"The gomeral is much obliged," said I.

"And was not this prettily done?" he went on. "Is not this Highland maid
a piece of a heroine?"

"I was always sure she had a great heart," said I. "And I wager she
guessed nothing.... But I beg your pardon, this is to tread upon
forbidden subjects."

"I will go bail she did not," he returned, quite openly. "I will go bail
she thought she was flying straight into King George's face."

Remembrance of Catriona, and the thought of her lying in captivity,
moved me strangely. I could see that even Prestongrange admired, and
could not withhold his lips from smiling when he considered her
behaviour. As for Miss Grant, for all her ill habit of mockery, her
admiration shone out plain. A kind of a heat came on me.

"I am not your lordship's daughter..." I began.

"That I know of!" he put in smiling.

"I speak like a fool," said I, "or rather I began wrong. It would
doubtless be unwise in Mistress Grant to go to her in prison; but for
me, I think I would look like a half-hearted friend if I did not fly
there instantly."

"So-ho, Mr. David," says he, "I thought that you and I were in a
bargain?"

"My lord," I said, "when I made that bargain I was a good deal affected
by your goodness, but I'll never can deny that I was moved besides by my
own interest. There was self-seeking in my heart, and I think shame of
it now. It may be for your lordship's safety to say this fashious Davie
Balfour is your friend and housemate. Say it then; I'll never contradict
you. But as for your patronage, I give it all back. I ask but the one
thing--let me go, and give me a pass to see her in her prison."

He looked at me with a hard eye. "You put the cart before the horse, I
think," says he. "That which I had given was a portion of my liking,
which your thankless nature does not seem to have remarked. But for my
patronage, it is not given, nor (to be exact) is it yet offered." He
paused a bit. "And I warn you, you do not know yourself," he added.
"Youth is a hasty season; you will think better of all this before a
year."

"Well, and I would like to be that kind of youth!" I cried. "I have seen
too much of the other party, in these young advocates that fawn upon
your lordship and are even at the pains to fawn on me. And I have seen
it in the old ones also. They are all for by-ends, the whole clan of
them! It's this that makes me seem to misdoubt your lordship's liking.
Why would I think that you would like me? But ye told me yourself ye had
an interest!"

I stopped at this, confounded that I had run so far; he was observing me
with a unfathomable face.

"My lord, I ask your pardon," I resumed. "I have nothing in my chafts
but a rough country tongue. I think it would be only decent-like if I
would go to see my friend in her captivity; but I'm owing you my life,
I'll never forget that; and-if it's for your lordship's good, here I'll
stay. That's barely gratitude."

"This might have been reached in fewer words," says Prestongrange,
grimly. "It is easy, and it is at times gracious, to say a plain Scots
'ay'."

"Ah, but, my lord, I think ye take me not yet entirely!" cried I. "For
_your_ sake, for my life-safe, and the kindness that ye say ye bear to
me--for these, I'll consent; but not for any good that might be coming
to myself. If I stand aside when this young maid is in her trial, it's a
thing I will be noways advantaged by; I will lose by it, I will never
gain. I would rather make a shipwreck wholly than to build on that
foundation."

He was a minute serious, then smiled. "You mind me of the man with the
long nose," said he: "was you to look at the moon by a telescope, you
would see David Balfour there! But you shall have your way of it. I will
ask at you one service, and then set you free. My clerks are overdriven;
be so good as copy me these few pages," says he, visibly swithering
among some huge rolls of manuscripts, "and when that is done, I shall
bid you God speed! I would never charge myself with Mr. David's
conscience; and if you could cast some part of it (as you went by) in a
moss hag, you would find yourself to ride much easier without it."

"Perhaps not just entirely in the same direction though, my lord!" says
I.

"And you shall have the last word, too!" cries he gaily.

Indeed he had some cause for gaiety, having now found the means to gain
his purpose. To lessen the weight of the memorial, or to have a readier
answer at his hand, he desired I should appear publicly in the character
of his intimate. But if I were to appear with the same publicity as a
visitor to Catriona in her prison the world would scarce stint to draw
conclusions, and the true nature of James More's escape must become
evident to all. This was the little problem I had set him of a sudden,
and to which he had so briskly found an answer. I was to be tethered in
Glasgow by that job of copying, which in mere outward decency I could
not well refuse; and during these hours of my employment Catriona was
privately got rid of. I think shame to write of this man that loaded me
with so many goodnesses. He was kind to me as any father, yet I ever
thought him as false as a cracked bell.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XIX

I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES


The copying was a weary business, the more so as I perceived very early
there was no sort of urgency in the matters treated, and began very
early to consider my employment a pretext. I had no sooner finished,
than I got to horse, used what remained of daylight to the best purpose,
and being at last fairly benighted, slept in a house by Almond-Water
side. I was in the saddle again before the day, and the Edinburgh booths
were just opening when I clattered in by the West Bow and drew up a
smoking horse at my lord Advocate's door. I had a written word for Doig,
my lord's private hand that was thought to be in all his secrets, a
worthy, little plain man, all fat and snuff and self-sufficiency. Him I
found already at his desk and already bedabbled with maccabaw, in the
same anteroom where I rencountered with James More. He read the note
scrupulously through like a chapter in his Bible.

"H'm," says he, "ye come a wee thing ahint-hand, Mr. Balfour. The bird's
flaen, we hae letten her out."

"Miss Drummond is set free?" I cried.

"Achy!" said he. "What would we keep her for, ye ken? To hae made a
steer about the bairn would hae pleased naebody."

"And where'll she be now?" says I.

"Gude kens!" says Doig, with a shrug.

"She'll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I'm thinking," said I.

"That'll be it," said he.

"Then I'll gang there straight," says I.

"But ye'll be for a bite or ye go?" said he.

"Neither bite nor sup," said I. "I had a good waucht of milk in by
Ratho."

"Aweel, aweel," says Doig. "But ye'll can leave your horse here and your
bags, for it seems we're to have your up-put."

"Na, na," said I. "Tamson's mear[17] would never be the thing for me,
this day of all days."

Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an accent
much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect, a good deal
broader indeed than I have written it down; and I was the more ashamed
when another voice joined in behind me with a scrap of a ballad:

    "Gae saddle me the bonny black,
      Gae saddle sune and mak' him ready,
    For I will down the Gatehope-slack,
      And a' to see my bonny leddy."

The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and her
hands muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance. Yet I could
not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she saw me.

"My best respects to you, Mistress Grant," said I bowing.

"The like to yourself, Mr. David," she replied, with a deep courtesy,
"And I beg to remind you of an old musty saw, that meat and mass never
hindered man. The mass I cannot afford you, for we are all good
Protestants. But the meat I press on your attention. And I would not
wonder but I could find something for your private ear that would be
worth the stopping for."

"Mistress Grant," said I, "I believe I am already your debtor for some
merry words--and I think they were kind too--on a piece of unsigned
paper."

"Unsigned paper?" says she, and made a droll face, which was likewise
wondrous beautiful, as of one trying to remember.

"Or else I am the more deceived," I went on. "But to be sure, we shall
have the time to speak of these, since your father is so good as to make
me for a while your inmate; and the _gomeral_ begs you at this time only
for the favour of his liberty."

"You give yourself hard names," said she.

"Mr. Doig and I would be blythe to take harder at your clever pen," says
I.

"Once more I have to admire the discretion of all men-folk," she
replied. "But if you will not eat, off with you at once; you will be
back the sooner, for you go on a fool's errand. Off with you, Mr.
David," she continued, opening the door.

    "He has lowpen on his bonny grey,
      He rade the richt gate and the ready;
    I trow he would neither stint nor stay,
      Far he was seeking his bonny leddy."

I did not wait to be twice bidden, and did justice to Miss Grant's
citation on the way to Dean.

Old Lady Allardyce walked there alone in the garden, in her hat and
mutch, and having a silver-mounted staff of some black wood to lean
upon. As I alighted from my horse, and drew near to her with _congees_,
I could see the blood come in her face, and her head fling into the air
like what I had conceived of empresses.

"What brings you to my poor door?" she cried, speaking high through her
nose. "I cannot bar it. The males of my house are dead and buried; I
have neither son nor husband to stand in the gate for me; any beggar can
pluck me by the baird[18]--and a baird there is, and that's the worst of
it yet!" she added, partly to herself.

I was extremely put out at this reception, and the last remark, which
seemed like a daft wife's, left me near hand speechless.

"I see I have fallen under your displeasure, ma'am," said I. "Yet I will
still be so bold as ask after Mistress Drummond."

She considered me with a burning eye, her lips pressed close together
into twenty creases, her hand shaking on her staff. "This cows all!" she
cried. "Ye come to me to spier for her! Would God I knew!"

"She is not here?" I cried.

She threw up her chin and made a step and a cry at me, so that I fell
back incontinent.

"Out upon your leeing throat!" she cried. "What! ye come and spier at
me! She's in jyle, whaur ye took her to--that's all there is to it. And
of a' the beings ever I beheld in breeks, to think it should be you! Ye
timmer scoun'rel, if I had a male left to my name I would have your
jaicket dustit till ye raired."

I thought it not good to delay longer in that place because I remarked
her passion to be rising. As I turned to the horse-post she even
followed me; and I make no shame to confess that I rode away with the
one stirrup on and scrambling for the other.

As I knew no other quarter where I could push my inquiries, there was
nothing left me but to return to the Advocate's. I was well received by
the four ladies, who were now in company together, and must give the
news of Prestongrange and what word went in the west country, at the
most inordinate length and with great weariness to myself; while all the
time that young lady, with whom I so much desired to be alone again,
observed me quizzically and seemed to find pleasure in the sight of my
impatience. At last, after I had endured a meal with them, and was come
very near the point of appealing for an interview before her aunt, she
went and stood by the music case, and picking out a tune, sang to it on
a high key--"He that will not when he may, When he will he shall have
nay." But this was the end of her rigours, and presently, after making
some excuse of which I have no mind, she carried me away in private to
her father's library. I should not fail to say that she was dressed to
the nines, and appeared extraordinary handsome.

"Now, Mr. David, sit ye down here and let us have a two-handed crack,"
said she. "For I have much to tell you, and it appears besides that I
have been grossly unjust to your good taste."

"In what manner, Mistress Grant?" I asked. "I trust I have never seemed
to fail in due respect."

"I will be your surety, Mr. David," said she. "Your respect, whether to
yourself or your poor neighbours, has been always and most fortunately
beyond imitation. But that is by the question. You got a note from me?"
she asked.

"I was so bold as to suppose so upon inference," said I, "and it was
kindly thought upon."

"It must have prodigiously surprised you," said she. "But let us begin
with the beginning. You have not perhaps forgot a day when you were so
kind as to escort three very tedious misses to Hope Park? I have the
less cause to forget it myself, because you was so particular obliging
as to introduce me to some of the principles of the Latin grammar, a
thing which wrote itself profoundly on my gratitude."

"I fear I was sadly pedantical," said I, overcome with confusion at the
memory. "You are only to consider I am quite unused with the society of
ladies."

"I will say the less about the grammar then," she replied. "But how came
you to desert your charge? 'He has thrown her out, overboard, his ain
dear Annie!'" she hummed; "and his ain dear Annie and her two sisters
had to taigle home by theirselves like a string of green geese! It seems
you returned to my papa's, where you showed yourself excessively
martial, and then on to realms unknown, with an eye (it appears) to the
Bass Rock; solan geese being perhaps more to your mind than bonny
lasses."

Through all this raillery there was something indulgent in the lady's
eye which made me suppose there might be better coming.

"You take a pleasure to torment me," said I, "and I make a very feckless
plaything; but let me ask you to be more merciful. At this time there is
but the one thing that I care to hear of, and that will be news of
Catriona."

"Do you call her by that name to her face, Mr. Balfour?" she asked.

"In troth, and I am not very sure," I stammered.

"I would not do so in any case to strangers," said Miss Grant. "And why
are you so much immersed in the affairs of this young lady?"

"I heard she was in prison," said I.

"Well, and now you hear that she is out of it," she replied, "and what
more would you have? She has no need of any further champion."

"I may have the greater need of her, ma'am," said I.

"Come, this is better!" says Miss Grant. "But look me fairly in the
face; am I not bonnier than she?"

"I would be the last to be denying it," said I. "There is not your
marrow in all Scotland."

"Well, here you have the pick of the two at your hand, and must needs
speak of the other," said she. "This is never the way to please the
ladies, Mr. Balfour."

"But, mistress," said I, "there are surely other things besides mere
beauty."

"By which I am to understand that I am no better than I should be,
perhaps?" she asked.

"By which you will please understand that I am like the cock in the
midden in the fable book," said I. "I see the braw jewel--and I like
fine to see it too--but I have more need of the pickle corn."

"Bravissimo!" she cried. "There is a word well said at last, and I will
reward you for it with my story. That same night of your desertion I
came late from a friend's house--where I was excessively admired,
whatever you may think of it--and what should I hear but that a lass in
a tartan screen desired to speak with me? She had been there an hour or
better, said the servant-lass, and she grat in to herself as she sat
waiting. I went to her direct; she rose as I came in, and I knew her at
a look. '_Grey Eyes!_' says I to myself, but was more wise than to let
on. _You will be Miss Grant at last?_ she says, rising and looking at me
hard and pitiful. _Ay, it was true he said, you are bonny at all
events.--The way God made me, my dear_, I said, _but I would be gey and
obliged if ye could tell me what brought you here at such a time of the
night--Lady_, she said, _we are kinsfolk, we are both come of the blood
of the sons of Alpin.--My dear_, I replied, _I think no more of Alpin or
his sons than what I do of a kale-stock. You have a better argument in
these tears upon your bonny face_. And at that I was so weakminded as to
kiss her, which is what you would like to do dearly, and I wager will
never find the courage of. I say it was weakminded of me, for I knew no
more of her than the outside; but it was the wisest stroke I could have
hit upon. She is a very staunch, brave nature, but I think she has been
little used with tenderness; and at that caress (though to say the
truth, it was but lightly given) her heart went out to me. I will never
betray the secrets of my sex, Mr. Davie; I will never tell you the way
she turned me round her thumb, because it is the same she will use to
twist yourself. Ay, it is a fine lass! She is as clean as hill well
water."

"She is e'en't!" I cried.

"Well, then, she told me her concerns," pursued Miss Grant, "and in what
a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking about yourself,
with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she had found herself
after you was gone away. _And then I minded at long last,_ says she,
_that we were kinswomen, and that Mr. David should have given you the
name of the bonniest of the bonny, and I was thinking to myself 'If she
is so bonny she will be good at all events; and I took up my foot soles
out of that_. That was when I forgave yourself, Mr. Davie. When you was
in my society, you seemed upon hot iron; by all marks, if ever I saw a
young man that wanted to be gone, it was yourself, and I and my two
sisters were the ladies you were so desirous to be gone from; and now it
appeared you had given me some notice in the bygoing, and was so kind as
to comment on my attractions! From that hour you may date our
friendship, and I began to think with tenderness upon the Latin
grammar."

"You will have many hours to rally me in," said I, "and I think besides
you do yourself injustice, I think it was Catriona turned your heart in
my direction, she is too simple to perceive as you do the stiffness of
her friend."

"I would not like to wager upon that, Mr. David," said she. "The lasses
have clear eyes. But at least she is your friend entirely, as I was to
see. I carried her in to his lordship my papa; and his Advocacy, being
in a favourable stage of claret, was so good as to receive the pair of
us. _Here is Grey Eyes that you have been deaved with these days past_,
said I, _she is come to prove that we spoke true, and I lay the
prettiest lass in the three Lothians at your feet_--making a papistical
reservation of myself. She suited her action to my words; down she went
upon her knees to him--I would not like to swear but he saw two of her,
which doubtless made her appeal the more irresistible, for you are all a
pack of Mahomedans--told him what had passed that night, and how she had
withheld her father's man from following of you, and what a case she was
in about her father, and what a flutter for yourself; and begged with
weeping for the lives of both of you (neither of which was in the
slightest danger) till I vow I was proud of my sex because it was done
so pretty, and ashamed for it because of the smallness of the occasion.
She had not gone far, I assure you, before the Advocate was wholly
sober, to see his inmost politics ravelled out by a young lass and
discovered to the most unruly of his daughters. But we took him in hand,
the pair of us, and brought that matter straight. Properly managed--and
that means managed by me--there is no one to compare with my papa."

"He has been a good man to me," said I.

"Well, he was a good man to Katrine, and I was there to see to it," said
she.

"And she pled for me!" said I.

"She did that, and very movingly," said Miss Grant. "I would not like to
tell you what she said, I find you vain enough already."

"God reward her for it!" cried I.

"With Mr. David Balfour, I suppose?" says she.

"You do me too much injustice at the last!" I cried. "I would tremble to
think of her in such hard hands. Do you think I would presume, because
she begged my life? She would do that for a new whelped puppy! I have
had more than that to set me up, if you but ken'd. She kissed that hand
of mine. Ay, but she did. And why? because she thought I was playing a
brave part and might be going to my death. It was not for my sake, but I
need not be telling that to you that cannot look at me without laughter.
It was for the love of what she thought was bravery. I believe there is
none but me and poor Prince Charlie had that honour done them. Was this
not to make a god of me? and do you not think my heart would quake when
I remember it?"

"I do laugh at you a good deal, and a good deal more than is quite
civil," said she; "but I will tell you one thing: if you speak to her
like that, you have some glimmerings of a chance."

"Me?" I cried, "I would never dare. I can speak to you, Miss Grant,
because it's a matter of indifference what ye think of me. But her? no
fear!" said I.

"I think you have the largest feet in all broad Scotland," says she.

"Troth, they are no very small," said I, looking down.

"Ah, poor Catriona!" cried Miss Grant.

And I could but stare upon her; for though I now see very well what she
was driving at (and perhaps some justification for the same), I was
never swift at the uptake in such flimsy talk.

"Ah well, Mr. David," she said, "it goes sore against my conscience, but
I see I shall have to be your speaking board. She shall know you came to
her straight upon the news of her imprisonment; she shall know you would
not pause to eat; and of your conversation she shall hear just so much
as I think convenient for a maid of her age and inexperience. Believe
me, you will be in that way much better served than you could serve
yourself, for I will keep the big feet out of the platter."

"You know where she is, then?" I exclaimed.

"That I do, Mr. David, and will never tell," said she.

"Why that?" I asked.

"Well," she said, "I am a good friend, as you will soon discover; and
the chief of those that I am a friend to is my papa. I assure you, you
will never heat nor melt me out of that, so you may spare me your
sheep's eyes; and adieu to your David-Balfourship for the now."

"But there is yet one thing more," I cried. "There is one thing that
must be stopped, being mere ruin to herself, and to me too."

"Well," she said, "be brief, I have spent half the day on you already."

"My Lady Allardyce believes," I began, "she supposes--she thinks that I
abducted her."

The colour came into Miss Grant's face, so that at first I was quite
abashed to find her ear so delicate, till I bethought me she was
struggling rather with mirth, a notion in which I was altogether
confirmed by the shaking of her voice as she replied--

"I will take up the defence of your reputation," said she. "You may
leave it in my hands."

And with that she withdrew out of the library.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XX

I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY


For about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange's
family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar, and
the flower of Edinburgh company. You are not to suppose my education was
neglected, on the contrary I was kept extremely busy. I studied the
French, so as to be more prepared to go to Leyden; I set myself to the
fencing, and wrought hard, sometimes three hours in the day, with
notable advancement; at the suggestion of my cousin, Pilrig, who was an
apt musician, I was put to a singing class, and by the orders of my Miss
Grant, to one for the dancing, at which. I must say I proved far from
ornamental. However, all were good enough to say it gave me an address a
little more genteel; and there is no question but I learned to manage my
coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and to stand in a room as
though the same belonged to me. My clothes themselves were all earnestly
re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance, such as where I should
tie my hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated among the three misses
like a thing of weight. One way with another, no doubt I was a good deal
improved to look at, and acquired a bit of a modish air that would have
surprised the good folks at Essendean.

The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my
habiliment, because that was in the line of their chief thoughts. I
cannot say that they appeared any other way conscious of my presence;
and though always more than civil, with a kind of heartless cordiality,
could not hide how much I wearied them. As for the aunt, she was a
wonderful still woman; and I think she gave me much the same attention
as she gave the rest of the family, which was little enough. The eldest
daughter and the Advocate himself were thus my principal friends, and
our familiarity was much increased by a pleasure that we took in common.
Before the court met we spent a day or two at the house of Grange,
living very nobly with an open table, and here it was that we three
began to ride out together in the fields, a practice afterwards
maintained in Edinburgh, so far as the Advocate's continual affairs
permitted. When we were put in a good frame by the briskness of the
exercise, the difficulties of the way, or the accidents of bad weather,
my shyness wore entirely off; we forgot that we were strangers, and
speech not being required, it flowed the more naturally on. Then it was
that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the time that I left
Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the _Covenant_, wanderings in
the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found in my adventures
sprung the circumstance of a jaunt we made a little later on, a day when
the courts were not sitting, and of which I will tell a trifle more at
length.

We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where it
stood smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet early in
the day. Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his horse, and
proceeded alone to visit my uncle. My heart, I remember, swelled up
bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the thought of the
old miser sitting chittering within in the cold kitchen.

"There is my home," said I. "And my family."

"Poor David Balfour!" said Miss Grant.

What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would doubtless
not be very agreeable to Ebenezer; for when the Advocate came forth
again his face was dark.

"I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr. Davie," says he, turning
half about with the one foot in the stirrup.

"I will never pretend sorrow," said I; and, to say the truth, during his
absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place in fancy with
plantations, parterres, and a terrace, much as I have since carried out
in fact.

Thence we pushed to the Queensferry, where Rankeillor gave us a good
welcome, being indeed out of the body to receive so great a visitor.
Here the Advocate was so unaffectedly good as to go quite fully over my
affairs, sitting perhaps two hours with the Writer in his study, and
expressing (I was told) a great esteem for myself and concern for my
fortunes. To while this time, Miss Grant and I and young Rankeillor took
boat and passed the Hope to Limekilns. Rankeillor made himself very
ridiculous (and, I thought offensive) with his admiration for the young
lady, and to my wonder (only it is so common a weakness of her sex) she
seemed, if anything, to be a little gratified. One use it had: for when
we were come to the other side, she laid her commands on him to mind the
boat, while she and I passed a little further to the ale-house. This was
her own thought, for she had been taken with my account of Alison
Hastie, and desired to see the lass herself. We found her once more
alone--indeed, I believe her father wrought all day in the fields--and
she curtsied dutifully to the gentry-folk and the beautiful young lady
in the riding coat.

"Is this all the welcome I am to get?" said I, holding out my hand. "And
have you no more memory of old friends?"

"Keep me! wha's this of it?" she cried, and then, "God's truth, it's the
tautit[19] laddie!"

"The very same," says I.

"Mony's the time I've thocht upon you and your freen, and blythe am I to
see in your braws,"[20] she cried. "Though I kent ye were come to your
ain folk by the grand present that ye sent me and that I thank ye for
with a' my heart."

"There," said Miss Grant to me, "run out by with ye, like a good bairn.
I didnae come here to stand and hand a candle; it's her and me that are
to crack."

I suppose she stayed ten minutes in the house, but when she came forth I
observed two things--that her eyes were reddened, and a silver brooch
was gone out of her bosom. This very much affected me.

"I never saw you so well adorned," said I.

"O Davie man, dinna be a pompous gowk!" said she, and was more than
usually sharp to me the remainder of the day.

About candlelight we came home from this excursion.

For a good while I heard nothing further of Catriona: my Miss Grant
remaining quite impenetrable, and stopping my mouth with pleasantries.
At last, one day that she returned from walking and found me alone in
the parlour over my French, I thought there was something unusual in her
looks; the colour heightened, the eyes sparkling high, and a bit of a
smile continually bitten in as she regarded me. She seemed indeed like
the very spirit of mischief, and walking briskly in the room, had soon
involved me in a kind of quarrel over nothing and (at the least) with
nothing intended on my side. I was like Christian in the slough; the
more I tried to clamber out upon the side, the deeper I became involved;
until at last I heard her declare, with a great deal of passion, that
she would take that answer at the hands of none, and I must down upon my
knees for pardon.

The causelessness of all this fuff stirred my own bile. "I have said
nothing you can properly object to," said I, "and as for my knees, that
is an attitude I keep for God."

"And as a goddess I am to be served!" she cried, shaking her brown locks
at me and with a bright colour. "Every man that comes within waft of my
petticoats shall use me so!"

"I will go so far as ask your pardon for the fashion's sake, although I
vow I know not why," I replied. "But for these play-acting postures, you
can go to others."

"O Davie!" she said. "Not if I was to beg you?"

I bethought me I was fighting with a woman, which is the same as to say
a child, and that upon a point entirely formal.

"I think it a bairnly thing," I said, "not worthy in you to ask, or me
to render. Yet I will not refuse you, neither," said I; "and the stain,
if there be any, rests with yourself." And at that I kneeled fairly
down.

"There!" she cried. "There is the proper station, there is where I have
been manoeuvring to bring you." And then, suddenly, "Kep,"[21] said she,
flung me a folded billet, and ran from the apartment laughing.

The billet had neither place nor date. "Dear Mr. David," it began, "I
get your news continually by my cousin, Miss Grant, and it is a pleisand
hearing. I am very well, in a good place, among good folk, but
necessitated to be quite private, though I am hoping that at long last
we may meet again. All your friendships have been told me by my loving
cousin, who loves us both. She bids me to send you this writing, and
oversees the same. I will be asking you to do all her commands, and rest
your affectionate friend, Catriona Macgregor-Drummond. P.S.--Will you
not see my cousin, Allardyce?"

I think it not the least brave of my campaigns (as the soldiers say)
that I should have done as I was here bidden and gone forthright to the
house by Dean. But the old lady was now entirely changed and supple as a
glove. By what means Miss Grant had brought this round I could never
guess; I am sure at least, she dared not to appear openly in the affair,
for her papa was compromised in it pretty deep. It was he, indeed, who
had persuaded Catriona to leave, or rather, not to return, to her
cousin's, placing her instead with a family of Gregorys, decent people,
quite at the Advocate's disposition, and in whom she might have the more
confidence because they were of her own clan and family. These kept her
private till all was ripe, heated and helped her to attempt her father's
rescue, and after she was discharged from prison received her again into
the same secrecy. Thus Prestongrange obtained and used his instrument;
nor did there leak out the smallest word of his acquaintance with the
daughter of James More. There was some whispering, of course, upon the
escape of that discredited person; but the Government replied by a show
of rigour, one of the cell porters was flogged, the lieutenant of the
guard (my poor friend, Duncansby) was broken of his rank, and as for
Catriona, all men were well enough pleased that her fault should be
passed by in silence.

I could never induce Miss Grant to carry back an answer. "No," she would
say, when I persisted, "I am going to keep the big feet out of the
platter." This was the more hard to bear, as I was aware she saw my
little friend many times in the week, and carried her my news whenever
(as she said) I "had behaved myself." At last she treated me to what she
called an indulgence, and I thought rather more of a banter. She was
certainly a strong, almost a violent friend, to all she liked; chief
among whom was a certain frail old gentlewoman, very blind, and very
witty, who dwelt in the top of a tall land on a strait close, with a
nest of linnets in a cage, and thronged all day with visitors. Miss
Grant was very fond to carry me there and put me to entertain her friend
with the narrative of my misfortunes; and Miss Tibbie Ramsay (that was
her name) was particular kind, and told me a great deal that was worth
knowledge of old folks and past affairs in Scotland. I should say that
from her chamber window, and not three feet away, such is the straitness
of that close, it was possible to look into a barred loophole lighting
the stairway of the opposite house.

Here, upon some pretext, Miss Grant left me one day alone with Miss
Ramsay. I mind I thought that lady inattentive and like one preoccupied.
I was besides yery uncomfortable, for the window, contrary to custom,
was left open and the day was cold. All at once the voice of Miss Grant
sounded in my ears as from a distance.

"Here, Shaws!" she cried, "keek out of the window and see what I have
broughten you."

I think it was the prettiest sight that ever I beheld; the well of the
close was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly, the
walls very black and dingy; and there from the barred loophole I saw two
faces smiling across at me--Miss Grant's and Catriona's.

"There!" says Miss Grant, "I wanted her to see you in your braws like
the lass of Limekilns. I wanted her to see what I could make of you,
when I buckled to the job in earnest!"

It came in my mind she had been more than common particular that day
upon my dress: and I think that some of the same care had been bestowed
upon Catriona. For so merry and sensible a lady, Miss Grant was
certainly wonderful taken up with duds.

"Catriona!" was all I could get out.

As for her, she said nothing in the world, but only waved her hand and
smiled to me, and was suddenly carried away again from before the
loophole.

The vision was no sooner lost than I ran to the house door, where I
found I was locked in; thence back to Miss Ramsay, crying for the key,
but might as well have cried upon the castle rock. She had passed her
word, she said, and I must be a good lad. It was impossible to burst the
door, even if it had been mannerly; it was impossible I should leap from
the window, being seven storeys above ground. All I could do was to
crane over the close and watch for their reappearance from the stair. It
was little to see, being no more than the tops of their two heads each
on a ridiculous bobbin of skirts, like to a pair of pincushions. Nor did
Catriona so much as look up for a farewell; being prevented (as I heard
afterwards) by Miss Grant, who told her folk were never seen to less
advantage than from above downward.

On the way home, as soon as I was set free, I upbraided Miss Grant with
her cruelty.

"I am sorry you was disappointed," says she demurely. "For my part I was
very pleased. You looked better than I dreaded; you looked--if it will
not make you vain--a mighty pretty young man when you appeared in the
window. You are to remember that she could not see your feet," says she,
with the manner of one reassuring me.

"O!" cried I, "leave my feet be, they are no bigger than my neighbor's."

"They are even smaller than some," said she, "but I speak in parables
like a Hebrew prophet."

"I marvel little they were sometimes stoned!" says I. "But you miserable
girl, how could you do it? Why should you care to tantalise me with a
moment?"

"Love is like folk," says she, "it needs some kind of vivers."[22]

"O, Barbara, let me see her properly!" I pleaded. "_You_ can, you see
her when you please; let me have half an hour."

"Who is it that is managing this love affair? You? Or me?" she asked,
and as I continued to press her with my instances, fell back upon a
deadly expedient: that of imitating the tones of my voice when I called
on Catriona by name; with which, indeed, she held me in subjection for
some days to follow.

There was never the least word heard of the memorial, or none by me.
Prestongrange and his grace the Lord President may have heard of it (for
what I know) on the deafest sides of their heads; they kept it to
themselves, at least; the public was none the wiser; and in course of
time, on November 8th, and in the midst of a prodigious storm of wind
and rain, poor James of the Glens was duly hanged at Lettermore by
Balachulish.

So there was the final upshot of my politics! Innocent men have perished
before James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite of all our
wisdom) till the end of time. And till the end of time, young folk (who
are not yet used with the duplicity of life and men) will struggle as I
did, and make heroical resolves, and take long risks; and the course of
events will push them upon the one side and go on like a marching army.
James was hanged; and here was I dwelling in the house of Prestongrange,
and grateful to him for his fatherly attention. He was hanged; and
behold! When I met Mr. Symon in the causeway, I was fain to pull off my
beaver to him like a good little boy before his dominie. He had been
hanged by fraud and violence, and the world wagged along, and there was
not a pennyweight of difference; and the villains of that horrid plot
were decent, kind, respectable fathers of families, who went to kirk and
took the sacrament!

But I had had my view of that detestable business they call politics--I
had seen it from behind, when it is all bones and blackness; and I was
cured for life of any temptations to take part in it again. A plain,
quiet, private path was that which I was ambitious to walk in, when I
might keep my head out of the way of dangers and my conscience out of
the road of temptation. For, upon a retrospect, it appeared I had not
done so grandly, after all; but with the greatest possible amount of big
speech and preparation, had accomplished nothing.

The 25th of the same month, a ship was advertised to sail from Leith;
and I was suddenly recommended to make up my mails for Leyden. To
Prestongrange I could, of course, say nothing; for I had already been a
long while sorning on his house and table. But with his daughter I was
more open, bewailing my fate that I should be sent out of the country,
and assuring her, unless she should bring me to farewell with Catriona,
I would refuse at the last hour.

"Have I not given you my advice?" she asked.

"I know you have," said I, "and I know how much I am beholden to you
already, and that I am bidden to obey your orders. But you must confess
you are something too merry a lass at times to lippen[23] to entirely."

"I will tell you, then," said she. "Be you on board at nine o'clock
forenoon; the ship does not sail before one; keep your boat alongside;
and if you are not pleased with my farewells when I shall send them, you
can come ashore again and seek Katrine for yourself."

Since I could make no more of her, I was fain to be content with this.

The day came round at last when she and I were to separate. We had been
extremely intimate and familiar; I was much in her debt; and what way we
were to part was a thing that put me from my sleep, like the vails I was
to give to the domestic servants. I knew she considered me too backward,
and rather desired to rise in her opinion on that head. Besides which,
after so much affection shown and (I believe) felt upon both sides, it
would have looked cold-like to be anyways stiff. Accordingly, I got my
courage up and my words ready, and the last chance we were like to be
alone, asked pretty boldly to be allowed to salute her in farewell.

"You forget yourself strangely, Mr. Balfour," said she. "I cannot call
to mind that I had given you any right to presume on our acquaintancy."

I stood before her like a stopped clock, and knew not what to think, far
less to say, when of a sudden she cast her arms about my neck and kissed
me with the best will in the world.

"You inimitable bairn!" she cried. "Did you think that I would let us
part like strangers? Because I can never keep my gravity at you five
minutes on end, you must not dream I do not love you very well; I am all
love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you! And now I will give
you an advice to conclude your education, which you will have need of
before its very long. Never _ask_ women-folk. They're bound to answer
'No'; God never made the lass that could resist the temptation. It's
supposed by divines to be the curse of Eve; because she did not say it
when the devil offered her the apple, her daughters can say nothing
else."

"Since I am so soon to lose my bonny professor," I began.

"This is gallant, indeed," says she curtseying.

"--I would put the one question," I went on; "May I ask a lass to marry
me?"

"You think you could not marry her without?" she asked. "Or else get her
to offer?"

"You see you cannot be serious," said I.

"I shall be very serious in one thing, David," said she. "I shall always
be your friend."

As I got to my horse the next morning, the four ladies were all at the
same window whence we had once looked down on Catriona, and all cried
farewell and waved their pocket napkins as I rode away; one out of the
four I knew was truly sorry; and at the thought of that, and how I had
come to the door three months ago for the first time, sorrow and
gratitude made a confusion in my mind.

       *       *       *       *       *




PART II

FATHER AND DAUGHTER

       *       *       *       *       *


CHAPTER XXI

THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND


The ship lay at a single anchor, well outside the pier of Leith, so that
all we passengers must come to it by the means of skiffs. This was very
little troublesome, for the reason that the day was a flat calm, very
frosty and cloudy, and with a low shifting fog upon the water. The body
of the vessel was thus quite hid as I drew near, but the tall spars of
her stood high and bright in a sunshine like the flickering of a fire.
She proved to be a very roomy, commodious merchant, but somewhat blunt
in the bows, and loaden extraordinary deep with salt, salted salmon, and
fine white linen stockings for the Dutch. Upon my coming on board, the
captain welcomed me, one Sang (out of Lesmahago, I believe), a very
hearty, friendly tarpauling of a man, but at the moment in rather of a
bustle. There had no other of the passengers yet appeared, so that I was
left to walk about upon the deck, viewing the prospect and wondering a
good deal what these farewells should be which I was promised.

All Edinburgh and the Pentland Hills glinted above me in a kind of
smuisty brightness, now and again overcome with blots of cloud; of Leith
there was no more than the tops of chimneys visible, and on the face of
the water, where the haar[24] lay, nothing at all. Out of this I was
presently aware of a sound of oars pulling, and a little after (as if
out of the smoke of a fire) a boat issued. There sat a grave man in the
stern sheets, well muffled from the cold, and by his side a tall,
pretty, tender figure of a maid that brought my heart to a stand. I had
scarce the time to catch my breath in, and be ready to meet her, as she
stepped upon the deck, smiling, and making my best bow, which was now
vastly finer than some months before when I first made it to her
ladyship. No doubt we were both a good deal changed; she seemed to have
shot up taller, like a young, comely tree. She had now a kind of pretty
backwardness that became her well, as of one that regarded herself more
highly and was fairly woman; and for another thing, the hand of the same
magician had been at work upon the pair of us, and Miss Grant had made
us both _braw_, if she could make but the one _bonny_.

The same cry, in words not very different, came from both of us, that
the other was come in compliment to say farewell, and then we perceived
in a flash we were to ship together.

"O, why will not Baby have been telling me!" she cried; and then
remembered a letter she had been given, on the condition of not opening
it till she was well on board. Within was an enclosure for myself, and
ran thus:


     "DEAR DAVIE,--What do you think of my farewell? and what
     do you say to your fellow-passenger? Did you kiss, or did you
     ask? I was about to have signed here, but that would leave the
     purport of my question doubtful; and in my own case _I ken the
     answer_. So fill up here with good advice. Do not be too
     blate,[25]
     and for God's sake do not try to be too forward; nothing sets
     you
     worse. I am

     "Your affectionate friend and governess,

     "BARBARA GRANT."


I wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my pocketbook,
put it in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed the whole with my
new signet of the Balfour arms, and despatched it by the hand of
Prestongrange's servant that still waited in my boat.

Then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure, which we had
not done for a piece of a minute before (upon a common impulse) we shook
hands again.

"Catriona!" said I; it seemed that was the first and last word of my
eloquence.

"You will be glad to see me again?" says she.

"And I think that is an idle word," said I. "We are too deep friends to
make speech upon such trifles."

"Is she not the girl of all the world?" she cried again. "I was never
knowing such a girl, so honest and so beautiful."

"And yet she cared no more for Alpin than what she did for a
kale-stock," said I.

"Ah, she will say so indeed!" cries Catriona. "Yet it was for the name
and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and was so good to me."

"Well, I will tell you why it was," said I. "There are all sorts of
people's faces in this world. There is Barbara's face, that everyone
must look at and admire, and think her a fine, brave, merry girl. And
then there is your face, which is quite different, I never knew how
different till to-day. You cannot see yourself, and that is why you do
not understand; but it was for the love of your face that she took you
up and was so good to you. And everybody in the world would do the
same."

"Everybody?" says she.

"Every living soul!" said I.

"Ah, then, that will be why the soldiers at the castle took me up!" she
cried.

"Barbara has been teaching you to catch me," said I.

"She will have taught me more than that at all events. She will have
taught me a great deal about Mr. David--all the ill of him, and a little
that was not so ill either now and then," she said, smiling. "She will
have told me all there was of Mr. David, only just that he would sail
upon this very same ship. And why is it you go?"

I told her.

"Ah, well," said she, "we will be some days in company and then (I
suppose) good-bye for altogether! I go to meet my father at a place of
the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be exiles by the
side of our chieftain."

I could say no more than just "O!" the name of James More always drying
up my very voice.

She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my thought.

"There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David," said she.
"I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you altogether very
well. And the one of them two is James More, my father, and the other is
the Laird of Prestongrange. Prestongrange will have spoken by himself,
or his daughter in the place of him. But for James More, my father, I
have this much to say: he lay shackled in a prison; he is a plain honest
soldier and a plain Highland gentleman; what they would be after, he
never would be guessing; but if he had understood it was to be some
prejudice to a young gentleman like yourself, he would have died first.
And for the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you to pardon
my father and family for that same mistake."

"Catriona," said I, "what that mistake was I do not care to know. I know
but the one thing, that you went to Prestongrange and begged my life
upon your knees. O, I ken well it was for your father that you went, but
when you were there you pleaded for me also. It is a thing I cannot
speak of. There are two things I cannot think of in to myself; and the
one is your good words when you called yourself my little friend, and
the other that you pleaded for my life. Let us never speak more, we two,
of pardon or offence."

We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on her;
and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up, in the
nor'-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in upon the
anchor.