particular, I would have jumped at any decent opening for speech.



Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was

all wiped away from among our feet.  I took my cloak to her and

sought to hap her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to

keep it.



"Indeed and I will do no such thing," said I.  "Here am I, a great,

ugly lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here are you a

tender, pretty maid!  My dear, you would not put me to a shame?"



Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in

the darkness, I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost

like an embrace.



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



I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against

my bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.



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



And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the

happiness that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.



The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came

into the town of Delft.  The red gabled houses made a handsome show

on either hand of a canal; the servant lassies were out slestering

and scrubbing at the very stones upon the public highway; smoke

rose from a hundred kitchens; and it came in upon me strongly it

was time to break our fasts.



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

baubees?"



"Are you wanting it?" said she, and passed me her purse.  "I am

wishing it was five pounds!  What will you want it for?"



"And what have we been walking for all night, like a pair of waif

Egyptians!" says I.  "Just because I was robbed of my purse and all

I possessed in that unchancy town of Rotterdam.  I will tell you of

it now, because I think the worst is over, but we have still a good

tramp before us till we get to where my money is, and if you would

not buy me a piece of bread, I were like to go fasting."



She looked at me with open eyes.  By the light of the new day she

was all black and pale for weariness, so that my heart smote me for

her.  But as for her, she broke out laughing.



"My torture! are we beggars then!" she cried.  "You too?  O, I

could have wished for this same thing!  And I am glad to buy your

breakfast to you.  But it would be pleisand if I would have had to

dance to get a meal to you!  For I believe they are not very well

acquainted with our manner of dancing over here, and might be

paying for the curiosity of that sight."



I could have kissed her for that word, not with a lover's mind, but

in a heat of admiration.  For it always warms a man to see a woman

brave.



We got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the

town, and in a baker's, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling

bread, which we ate upon the road as we went on.  That road from

Delft to the Hague is just five miles of a fine avenue shaded with

trees, a canal on the one hand, on the other excellent pastures of

cattle.  It was pleasant here indeed.



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

events?"



"It is what we have to speak of," said I, "and the sooner yet the

better.  I can come by money in Leyden; that will be all well.  But

the trouble is how to dispose of you until your father come.  I

thought last night you seemed a little sweir to part from me?"



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



"You are a very young maid," said I, "and I am but a very young

callant.  This is a great piece of difficulty.  What way are we to

manage?  Unless indeed, you could pass to be my sister?"



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



"I wish you were so, indeed," I cried.  "I would be a fine man if I

had such a sister.  But the rub is that you are Catriona Drummond."



"And now I will be Catriona Balfour," she said.  "And who is to

ken?  They are all strange folk here."



"If you think that it would do," says I.  "I own it troubles me.  I

would like it very ill, if I advised you at all wrong."



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



"The mere truth is, I am too young to be your friend," said I.  "I

am too young to advise you, or you to be advised.  I see not what

else we are to do, and yet I ought to warn you."



"I will have no choice left," said she.  "My father James More has

not used me very well, and it is not the first time, I am cast upon

your hands like a sack of barley meal, and have nothing else to

think of but your pleasure.  If you will have me, good and well.

If you will not"--she turned and touched her hand upon my arm--

"David, I am afraid," said she.



"No, but I ought to warn you," I began; and then bethought me I was

the bearer of the purse, and it would never do to seem too

churlish.  "Catriona," said I, "don't misunderstand me:  I am just

trying to do my duty by you, girl!  Here am I going alone to this

strange city, to be a solitary student there; and here is this

chance arisen that you might dwell with me a bit, and be like my

sister; you can surely understand this much, my dear, that I would

just love to have you?"



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



I know I was in duty bounden to have spoke more plain.  I know this

was a great blot on my character, for which I was lucky that I did

not pay more dear.  But I minded how easy her delicacy had been

startled with a word of kissing her in Barbara's letter; now that

she depended on me, how was I to be more bold?  Besides, the truth

is, I could see no other feasible method to dispose of her.  And I

daresay inclination pulled me very strong.



A little beyond the Hague she fell very lame and made the rest of

the distance heavily enough.  Twice she must rest by the wayside,

which she did with pretty apologies, calling herself a shame to the

Highlands and the race she came of, and nothing but a hindrance to

myself.  It was her excuse, she said, that she was not much used

with walking shod.  I would have had her strip off her shoes and

stockings and go barefoot.  But she pointed out to me that the

women of that country, even in the landward roads, appeared to be

all shod.



"I must not be disgracing my brother," said she, and was very merry

with it all, although her face told tales of her.



There is a garden in that city we were bound to, sanded below with

clean sand, the trees meeting overhead, some of them trimmed, some

preached, and the whole place beautified with alleys and arbours.

Here I left Catriona, and went forward by myself to find my

correspondent.  There I drew on my credit, and asked to be

recommended to some decent, retired lodging.  My baggage being not

yet arrived, I told him I supposed I should require his caution

with the people of the house; and explained that, my sister being

come for a while to keep house with me, I should be wanting two

chambers.  This was all very well; but the trouble was that Mr.

Balfour in his letter of recommendation had condescended on a great

deal of particulars, and never a word of any sister in the case.  I

could see my Dutchman was extremely suspicious; and viewing me over

the rims of a great pair of spectacles--he was a poor, frail body,

and reminded me of an infirm rabbit--he began to question me close.



Here I fell in a panic.  Suppose he accept my tale (thinks I),

suppose he invite my sister to his house, and that I bring her.  I

shall have a fine ravelled pirn to unwind, and may end by

disgracing both the lassie and myself.  Thereupon I began hastily

to expound to him my sister's character.  She was of a bashful

disposition, it appeared, and be extremely fearful of meeting

strangers that I had left her at that moment sitting in a public

place alone.  And then, being launched upon the stream of

falsehood, I must do like all the rest of the world in the same

circumstance, and plunge in deeper than was any service; adding

some altogether needless particulars of Miss Balfour's ill-health

and retirement during childhood.  In the midst of which I awoke to

a sense of my behaviour, and was turned to one blush.



The old gentleman was not so much deceived but what he discovered a

willingness to be quit of me.  But he was first of all a man of

business; and knowing that my money was good enough, however it

might be with my conduct, he was so far obliging as to send his son

to be my guide and caution in the matter of a lodging.  This

implied my presenting of the young man to Catriona.  The poor,

pretty child was much recovered with resting, looked and behaved to

perfection, and took my arm and gave me the name of brother more

easily than I could answer her.  But there was one misfortune:

thinking to help, she was rather towardly than otherwise to my

Dutchman.  And I could not but reflect that Miss Balfour had rather

suddenly outgrown her bashfulness.  And there was another thing,

the difference of our speech.  I had the Low Country tongue and

dwelled upon my words; she had a hill voice, spoke with something

of an English accent, only far more delightful, and was scarce

quite fit to be called a deacon in the craft of talking English

grammar; so that, for a brother and sister, we made a most uneven

pair.  But the young Hollander was a heavy dog, without so much

spirit in his belly as to remark her prettiness, for which I

scorned him.  And as soon as he had found a cover to our heads, he

left us alone, which was the greater service of the two.







CHAPTER XXIV--FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS







The place found was in the upper part of a house backed on a canal.

We had two rooms, the second entering from the first; each had a

chimney built out into the floor in the Dutch manner; and being

alongside, each had the same prospect from the window of the top of

a tree below us in a little court, of a piece of the canal, and of

houses in the Hollands architecture and a church spire upon the

further side.  A full set of bells hung in that spire and made

delightful music; and when there was any sun at all, it shone

direct in our two chambers.  From a tavern hard by we had good

meals sent in.



The first night we were both pretty weary, and she extremely so.

There was little talk between us, and I packed her off to her bed

as soon as she had eaten.  The first thing in the morning I wrote

word to Sprott to have her mails sent on, together with a line to

Alan at his chief's; and had the same despatched, and her breakfast

ready, ere I waked her.  I was a little abashed when she came forth

in her one habit, and the mud of the way upon her stockings.  By

what inquiries I had made, it seemed a good few days must pass

before her mails could come to hand in Leyden, and it was plainly

needful she must have a shift of things.  She was unwilling at

first that I should go to that expense; but I reminded her she was

now a rich man's sister and must appear suitably in the part, and

we had not got to the second merchant's before she was entirely

charmed into the spirit of the thing, and her eyes shining.  It

pleased me to see her so innocent and thorough in this pleasure.

What was more extraordinary was the passion into which I fell on it

myself; being never satisfied that I had bought her enough or fine

enough, and never weary of beholding her in different attires.

Indeed, I began to understand some little of Miss Grant's immersion

in the interest of clothes; for the truth is, when you have the

ground of a beautiful person to adorn, the whole business becomes

beautiful.  The Dutch chintzes I should say were extraordinary

cheap and fine; but I would be ashamed to set down what I paid for

stockings to her.  Altogether I spent so great a sum upon this

pleasuring (as I may call it) that I was ashamed for a great while

to spend more; and by way of a set-off, I left our chambers pretty

bare.  If we had beds, if Catriona was a little braw, and I had

light to see her by, we were richly enough lodged for me.



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 hazarded.  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 reading these next

few 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 fain would 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 that 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 the 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 she 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 any 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 in 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 less, can you

not see a little in my wretched heart?  Do you not think when I sit

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 saw 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 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

Heineccius, 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 wraprascal 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

impatience 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 long," 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," cried I.  "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.  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 behold her so regardless of her

own interests, which I had jeopardised and was now endeavouring to

recover, I redoubled my own coldness in the manner of a lesson to

the girl.  The more she came forward, the farther 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 upon 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

indifference 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," say he 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