Catriona, by Robert Louis Stevenson

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Title: Catriona

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

Release Date: July, 1996  [EBook #589]
[This file was first posted on May 15, 1996]
[Most recently updated: May 20, 2002]

Edition: 11

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

Transcribed from the 1904 Cassell and Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk




CATRIONA




DEDICATION.


TO CHARLES BAXTER, Writer to the Signet.


My Dear Charles,


It is the fate of sequels to disappoint those who have waited for them; and my David, having been left to kick his heels for more than a lustre in the British Linen Company’s office, must expect his late re-appearance to be greeted with hoots, if not with missiles.  Yet, when I remember the days of our explorations, I am not without hope.  There should be left in our native city some seed of the elect; some long-legged, hot-headed youth must repeat to-day our dreams and wanderings of so many years ago; he will relish the pleasure, which should have been ours, to follow among named streets and numbered houses the country walks of David Balfour, to identify Dean, and Silvermills, and Broughton, and Hope Park, and Pilrig, and poor old Lochend - if it still be standing, and the Figgate Whins - if there be any of them left; or to push (on a long holiday) so far afield as Gillane or the Bass.  So, perhaps, his eye shall be opened to behold the series of the generations, and he shall weigh with surprise his momentous and nugatory gift of life.

You are still - as when first I saw, as when I last addressed you - in the venerable city which I must always think of as my home.  And I have come so far; and the sights and thoughts of my youth pursue me; and I see like a vision the youth of my father, and of his father, and the whole stream of lives flowing down there far in the north, with the sound of laughter and tears, to cast me out in the end, as by a sudden freshet, on these ultimate islands.  And I admire and bow my head before the romance of destiny.

R. L. S.
Vailima, Upolu,
Samoa, 1892.




CATRIONA - Part I - THE LORD ADVOCATE




CHAPTER I - A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK



The 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David Balfour, came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter attending me with a bag of money, and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me from their doors.  Two days before, and even so late as yestermorning, I was like a beggar-man by the wayside, clad in rags, brought down to my last shillings, my companion a condemned traitor, a price set on my own head for a crime with the news of which the country rang.  To-day I was served heir to my position in life, a landed laird, a bank porter by me carrying my gold, recommendations in my pocket, and (in the words of the saying) the ball directly at my foot.

There were two circumstances that served me as ballast to so much sail.  The first was the very difficult and deadly business I had still to handle; the second, the place that I was in.  The tall, black city, and the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world for me, after the moorland braes, the sea-sands and the still country-sides that I had frequented up to then.  The throng of the citizens in particular abashed me.  Rankeillor’s son was short and small in the girth; his clothes scarce held on me; and it was plain I was ill qualified to strut in the front of a bank-porter.  It was plain, if I did so, I should but set folk laughing, and (what was worse in my case) set them asking questions.  So that I behooved to come by some clothes of my own, and in the meanwhile to walk by the porter’s side, and put my hand on his arm as though we were a pair of friends.

At a merchant’s in the Luckenbooths I had myself fitted out: none too fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback; but comely and responsible, so that servants should respect me.  Thence to an armourer’s, where I got a plain sword, to suit with my degree in life.  I felt safer with the weapon, though (for one so ignorant of defence) it might be called an added danger.  The porter, who was naturally a man of some experience, judged my accoutrement to be well chosen.

“Naething kenspeckle,” {1} said he; “plain, dacent claes.  As for the rapier, nae doubt it sits wi’ your degree; but an I had been you, I would has waired my siller better-gates than that.”  And he proposed I should buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back, that was a cousin of his own, and made them “extraordinar endurable.”

But I had other matters on my hand more pressing.  Here I was in this old, black city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-warren, not only by the number of its indwellers, but the complication of its passages and holes.  It was, indeed, a place where no stranger had a chance to find a friend, let be another stranger.  Suppose him even to hit on the right close, people dwelt so thronged in these tall houses, he might very well seek a day before he chanced on the right door.  The ordinary course was to hire a lad they called a caddie, who was like a guide or pilot, led you where you had occasion, and (your errands being done) brought you again where you were lodging.  But these caddies, being always employed in the same sort of services, and having it for obligation to be well informed of every house and person in the city, had grown to form a brotherhood of spies; and I knew from tales of Mr. Campbell’s how they communicated one with another, what a rage of curiosity they conceived as to their employer’s business, and how they were like eyes and fingers to the police.  It would be a piece of little wisdom, the way I was now placed, to take such a ferret to my tails.  I had three visits to make, all immediately needful: to my kinsman Mr. Balfour of Pilrig, to Stewart the Writer that was Appin’s agent, and to William Grant Esquire of Prestongrange, Lord Advocate of Scotland.  Mr. Balfour’s was a non-committal visit; and besides (Pilrig being in the country) I made bold to find the way to it myself, with the help of my two legs and a Scots tongue.  But the rest were in a different case.  Not only was the visit to Appin’s agent, in the midst of the cry about the Appin murder, dangerous in itself, but it was highly inconsistent with the other.  I was like to have a bad enough time of it with my Lord Advocate Grant, the best of ways; but to go to him hot-foot from Appin’s agent, was little likely to mend my own affairs, and might prove the mere ruin of friend Alan’s.  The whole thing, besides, gave me a look of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds that was little to my fancy.  I determined, therefore, to be done at once with Mr. Stewart and the whole Jacobitical side of my business, and to profit for that purpose by the guidance of the porter at my side.  But it chanced I had scarce given him the address, when there came a sprinkle of rain - nothing to hurt, only for my new clothes - and we took shelter under a pend at the head of a close or alley.

Being strange to what I saw, I stepped a little farther in.  The narrow paved way descended swiftly.  Prodigious tall houses sprang upon each side and bulged out, one storey beyond another, as they rose.  At the top only a ribbon of sky showed in.  By what I could spy in the windows, and by the respectable persons that passed out and in, I saw the houses to be very well occupied; and the whole appearance of the place interested me like a tale.

I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in time and clash of steel behind me.  Turning quickly, I was aware of a party of armed soldiers, and, in their midst, a tall man in a great coat.  He walked with a stoop that was like a piece of courtesy, genteel and insinuating: he waved his hands plausibly as he went, and his face was sly and handsome.  I thought his eye took me in, but could not meet it.  This procession went by to a door in the close, which a serving-man in a fine livery set open; and two of the soldier-lads carried the prisoner within, the rest lingering with their firelocks by the door.

There can nothing pass in the streets of a city without some following of idle folk and children.  It was so now; but the more part melted away incontinent until but three were left.  One was a girl; she was dressed like a lady, and had a screen of the Drummond colours on her head; but her comrades or (I should say) followers were ragged gillies, such as I had seen the matches of by the dozen in my Highland journey.  They all spoke together earnestly in Gaelic, the sound of which was pleasant in my ears for the sake of Alan; and, though the rain was by again, and my porter plucked at me to be going, I even drew nearer where they were, to listen.  The lady scolded sharply, the others making apologies and cringeing before her, so that I made sure she was come of a chief’s house.  All the while the three of them sought in their pockets, and by what I could make out, they had the matter of half a farthing among the party; which made me smile a little to see all Highland folk alike for fine obeisances and empty sporrans.

It chanced the girl turned suddenly about, so that I saw her face for the first time.  There is no greater wonder than the way the face of a young woman fits in a man’s mind, and stays there, and he could never tell you why; it just seems it was the thing he wanted.  She had wonderful bright eyes like stars, and I daresay the eyes had a part in it; but what I remember the most clearly was the way her lips were a trifle open as she turned.  And, whatever was the cause, I stood there staring like a fool.  On her side, as she had not known there was anyone so near, she looked at me a little longer, and perhaps with more surprise, than was entirely civil.

It went through my country head she might be wondering at my new clothes; with that, I blushed to my hair, and at the sight of my colouring it is to be supposed she drew her own conclusions, for she moved her gillies farther down the close, and they fell again to this dispute, where I could hear no more of it.

I had often admired a lassie before then, if scarce so sudden and strong; and it was rather my disposition to withdraw than to come forward, for I was much in fear of mockery from the womenkind.  You would have thought I had now all the more reason to pursue my common practice, since I had met this young lady in the city street, seemingly following a prisoner, and accompanied with two very ragged indecent-like Highlandmen.  But there was here a different ingredient; it was plain the girl thought I had been prying in her secrets; and with my new clothes and sword, and at the top of my new fortunes, this was more than I could swallow.  The beggar on horseback could not bear to be thrust down so low, or, at least of it, not by this young lady.

I followed, accordingly, and took off my new hat to her the best that I was able.

“Madam,” said I, “I think it only fair to myself to let you understand I have no Gaelic.  It is true I was listening, for I have friends of my own across the Highland line, and the sound of that tongue comes friendly; but for your private affairs, if you had spoken Greek, I might have had more guess at them.”

She made me a little, distant curtsey.  “There is no harm done,” said she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more agreeable).  “A cat may look at a king.”

“I do not mean to offend,” said I.  “I have no skill of city manners; I never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh.  Take me for a country lad - it’s what I am; and I would rather I told you than you found it out.”

“Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking to each other on the causeway,” she replied.  “But if you are landward {2} bred it will be different.  I am as landward as yourself; I am Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther from my home.”

“It is not yet a week since I passed the line,” said I.  “Less than a week ago I was on the braes of Balwhidder.”

“Balwhither?” she cries.  “Come ye from Balwhither!  The name of it makes all there is of me rejoice.  You will not have been long there, and not known some of our friends or family?”

“I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren,” I replied.

“Well, I know Duncan, and you give him the true name!” she said; “and if he is an honest man, his wife is honest indeed.”

“Ay,” said I, “they are fine people, and the place is a bonny place.”

“Where in the great world is such another!” she cries; “I am loving the smell of that place and the roots that grow there.”

I was infinitely taken with the spirit of the maid.  “I could be wishing I had brought you a spray of that heather,” says I.  “And, though I did ill to speak with you at the first, now it seems we have common acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not forget me.  David Balfour is the name I am known by.  This is my lucky day, when I have just come into a landed estate, and am not very long out of a deadly peril.  I wish you would keep my name in mind for the sake of Balwhidder,” said I, “and I will yours for the sake of my lucky day.”

“My name is not spoken,” she replied, with a great deal of haughtiness.  “More than a hundred years it has not gone upon men’s tongues, save for a blink.  I am nameless, like the Folk of Peace. {3}  Catriona Drummond is the one I use.”

Now indeed I knew where I was standing.  In all broad Scotland there was but the one name proscribed, and that was the name of the Macgregors.  Yet so far from fleeing this undesirable acquaintancy, I plunged the deeper in.

“I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with yourself,” said I, “and I think he will be one of your friends.  They called him Robin Oig.”

“Did ye so?” cries she.  “Ye met Rob?”

“I passed the night with him,” said I.

“He is a fowl of the night,” said she.

“There was a set of pipes there,” I went on, “so you may judge if the time passed.”

“You should be no enemy, at all events,” said she.  “That was his brother there a moment since, with the red soldiers round him.  It is him that I call father.”

“Is it so?” cried I.  “Are you a daughter of James More’s?”

“All the daughter that he has,” says she: “the daughter of a prisoner; that I should forget it so, even for one hour, to talk with strangers!”

Here one of the gillies addressed her in what he had of English, to know what “she” (meaning by that himself) was to do about “ta sneeshin.”  I took some note of him for a short, bandy-legged, red-haired, big-headed man, that I was to know more of to my cost.

“There can be none the day, Neil,” she replied.  “How will you get ‘sneeshin,’ wanting siller!  It will teach you another time to be more careful; and I think James More will not be very well pleased with Neil of the Tom.”

“Miss Drummond,” I said, “I told you I was in my lucky day.  Here I am, and a bank-porter at my tail.  And remember I have had the hospitality of your own country of Balwhidder.”

“It was not one of my people gave it,” said she.

“Ah, well,” said I, “but I am owing your uncle at least for some springs upon the pipes.  Besides which, I have offered myself to be your friend, and you have been so forgetful that you did not refuse me in the proper time.”

“If it had been a great sum, it might have done you honour,” said she; “but I will tell you what this is.  James More lies shackled in prison; but this time past they will be bringing him down here daily to the Advocate’s. . . .”

“The Advocate’s!” I cried.  “Is that . . . ?”

“It is the house of the Lord Advocate Grant of Prestongrange,” said she.  “There they bring my father one time and another, for what purpose I have no thought in my mind; but it seems there is some hope dawned for him.  All this same time they will not let me be seeing him, nor yet him write; and we wait upon the King’s street to catch him; and now we give him his snuff as he goes by, and now something else.  And here is this son of trouble, Neil, son of Duncan, has lost my four-penny piece that was to buy that snuff, and James More must go wanting, and will think his daughter has forgotten him.”

I took sixpence from my pocket, gave it to Neil, and bade him go about his errand.  Then to her, “That sixpence came with me by Balwhidder,” said I.

“Ah!” she said, “you are a friend to the Gregara!”

“I would not like to deceive you, either,” said I.  “I know very little of the Gregara and less of James More and his doings, but since the while I have been standing in this close, I seem to know something of yourself; and if you will just say ‘a friend to Miss Catriona’ I will see you are the less cheated.”

“The one cannot be without the other,” said she.

“I will even try,” said I.

“And what will you be thinking of myself!” she cried, “to be holding my hand to the first stranger!”

“I am thinking nothing but that you are a good daughter,” said I.

“I must not be without repaying it,” she said; “where is it you stop!”

“To tell the truth, I am stopping nowhere yet,” said I, “being not full three hours in the city; but if you will give me your direction, I will he no bold as come seeking my sixpence for myself.”

“Will I can trust you for that?” she asked.

“You need have little fear,” said I.

“James More could not bear it else,” said she.  “I stop beyond the village of Dean, on the north side of the water, with Mrs. Drummond-Ogilvy of Allardyce, who is my near friend and will be glad to thank you.”

“You are to see me, then, so soon as what I have to do permits,” said I; and, the remembrance of Alan rolling in again upon my mind, I made haste to say farewell.

I could not but think, even as I did so, that we had made extraordinary free upon short acquaintance, and that a really wise young lady would have shown herself more backward.  I think it was the bank-porter that put me from this ungallant train of thought.

“I thoucht ye had been a lad of some kind o’ sense,” he began, shooting out his lips.  “Ye’re no likely to gang far this gate.  A fule and his siller’s shune parted.  Eh, but ye’re a green callant!” he cried, “an’ a veecious, tae!  Cleikin’ up wi’ baubeejoes!”

“If you dare to speak of the young lady. . . ” I began.

“Leddy!” he cried.  “Haud us and safe us, whatten leddy?  Ca’ thon a leddy?  The toun’s fu’ o’ them.  Leddies!  Man, its weel seen ye’re no very acquant in Embro!”

A clap of anger took me.

“Here,” said I, “lead me where I told you, and keep your foul mouth shut!”

He did not wholly obey me, for, though he no more addressed me directly, he very impudent sang at me as he went in a manner of innuendo, and with an exceedingly ill voice and ear -


“As Mally Lee cam doun the street, her capuchin did flee,
She cuist a look ahint her to see her negligee.
And we’re a’ gaun east and wast, we’re a’ gann ajee,
We’re a’ gaun east and wast courtin’ Mally Lee.”



CHAPTER II - THE HIGHLAND WRITER



Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer dwelt at the top of the longest stair ever mason set a hand to; fifteen flights of it, no less; and when I had come to his door, and a clerk had opened it, and told me his master was within, I had scarce breath enough to send my porter packing.

“Awa’ east and west wi’ ye!” said I, took the money bag out of his hands, and followed the clerk in.

The outer room was an office with the clerk’s chair at a table spread with law papers.  In the inner chamber, which opened from it, a little brisk man sat poring on a deed, from which he scarce raised his eyes on my entrance; indeed, he still kept his finger in the place, as though prepared to show me out and fall again to his studies.  This pleased me little enough; and what pleased me less, I thought the clerk was in a good posture to overhear what should pass between us.

I asked if he was Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer.

“The same,” says he; “and, if the question is equally fair, who may you be yourself?”

“You never heard tell of my name nor of me either,” said I, “but I bring you a token from a friend that you know well.  That you know well,” I repeated, lowering my voice, “but maybe are not just so keen to hear from at this present being.  And the bits of business that I have to propone to you are rather in the nature of being confidential.  In short, I would like to think we were quite private.”

He rose without more words, casting down his paper like a man ill-pleased, sent forth his clerk of an errand, and shut to the house-door behind him.

“Now, sir,” said he, returning, “speak out your mind and fear nothing; though before you begin,” he cries out, “I tell you mine misgives me!  I tell you beforehand, ye’re either a Stewart or a Stewart sent ye.  A good name it is, and one it would ill-become my father’s son to lightly.  But I begin to grue at the sound of it.”

“My name is called Balfour,” said I, “David Balfour of Shaws.  As for him that sent me, I will let his token speak.”  And I showed the silver button.

“Put it in your pocket, sir!” cries he.  “Ye need name no names.  The deevil’s buckie, I ken the button of him!  And de’il hae’t!  Where is he now!”

I told him I knew not where Alan was, but he had some sure place (or thought he had) about the north side, where he was to lie until a ship was found for him; and how and where he had appointed to be spoken with.

“It’s been always my opinion that I would hang in a tow for this family of mine,” he cried, “and, dod!  I believe the day’s come now!  Get a ship for him, quot’ he!  And who’s to pay for it?  The man’s daft!”

“That is my part of the affair, Mr. Stewart,” said I.  “Here is a bag of good money, and if more be wanted, more is to be had where it came from.”

“I needn’t ask your politics,” said he.

“Ye need not,” said I, smiling, “for I’m as big a Whig as grows.”

“Stop a bit, stop a bit,” says Mr. Stewart.  “What’s all this?  A Whig?  Then why are you here with Alan’s button? and what kind of a black-foot traffic is this that I find ye out in, Mr. Whig?  Here is a forfeited rebel and an accused murderer, with two hundred pounds on his life, and ye ask me to meddle in his business, and then tell me ye’re a Whig!  I have no mind of any such Whigs before, though I’ve kent plenty of them.”

“He’s a forfeited rebel, the more’s the pity,” said I, “for the man’s my friend.  I can only wish he had been better guided.  And an accused murderer, that he is too, for his misfortune; but wrongfully accused.”

“I hear you say so,” said Stewart.

“More than you are to hear me say so, before long,” said I.  “Alan Breck is innocent, and so is James.”

“Oh!” says he, “the two cases hang together.  If Alan is out, James can never be in.”

Hereupon I told him briefly of my acquaintance with Alan, of the accident that brought me present at the Appin murder, and the various passages of our escape among the heather, and my recovery of my estate.  “So, sir, you have now the whole train of these events,” I went on, “and can see for yourself how I come to be so much mingled up with the affairs of your family and friends, which (for all of our sakes) I wish had been plainer and less bloody.  You can see for yourself, too, that I have certain pieces of business depending, which were scarcely fit to lay before a lawyer chosen at random.  No more remains, but to ask if you will undertake my service?”

“I have no great mind to it; but coming as you do with Alan’s button, the choice is scarcely left me,” said he.  “What are your instructions?” he added, and took up his pen.

“The first point is to smuggle Alan forth of this country,” said I, “but I need not be repeating that.”

“I am little likely to forget it,” said Stewart.

“The next thing is the bit money I am owing to Cluny,” I went on.  “It would be ill for me to find a conveyance, but that should be no stick to you.  It was two pounds five shillings and three-halfpence farthing sterling.”

He noted it.

“Then,” said I, “there’s a Mr. Henderland, a licensed preacher and missionary in Ardgour, that I would like well to get some snuff into the hands of; and, as I daresay you keep touch with your friends in Appin (so near by), it’s a job you could doubtless overtake with the other.”

“How much snuff are we to say?” he asked.

“I was thinking of two pounds,” said I.

“Two,” said he.

“Then there’s the lass Alison Hastie, in Lime Kilns,” said I.  “Her that helped Alan and me across the Forth.  I was thinking if I could get her a good Sunday gown, such as she could wear with decency in her degree, it would be an ease to my conscience; for the mere truth is, we owe her our two lives.”

“I am glad so see you are thrifty, Mr. Balfour,” says he, making his notes.

“I would think shame to be otherwise the first day of my fortune,” said I.  “And now, if you will compute the outlay and your own proper charges, I would be glad to know if I could get some spending-money back.  It’s not that I grudge the whole of it to get Alan safe; it’s not that I lack more; but having drawn so much the one day, I think it would have a very ill appearance if I was back again seeking, the next.  Only be sure you have enough,” I added, “for I am very undesirous to meet with you again.”

“Well, and I’m pleased to see you’re cautious, too,” said the Writer.  “But I think ye take a risk to lay so considerable a sum at my discretion.”

He said this with a plain sneer.

“I’ll have to run the hazard,” I replied.  “O, and there’s another service I would ask, and that’s to direct me to a lodging, for I have no roof to my head.  But it must be a lodging I may seem to have hit upon by accident, for it would never do if the Lord Advocate were to get any jealousy of our acquaintance.”

“Ye may set your weary spirit at rest,” said he.  “I will never name your name, sir; and it’s my belief the Advocate is still so much to be sympathised with that he doesnae ken of your existence.”

I saw I had got to the wrong side of the man.

“There’s a braw day coming for him, then,” said I, “for he’ll have to learn of it on the deaf side of his head no later than to-morrow, when I call on him.”

“When ye call on him!” repeated Mr. Stewart.  “Am I daft, or are you!  What takes ye near the Advocate!”

“O, just to give myself up,” said I.

“Mr. Balfour,” he cried, “are ye making a mock of me?”

“No, sir,” said I, “though I think you have allowed yourself some such freedom with myself.  But I give you to understand once and for all that I am in no jesting spirit.”

“Nor yet me,” says Stewart.  “And I give yon to understand (if that’s to be the word) that I like the looks of your behaviour less and less.  You come here to me with all sorts of propositions, which will put me in a train of very doubtful acts and bring me among very undesirable persons this many a day to come.  And then you tell me you’re going straight out of my office to make your peace with the Advocate!  Alan’s button here or Alan’s button there, the four quarters of Alan wouldnae bribe me further in.”

“I would take it with a little more temper,” said I, “and perhaps we can avoid what you object to.  I can see no way for it but to give myself up, but perhaps you can see another; and if you could, I could never deny but what I would be rather relieved.  For I think my traffic with his lordship is little likely to agree with my health.  There’s just the one thing clear, that I have to give my evidence; for I hope it’ll save Alan’s character (what’s left of it), and James’s neck, which is the more immediate.”

He was silent for a breathing-space, and then, “My man,” said he, “you’ll never be allowed to give such evidence.”

“We’ll have to see about that,” said I; “I’m stiff-necked when I like.”

“Ye muckle ass!” cried Stewart, “it’s James they want; James has got to hang - Alan, too, if they could catch him - but James whatever!  Go near the Advocate with any such business, and you’ll see! he’ll find a way to muzzle, ye.”

“I think better of the Advocate than that,” said I.

“The Advocate be dammed!” cries he.  “It’s the Campbells, man!  You’ll have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will the Advocate too, poor body!  It’s extraordinar ye cannot see where ye stand!  If there’s no fair way to stop your gab, there’s a foul one gaping.  They can put ye in the dock, do ye no see that?” he cried, and stabbed me with one finger in the leg.

“Ay,” said I, “I was told that same no further back than this morning by another lawyer.”

“And who was he?” asked Stewart, “He spoke sense at least.”

I told I must be excused from naming him, for he was a decent stout old Whig, and had little mind to be mixed up in such affairs.

“I think all the world seems to be mixed up in it!” cries Stewart.  “But what said you?”

“I told him what had passed between Rankeillor and myself before the house of Shaws.

“Well, and so ye will hang!” said he.  “Ye’ll hang beside James Stewart.  There’s your fortune told.”

“I hope better of it yet than that,” said I; “but I could never deny there was a risk.”

“Risk!” says he, and then sat silent again.  “I ought to thank you for you staunchness to my friends, to whom you show a very good spirit,” he says, “if you have the strength to stand by it.  But I warn you that you’re wading deep.  I wouldn’t put myself in your place (me that’s a Stewart born!) for all the Stewarts that ever there were since Noah.  Risk? ay, I take over-many; but to be tried in court before a Campbell jury and a Campbell judge, and that in a Campbell country and upon a Campbell quarrel - think what you like of me, Balfour, it’s beyond me.”

“It’s a different way of thinking, I suppose,” said I; “I was brought up to this one by my father before me.”

“Glory to his bones! he has left a decent son to his name,” says he.  “Yet I would not have you judge me over-sorely.  My case is dooms hard.  See, sir, ye tell me ye’re a Whig: I wonder what I am.  No Whig to be sure; I couldnae be just that.  But - laigh in your ear, man - I’m maybe no very keen on the other side.”

“Is that a fact?” cried I.  “It’s what I would think of a man of your intelligence.”

“Hut! none of your whillywhas!” {4} cries he.  “There’s intelligence upon both sides.  But for my private part I have no particular desire to harm King George; and as for King James, God bless him! he does very well for me across the water.  I’m a lawyer, ye see: fond of my books and my bottle, a good plea, a well-drawn deed, a crack in the Parliament House with other lawyer bodies, and perhaps a turn at the golf on a Saturday at e’en.  Where do ye come in with your Hieland plaids and claymores?”

“Well,” said I, “it’s a fact ye have little of the wild Highlandman.”

“Little?” quoth he.  “Nothing, man!  And yet I’m Hieland born, and when the clan pipes, who but me has to dance!  The clan and the name, that goes by all.  It’s just what you said yourself; my father learned it to me, and a bonny trade I have of it.  Treason and traitors, and the smuggling of them out and in; and the French recruiting, weary fall it! and the smuggling through of the recruits; and their pleas - a sorrow of their pleas!  Here have I been moving one for young Ardsheil, my cousin; claimed the estate under the marriage contract - a forfeited estate!  I told them it was nonsense: muckle they cared!  And there was I cocking behind a yadvocate that liked the business as little as myself, for it was fair ruin to the pair of us - a black mark, disaffected, branded on our hurdies, like folk’s names upon their kye!  And what can I do?  I’m a Stewart, ye see, and must fend for my clan and family.  Then no later by than yesterday there was one of our Stewart lads carried to the Castle.  What for?  I ken fine: Act of 1736: recruiting for King Lewie.  And you’ll see, he’ll whistle me in to be his lawyer, and there’ll be another black mark on my chara’ter!  I tell you fair: if I but kent the heid of a Hebrew word from the hurdies of it, be dammed but I would fling the whole thing up and turn minister!”

“It’s rather a hard position,” said I.

“Dooms hard!” cries he.  “And that’s what makes me think so much of ye - you that’s no Stewart - to stick your head so deep in Stewart business.  And for what, I do not know: unless it was the sense of duty.”

“I hope it will be that,” said I.

“Well,” says he, “it’s a grand quality.  But here is my clerk back; and, by your leave, we’ll pick a bit of dinner, all the three of us.  When that’s done, I’ll give you the direction of a very decent man, that’ll be very fain to have you for a lodger.  And I’ll fill your pockets to ye, forbye, out of your ain bag.  For this business’ll not be near as dear as ye suppose - not even the ship part of it.”

I made him a sign that his clerk was within hearing.

“Hoot, ye neednae mind for Robbie,” cries he.  “A Stewart, too, puir deevil! and has smuggled out more French recruits and trafficking Papists than what he has hairs upon his face.  Why, it’s Robin that manages that branch of my affairs.  Who will we have now, Rob, for across the water!”

“There’ll be Andie Scougal, in the Thristle,” replied Rob.  “I saw Hoseason the other day, but it seems he’s wanting the ship.  Then there’ll be Tam Stobo; but I’m none so sure of Tam.  I’ve seen him colloguing with some gey queer acquaintances; and if was anybody important, I would give Tam the go-by.”

“The head’s worth two hundred pounds, Robin,” said Stewart.

“Gosh, that’ll no be Alan Breck!” cried the clerk.

“Just Alan,” said his master.

“Weary winds! that’s sayrious,” cried Robin.  “I’ll try Andie, then; Andie’ll be the best.”

“It seems it’s quite a big business,” I observed.

“Mr. Balfour, there’s no end to it,” said Stewart.

“There was a name your clerk mentioned,” I went on: “Hoseason.  That must be my man, I think: Hoseason, of the brig Covenant.  Would you set your trust on him?”

“He didnae behave very well to you and Alan,” said Mr. Stewart; “but my mind of the man in general is rather otherwise.  If he had taken Alan on board his ship on an agreement, it’s my notion he would have proved a just dealer.  How say ye, Rob?”

“No more honest skipper in the trade than Eli,” said the clerk.  “I would lippen to {5} Eli’s word - ay, if it was the Chevalier, or Appin himsel’,” he added.

“And it was him that brought the doctor, wasnae’t?” asked the master.

“He was the very man,” said the clerk.

“And I think he took the doctor back?” says Stewart.

“Ay, with his sporran full!” cried Robin.  “And Eli kent of that!” {6}

“Well, it seems it’s hard to ken folk rightly,” said I.

“That was just what I forgot when ye came in, Mr. Balfour!” says the Writer.



CHAPTER III - I GO TO PILRIG



The next morning, I was no sooner awake in my new lodging than I was up and into my new clothes; and no sooner the breakfast swallowed, than I was forth on my adventurers.  Alan, I could hope, was fended for; James was like to be a more difficult affair, and I could not but think that enterprise might cost me dear, even as everybody said to whom I had opened my opinion.  It seemed I was come to the top of the mountain only to cast myself down; that I had clambered up, through so many and hard trials, to be rich, to be recognised, to wear city clothes and a sword to my side, all to commit mere suicide at the last end of it, and the worst kind of suicide, besides, which is to get hanged at the King’s charges.

What was I doing it for? I asked, as I went down the high Street and out north by Leith Wynd.  First I said it was to save James Stewart; and no doubt the memory of his distress, and his wife’s cries, and a word or so I had let drop on that occasion worked upon me strongly.  At the same time I reflected that it was (or ought to be) the most indifferent matter to my father’s son, whether James died in his bed or from a scaffold.  He was Alan’s cousin, to be sure; but so far as regarded Alan, the best thing would be to lie low, and let the King, and his Grace of Argyll, and the corbie crows, pick the bones of his kinsman their own way.  Nor could I forget that, while we were all in the pot together, James had shown no such particular anxiety whether for Alan or me.

Next it came upon me I was acting for the sake of justice: and I thought that a fine word, and reasoned it out that (since we dwelt in polities, at some discomfort to each one of us) the main thing of all must still be justice, and the death of any innocent man a wound upon the whole community.  Next, again, it was the Accuser of the Brethren that gave me a turn of his argument; bade me think shame for pretending myself concerned in these high matters, and told me I was but a prating vain child, who had spoken big words to Rankeillor and to Stewart, and held myself bound upon my vanity to make good that boastfulness.  Nay, and he hit me with the other end of the stick; for he accused me of a kind of artful cowardice, going about at the expense of a little risk to purchase greater safety.  No doubt, until I had declared and cleared myself, I might any day encounter Mungo Campbell or the sheriff’s officer, and be recognised, and dragged into the Appin murder by the heels; and, no doubt, in case I could manage my declaration with success, I should breathe more free for ever after.  But when I looked this argument full in the face I could see nothing to be ashamed of.  As for the rest, “Here are the two roads,” I thought, “and both go to the same place.  It’s unjust that James should hang if I can save him; and it would be ridiculous in me to have talked so much and then do nothing.  It’s lucky for James of the Glens that I have boasted beforehand; and none so unlucky for myself, because now I’m committed to do right.  I have the name of a gentleman and the means of one; it would be a poor duty that I was wanting in the essence.”  And then I thought this was a Pagan spirit, and said a prayer in to myself, asking for what courage I might lack, and that I might go straight to my duty like a soldier to battle, and come off again scatheless, as so many do.

This train of reasoning brought me to a more resolved complexion; though it was far from closing up my sense of the dangers that surrounded me, nor of how very apt I was (if I went on) to stumble on the ladder of the gallows.  It was a plain, fair morning, but the wind in the east.  The little chill of it sang in my blood, and gave me a feeling of the autumn, and the dead leaves, and dead folks’ bodies in their graves.  It seemed the devil was in it, if I was to die in that tide of my fortunes and for other folks’ affairs.  On the top of the Calton Hill, though it was not the customary time of year for that diversion, some children were crying and running with their kites.  These toys appeared very plain against the sky; I remarked a great one soar on the wind to a high altitude and then plump among the whins; and I thought to myself at sight of it, “There goes Davie.”

My way lay over Mouter’s Hill, and through an end of a clachan on the braeside among fields.  There was a whirr of looms in it went from house to house; bees bummed in the gardens; the neighbours that I saw at the doorsteps talked in a strange tongue; and I found out later that this was Picardy, a village where the French weavers wrought for the Linen Company.  Here I got a fresh direction for Pilrig, my destination; and a little beyond, on the wayside, came by a gibbet and two men hanged in chains.  They were dipped in tar, as the manner is; the wind span them, the chains clattered, and the birds hung about the uncanny jumping-jacks and cried.  The sight coming on me suddenly, like an illustration of my fears, I could scarce be done with examining it and drinking in discomfort.  And, as I thus turned and turned about the gibbet, what should I strike on, but a weird old wife, that sat behind a leg of it, and nodded, and talked aloud to herself with becks and courtesies.

“Who are these two, mother?” I asked, and pointed to the corpses.

“A blessing on your precious face!” she cried.  “Twa joes {7} o’mine: just two o’ my old joes, my hinny dear.”

“What did they suffer for?” I asked.

“Ou, just for the guid cause,” said she.  “Aften I spaed to them the way that it would end.  Twa shillin’ Scots: no pickle mair; and there are twa bonny callants hingin’ for ’t!  They took it frae a wean {8} belanged to Brouchton.”

“Ay!” said I to myself, and not to the daft limmer, “and did they come to such a figure for so poor a business?  This is to lose all indeed.”

“Gie’s your loof, {9} hinny,” says she, “and let me spae your weird to ye.”

“No, mother,” said I, “I see far enough the way I am.  It’s an unco thing to see too far in front.”

“I read it in your bree,” she said.  “There’s a bonnie lassie that has bricht een, and there’s a wee man in a braw coat, and a big man in a pouthered wig, and there’s the shadow of the wuddy, {10} joe, that lies braid across your path.  Gie’s your loof, hinny, and let Auld Merren spae it to ye bonny.”

The two chance shots that seemed to point at Alan and the daughter of James More struck me hard; and I fled from the eldritch creature, casting her a baubee, which she continued to sit and play with under the moving shadows of the hanged.

My way down the causeway of Leith Walk would have been more pleasant to me but for this encounter.  The old rampart ran among fields, the like of them I had never seen for artfulness of agriculture; I was pleased, besides, to be so far in the still countryside; but the shackles of the gibbet clattered in my head; and the mope and mows of the old witch, and the thought of the dead men, hag-rode my spirits.  To hang on a gallows, that seemed a hard case; and whether a man came to hang there for two shillings Scots, or (as Mr. Stewart had it) from the sense of duty, once he was tarred and shackled and hung up, the difference seemed small.  There might David Balfour hang, and other lads pass on their errands and think light of him; and old daft limmers sit at a leg-foot and spae their fortunes; and the clean genty maids go by, and look to the other aide, and hold a nose.  I saw them plain, and they had grey eyes, and their screens upon their heads were of the Drummed colours.

I was thus in the poorest of spirits, though still pretty resolved, when I came in view of Pilrig, a pleasant gabled house set by the walkside among some brave young woods.  The laird’s horse was standing saddled at the door as I came up, but himself was in the study, where he received me in the midst of learned works and musical instruments, for he was not only a deep philosopher but much of a musician.  He greeted me at first pretty well, and when he had read Rankeillor’s letter, placed himself obligingly at my disposal.

“And what is it, cousin David!” said he - “since it appears that we are cousins - what is this that I can do for you!  A word to Prestongrange!  Doubtless that is easily given.  But what should be the word?”

“Mr. Balfour,” said I, “if I were to tell you my whole story the way it fell out, it’s my opinion (and it was Rankeillor’s before me) that you would be very little made up with it.”

“I am sorry to hear this of you, kinsman,” says he.

“I must not take that at your hands, Mr. Balfour,” said I; “I have nothing to my charge to make me sorry, or you for me, but just the common infirmities of mankind.  ‘The guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of my whole nature,’ so much I must answer for, and I hope I have been taught where to look for help,” I said; for I judged from the look of the man he would think the better of me if I knew my questions. {11}  “But in the way of worldly honour I have no great stumble to reproach myself with; and my difficulties have befallen me very much against my will and (by all that I can see) without my fault.  My trouble is to have become dipped in a political complication, which it is judged you would be blythe to avoid a knowledge of.”

“Why, very well, Mr. David,” he replied, “I am pleased to see you are all that Rankeillor represented.  And for what you say of political complications, you do me no more than justice.  It is my study to be beyond suspicion, and indeed outside the field of it.  The question is,” says he, “how, if I am to know nothing of the matter, I can very well assist you?”

“Why sir,” said I, “I propose you should write to his lordship, that I am a young man of reasonable good family and of good means: both of which I believe to be the case.”

“I have Rankeillor’s word for it,” said Mr. Balfour, “and I count that a warran-dice against all deadly.”

“To which you might add (if you will take my word for so much) that I am a good churchman, loyal to King George, and so brought up,” I went on.

“None of which will do you any harm,” said Mr. Balfour.

“Then you might go on to say that I sought his lordship on a matter of great moment, connected with His Majesty’s service and the administration of justice,” I suggested.

“As I am not to hear the matter,” says the laird, “I will not take upon myself to qualify its weight.  ‘Great moment’ therefore falls, and ‘moment’ along with it.  For the rest I might express myself much as you propose.”

“And then, sir,” said I, and rubbed my neck a little with my thumb, “then I would be very desirous if you could slip in a word that might perhaps tell for my protection.”

“Protection?” says he, “for your protection!  Here is a phrase that somewhat dampens me.  If the matter be so dangerous, I own I would be a little loath to move in it blindfold.”

“I believe I could indicate in two words where the thing sticks,” said I.

“Perhaps that would be the best,” said he.

“Well, it’s the Appin murder,” said I.

He held up both his hands.  “Sirs! sirs!” cried he.

I thought by the expression of his face and voice that I had lost my helper.

“Let me explain. . .” I began.

“I thank you kindly, I will hear no more of it,” says he.  “I decline in toto to hear more of it.  For your name’s sake and Rankeillor’s, and perhaps a little for your own, I will do what I can to help you; but I will hear no more upon the facts.  And it is my first clear duty to warn you.  These are deep waters, Mr. David, and you are a young man.  Be cautious and think twice.”

“It is to be supposed I will have thought oftener than that, Mr. Balfour,” said I, “and I will direct your attention again to Rankeillor’s letter, where (I hope and believe) he has registered his approval of that which I design.”

“Well, well,” said he; and then again, “Well, well!  I will do what I can for you.”  There with he took a pen and paper, sat a while in thought, and began to write with much consideration.  “I understand that Rankeillor approved of what you have in mind?” he asked presently.

“After some discussion, sir, he bade me to go forward in God’s name,” said I.

“That is the name to go in,” said Mr. Balfour, and resumed his writing.  Presently, he signed, re-read what he had written, and addressed me again.  “Now here, Mr. David,” said he, “is a letter of introduction, which I will seal without closing, and give into your hands open, as the form requires.  But, since I am acting in the dark, I will just read it to you, so that you may see if it will secure your end -


“PILRIG, August 26th, 1751.

“My Lord, - This is to bring to your notice my namesake and cousin, David Balfour Esquire of Shaws, a young gentleman of unblemished descent and good estate.  He has enjoyed, besides, the more valuable advantages of a godly training, and his political principles are all that your lordship can desire.  I am not in Mr. Balfour’s confidence, but I understand him to have a matter to declare, touching His Majesty’s service and the administration of justice; purposes for which your Lordship’s zeal is known.  I should add that the young gentleman’s intention is known to and approved by some of his friends, who will watch with hopeful anxiety the event of his success or failure.


“Whereupon,” continued Mr. Balfour, “I have subscribed myself with the usual compliments.  You observe I have said ‘some of your friends’; I hope you can justify my plural?”

“Perfectly, sir; my purpose is known and approved by more than one,” said I.  “And your letter, which I take a pleasure to thank you for, is all I could have hoped.”

“It was all I could squeeze out,” said he; “and from what I know of the matter you design to meddle in, I can only pray God that it may prove sufficient.”



CHAPTER IV - LORD ADVOCATE PRESTONGRANGE



My kinsman kept me to a meal, “for the honour of the roof,” he said; and I believe I made the better speed on my return.  I had no thought but to be done with the next stage, and have myself fully committed; to a person circumstanced as I was, the appearance of closing a door on hesitation and temptation was itself extremely tempting; and I was the more disappointed, when I came to Prestongrange’s house, to be informed he was abroad.  I believe it was true at the moment, and for some hours after; and then I have no doubt the Advocate came home again, and enjoyed himself in a neighbouring chamber among friends, while perhaps the very fact of my arrival was forgotten.  I would have gone away a dozen times, only for this strong drawing to have done with my declaration out of hand and be able to lay me down to sleep with a free conscience.  At first I read, for the little cabinet where I was left contained a variety of books.  But I fear I read with little profit; and the weather falling cloudy, the dusk coming up earlier than usual, and my cabinet being lighted with but a loophole of a window, I was at last obliged to desist from this diversion (such as it was), and pass the rest of my time of waiting in a very burthensome vacuity.  The sound of people talking in a near chamber, the pleasant note of a harpsichord, and once the voice of a lady singing, bore me a kind of company.

I do not know the hour, but the darkness was long come, when the door of the cabinet opened, and I was aware, by the light behind him, of a tall figure of a man upon the threshold.  I rose at once.

“Is anybody there?” he asked.  “Who in that?”

“I am bearer of a letter from the laird of Pilrig to the Lord Advocate,” said I.

“Have you been here long?” he asked.

“I would not like to hazard an estimate of how many hours,” said I.

“It is the first I hear of it,” he replied, with a chuckle.  “The lads must have forgotten you.  But you are in the bit at last, for I am Prestongrange.”

So saying, he passed before me into the next room, whither (upon his sign) I followed him, and where he lit a candle and took his place before a business-table.  It was a long room, of a good proportion, wholly lined with books.  That small spark of light in a corner struck out the man’s handsome person and strong face.  He was flushed, his eye watered and sparkled, and before he sat down I observed him to sway back and forth.  No doubt, he had been supping liberally; but his mind and tongue were under full control.

“Well, sir, sit ye down,” said he, “and let us see Pilrig’s letter.”

He glanced it through in the beginning carelessly, looking up and bowing when he came to my name; but at the last words I thought I observed his attention to redouble, and I made sure he read them twice.  All this while you are to suppose my heart was beating, for I had now crossed my Rubicon and was come fairly on the field of battle.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Balfour,” he said, when he had done.  “Let me offer you a glass of claret.”

“Under your favour, my lord, I think it would scarce be fair on me,” said I.  “I have come here, as the letter will have mentioned, on a business of some gravity to myself; and, as I am little used with wine, I might be the sooner affected.”

“You shall be the judge,” said he.  “But if you will permit, I believe I will even have the bottle in myself.”

He touched a bell, and a footman came, as at a signal, bringing wine and glasses.

“You are sure you will not join me?” asked the Advocate.  “Well, here is to our better acquaintance!  In what way can I serve you?”

“I should, perhaps, begin by telling you, my lord, that I am here at your own pressing invitation,” said I.

“You have the advantage of me somewhere,” said he, “for I profess I think I never heard of you before this evening.”

“Right, my lord; the name is, indeed, new to you,” said I.  “And yet you have been for some time extremely wishful to make my acquaintance, and have declared the same in public.”

“I wish you would afford me a clue,” says he.  “I am no Daniel.”

“It will perhaps serve for such,” said I, “that if I was in a jesting humour - which is far from the case - I believe I might lay a claim on your lordship for two hundred pounds.”

“In what sense?” he inquired.

“In the sense of rewards offered for my person,” said I.

He thrust away his glass once and for all, and sat straight up in the chair where he had been previously lolling.  “What am I to understand?” said he.

“A tall strong lad of about eighteen,” I quoted, “speaks like a Lowlander and has no beard.”

“I recognise those words,” said he, “which, if you have come here with any ill-judged intention of amusing yourself, are like to prove extremely prejudicial to your safety.”

“My purpose in this,” I replied, “is just entirely as serious as life and death, and you have understood me perfectly.  I am the boy who was speaking with Glenure when he was shot.”

“I can only suppose (seeing you here) that you claim to be innocent,” said he.

“The inference is clear,” I said.  “I am a very loyal subject to King George, but if I had anything to reproach myself with, I would have had more discretion than to walk into your den.”

“I am glad of that,” said he.  “This horrid crime, Mr. Balfour, is of a dye which cannot permit any clemency.  Blood has been barbarously shed.  It has been shed in direct opposition to his Majesty and our whole frame of laws, by those who are their known and public oppugnants.  I take a very high sense of this.  I will not deny that I consider the crime as directly personal to his Majesty.”

“And unfortunately, my lord,” I added, a little drily, “directly personal to another great personage who may be nameless.”

“If you mean anything by those words, I must tell you I consider them unfit for a good subject; and were they spoke publicly I should make it my business to take note of them,” said he.  “You do not appear to me to recognise the gravity of your situation, or you would be more careful not to pejorate the same by words which glance upon the purity of justice.  Justice, in this country, and in my poor hands, is no respecter of persons.”

“You give me too great a share in my own speech, my lord,” said I.  “I did but repeat the common talk of the country, which I have heard everywhere, and from men of all opinions as I came along.”

“When you are come to more discretion you will understand such talk in not to be listened to, how much less repeated,” says the Advocate.  “But I acquit you of an ill intention.  That nobleman, whom we all honour, and who has indeed been wounded in a near place by the late barbarity, sits too high to be reached by these aspersions.  The Duke of Argyle - you see that I deal plainly with you - takes it to heart as I do, and as we are both bound to do by our judicial functions and the service of his Majesty; and I could wish that all hands, in this ill age, were equally clean of family rancour.  But from the accident that this is a Campbell who has fallen martyr to his duty - as who else but the Campbells have ever put themselves foremost on that path? - I may say it, who am no Campbell - and that the chief of that great house happens (for all our advantages) to be the present head of the College of Justice, small minds and disaffected tongues are set agog in every changehouse in the country; and I find a young gentleman like Mr. Balfour so ill-advised as to make himself their echo.”  So much he spoke with a very oratorical delivery, as if in court, and then declined again upon the manner of a gentleman.  “All this apart,” said he.  “It now remains that I should learn what I am to do with you.”

“I had thought it was rather I that should learn the same from your lordship,” said I.

“Ay, true,” says the Advocate.  “But, you see, you come to me well recommended.  There is a good honest Whig name to this letter,” says he, picking it up a moment from the table.  “And - extra-judicially, Mr, Balfour - there is always the possibility of some arrangement, I tell you, and I tell you beforehand that you may be the more upon your guard, your fate lies with me singly.  In such a matter (be it said with reverence) I am more powerful than the King’s Majesty; and should you please me - and of course satisfy my conscience - in what remains to be held of our interview, I tell you it may remain between ourselves.”

“Meaning how?” I asked.

“Why, I mean it thus, Mr. Balfour,” said he, “that if you give satisfaction, no soul need know so much as that you visited my house; and you may observe that I do not even call my clerk.”

I saw what way he was driving.  “I suppose it is needless anyone should be informed upon my visit,” said I, “though the precise nature of my gains by that I cannot see.  I am not at all ashamed of coming here.”

“And have no cause to be,” says he, encouragingly.  “Nor yet (if you are careful) to fear the consequences.”

“My lord,” said I, “speaking under your correction, I am not very easy to be frightened.”

“And I am sure I do not seek to frighten you,” says he.  “But to the interrogation; and let me warn you to volunteer nothing beyond the questions I shall ask you.  It may consist very immediately with your safety.  I have a great discretion, it is true, but there are bounds to it.”

“I shall try to follow your lordship’s advice,” said I.

He spread a sheet of paper on the table and wrote a heading.  “It appears you were present, by the way, in the wood of Lettermore at the moment of the fatal shot,” he began.  “Was this by accident?”

“By accident,” said I.

“How came you in speech with Colin Campbell?” he asked.

“I was inquiring my way of him to Aucharn,” I replied.

I observed he did not write this answer down.

“H’m, true,” said he, “I had forgotten that.  And do you know, Mr. Balfour, I would dwell, if I were you, as little as might be on your relations with these Stewarts.  It might be found to complicate our business.  I am not yet inclined to regard these matters as essential.”

“I had thought, my lord, that all points of fact were equally material in such a case,” said I.

“You forget we are now trying these Stewarts,” he replied, with great significance.  “If we should ever come to be trying you, it will be very different; and I shall press these very questions that I am now willing to glide upon.  But to resume: I have it here in Mr. Mungo Campbell’s precognition that you ran immediately up the brae.  How came that?”

“Not immediately, my lord, and the cause was my seeing of the murderer.”

“You saw him, then?”

“As plain as I see your lordship, though not so near hand.”

“You know him?”

“I should know him again.”

“In your pursuit you were not so fortunate, then, as to overtake him?”

“I was not.”

“Was he alone?”

“He was alone.”

“There was no one else in that neighbourhood?”

“Alan Breck Stewart was not far off, in a piece of a wood.”

The Advocate laid his pen down.  “I think we are playing at cross purposes,” said he, “which you will find to prove a very ill amusement for yourself.”

“I content myself with following your lordship’s advice, and answering what I am asked,” said I.

“Be so wise as to bethink yourself in time,” said he, “I use you with the most anxious tenderness, which you scarce seem to appreciate, and which (unless you be more careful) may prove to be in vain.”

“I do appreciate your tenderness, but conceive it to be mistaken,” I replied, with something of a falter, for I saw we were come to grips at last.  “I am here to lay before you certain information, by which I shall convince you Alan had no hand whatever in the killing of Glenure.”

The Advocate appeared for a moment at a stick, sitting with pursed lips, and blinking his eyes upon me like an angry cat.  “Mr. Balfour,” he said at last, “I tell you pointedly you go an ill way for your own interests.”

“My lord,” I said, “I am as free of the charge of considering my own interests in this matter as your lordship.  As God judges me, I have but the one design, and that is to see justice executed and the innocent go clear.  If in pursuit of that I come to fall under your lordship’s displeasure, I must bear it as I may.”

At this he rose from his chair, lit a second candle, and for a while gazed upon me steadily.  I was surprised to see a great change of gravity fallen upon his face, and I could have almost thought he was a little pale.

“You are either very simple, or extremely the reverse, and I see that I must deal with you more confidentially,” says he.  “This is a political case - ah, yes, Mr. Balfour! whether we like it or no, the case is political - and I tremble when I think what issues may depend from it.  To a political case, I need scarce tell a young man of your education, we approach with very different thoughts from one which is criminal only.  Salus populi suprema lex is a maxim susceptible of great abuse, but it has that force which we find elsewhere only in the laws of nature: I mean it has the force of necessity.  I will open this out to you, if you will allow me, at more length.  You would have me believe - ”

“Under your pardon, my lord, I would have you to believe nothing but that which I can prove,” said I.

“Tut! tut; young gentleman,” says he, “be not so pragmatical, and suffer a man who might be your father (if it was nothing more) to employ his own imperfect language, and express his own poor thoughts, even when they have the misfortune not to coincide with Mr. Balfour’s.  You would have me to believe Breck innocent.  I would think this of little account, the more so as we cannot catch our man.  But the matter of Breck’s innocence shoots beyond itself.  Once admitted, it would destroy the whole presumptions of our case against another and a very different criminal; a man grown old in treason, already twice in arms against his king and already twice forgiven; a fomentor of discontent, and (whoever may have fired the shot) the unmistakable original of the deed in question.  I need not tell you that I mean James Stewart.”

“And I can just say plainly that the innocence of Alan and of James is what I am here to declare in private to your lordship, and what I am prepared to establish at the trial by my testimony,” said I.

“To which I can only answer by an equal plainness, Mr. Balfour,” said he, “that (in that case) your testimony will not be called by me, and I desire you to withhold it altogether.”

“You are at the head of Justice in this country,” I cried, “and you propose to me a crime!”

“I am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country,” he replied, “and I press on you a political necessity.  Patriotism is not always moral in the formal sense.  You might be glad of it, I think: it is your own protection; the facts are heavy against you; and if I am still trying to except you from a very dangerous place, it is in part of course because I am not insensible to your honesty in coming here; in part because of Pilrig’s letter; but in part, and in chief part, because I regard in this matter my political duty first and my judicial duty only second.  For the same reason - I repeat it to you in the same frank words - I do not want your testimony.”

“I desire not to be thought to make a repartee, when I express only the plain sense of our position,” said I.  “But if your lordship has no need of my testimony, I believe the other side would be extremely blythe to get it.”

Prestongrange arose and began to pace to and fro in the room.  “You are not so young,” he said, “but what you must remember very clearly the year ‘45 and the shock that went about the country.  I read in Pilrig’s letter that you are sound in Kirk and State.  Who saved them in that fatal year?  I do not refer to His Royal Highness and his ramrods, which were extremely useful in their day; but the country had been saved and the field won before ever Cumberland came upon Drummossie.  Who saved it?  I repeat; who saved the Protestant religion and the whole frame of our civil institutions?  The late Lord President Culloden, for one; he played a man’s part, and small thanks he got for it - even as I, whom you see before you, straining every nerve in the same service, look for no reward beyond the conscience of my duties done.  After the President, who else?  You know the answer as well as I do; ’tis partly a scandal, and you glanced at it yourself, and I reproved you for it, when you first came in.  It was the Duke and the great clan of Campbell.  Now here is a Campbell foully murdered, and that in the King’s service.  The Duke and I are Highlanders.  But we are Highlanders civilised, and it is not so with the great mass of our clans and families.  They have still savage virtues and defects.  They are still barbarians, like these Stewarts; only the Campbells were barbarians on the right side, and the Stewarts were barbarians on the wrong.  Now be you the judge.  The Campbells expect vengeance.  If they do not get it - if this man James escape - there will be trouble with the Campbells.  That means disturbance in the Highlands, which are uneasy and very far from being disarmed: the disarming is a farce. . .”

“I can bear you out in that,” said I.

“Disturbance in the Highlands makes the hour of our old watchful enemy,” pursued his lordship, holding out a finger as he paced; “and I give you my word we may have a ‘45 again with the Campbells on the other side.  To protect the life of this man Stewart - which is forfeit already on half-a-dozen different counts if not on this - do you propose to plunge your country in war, to jeopardise the faith of your fathers, and to expose the lives and fortunes of how many thousand innocent persons? . . .  These are considerations that weigh with me, and that I hope will weigh no less with yourself, Mr. Balfour, as a lover of your country, good government, and religious truth.”

“You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it,” said I.  “I will try on my side to be no less honest.  I believe your policy to be sound.  I believe these deep duties may lie upon your lordship; I believe you may have laid them on your conscience when you took the oath of the high office which you hold.  But for me, who am just a plain man - or scarce a man yet - the plain duties must suffice.  I can think but of two things, of a poor soul in the immediate and unjust danger of a shameful death, and of the cries and tears of his wife that still tingle in my head.  I cannot see beyond, my lord.  It’s the way that I am made.  If the country has to fall, it has to fall.  And I pray God, if this be wilful blindness, that He may enlighten me before too late.”

He had heard me motionless, and stood so a while longer.

“This is an unexpected obstacle,” says he, aloud, but to himself.

“And how is your lordship to dispose of me?” I asked.

“If I wished,” said he, “you know that you might sleep in gaol?”

“My lord,” said I, “I have slept in worse places.”

“Well, my boy,” said he, “there is one thing appears very plainly from our interview, that I may rely on your pledged word.  Give me your honour that you will be wholly secret, not only on what has passed to-night, but in the matter of the Appin case, and I let you go free.”

“I will give it till to-morrow or any other near day that you may please to set,” said I.  “I would not be thought too wily; but if I gave the promise without qualification your lordship would have attained his end.”

“I had no thought to entrap you,” said he.

“I am sure of that,” said I.

“Let me see,” he continued.  “To-morrow is the Sabbath.  Come to me on Monday by eight in the morning, and give me our promise until then.”

“Freely given, my lord,” said I.  “And with regard to what has fallen from yourself, I will give it for an long as it shall please God to spare your days.”

“You will observe,” he said next, “that I have made no employment of menaces.”

“It was like your lordship’s nobility,” said I.  “Yet I am not altogether so dull but what I can perceive the nature of those you have not uttered.”

“Well,” said he, “good-night to you.  May you sleep well, for I think it is more than I am like to do.”

With that he sighed, took up a candle, and gave me his conveyance as far as the street door.



CHAPTER V - IN THE ADVOCATE’S HOUSE



The next day, Sabbath, August 27th, I had the occasion I had long looked forward to, to hear some of the famous Edinburgh preachers, all well known to me already by the report of Mr Campbell.  Alas! and I might just as well have been at Essendean, and sitting under Mr. Campbell’s worthy self! the turmoil of my thoughts, which dwelt continually on the interview with Prestongrange, inhibiting me from all attention.  I was indeed much less impressed by the reasoning of the divines than by the spectacle of the thronged congregation in the churches, like what I imagined of a theatre or (in my then disposition) of an assize of trial; above all at the West Kirk, with its three tiers of galleries, where I went in the vain hope that I might see Miss Drummond.

On the Monday I betook me for the first time to a barber’s, and was very well pleased with the result.  Thence to the Advocate’s, where the red coats of the soldiers showed again about his door, making a bright place in the close.  I looked about for the young lady and her gillies: there was never a sign of them.  But I was no sooner shown into the cabinet or antechamber where I had spent so wearyful a time upon the Saturday, than I was aware of the tall figure of James More in a corner.  He seemed a prey to a painful uneasiness, reaching forth his feet and hands, and his eyes speeding here and there without rest about the walls of the small chamber, which recalled to me with a sense of pity the man’s wretched situation.  I suppose it was partly this, and partly my strong continuing interest in his daughter, that moved me to accost him.

“Give you a good-morning, sir,” said I.

“And a good-morning to you, sir,” said he.

“You bide tryst with Prestongrange?” I asked.

“I do, sir, and I pray your business with that gentleman be more agreeable than mine,” was his reply.

“I hope at least that yours will be brief, for I suppose you pass before me,” said I.

“All pass before me,” he said, with a shrug and a gesture upward of the open hands.  “It was not always so, sir, but times change.  It was not so when the sword was in the scale, young gentleman, and the virtues of the soldier might sustain themselves.”

There came a kind of Highland snuffle out of the man that raised my dander strangely.

“Well, Mr. Macgregor,” said I, “I understand the main thing for a soldier is to be silent, and the first of his virtues never to complain.”

“You have my name, I perceive” - he bowed to me with his arms crossed - “though it’s one I must not use myself.  Well, there is a publicity - I have shown my face and told my name too often in the beards of my enemies.  I must not wonder if both should be known to many that I know not.”

“That you know not in the least, sir,” said I, “nor yet anybody else; but the name I am called, if you care to hear it, is Balfour.”

“It is a good name,” he replied, civilly; “there are many decent folk that use it.  And now that I call to mind, there was a young gentleman, your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year ‘45 with my battalion.”

“I believe that would be a brother to Balfour of Baith,” said I, for I was ready for the surgeon now.

“The same, sir,” said James More.  “And since I have been fellow-soldier with your kinsman, you must suffer me to grasp your hand.”

He shook hands with me long and tenderly, beaming on me the while as though he had found a brother.

“Ah!” says he, “these are changed days since your cousin and I heard the balls whistle in our lugs.”

“I think he was a very far-away cousin,” said I, drily, “and I ought to tell you that I never clapped eyes upon the man.”

“Well, well,” said he, “it makes no change.  And you - I do not think you were out yourself, sir - I have no clear mind of your face, which is one not probable to be forgotten.”

“In the year you refer to, Mr. Macgregor, I was getting skelped in the parish school,” said I.

“So young!” cries he.  “Ah, then, you will never be able to think what this meeting is to me.  In the hour of my adversity, and here in the house of my enemy, to meet in with the blood of an old brother-in-arms - it heartens me, Mr. Balfour, like the skirting of the highland pipes!  Sir, this is a sad look back that many of us have to make: some with falling tears.  I have lived in my own country like a king; my sword, my mountains, and the faith of my friends and kinsmen sufficed for me.  Now I lie in a stinking dungeon; and do you know, Mr. Balfour,” he went on, taking my arm and beginning to lead me about, “do you know, sir, that I lack mere necessaries?  The malice of my foes has quite sequestered my resources.  I lie, as you know, sir, on a trumped-up charge, of which I am as innocent as yourself.  They dare not bring me to my trial, and in the meanwhile I am held naked in my prison.  I could have wished it was your cousin I had met, or his brother Baith himself.  Either would, I know, have been rejoiced to help me; while a comparative stranger like yourself - ”

I would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this beggarly vein, or the very short and grudging answers that I made to him.  There were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change; but whether it was from shame or pride - whether it was for my own sake or Catriona’s - whether it was because I thought him no fit father for his daughter, or because I resented that grossness of immediate falsity that clung about the man himself - the thing was clean beyond me.  And I was still being wheedled and preached to, and still being marched to and fro, three steps and a turn, in that small chamber, and had already, by some very short replies, highly incensed, although not finally discouraged, my beggar, when Prestongrange appeared in the doorway and bade me eagerly into his big chamber.

“I have a moment’s engagements,” said he; “and that you may not sit empty-handed I am going to present you to my three braw daughters, of whom perhaps you may have heard, for I think they are more famous than papa.  This way.”

He led me into another long room above, where a dry old lady sat at a frame of embroidery, and the three handsomest young women (I suppose) in Scotland stood together by a window.

“This is my new friend, Mr Balfour,” said he, presenting me by the arm, “David, here is my sister, Miss Grant, who is so good as keep my house for me, and will be very pleased if she can help you.  And here,” says he, turning to the three younger ladies, “here are my three braw dauchters.  A fair question to ye, Mr. Davie: which of the three is the best favoured?  And I wager he will never have the impudence to propound honest Alan Ramsay’s answer!”

Hereupon all three, and the old Miss Grant as well, cried out against this sally, which (as I was acquainted with the verses he referred to) brought shame into my own check.  It seemed to me a citation unpardonable in a father, and I was amazed that these ladies could laugh even while they reproved, or made believe to.

Under cover of this mirth, Prestongrange got forth of the chamber, and I was left, like a fish upon dry land, in that very unsuitable society.  I could never deny, in looking back upon what followed, that I was eminently stockish; and I must say the ladies were well drilled to have so long a patience with me.  The aunt indeed sat close at her embroidery, only looking now and again and smiling; but the misses, and especially the eldest, who was besides the most handsome, paid me a score of attentions which I was very ill able to repay.  It was all in vain to tell myself I was a young follow of some worth as well as a good estate, and had no call to feel abashed before these lasses, the eldest not so much older than myself, and no one of them by any probability half as learned.  Reasoning would not change the fact; and there were times when the colour came into my face to think I was shaved that day for the first time.

The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest took pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she was a passed mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more at my ease, and being reminded of Alan’s air that he had taught me in the hole near Carriden, I made so bold as to whistle a bar or two, and ask if she knew that.

She shook her head.  “I never heard a note of it,” said she.  “Whistle it all through.  And now once again,” she added, after I had done so.

Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise) instantly enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as she played, with a very droll expression and broad accent -


“Haenae I got just the lilt of it?
Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?”


“You see,” she says, “I can do the poetry too, only it won’t rhyme.  And then again:


“I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:
You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour.”


I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.

“And what do you call the name of it?” she asked.

“I do not know the real name,” said I.  “I just call it Alan’s air.”

She looked at me directly in the face.  “I shall call it David’s air,” said she; “though if it’s the least like what your namesake of Israel played to Saul I would never wonder that the king got little good by it, for it’s but melancholy music.  Your other name I do not like; so if you was ever wishing to hear your tune again you are to ask for it by mine.”

This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog.  “Why that, Miss Grant?” I asked.

“Why,” says she, “if ever you should come to get hanged, I will set your last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it.”

This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story and peril.  How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess.  It was plain she knew there was something of danger in the name of Alan, and thus warned me to leave it out of reference; and plain she knew that I stood under some criminal suspicion.  I judged besides that the harshness of her last speech (which besides she had followed up immediately with a very noisy piece of music) was to put an end to the present conversation.  I stood beside her, affecting to listen and admire, but truly whirled away by my own thoughts.  I have always found this young lady to be a lover of the mysterious; and certainly this first interview made a mystery that was beyond my plummet.  One thing I learned long after, the hours of the Sunday had been well employed, the bank porter had been found and examined, my visit to Charles Stewart was discovered, and the deduction made that I was pretty deep with James and Alan, and most likely in a continued correspondence with the last.  Hence this broad hint that was given me across the harpsichord.

In the midst of the piece of music, one of the younger misses, who was at a window over the close, cried on her sisters to come quick, for there was “Grey eyes again.”  The whole family trooped there at once, and crowded one another for a look.  The window whither they ran was in an odd corner of that room, gave above the entrance door, and flanked up the close.

“Come, Mr. Balfour,” they cried, “come and see.  She is the most beautiful creature!  She hangs round the close-head these last days, always with some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems quite a lady.”

I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long.  I was afraid she might have seen me there, looking down upon her from that chamber of music, and she without, and her father in the same house, perhaps begging for his life with tears, and myself come but newly from rejecting his petitions.  But even that glance set me in a better conceit of myself and much less awe of the young ladies.  They were beautiful, that was beyond question, but Catriona was beautiful too, and had a kind of brightness in her like a coal of fire.  As much as the others cast me down, she lifted me up.  I remembered I had talked easily with her.  If I could make no hand of it with these fine maids, it was perhaps something their own fault.  My embarrassment began to be a little mingled and lightened with a sense of fun; and when the aunt smiled at me from her embroidery, and the three daughters unbent to me like a baby, all with “papa’s orders” written on their faces, there were times when I could have found it in my heart to smile myself.

Presently papa returned, the same kind, happy-like, pleasant-spoken man.

“Now, girls,” said he, “I must take Mr. Balfour away again; but I hope you have been able to persuade him to return where I shall be always gratified to find him.”

So they each made me a little farthing compliment, and I was led away.

If this visit to the family had been meant to soften my resistance, it was the worst of failures.  I was no such ass but what I understood how poor a figure I had made, and that the girls would be yawning their jaws off as soon as my stiff back was turned.  I felt I had shown how little I had in me of what was soft and graceful; and I longed for a chance to prove that I had something of the other stuff, the stern and dangerous.

Well, I was to be served to my desire, for the scene to which he was conducting me was of a different character.



CHAPTER VI - UMQUILE THE MASTER OF LOVAT



There was a man waiting us in Prestongrange’s study, whom I distasted at the first look, as we distaste a ferret or an earwig.  He was bitter ugly, but seemed very much of a gentleman; had still manners, but capable of sudden leaps and violences; and a small voice, which could ring out shrill and dangerous when he so desired.

The Advocate presented us in a familiar, friendly way.

“Here, Fraser,” said he, “here is Mr. Balfour whom we talked about.  Mr. David, this is Mr. Simon Fraser, whom we used to call by another title, but that is an old song.  Mr. Fraser has an errand to you.”

With that he stepped aside to his book-shelves, and made believe to consult a quarto volume in the far end.

I was thus left (in a sense) alone with perhaps the last person in the world I had expected.  There was no doubt upon the terms of introduction; this could be no other than the forfeited Master of Lovat and chief of the great clan Fraser.  I knew he had led his men in the Rebellion; I knew his father’s head - my old lord’s, that grey fox of the mountains - to have fallen on the block for that offence, the lands of the family to have been seized, and their nobility attainted.  I could not conceive what he should be doing in Grant’s house; I could not conceive that he had been called to the bar, had eaten all his principles, and was now currying favour with the Government even to the extent of acting Advocate-Depute in the Appin murder.

“Well, Mr. Balfour,” said he, “what is all this I hear of ye?”

“It would not become me to prejudge,” said I, “but if the Advocate was your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions.”

“I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case,” he went on; “I am to appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of the precognitions I can assure you your opinions are erroneous.  The guilt of Breck is manifest; and your testimony, in which you admit you saw him on the hill at the very moment, will certify his hanging.”

“It will be rather ill to hang him till you catch him,” I observed.  “And for other matters I very willingly leave you to your own impressions.”

“The Duke has been informed,” he went on.  “I have just come from his Grace, and he expressed himself before me with an honest freedom like the great nobleman he is.  He spoke of you by name, Mr. Balfour, and declared his gratitude beforehand in case you would be led by those who understand your own interests and those of the country so much better than yourself.  Gratitude is no empty expression in that mouth: experto-crede.  I daresay you know something of my name and clan, and the damnable example and lamented end of my late father, to say nothing of my own errata.  Well, I have made my peace with that good Duke; he has intervened for me with our friend Prestongrange; and here I am with my foot in the stirrup again and some of the responsibility shared into my hand of prosecuting King George’s enemies and avenging the late daring and barefaced insult to his Majesty.”

“Doubtless a proud position for your father’s son,” says I.

He wagged his bald eyebrows at me.  “You are pleased to make experiments in the ironical, I think,” said he.  “But I am here upon duty, I am here to discharge my errand in good faith, it is in vain you think to divert me.  And let me tell you, for a young fellow of spirit and ambition like yourself, a good shove in the beginning will do more than ten years’ drudgery.  The shove is now at your command; choose what you will to be advanced in, the Duke will watch upon you with the affectionate disposition of a father.”

“I am thinking that I lack the docility of the son,” says I.

“And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole policy of this country is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill-mannered colt of a boy?” he cried.  “This has been made a test case, all who would prosper in the future must put a shoulder to the wheel.  Look at me!  Do you suppose it is for my pleasure that I put myself in the highly invidious position of persecuting a man that I have drawn the sword alongside of?  The choice is not left me.”

“But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice when you mixed in with that unnatural rebellion,” I remarked.  “My case is happily otherwise; I am a true man, and can look either the Duke or King George in the face without concern.”

“Is it so the wind sits?” says he.  “I protest you are fallen in the worst sort of error.  Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil (he tells me) as not to combat your allegations; but you must not think they are not looked upon with strong suspicion.  You say you are innocent.  My dear sir, the facts declare you guilty.”

“I was waiting for you there,” said I.

“The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion of the murder; your long course of secresy - my good young man!” said Mr. Simon, “here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be a David Balfour!  I shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be raised; I shall then speak much otherwise from what I do to-day, and far less to your gratification, little as you like it now!  Ah, you look white!” cries he.  “I have found the key of your impudent heart.  You look pale, your eyes waver, Mr. David!  You see the grave and the gallows nearer by than you had fancied.”

“I own to a natural weakness,” said I.  “I think no shame for that.  Shame. . .”  I was going on.

“Shame waits for you on the gibbet,” he broke in.

“Where I shall but be even’d with my lord your father,” said I.

“Aha, but not so!” he cried, “and you do not yet see to the bottom of this business.  My father suffered in a great cause, and for dealing in the affairs of kings.  You are to hang for a dirty murder about boddle-pieces.  Your personal part in it, the treacherous one of holding the poor wretch in talk, your accomplices a pack of ragged Highland gillies.  And it can be shown, my great Mr. Balfour - it can be shown, and it will be shown, trust me that has a finger in the pie - it can be shown, and shall be shown, that you were paid to do it.  I think I can see the looks go round the court when I adduce my evidence, and it shall appear that you, a young man of education, let yourself be corrupted to this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes, a bottle of Highland spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in copper money.”

There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like a blow: clothes, a bottle of usquebaugh, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in change made up, indeed, the most of what Alan and I had carried from Auchurn; and I saw that some of James’s people had been blabbing in their dungeons.

“You see I know more than you fancied,” he resumed in triumph.  “And as for giving it this turn, great Mr. David, you must not suppose the Government of Great Britain and Ireland will ever be stuck for want of evidence.  We have men here in prison who will swear out their lives as we direct them; as I direct, if you prefer the phrase.  So now you are to guess your part of glory if you choose to die.  On the one hand, life, wine, women, and a duke to be your handgun: on the other, a rope to your craig, and a gibbet to clatter your bones on, and the lousiest, lowest story to hand down to your namesakes in the future that was ever told about a hired assassin.  And see here!” he cried, with a formidable shrill voice, “see this paper that I pull out of my pocket.  Look at the name there: it is the name of the great David, I believe, the ink scarce dry yet.  Can you guess its nature?  It is the warrant for your arrest, which I have but to touch this bell beside me to have executed on the spot.  Once in the Tolbooth upon this paper, may God help you, for the die is cast!”

I must never deny that I was greatly horrified by so much baseness, and much unmanned by the immediacy and ugliness of my danger.  Mr. Simon had already gloried in the changes of my hue; I make no doubt I was now no ruddier than my shirt; my speech besides trembled.

“There is a gentleman in this room,” cried I.  “I appeal to him.  I put my life and credit in his hands.”

Prestongrange shut his book with a snap.  “I told you so, Simon,” said he; “you have played your hand for all it was worth, and you have lost.  Mr. David,” he went on, “I wish you to believe it was by no choice of mine you were subjected to this proof.  I wish you could understand how glad I am you should come forth from it with so much credit.  You may not quite see how, but it is a little of a service to myself.  For had our friend here been more successful than I was last night, it might have appeared that he was a better judge of men than I; it might have appeared we were altogether in the wrong situations, Mr. Simon and myself.  And I know our friend Simon to be ambitious,” says he, striking lightly on Fraser’s shoulder.  “As for this stage play, it is over; my sentiments are very much engaged in your behalf; and whatever issue we can find to this unfortunate affair, I shall make it my business to see it is adopted with tenderness to you.”

These were very good words, and I could see besides that there was little love, and perhaps a spice of genuine ill-will, between these two who were opposed to me.  For all that, it was unmistakable this interview had been designed, perhaps rehearsed, with the consent of both; it was plain my adversaries were in earnest to try me by all methods; and now (persuasion, flattery, and menaces having been tried in vain) I could not but wonder what would be their next expedient.  My eyes besides were still troubled, and my knees loose under me, with the distress of the late ordeal; and I could do no more than stammer the same form of words: “I put my life and credit in your hands.”

“Well, well,” said he, “we must try to save them.  And in the meanwhile let us return to gentler methods.  You must not bear any grudge upon my friend, Mr. Simon, who did but speak by his brief.  And even if you did conceive some malice against myself, who stood by and seemed rather to hold a candle, I must not let that extend to innocent members of my family.  These are greatly engaged to see more of you, and I cannot consent to have my young womenfolk disappointed.  To-morrow they will be going to Hope Park, where I think it very proper you should make your bow.  Call for me first, when I may possibly have something for your private hearing; then you shall be turned abroad again under the conduct of my misses; and until that time repeat to me your promise of secrecy.”

I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was beside the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how; and when I was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind me, was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face.  That horrid apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Simon rang in my memory, as a sudden noise rings after it is over in the ear.  Tales of the man’s father, of his falseness, of his manifold perpetual treacheries, rose before me from all that I had heard and read, and joined on with what I had just experienced of himself.  Each time it occurred to me, the ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon my character startled me afresh.  The case of the man upon the gibbet by Leith Walk appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was now to consider as my own.  To rob a child of so little more than nothing was certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men; but my own tale, as it was to be represented in a court by Simon Fraser, appeared a fair second in every possible point of view of sordidness and cowardice.

The voices of two of Prestongrange’s liveried men upon his doorstep recalled me to myself.

“Ha’e,” said the one, “this billet as fast as ye can link to the captain.”

“Is that for the cateran back again?” asked the other.

“It would seem sae,” returned the first.  “Him and Simon are seeking him.”

“I think Prestongrange is gane gyte,” says the second.  “He’ll have James More in bed with him next.”

“Weel, it’s neither your affair nor mine’s,” said the first.

And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into the house.

This looked as ill as possible.  I was scarce gone and they were sending already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must have pointed when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives by all extremities.  My scalp curdled among my hair, and the next moment the blood leaped in me to remember Catriona.  Poor lass! her father stood to be hanged for pretty indefensible misconduct.  What was yet more unpalatable, it now seemed he was prepared to save his four quarters by the worst of shame and the most foul of cowardly murders - murder by the false oath; and to complete our misfortunes, it seemed myself was picked out to be the victim.

I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire for movement, air, and the open country.



CHAPTER VII - I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR



I came forth, I vow I know not how, on the Lang Dykes {12}.  This is a rural road which runs on the north side over against the city.  Thence I could see the whole black length of it tail down, from where the castle stands upon its crags above the loch in a long line of spires and gable ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the sight my heart swelled in my bosom.  My youth, as I have told, was already inured to dangers; but such danger as I had seen the face of but that morning, in the midst of what they call the safety of a town, shook me beyond experience.  Peril of slavery, peril of shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had stood all of these without discredit; but the peril there was in the sharp voice and the fat face of Simon, property Lord Lovat, daunted me wholly.

I sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into the water, and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples.  If I could have done so with any remains of self-esteem, I would now have fled from my foolhardy enterprise.  But (call it courage or cowardice, and I believe it was both the one and the other) I decided I was ventured out beyond the possibility of a retreat.  I had out-faced these men, I would continue to out-face them; come what might, I would stand by the word spoken.

The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not much.  At the best of it there was an icy place about my heart, and life seemed a black business to be at all engaged in.  For two souls in particular my pity flowed.  The one was myself, to be so friendless and lost among dangers.  The other was the girl, the daughter of James More.  I had seen but little of her; yet my view was taken and my judgment made.  I thought her a lass of a clean honour, like a man’s; I thought her one to die of a disgrace; and now I believed her father to be at that moment bargaining his vile life for mine.  It made a bond in my thoughts betwixt the girl and me.  I had seen her before only as a wayside appearance, though one that pleased me strangely; I saw her now in a sudden nearness of relation, as the daughter of my blood foe, and I might say, my murderer.  I reflected it was hard I should be so plagued and persecuted all my days for other folks’ affairs, and have no manner of pleasure myself.  I got meals and a bed to sleep in when my concerns would suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to me.  If I was to hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not to hang but to escape out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me ere I was done with them.  Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory, the way I had first seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness came in my bosom and strength into my legs; and I set resolutely forward on the way to Dean.  If I was to hang to-morrow, and it was sure enough I might very likely sleep that night in a dungeon, I determined I should hear and speak once more with Catriona.

The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me yet more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit.  In the village of Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I inquired my way of a miller’s man, who sent me up the hill upon the farther side by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house in a garden of lawns and apple-trees.  My heart beat high as I stepped inside the garden hedge, but it fell low indeed when I came face to face with a grim and fierce old lady, walking there in a white mutch with a man’s hat strapped upon the top of it.

“What do ye come seeking here?” she asked.

I told her I was after Miss Drummond.

“And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?” says she.

I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady’s invitation.

“O, so you’re Saxpence!” she cried, with a very sneering manner.  “A braw gift, a bonny gentleman.  And hae ye ony ither name and designation, or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?” she asked.

I told my name.

“Preserve me!” she cried.  “Has Ebenezer gotten a son?”

“No, ma’am,” said I.  “I am a son of Alexander’s.  It’s I that am the Laird of Shaws.”

“Ye’ll find your work cut out for ye to establish that,” quoth she.

“I perceive you know my uncle,” said I; “and I daresay you may be the better pleased to hear that business is arranged.”

“And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?” she pursued.

“I’m come after my saxpence, mem,” said I.  “It’s to be thought, being my uncle’s nephew, I would be found a careful lad.”

“So ye have a spark of sleeness in ye?” observed the old lady, with some approval.  “I thought ye had just been a cuif - you and your saxpence, and your lucky day and your sake of Balwhidder” - from which I was gratified to learn that Catriona had not forgotten some of our talk.  “But all this is by the purpose,” she resumed.  “Am I to understand that ye come here keeping company?”

“This is surely rather an early question,” said I.  “The maid is young, so am I, worse fortune.  I have but seen her the once.  I’ll not deny,” I added, making up my mind to try her with some frankness, “I’ll not deny but she has run in my head a good deal since I met in with her.  That is one thing; but it would be quite another, and I think I would look very like a fool, to commit myself.”

“You can speak out of your mouth, I see,” said the old lady.  “Praise God, and so can I!  I was fool enough to take charge of this rogue’s daughter: a fine charge I have gotten; but it’s mine, and I’ll carry it the way I want to.  Do ye mean to tell me, Mr. Balfour of Shaws, that you would marry James More’s daughter, and him hanged!  Well, then, where there’s no possible marriage there shall be no manner of carryings on, and take that for said.  Lasses are bruckle things,” she added, with a nod; “and though ye would never think it by my wrunkled chafts, I was a lassie mysel’, and a bonny one.”

“Lady Allardyce,” said I, “for that I suppose to be your name, you seem to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very poor manner to come to an agreement.  You give me rather a home thrust when you ask if I would marry, at the gallow’s foot, a young lady whom I have seen but once.  I have told you already I would never be so untenty as to commit myself.  And yet I’ll go some way with you.  If I continue to like the lass as well as I have reason to expect, it will be something more than her father, or the gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart.  As for my family, I found it by the wayside like a lost bawbee!  I owe less than nothing to my uncle and if ever I marry, it will be to please one person: that’s myself.”

“I have heard this kind of talk before ye were born,” said Mrs. Ogilvy, “which is perhaps the reason that I think of it so little.  There’s much to be considered.  This James More is a kinsman of mine, to my shame be it spoken.  But the better the family, the mair men hanged or headed, that’s always been poor Scotland’s story.  And if it was just the hanging!  For my part I think I would be best pleased with James upon the gallows, which would be at least an end to him.  Catrine’s a good lass enough, and a good-hearted, and lets herself be deaved all day with a runt of an auld wife like me.  But, ye see, there’s the weak bit.  She’s daft about that long, false, fleeching beggar of a father of hers, and red-mad about the Gregara, and proscribed names, and King James, and a wheen blethers.  And you might think ye could guide her, ye would find yourself sore mista’en.  Ye say ye’ve seen her but the once. . .”

“Spoke with her but the once, I should have said,” I interrupted.  “I saw her again this morning from a window at Prestongrange’s.”

This I daresay I put in because it sounded well; but I was properly paid for my ostentation on the return.

“What’s this of it?” cries the old lady, with a sudden pucker of her face.  “I think it was at the Advocate’s door-cheek that ye met her first.”

I told her that was so.

“H’m,” she said; and then suddenly, upon rather a scolding tone, “I have your bare word for it,” she cries, “as to who and what you are.  By your way of it, you’re Balfour of the Shaws; but for what I ken you may be Balfour of the Deevil’s oxter.  It’s possible ye may come here for what ye say, and it’s equally possible ye may come here for deil care what!  I’m good enough Whig to sit quiet, and to have keepit all my men-folk’s heads upon their shoulders.  But I’m not just a good enough Whig to be made a fool of neither.  And I tell you fairly, there’s too much Advocate’s door and Advocate’s window here for a man that comes taigling after a Macgregor’s daughter.  Ye can tell that to the Advocate that sent ye, with my fond love.  And I kiss my loof to ye, Mr. Balfour,” says she, suiting the action to the word; “and a braw journey to ye back to where ye cam frae.”

“If you think me a spy,” I broke out, and speech stuck in my throat.  I stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space, then bowed and turned away.

“Here!  Hoots!  The callant’s in a creel!” she cried.  “Think ye a spy? what else would I think ye - me that kens naething by ye?  But I see that I was wrong; and as I cannot fight, I’ll have to apologise.  A bonny figure I would be with a broadsword.  Ay! ay!” she went on, “you’re none such a bad lad in your way; I think ye’ll have some redeeming vices.  But, O! Davit Balfour, ye’re damned countryfeed.  Ye’ll have to win over that, lad; ye’ll have to soople your back-bone, and think a wee pickle less of your dainty self; and ye’ll have to try to find out that women-folk are nae grenadiers.  But that can never be.  To your last day you’ll ken no more of women-folk than what I do of sow-gelding.”

I had never been used with such expressions from a lady’s tongue, the only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being most devout and most particular women; and I suppose my amazement must have been depicted in my countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst forth suddenly in a fit of laughter.

“Keep me!” she cried, struggling with her mirth, “you have the finest timber face - and you to marry the daughter of a Hieland cateran!  Davie, my dear, I think we’ll have to make a match of it - if it was just to see the weans.  And now,” she went on, “there’s no manner of service in your daidling here, for the young woman is from home, and it’s my fear that the old woman is no suitable companion for your father’s son.  Forbye that I have nobody but myself to look after my reputation, and have been long enough alone with a sedooctive youth.  And come back another day for your saxpence!” she cried after me as I left.

My skirmish with this disconcerting lady gave my thoughts a boldness they had otherwise wanted.  For two days the image of Catriona had mixed in all my meditations; she made their background, so that I scarce enjoyed my own company without a glint of her in a corner of my mind.  But now she came immediately near; I seemed to touch her, whom I had never touched but the once; I let myself flow out to her in a happy weakness, and looking all about, and before and behind, saw the world like an undesirable desert, where men go as soldiers on a march, following their duty with what constancy they have, and Catriona alone there to offer me some pleasure of my days.  I wondered at myself that I could dwell on such considerations in that time of my peril and disgrace; and when I remembered my youth I was ashamed.  I had my studies to complete: I had to be called into some useful business; I had yet to take my part of service in a place where all must serve; I had yet to learn, and know, and prove myself a man; and I had so much sense as blush that I should be already tempted with these further-on and holier delights and duties.  My education spoke home to me sharply; I was never brought up on sugar biscuits but on the hard food of the truth.  I knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was not prepared to be a father also; and for a boy like me to play the father was a mere derision.

When I was in the midst of these thoughts and about half-way back to town I saw a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my heart was heightened.  It seemed I had everything in the world to say to her, but nothing to say first; and remembering how tongue-tied I had been that morning at the Advocate’s I made sure that I would find myself struck dumb.  But when she came up my fears fled away; not even the consciousness of what I had been privately thinking disconcerted me the least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally as I might with Alan.

“O!” she cried, “you have been seeking your sixpence; did you get it?”

I told her no; but now I had met with her my walk was not in vain.  “Though I have seen you to-day already,” said I, and told her where and when.

“I did not see you,” she said.  “My eyes are big, but there are better than mine at seeing far.  Only I heard singing in the house.”

“That was Miss Grant,” said I, “the eldest and the bonniest.”

“They say they are all beautiful,” said she.

“They think the same of you, Miss Drummond,” I replied, “and were all crowding to the window to observe you.”

“It is a pity about my being so blind,” said she, “or I might have seen them too.  And you were in the house?  You must have been having the fine time with the fine music and the pretty ladies.”

“There is just where you are wrong,” said I; “for I was as uncouth as a sea-fish upon the brae of a mountain.  The truth is that I am better fitted to go about with rudas men than pretty ladies.”

“Well, I would think so too, at all events!” said she, at which we both of us laughed.

“It is a strange thing, now,” said I.  “I am not the least afraid with you, yet I could have run from the Miss Grants.  And I was afraid of your cousin too.”

“O, I think any man will be afraid of her,” she cried.  “My father is afraid of her himself.”

The name of her father brought me to a stop.  I looked at her as she walked by my side; I recalled the man, and the little I knew and the much I guessed of him; and comparing the one with the other, felt like a traitor to be silent.

“Speaking of which,” said I, “I met your father no later than this morning.”

“Did you?” she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at me.  “You saw James More?  You will have spoken with him then?”

“I did even that,” said I.

Then I think things went the worst way for me that was humanly possible.  She gave me a look of mere gratitude.  “Ah, thank you for that!” says she.

“You thank me for very little,” said I, and then stopped.  But it seemed when I was holding back so much, something at least had to come out.  “I spoke rather ill to him,” said I; “I did no like him very much; I spoke him rather ill, and he was angry.”

“I think you had little to do then, and less to tell it to his daughter!” she cried out.  “But those that do not love and cherish him I will not know.”

“I will take the freedom of a word yet,” said I, beginning to tremble.  “Perhaps neither your fa