By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the door
with all our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which to read
myself a lecture. Here had I taken under my roof, and as good as to my
bosom, a young lass extremely beautiful, and whose innocence was her
peril. My talk with the old Dutchman, and the lies to which I was
constrained, had already given me a sense of how my conduct must appear
to others; and now, after the strong admiration I had just experienced
and the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain purchases, I began
to think of it myself as very hasarded. I bethought me, if I had a
sister indeed, whether I would so expose her; then, judging the case too
problematical, I varied my question into this, whether I would so trust
Catriona in the hands of any other Christian being: the answer to which
made my face to burn. The more cause, since I had been entrapped and had
entrapped the girl into an undue situation, that I should behave in it
with scrupulous nicety. She depended on me wholly for her bread and
shelter; in case I should alarm her delicacy, she had no retreat.
Besides, I was her host and her protector; and the more irregularly I
had fallen in these positions, the less excuse for me if I should profit
by the same to forward even the most honest suit; for with the
opportunities that I enjoyed, and which no wise parent would have
suffered for a moment, even the most honest suit would be unfair. I saw
I must be extremely hold-off in my relations; and yet not too much so
neither; for if I had no right to appear at all in the character of a
suitor, I must yet appear continually, and if possible agreeably, in
that of host. It was plain I should require a great deal of tact and
conduct, perhaps more than my years afforded. But I had rushed in where
angels might have feared to tread, and there was no way out of that
position, save by behaving right while I was in it. I made a set of
rules for my guidance; prayed for strength to be enabled to observe
them, and as a more human aid to the same end purchased a study book in
law. This being all that I could think of, I relaxed from these grave
considerations; whereupon my mind bubbled at once into an effervescency
of pleasing spirits, and it was like one treading on air that I turned
homeward. As I thought that name of home, and recalled the image of that
figure awaiting me between four walls, my heart beat upon my bosom.

My troubles began with my return. She ran to greet me with an obvious
and affecting pleasure. She was clad, besides, entirely in the new
clothes that I had bought for her; looked in them beyond expression
well; and must walk about and drop me curtseys to display them and to be
admired. I am sure I did it with an ill grace, for I thought to have
choked upon the words.

"Well," she said, "if you will not be caring for my pretty clothes, see
what I have done with our two chambers." And she showed me the place all
very finely swept and the fires glowing in the two chimneys.

I was glad of a chance to seem a little more severe than I quite felt.
"Catriona," said I, "I am very much displeased with you, and you must
never again lay a hand upon my room. One of us two must have the rule
while we are here together; it is most fit it should be I who am both
the man and the elder; and I give you that for my command."

She dropped me one of her curtseys which were extraordinary taking. "If
you will be cross," said she, "I must be making pretty manners at you,
Davie. I will be very obedient, as I should be when every stitch upon
all there is of me belongs to you. But you will not be very cross
either, because now I have not anyone else."

This struck me hard, and I made haste, in a kind of penitence, to blot
out all the good effect of my last speech. In this direction, progress
was more easy, being down hill; she led me forward, smiling; at the
sight of her, in the brightness of the fire and with her pretty becks
and looks, my heart was altogether melted. We made our meal with
infinite mirth and tenderness; and the two seemed to be commingled into
one, so that our very laughter sounded like a kindness.

In the midst of which I awoke to better recollections, made a lame word
of excuse, and set myself boorishly to my studies. It was a substantial,
instructive book that I had bought, by the late Dr. Heineccius, in which
I was to do a great deal of reading these next days, and often very glad
that I had no one to question me of what I read. Methought she bit her
lip at me a little, and that cut me. Indeed it left her wholly solitary,
the more as she was very little of a reader, and had never a book. But
what was I to do?

So the rest of the evening flowed by almost without speech.

I could have beat myself. I could not lie in my bed that night for rage
and repentance, but walked to and fro on my bare feet till I was nearly
perished, for the chimney was gone out and the frost keen. The thought
of her in the next room, the thought that she might even hear me as I
walked, the remembrance of my churlishness and that I must continue to
practise the same ungrateful course or be dishonoured, put me beside my
reason. I stood like a man between Scylla and Charybdis: _What must she
think of me_? was my one thought that softened me continually into
weakness. _What is to become of us_? the other which steeled me again to
resolution. This was my first night of wakefulness and divided counsels,
of which I was now to pass many, pacing like a madman, sometimes weeping
like a childish boy, sometimes praying (I would fain hope) like a
Christian.

But prayer is not very difficult, and the hitch comes in practice. In
her presence, and above all if I allowed any beginning of familiarity, I
found I had very little command of what should follow. But to sit all
day in the same room with her, and feign to be engaged upon Heineccius,
surpassed my strength. So that I fell instead upon the expedient of
absenting myself so much as I was able; taking out classes and sitting
there regularly, often with small attention, the test of which I found
the other day in a note-book of that period, where I had left off to
follow an edifying lecture and actually scribbled in my book some very
ill verses, though the Latinity is rather better than I thought I could
ever have compassed. The evil of this course was unhappily near as great
as its advantage. I had the less time of trial, but I believe, while
that time lasted, I was tried the more extremely. For she being so much
left to solitude, she came to greet my return with an increasing fervour
that came nigh to overmaster me. These friendly offers I must
barbarously cast back; and my rejection sometimes wounded her so cruelly
that I must unbend and seek to make it up to her in kindness. So that
our time passed in ups and downs, tiffs and disappointments, upon the
which I could almost say (if it may be said with reverence) that I was
crucified.

The base of my trouble was Catriona's extraordinary innocence, at which
I was not so much surprised as filled with pity and admiration. She
seemed to have no thought of our position, no sense of my struggles;
welcomed any mark of my weakness with responsive joy; and when I was
drove again to my retrenchments, did not always dissemble her chagrin.
There were times when I have thought to myself, 'If she were over head
in love, and set her cap to catch me, she would scarce behave much
otherwise;' and then I would fall again into wonder at the simplicity of
woman, from whom I felt (in these moments) that I was not worthy to be
descended.

There was one point in particular on which our warfare turned, and of
all things, this was the question of her clothes. My baggage had soon
followed me from Rotterdam, and hers from Helvoet. She had now, as it
were, two wardrobes; and it grew to be understood between us (I could
never tell how) that when she was friendly she would wear my clothes,
and when otherwise her own. It was meant for a buffet, and (as it were)
the renunciation of her gratitude; and I felt it so in my bosom, but was
generally more wise than to appear to have observed the circumstance.

Once, indeed, I was betrayed into a childishness greater than her own;
it fell in this way. On my return from classes, thinking upon her
devoutly with a great deal of love and a good deal of annoyance in the
bargain, the annoyance began to fade away out of my mind; and spying in
a window one of those forced flowers, of which the Hollanders are so
skilled in the artifice, I gave way to an impulse and bought it for
Catriona. I do not know the name of that flower, but it was of the pink
colour, and I thought she would admire the same, and carried it home to
her with a wonderful soft heart. I had left her in my clothes, and when
I returned to find her all changed and a face to match, I cast but the
one look at her from head to foot, ground my teeth together, flung the
window open, and my flower into the court, and then (between rage and
prudence) myself out of that room again, of which I slammed the door as
I went out.

On the steep stair I came near falling, and this brought me to myself,
so that I began at once to see the folly of my conduct. I went, not into
the street as I had purposed, but to the house court, which was always a
solitary place, and where I saw my flower (that had cost me vastly more
than it was worth) hanging in the leafless tree. I stood by the side of
the canal, and looked upon the ice. Country people went by on their
skates, and I envied them. I could see no way out of the pickle I was
in: no way so much as to return to the room I had just left. No doubt
was in my mind but I had now betrayed the secret of my feelings; and to
make things worse, I had shown at the same time (and that with wretched
boyishness) incivility to my helpless guest.

I suppose she must have seen me from the open window. It did not seem to
me that I had stood there very long before I heard the crunching of
footsteps on the frozen snow, and turning somewhat angrily (for I was in
no spirit to be interrupted) saw Catriona drawing near. She was all
changed again, to the clocked stockings.

"Are we not to have our walk to-day?" said she.

I was looking at her in a maze. "Where is your brooch?" says I.

She carried her hand to her bosom and coloured high. "I will have
forgotten it," said she. "I will run upstairs for it quick, and then
surely we'll can have our walk?"

There was a note of pleading in that last that staggered me; I had
neither words nor voice to utter them; I could do no more than nod by
way of answer; and the moment she had left me, climbed into the tree and
recovered my flower, which on her return I offered her.

"I bought it for you, Catriona," said I.

She fixed it in the midst of her bosom with the brooch, I could have
thought tenderly.

"It is none the better of my handling," said I again, and blushed.

"I will be liking it none the worse, you may be sure of that," said she.

We did not speak so much that day, she seemed a thought on the reserve
though not unkindly. As for me, all the time of our walking, and after
we came home, and I had seen her put my flower into a pot of water, I
was thinking to myself what puzzles women were. I was thinking, the one
moment, it was the most stupid thing on earth she should not have
perceived my love; and the next, that she had certainly perceived it
long ago, and (being a wise girl with the fine female instinct of
propriety) concealed her knowledge.

We had our walk daily. Out in the streets I felt more safe; I relaxed a
little in my guardedness; and for one thing, there was no Heineccius.
This made these periods not only a relief to myself, but a particular
pleasure to my poor child. When I came back about the hour appointed, I
would generally find her ready dressed and glowing with anticipation.
She would prolong their duration to the extreme, seeming to dread (as I
did myself) the hour of the return; and there is scarce a field or
waterside near Leyden, scarce a street or lane there, where we have not
lingered. Outside of these, I bade her confine herself entirely to our
lodgings; this in the fear of her encountering any acquaintance, which
would have rendered our position very difficult. From the same
apprehension I would never suffer her to attend church, nor even go
myself; but made some kind of shift to hold worship privately in our own
chamber--I hope with an honest, but I am quite sure with a very much
divided mind. Indeed, there was scarce anything that more affected me,
than thus to kneel down alone with her before God like man and wife.

One day it was snowing downright hard. I had thought it not possible
that we should venture forth, and was surprised to find her waiting for
me ready dressed.

"I will not be doing without my walk," she cried. "You are never a good
boy, Davie, in the house; I will never be caring for you only in the
open air. I think we two will better turn Egyptian and dwell by the
roadside."

That was the best walk yet of all of them; she clung near to me in the
falling snow; it beat about and melted on us, and the drops stood upon
her bright cheeks like tears and ran into her smiling mouth. Strength
seemed to come upon me with the sight like a giant's; I thought I could
have caught her up and run with her into the uttermost places in the
earth; and we spoke together all that time beyond belief for freedom and
sweetness.

It was the dark night when we came to the house door. She pressed my arm
upon her bosom. "Thank you kindly for these same good hours," said she,
on a deep note of her voice.

The concern in which I fell instantly on this address, put me with the
same swiftness on my guard; and we were no sooner in the chamber, and
the light made, than she beheld the old, dour, stubborn countenance of
the student of Heineccius. Doubtless she was more than usually hurt; and
I know for myself, I found it more than usually difficult to maintain my
strangeness. Even at the meal, I durst scarce unbuckle and scarce lift
my eyes to her; and it was no sooner over than I fell again to my
civilian, with more seeming abstraction and less understanding than
before. Methought, as I-read, I could hear my heart strike like an
eight-day clock. Hard as I feigned to study, there was still some of my
eyesight that spilled beyond the book upon Catriona. She sat on the
floor by the side of my great mail, and the chimney lighted her up, and
shone and blinked upon her, and made her glow and darken through a
wonder of fine hues. Now she would be gazing in the fire, and then again
at me; and at that I would be plunged in a terror of myself, and turn
the pages of Heineccius like a man looking for the text in church.

Suddenly she called out aloud, "O, why does not my father come?" she
cried, and fell at once into a storm of tears.

I leaped up, flung Heineccius fairly into the fire, ran to her side, and
cast an arm around her sobbing body.

She put me from her sharply. "You do not love your friend," says she. "I
could be so happy too, if you would let me!" And then, "O, what will I
have done that you should hate me so?"

"Hate you!" cries I, and held her firm. "You blind lass, can you not see
a little in my wretched heart? Do you think when I set there, reading in
that fool-book that I have just burned and be damned to it, I take ever
the least thought of any stricken thing but just yourself? Night after
night I could have grat to see you sitting there your lone. And what was
I to do? You are here under my honour; would you punish me for that? Is
it for that that you would spurn a loving servant?"

At the word, with a small, sudden motion, she clung near to me. I raised
her face to mine, I kissed it, and she bowed her brow upon my bosom,
clasping me tight. I sat in a mere whirl like a man drunken. Then I
heard her voice sound very small and muffled in my clothes.

"Did you kiss her truly?" she asked.

There went through me so great a heave of surprise that I was all shook
with it.

"Miss Grant!" I cried, all in a disorder. "Yes, I asked her to kiss me
good-bye, the which she did."

"Ah, well!" said she, "you have kissed me too, at all events."

At the strangeness and sweetness of that word, I saw where we had
fallen; rose, and set her on her feet.

"This will never do," said I. "This will never, never do. O Catrine,
Catrine!" Then there came a pause in which I was debarred from any
speaking. And then, "Go away to your bed," said I. "Go away to your bed
and leave me."

She turned to obey me like a little child, and the next I knew of it,
had stopped in the very doorway.

"Good night, Davie!" said she.

"And O, good night, my love!" I cried, with a great outbreak of my soul,
and caught her to me again, so that it seemed I must have broken her.
The next moment I had thrust her from the room, shut to the door even
with violence, and stood alone.

The milk was spilt now, the word was out and the truth told. I had crept
like an untrusty man into the poor maid's affections; she was in my hand
like any frail, innocent thing to make or mar; and what weapon of
defence was left me? It seemed like a symbol that Heinoccius, my old
protection, was now burned. I repented, yet could not find it in my
heart to blame myself for that great failure. It seemed not possible to
have resisted the boldness of her innocence or that last temptation of
her weeping. And all that I had to excuse me did but make my sin appear
the greater--it was upon a nature so defenceless, and with such
advantages of the position, that I seemed to have practised.

What was to become of us now? It seemed we could no longer dwell in the
one place. But where was I to go? or where she? Without either choice or
fault of ours, life had conspired to wall us together in that narrow
place. I had a wild thought of marrying out of hand; and the next moment
put it from me with revolt. She was a child, she could not tell her own
heart; I had surprised her weakness, I must never go on to build on that
surprisal; I must keep her not only clear of reproach, but free as she
had come to me.

Down I sat before the fire, and reflected, and repented, and beat my
brains in vain for any means of escape. About two of the morning, there
were three red embers left and the house and all the city was asleep,
when I was aware of a small sound of weeping in the next room. She
thought that I slept, the poor soul; she regretted her weakness--and
what perhaps (God help her!) she called her forwardness--and in the dead
of the night solaced herself with tears. Tender and bitter feelings,
love and penitence and pity struggled in my soul; it seemed I was under
bond to heal that weeping.

"O, try to forgive me!" I cried out, "try, try to forgive me. Let us
forget it all, let us try if we'll no can forget it!"

There came no answer, but the sobbing ceased. I stood a long while with
my hands still clasped as I had spoken; then the cold of the night laid
hold upon me with a shudder, and I think my reason reawakened.

"You can make no hand of this, Davie," thinks I. "To bed with you like a
wise lad, and try if you can sleep. To-morrow you may see your way."

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXV

THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE


I was called on the morrow out of a late and troubled slumber by a
knocking on my door, ran to open it, and had almost swooned with the
contrariety of my feelings, mostly painful; for on the threshold, in a
rough wrapraseal and an extraordinary big laced hat, there stood James
More.

I ought to have been glad perhaps without admixture, for there was a
sense in which the man came like an answer to prayer. I had been saying
till my head was weary that Catriona and I must separate, and looking
till my head ached for any possible means of separation. Here were the
means come to me upon two legs, and joy was the hindmost of my thoughts.
It is to be considered, however, that even if the weight of the future
were lifted off me by the man's arrival, the present heaved up the more
black and menacing; so that, as I first stood before him in my shirt and
breeches, I believe I took a leaping step backward like a person shot.

"Ah," said he, "I have found you, Mr. Balfour." And offered me his
large, fine hand, the which (recovering at the same time my post in the
doorway, as if with some thought of resistance) I took him by
doubtfully. "It is a remarkable circumstance how our affairs appear to
intermingle," he continued. "I am owing you an apology for an
unfortunate intrusion upon yours, which I suffered myself to be
entrapped into by my confidence in that false-face, Prestongrange; I
think shame to own to you that I was ever trusting to a lawyer." He
shrugged his shoulders with a very French air. "But indeed the man is
very plausible," says he. "And now it seems that you have busied
yourself handsomely in the matter of my daughter, for whose direction I
was remitted to yourself."

"I think, sir," said I, with a very painful air, "that it will be
necessary we two should have an explanation."

"There is nothing amiss?" he asked. "My agent, Mr. Sprott--"

"For God's sake moderate your voice!" I cried. "She must not hear till
we have had an explanation."

"She is in this place?" cries he.

"That is her chamber door," said I.

"You are here with her alone?" he asked.

"And who else would I have got to stay with us?" cries I.

I will do him the justice to admit that he turned pale.

"This is very unusual," said he. "This is a very unusual circumstance.
You are right, we must hold an explanation."

So saying, he passed me by, and I must own the tall old rogue appeared
at that moment extraordinary dignified. He had now, for the first time,
the view of my chamber, which I scanned (I may say) with his eyes. A bit
of morning sun glinted in by the window pane, and showed it off; my bed,
my mails, and washing dish, with some disorder of my clothes, and the
unlighted chimney, made the only plenishing; no mistake but it looked
bare and cold, and the most unsuitable, beggarly place conceivable to
harbour a young lady. At the same time came in on my mind the
recollection of the clothes that I had bought for her; and I thought
this contrast of poverty and prodigality bore an ill appearance.

He looked all about the chamber for a seat, and finding nothing else to
his purpose except my bed, took a place upon the side of it; where,
after I had closed the door, I could not very well avoid joining him.
For however this extraordinary interview might end, it must pass if
possible without waking Catriona; and the one thing needful was that we
should sit close and talk low. But I can scarce picture what a pair we
made; he in his great coat which the coldness of my chamber made
extremely suitable; I shivering in my shirt and breeks; he with very
much the air of a judge; and I (whatever I looked) with very much the
feelings of a man who has heard the last trumpet.

"Well?" says he.

And "Well" I began, but found myself unable to go further.

"You tell me she is here?" said he again, but now with a spice of
impatiency that seemed to brace me up.

"She is in this house," said I, "and I knew the circumstance would be
called unusual. But you are to consider how very unusual the whole
business was from the beginning. Here is a young lady landed on the
coast of Europe with two shillings and a penny halfpenny. She is
directed to yon man Sprott in Helvoet. I hear you call him your agent.
All I can say is he could do nothing but damn and swear at the mere
mention of your name, and I must fee him out of my own pocket even to
receive the custody of her effects, You speak of unusual circumstances,
Mr. Drummond, if that be the name you prefer. Here was a circumstance,
if you like, to which it was barbarity to have exposed her."

"But this is what I cannot understand the least," said James. "My
daughter was placed into the charge of some responsible persons, whose
names I have forgot."

"Gebbie was the name," said I; "and there is no doubt that Mr. Gebbie
should have gone ashore with her at Helvoet. But he did not, Mr.
Drummond; and I think you might praise God that I was there to offer in
his place."

"I shall have a word to say to Mr. Gebbie before done," said he. "As for
yourself, I think it might have occurred that you were somewhat young
for such a post."

"But the choice was not between me and somebody else, it was between me
and nobody," I cried. "Nobody offered in my place, and I must say I
think you show a very small degree of gratitude to me that did."

"I shall wait until I understand my obligation a little more in the
particular," says he.

"Indeed, and I think it stares you in the face, then," said I. "Your
child was deserted, she was clean flung away in the midst of Europe,
with scarce two shillings, and not two words of any language spoken
there: I must say, a bonny business! I brought her to this place. I gave
her the name and the tenderness due to a sister. All this has not gone
without expense, but that I scarce need to hint at. They were services
due to the young lady's character which I respect; and I think it would
be a bonny business too, if I was to be singing her praises to her
father."

"You are a young man," he began.

"So I hear you tell me," said I, with a good deal of heat.

"You are a very young man," he repeated, "or you would have understood
the significancy of the step."

"I think you speak very much at your ease," cried I. "What else was I to
do? It is a fact I might have hired some decent, poor woman to be a
third to us, and I declare I never thought of it until this moment! But
where was I to find her, that am a foreigner myself? And let me point
out to your observation, Mr. Drummond, that it would have cost me money
out of my pocket. For here is just what it comes to, that I had to pay
through the nose for your neglect; and there is only the one story to
it, just that you were so unloving and so careless as to have lost your
daughter."

"He that lives in a glass house should not be casting stones," says he;
"and we will finish inquiring into the behaviour of Miss Drummond,
before we go on to sit in judgment on her father."

"But I will be entrapped into no such attitude," said I. "The character
of Miss Drummond is far above inquiry, as her father ought to know. So
is mine, and I am telling you that. There are but the two ways of it
open. The one is to express your thanks to me as one gentleman to
another, and to say no more. The other (if you are so difficult as to be
still dissatisfied) is to pay me that which I have expended and be
done."

He seemed to soothe me with a hand in the air.

"There, there," said he. "You go too fast, you go too fast, Mr. Balfour.
It is a good thing that I have learned to be more patient. And I believe
you forget that I have yet to see my daughter."

I began to be a little relieved upon this speech and a change in the
man's manner that I spied in him as soon as the name of money fell
between us.

"I was thinking it would be more fit--if you will excuse the plainness
of my dressing in your presence--that I should go forth and leave you to
encounter her alone?" said I.

"What I would have looked for at your hands!" says he; and there was no
mistake but what he said it civilly.

I thought this better and better still, and as I began to pull on my
hose, recalling the man's impudent mendicancy at Prestongrange's, I
determined to pursue what seemed to be my victory.

"If you have any mind to stay some while in Leyden," said I, "this room
is very much at your disposal, and I can easy find another for myself:
in which way we shall have the least amount of flitting possible, there
being only one to change."

"Why, sir," said he, making his bosom big, "I think no shame of a
poverty I have come by in the service of my king; I make no secret that
my affairs are quite involved; and for the moment, it would be even
impossible for me to undertake a journey."

"Until you have occasion to communicate with your friends," said I,
"perhaps it might be convenient for you (as of course it would be
honourable to myself) if you were to regard yourself in the light of my
guest?"

"Sir," said he, "when an offer is frankly made, I think I honour myself
most to imitate that frankness. Your hand, Mr. David; you have the
character that I respect the most; you are one of those from whom a
gentleman can take a favour and no more words about it. I am an old
soldier," he went on, looking rather disgusted-like around my chamber,
"and you need not fear I shall prove burthensome. I have ate too often
at a dyke-side, drank of the ditch, and had no roof but the rain."

"I should be telling you," said I, "that our breakfasts are sent
customarily in about this time of morning. I propose I should go now to
the tavern, and bid them add a cover for yourself and delay the meal the
matter of an hour, which will give you an interval to meet your daughter
in."

Methought his nostrils wagged at this. "O, an hour," says he. "That is
perhaps superfluous. Half an hour, Mr. David, or say twenty minutes; I
shall do very well in that. And by the way," he adds, detaining me by
the coat, "what is it you drink in the morning, whether ale or wine?"

"To be frank with you, sir," says I, "I drink nothing else but spare,
cold water?"

"Tut-tut," says he, "that is fair destruction to the stomach, take an
old campaigner's word for it. Our country spirit at home is perhaps the
most entirely wholesome; but as that is not come-at-able, Rhenish or a
white wine of Burgundy will be next best."

"I shall make it my business to see you are supplied," said I.

"Why, very good," said he, "and we shall make a man of you yet, Mr.
David."

By this time, I can hardly say that I was minding him at all, beyond an
odd thought of the kind of father-in-law that he was like to prove; and
all my cares centred about the lass his daughter, to whom I determined
to convey some warning of her visitor. I stepped to the door
accordingly, and cried through the panels, knocking thereon at the same
time: "Miss Drummond, here is your father come at last."

With that I went forth upon my errand, having (by two words)
extraordinarily damaged my affairs.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXVI

THE THREESOME


Whether or not I was to be so much blamed, or rather perhaps pitied, I
must leave others to judge of. My shrewdness (of which I have a good
deal, too) seems not so great with the ladies. No doubt, at the moment
when I awaked her, I was thinking a good deal of the effect upon James
More; and similarly when I returned and we were all sat down to
breakfast, I continued to behave to the young lady with deference and
distance; as I still think to have been most wise. Her father had cast
doubts upon the innocence of my friendship; and these, it was my first
business to allay. But there is a kind of an excuse for Catriona also.
We had shared in a scene of some tenderness and passion, and given and
received caresses; I had thrust her from me with violence; I had called
aloud upon her in the night from the one room to the other; she had
passed hours of wakefulness and weeping; and it is not to be supposed I
had been absent from her pillow thoughts. Upon the back of this, to be
awaked, with unaccustomed formality, under the name of Miss Drummond,
and to be thenceforth used with a great deal of distance and respect,
led her entirely in error on my private sentiments; and she was indeed
so incredibly abused as to imagine me repentant and trying to draw off!

The trouble betwixt us seems to have been this: that whereas I (since I
had first set eyes on his great hat) thought singly of James More, his
return and suspicions, she made so little of these that I may say she
scarce remarked them, and all her troubles and doings regarded what had
passed between us in the night before. This is partly to be explained by
the innocence and boldness of her character; and partly because James
More, having sped so ill in his interview with me, or had his mouth
closed by my invitation, said no word to her upon the subject. At the
breakfast, accordingly, it soon appeared we were at cross purposes. I
had looked to find her in clothes of her own: I found her (as if her
father were forgotten) wearing some of the best that I had bought for
her and which she knew (or thought) that I admired her in. I had looked
to find her imitate my affectation of distance, and be most precise and
formal; instead I found her flushed and wild-like, with eyes
extraordinary bright, and a painful and varying expression, calling me
by name with a sort of appeal of tenderness, and referring and deferring
to my thoughts and wishes like an anxious or a suspected wife.

But this was not for long. As I beheld her so regardless of her own
interests, which I had jeopardised and was now endeavoring to recover, I
redoubled my own boldness in the manner of a lesson to the girl. The
more she came forward, the further I drew back; the more she betrayed
the closeness of our intimacy, the more pointedly civil I became, until
even her father (if he had not been so engrossed with eating) might have
observed the opposition. In the midst of which, of a sudden, she became
wholly changed, and I told myself, with a good deal of relief, that she
had took the hint at last.

All day I was at my classes or in quest of my new lodging; and though
the hour of our customary walk hung miserably on my hands, I cannot say
but I was happy on the whole to find my way cleared, the girl again in
proper keeping, the father satisfied or at least acquiescent, and myself
free to prosecute my love with honour. At supper, as at all our meals,
it was James More that did the talking. No doubt but he talked well, if
anyone could have believed him. But I will speak of him presently more
at large. The meal at an end, he rose, got his great coat, and looking
(as I thought) at me, observed he had affairs abroad. I took this for a
hint that I was to be going also, and got up; whereupon the girl, who
had scarce given me greeting at my entrance, turned her eyes on me wide
open, with a look that bade me stay. I stood between them like a fish
out of water, turning from one to the other; neither seemed to observe
me, she gazing on the floor, he buttoning his coat: which vastly swelled
my embarrassment. This appearance of indifferency argued, upon her side,
a good deal of anger very near to burst out. Upon his, I thought it
horribly alarming; I made sure there was a tempest brewing there; and
considering that to be the chief peril, turned towards him and put
myself (so to speak) in the man's hands.

"Can I do anything for _you_, Mr. Drummond?" says I.

He stifled a yawn, which again I thought to be duplicity. "Why, Mr.
David," said he, "since you are so obliging as to propose it, you might
show me the way to a certain tavern" (of which he gave the name) "where
I hope to fall in with some old companions in arms."

There was no more to say, and I got my hat and cloak to bear him
company.

"And as for you," he says to his daughter, "you had best go to your bed.
I shall be late home, and _Early to bed and early to rise, gars bonny
lasses have bright eyes."_

Whereupon he kissed her with a good deal of tenderness, and ushered me
before him from the door. This was so done (I thought on purpose) that
it was scarce possible there should be any parting salutation; but I
observed she did not look at me, and set it down to terror of James
More.

It was some distance to that tavern. He talked all the way of matters
which did not interest me the smallest, and at the door dismissed me
with empty manners. Thence I walked to my new lodging, where I had not
so much as a chimney to hold me warm, and no society but my own
thoughts. These were still bright enough; I did not so much as dream
that Catriona was turned against me; I thought we were like folk
pledged; I thought we had been too near and spoke too warmly to be
severed, least of all by what were only steps in a most needful policy.
And the chief of my concern was only the kind of father-in-law that I
was getting, which was not at all the kind I would have chosen: and the
matter of how soon I ought to speak to him, which was a delicate point
on several sides. In the first place, when I thought how young I was, I
blushed all over, and could almost have found it in my heart to have
desisted; only that if once I let them go from Leyden without
explanation, I might lose her altogether. And in the second place, there
was our very irregular situation to be kept in view, and the rather
scant measure of satisfaction I had given James More that morning. I
concluded, on the whole, that delay would not hurt anything, yet I would
not delay too long neither; and got to my cold bed with a full heart.

The next day, as James More seemed a little on the complaining hand in
the matter of my chamber, I offered to have in more furniture; and
coming in the afternoon, with porters bringing chairs and tables, found
the girl once more left to herself. She greeted me on my admission
civilly, but withdrew at once to her own room, of which she shut the
door. I made my disposition, and paid and dismissed the men so that she
might hear them go, when I supposed she would at once come forth again
to speak to me. I waited yet awhile, then knocked upon her door.

"Catriona!" said I.

The door was opened so quickly, even before I had the word out, that I
thought she must have stood behind it listening. She remained there in
the interval quite still; but she had a look that I cannot put a name
on, as of one in a bitter trouble.

"Are we not to have our walk to-day either?" so I faltered.

"I am thanking you," said she. "I will not be caring much to walk, now
that my father is come home."

"But I think he has gone out himself and left you here alone," said I.

"And do you think that was very kindly said?" she asked.

"It was not unkindly meant," I replied. "What ails you, Catriona? What
have I done to you that you should turn from me like this?"

"I do not turn from you at all," she said, speaking very carefully. "I
will ever be grateful to my friend that was good to me; I will ever be
his friend in all that I am able. But now that my father James More is
come again, there is a difference to be made, and I think there are some
things said and done that would be better to be forgotten. But I will
ever be your friend in all that I am able, and if that is not all that
. . . if it is not so much. . . . Not that you will be caring! But I would
not have you think of me too hard. It was true what you said to me, that
I was too young to be advised, and I am hoping you will remember I was
just a child. I would not like to lose your friendship, at all events."

She began this very pale; but before she was done, the blood was in her
face like scarlet, so that not her words only, but her face and the
trembling of her very hands, besought me to be gentle. I saw for the
first time, how very wrong I had done to place the child in that
position, where she had been entrapped into a moment's weakness, and now
stood before me like a person shamed.

"Miss Drummond," I said, and stuck, and made the same beginning once
again, "I wish you could see into my heart," I cried. "You would read
there that my respect is undiminished. If that were possible, I should
say it was increased. This is but the result of the mistake we made; and
had to come; and the less said of it now the better. Of all of our life
here, I promise you it shall never pass my lips; I would like to promise
you too that I would never think of it, but it's a memory that will be
always dear to me. And as for a friend, you have one here that would die
for you."

"I am thanking you," said she.

We stood awhile silent, and my sorrow for myself began to get the upper
hand; for here were all my dreams come to a sad tumble, and my love
lost, and myself alone again in the world as at the beginning.

"Well," said I, "we shall be friends always, that's a certain thing. But
this is a kind of a farewell too: it's a kind of a farewell after all; I
shall always ken Miss Drummond, but this is a farewell to my Catriona."

I looked at her; I could hardly say I saw her, but she seemed to grow
great and brighten in my eyes; and with that I suppose I must have lost
my head, for I called out her name again and made a step at her with my
hands reached forth.

She shrank back like a person struck, her face flamed; but the blood
sprang no faster up into her cheeks, than what it flowed back upon my
own heart, at sight of it, with penitence and concern. I found no words
to excuse myself, but bowed before her very deep, and went my ways out
of the house with death in my bosom.

I think it was about five days that followed without any change. I saw
her scarce ever but at meals, and then of course in the company of James
More. If we were alone even for a moment, I made it my devoir to behave
the more distantly and to multiply respectful attentions, having always
in my mind's eye that picture of the girl shrinking and flaming in a
blush, and in my heart more pity for her than I could depict in words. I
was sorry enough for myself, I need not dwell on that, having fallen all
my length and more than all my height in a few seconds; but, indeed, I
was near as sorry for the girl, and sorry enough to be scarce angry with
her save by fits and starts. Her plea was good: she was but a child; she
had been placed in an unfair position; if she had deceived herself and
me, it was no more than was to have been looked for.

And for another thing she was now very much alone. Her father, when he
was by, was rather a caressing parent; but he was very easy led away by
his affairs and pleasures, neglected her without compunction or remark,
spent his nights in taverns when he had the money, which was more often
than I could at all account for; and even in the course of these few
days, failed once to come to a meal, which Catriona and I were at last
compelled to partake of without him. It was the evening meal, and I left
immediately that I had eaten, observing I supposed she would prefer to
be alone; to which she agreed and (strange as it may seem) I quite
believed her. Indeed, I thought myself but an eyesore to the girl, and a
reminder of a moment's weakness that she now abhorred to think of. So
she must sit alone in that room where she and I had been so merry, and
in the blink of that chimney whose light had shone upon our many
difficult and tender moments. There she must sit alone, and think of
herself as of a maid who had most unmaidenly proffered her affections
and had the same rejected. And in the meanwhile I would be alone some
other place, and reading myself (whenever I was tempted to be angry)
lessons upon human frailty and female delicacy. And altogether I suppose
there were never two poor fools made themselves more unhappy in a
greater misconception.

As for James, he paid not so much heed to us, or to anything in nature
but his pocket, and his belly, and his own prating talk. Before twelve
hours were gone he had raised a small loan of me; before thirty, he had
asked for a second and been refused. Money and refusal he took with the
same kind of high good-nature. Indeed, he had an outside air of
magnanimity that was very well fitted to impose upon a daughter; and the
light in which he was constantly presented in his talk, and the man's
fine presence and great ways went together pretty harmoniously. So that
a man that had no business with him, and either very little penetration
or a furious deal of prejudice, might almost have been taken in. To me,
after my first two interviews, he was as plain as print; I saw him to be
perfectly selfish, with a perfect innocency in the same; and I would
harken to his swaggering talk (of arms, and "an old soldier," and "a
poor Highland gentleman," and "the strength of my country and my
friends") as I might to the babbling of a parrot.

The odd thing was that I fancy he believed some part of it himself, or
did at times; I think he was so false all through that he scarce knew
when he was lying; and for one thing, his moments of dejection must have
been wholly genuine. There were times when he would be the most silent,
affectionate, clinging creature possible, holding Catriona's hand like a
big baby, and begging of me not to leave if I had any love to him; of
which, indeed, I had none, but all the more to his daughter. He would
press and indeed beseech us to entertain him with our talk, a thing very
difficult in the state of our relations; and again break forth in
pitiable regrets for his own land and friends, or into Gaelic singing.

"This is one of the melancholy airs of my native land," he would say.
"You may think it strange to see a soldier weep, and indeed it is to
make a near friend of you," says he. "But the notes of this singing are
in my blood, and the words come out of my heart. And when I mind upon my
red mountains and the wild birds calling there, and the brave streams of
water running down, I would scarce think shame to weep before my
enemies." Then he would sing again, and translate to me pieces of the
song, with a great deal of boggling and much expressed contempt against
the English language. "It says here," he would say, "that the sun is
gone down, and the battle is at an end, and the brave chiefs are
defeated. And it tells here how the stars see them fleeing into strange
countries or lying dead on the red mountain; and they will never more
shout the call of battle or wash their feet in the streams of the
valley. But if you had only some of this language, you would weep also
because the words of it are beyond all expression, and it is mere
mockery to tell you it in English."

Well, I thought there was a good deal of mockery in the business, one
way and another; and yet, there was some feeling too, for which I hated
him, I think, the worst of all. And it used to cut me to the quick to
see Catriona so much concerned for the old rogue, and weeping herself to
see him weep, when I was sure one-half of his distress flowed from his
last night's drinking in some tavern. There were times when I was
tempted to lend him a round sum, and see the last of him for good; but
this would have been to see the last of Catriona as well, for which I
was scarcely so prepared; and besides, it went against my conscience to
squander my good money on one who was so little of a husband.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXVII

A TWOSOME


I believe it was about the fifth day, and I know at least that James was
in one of his fits of gloom, when I received three letters. The first
was from Alan, offering to visit me in Leyden; the other two were out of
Scotland and prompted by the same affair, which was the death of my
uncle and my own complete accession to my rights. Rankeillor's was, of
course, wholly in the business view; Miss Grant's was like herself, a
little more witty than wise, full of blame to me for not having written
(though how was I to write with such intelligence?) and of rallying talk
about Catriona, which it cut me to the quick to read in her very
presence.

For it was of course in my own rooms that I found them, when I came to
dinner, so that I was surprised out of my news in the very first moment
of reading it. This made a welcome diversion for all three of us, nor
could any have foreseen the ill consequences that ensued. It was
accident that brought the three letters the same day, and that gave them
into my hand in the same room with James More; and of all the events
that flowed from that accident, and which I might have prevented if I
had held my tongue, the truth is that they were preordained before
Agricola came into Scotland or Abraham set out upon his travels.

The first that I opened was naturally Alan's; and what more natural than
that I should comment on his design to visit me? but I observed James to
sit up with an air of immediate attention.

"Is that not Alan Breck that was suspected of the Appin accident?" he
inquired.

I told him, "Ay," it was the same; and he withheld me some time from my
other letters, asking of our acquaintance, of Alan's manner of life in
France, of which I knew very little, and further of his visit as now
proposed.

"All we forfeited folk hang a little together," he explained, "and
besides I know the gentleman: and though his descent is not the thing,
and indeed he has no true right to use the name of Stewart, he was very
much admired in the day of Drummossie. He did there like a soldier; if
some that need not be named had done as well, the upshot need not have
been so melancholy to remember. There were two that did their best that
day, and it makes a bond between the pair of us," says he.

I could scarce refrain from shooting out my tongue at him, and could
almost have wished that Alan had been there to have inquired a little
further into that mention of his birth. Though, they tell me, the same
was indeed not wholly regular.

Meanwhile, I had opened Miss Grant's, and could not withhold an
exclamation.

"Catriona," I cried, forgetting, the first time since her father was
arrived, to address her by a handle, "I am come into my kingdom fairly,
I am the laird of Shaws indeed--my uncle is dead at last."

She clapped her hands together leaping from her seat. The next moment it
must have come over both of us at once what little cause of joy was left
to either, and we stood opposite, staring on each other sadly.

But James showed himself a ready hypocrite. "My daughter," says he, "is
this how my cousin learned you to behave? Mr. David has lost a near
friend, and we should first condole with him on his bereavement."

"Troth, sir," said I, turning to him in a kind of anger, "I can make no
such faces. His death is as blythe news as ever I got."

"It's a good soldier's philosophy," says James. "'Tis the way of flesh,
we must all go, all go. And if the gentleman was so far from your
favour, why, very well! But we may at least congratulate you on your
accession to your estates."