come back another day for your saxpence!” she cried after me as I left.

My skirmish with this disconcerting lady gave my thoughts a boldness they had otherwise wanted. For two days the image of Catriona had mixed in all my meditations; she made their background, so that I scarce enjoyed my own company without a glint of her in a corner of my mind. But now she came immediately near; I seemed to touch her, whom I had never touched but the once; I let myself flow out to her in a happy weakness, and looking all about, and before and behind, saw the world like an undesirable desert, where men go as soldiers on a march, following their duty with what constancy they have, and Catriona alone there to offer me some pleasure of my days. I wondered at myself that I could dwell on such considerations in that time of my peril and disgrace; and when I remembered my youth I was ashamed. I had my studies to complete: I had to be called into some useful business; I had yet to take my part of service in a place where all must serve; I had yet to learn, and know, and prove myself a man; and I had so much sense as blush that I should be already tempted with these further-on and holier delights and duties. My education spoke home to me sharply; I was never brought up on sugar biscuits but on the hard food of the truth. I knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was not prepared to be a father also; and for a boy like me to play the father was a mere derision.

When I was in the midst of these thoughts and about half-way back to town I saw a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my heart was heightened. It seemed I had everything in the world to say to her, but nothing to say first; and remembering how tongue- tied I had been that morning at the Advocate’s I made sure that I would find myself struck dumb. But when she came up my fears fled away; not even the consciousness of what I had been privately thinking disconcerted me the least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally as I might with Alan.

“O!” she cried, “you have been seeking your sixpence; did you get it?”

I told her no; but now I had met with her my walk was not in vain. “Though I have seen you to-day already,” said I, and told her where and when.

“I did not see you,” she said. “My eyes are big, but there are better than mine at seeing far. Only I heard singing in the house.”

“That was Miss Grant,” said I, “the eldest and the bonniest.”

“They say they are all beautiful,” said she.

“They think the same of you, Miss Drummond,” I replied, “and were all crowding to the window to observe you.”

“It is a pity about my being so blind,” said she, “or I might have seen them too. And you were in the house? You must have been having the fine time with the fine music and the pretty ladies.”

“There is just where you are wrong,” said I; “for I was as uncouth as a sea-fish upon the brae of a mountain. The truth is that I am better fitted to go about with rudas men than pretty ladies.”

“Well, I would think so too, at all events!” said she, at which we both of us laughed.

“It is a strange thing, now,” said I. “I am not the least afraid with you, yet I could have run from the Miss Grants. And I was afraid of your cousin too.”

“O, I think any man will be afraid of her,” she cried. “My father is afraid of her himself.”

The name of her father brought me to a stop. I looked at her as she walked by my side; I recalled the man, and the little I knew and the much I guessed of him; and comparing the one with the other, felt like a traitor to be silent.

“Speaking of which,” said I, “I met your father no later than this morning.”

“Did you?” she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at me. “You saw James More? You will have spoken with him then?”

“I did even that,” said I.

Then I think things went the worst way for me that was humanly possible. She gave me a look of mere gratitude. “Ah, thank you for that!” says she.

“You thank me for very little,” said I, and then stopped. But it seemed when I was holding back so much, something at least had to come out. “I spoke rather ill to him,” said I; “I did no like him very much; I spoke him rather ill, and he was angry.”

“I think you had little to do then, and less to tell it to his daughter!” she cried out. “But those that do not love and cherish him I will not know.”

“I will take the freedom of a word yet,” said I, beginning to tremble. “Perhaps neither your father nor I are in the best of spirits at Prestongrange’s. I daresay we both have anxious business there, for it’s a dangerous house. I was sorry for him too, and spoke to him the first, if I could but have spoken the wiser. And for one thing, in my opinion, you will soon find that his affairs are mending.”

“It will not be through your friendship, I am thinking,” said she; “and he is much made up to you for your sorrow.”

“Miss Drummond,” cried I, “I am alone in this world.”

“And I am not wondering at that,” said she.

“O, let me speak!” said I. “I will speak but the once, and then leave you, if you will, for ever. I came this day in the hopes of a kind word that I am sore in want of. I know that what I said must hurt you, and I knew it then. It would have been easy to have spoken smooth, easy to lie to you; can you not think how I was tempted to the same? Cannot you see the truth of my heart shine out?”

“I think here is a great deal of work, Mr. Balfour,” said she. “I think we will have met but the once, and will can part like gentle folk.”

“O, let me have one to believe in me!” I pleaded, “I cannae bear it else. The whole world is clanned against me. How am I to go through with my dreadful fate? If there’s to be none to believe in me I cannot do it. The man must just die, for I cannot do it.”

She had still looked straight in front of her, head in air; but at my words or the tone of my voice she came to a stop. “What is this you say?” she asked. “What are you talking of?”

“It is my testimony which may save an innocent life,” said I, “and they will not suffer me to bear it. What would you do yourself? You know what this is, whose father lies in danger. Would you desert the poor soul? They have tried all ways with me. They have sought to bribe me; they offered me hills and valleys. And to-day that sleuth-hound told me how I stood, and to what a length he would go to butcher and disgrace me. I am to be brought in a party to the murder; I am to have held Glenure in talk for money and old clothes; I am to be killed and shamed. If this is the way I am to fall, and me scarce a man–if this is the story to be told of me in all Scotland–if you are to believe it too, and my name is to be nothing but a by-word–Catriona, how can I go through with it? The thing’s not possible; it’s more than a man has in his heart.”

I poured my words out in a whirl, one upon the other; and when I stopped I found her gazing on me with a startled face.

“Glenure! It is the Appin murder,” she said softly, but with a very deep surprise.

I had turned back to bear her company, and we were now come near the head of the brae above Dean village. At this word I stepped in front of her like one suddenly distracted.

“For God’s sake!” I cried, “for God’s sake, what is this that I have done?” and carried my fists to my temples. “What made me do it? Sure, I am bewitched to say these things!”

“In the name of heaven, what ails you now!” she cried.

“I gave my honour,” I groaned, “I gave my honour and now I have broke it. O, Catriona!”

“I am asking you what it is,” she said; “was it these things you should not have spoken? And do you think I have no honour, then? or that I am one that would betray a friend? I hold up my right hand to you and swear.”

“O, I knew you would be true!” said I. “It’s me–it’s here. I that stood but this morning and out-faced them, that risked rather to die disgraced upon the gallows than do wrong–and a few hours after I throw my honour away by the roadside in common talk! ‘There is one thing clear upon our interview,’ says he, ‘that I can rely on your pledged word.’ Where is my word now? Who could believe me now? You could not believe me. I am clean fallen down; I had best die!” All this I said with a weeping voice, but I had no tears in my body.

“My heart is sore for you,” said she, “but be sure you are too nice. I would not believe you, do you say? I would trust you with anything. And these men? I would not be thinking of them! Men who go about to entrap and to destroy you! Fy! this is no time to crouch. Look up! Do you not think I will be admiring you like a great hero of the good–and you a boy not much older than myself? And because you said a word too much in a friend’s ear, that would die ere she betrayed you–to make such a matter! It is one thing that we must both forget.”

“Catriona,” said I, looking at her, hang-dog, “is this true of it? Would ye trust me yet?”

“Will you not believe the tears upon my face?” she cried. “It is the world I am thinking of you, Mr. David Balfour. Let them hang you; I will never forget, I will grow old and still remember you. I think it is great to die so: I will envy you that gallows.”

“And maybe all this while I am but a child frighted with bogles,” said I. “Maybe they but make a mock of me.”

“It is what I must know,” she said. “I must hear the whole. The harm is done at all events, and I must hear the whole.”

I had sat down on the wayside, where she took a place beside me, and I told her all that matter much as I have written it, my thoughts about her father’s dealings being alone omitted.

“Well,” she said, when I had finished, “you are a hero, surely, and I never would have thought that same! And I think you are in peril, too. O, Simon Fraser! to think upon that man! For his life and the dirty money, to be dealing in such traffic!” And just then she called out aloud with a queer word that was common with her, and belongs, I believe, to her own language. “My torture!” says she, “look at the sun!”

Indeed, it was already dipping towards the mountains.

She bid me come again soon, gave me her hand, and left me in a turmoil of glad spirits. I delayed to go home to my lodging, for I had a terror of immediate arrest; but got some supper at a change house, and the better part of that night walked by myself in the barley-fields, and had such a sense of Catriona’s presence that I seemed to bear her in my arms.

CHAPTER VIII–THE BRAVO

The next day, August 29th, I kept my appointment at the Advocate’s in a coat that I had made to my own measure, and was but newly ready,

“Aha,” says Prestongrange, “you are very fine to-day; my misses are to have a fine cavalier. Come, I take that kind of you. I take that kind of you, Mr. David. O, we shall do very well yet, and I believe your troubles are nearly at an end.”

“You have news for me?” cried I.

“Beyond anticipation,” he replied. “Your testimony is after all to be received; and you may go, if you will, in my company to the trial, which in to be held at Inverary, Thursday, 21st proximo.”

I was too much amazed to find words.

“In the meanwhile,” he continued, “though I will not ask you to renew your pledge, I must caution you strictly to be reticent. To- morrow your precognition must be taken; and outside of that, do you know, I think least said will be soonest mended.”

“I shall try to go discreetly,’ said I. “I believe it is yourself that I must thank for this crowning mercy, and I do thank you gratefully. After yesterday, my lord, this is like the doors of Heaven. I cannot find it in my heart to get the thing believed.”

“Ah, but you must try and manage, you must try and manage to believe it,” says he, soothing-like, “and I am very glad to hear your acknowledgment of obligation, for I think you may be able to repay me very shortly”–he coughed–“or even now. The matter is much changed. Your testimony, which I shall not trouble you for to-day, will doubtless alter the complexion of the case for all concerned, and this makes it less delicate for me to enter with you on a side issue.”

“My Lord,” I interrupted, “excuse me for interrupting you, but how has this been brought about? The obstacles you told me of on Saturday appeared even to me to be quite insurmountable; how has it been contrived?”

“My dear Mr. David,” said he, “it would never do for me to divulge (even to you, as you say) the councils of the Government; and you must content yourself, if you please, with the gross fact.”

He smiled upon me like a father as he spoke, playing the while with a new pen; methought it was impossible there could be any shadow of deception in the man: yet when he drew to him a sheet of paper, dipped his pen among the ink, and began again to address me, I was somehow not so certain, and fell instinctively into an attitude of guard.

“There is a point I wish to touch upon,” he began. “I purposely left it before upon one side, which need be now no longer necessary. This is not, of course, a part of your examination, which is to follow by another hand; this is a private interest of my own. You say you encountered Alan Breck upon the hill?”

“I did, my lord,” said I

“This was immediately after the murder?”

“It was.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“I did.”

“You had known him before, I think?” says my lord, carelessly.

“I cannot guess your reason for so thinking, my lord,” I replied, “but such in the fact.”

“And when did you part with him again?” said he.

“I reserve my answer,” said I. “The question will be put to me at the assize.”

“Mr. Balfour,” said he, “will you not understand that all this is without prejudice to yourself? I have promised you life and honour; and, believe me, I can keep my word. You are therefore clear of all anxiety. Alan, it appears, you suppose you can protect; and you talk to me of your gratitude, which I think (if you push me) is not ill-deserved. There are a great many different considerations all pointing the same way; and I will never be persuaded that you could not help us (if you chose) to put salt on Alan’s tail.”

“My lord,” said I, “I give you my word I do not so much as guess where Alan is.”

He paused a breath. “Nor how he might be found?” he asked.

I sat before him like a log of wood.

“And so much for your gratitude, Mr. David!” he observed. Again there was a piece of silence. “Well,” said he, rising, “I am not fortunate, and we are a couple at cross purposes. Let us speak of it no more; you will receive notice when, where, and by whom, we are to take your precognition. And in the meantime, my misses must be waiting you. They will never forgive me if I detain their cavalier.”

Into the hands of these Graces I was accordingly offered up, and found them dressed beyond what I had thought possible, and looking fair as a posy.

As we went forth from the doors a small circumstance occurred which came afterwards to look extremely big. I heard a whistle sound loud and brief like a signal, and looking all about, spied for one moment the red head of Neil of the Tom, the son of Duncan. The next moment he was gone again, nor could I see so much as the skirt-tail of Catriona, upon whom I naturally supposed him to be then attending.

My three keepers led me out by Bristo and the Bruntsfield Links; whence a path carried us to Hope Park, a beautiful pleasance, laid with gravel-walks, furnished with seats and summer-sheds, and warded by a keeper. The way there was a little longsome; the two younger misses affected an air of genteel weariness that damped me cruelly, the eldest considered me with something that at times appeared like mirth; and though I thought I did myself more justice than the day before, it was not without some effort. Upon our reaching the park I was launched on a bevy of eight or ten young gentlemen (some of them cockaded officers, the rest chiefly advocates) who crowded to attend upon these beauties; and though I was presented to all of them in very good words, it seemed I was by all immediately forgotten. Young folk in a company are like to savage animals: they fall upon or scorn a stranger without civility, or I may say, humanity; and I am sure, if I had been among baboons, they would have shown me quite as much of both. Some of the advocates set up to be wits, and some of the soldiers to be rattles; and I could not tell which of these extremes annoyed me most. All had a manner of handling their swords and coat- skirts, for the which (in mere black envy) I could have kicked them from the park. I daresay, upon their side, they grudged me extremely the fine company in which I had arrived; and altogether I had soon fallen behind, and stepped stiffly in the rear of all that merriment with my own thoughts.

From these I was recalled by one of the officers, Lieutenant Hector Duncansby, a gawky, leering Highland boy, asking if my name was not “Palfour.”

I told him it was, not very kindly, for his manner was scant civil.

“Ha, Palfour,” says he, and then, repeating it, “Palfour, Palfour!”

“I am afraid you do not like my name, sir,” says I, annoyed with myself to be annoyed with such a rustical fellow.

“No,” says he, “but I wass thinking.”

“I would not advise you to make a practice of that, sir,” says I. “I feel sure you would not find it to agree with you.”

“Tit you effer hear where Alan Grigor fand the tangs?” said he.

I asked him what he could possibly mean, and he answered, with a heckling laugh, that he thought I must have found the poker in the same place and swallowed it.

There could be no mistake about this, and my cheek burned.

“Before I went about to put affronts on gentlemen,” said I, “I think I would learn the English language first.”

He took me by the sleeve with a nod and a wink and led me quietly outside Hope Park. But no sooner were we beyond the view of the promenaders, than the fashion of his countenance changed. “You tam lowland scoon’rel!” cries he, and hit me a buffet on the jaw with his closed fist.

I paid him as good or better on the return; whereupon he stepped a little back and took off his hat to me decorously.

“Enough plows I think,” says he. “I will be the offended shentleman, for who effer heard of such suffeeciency as tell a shentlemans that is the king’s officer he cannae speak Cot’s English? We have swords at our hurdles, and here is the King’s Park at hand. Will ye walk first, or let me show ye the way?”

I returned his bow, told him to go first, and followed him. As he went I heard him grumble to himself about COT’S ENGLISH and the KING’S COAT, so that I might have supposed him to be seriously offended. But his manner at the beginning of our interview was there to belie him. It was manifest he had come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me, right or wrong; manifest that I was taken in a fresh contrivance of my enemies; and to me (conscious as I was of my deficiencies) manifest enough that I should be the one to fall in our encounter.

As we came into that rough rocky desert of the King’s Park I was tempted half-a-dozen times to take to my heels and run for it, so loath was I to show my ignorance in fencing, and so much averse to die or even to be wounded. But I considered if their malice went as far as this, it would likely stick at nothing; and that to fall by the sword, however ungracefully, was still an improvement on the gallows. I considered besides that by the unguarded pertness of my words and the quickness of my blow I had put myself quite out of court; and that even if I ran, my adversary would probably pursue and catch me, which would add disgrace to my misfortune. So that, taking all in all, I continued marching behind him, much as a man follows the hangman, and certainly with no more hope.

We went about the end of the long craigs, and came into the Hunter’s Bog. Here, on a piece of fair turf, my adversary drew. There was nobody there to see us but some birds; and no resource for me but to follow his example, and stand on guard with the best face I could display. It seems it was not good enough for Mr. Dancansby, who spied some flaw in my manoeuvres, paused, looked upon me sharply, and came off and on, and menaced me with his blade in the air. As I had seen no such proceedings from Alan, and was besides a good deal affected with the proximity of death, I grew quite bewildered, stood helpless, and could have longed to run away.

“Fat deil ails her?” cries the lieutenant.

And suddenly engaging, he twitched the sword out of my grasp and sent it flying far among the rushes.

Twice was this manoeuvre repeated; and the third time when I brought back my humiliated weapon, I found he had returned his own to the scabbard, and stood awaiting me with a face of some anger, and his hands clasped under his skirt.

“Pe tamned if I touch you!” he cried, and asked me bitterly what right I had to stand up before “shentlemans” when I did not know the back of a sword from the front of it.

I answered that was the fault of my upbringing; and would he do me the justice to say I had given him all the satisfaction it was unfortunately in my power to offer, and had stood up like a man?

“And that is the truth,” said he. “I am fery prave myself, and pold as a lions. But to stand up there–and you ken naething of fence!–the way that you did, I declare it was peyond me. And I am sorry for the plow; though I declare I pelief your own was the elder brother, and my heid still sings with it. And I declare if I had kent what way it wass, I would not put a hand to such a piece of pusiness.”

“That is handsomely said,” I replied, “and I am sure you will not stand up a second time to be the actor for my private enemies.”

“Indeed, no, Palfour,” said he; “and I think I was used extremely suffeeciently myself to be set up to fecht with an auld wife, or all the same as a bairn whateffer! And I will tell the Master so, and fecht him, by Cot, himself!”

“And if you knew the nature of Mr. Simon’s quarrel with me,” said I, “you would be yet the more affronted to be mingled up with such affairs.”

He swore he could well believe it; that all the Lovats were made of the same meal and the devil was the miller that ground that; then suddenly shaking me by the hand, he vowed I was a pretty enough fellow after all, that it was a thousand pities I had been neglected, and that if he could find the time, he would give an eye himself to have me educated.

“You can do me a better service than even what you propose,” said I; and when he had asked its nature–“Come with me to the house of one of my enemies, and testify how I have carried myself this day,” I told him. “That will be the true service. For though he has sent me a gallant adversary for the first, the thought in Mr. Simon’s mind is merely murder. There will be a second and then a third; and by what you have seen of my cleverness with the cold steel, you can judge for yourself what is like to be the upshot.”

“And I would not like it myself, if I was no more of a man than what you wass!” he cried. “But I will do you right, Palfour. Lead on!”

If I had walked slowly on the way into that accursed park my heels were light enough on the way out. They kept time to a very good old air, that is as ancient as the Bible, and the words of it are: “SURELY THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH IS PASSED.” I mind that I was extremely thirsty, and had a drink at Saint Margaret’s well on the road down, and the sweetness of that water passed belief. We went through the sanctuary, up the Canongate, in by the Netherbow, and straight to Prestongrange’s door, talking as we came and arranging the details of our affair. The footman owned his master was at home, but declared him engaged with other gentlemen on very private business, and his door forbidden.

“My business is but for three minutes, and it cannot wait,” said I. “You may say it is by no means private, and I shall be even glad to have some witnesses.”

As the man departed unwillingly enough upon this errand, we made so bold as to follow him to the ante-chamber, whence I could hear for a while the murmuring of several voices in the room within. The truth is, they were three at the one table–Prestongrange, Simon Fraser, and Mr. Erskine, Sheriff of Perth; and as they were met in consultation on the very business of the Appin murder, they were a little disturbed at my appearance, but decided to receive me.

“Well, well, Mr. Balfour, and what brings you here again? and who is this you bring with you?” says Prestongrange.

As for Fraser, he looked before him on the table.

“He is here to bear a little testimony in my favour, my lord, which I think it very needful you should hear,” said I, and turned to Duncansby.

“I have only to say this,” said the lieutenant, “that I stood up this day with Palfour in the Hunter’s Pog, which I am now fery sorry for, and he behaved himself as pretty as a shentlemans could ask it. And I have creat respects for Palfour,” he added.

“I thank you for your honest expressions,” said I.

Whereupon Duncansby made his bow to the company, and left the chamber, as we had agreed upon before.

“What have I to do with this?” says Prestongrange.

“I will tell your lordship in two words,” said I. “I have brought this gentleman, a King’s officer, to do me so much justice. Now I think my character in covered, and until a certain date, which your lordship can very well supply, it will be quite in vain to despatch against me any more officers. I will not consent to fight my way through the garrison of the castle.”

The veins swelled on Prestongrange’s brow, and he regarded me with fury.

“I think the devil uncoupled this dog of a lad between my legs!” he cried; and then, turning fiercely on his neighbour, “This is some of your work, Simon,” he said. “I spy your hand in the business, and, let me tell you, I resent it. It is disloyal, when we are agreed upon one expedient, to follow another in the dark. You are disloyal to me. What! you let me send this lad to the place with my very daughters! And because I let drop a word to you….. Fy, sir, keep your dishonours to yourself!”

Simon was deadly pale. “I will be a kick-ball between you and the Duke no longer,” he exclaimed. “Either come to an agreement, or come to a differ, and have it out among yourselves. But I will no longer fetch and carry, and get your contrary instructions, and be blamed by both. For if I were to tell you what I think of all your Hanover business it would make your head sing.”

But Sheriff Erskine had preserved his temper, and now intervened smoothly. “And in the meantime,” says he, “I think we should tell Mr. Balfour that his character for valour is quite established. He may sleep in peace. Until the date he was so good as to refer to it shall be put to the proof no more.”

His coolness brought the others to their prudence; and they made haste, with a somewhat distracted civility, to pack me from the house.

CHAPTER IX–THE HEATHER ON FIRE

When I left Prestongrange that afternoon I was for the first time angry. The Advocate had made a mock of me. He had pretended my testimony was to be received and myself respected; and in that very hour, not only was Simon practising against my life by the hands of the Highland soldier, but (as appeared from his own language) Prestongrange himself had some design in operation. I counted my enemies; Prestongrange with all the King’s authority behind him; and the Duke with the power of the West Highlands; and the Lovat interest by their side to help them with so great a force in the north, and the whole clan of old Jacobite spies and traffickers. And when I remembered James More, and the red head of Neil the son of Duncan, I thought there was perhaps a fourth in the confederacy, and what remained of Rob Roy’s old desperate sept of caterans would be banded against me with the others. One thing was requisite– some strong friend or wise adviser. The country must be full of such, both able and eager to support me, or Lovat and the Duke and Prestongrange had not been nosing for expedients; and it made me rage to think that I might brush against my champions in the street and be no wiser.

And just then (like an answer) a gentleman brushed against me going by, gave me a meaning look, and turned into a close. I knew him with the tail of my eye–it was Stewart the Writer; and, blessing my good fortune, turned in to follow him. As soon as I had entered the close I saw him standing in the mouth of a stair, where he made me a signal and immediately vanished. Seven storeys up, there he was again in a house door, the which he looked behind us after we had entered. The house was quite dismantled, with not a stick of furniture; indeed, it was one of which Stewart had the letting in his hands.

“We’ll have to sit upon the floor,” said he; “but we’re safe here for the time being, and I’ve been wearying to see ye, Mr. Balfour.”

“How’s it with Alan?” I asked.

“Brawly,” said he. “Andie picks him up at Gillane sands to-morrow, Wednesday. He was keen to say good-bye to ye, but the way that things were going, I was feared the pair of ye was maybe best apart. And that brings me to the essential: how does your business speed?”

“Why,” said I, “I was told only this morning that my testimony was accepted, and I was to travel to Inverary with the Advocate, no less.”

“Hout awa!” cried Stewart. “I’ll never believe that.”

“I have maybe a suspicion of my own,” says I, “but I would like fine to hear your reasons.”

“Well, I tell ye fairly, I’m horn-mad,” cries Stewart. “If my one hand could pull their Government down I would pluck it like a rotten apple. I’m doer for Appin and for James of the Glens; and, of course, it’s my duty to defend my kinsman for his life. Hear how it goes with me, and I’ll leave the judgment of it to yourself. The first thing they have to do is to get rid of Alan. They cannae bring in James as art and part until they’ve brought in Alan first as principal; that’s sound law: they could never put the cart before the horse.”

“And how are they to bring in Alan till they can catch him?” says I.

“Ah, but there is a way to evite that arrestment,” said he. “Sound law, too. It would be a bonny thing if, by the escape of one ill- doer another was to go scatheless, and the remeid is to summon the principal and put him to outlawry for the non-compearance. Now there’s four places where a person can be summoned: at his dwelling-house; at a place where he has resided forty days; at the head burgh of the shire where he ordinarily resorts; or lastly (if there be ground to think him forth of Scotland) AT THE CROSS OF EDINBURGH, AND THE PIER AND SHORE OF LEITH, FOR SIXTY DAYS. The purpose of which last provision is evident upon its face: being that outgoing ships may have time to carry news of the transaction, and the summonsing be something other than a form. Now take the case of Alan. He has no dwelling-house that ever I could hear of; I would be obliged if anyone would show me where he has lived forty days together since the ’45; there is no shire where he resorts whether ordinarily or extraordinarily; if he has a domicile at all, which I misdoubt, it must be with his regiment in France; and if he is not yet forth of Scotland (as we happen to know and they happen to guess) it must be evident to the most dull it’s what he’s aiming for. Where, then, and what way should he be summoned? I ask it at yourself, a layman.”

“You have given the very words,” said I. “Here at the cross, and at the pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days.”

“Ye’re a sounder Scots lawyer than Prestongrange, then!” cries the Writer. “He has had Alan summoned once; that was on the twenty- fifth, the day that we first met. Once, and done with it. And where? Where, but at the cross of Inverary, the head burgh of the Campbells? A word in your ear, Mr. Balfour–they’re not seeking Alan.”

“What do you mean?” I cried. “Not seeking him?”

“By the best that I can make of it,” said he. “Not wanting to find him, in my poor thought. They think perhaps he might set up a fair defence, upon the back of which James, the man they’re really after, might climb out. This is not a case, ye see, it’s a conspiracy.”

“Yet I can tell you Prestongrange asked after Alan keenly,” said I; “though, when I come to think of it, he was something of the easiest put by.”

“See that!” says he. “But there! I may be right or wrong, that’s guesswork at the best, and let me get to my facts again. It comes to my ears that James and the witnesses–the witnesses, Mr. Balfour!–lay in close dungeons, and shackled forbye, in the military prison at Fort William; none allowed in to them, nor they to write. The witnesses, Mr. Balfour; heard ye ever the match of that? I assure ye, no old, crooked Stewart of the gang ever out- faced the law more impudently. It’s clean in the two eyes of the Act of Parliament of 1700, anent wrongous imprisonment. No sooner did I get the news than I petitioned the Lord Justice Clerk. I have his word to-day. There’s law for ye! here’s justice!”

He put a paper in my hand, that same mealy-mouthed, false-faced paper that was printed since in the pamphlet “by a bystander,” for behoof (as the title says) of James’s “poor widow and five children.”

“See,” said Stewart, “he couldn’t dare to refuse me access to my client, so he RECOMMENDS THE COMMANDING OFFICER TO LET ME IN. Recommends!–the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland recommends. Is not the purpose of such language plain? They hope the officer may be so dull, or so very much the reverse, as to refuse the recommendation. I would have to make the journey back again betwixt here and Fort William. Then would follow a fresh delay till I got fresh authority, and they had disavowed the officer– military man, notoriously ignorant of the law, and that–I ken the cant of it. Then the journey a third time; and there we should be on the immediate heels of the trial before I had received my first instruction. Am I not right to call this a conspiracy?”

“It will bear that colour,” said I.

“And I’ll go on to prove it you outright,” said he. “They have the right to hold James in prison, yet they cannot deny me to visit him. They have no right to hold the witnesses; but am I to get a sight of them, that should be as free as the Lord Justice Clerk himself! See–read: FOR THE REST, REFUSES TO GIVE ANY ORDERS TO KEEPERS OF PRISONS WHO ARE NOT ACCUSED AS HAVING DONE ANYTHING CONTRARY TO THE DUTIES OF THEIR OFFICE. Anything contrary! Sirs! And the Act of seventeen hunner? Mr. Balfour, this makes my heart to burst; the heather is on fire inside my wame.”

“And the plain English of that phrase,” said I, “is that the witnesses are still to lie in prison and you are not to see them?”

“And I am not to see them until Inverary, when the court is set!” cries he, “and then to hear Prestongrange upon THE ANXIOUS RESPONSIBILITIES OF HIS OFFICE AND THE GREAT FACILITIES AFFORDED THE DEFENCE! But I’ll begowk them there, Mr. David. I have a plan to waylay the witnesses upon the road, and see if I cannae get I a little harle of justice out of the MILITARY MAN NOTORIOUSLY IGNORANT OF THE LAW that shall command the party.”

It was actually so–it was actually on the wayside near Tynedrum, and by the connivance of a soldier officer, that Mr. Stewart first saw the witnesses upon the case.

“There is nothing that would surprise me in this business,” I remarked.

“I’ll surprise you ere I’m done!” cries he. “Do ye see this?”– producing a print still wet from the press. “This is the libel: see, there’s Prestongrange’s name to the list of witnesses, and I find no word of any Balfour. But here is not the question. Who do ye think paid for the printing of this paper?”

“I suppose it would likely be King George,” said I.

“But it happens it was me!” he cried. “Not but it was printed by and for themselves, for the Grants and the Erskines, and yon thief of the black midnight, Simon Fraser. But could _I_ win to get a copy! No! I was to go blindfold to my defence; I was to hear the charges for the first time in court alongst the jury.”

“Is not this against the law?” I asked

“I cannot say so much,” he replied. “It was a favour so natural and so constantly rendered (till this nonesuch business) that the law has never looked to it. And now admire the hand of Providence! A stranger is in Fleming’s printing house, spies a proof on the floor, picks it up, and carries it to me. Of all things, it was just this libel. Whereupon I had it set again–printed at the expense of the defence: sumptibus moesti rei; heard ever man the like of it?–and here it is for anybody, the muckle secret out–all may see it now. But how do you think I would enjoy this, that has the life of my kinsman on my conscience?”

“Troth, I think you would enjoy it ill,” said I.

“And now you see how it is,” he concluded, “and why, when you tell me your evidence is to be let in, I laugh aloud in your face.”

It was now my turn. I laid before him in brief Mr. Simon’s threats and offers, and the whole incident of the bravo, with the subsequent scene at Prestongrange’s. Of my first talk, according to promise, I said nothing, nor indeed was it necessary. All the time I was talking Stewart nodded his head like a mechanical figure; and no sooner had my voice ceased, than he opened his mouth and gave me his opinion in two words, dwelling strong on both of them.

“Disappear yourself,” said he.

“I do not take you,” said I.

“Then I’ll carry you there,” said he. “By my view of it you’re to disappear whatever. O, that’s outside debate. The Advocate, who is not without some spunks of a remainder decency, has wrung your life-safe out of Simon and the Duke. He has refused to put you on your trial, and refused to have you killed; and there is the clue to their ill words together, for Simon and the Duke can keep faith with neither friend nor enemy. Ye’re not to be tried then, and ye’re not to be murdered; but I’m in bitter error if ye’re not to be kidnapped and carried away like the Lady Grange. Bet me what ye please–there was their EXPEDIENT!”

“You make me think,” said I, and told him of the whistle and the red-headed retainer, Neil.

“Wherever James More is there’s one big rogue, never be deceived on that,” said he. “His father was none so ill a man, though a kenning on the wrong side of the law, and no friend to my family, that I should waste my breath to be defending him! But as for James he’s a brock and a blagyard. I like the appearance of this red-headed Neil as little as yourself. It looks uncanny: fiegh! it smells bad. It was old Lovat that managed the Lady Grange affair; if young Lovat is to handle yours, it’ll be all in the family. What’s James More in prison for? The same offence: abduction. His men have had practice in the business. He’ll be to lend them to be Simon’s instruments; and the next thing we’ll be hearing, James will have made his peace, or else he’ll have escaped; and you’ll be in Benbecula or Applecross.”

“Ye make a strong case,” I admitted.

“And what I want,” he resumed, “is that you should disappear yourself ere they can get their hands upon ye. Lie quiet until just before the trial, and spring upon them at the last of it when they’ll be looking for you least. This is always supposing Mr. Balfour, that your evidence is worth so very great a measure of both risk and fash.”

“I will tell you one thing,” said I. “I saw the murderer and it was not Alan.”

“Then, by God, my cousin’s saved!” cried Stewart. “You have his life upon your tongue; and there’s neither time, risk, nor money to be spared to bring you to the trial.” He emptied his pockets on the floor. “Here is all that I have by me,” he went on, “Take it, ye’ll want it ere ye’re through. Go straight down this close, there’s a way out by there to the Lang Dykes, and by my will of it! see no more of Edinburgh till the clash is over.”

“Where am I to go, then?” I inquired.

“And I wish that I could tell ye!” says he, “but all the places that I could send ye to, would be just the places they would seek. No, ye must fend for yourself, and God be your guiding! Five days before the trial, September the sixteen, get word to me at the King Arms in Stirling; and if ye’ve managed for yourself as long as that, I’ll see that ye reach Inverary.”

“One thing more,” said I. “Can I no see Alan?”

He seemed boggled. “Hech, I would rather you wouldnae,” said he. “But I can never deny that Alan is extremely keen of it, and is to lie this night by Silvermills on purpose. If you’re sure that you’re not followed, Mr. Balfour–but make sure of that–lie in a good place and watch your road for a clear hour before ye risk it. It would be a dreadful business if both you and him was to miscarry!”

CHAPTER X–THE RED-HEADED MAN

It was about half-past three when I came forth on the Lang Dykes. Dean was where I wanted to go. Since Catriona dwelled there, and her kinsfolk the Glengyle Macgregors appeared almost certainly to be employed against me, it was just one of the few places I should have kept away from; and being a very young man, and beginning to be very much in love, I turned my face in that direction without pause. As a slave to my conscience and common sense, however, I took a measure of precaution. Coming over the crown of a bit of a rise in the road, I clapped down suddenly among the barley and lay waiting. After a while, a man went by that looked to be a Highlandman, but I had never seen him till that hour. Presently after came Neil of the red head. The next to go past was a miller’s cart, and after that nothing but manifest country people. Here was enough to have turned the most foolhardy from his purpose, but my inclination ran too strong the other way. I argued it out that if Neil was on that road, it was the right road to find him in, leading direct to his chief’s daughter; as for the other Highlandman, if I was to be startled off by every Highlandman I saw, I would scarce reach anywhere. And having quite satisfied myself with this disingenuous debate, I made the better speed of it, and came a little after four to Mrs. Drumond-Ogilvy’s.

Both ladies were within the house; and upon my perceiving them together by the open door, I plucked off my hat and said, “Here was a lad come seeking saxpence,” which I thought might please the dowager.

Catriona ran out to greet me heartily, and, to my surprise, the old lady seemed scarce less forward than herself. I learned long afterwards that she had despatched a horseman by daylight to Rankeillor at the Queensferry, whom she knew to be the doer for Shaws, and had then in her pocket a letter from that good friend of mine, presenting, in the most favourable view, my character and prospects. But had I read it I could scarce have seen more clear in her designs. Maybe I was COUNTRYFEED; at least, I was not so much so as she thought; and it was even to my homespun wits, that she was bent to hammer up a match between her cousin and a beardless boy that was something of a laird in Lothian.

“Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine,” says she. “Run and tell the lasses.”

And for the little while we were alone was at a good deal of pains to flatter me; always cleverly, always with the appearance of a banter, still calling me Saxpence, but with such a turn that should rather uplift me in my own opinion. When Catriona returned, the design became if possible more obvious; and she showed off the girl’s advantages like a horse-couper with a horse. My face flamed that she should think me so obtuse. Now I would fancy the girl was being innocently made a show of, and then I could have beaten the old carline wife with a cudgel; and now, that perhaps these two had set their heads together to entrap me, and at that I sat and gloomed betwixt them like the very image of ill-will. At last the matchmaker had a better device, which was to leave the pair of us alone. When my suspicions are anyway roused it is sometimes a little the wrong side of easy to allay them. But though I knew what breed she was of, and that was a breed of thieves, I could never look in Catriona’s face and disbelieve her.

“I must not ask?” says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left alone.

“Ah, but to-day I can talk with a free conscience,” I replied. “I am lightened of my pledge, and indeed (after what has come and gone since morning) I would not have renewed it were it asked.”

“Tell me,” she said. “My cousin will not be so long.”

So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the last of it, making it as mirthful as I could, and, indeed, there was matter of mirth in that absurdity.

“And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudas men as for the pretty ladies, after all!” says she, when I had done. “But what was your father that he could not learn you to draw the sword! It is most ungentle; I have not heard the match of that in anyone.”

“It is most misconvenient at least,” said I; “and I think my father (honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in the place of it. But you see I do the best I can, and just stand up like Lot’s wife and let them hammer at me.”

“Do you know what makes me smile?” said she. “Well, it is this. I am made this way, that I should have been a man child. In my own thoughts it is so I am always; and I go on telling myself about this thing that is to befall and that. Then it comes to the place of the fighting, and it comes over me that I am only a girl at all events, and cannot hold a sword or give one good blow; and then I have to twist my story round about, so that the fighting is to stop, and yet me have the best of it, just like you and the lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine speeches all through, like Mr. David Balfour.”

“You are a bloodthirsty maid,” said I.

“Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers,” she said, “but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I think you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not that I want to kill, I think. Did ever you kill anyone?”

“That I have, as it chances. Two, no less, and me still a lad that should be at the college,” said I. “But yet, in the look-back, I take no shame for it.”

“But how did you feel, then–after it?” she asked.

‘”Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn,” said I.

“I know that, too,” she cried. “I feel where these tears should come from. And at any rate, I would not wish to kill, only to be Catherine Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt, where it was broken. That is my chief hero. Would you not love to die so–for your king?” she asked.

“Troth,” said I, “my affection for my king, God bless the puggy face of him, is under more control; and I thought I saw death so near to me this day already, that I am rather taken up with the notion of living.”

“Right,” she said, “the right mind of a man! Only you must learn arms; I would not like to have a friend that cannot strike. But it will not have been with the sword that you killed these two?”

“Indeed, no,” said I, “but with a pair of pistols. And a fortunate thing it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I am about as clever with the pistols as I am with the sword.”

So then she drew from me the story of our battle in the brig, which I had omitted in my first account of my affairs.

“Yes,” said she, “you are brave. And your friend, I admire and love him.”

“Well, and I think anyone would!” said I. “He has his faults like other folk; but he is brave and staunch and kind, God bless him! That will be a strange day when I forget Alan.” And the thought of him, and that it was within my choice to speak with him that night, had almost overcome me.

“And where will my head be gone that I have not told my news!” she cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she might visit him to-morrow in the castle whither he was now transferred, and that his affairs were mending. “You do not like to hear it,” said she. “Will you judge my father and not know him?”

“I am a thousand miles from judging,” I replied. “And I give you my word I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened. If my face fell at all, as I suppose it must, you will allow this is rather an ill day for compositions, and the people in power extremely ill persons to be compounding with. I have Simon Fraser extremely heavy on my stomach still.”

“Ah!” she cried, “you will not be evening these two; and you should bear in mind that Prestongrange and James More, my father, are of the one blood.”

“I never heard tell of that,” said I.

“It is rather singular how little you are acquainted with,” said she. “One part may call themselves Grant, and one Macgregor, but they are still of the same clan. They are all the sons of Alpin, from whom, I think, our country has its name.”

“What country is that?” I asked.

“My country and yours,” said she

“This is my day for discovering I think,” said I, “for I always thought the name of it was Scotland.”

“Scotland is the name of what you call Ireland,” she replied. “But the old ancient true name of this place that we have our foot-soles on, and that our bones are made of, will be Alban. It was Alban they called it when our forefathers will be fighting for it against Rome and Alexander; and it is called so still in your own tongue that you forget.”

“Troth,” said I, “and that I never learned!” For I lacked heart to take her up about the Macedonian.

“But your fathers and mothers talked it, one generation with another,” said she. “And it was sung about the cradles before you or me were ever dreamed of; and your name remembers it still. Ah, if you could talk that language you would find me another girl. The heart speaks in that tongue.”

I had a meal with the two ladies, all very good, served in fine old plate, and the wine excellent, for it seems that Mrs. Ogilvy was rich. Our talk, too, was pleasant enough; but as soon as I saw the sun decline sharply and the shadows to run out long, I rose to take my leave. For my mind was now made up to say farewell to Alan; and it was needful I should see the trysting wood, and reconnoitre it, by daylight. Catriona came with me as far as to the garden gate.

“It is long till I see you now?” she asked.

“It is beyond my judging,” I replied. “It will be long, it may be never.”

“It may be so,” said she. “And you are sorry?”

I bowed my head, looking upon her.

“So am I, at all events,” said she. “I have seen you but a small time, but I put you very high. You are true, you are brave; in time I think you will be more of a man yet. I will be proud to hear of that. If you should speed worse, if it will come to fall as we are afraid–O well! think you have the one friend. Long after you are dead and me an old wife, I will be telling the bairns about David Balfour, and my tears running. I will be telling how we parted, and what I said to you, and did to you. GOD GO WITH YOU AND GUIDE YOU, PRAYS YOUR LITTLE FRIEND: so I said–I will be telling them–and here is what I did.”

She took up my hand and kissed it. This so surprised my spirits that I cried out like one hurt. The colour came strong in her face, and she looked at me and nodded.

“O yes, Mr. David,” said she, “that is what I think of you. The head goes with the lips.”

I could read in her face high spirit, and a chivalry like a brave child’s; not anything besides. She kissed my hand, as she had kissed Prince Charlie’s, with a higher passion than the common kind of clay has any sense of. Nothing before had taught me how deep I was her lover, nor how far I had yet to climb to make her think of me in such a character. Yet I could tell myself I had advanced some way, and that her heart had beat and her blood flowed at thoughts of me.

After that honour she had done me I could offer no more trivial civility. It was even hard for me to speak; a certain lifting in her voice had knocked directly at the door of my own tears.

“I praise God for your kindness, dear,” said I. “Farewell, my little friend!” giving her that name which she had given to herself; with which I bowed and left her.

My way was down the glen of the Leith River, towards Stockbridge and Silvermills. A path led in the foot of it, the water bickered and sang in the midst; the sunbeams overhead struck out of the west among long shadows and (as the valley turned) made like a new scene and a new world of it at every corner. With Catriona behind and Alan before me, I was like one lifted up. The place besides, and the hour, and the talking of the water, infinitely pleased me; and I lingered in my steps and looked before and behind me as I went. This was the cause, under Providence, that I spied a little in my rear a red head among some bushes.

Anger sprang in my heart, and I turned straight about and walked at a stiff pace to where I came from. The path lay close by the bushes where I had remarked the head. The cover came to the wayside, and as I passed I was all strung up to meet and to resist an onfall. No such thing befell, I went by unmeddled with; and at that fear increased upon me. It was still day indeed, but the place exceeding solitary. If my haunters had let slip that fair occasion I could but judge they aimed at something more than David Balfour. The lives of Alan and James weighed upon my spirit with the weight of two grown bullocks.

Catriona was yet in the garden walking by herself.

“Catriona,” said I, “you see me back again.”

“With a changed face,” said she.

“I carry two men’s lives besides my own,” said I. “It would be a sin and shame not to walk carefully. I was doubtful whether I did right to come here. I would like it ill, if it was by that means we were brought to harm.”

“I could tell you one that would be liking it less, and will like little enough to hear you talking at this very same time,” she cried. “What have I done, at all events?”

“O, you I you are not alone,” I replied. “But since I went off I have been dogged again, and I can give you the name of him that follows me. It is Neil, son of Duncan, your man or your father’s.”

“To be sure you are mistaken there,” she said, with a white face. “Neil is in Edinburgh on errands from my father.”

“It is what I fear,” said I, “the last of it. But for his being in Edinburgh I think I can show you another of that. For sure you have some signal, a signal of need, such as would bring him to your help, if he was anywhere within the reach of ears and legs?”

“Why, how will you know that?” says she.

“By means of a magical talisman God gave to me when I was born, and the name they call it by is Common-sense,” said I. “Oblige me so far as make your signal, and I will show you the red head of Neil.”

No doubt but I spoke bitter and sharp. My heart was bitter. I blamed myself and the girl and hated both of us: her for the vile crew that she was come of, myself for my wanton folly to have stuck my head in such a byke of wasps.

Catriona set her fingers to her lips and whistled once, with an exceeding clear, strong, mounting note, as full as a ploughman’s. A while we stood silent; and I was about to ask her to repeat the same, when I heard the sound of some one bursting through the bushes below on the braeside. I pointed in that direction with a smile, and presently Neil leaped into the garden. His eyes burned, and he had a black knife (as they call it on the Highland side) naked in his hand; but, seeing me beside his mistress, stood like a man struck.

“He has come to your call,” said I; “judge how near he was to Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father’s errands. Ask himself. If I am to lose my life, or the lives of those that hang by me, through the means of your clan, let me go where I have to go with my eyes open.”

She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic. Remembering Alan’s anxious civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for bitterness; here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was the hour she should have stuck by English.

Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil (for all his obsequiousness) was an angry man.

Then she turned to me. “He swears it is not,” she said.

“Catriona,” said I, “do you believe the man yourself?”

She made a gesture like wringing the hands.

“How will I can know?” she cried.

But I must find some means to know,” said I. “I cannot continue to go dovering round in the black night with two men’s lives at my girdle! Catriona, try to put yourself in my place, as I vow to God I try hard to put myself in yours. This is no kind of talk that should ever have fallen between me and you; no kind of talk; my heart is sick with it. See, keep him here till two of the morning, and I care not. Try him with that.”

They spoke together once more in the Gaelic.

“He says he has James More my father’s errand,” said she. She was whiter than ever, and her voice faltered as she said it.

“It is pretty plain now,” said I, “and may God forgive the wicked!”

She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with the same white face.

“This is a fine business,” said I again. “Am I to fall, then, and those two along with me?”

“O, what am I to do?” she cried. “Could I go against my father’s orders, him in prison, in the danger of his life!”

“But perhaps we go too fast,” said I. “This may be a lie too. He may have no right orders; all may be contrived by Simon, and your father knowing nothing.”

She burst out weeping between the pair of us; and my heart smote me hard, for I thought this girl was in a dreadful situation.

“Here,” said I, “keep him but the one hour; and I’ll chance it, and may God bless you.”

She put out her hand to me, “I will he needing one good word,” she sobbed.

“The full hour, then?” said I, keeping her hand in mine. “Three lives of it, my lass!”

“The full hour!” she said, and cried aloud on her Redeemer to forgive her.

I thought it no fit place for me, and fled.

CHAPTER XI–THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS

I lost no time, but down through the valley and by Stockbridge and Silvermills as hard as I could stave. It was Alan’s tryst to be every night between twelve and two “in a bit scrog of wood by east of Silvermills and by south the south mill-lade.” This I found easy enough, where it grew on a steep brae, with the mill-lade flowing swift and deep along the foot of it; and here I began to walk slower and to reflect more reasonably on my employment. I saw I had made but a fool’s bargain with Catriona. It was not to be supposed that Neil was sent alone upon his errand, but perhaps he was the only man belonging to James More; in which case I should have done all I could to hang Catriona’s father, and nothing the least material to help myself. To tell the truth, I fancied neither one of these ideas. Suppose by holding back Neil, the girl should have helped to hang her father, I thought she would never forgive herself this side of time. And suppose there were others pursuing me that moment, what kind of a gift was I come bringing to Alan? and how would I like that?

I was up with the west end of that wood when these two considerations struck me like a cudgel. My feet stopped of themselves and my heart along with them. “What wild game is this that I have been playing?” thought I; and turned instantly upon my heels to go elsewhere.

This brought my face to Silvermills; the path came past the village with a crook, but all plainly visible; and, Highland or Lowland, there was nobody stirring. Here was my advantage, here was just such a conjuncture as Stewart had counselled me to profit by, and I ran by the side of the mill-lade, fetched about beyond the east corner of the wood, threaded through the midst of it, and returned to the west selvage, whence I could again command the path, and yet be myself unseen. Again it was all empty, and my heart began to rise.

For more than an hour I sat close in the border of the trees, and no hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch. When that hour began the sun was already set, but the sky still all golden and the daylight clear; before the hour was done it had fallen to be half mirk, the images and distances of things were mingled, and observation began to be difficult. All that time not a foot of man had come east from Silvermills, and the few that had gone west were honest countryfolk and their wives upon the road to bed. If I were tracked by the most cunning spies in Europe, I judged it was beyond the course of nature they could have any jealousy of where I was: and going a little further home into the wood I lay down to wait for Alan.

The strain of my attention had been great, for I had watched not the path only, but every bush and field within my vision. That was now at an end. The moon, which was in her first quarter, glinted a little in the wood; all round there was a stillness of the country; and as I lay there on my back, the next three or four hours, I had a fine occasion to review my conduct.

Two things became plain to me first: that I had no right to go that day to Dean, and (having gone there) had now no right to be lying where I was. This (where Alan was to come) was just the one wood in all broad Scotland that was, by every proper feeling, closed against me; I admitted that, and yet stayed on, wondering at myself. I thought of the measure with which I had meted to Catriona that same night; how I had prated of the two lives I carried, and had thus forced her to enjeopardy her father’s; and how I was here exposing them again, it seemed in wantonness. A good conscience is eight parts of courage. No sooner had I lost conceit of my behaviour, than I seemed to stand disarmed amidst a throng of terrors. Of a sudden I sat up. How if I went now to Prestongrange, caught him (as I still easily might) before he slept, and made a full submission? Who could blame me? Not Stewart the Writer; I had but to say that I was followed, despaired of getting clear, and so gave in. Not Catriona: here, too, I had my answer ready; that I could not bear she should expose her father. So, in a moment, I could lay all these troubles by, which were after all and truly none of mine; swim clear of the Appin Murder; get forth out of hand-stroke of all the Stewarts and Campbells, all the Whigs and Tories, in the land; and live henceforth to my own mind, and be able to enjoy and to improve my fortunes, and devote some hours of my youth to courting Catriona, which would be surely a more suitable occupation than to hide and run and be followed like a hunted thief, and begin over again the dreadful miseries of my escape with Alan.

At first I thought no shame of this capitulation; I was only amazed I had not thought upon the thing and done it earlier; and began to inquire into the causes of the change. These I traced to my lowness of spirits, that back to my late recklessness, and that again to the common, old, public, disconsidered sin of self- indulgence. Instantly the text came in my head, “HOW CAN SATAN CAST OUT SATAN?” What? (I thought) I had, by self-indulgence; and the following of pleasant paths, and the lure of a young maid, cast myself wholly out of conceit with my own character, and jeopardised the lives of James and Alan? And I was to seek the way out by the same road as I had entered in? No; the hurt that had been caused by self-indulgence must be cured by self-denial; the flesh I had pampered must be crucified. I looked about me for that course which I least liked to follow: this was to leave the wood without waiting to see Alan, and go forth again alone, in the dark and in the midst of my perplexed and dangerous fortunes.

I have been the more careful to narrate this passage of my reflections, because I think it is of some utility, and may serve as an example to young men. But there is reason (they say) in planting kale, and even in ethic and religion, room for common sense. It was already close on Alan’s hour, and the moon was down. If I left (as I could not very decently whistle to my spies to follow me) they might miss me in the dark and tack themselves to Alan by mistake. If I stayed, I could at the least of it set my friend upon his guard which might prove his mere salvation. I had adventured other peoples’ safety in a course of self-indulgence; to have endangered them again, and now on a mere design of penance, would have been scarce rational. Accordingly, I had scarce risen from my place ere I sat down again, but already in a different frame of spirits, and equally marvelling at my past weakness and rejoicing in my present composure.

Presently after came a crackling in the thicket. Putting my mouth near down to the ground, I whistled a note or two, of Alan’s air; an answer came in the like guarded tone, and soon we had knocked together in the dark.

“Is this you at last, Davie?” he whispered.

“Just myself,” said I.

“God, man, but I’ve been wearying to see ye!” says he. “I’ve had the longest kind of a time. A’ day, I’ve had my dwelling into the inside of a stack of hay, where I couldnae see the nebs of my ten fingers; and then two hours of it waiting here for you, and you never coming! Dod, and ye’re none too soon the way it is, with me to sail the morn! The morn? what am I saying?–the day, I mean.”

“Ay, Alan, man, the day, sure enough,” said I. “It’s past twelve now, surely, and ye sail the day. This’ll be a long road you have before you.”

“We’ll have a long crack of it first,” said he.

“Well, indeed, and I have a good deal it will be telling you to hear,” said I.

And I told him what behooved, making rather a jumble of it, but clear enough when done. He heard me out with very few questions, laughing here and there like a man delighted: and the sound of his laughing (above all there, in the dark, where neither one of us could see the other) was extraordinary friendly to my heart.

“Ay, Davie, ye’re a queer character,” says he, when I had done: “a queer bitch after a’, and I have no mind of meeting with the like of ye. As for your story, Prestongrange is a Whig like yoursel’, so I’ll say the less of him; and, dod! I believe he was the best friend ye had, if ye could only trust him. But Simon Fraser and James More are my ain kind of cattle, and I’ll give them the name that they deserve. The muckle black deil was father to the Frasers, a’body kens that; and as for the Gregara, I never could abye the reek of them since I could stotter on two feet. I bloodied the nose of one, I mind, when I was still so wambly on my legs that I cowped upon the top of him. A proud man was my father that day, God rest him! and I think he had the cause. I’ll never can deny but what Robin was something of a piper,” he added; “but as for James More, the deil guide him for me!”

“One thing we have to consider,” said I. “Was Charles Stewart right or wrong? Is it only me they’re after, or the pair of us?”

“And what’s your ain opinion, you that’s a man of so much experience?” said he.

“It passes me,” said I.

“And me too,” says Alan. “Do ye think this lass would keep her word to ye?” he asked.

“I do that,” said I.

“Well, there’s nae telling,” said he. “And anyway, that’s over and done: he’ll be joined to the rest of them lang syne.”

“How many would ye think there would be of them?” I asked.

“That depends,” said Alan. “If it was only you, they would likely send two-three lively, brisk young birkies, and if they thought that I was to appear in the employ, I daresay ten or twelve,” said he.

It was no use, I gave a little crack of laughter.

“And I think your own two eyes will have seen me drive that number, or the double of it, nearer hand!” cries he.

“It matters the less,” said I, “because I am well rid of them for this time.”

“Nae doubt that’s your opinion,” said he; “but I wouldnae be the least surprised if they were hunkering this wood. Ye see, David man; they’ll be Hieland folk. There’ll be some Frasers, I’m thinking, and some of the Gregara; and I would never deny but what the both of them, and the Gregara in especial, were clever experienced persons. A man kens little till he’s driven a spreagh of neat cattle (say) ten miles through a throng lowland country and the black soldiers maybe at his tail. It’s there that I learned a great part of my penetration. And ye need nae tell me: it’s better than war; which is the next best, however, though generally rather a bauchle of a business. Now the Gregara have had grand practice.”

“No doubt that’s a branch of education that was left out with me,” said I.

“And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly,” said Alan. “But that’s the strange thing about you folk of the college learning: ye’re ignorat, and ye cannae see ‘t. Wae’s me for my Greek and Hebrew; but, man, I ken that I dinnae ken them–there’s the differ of it. Now, here’s you. Ye lie on your wame a bittie in the bield of this wood, and ye tell me that ye’ve cuist off these Frasers and Macgregors. Why? BECAUSE I COULDNAE SEE THEM, says you. Ye blockhead, that’s their livelihood.”

“Take the worst of it,” said I, “and what are we to do?”

“I am thinking of that same,” said he. “We might twine. It wouldnae be greatly to my taste; and forbye that, I see reasons against it. First, it’s now unco dark, and it’s just humanly possible we might give them the clean slip. If we keep together, we make but the ae line of it; if we gang separate, we make twae of them: the more likelihood to stave in upon some of these gentry of yours. And then, second, if they keep the track of us, it may come to a fecht for it yet, Davie; and then, I’ll confess I would be blythe to have you at my oxter, and I think you would be none the worse of having me at yours. So, by my way of it, we should creep out of this wood no further gone than just the inside of next minute, and hold away east for Gillane, where I’m to find my ship. It’ll be like old days while it lasts, Davie; and (come the time) we’ll have to think what you should be doing. I’m wae to leave ye here, wanting me.”

“Have with ye, then!” says I. “Do ye gang back where you were stopping?”

“Deil a fear!” said Alan. “They were good folks to me, but I think they would be a good deal disappointed if they saw my bonny face again. For (the way times go) I amnae just what ye could call a Walcome Guest. Which makes me the keener for your company, Mr. David Balfour of the Shaws, and set ye up! For, leave aside twa cracks here in the wood with Charlie Stewart, I have scarce said black or white since the day we parted at Corstorphine.”

With which he rose from his place, and we began to move quietly eastward through the wood.

CHAPTER XII–ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN

It was likely between one and two; the moon (as I have said) was down; a strongish wind, carrying a heavy wrack of cloud, had set in suddenly from the west; and we began our movement in as black a night as ever a fugitive or a murderer wanted. The whiteness of the path guided us into the sleeping town of Broughton, thence through Picardy, and beside my old acquaintance the gibbet of the two thieves. A little beyond we made a useful beacon, which was a light in an upper window of Lochend. Steering by this, but a good deal at random, and with some trampling of the harvest, and stumbling and falling down upon the banks, we made our way across country, and won forth at last upon the linky, boggy muirland that they call the Figgate Whins. Here, under a bush of whin, we lay down the remainder of that night and slumbered.

The day called us about five. A beautiful morning it was, the high westerly wind still blowing strong, but the clouds all blown away to Europe. Alan was already sitting up and smiling to himself. It was my first sight of my friend since we were parted, and I looked upon him with enjoyment. He had still the same big great-coat on his back; but (what was new) he had now a pair of knitted boot-hose drawn above the knee. Doubtless these were intended for disguise; but, as the day promised to be warm, he made a most unseasonable figure.

“Well, Davie,” said he, “is this no a bonny morning? Here is a day that looks the way that a day ought to. This is a great change of it from the belly of my haystack; and while you were there sottering and sleeping I have done a thing that maybe I do very seldom.”

“And what was that?” said I.

“O, just said my prayers,” said he.

“And where are my gentry, as ye call them?” I asked.

“Gude kens,” says he; “and the short and the long of it is that we must take our chance of them. Up with your foot-soles, Davie! Forth, Fortune, once again of it! And a bonny walk we are like to have.”

So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt- pans were smoking in by the Esk mouth. No doubt there was a by- ordinary bonny blink of morning sun on Arthur’s Seat and the green Pentlands; and the pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.

“I feel like a gomeral,” says he, “to be leaving Scotland on a day like this. It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to stay here and hing.”

“Ay, but ye wouldnae, Alan,” said I.

“No, but what France is a good place too,” he explained; “but it’s some way no the same. It’s brawer I believe, but it’s no Scotland. I like it fine when I’m there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and the Scots peat-reek.”

“If that’s all you have to complain of, Alan, it’s no such great affair,” said I.

“And it sets me ill to be complaining, whatever,” said he, “and me but new out of yon deil’s haystack.”

“And so you were unco weary of your haystack?” I asked.

“Weary’s nae word for it,” said he. “I’m not just precisely a man that’s easily cast down; but I do better with caller air and the lift above my head. I’m like the auld Black Douglas (wasnae’t?) that likit better to hear the laverock sing than the mouse cheep. And yon place, ye see, Davie–whilk was a very suitable place to hide in, as I’m free to own–was pit mirk from dawn to gloaming. There were days (or nights, for how would I tell one from other?) that seemed to me as long as a long winter.”

“How did you know the hour to bide your tryst?” I asked.

“The goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle- dowp to eat it by, about eleeven,” said he. “So, when I had swallowed a bit, it would he time to be getting to the wood. There I lay and wearied for ye sore, Davie,” says he, laying his hand on my shoulder “and guessed when the two hours would be about by– unless Charlie Stewart would come and tell me on his watch–and then back to the dooms haystack. Na, it was a driech employ, and praise the Lord that I have warstled through with it!”

“What did you do with yourself?” I asked.

“Faith,” said he, “the best I could! Whiles I played at the knucklebones. I’m an extraordinar good hand at the knucklebones, but it’s a poor piece of business playing with naebody to admire ye. And whiles I would make songs.”

“What were they about?” says I.

“O, about the deer and the heather,” says he, “and about the ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just about what songs are about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set of pipes and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought I played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of them! But the great affair is that it’s done with.”

With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all over again with more particularity, and extraordinary approval, swearing at intervals that I was “a queer character of a callant.”

“So ye were frich’ened of Sim Fraser?” he asked once.

“In troth was I!” cried I.

“So would I have been, Davie,” said he. “And that is indeed a driedful man. But it is only proper to give the deil his due: and I can tell you he is a most respectable person on the field of war.”

“Is he so brave?” I asked.

“Brave!” said he. “He is as brave as my steel sword.”

The story of my duel set him beside himself.

“To think of that!” he cried. “I showed ye the trick in Corrynakiegh too. And three times–three times disarmed! It’s a disgrace upon my character that learned ye! Here, stand up, out with your airn; ye shall walk no step beyond this place upon the road till ye can do yoursel’ and me mair credit.”

“Alan,” said I, “this is midsummer madness. Here is no time for fencing lessons.”

“I cannae well say no to that,” he admitted. “But three times, man! And you standing there like a straw bogle and rinning to fetch your ain sword like a doggie with a pocket-napkin! David, this man Duncansby must be something altogether by-ordinar! He maun be extraordinar skilly. If I had the time, I would gang straight back and try a turn at him mysel’. The man must be a provost.”

“You silly fellow,” said I, “you forget it was just me.”

“Na,” said he, “but three times!”

“When ye ken yourself that I am fair incompetent,” I cried.

“Well, I never heard tell the equal of it,” said he.

“I promise you the one thing, Alan,” said I. “The next time that we forgather, I’ll be better learned. You shall not continue to bear the disgrace of a friend that cannot strike.”

“Ay, the next time!” says he. “And when will that be, I would like to ken?”

“Well, Alan, I have had some thoughts of that, too,” said I; “and my plan is this. It’s my opinion to be called an advocate.”

“That’s but a weary trade, Davie,” says Alan, “and rather a blagyard one forby. Ye would be better in a king’s coat than that.”

“And no doubt that would be the way to have us meet,” cried I. “But as you’ll be in King Lewie’s coat, and I’ll be in King Geordie’s, we’ll have a dainty meeting of it.”

“There’s some sense in that,” he admitted

“An advocate, then, it’ll have to be,” I continued, “and I think it a more suitable trade for a gentleman that was THREE TIMES disarmed. But the beauty of the thing is this: that one of the best colleges for that kind of learning–and the one where my kinsman, Pilrig, made his studies–is the college of Leyden in Holland. Now, what say you, Alan? Could not a cadet of Royal Ecossais get a furlough, slip over the marches, and call in upon a Leyden student?”

“Well, and I would think he could!” cried he. “Ye see, I stand well in with my colonel, Count Drummond-Melfort; and, what’s mair to the purpose I have a cousin of mine lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of the Scots-Dutch. Naething could be mair proper than what I would get a leave to see Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of Halkett’s. And Lord Melfort, who is a very scienteefic kind of a man, and writes books like Caesar, would be doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my observes.”

“Is Lord Meloort an author, then?” I asked, for much as Alan thought of soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books.

“The very same, Davie,” said he. “One would think a colonel would have something better to attend to. But what can I say that make songs?”

“Well, then,” said I, “it only remains you should give me an address to write you at in France; and as soon as I am got to Leyden I will send you mine.”

“The best will be to write me in the care of my chieftain,” said he, “Charles Stewart, of Ardsheil, Esquire, at the town of Melons, in the Isle of France. It might take long, or it might take short, but it would aye get to my hands at the last of it.”

We had a haddock to our breakfast in Musselburgh, where it amused me vastly to hear Alan. His great-coat and boot-hose were extremely remarkable this warm morning, and perhaps some hint of an explanation had been wise; but Alan went into that matter like a business, or I should rather say, like a diversion. He engaged the goodwife of the house with some compliments upon the rizzoring of our haddocks; and the whole of the rest of our stay held her in talk about a cold he had taken on his stomach, gravely relating all manner of symptoms and sufferings, and hearing with a vast show of interest all the old wives’ remedies she could supply him with in