and (I believe) felt upon both sides, it would have looked cold-

like to be anyways stiff.  Accordingly, I got my courage up and my

words ready, and the last chance we were like to be alone, asked

pretty boldly to be allowed to salute her in farewell.



"You forget yourself strangely, Mr. Balfour," said she.  "I cannot

call to mind that I have given you any right to presume on our

acquaintancy."



I stood before her like a stopped clock, and knew not what to

think, far less to say, when of a sudden she cast her arms about my

neck and kissed me with the best will in the world.



"You inimitable bairn?" she cried.  "Did you think that I would let

us part like strangers?  Because I can never keep my gravity at you

five minutes on end, you must not dream I do not love you very

well:  I am all love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you!

And now I will give you an advice to conclude your education, which

you will have need of before it's very long.



Never ASK womenfolk.  They're bound to answer 'No'; God never made

the lass that could resist the temptation.  It's supposed by

divines to be the curse of Eve:  because she did not say it when

the devil offered her the apple, her daughters can say nothing

else."



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



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



"I would put the one question," I went on.  "May I ask a lass to

marry to me?"



"You think you could not marry her without!" she asked.  "Or else

get her to offer?"



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



"I shall be very serious in one thing, David," said she:  "I shall

always be your friend."



As I got to my horse the next morning, the four ladies were all at

that same window whence we had once looked down on Catriona, and

all cried farewell and waved their pocket napkins as I rode away.

One out of the four I knew was truly sorry; and at the thought of

that, and how I had come to the door three months ago for the first

time, sorrow and gratitude made a confusion in my mind.









PART II--FATHER AND DAUGHTER









CHAPTER XXI--THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND







The ship lay at a single anchor, well outside the pier of Leith, so

that all we passengers must come to it by the means of skiffs.

This was very little troublesome, for the reason that the day was a

flat calm, very frosty and cloudy, and with a low shifting fog upon

the water.  The body of the vessel was thus quite hid as I drew

near, but the tall spars of her stood high and bright in a sunshine

like the flickering of a fire.  She proved to be a very roomy,

commodious merchant, but somewhat blunt in the bows, and loaden

extraordinary deep with salt, salted salmon, and fine white linen

stockings for the Dutch.  Upon my coming on board, the captain

welcomed me--one Sang (out of Lesmahago, I believe), a very hearty,

friendly tarpaulin of a man, but at the moment in rather of a

bustle.  There had no other of the passengers yet appeared, so that

I was left to walk about upon the deck, viewing the prospect and

wondering a good deal what these farewells should be which I was

promised.



All Edinburgh and the Pentland Hills glinted above me in a kind of

smuisty brightness, now and again overcome with blots of cloud; of

Leith there was no more than the tops of chimneys visible, and on

the face of the water, where the haar {24} lay, nothing at all.

Out of this I was presently aware of a sound of oars pulling, and a

little after (as if out of the smoke of a fire) a boat issued.

There sat a grave man in the stern sheets, well muffled from the

cold, and by his side a tall, pretty, tender figure of a maid that

brought my heart to a stand.  I had scarce the time to catch my

breath in, and be ready to meet her, as she stepped upon the deck,

smiling, and making my best bow, which was now vastly finer than

some months before, when first I made it to her ladyship.  No doubt

we were both a good deal changed:  she seemed to have shot up like

a young, comely tree.  She had now a kind of pretty backwardness

that became her well as of one that regarded herself more highly

and was fairly woman; and for another thing, the hand of the same

magician had been at work upon the pair of us, and Miss Grant had

made us both BRAW, if she could make but the one BONNY.



The same cry, in words not very different, came from both of us,

that the other was come in compliment to say farewell, and then we

perceived in a flash we were to ship together.



"O, why will not Baby have been telling me!" she cried; and then

remembered a letter she had been given, on the condition of not

opening it till she was well on board.  Within was an enclosure for

myself, and ran thus:





"DEAR DAVIE,--What do you think of my farewell? and what do you say

to your fellow passenger?  Did you kiss, or did you ask?  I was

about to have signed here, but that would leave the purport of my

question doubtful, and in my own case I KEN THE ANSWER.  So fill up

here with good advice.  Do not be too blate, {25} and for God's

sake do not try to be too forward; nothing acts you worse.  I am



"Your affectionate friend and governess,

"BARBARA GRANT."





I wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my

pocketbook, put it in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed

the whole with my new signet of the Balfour arms, and despatched it

by the hand of Prestongrange's servant that still waited in my

boat.



Then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure, which we

had not done for a piece of a minute before (upon a common impulse)

we shook hands again.



"Catriona?" said I.  It seemed that was the first and last word of

my eloquence.



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



"And I think that is an idle word," said I.  "We are too deep

friends to make speech upon such trifles."



"Is she not the girl of all the world?" she cried again.  "I was

never knowing such a girl so honest and so beautiful."



"And yet she cared no more for Alpin than what she did for a kale-

stock," said I.



"Ah, she will say so indeed!" cries Catriona.  "Yet it was for the

name and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and was so good

to me."



"Well, I will tell you why it was," said I.  "There are all sorts

of people's faces in this world.  There is Barbara's face, that

everyone must look at and admire, and think her a fine, brave,

merry girl.  And then there is your face, which is quite different-

-I never knew how different till to-day.  You cannot see yourself,

and that is why you do not understand; but it was for the love of

your face that she took you up and was so good to you.  And

everybody in the world would do the same."



"Everybody?" says she.



"Every living soul?" said I.



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

she cried,



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



"She will have taught me more than that at all events.  She will

have taught me a great deal about Mr. David--all the ill of him,

and a little that was not so ill either, now and then," she said,

smiling.  "She will have told me all there was of Mr. David, only

just that he would sail upon this very same ship.  And why it is

you go?"



I told her.



"Ah, well," said she, "we will be some days in company and then (I

suppose) good-bye for altogether!  I go to meet my father at a

place of the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be

exiles by the side of our chieftain."



I could say no more than just "O!" the name of James More always

drying up my very voice.



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

thought.



"There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David," said

she.  "I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you

altogether very well.  And the one of them two is James More, my

father, and the other is the Laird of Prestongrange.  Prestongrange

will have spoken by himself, or his daughter in the place of him.

But for James More, my father, I have this much to say:  he lay

shackled in a prison; he is a plain honest soldier and a plain

Highland gentleman; what they would be after he would never be

guessing; but if he had understood it was to be some prejudice to a

young gentleman like yourself, he would have died first.  And for

the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you to pardon my

father and family for that same mistake."



"Catriona," said I, "what that mistake was I do not care to know.

I know but the one thing--that you went to Prestongrange and begged

my life upon your knees.  O, I ken well enough it was for your

father that you went, but when you were there you pleaded for me

also.  It is a thing I cannot speak of.  There are two things I

cannot think of into myself:  and the one is your good words when

you called yourself my little friend, and the other that you

pleaded for my life.  Let us never speak more, we two, of pardon or

offence."



We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on

her; and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung

up in the nor'-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in

upon the anchor.



There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it

a full cabin.  Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkcaldy,

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. Gebbie

(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 left 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

fire-locks, 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 grant 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 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 uncles lay in the hill, and I was to be carrying them

their meat in the middle night, or at the short sight 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 by 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 an 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 in a man, and that

in 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; ye 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 afterthought," 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 eighth 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 partancrab, 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 here 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 as 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 fore-castle, 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 Scotch 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 lose 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-lone 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 see 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 Inveronachile?"



"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 fellows--my bark is waur nor my

bite.  To hear me, ye micht whiles fancy I was a wee thing dour;

but na, na! it's a kind auld fallow 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

respects 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 twalmouth; 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 leddy 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-waggon, which is a kind of a long waggon 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 were

pretty brightly lighted and thronged with 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 harbour 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 till 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 the 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-favouredly 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 the 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 to?" 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 close into me by way of a reply.



"Here," I said, "is the stillest place 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 like 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 nor 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 those

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 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