There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it a
full cabin. Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkaldy, and
Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany; one was a
Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants' wives, to the charge of
one of whom Catriona was recommended. Mrs. Grebbie (for that was her
name) was by great good fortune heavily incommoded by the sea, and lay
day and night on the broad of her back. We were besides the only
creatures at all young on board the _Rose_, except a white-faced boy
that did my old duty to attend upon the table; and it came about that
Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves. We had the next
seats together at the table, where I waited on her with extraordinary
pleasure. On deck, I made her a soft place with my cloak; and the
weather being singularly fine for that season, with bright frosty days
and nights, a steady, gentle wind, and scarce a sheet started all the
way through the North Sea, we sat there (only now and again walking to
and fro for warmth) from the first blink of the sun till eight or nine
at night under the clear stars. The merchants or Captain Sang would
sometimes glance and smile upon us, or pass a merry word or two and give
us the go-by again; but the most part of the time they were deep in
herring and chintzes and linen, or in computations of the slowness of
the passage, and left us to our own concerns, which were very little
important to any but ourselves.

At the first, we had a great deal to say, and thought ourselves pretty
witty; and I was at a little pains to be the _beau_, and she (I believe)
to play the young lady of experience. But soon we grew plainer with each
other; I laid aside my high, clipped English (what little there was of
it) and forgot to make my Edinburgh bows and scrapes; she upon her side,
fell into a sort of kind familiarity; and we dwelt together like those
of the same household, only (upon my side) with a more deep emotion.
About the same time, the bottom seemed to fall out of our conversation,
and neither one of us the less pleased. Whiles she would tell me old
wives' tales, of which she had a wonderful variety, many of them from my
friend red-headed Niel. She told them very pretty, and they were pretty
enough childish tales; but the pleasure to myself was in the sound of
her voice, and the thought that she was telling and I listening. Whiles,
again, we would sit entirely silent, not communicating even with a look,
and tasting pleasure enough in the sweetness of that neighbourhood. I
speak here only for myself. Of what was in the maid's mind, I am not
very sure that ever I asked myself; and what was in my own, I was afraid
to consider. I need make no secret of it now, either to myself or to the
reader: I was fallen totally in love. She came between me and the sun.
She had grown suddenly taller, as I say, but with a wholesome growth;
she seemed all health, and lightness, and brave spirits; and I thought
she walked like a young deer, and stood like a birch upon the mountains.
It was enough for me to sit near by her on the deck; and I declare I
scarce spent two thoughts upon the future, and was so well content with
what I then enjoyed that I was never at the pains to imagine any further
step; unless perhaps that I would be sometimes tempted to take her hand
in mine and hold it there. But I was too like a miser of what joys I had
and would venture nothing on a hazard.

What we spoke was usually of ourselves or of each other, so that if
anyone had been at so much pains as overhear us, he must have supposed
us the most egotistical persons in the world. It befell one day when we
were at this practice, that we came on a discourse of friends and
friendship, and I think now that we were sailing near the wind. We said
what a fine thing friendship was, and how little we had guessed of it,
and how it made life a new thing, and a thousand covered things of the
same kind that will have been said, since the foundation of the world,
by young folk in the same predicament. Then we remarked upon the
strangeness of that circumstance, that friends came together in the
beginning as if they were there for the first time, and yet each had
been alive a good while, losing time with other people.

"It is not much that I have done," said she, "and I could be telling you
the five-fifths of it in two-three words. It is only a girl I am, and
what can befall a girl, at all events? But I went with the clan in the
year '45. The men marched with swords and firelocks, and some of them in
brigades in the same set of tartan; they were not backward at the
marching, I can tell you. And there were gentlemen from the Low Country,
with their tenants mounted and trumpets to sound, and there was a grand
skirling of war-pipes. I rode on a little Highland horse on the right
hand of my father, James More, and of Glengyle himself. And here is one
fine thing that I remember, that Glengyle kissed me in the face, because
(says he) 'my kinswoman, you are the only lady of the clan that has come
out,' and me a little maid of maybe twelve years old! I saw Prince
Charlie too, and the blue eyes of him; he was pretty indeed! I had his
hand to kiss in the front of the army. O, well, these were the good
days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and then awakened. It
went what way you very well know; and these were the worst days of all,
when the red-coat soldiers were out, and my father and my uncles lay in
the hill, and I was to be carrying them their meat in the middle night,
or at the short side of day when the cocks crow. Yes, I have walked in
the night, many's the time, and my heart great in me for terror of the
darkness. It is a strange thing I will never have been meddled with a
bogle; but they say a maid goes safe. Next there was my uncle's
marriage, and that was a dreadful affair beyond all. Jean Kay was that
woman's name; and she had me in the room with her that night at
Inversnaid, the night we took her from her friends in the old, ancient
manner. She would and she wouldn't; she was for marrying Rob the one
minute, and the next she would be for none of him. I will never have
seen such a feckless creature of a woman; surely all there was of her
would tell her ay or no. Well, she was a widow, and I can never be
thinking a widow a good woman."

"Catriona!" says I, "how do you make out that?"

"I do not know," said she; "I am only telling you the seeming in my
heart. And then to marry a new man! Fy! But that was her; and she was
married again upon my Uncle Robin, and went with him awhile to kirk and
market; and then wearied, or else her friends got claught of her and
talked her round, or maybe she turned ashamed; at the least of it, she
ran away, and went back to her own folk, and said we had held her in the
lake, and I will never tell you all what. I have never thought much of
any females since that day. And so in the end my father, James More,
came to be cast in prison, and you know the rest of it as well as me."

"And through all you had no friends?" said I.

"No," said she; "I have been pretty chief with two-three lasses on the
braes, but not to call it friends."

"Well, mine is a plain tale," said I. "I never had a friend to my name
till I met in with you."

"And that brave Mr. Stewart?" she asked.

"O, yes, I was forgetting him," I said. "But he is a man, and that is
very different."

"I would think so," said she. "O, yes, it is quite different."

"And then there was one other," said I. "I once thought I had a friend,
but it proved a disappointment."

She asked me who she was?

"It was a he, then," said I. "We were the two best lads at my father's
school, and we thought we loved each other dearly. Well, the time came
when he went to Glasgow to a merchant's house, that was his second
cousin once removed; and wrote me two-three times by the carrier; and
then he found new friends, and I might write till I was tired, he took
no notice. Eh, Catriona, it took me a long while to forgive the world.
There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend."

Then she began to question me close upon his looks and character, for we
were each a great deal concerned in all that touched the other; till at
last, in a very evil hour, I minded of his letters and went and fetched
the bundle from the cabin.

"Here are his letters," said I, "and all the letters that ever I got.
That will be the last I'll can tell of myself; you know the lave[26] as
well as I do."

"Will you let me read them, then?" says she.

I told her, _if she would be at the pains_; and she bade me go away and
she would read them from the one end to the other. Now, in this bundle
that I gave her, there were packed together not only all the letters of
my false friend, but one or two of Mr. Campbell's when he was in town at
the Assembly, and to make a complete roll of all that ever was written
to me, Catriona's little word, and the two I had received from Miss
Grant, one when I was on the Bass and one on board that ship. But of
these last I had no particular mind at the moment.

I was in that state of subjection to the thought of my friend that it
mattered not what I did, nor scarce whether I was in her presence or out
of it; I had caught her like some kind of a noble fever that lived
continually in my bosom, by night and by day, and whether I was waking
or asleep. So it befell that after I was come into the fore-part of the
ship where the broad bows splashed into the billows, I was in no such
hurry to return as you might fancy; rather prolonged my absence like a
variety in pleasure. I do not think I am by nature much of an Epicurean;
and there had come till then so small a share of pleasure in my way that
I might be excused perhaps to dwell on it unduly.

When I returned to her again, I had a faint, painful impression as of a
buckle slipped, so coldly she returned the packet.

"You have read them?" said I; and I thought my voice sounded not wholly
natural, for I was turning in my mind for what could ail her.

"Did you mean me to read all?" she asked.

I told her "Yes," with a drooping voice.

"The last of them as well?" said she.

I knew where we were now; yet I would not lie to her either. "I gave
them all without after-thought," I said, "as I supposed that you would
read them. I see no harm in any."

"I will be differently made," said she. "I thank God I am differently
made. It was not a fit letter to be shown me. It was not fit to be
written."

"I think you are speaking of your own friend, Barbara Grant?" said I.

"There will not be anything as bitter as to lose a fancied friend," said
she, quoting my own expression.

"I think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied!" I cried.
"What kind of justice do you call this, to blame me for some words that
a tomfool of a madcap lass has written down upon a piece of paper? You
know yourself with what respect I have behaved--and would do always."

"Yet you would show me that same letter!" says she. "I want no such
friends. I can be doing very well, Mr. Balfour, without her--or you."

"This is your fine gratitude!" says I.

"I am very much obliged to you," said she. "I will be asking you to take
away your--letters." She seemed to choke upon the word, so that it
sounded like an oath.

"You shall never ask twice," said I; picked up that bundle, walked a
little way forward and cast them as far as possible into the sea. For a
very little more, I could have cast myself after them.

The rest of the day I walked up and down raging. There were few names so
ill but what I gave her them in my own mind before the sun went down.
All that I had ever heard of Highland pride seemed quite outdone; that a
girl (scarce grown) should resent so trifling an allusion, and that from
her next friend, that she had near wearied me with praising of! I had
bitter, sharp, hard thoughts of her, like an angry boy's. If I had
kissed her indeed (I thought), perhaps she would have taken it pretty
well; and only because it had been written down, and with a spice of
jocularity, up she must fuff in this ridiculous passion. It seemed to me
there was a want of penetration in the female sex, to make angels weep
over the case of the poor men.

We were side by side again at supper, and what a change was there! She
was like curdled milk to me; her face was like a wooden doll's; I could
have indifferently smitten her or grovelled at her feet, but she gave me
not the least occasion to do either. No sooner the meal done than she
betook herself to attend on Mrs. Gebbie, which I think she had a little
neglected heretofore. But she was to make up for lost time, and in what
remained of the passage was extraordinary assiduous with the old lady,
and on deck began to make a great deal more than I thought wise of
Captain Sang. Not but what the captain seemed a worthy, fatherly man;
but I hated to behold her in the least familiarity with anyone except
myself.

Altogether, she was so quick to avoid me, and so constant to keep
herself surrounded with others, that I must watch a long while before I
could find my opportunity; and after it was found, I made not much of
it, as you are now to hear.

"I have no guess how I have offended," said I; "it should scarce be
beyond pardon, then. O, try if you can pardon me."

"I have no pardon to give," said she; and the words seemed to come out
of her throat like marbles. "I will be very much obliged for all your
friendships." And she made me an eight part of a curtsey.

But I had schooled myself beforehand to say more, and I was going to say
it too.

"There is one thing," said I. "If I have shocked your particularity by
the showing of that letter, it cannot touch Miss Grant. She wrote not to
you, but to a poor, common, ordinary lad, who might have had more sense
than show it. If you are to blame me--"

"I will advise you to say no more about that girl, at all events!" said
Catriona. "It is her I will never look the road of, not if she lay
dying." She turned away from me, and suddenly back. "Will you swear you
will have no more to deal with her?" she cried.

"Indeed, and I will never be so unjust then," said I; "nor yet so
ungrateful."

And now it was I that turned away.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXII

HELVOETSLUYS


The weather in the end considerably worsened; the wind sang in the
shrouds, the sea swelled higher, and the ship began to labour and cry
out among the billows. The song of the leadsman in the chains was now
scarce ceasing, for we thrid all the way among shoals. About nine in the
morning, in a burst of wintry sun between two squalls of hail, I had my
first look of Holland--a line of windmills birling in the breeze. It was
besides my first knowledge of these daft-like contrivances, which gave
me a near sense of foreign travel and a new world and life. We came to
an anchor about half-past eleven, outside the harbour of Helvoetsluys,
in a place where the sea sometimes broke and the ship pitched
outrageously. You may be sure we were all on deck save Mrs. Gebbie, some
of us in cloaks, others mantled in the ship's tarpaulins, all clinging
on by ropes, and jesting the most like old sailor-folk that we could
imitate.

Presently a boat, that was backed like a partan-crab, came gingerly
alongside, and the skipper of it hailed our master in the Dutch. Thence
Captain Sang turned, very troubled like, to Catriona; and the rest of us
crowding about, the nature of the difficulty was made plain to all. The
_Rose_ was bound to the port of Rotterdam, whither the other passengers
were in a great impatience to arrive, in view of a conveyance due to
leave that very evening in the direction of the Upper Germany. This,
with the present half-gale of wind, the captain (if no time were lost)
declared himself still capable to save. Now James More had trysted in
Helvoet with his daughter, and the captain had engaged to call before
the port and place her (according to the custom) in a shore boat. There
was the boat, to be sure, and there was Catriona ready: but both our
master and the patroon of the boat scrupled at the risk, and the first
was in no humour to delay.

"Your father," said he, "would be gey an little pleased if we was to
break a leg to ye, Miss Drummond, let-a-be drowning of you. Take my way
of it," says he, "and come on-by with the rest of us here to Rotterdam.
Ye can get a passage down the Maes in a sailing scoot as far to the
Brill, and thence on again, by a place in a rattel-waggon, back to
Helvoet."

But Catriona would hear of no change. She looked white-like as she
beheld the bursting of the sprays, the green seas that sometimes poured
upon the forecastle, and the perpetual bounding and swooping of the boat
among the billows; but she stood firmly by her father's orders. "My
father, James More, will have arranged it so," was her first word and
her last. I thought it very idle and indeed wanton in the girl to be so
literal and stand opposite to so much kind advice; but the fact is she
had a very good reason, if she would have told us. Sailing scoots and
rattel-waggons are excellent things; only the use of them must first be
paid for, and all she was possessed of in the world was just two
shillings and a penny halfpenny sterling. So it fell out that captain
and passengers, not knowing of her destitution--and she being too proud
to tell them--spoke in vain.

"But you ken nae French and nae Dutch neither," said one.

"It is very true," says she, "but since the year '46 there are so many
of the honest Scots abroad that I will be doing very well, I thank you."

There was a pretty country simplicity in this that made some laugh,
others looked the more sorry, and Mr. Gebbie fall outright in a passion.
I believe he knew it was his duty (his wife having accepted charge of
the girl) to have gone ashore with her and seen her safe; nothing would
have induced him to have done so, since it must have involved the loss
of his conveyance; and I think he made it up to his conscience by the
loudness of his voice. At least he broke out upon Captain Sang, raging
and saying the thing was a disgrace; that it was mere death to try to
leave the ship, and at any event we could not cast down an innocent maid
in a boatful of nasty Holland fishers, and leave her to her fate. I was
thinking something of the same; took the mate upon one side, arranged
with him to send on my chests by track-scoot to an address I had in
Leyden, and stood up and signalled to the fishers.

"I will go ashore with the young lady, Captain Sang," said I. "It is all
one what way I go to Leyden;" and leaped at the same time into the boat,
which I managed not so elegantly but what I fell with two of the fishers
in the bilge.

From the boat the business appeared yet more precarious than from the
ship, she stood so high over us, swung down so swift, and menaced us so
perpetually with her plunging and passaging upon the anchor cable. I
began to think I had made a fool's bargain, that it was merely
impossible Catriona should be got on board to me, and that I stood to be
set ashore at Helvoet all by myself and with no hope of any reward but
the pleasure of embracing James More, if I should want to. But this was
to reckon without the lass's courage. She had seen me leap with very
little appearance (however much reality) of hesitation; to be sure, she
was not to be beat by her discarded friend. Up she stood on the bulwarks
and held by a stay, the wind blowing in her petticoats, which made the
enterprise more dangerous and gave us rather more of a view of her
stockings than would be thought genteel in cities. There was no minute
lost, and scarce time given for any to interfere if they had wished the
same. I stood up on the other side and spread my arms; the ship swung
down on us, the patroon humoured his boat nearer in than was perhaps
wholly safe, and Catriona leaped into the air. I was so happy as to
catch her, and the fishers readily supporting us, escaped a fall. She
held to me a moment very tight, breathing quick and deep; thence (she
still clinging to me with both hands) we were passed aft to our places
by the steersman; and Captain Sang and all the crew and passengers
cheering and crying farewell, the boat was put about for shore.

As soon as Catriona came a little to herself she unhanded me suddenly
but said no word. No more did I; and indeed the whistling of the wind
and the breaching of the sprays made it no time for speech; and our crew
not only toiled excessively but made extremely little way, so that the
_Rose_ had got her anchor and was off again before we had approached the
harbour mouth.

We were no sooner in smooth water than the patroon, according to their
beastly Hollands custom, stopped his boat and required of us our fares.
Two guilders was the man's demand, between three and four shillings
English money, for each passenger. But at this Catriona began to cry out
with a vast deal of agitation. She had asked of Captain Sang, she said,
and the fare was but an English shilling. "Do you think I will have come
on board and not ask first?" cries she. The patroon scolded back upon
her in a lingo where the oaths were English and the rest right Hollands;
till at last (seeing her near tears) I privately slipped in the rogue's
hand six shillings, whereupon he was obliging enough to receive from her
the other shilling without more complaint. No doubt I was a good deal
nettled and ashamed. I like to see folk thrifty but not with so much
passion; and I daresay it would be rather coldly that I asked her, as
the boat moved on again for shore, where it was that she was trysted
with her father.

"He is to be inquired of at the house of one Sprott, an honest Scotch
merchant," says she; and then with the same breath, "I am wishing to
thank you very much--you are a brave friend to me."

"It will be time enough when I get you to your father," said I, little
thinking that I spoke so true. "I can tell him a fine tale of a loyal
daughter."

"O, I do not think I will be a loyal girl, at all events," she cried,
with a great deal of painfulness in the expression. "I do not think my
heart is true."

"Yet there are very few that would have made that leap, and all to obey
a father's orders," I observed.

"I cannot have you to be thinking of me so," she cried again. "When you
had done that same, how would I stop behind? And at all events that was
not all the reasons." Whereupon, with a burning face, she told me the
plain truth upon her poverty.

"Good guide us!" cried I, "what kind of daft-like proceeding is this, to
let yourself be launched on the continent of Europe with an empty
purse--I count it hardly decent--scant decent!" I cried.

"You forget James More, my father, is a poor gentleman," said she. "He
is a hunted exile."

"But I think not all your friends are hunted exiles," I exclaimed. "And
was this fair to them that care for you? Was it fair to me? was it fair
to Miss Grant that counselled you to go, and would be driven fair
horn-mad if she could hear of it? Was it even fair to these Gregory folk
that you were living with, and used you lovingly? It's a blessing you
have fallen in my hands! Suppose your father hindered by an accident,
what would become of you here, and you your lee-alone in a strange
place? The thought of the thing frightens me," I said.

"I will have lied to all of them," she replied. "I will have told them
all that I had plenty. I told _her_ too. I could not be lowering James
More to them."

I found out later on that she must have lowered him in the very dust,
for the lie was originally the father's not the daughter's, and she thus
obliged to persevere in it for the man's reputation. But at the time I
was ignorant of this, and the mere thought of her destitution and the
perils in which she must have fallen, had ruffled me almost beyond
reason.

"Well, well, well," said I, "you will have to learn more sense."

I left her mails for the moment in an inn upon the shore, where I got a
direction for Sprott's house in my new French, and we walked there--it
was some little way--beholding the place with wonder as we went. Indeed,
there was much for Scots folk to admire; canals and trees being
intermingled with the houses; the houses, each within itself, of a brave
red brick, the colour of a rose, with steps and benches of blue marble
at the cheek of every door, and the whole town so clean you might have
dined upon the causeway. Sprott was within, upon his ledgers, in a low
parlour, very neat and clean, and set out with china and pictures and a
globe of the earth in a brass frame. He was a big-chafted, ruddy, lusty
man, with a crooked hard look to him; and he made us not that much
civility as offer us a seat.

"Is James More Macgregor now in Helvoet, sir?" says I.

"I ken nobody by such a name," says he, impatient-like.

"Since you are so particular," says I, "I will amend my question, and
ask you where we are to find in Helvoet one James Drummond, _alias_
Macgregor, _alias_ James More, late tenant in Iveronachile?"

"Sir," says he, "he may be in Hell for what I ken, and for my part I
wish he was."

"The young lady is that gentleman's daughter, sir," said I, "before
whom, I think you will agree with me, it is not very becoming to discuss
his character."

"I have nothing to make either with him, or her, or you!" cries he in
his gross voice.

"Under your favour, Mr. Sprott," said I, "this young lady is come from
Scotland seeking him, and by whatever mistake, was given the name of
your house for a direction. An error it seems to have been, but I think
this places both you and me--who am but her fellow-traveller by
accident--under a strong obligation to help our countrywoman."

"Will you ding me daft?" he cries. "I tell ye I ken naething and care
less either for him or his breed. I tell ye the man owes me money."

"That may very well be, sir," said I, who was now rather more angry than
himself. "At least I owe you nothing; the young lady is under my
protection; and I am neither at all used with these manners, nor in the
least content with them."

As I said this, and without particularly thinking what I did, I drew a
step or two nearer to his table; thus striking, by mere good fortune, on
the only argument that could at all affect the man. The blood left his
lusty countenance.

"For the Lord's sake dinna be hasty, sir!" he cried. "I am truly wishfu'
no to be offensive. But ye ken, sir, I'm like a wheen guid-natured,
honest, canty auld fallows--my bark is waur nor my bite. To hear me, ye
micht whiles fancy I was a wee thing dour; but na, na! its a kind auld
fellow at heart, Sandie Sprott! And ye could never imagine the fyke and
fash this man has been to me."

"Very good, sir," said I. "Then I will make that much freedom with your
kindness, as trouble you for your last news of Mr. Drummond."

"You're welcome, sir!" said he. "As for the young leddy (my respec's to
her!) he'll just have clean forgotten her. I ken the man, ye see; I have
lost siller by him ere now. He thinks of naebody but just himsel'; clan,
king, or dauchter, if he can get his wameful, he would give them a' the
go-by! ay, or his correspondent either. For there is a sense in whilk I
may be nearly almost said to be his correspondent. The fact is, we are
employed thegether in a business affair, and I think it's like to turn
out a dear affair for Sandie Sprott. The man's as guid's my pairtner,
and I give ye my mere word I ken naething by where he is. He micht be
coming here to Helvoet; he micht come here the morn, he michtnae come
for a twalmonth; I would wonder at naething--or just at the ae thing,
and that's if he was to pay me my siller. Ye see what way I stand with
it; and it's clear I'm no very likely to meddle up with the young leddy,
as ye ca' her. She cannae stop here, that's ae thing certain sure. Dod,
sir, I'm a lone man! If I was to tak her in, its highly possible the
hellicat would try and gar me marry her when he turned up."

"Enough of this talk," said I. "I will take the young lady among better
friends. Give me pen, ink, and paper, and I will leave here for James
More the address of my correspondent in Leyden. He can inquire from me
where he is to seek his daughter."

This word I wrote and sealed; which while I was doing, Sprott of his own
motion made a welcome offer, to charge himself with Miss Drummond's
mails, and even send a porter for them to the inn. I advanced him to
that effect a dollar or two to be a cover, and he gave me an
acknowledgment in writing of the sum.

Whereupon (I giving my arm to Catriona) we left the house of this
unpalatable rascal. She had said no word throughout, leaving me to judge
and speak in her place; I, upon my side, had been careful not to
embarrass her by a glance; and even now although my heart still glowed
inside of me with shame and anger, I made it my affair to seem quite
easy.

"Now," said I, "let us get back to yon same inn where they can speak the
French, have a piece of dinner, and inquire for conveyances to
Rotterdam. I will never be easy till I have you safe again in the hands
of Mrs. Gebbie."

"I suppose it will have to be," said Catriona, "though whoever will be
pleased, I do not think it will be her. And I will remind you this once
again that I have but one shilling, and three baubees."

"And just this once again," said I, "I will remind you it was a blessing
that I came alongst with you."

"What else would I be thinking all this time!" says she, and I thought
weighed a little on my arm. "It is you that are the good friend to me."

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXIII

TRAVELS IN HOLLAND


The rattel-wagon, which is a kind of a long wagon set with benches,
carried us in four hours of travel to the great city of Rotterdam. It
was long past dark by then, but the streets pretty brightly lighted and
thronged with the wild-like, outlandish characters--bearded Hebrews,
black men, and the hordes of courtesans, most indecently adorned with
finery and stopping seamen by their very sleeves; the clash of talk
about us made our heads to whirl; and what was the most unexpected of
all, we appeared to be no more struck with all these foreigners than
they with us. I made the best face I could, for the lass's sake and my
own credit; but the truth is I felt like a lost sheep, and my heart beat
in my bosom with anxiety. Once or twice I inquired after the harbor or
the berth of the ship _Rose_; but either fell on some who spoke only
Hollands, or my own French failed me. Trying a street at a venture, I
came upon a lane of lighted houses, the doors and windows thronged with
wauf-like painted women; these jostled and mocked upon us as we passed,
and I was thankful we had nothing of their language. A little after we
issued forth upon an open place along the harbour.

"We shall be doing now," cries I, as soon as I spied masts. "Let us walk
here by the harbour. We are sure to meet some that has the English, and
at the best of it we may light upon that very ship."

We did the next best, as happened; for about nine of the evening, whom
should we walk into the arms of but Captain Sang? He told us they had
made their run in the most incredible brief time, the wind holding
strong until they reached port; by which means his passengers were all
gone already on their further travels. It was impossible to chase after
the Gebbies into High Germany, and we had no other acquaintance to fall
back upon but Captain Sang himself. It was the more gratifying to find
the man friendly and wishful to assist. He made it a small affair to
find some good plain family of merchants, where Catriona might harbour
till the _Rose_ was loaden; declared he would then blithely carry her
back to Leith for nothing and see her safe in the hands of Mr. Gregory;
and in the meanwhile carried us to a late ordinary for the meal we stood
in need of. He seemed extremely friendly, as I say, but what surprised
me a good deal, rather boisterous in the bargain; and the cause of this
was soon to appear. For at the ordinary, calling for Rhenish wine and
drinking of it deep, he soon became unutterably tipsy. In, this case, as
too common with all men, but especially with those of his rough trade,
what little sense or manners he possessed deserted him; and he behaved
himself so scandalous to the young lady, jesting most ill-favoredly at
the figure she had made on the ship's rail, that I had no resource but
carry her suddenly away.

She came out of that ordinary clinging to me close. "Take me away,
David," she said. "_You_ keep me. I am not afraid with you."

"And have no cause, my little friend!" cried I, and could have found it
in my heart to weep.

"Where will you be taking me?" she said again. "Don't leave me at all
events, never leave me."

"Where am I taking you indeed?" says I stopping, for I had been staving
on ahead in mere blindness. "I must stop and think. But I'll not leave
you, Catriona; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I should fail or
fash you."

She crept closer in to me by way of a reply.

"Here," I said, "is the stillest place that we have hit on yet in this
busy byke of a city. Let us sit down here under yon tree and consider of
our course."

That tree (which I am little like to forget) stood hard by the harbour
side. It was a black night, but lights were in the houses, and nearer
hand in the quiet ships; there was a shining of the city on the one
hand, and a buzz hung over it of many thousands walking and talking; on
the other, it was dark and the water bubbled on the sides. I spread my
cloak upon a builder's stone, and made her sit there; she would have
kept her hold upon me, for she still shook with the late affronts; but I
wanted to think clear, disengaged myself, and paced to and fro before
her, in the manner of what we call a smuggler's walk, belabouring my
brains for any remedy. By the course of these scattering thoughts I was
brought suddenly face to face with a remembrance that, in the heat and
haste of our departure, I had left Captain Sang to pay the ordinary. At
this I began to laugh out loud, for I thought the man well served; and
at the same time, by an instinctive movement, carried my hand to the
pocket where my money was. I suppose it was in the lane where the women
jostled us; but there is only the one thing certain, that my purse was
gone.

"You will have thought of something good," said she, observing me to
pause.

At the pinch we were in, my mind became suddenly clear as a perspective
glass, and I saw there was no choice of methods. I had not one doit of
coin, but in my pocket-book I had still my letter on the Leyden
merchant; and there was now but the one way to get to Leyden, and that
was to walk on our two feet.

"Catriona," said I, "I know you're brave and I believe you're strong, do
you think you could walk thirty miles on a plain road?" We found it, I
believe, scarce the two-thirds of that, but such was my notion of the
distance.

"David," she said, "if you will just keep near, I will go anywhere and
do anything. The courage of my heart, it is all broken. Do not be
leaving me in this horrible country by myself, and I will do all else."

"Can you start now and march all night?" said I.

"I will do all that you can ask of me," she said, "and never ask you
why. I have been a bad ungrateful girl to you; and do what you please
with me now! And I think Miss Barbara Grant is the best lady in the
world," she added, "and I do not see what she would deny you for at all
events."

This was Greek and Hebrew to me; but I had other matters to consider,
and the first of these was to get clear of that city on the Leyden road.
It proved a cruel problem; and it may have been one or two at night ere
we had solved it. Once beyond the houses, there was neither moon or
stars to guide us; only the whiteness of the way in the midst and a
blackness of an alley on both hands. The walking was besides made most
extraordinary difficult by a plain black frost that fell suddenly in the
small hours and turned that highway into one long slide.

"Well, Catriona," said I, "here we are like the king's sons and the old
wives' daughters in your daft-like Highland tales. Soon we'll be going
over the '_seven Bens, the seven glens, and the seven mountain moors_.'"
Which was a common byword or overcome in these tales of hers that had
stuck in my memory.

"Ah," says she, "but here are no glens or mountains! Though I will never
be denying but what the trees and some of the plain places hereabouts
are very pretty. But our country is the best yet."

"I wish we could say as much for our own folk," says I, recalling Sprott
and Sang, and perhaps James More himself.

"I will never complain of the country of my friend," said she, and spoke
it out with an accent so particular that I seemed to see the look upon
her face.

I caught in my breath sharp and came near falling (for my pains) on the
black ice.

"I do not know what _you_ think, Catriona," said I, when I was a little
recovered, "but this has been the best day yet! I think shame to say it,
when you have met in with such misfortunes and disfavours; but for me,
it has been the best day yet."

"It was a good day when you showed me so much love," said she.

"And yet I think shame to be happy too," I went on, "and you here on the
road in the black night."

"Where in the great world would I be else?" she cried. "I am thinking I
am safest where I am with you."

"I am quite forgiven, then?" I asked.

"Will you not forgive me that time so much as not to take it in your
mouth again?" she cried. "There's is nothing in this heart to you but
thanks. But I will be honest too," she added, with a kind of suddenness,
"and I'll never can forgive that girl."

"Is this Miss Grant again?" said I. "You said yourself she was the best
lady in the world."

"So she will be, indeed!" says Catriona. "But I will never forgive her
for all that. I will never, never forgive her, and let me hear tell of
her no more."

"Well," said I, "this beats all that ever came to my knowledge; and I
wonder that you can indulge yourself in such bairnly whims. Here is a
young lady that was the best friend in the world to the both of us, that
learned us how to dress ourselves, and in a great manner how to behave,
as anyone can see that knew us both before and after."

But Catriona stopped square in the midst of the highway.

"It is this way of it," said she. "Either you will go on to speak of
her, and I will go back to yon town, and let come of it what God
pleases! Or else you will do me that politeness to talk of other
things."

I was the most nonplussed person in this world; but I bethought me that
she depended altogether on my help, that she was of the frail sex and
not so much beyond a child, and it was for me to be wise for the pair of
us.

"My dear girl," said I, "I can make neither head nor tails of this; but
God forbid that I should do anything to set you on the jee. As for
talking of Miss Grant I have no such a mind to it, and I believe it was
yourself began it. My only design (if I took you up at all) was for your
own improvement, for I hate the very look of injustice. Not that I do
not wish you to have a good pride and a nice female delicacy; they
become you well; but here you show them to excess."

"Well, then, have you done?" said she.

"I have done," said I.

"A very good thing," said she, and we went on again, but now in silence.

It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding only
shadows and hearing nought but our own steps. At first, I believe our
hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity; but the darkness
and the cold, and the silence, which only the cocks sometimes
interrupted, or sometimes the farmyard dogs, had pretty soon brought
down our pride to the dust; and for my own particular, I would have
jumped at any decent opening for speech.

Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was all
wiped away from among our feet. I took my cloak to her and sought to hap
her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to keep it.

"Indeed and I will do no such thing," said I. "Here am I, a great, ugly
lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here are you a tender,
pretty maid! My dear, you would not put me to a shame?"

Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in the
darkness, I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost like an
embrace.

"You must try to be more patient of your friend," said I.

I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against my
bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.

"There will be no end to your goodness," said she.

And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the
happiness that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.

The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came into the
town of Delft. The red gabled houses made a handsome show on either hand
of a canal; the servant lassies were out slestering and scrubbing at the
very stones upon the public highway; smoke rose from a hundred kitchens;
and it came in upon me strongly it was time to break our fasts.

"Catriona," said I, "I believe you have yet a shilling and three
baubees?"

"Are you wanting it?" said she, and passed me her purse. "I am wishing
it was five pounds! What will you want it for?"

"And what have we been walking for all night, like a pair of waif
Egyptians?" says I. "Just because I was robbed of my purse and all I
possessed in that unchancy town of Rotterdam. I will tell you of it now,
because I think the worst is over, but we have still a good tramp before
us till we get to where my money is, and if you would not buy me a piece
of bread, I were like to go fasting."

She looked at me with open eyes. By the light of the new day she was all
black and pale for weariness, so that my heart smote me for her. But as
for her, she broke out laughing.

"My torture! are we beggars then?" she cried. "You too? O, I could have
wished for this same thing! And I am glad to buy your breakfast to you.
But it would be pleisand if I would have had to dance to get a meal to
you! For I believe they are not very well acquainted with our manner of
dancing over here, and might be paying for the curiosity of that sight."

I could have kissed her for that word, not with a lover's mind, but in a
heat of admiration. For it always warms a man to see a woman brave.

We got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the town, and
in a baker's, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling bread, which we
ate upon the road as we went on. That road from Delft to the Hague is
just five miles of a fine avenue shaded with trees, a canal on the one
hand, on the other excellent pastures of cattle. It was pleasant here
indeed.

"And now, Davie," said she, "what will you do with me at all events?"

"It is what we have to speak of," said I, "and the sooner yet the
better. I can come by money in Leyden; that will be all well. But the
trouble is how to dispose of you until your father come. I thought last
night you seemed a little sweir to part from me?"

"It will be more than seeming then," said she.

"You are a very young maid," said I, "and I am but a very young callant.
This is a great piece of difficulty. What way are we to manage? Unless,
indeed, you could pass to be my sister?"

"And what for no?" said she, "if you would let me!"

"I wish you were so, indeed!" I cried. "I would be a fine man if I had
such a sister. But the rub is that you are Catriona Drummond."

"And now I will be Catrine Balfour," she said. "And who is to ken? They
are all strange folk here."

"If you think that it would do," says I. "I own it troubles me. I would
like it very ill, if I advised you at all wrong."

"David, I have no friend here but you," she said.

"The mere truth is, I am too young to be your friend," said I. "I am too
young to advise you, or you to be advised. I see not what else we are to
do, and yet I ought to warn you."

"I will have no choice left," said she. "My father James More has not
used me very well, and it is not the first time. I am cast upon your
hands like a sack of barley meal, and have nothing else to think of but
your pleasure. If you will have me, good and well. If you will not"--she
turned and touched her hand upon my arm--"David, I am afraid," said she.

"No, but I ought to warn you," I began; and then bethought me that I was
the bearer of the purse, and it would never do to seem too churlish.
"Catriona," said I, "don't misunderstand me: I am just trying to do my
duty by you, girl! Here am I going alone to this strange city, to be a
solitary student there; and here is this chance arisen that you might
dwell with me a bit, and be like my sister: you can surely understand
this much, my dear, that I would just love to have you?"

"Well, and here I am," said she. "So that's soon settled."

I know I was in duty bounden to have spoke more plain. I know this was a
great blot on my character for which I was lucky that I did not pay more
dear. But I minded how easy her delicacy had been startled with a word
of kissing her in Barbara's letter; now that she depended on me, how was
I to be more bold? Besides, the truth is, I could see no other feasible
method to dispose of her. And I daresay inclination pulled me very
strong.

A little beyond the Hague she fell very lame and made the rest of the
distance heavily enough. Twice she must rest by the wayside, which she
did with pretty apologies, calling herself a shame to the Highlands and
the race she came of, and nothing but a hindrance to myself. It was her
excuse, she said, that she was not much used with walking shod. I would
have had her strip off her shoes and stockings and go barefoot. But she
pointed out to me that the women of that country, even in the landward
roads, appeared to be all shod.

"I must not be disgracing my brother," said she, and was very merry with
it all, although her face told tales of her.

There is a garden in that city we were bound to, sanded below with clean
sand, the trees meeting overhead, some of them trimmed, some pleached,
and the whole place beautified with alleys and arbours. Here I left
Catriona, and went forward by myself to find my correspondent. There I
drew on my credit, and asked to be recommended to some decent, retired
lodging. My baggage not being yet arrived, I told him I supposed I
should require his caution with the people of the house; and explained
that, my sister being come for a while to keep house with me, I should
be wanting two chambers. This was all very well; but the trouble was
that Mr. Balfour in his letter of recommendation had condescended on a
great deal of particulars, and never a word of any sister in the case. I
could see my Dutchman was extremely suspicious; and viewing me over the
rims of a great pair of spectacles--he was a poor, frail body, and
reminded me of an infirm rabbit--he began to question me close.

Here I fell in a panic. Suppose he accept my tale (thinks I), suppose he
invite my sister to his house, and that I bring her. I shall have a fine
ravelled pirn to unwind, and may end by disgracing both the lassie and
myself. Thereupon I began hastily to expound to him my sister's
character. She was of a bashful disposition, it appeared, and so
extremely fearful of meeting strangers that I had left her at that
moment sitting in a public place alone. And then, being launched upon
the stream of falsehood, I must do like all the rest of the world in the
same circumstance, and plunge in deeper than was any service; adding
some altogether needless particulars of Miss Balfour's ill-health and
retirement during childhood. In the midst of which I awoke to a sense of
my behaviour, and was turned to one blush.

The old gentleman was not so much deceived but what he discovered a
willingness to be quit of me. But he was first of all a man of business;
and knowing that my money was good enough, however it might be with my
conduct, he was so far obliging as to send his son to be my guide and
caution in the matter of a lodging. This implied my presenting of the
young man to Catriona. The poor, pretty child was much recovered with
resting, looked and behaved to perfection, and took my arm and gave me
the name of brother more easily than I could answer her. But there was
one misfortune: thinking to help, she was rather towardly than otherwise
to my Dutchman. And I could not but reflect that Miss Balfour had rather
suddenly outgrown her bashfulness. And there was another thing, the
difference of our speech. I had the Low Country tongue and dwelled upon
my words; she had a hill voice, spoke with something of an English
accent, only far more delightful, and was scarce quite fit to be called
a deacon in the craft of talking English grammar; so that, for a brother
and sister, we made a most uneven pair. But the young Hollander was a
heavy dog, without so much spirit in his belly as to remark her
prettiness, for which I scorned him. And as soon as he had found a cover
to our heads, he left us alone, which was the greater service of the
two.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXIV

FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS


The place found was in the upper part of a house backed on a canal. We
had two rooms, the second entering from the first; each had a chimney
built out into the floor in the Dutch manner; and being alongside, each
had the same prospect from the window of the top of a tree below us in a
little court, of a piece of the canal, and of houses in the Hollands
architecture and a church spire upon the further side. A full set of
bells hung in that spire and made delightful music; and when there was
any sun at all, it shone direct in our two chambers. From a tavern hard
by we had good meals sent in.

The first night we were both pretty weary, and she extremely so. There
was little talk between us, and I packed her off to her bed as soon as
she had eaten. The first thing in the morning I wrote word to Sprott to
have her mails sent on, together with a line to Alan at his chief's; and
had the same dispatched, and her breakfast ready, ere I waked her. I was
a little abashed when she came forth in her one habit, and the mud of
the way upon her stockings. By what inquiries I had made, it seemed a
good few days must pass before her mails could come to hand in Leyden,
and it was plainly needful she must have a shift of things. She was
unwilling at first that I should go to that expense; but I reminded her
she was now a rich man's sister and must appear suitably in the part,
and we had not got to the second merchant's before she was entirely
charmed into the spirit of the thing, and her eyes shining. It pleased
me to see her so innocent and thorough in this pleasure. What was more
extraordinary was the passion into which I fell on it myself; being
never satisfied that I had bought her enough or fine enough, and never
weary of beholding her in different attires. Indeed, I began to
understand some little of Miss Grant's immersion in that interest of
clothes; for the truth is, when you have the ground of a beautiful
person to adorn, the whole business becomes beautiful. The Dutch
chintzes I should say were extraordinary cheap and fine; but I would be
ashamed to set down what I paid for stockings to her. Altogether I spent
so great a sum upon this pleasuring (as I may call it) that I was
ashamed for a great while to spend more; and by way of a set off, I left
our chambers pretty bare. If we had beds, if Catriona was a little braw,
and I had light to see her by, we were richly enough lodged for me.