CHAPTER XX.

I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

For about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange’s

family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar, and

the flower of Edinburgh company. You are not to suppose my education

was neglected; on the contrary, I was kept extremely busy. I studied

the French, so as to be more prepared to go to Leyden; I set myself to

the fencing, and wrought hard, sometimes three hours in the day, with

notable advancement; at the suggestion of my cousin, Pilrig, who was an

apt musician, I was put to a singing class; and by the orders of my

Miss Grant, to one for the dancing, at which I must say I proved far

from ornamental. However, all were good enough to say it gave me an

address a little more genteel; and there is no question but I learned

to manage my coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and to stand in

a room as though the same belonged to me. My clothes themselves were

all earnestly re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance, such as

where I should tie my hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated among

the three misses like a thing of weight. One way with another, no doubt

I was a good deal improved to look at, and acquired a bit of modest air

that would have surprised the good folks at Essendean.

The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my

habiliment, because that was in the line of their chief thoughts. I

cannot say that they appeared any other way conscious of my presence;

and though always more than civil, with a kind of heartless cordiality,

could not hide how much I wearied them. As for the aunt, she was a

wonderful still woman; and I think she gave me much the same attention

as she gave the rest of the family, which was little enough. The eldest

daughter and the Advocate himself were thus my principal friends, and

our familiarity was much increased by a pleasure that we took in

common. Before the court met we spent a day or two at the house of

Grange, living very nobly with an open table, and here it was that we

three began to ride out together in the fields, a practice afterwards

maintained in Edinburgh, so far as the Advocate’s continual affairs

permitted. When we were put in a good frame by the briskness of the

exercise, the difficulties of the way, or the accidents of bad weather,

my shyness wore entirely off; we forgot that we were strangers, and

speech not being required, it flowed the more naturally on. Then it was

that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the time that I left

Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the _Covenant_, wanderings in

the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found in my adventures

sprung the circumstance of a jaunt we made a little later on, on a day

when the courts were not sitting, and of which I will tell a trifle

more at length.

We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where it

stood smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet early

in the day. Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his horse, an

proceeded alone to visit my uncle. My heart, I remember, swelled up

bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the thought of the

old miser sitting chittering within in the cold kitchen!

“There is my home,” said I; “and my family.”

“Poor David Balfour!” said Miss Grant.

What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would doubtless

not be very agreeable to Ebenezer, for when the Advocate came forth

again his face was dark.

“I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr. Davie,” says he,

turning half about with the one foot in the stirrup.

“I will never pretend sorrow,” said I; and, to say the truth, during

his absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place in fancy

with plantations, parterres, and a terrace—much as I have since carried

out in fact.

Thence we pushed to the Queensferry, where Rankeillor gave us a good

welcome, being indeed out of the body to receive so great a visitor.

Here the Advocate was so unaffectedly good as to go quite fully over my

affairs, sitting perhaps two hours with the Writer in his study, and

expressing (I was told) a great esteem for myself and concern for my

fortunes. To while this time, Miss Grant and I and young Rankeillor

took boat and passed the Hope to Limekilns. Rankeillor made himself

very ridiculous (and, I thought, offensive) with his admiration for the

young lady, and to my wonder (only it is so common a weakness of her

sex) she seemed, if anything, to be a little gratified. One use it had:

for when we were come to the other side, she laid her commands on him

to mind the boat, while she and I passed a little further to the

alehouse. This was her own thought, for she had been taken with my

account of Alison Hastie, and desired to see the lass herself. We found

her once more alone—indeed, I believe her father wrought all day in the

fields—and she curtsied dutifully to the gentry-folk and the beautiful

young lady in the riding-coat.

“Is this all the welcome I am to get?” said I, holding out my hand.

“And have you no more memory of old friends?”

“Keep me! wha’s this of it?” she cried, and then, “God’s truth, it’s

the tautit [19] laddie!”

“The very same,” says I.

“Mony’s the time I’ve thocht upon you and your freen, and blythe am I

to see in your braws,” [20] she cried. “Though I kent ye were come to

your ain folk by the grand present that ye sent me and that I thank ye

for with a’ my heart.”

“There,” said Miss Grant to me, “run out by with ye, like a guid bairn.

I didnae come here to stand and haud a candle; it’s her and me that are

to crack.”

I suppose she stayed ten minutes in the house, but when she came forth

I observed two things—that her eyes were reddened, and a silver brooch

was gone out of her bosom. This very much affected me.

“I never saw you so well adorned,” said I.

“O Davie man, dinna be a pompous gowk!” said she, and was more than

usually sharp to me the remainder of the day.

About candlelight we came home from this excursion.

For a good while I heard nothing further of Catriona—my Miss Grant

remaining quite impenetrable, and stopping my mouth with pleasantries.

At last, one day that she returned from walking and found me alone in

the parlour over my French, I thought there was something unusual in

her looks; the colour heightened, the eyes sparkling high, and a bit of

a smile continually bitten in as she regarded me. She seemed indeed

like the very spirit of mischief, and, walking briskly in the room, had

soon involved me in a kind of quarrel over nothing and (at the least)

with nothing intended on my side. I was like Christian in the

slough—the more I tried to clamber out upon the side, the deeper I

became involved; until at last I heard her declare, with a great deal

of passion, that she would take that answer from the hands of none, and

I must down upon my knees for pardon.

The causelessness of all this fuff stirred my own bile. “I have said

nothing you can properly object to,” said I, “and as for my knees, that

is an attitude I keep for God.”

“And as a goddess I am to be served!” she cried, shaking her brown

locks at me and with a bright colour. “Every man that comes within waft

of my petticoats shall use me so!”

“I will go so far as ask your pardon for the fashion’s sake, although I

vow I know not why,” I replied. “But for these play-acting postures,

you can go to others.”

“O Davie!” she said. “Not if I was to beg you?”

I bethought me I was fighting with a woman, which is the same as to say

a child, and that upon a point entirely formal.

“I think it a bairnly thing,” I said, “not worthy in you to ask, or me

to render. Yet I will not refuse you, neither,” said I; “and the stain,

if there be any, rests with yourself.” And at that I kneeled fairly

down.

“There!” she cried. “There is the proper station, there is where I have

been manoeuvring to bring you.” And then, suddenly, “Kep,” [21] said

she, flung me a folded billet, and ran from the apartment laughing.

The billet had neither place nor date. “Dear Mr. David,” it began, “I

get your news continually by my cousin, Miss Grant, and it is a

pleisand hearing. I am very well, in a good place, among good folk, but

necessitated to be quite private, though I am hoping that at long last

we may meet again. All your friendships have been told me by my loving

cousin, who loves us both. She bids me to send you this writing, and

oversees the same. I will be asking you to do all her commands, and

rest your affectionate friend, Catriona Macgregor-Drummond. P.S.—Will

you not see my cousin, Allardyce?”

I think it not the least brave of my campaigns (as the soldiers say)

that I should have done as I was here bidden and gone forthright to the

house by Dean. But the old lady was now entirely changed and supple as

a glove. By what means Miss Grant had brought this round I could never

guess; I am sure, at least, she dared not to appear openly in the

affair, for her papa was compromised in it pretty deep. It was he,

indeed, who had persuaded Catriona to leave, or rather, not to return,

to her cousin’s, placing her instead with a family of Gregorys—decent

people, quite at the Advocate’s disposition, and in whom she might have

the more confidence because they were of his own clan and family. These

kept her private till all was ripe, heated and helped her to attempt

her father’s rescue, and after she was discharged from prison received

her again into the same secrecy. Thus Prestongrange obtained and used

his instrument; nor did there leak out the smallest word of his

acquaintance with the daughter of James More. There was some

whispering, of course, upon the escape of that discredited person; but

the Government replied by a show of rigour, one of the cell porters was

flogged, the lieutenant of the guard (my poor friend, Duncansby) was

broken of his rank, and as for Catriona, all men were well enough

pleased that her fault should be passed by in silence.

I could never induce Miss Grant to carry back an answer. “No,” she

would say, when I persisted, “I am going to keep the big feet out of

the platter.” This was the more hard to bear, as I was aware she saw my

little friend many times in the week, and carried her my news whenever

(as she said) I “had behaved myself.” At last she treated me to what

she called an indulgence, and I thought rather more of a banter. She

was certainly a strong, almost a violent, friend to all she liked,

chief among whom was a certain frail old gentlewoman, very blind and

very witty, who dwelt on the top of a tall land on a strait close, with

a nest of linnets in a cage, and thronged all day with visitors. Miss

Grant was very fond to carry me there and put me to entertain her

friend with the narrative of my misfortunes: and Miss Tibbie Ramsay

(that was her name) was particular kind, and told me a great deal that

was worth knowledge of old folks and past affairs in Scotland. I should

say that from her chamber window, and not three feet away, such is the

straitness of that close, it was possible to look into a barred

loophole lighting the stairway of the opposite house.

Here, upon some pretext, Miss Grant left me one day alone with Miss

Ramsay. I mind I thought that lady inattentive and like one

preoccupied. I was besides very uncomfortable, for the window, contrary

to custom, was left open and the day was cold. All at once the voice of

Miss Grant sounded in my ears as from a distance.

“Here, Shaws!” she cried, “keek out of the window and see what I have

broughten you.”

I think it was the prettiest sight that ever I beheld. The well of the

close was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly, the

walls very black and dingy; and there from the barred loophole I saw

two faces smiling across at me—Miss Grant’s and Catriona’s.

“There!” says Miss Grant, “I wanted her to see you in your braws like

the lass of Limekilns. I wanted her to see what I could make of you,

when I buckled to the job in earnest!”

It came in my mind that she had been more than common particular that

day upon my dress; and I think that some of the same care had been

bestowed upon Catriona. For so merry and sensible a lady, Miss Grant

was certainly wonderful taken up with duds.

“Catriona!” was all I could get out.

As for her, she said nothing in the world, but only waved her hand and

smiled to me, and was suddenly carried away again from before the

loophole.

That vision was no sooner lost than I ran to the house door, where I

found I was locked in; thence back to Miss Ramsay, crying for the key,

but might as well have cried upon the castle rock. She had passed her

word, she said, and I must be a good lad. It was impossible to burst

the door, even if it had been mannerly; it was impossible I should leap

from the window, being seven storeys above ground. All I could do was

to crane over the close and watch for their reappearance from the

stair. It was little to see, being no more than the tops of their two

heads each on a ridiculous bobbin of skirts, like to a pair of

pincushions. Nor did Catriona so much as look up for a farewell; being

prevented (as I heard afterwards) by Miss Grant, who told her folk were

never seen to less advantage than from above downward.

On the way home, as soon as I was set free, I upbraided Miss Grant with

her cruelty.

“I am sorry you was disappointed,” says she demurely. “For my part I

was very pleased. You looked better than I dreaded; you looked—if it

will not make you vain—a mighty pretty young man when you appeared in

the window. You are to remember that she could not see your feet,” says

she, with the manner of one reassuring me.

“O!” cried I, “leave my feet be—they are no bigger than my

neighbours’.”

“They are even smaller than some,” said she, “but I speak in parables

like a Hebrew prophet.”

“I marvel little they were sometimes stoned!” says I. “But, you

miserable girl, how could you do it? Why should you care to tantalise

me with a moment?”

“Love is like folk,” says she; “it needs some kind of vivers.” [22]

“Oh, Barbara, let me see her properly!” I pleaded. “_You_ can—you see

her when you please; let me have half an hour.”

“Who is it that is managing this love affair! You! Or me?” she asked,

and as I continued to press her with my instances, fell back upon a

deadly expedient: that of imitating the tones of my voice when I called

on Catriona by name; with which, indeed, she held me in subjection for

some days to follow.

There was never the least word heard of the memorial, or none by me.

Prestongrange and his grace the Lord President may have heard of it

(for what I know) on the deafest sides of their heads; they kept it to

themselves, at least—the public was none the wiser; and in course of

time, on November 8th, and in the midst of a prodigious storm of wind

and rain, poor James of the Glens was duly hanged at Lettermore by

Ballachulish.

So there was the final upshot of my politics! Innocent men have

perished before James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite of

all our wisdom) till the end of time. And till the end of time young

folk (who are not yet used with the duplicity of life and men) will

struggle as I did, and make heroical resolves, and take long risks; and

the course of events will push them upon the one side and go on like a

marching army. James was hanged; and here was I dwelling in the house

of Prestongrange, and grateful to him for his fatherly attention. He

was hanged; and behold! when I met Mr. Simon in the causeway, I was

fain to pull off my beaver to him like a good little boy before his

dominie. He had been hanged by fraud and violence, and the world wagged

along, and there was not a pennyweight of difference; and the villains

of that horrid plot were decent, kind, respectable fathers of families,

who went to kirk and took the sacrament!

But I had had my view of that detestable business they call politics—I

had seen it from behind, when it is all bones and blackness; and I was

cured for life of any temptations to take part in it again. A plain,

quiet, private path was that which I was ambitious to walk in, when I

might keep my head out of the way of dangers and my conscience out of

the road of temptation. For, upon a retrospect, it appeared I had not

done so grandly, after all; but with the greatest possible amount of

big speech and preparation, had accomplished nothing.

The 25th of the same month a ship was advertised to sail from Leith;

and I was suddenly recommended to make up my mails for Leyden. To

Prestongrange I could, of course, say nothing; for I had already been a

long while sorning on his house and table. But with his daughter I was

more open, bewailing my fate that I should be sent out of the country,

and assuring her, unless she should bring me to farewell with Catriona,

I would refuse at the last hour.

“Have I not given you my advice?” she asked.

“I know you have,” said I, “and I know how much I am beholden to you

already, and that I am bidden to obey your orders. But you must confess

you are something too merry a lass at times to lippen [23] to

entirely.”

“I will tell you, then,” said she. “Be you on board by nine o’clock

forenoon; the ship does not sail before one; keep your boat alongside;

and if you are not pleased with my farewells when I shall send them,

you can come ashore again and seek Katrine for yourself.”

Since I could make no more of her, I was fain to be content with this.

The day came round at last when she and I were to separate. We had been

extremely intimate and familiar; I was much in her debt; and what way

we were to part was a thing that put me from my sleep, like the vails I

was to give to the domestic servants. I knew she considered me too

backward, and rather desired to rise in her opinion on that head.

Besides which, after so much affection shown and (I believe) felt upon

both sides, it would have looked cold-like to be anyways stiff.

Accordingly, I got my courage up and my words ready, and the last

chance we were like to be alone, asked pretty boldly to be allowed to

salute her in farewell.

“You forget yourself strangely, Mr. Balfour,” said she. “I cannot call

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

acquaintancy.”

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

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

kissed me with the best will in the world.

“You inimitable bairn!” she cried. “Did you think that I would let us

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

minutes on end, you must not dream I do not love you very well: I am

all love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you! And now I will

give you an advice to conclude your education, which you will have need

of before it’s very long. Never _ask_ womenfolk. They’re bound to

answer ‘No’; God never made the lass that could resist the temptation.

It’s supposed by divines to be the curse of Eve: because she did not

say it when the devil offered her the apple, her daughters can say

nothing else.”

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

“This is gallant, indeed,” says she curtseying.

“I would put the one question,” I went on. “May I ask a lass to marry

to me?”

“You think you could not marry her without!” she asked. “Or else get

her to offer?”

“You see you cannot be serious,” said I.

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

always be your friend.”

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

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

farewell and waved their pocket napkins as I rode away. One out of the

four I knew was truly sorry; and at the thought of that, and how I had

come to the door three months ago for the first time, sorrow and

gratitude made a confusion in my mind.

PART II.

FATHER AND DAUGHTER

CHAPTER XXI.

THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND

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

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

very little troublesome, for the reason that the day was a flat calm,

very frosty and cloudy, and with a low shifting fog upon the water. The

body of the vessel was thus quite hid as I drew near, but the tall

spars of her stood high and bright in a sunshine like the flickering of

a fire. She proved to be a very roomy, commodious merchant, but

somewhat blunt in the bows, and loaden extraordinary deep with salt,

salted salmon, and fine white linen stockings for the Dutch. Upon my

coming on board, the captain welcomed me—one Sang (out of Lesmahago, I

believe), a very hearty, friendly tarpaulin of a man, but at the moment

in rather of a bustle. There had no other of the passengers yet

appeared, so that I was left to walk about upon the deck, viewing the

prospect and wondering a good deal what these farewells should be which

I was promised.

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

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

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

face of the water, where the haar [24] lay, nothing at all. Out of this

I was presently aware of a sound of oars pulling, and a little after

(as if out of the smoke of a fire) a boat issued. There sat a grave man

in the stern sheets, well muffled from the cold, and by his side a

tall, pretty, tender figure of a maid that brought my heart to a stand.

I had scarce the time to catch my breath in, and be ready to meet her,

as she stepped upon the deck, smiling, and making my best bow, which

was now vastly finer than some months before, when first I made it to

her ladyship. No doubt we were both a good deal changed: she seemed to

have shot up like a young, comely tree. She had now a kind of pretty

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

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

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

made us both _braw_, if she could make but the one _bonny_.

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

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

in a flash we were to ship together.

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

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

it till she was well on board. Within was an enclosure for myself, and

ran thus:

“Dear Davie,—What do you think of my farewell? and what do you say to

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

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

doubtful, and in my own case _I ken the answer_. So fill up here with

good advice. Do not be too blate, [25] and for God’s sake do not try to

be too forward; nothing acts you worse. I am

“Your affectionate friend and governess,

“Barbara Grant.”

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

put it in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed the whole with my

new signet of the Balfour arms, and despatched it by the hand of

Prestongrange’s servant that still waited in my boat.

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

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

shook hands again.

“Catriona?” said I. It seemed that was the first and last word of my

eloquence.

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

“And I think that is an idle word,” said I. “We are too deep friends to

make speech upon such trifles.”

“Is she not the girl of all the world?” she cried again. “I was never

knowing such a girl so honest and so beautiful.”

“And yet she cared no more for Alpin than what she did for a

kale-stock,” said I.

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

and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and was so good to me.”

“Well, I will tell you why it was,” said I. “There are all sorts of

people’s faces in this world. There is Barbara’s face, that everyone

must look at and admire, and think her a fine, brave, merry girl. And

then there is your face, which is quite different—I never knew how

different till to-day. You cannot see yourself, and that is why you do

not understand; but it was for the love of your face that she took you

up and was so good to you. And everybody in the world would do the

same.”

“Everybody?” says she.

“Every living soul!” said I.

“Ah, then, that will be why the soldiers at the castle took me up!” she

cried.

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

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

taught me a great deal about Mr. David—all the ill of him, and a little

that was not so ill either, now and then,” she said, smiling. “She will

have told me all there was of Mr. David, only just that he would sail

upon this very same ship. And why it is you go?”

I told her.

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

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

the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be exiles by the

side of our chieftain.”

I could say no more than just “O!” the name of James More always drying

up my very voice.

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

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

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

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

other is the Laird of Prestongrange. Prestongrange will have spoken by

himself, or his daughter in the place of him. But for James More, my

father, I have this much to say: he lay shackled in a prison; he is a

plain honest soldier and a plain Highland gentleman; what they would be

after he would never be guessing; but if he had understood it was to be

some prejudice to a young gentleman like yourself, he would have died

first. And for the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you

to pardon my father and family for that same mistake.”

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

know but the one thing—that you went to Prestongrange and begged my

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

you went, but when you were there you pleaded for me also. It is a

thing I cannot speak of. There are two things I cannot think of into

myself: and the one is your good words when you called yourself my

little friend, and the other that you pleaded for my life. Let us never

speak more, we two, of pardon or offence.”

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

and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up in the

nor’-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in upon the

anchor.

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

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

Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany. One was a

Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants’ wives, to the charge of

one of whom Catriona was recommended. Mrs. Gebbie (for that was her

name) was by great good fortune heavily incommoded by the sea, and lay

day and night on the broad of her back. We were besides the only

creatures at all young on board the _Rose_, except a white-faced boy

that did my old duty to attend upon the table; and it came about that

Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves. We had the next

seats together at the table, where I waited on her with extraordinary

pleasure. On deck, I made her a soft place with my cloak; and the

weather being singularly fine for that season, with bright frosty days

and nights, a steady, gentle wind, and scarce a sheet started all the

way through the North Sea, we sat there (only now and again walking to

and fro for warmth) from the first blink of the sun till eight or nine

at night under the clear stars. The merchants or Captain Sang would

sometimes glance and smile upon us, or pass a merry word or two and

give us the go-by again; but the most part of the time they were deep

in herring and chintzes and linen, or in computations of the slowness

of the passage, and left us to our own concerns, which were very little

important to any but ourselves.

At the first, we had a great deal to say, and thought ourselves pretty

witty; and I was at a little pains to be the _beau_, and she (I

believe) to play the young lady of experience. But soon we grew plainer

with each other. I laid aside my high, clipped English (what little

there was left of it) and forgot to make my Edinburgh bows and scrapes;

she, upon her side, fell into a sort of kind familiarity; and we dwelt

together like those of the same household, only (upon my side) with a

more deep emotion. About the same time the bottom seemed to fall out of

our conversation, and neither one of us the less pleased. Whiles she

would tell me old wives’ tales, of which she had a wonderful variety,

many of them from my friend red-headed Niel. She told them very pretty,

and they were pretty enough childish tales; but the pleasure to myself

was in the sound of her voice, and the thought that she was telling and

I listening. Whiles, again, we would sit entirely silent, not

communicating even with a look, and tasting pleasure enough in the

sweetness of that neighbourhood. I speak here only for myself. Of what

was in the maid’s mind, I am not very sure that ever I asked myself;

and what was in my own, I was afraid to consider. I need make no secret

of it now, either to myself or to the reader; I was fallen totally in

love. She came between me and the sun. She had grown suddenly taller,

as I say, but with a wholesome growth; she seemed all health, and

lightness, and brave spirits; and I thought she walked like a young

deer, and stood like a birch upon the mountains. It was enough for me

to sit near by her on the deck; and I declare I scarce spent two

thoughts upon the future, and was so well content with what I then

enjoyed that I was never at the pains to imagine any further step;

unless perhaps that I would be sometimes tempted to take her hand in

mine and hold it there. But I was too like a miser of what joys I had,

and would venture nothing on a hazard.

What we spoke was usually of ourselves or of each other, so that if

anyone had been at so much pains as overhear us, he must have supposed

us the most egotistical persons in the world. It befell one day when we

were at this practice, that we came on a discourse of friends and

friendship, and I think now that we were sailing near the wind. We said

what a fine thing friendship was, and how little we had guessed of it,

and how it made life a new thing, and a thousand covered things of the

same kind that will have been said, since the foundation of the world,

by young folk in the same predicament. Then we remarked upon the

strangeness of that circumstance, that friends came together in the

beginning as if they were there for the first time, and yet each had

been alive a good while, losing time with other people.

“It is not much that I have done,” said she, “and I could be telling

you the five-fifths of it in two-three words. It is only a girl I am,

and what can befall a girl, at all events? But I went with the clan in

the year ’45. The men marched with swords and fire-locks, and some of

them in brigades in the same set of tartan; they were not backward at

the marching, I can tell you. And there were gentlemen from the Low

Country, with their tenants mounted and trumpets to sound, and there

was a grand skirling of war-pipes. I rode on a little Highland horse on

the right hand of my father, James More, and of Glengyle himself. And

here is one fine thing that I remember, that Glengyle kissed me in the

face, because (says he) ‘my kinswoman, you are the only lady of the

clan that has come out,’ and me a little maid of maybe twelve years

old! I saw Prince Charlie too, and the blue eyes of him; he was pretty

indeed! I had his hand to kiss in front of the army. O, well, these

were the good days, but it is all like a dream that I have seen and

then awakened. It went what way you very well know; and these were the

worst days of all, when the red-coat soldiers were out, and my father

and uncles lay in the hill, and I was to be carrying them their meat in

the middle night, or at the short sight of day when the cocks crow.

Yes, I have walked in the night, many’s the time, and my heart great in

me for terror of the darkness. It is a strange thing I will never have

been meddled with by a bogle; but they say a maid goes safe. Next there

was my uncle’s marriage, and that was a dreadful affair beyond all.

Jean Kay was that woman’s name; and she had me in the room with her

that night at Inversnaid, the night we took her from her friends in the

old, ancient manner. She would and she wouldn’t; she was for marrying

Rob the one minute, and the next she would be for none of him. I will

never have seen such a feckless creature of a woman; surely all there

was of her would tell her ay or no. Well, she was a widow; and I can

never be thinking a widow a good woman.”

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

“I do not know,” said she; “I am only telling you the seeming in my

heart. And then to marry a new man! Fy! But that was her; and she was

married again upon my Uncle Robin, and went with him awhile to kirk and

market; and then wearied, or else her friends got claught of her and

talked her round, or maybe she turned ashamed; at the least of it, she

ran away, and went back to her own folk, and said we had held her in

the lake, and I will never tell you all what. I have never thought much

of any females since that day. And so in the end my father, James More,

came to be cast in prison, and you know the rest of it an well as me.”

“And through all you had no friends?” said I.

“No,” said she; “I have been pretty chief with two-three lasses on the

braes, but not to call it friends.”

“Well, mine is a plain tale,” said I. “I never had a friend to my name

till I met in with you.”

“And that brave Mr. Stewart?” she asked.

“O, yes, I was forgetting him,” I said. “But he is a man, and that is

very different.”

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

“And then there was one other,” said I. “I once thought I had a friend,

but it proved a disappointment.”

She asked me who she was?

“It was a he, then,” said I. “We were the two best lads at my father’s

school, and we thought we loved each other dearly. Well, the time came

when he went to Glasgow to a merchant’s house, that was his second

cousin once removed; and wrote me two-three times by the carrier; and

then he found new friends, and I might write till I was tired, he took

no notice. Eh, Catriona, it took me a long while to forgive the world.

There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend.”

Then she began to question me close upon his looks and character, for

we were each a great deal concerned in all that touched the other; till

at last, in a very evil hour, I minded of his letters and went and

fetched the bundle from the cabin.

“Here are his letters,” said I, “and all the letters that ever I got.

That will be the last I’ll can tell of myself; ye know the lave [26] as

well as I do.”

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

I told her, _if she would be at the pains_; and she bade me go away and

she would read them from the one end to the other. Now, in this bundle

that I gave her, there were packed together not only all the letters of

my false friend, but one or two of Mr. Campbell’s when he was in town

at the Assembly, and to make a complete roll of all that ever was

written to me, Catriona’s little word, and the two I had received from

Miss Grant, one when I was on the Bass and one on board that ship. But

of these last I had no particular mind at the moment.

I was in that state of subjection to the thought of my friend that it

mattered not what I did, nor scarce whether I was in her presence or

out of it; I had caught her like some kind of a noble fever that lived

continually in my bosom, by night and by day, and whether I was waking

or asleep. So it befell that after I was come into the fore-part of the

ship where the broad bows splashed into the billows, I was in no such

hurry to return as you might fancy; rather prolonged my absence like a

variety in pleasure. I do not think I am by nature much of an

Epicurean: and there had come till then so small a share of pleasure in

my way that I might be excused perhaps to dwell on it unduly.

When I returned to her again, I had a faint, painful impression as of a

buckle slipped, so coldly she returned the packet.

“You have read them?” said I; and I thought my voice sounded not wholly

natural, for I was turning in my mind for what could ail her.

“Did you mean me to read all?” she asked.

I told her “Yes,” with a drooping voice.

“The last of them as well?” said she.

I knew where we were now; yet I would not lie to her either. “I gave

them all without afterthought,” I said, “as I supposed that you would

read them. I see no harm in any.”

“I will be differently made,” said she. “I thank God I am differently

made. It was not a fit letter to be shown me. It was not fit to be

written.”

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

“There will not be anything as bitter as to lose a fancied friend,”

said she, quoting my own expression.

“I think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied!” I cried.

“What kind of justice do you call this, to blame me for some words that

a tomfool of a madcap lass has written down upon a piece of paper? You

know yourself with what respect I have behaved—and would do always.”

“Yet you would show me that same letter!” says she. “I want no such

friends. I can be doing very well, Mr. Balfour, without her—or you.”

“This is your fine gratitude!” says I.

“I am very much obliged to you,” said she. “I will be asking you to

take away your—letters.” She seemed to choke upon the word, so that it

sounded like an oath.

“You shall never ask twice,” said I; picked up that bundle, walked a

little way forward and cast them as far as possible into the sea. For a

very little more I could have cast myself after them.

The rest of the day I walked up and down raging. There were few names

so ill but what I gave her them in my own mind before the sun went

down. All that I had ever heard of Highland pride seemed quite outdone;

that a girl (scarce grown) should resent so trifling an allusion, and

that from her next friend, that she had near wearied me with praising

of! I had bitter, sharp, hard thoughts of her, like an angry boy’s. If

I had kissed her indeed (I thought), perhaps she would have taken it

pretty well; and only because it had been written down, and with a

spice of jocularity, up she must fuff in this ridiculous passion. It

seemed to me there was a want of penetration in the female sex, to make

angels weep over the case of the poor men.

We were side by side again at supper, and what a change was there! She

was like curdled milk to me; her face was like a wooden doll’s; I could

have indifferently smitten her or grovelled at her feet, but she gave

me not the least occasion to do either. No sooner the meal done than

she betook herself to attend on Mrs. Gebbie, which I think she had a

little neglected heretofore. But she was to make up for lost time, and

in what remained of the passage was extraordinary assiduous with the

old lady, and on deck began to make a great deal more than I thought

wise of Captain Sang. Not but what the Captain seemed a worthy,

fatherly man; but I hated to behold her in the least familiarity with

anyone except myself.

Altogether, she was so quick to avoid me, and so constant to keep

herself surrounded with others, that I must watch a long while before I

could find my opportunity; and after it was found, I made not much of

it, as you are now to hear.

“I have no guess how I have offended,” said I; “it should scarce be

beyond pardon, then. O, try if you can pardon me.”

“I have no pardon to give,” said she; and the words seemed to come out

of her throat like marbles. “I will be very much obliged for all your

friendships.” And she made me an eighth part of a curtsey.

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

say it too.

“There is one thing,” said I. “If I have shocked your particularity by

the showing of that letter, it cannot touch Miss Grant. She wrote not

to you, but to a poor, common, ordinary lad, who might have had more

sense than show it. If you are to blame me—”

“I will advise you to say no more about that girl, at all events!” said

Catriona. “It is her I will never look the road of, not if she lay

dying.” She turned away from me, and suddenly back. “Will you swear you

will have no more to deal with her?” she cried.

“Indeed, and I will never be so unjust then,” said I; “nor yet so

ungrateful.”

And now it was I that turned away.

CHAPTER XXII.

HELVOETSLUYS

The weather in the end considerably worsened; the wind sang in the

shrouds, the sea swelled higher, and the ship began to labour and cry

out among the billows. The song of the leadsman in the chains was now

scarce ceasing, for we thrid all the way among shoals. About nine in

the morning, in a burst of wintry sun between two squalls of hail, I

had my first look of Holland—a line of windmills birling in the breeze.

It was besides my first knowledge of these daft-like contrivances,

which gave me a near sense of foreign travel and a new world and life.

We came to an anchor about half-past eleven, outside the harbour of

Helvoetsluys, in a place where the sea sometimes broke and the ship

pitched outrageously. You may be sure we were all on deck save Mrs.

Gebbie, some of us in cloaks, others mantled in the ship’s tarpaulins,

all clinging on by ropes, and jesting the most like old sailor-folk

that we could imitate.

Presently a boat, that was backed like a partancrab, came gingerly

alongside, and the skipper of it hailed our master in the Dutch. Thence

Captain Sang turned, very troubled-like, to Catriona; and the rest of

us crowding about, the nature of the difficulty was made plain to all.

The _Rose_ was bound to the port of Rotterdam, whither the other

passengers were in a great impatience to arrive, in view of a

conveyance due to leave that very evening in the direction of the Upper

Germany. This, with the present half-gale of wind, the captain (if no

time were lost) declared himself still capable to save. Now James More

had trysted in Helvoet with his daughter, and the captain had engaged

to call before the port and place her (according to the custom) in a

shore boat. There was the boat, to be sure, and here was Catriona

ready: but both our master and the patroon of the boat scrupled at the

risk, and the first was in no humour to delay.

“Your father,” said he, “would be gey an little pleased if we was to

break a leg to ye, Miss Drummond, let-a-be drowning of you. Take my way

of it,” says he, “and come on-by with the rest of us here to Rotterdam.

Ye can get a passage down the Maes in a sailing scoot as far as to the

Brill, and thence on again, by a place in a rattel-waggon, back to

Helvoet.”

But Catriona would hear of no change. She looked white-like as she

beheld the bursting of the sprays, the green seas that sometimes poured

upon the fore-castle, and the perpetual bounding and swooping of the

boat among the billows; but she stood firmly by her father’s orders.

“My father, James More, will have arranged it so,” was her first word

and her last. I thought it very idle and indeed wanton in the girl to

be so literal and stand opposite to so much kind advice; but the fact

is she had a very good reason, if she would have told us. Sailing

scoots and rattel-waggons are excellent things; only the use of them

must first be paid for, and all she was possessed of in the world was

just two shillings and a penny halfpenny sterling. So it fell out that

captain and passengers, not knowing of her destitution—and she being

too proud to tell them—spoke in vain.

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

“It is very true,” says she, “but since the year ’46 there are so many

of the honest Scotch abroad that I will be doing very well. I thank

you.”

There was a pretty country simplicity in this that made some laugh,

others looked the more sorry, and Mr. Gebbie fall outright in a

passion. I believe he knew it was his duty (his wife having accepted

charge of the girl) to have gone ashore with her and seen her safe:

nothing would have induced him to have done so, since it must have

involved the lose of his conveyance; and I think he made it up to his

conscience by the loudness of his voice. At least he broke out upon

Captain Sang, raging and saying the thing was a disgrace; that it was

mere death to try to leave the ship, and at any event we could not cast

down an innocent maid in a boatful of nasty Holland fishers, and leave

her to her fate. I was thinking something of the same; took the mate

upon one side, arranged with him to send on my chests by track-scoot to

an address I had in Leyden, and stood up and signalled to the fishers.

“I will go ashore with the young lady, Captain Sang,” said I. “It is

all one what way I go to Leyden;” and leaped at the same time into the

boat, which I managed not so elegantly but what I fell with two of the

fishers in the bilge.

From the boat the business appeared yet more precarious than from the

ship, she stood so high over us, swung down so swift, and menaced us so

perpetually with her plunging and passaging upon the anchor cable. I

began to think I had made a fool’s bargain, that it was merely

impossible Catriona should be got on board to me, and that I stood to

be set ashore at Helvoet all by myself and with no hope of any reward

but the pleasure of embracing James More, if I should want to. But this

was to reckon without the lass’s courage. She had seen me leap with

very little appearance (however much reality) of hesitation; to be

sure, she was not to be beat by her discarded friend. Up she stood on

the bulwarks and held by a stay, the wind blowing in her petticoats,

which made the enterprise more dangerous, and gave us rather more of a

view of her stockings than would be thought genteel in cities. There

was no minute lost, and scarce time given for any to interfere if they

had wished the same. I stood up on the other side and spread my arms;

the ship swung down on us, the patroon humoured his boat nearer in than

was perhaps wholly safe, and Catriona leaped into the air. I was so

happy as to catch her, and the fishers readily supporting us, escaped a

fall. She held to me a moment very tight, breathing quick and deep;

thence (she still clinging to me with both hands) we were passed aft to

our places by the steersman; and Captain Sang and all the crew and

passengers cheering and crying farewell, the boat was put about for

shore.

As soon as Catriona came a little to herself she unhanded me suddenly,

but said no word. No more did I; and indeed the whistling of the wind

and the breaching of the sprays made it no time for speech; and our

crew not only toiled excessively but made extremely little way, so that

the _Rose_ had got her anchor and was off again before we had

approached the harbour mouth.

We were no sooner in smooth water than the patroon, according to their

beastly Hollands custom, stopped his boat and required of us our fares.

Two guilders was the man’s demand—between three and four shillings

English money—for each passenger. But at this Catriona began to cry out

with a vast deal of agitation. She had asked of Captain Sang, she said,

and the fare was but an English shilling. “Do you think I will have

come on board and not ask first?” cries she. The patroon scolded back

upon her in a lingo where the oaths were English and the rest right

Hollands; till at last (seeing her near tears) I privately slipped in

the rogue’s hand six shillings, whereupon he was obliging enough to

receive from her the other shilling without more complaint. No doubt I

was a good deal nettled and ashamed. I like to see folk thrifty, but

not with so much passion; and I daresay it would be rather coldly that

I asked her, as the boat moved on again for shore, where it was that

she was trysted with her father.

“He is to be inquired of at the house of one Sprott, an honest Scotch

merchant,” says she; and then with the same breath, “I am wishing to

thank you very much—you are a brave friend to me.”

“It will be time enough when I get you to your father,” said I, little

thinking that I spoke so true. “I can tell him a fine tale of a loyal

daughter.”

“O, I do not think I will be a loyal girl, at all events,” she cried,

with a great deal of painfulness in the expression. “I do not think my

heart is true.”

“Yet there are very few that would have made that leap, and all to obey

a father’s orders,” I observed.

“I cannot have you to be thinking of me so,” she cried again. “When you

had done that same, how would I stop behind? And at all events that was

not all the reasons.” Whereupon, with a burning face, she told me the

plain truth upon her poverty.

“Good guide us!” cried I, “what kind of daft-like proceeding is this,

to let yourself be launched on the continent of Europe with an empty

purse—I count it hardly decent—scant decent!” I cried.

“You forget James More, my father, is a poor gentleman,” said she. “He

is a hunted exile.”

“But I think not all your friends are hunted exiles,” I exclaimed. “And

was this fair to them that care for you? Was it fair to me? was it fair

to Miss Grant that counselled you to go, and would be driven fair

horn-mad if she could hear of it? Was it even fair to these Gregory

folk that you were living with, and used you lovingly? It’s a blessing

you have fallen in my hands! Suppose your father hindered by an

accident, what would become of you here, and you your lee-lone in a

strange place? The thought of the thing frightens me,” I said.

“I will have lied to all of them,” she replied. “I will have told them

all that I had plenty. I told _her_ too. I could not be lowering James

More to them.”

I found out later on that she must have lowered him in the very dust,

for the lie was originally the father’s, not the daughter’s, and she

thus obliged to persevere in it for the man’s reputation. But at the

time I was ignorant of this, and the mere thought of her destitution

and the perils in which see must have fallen, had ruffled me almost

beyond reason.

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

I left her mails for the moment in an inn upon the shore, where I got a

direction for Sprott’s house in my new French, and we walked there—it

was some little way—beholding the place with wonder as we went. Indeed,

there was much for Scots folk to admire: canals and trees being

intermingled with the houses; the houses, each within itself, of a

brave red brick, the colour of a rose, with steps and benches of blue

marble at the cheek of every door, and the whole town so clean you

might have dined upon the causeway. Sprott was within, upon his

ledgers, in a low parlour, very neat and clean, and set out with china

and pictures, and a globe of the earth in a brass frame. He was a

big-chafted, ruddy, lusty man, with a crooked hard look to him; and he

made us not that much civility as offer us a seat.

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

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

“Since you are so particular,” says I, “I will amend my question, and

ask you where we are to find in Helvoet one James Drummond, _alias_

Macgregor, _alias_ James More, late tenant in Inveronachile?”

“Sir,” says he, “he may be in Hell for what I ken, and for my part I

wish he was.”

“The young lady is that gentleman’s daughter, sir,” said I, “before

whom, I think you will agree with me, it is not very becoming to

discuss his character.”

“I have nothing to make either with him, or her, or you!” cries he in

his gross voice.

“Under your favour, Mr. Sprott,” said I, “this young lady is come from

Scotland seeking him, and by whatever mistake, was given the name of

your house for a direction. An error it seems to have been, but I think

this places both you and me—who am but her fellow-traveller by

accident—under a strong obligation to help our countrywoman.”

“Will you ding me daft?” he cries. “I tell ye I ken naething and care

less either for him or his breed. I tell ye the man owes me money.”

“That may very well be, sir,” said I, who was now rather more angry

than himself. “At least, I owe you nothing; the young lady is under my

protection; and I am neither at all used with these manners, nor in the

least content with them.”

As I said this, and without particularly thinking what I did, I drew a

step or two nearer to his table; thus striking, by mere good fortune,

on the only argument that could at all affect the man. The blood left

his lusty countenance.

“For the Lord’s sake dinna be hasty, sir!” he cried. “I am truly

wishfu’ no to be offensive. But ye ken, sir, I’m like a wheen

guid-natured, honest, canty auld fellows—my bark is waur nor my bite.

To hear me, ye micht whiles fancy I was a wee thing dour; but na, na!

it’s a kind auld fallow at heart, Sandie Sprott! And ye could never

imagine the fyke and fash this man has been to me.”

“Very good, sir,” said I. “Then I will make that much freedom with your

kindness as trouble you for your last news of Mr. Drummond.”

“You’re welcome, sir!” said he. “As for the young leddy (my respects to

her!), he’ll just have clean forgotten her. I ken the man, ye see; I

have lost siller by him ere now. He thinks of naebody but just himsel’;

clan, king, or dauchter, if he can get his wameful, he would give them

a’ the go-by! ay, or his correspondent either. For there is a sense in

whilk I may be nearly almost said to be his correspondent. The fact is,

we are employed thegether in a business affair, and I think it’s like

to turn out a dear affair for Sandie Sprott. The man’s as guid’s my

pairtner, and I give ye my mere word I ken naething by where he is. He

micht be coming here to Helvoet; he micht come here the morn, he

michtnae come for a twalmouth; I would wonder at naething—or just at

the ae thing, and that’s if he was to pay me my siller. Ye see what way

I stand with it; and it’s clear I’m no very likely to meddle up with

the young leddy, as ye ca’ her. She cannae stop here, that’s ae thing

certain sure. Dod, sir, I’m a lone man! If I was to tak her in, its

highly possible the hellicat would try and gar me marry her when he

turned up.”

“Enough of this talk,” said I. “I will take the young leddy among

better friends. Give me, pen, ink, and paper, and I will leave here for

James More the address of my correspondent in Leyden. He can inquire

from me where he is to seek his daughter.”

This word I wrote and sealed; which while I was doing, Sprott of his

own motion made a welcome offer, to charge himself with Miss Drummond’s

mails, and even send a porter for them to the inn. I advanced him to

that effect a dollar or two to be a cover, and he gave me an

acknowledgment in writing of the sum.

Whereupon (I giving my arm to Catriona) we left the house of this

unpalatable rascal. She had said no word throughout, leaving me to

judge and speak in her place; I, upon my side, had been careful not to

embarrass her by a glance; and even now, although my heart still glowed

inside of me with shame and anger, I made it my affair to seem quite

easy.

“Now,” said I, “let us get back to yon same inn where they can speak

the French, have a piece of dinner, and inquire for conveyances to

Rotterdam. I will never be easy till I have you safe again in the hands

of Mrs. Gebbie.”

“I suppose it will have to be,” said Catriona, “though whoever will be

pleased, I do not think it will be her. And I will remind you this once

again that I have but one shilling, and three baubees.”

“And just this once again,” said I, “I will remind you it was a

blessing that I came alongst with you.”

“What else would I be thinking all this time?” says she, and I thought

weighed a little on my arm. “It is you that are the good friend to me.”

CHAPTER XXIII.

TRAVELS IN HOLLAND

The rattel-waggon, which is a kind of a long waggon set with benches,

carried us in four hours of travel to the great city of Rotterdam. It

was long past dark by then, but the streets were pretty brightly

lighted and thronged with wild-like, outlandish characters—bearded

Hebrews, black men, and the hordes of courtesans, most indecently

adorned with finery and stopping seamen by their very sleeves; the

clash of talk about us made our heads to whirl; and what was the most

unexpected of all, we appeared to be no more struck with all these

foreigners than they with us. I made the best face I could, for the

lass’s sake and my own credit; but the truth is I felt like a lost

sheep, and my heart beat in my bosom with anxiety. Once or twice I

inquired after the harbour or the berth of the ship _Rose_: but either

fell on some who spoke only Hollands, or my own French failed me.

Trying a street at a venture, I came upon a lane of lighted houses, the

doors and windows thronged with wauf-like painted women; these jostled

and mocked upon us as we passed, and I was thankful we had nothing of

their language. A little after we issued forth upon an open place along

the harbour.

“We shall be doing now,” cries I, as soon as I spied masts. “Let us

walk here by the harbour. We are sure to meet some that has the

English, and at the best of it we may light upon that very ship.”

We did the next best, as happened; for, about nine of the evening, whom

should we walk into the arms of but Captain Sang? He told us they had

made their run in the most incredible brief time, the wind holding

strong till they reached port; by which means his passengers were all

gone already on their further travels. It was impossible to chase after

the Gebbies into the High Germany, and we had no other acquaintance to

fall back upon but Captain Sang himself. It was the more gratifying to

find the man friendly and wishful to assist. He made it a small affair

to find some good plain family of merchants, where Catriona might

harbour till the _Rose_ was loaden; declared he would then blithely

carry her back to Leith for nothing and see her safe in the hands of

Mr. Gregory; and in the meanwhile carried us to a late ordinary for the

meal we stood in need of. He seemed extremely friendly, as I say, but

what surprised me a good deal, rather boisterous in the bargain; and

the cause of this was soon to appear. For at the ordinary, calling for

Rhenish wine and drinking of it deep, he soon became unutterably tipsy.

In this case, as too common with all men, but especially with those of

his rough trade, what little sense or manners he possessed deserted

him; and he behaved himself so scandalous to the young lady, jesting

most ill-favouredly at the figure she had made on the ship’s rail, that

I had no resource but carry her suddenly away.

She came out of the ordinary clinging to me close. “Take me away,

David,” she said. “_You_ keep me. I am not afraid with you.”

“And have no cause, my little friend!” cried I, and could have found it

in my heart to weep.

“Where will you be taking me?” she said again. “Don’t leave me at all

events—never leave me.”

“Where am I taking you to?” says I stopping, for I had been staving on

ahead in mere blindness. “I must stop and think. But I’ll not leave

you, Catriona; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I should fail or

fash you.”

She crept close into me by way of a reply.

“Here,” I said, “is the stillest place we have hit on yet in this busy

byke of a city. Let us sit down here under yon tree and consider of our

course.”

That tree (which I am little like to forget) stood hard by the harbour

side. It was like a black night, but lights were in the houses, and

nearer hand in the quiet ships; there was a shining of the city on the

one hand, and a buzz hung over it of many thousands walking and

talking; on the other, it was dark and the water bubbled on the sides.

I spread my cloak upon a builder’s stone, and made her sit there; she

would have kept her hold upon me, for she still shook with the late

affronts; but I wanted to think clear, disengaged myself, and paced to

and fro before her, in the manner of what we call a smuggler’s walk,

belabouring my brains for any remedy. By the course of these scattering

thoughts I was brought suddenly face to face with a remembrance that,

in the heat and haste of our departure, I had left Captain Sang to pay

the ordinary. At this I began to laugh out loud, for I thought the man

well served; and at the same time, by an instinctive movement, carried

my hand to the pocket where my money was. I suppose it was in the lane

where the women jostled us; but there is only the one thing certain,

that my purse was gone.

“You will have thought of something good,” said she, observing me to

pause.

At the pinch we were in, my mind became suddenly clear as a perspective

glass, and I saw there was no choice of methods. I had not one doit of

coin, but in my pocket-book I had still my letter on the Leyden

merchant; and there was now but the one way to get to Leyden, and that

was to walk on our two feet.

“Catriona,” said I, “I know you’re brave and I believe you’re strong—do

you think you could walk thirty miles on a plain road?” We found it, I

believe, scarce the two-thirds of that, but such was my notion of the

distance.

“David,” she said, “if you will just keep near, I will go anywhere and

do anything. The courage of my heart, it is all broken. Do not be

leaving me in this horrible country by myself, and I will do all else.”

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

“I will do all that you can ask of me,” she said, “and never ask you

why. I have been a bad ungrateful girl to you; and do what you please

with me now! And I think Miss Barbara Grant is the best lady in the

world,” she added, “and I do not see what she would deny you for at all

events.”

This was Greek and Hebrew to me; but I had other matters to consider,

and the first of these was to get clear of that city on the Leyden

road. It proved a cruel problem; and it may have been one or two at

night ere we had solved it. Once beyond the houses, there was neither

moon nor stars to guide us; only the whiteness of the way in the midst

and a blackness of an alley on both hands. The walking was besides made

most extraordinary difficult by a plain black frost that fell suddenly

in the small hours and turned that highway into one long slide.

“Well, Catriona,” said I, “here we are like the king’s sons and the old

wives’ daughters in your daft-like Highland tales. Soon we’ll be going

over the ‘_seven Bens_, _the seven glens and the seven mountain

moors_’.” Which was a common byword or overcome in those tales of hers

that had stuck in my memory.

“Ah,” says she, “but here are no glens or mountains! Though I will

never be denying but what the trees and some of the plain places

hereabouts are very pretty. But our country is the best yet.”

“I wish we could say as much for our own folk,” says I, recalling

Sprott and Sang, and perhaps James More himself.

“I will never complain of the country of my friend,” said she, and

spoke it out with an accent so particular that I seemed to see the look

upon her face.

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

black ice.

“I do not know what _you_ think, Catriona,” said I, when I was a little

recovered, “but this has been the best day yet! I think shame to say

it, when you have met in with such misfortunes and disfavours; but for

me, it has been the best day yet.”

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

“And yet I think shame to be happy too,” I went on, “and you here on

the road in the black night.”

“Where in the great world would I be else?” she cried. “I am thinking I

am safest where I am with you.”

“I am quite forgiven, then?” I asked.

“Will you not forgive me that time so much as not to take it in your

mouth again?” she cried. “There is nothing in this heart to you but

thanks. But I will be honest too,” she added, with a kind of

suddenness, “and I’ll never can forgive that girl.”

“Is this Miss Grant again?” said I. “You said yourself she was the best

lady in the world.”

“So she will be, indeed!” says Catriona. “But I will never forgive her

for all that. I will never, never forgive her, and let me hear tell of

her no more.”

“Well,” said I, “this beats all that ever came to my knowledge; and I

wonder that you can indulge yourself in such bairnly whims. Here is a

young lady that was the best friend in the world to the both of us,

that learned us how to dress ourselves, and in a great manner how to

behave, as anyone can see that knew us both before and after.”

But Catriona stopped square in the midst of the highway.

“It is this way of it,” said she. “Either you will go on to speak of

her, and I will go back to yon town, and let come of it what God

pleases! Or else you will do me that politeness to talk of other

things.”

I was the most nonplussed person in this world; but I bethought me that

she depended altogether on my help, that she was of the frail sex and

not so much beyond a child, and it was for me to be wise for the pair

of us.

“My dear girl,” said I, “I can make neither head nor tails of this; but

God forbid that I should do anything to set you on the jee. As for

talking of Miss Grant, I have no such a mind to it, and I believe it

was yourself began it. My only design (if I took you up at all) was for

your own improvement, for I hate the very look of injustice. Not that I

do not wish you to have a good pride and a nice female delicacy; they

become you well; but here you show them to excess.”

“Well, then, have you done?” said she.

“I have done,” said I.

“A very good thing,” said she, and we went on again, but now in

silence.

It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding only

shadows and hearing nought but our own steps. At first, I believe our

hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity; but the

darkness and the cold, and the silence, which only the cocks sometimes

interrupted, or sometimes the farmyard dogs, had pretty soon brought

down our pride to the dust; and for my own particular, I would have

jumped at any decent opening for speech.

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

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

hap her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to keep it.

“Indeed and I will do no such thing,” said I. “Here am I, a great, ugly

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

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

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

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

embrace.

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

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

bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.

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

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

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

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

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

hand of a canal; the servant lassies were out slestering and scrubbing

at the very stones upon the public highway; smoke rose from a hundred

kitchens; and it came in upon me strongly it was time to break our

fasts.

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

baubees?”

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

it was five pounds! What will you want it for?”

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

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

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

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

before us till we get to where my money is, and if you would not buy me

a piece of bread, I were like to go fasting.”

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

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

But as for her, she broke out laughing.

“My torture! are we beggars then!” she cried. “You too? O, I could have

wished for this same thing! And I am glad to buy your breakfast to you.

But it would be pleisand if I would have had to dance to get a meal to

you! For I believe they are not very well acquainted with our manner of

dancing over here, and might be paying for the curiosity of that

sight.”

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

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

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

and in a baker’s, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling bread,

which we ate upon the road as we went on. That road from Delft to the

Hague is just five miles of a fine avenue shaded with trees, a canal on

the one hand, on the other excellent pastures of cattle. It was

pleasant here indeed.

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

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

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

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

night you seemed a little sweir to part from me?”

“It will be more than seeming then,” said she.

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

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

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

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

“I wish you were so, indeed,” I cried. “I would be a fine man if I had

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

“And now I will be Catriona Balfour,” she said. “And who is to ken?

They are all strange folk here.”

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

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

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

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

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

are to do, and yet I ought to warn you.”

“I will have no choice left,” said she. “My father James More has not

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

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

your pleasure. If you will have me, good and well. If you will not”—she

turned and touched her hand upon my arm—“David, I am afraid,” said she.

“No, but I ought to warn you,” I began; and then bethought me I was the

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

“Catriona,” said I, “don’t misunderstand me: I am just trying to do my

duty by you, girl! Here am I going alone to this strange city, to be a

solitary student there; and here is this chance arisen that you might

dwell with me a bit, and be like my sister; you can surely understand

this much, my dear, that I would just love to have you?”

“Well, and here I am,” said she. “So that’s soon settled.”

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

a great blot on my character, for which I was lucky that I did not pay

more dear. But I minded how easy her delicacy had been startled with a

word of kissing her in Barbara’s letter; now that she depended on me,

how was I to be more bold? Besides, the truth is, I could see no other

feasible method to dispose of her. And I daresay inclination pulled me

very strong.

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

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

did with pretty apologies, calling herself a shame to the Highlands and

the race she came of, and nothing but a hindrance to myself. It was her

excuse, she said, that she was not much used with walking shod. I would

have had her strip off her shoes and stockings and go barefoot. But she

pointed out to me that the women of that country, even in the landward

roads, appeared to be all shod.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There I drew on my credit, and asked to be recommended to some decent,

retired lodging. My baggage being not yet arrived, I told him I

supposed I should require his caution with the people of the house; and

explained that, my sister being come for a while to keep house with me,

I should be wanting two chambers. This was all very well; but the

trouble was that Mr. Balfour in his letter of recommendation had

condescended on a great deal of particulars, and never a word of any

sister in the case. I could see my Dutchman was extremely suspicious;

and viewing me over the rims of a great pair of spectacles—he was a

poor, frail body, and reminded me of an infirm rabbit—he began to

question me close.

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

he invite my sister to his house, and that I bring her. I shall have a

fine ravelled pirn to unwind, and may end by disgracing both the lassie

and myself. Thereupon I began hastily to expound to him my sister’s

character. She was of a bashful disposition, it appeared, and be

extremely fearful of meeting strangers that I had left her at that

moment sitting in a public place alone. And then, being launched upon

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

the same circumstance, and plunge in deeper than was any service;

adding some altogether needless particulars of Miss Balfour’s

ill-health and retirement during childhood. In the midst of which I

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

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

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

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

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

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

presenting of the young man to Catriona. The poor, pretty child was

much recovered with resting, looked and behaved to perfection, and took

my arm and gave me the name of brother more easily than I could answer

her. But there was one misfortune: thinking to help, she was rather

towardly than otherwise to my Dutchman. And I could not but reflect

that Miss Balfour had rather suddenly outgrown her bashfulness. And

there was another thing, the difference of our speech. I had the Low

Country tongue and dwelled upon my words; she had a hill voice, spoke

with something of an English accent, only far more delightful, and was

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

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

But the young Hollander was a heavy dog, without so much spirit in his

belly as to remark her prettiness, for which I scorned him. And as soon

as he had found a cover to our heads, he left us alone, which was the

greater service of the two.

CHAPTER XXIV.

FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS

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

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

built out into the floor in the Dutch manner; and being alongside, each

had the same prospect from the window of the top of a tree below us in

a little court, of a piece of the canal, and of houses in the Hollands

architecture and a church spire upon the further side. A full set of

bells hung in that spire and made delightful music; and when there was

any sun at all, it shone direct in our two chambers. From a tavern hard

by we had good meals sent in.

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

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

she had eaten. The first thing in the morning I wrote word to Sprott to

have her mails sent on, together with a line to Alan at his chief’s;

and had the same despatched, and her breakfast ready, ere I waked her.

I was a little abashed when she came forth in her one habit, and the

mud of the way upon her stockings. By what inquiries I had made, it

seemed a good few days must pass before her mails could come to hand in

Leyden, and it was plainly needful she must have a shift of things. She

was unwilling at first that I should go to that expense; but I reminded

her she was now a rich man’s sister and must appear suitably in the

part, and we had not got to the second merchant’s before she was

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

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

was more extraordinary was the passion into which I fell on it myself;

being never satisfied that I had bought her enough or fine enough, and

never weary of beholding her in different attires. Indeed, I began to

understand some little of Miss Grant’s immersion in the interest of

clothes; for the truth is, when you have the ground of a beautiful

person to adorn, the whole business becomes beautiful. The Dutch

chintzes I should say were extraordinary cheap and fine; but I would be

ashamed to set down what I paid for stockings to her. Altogether I

spent so great a sum upon this pleasuring (as I may call it) that I was

ashamed for a great while to spend more; and by way of a set-off, I

left our chambers pretty bare. If we had beds, if Catriona was a little

braw, and I had light to see her by, we were richly enough lodged for

me.

By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the door

with all our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which to read

myself a lecture. Here had I taken under my roof, and as good as to my

bosom, a young lass extremely beautiful, and whose innocence was her

peril. My talk with the old Dutchman, and the lies to which I was

constrained, had already given me a sense of how my conduct must appear

to others; and now, after the strong admiration I had just experienced

and the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain purchases, I

began to think of it myself as very hazarded. I bethought me, if I had

a sister indeed, whether I would so expose her; then, judging the case

too problematical, I varied my question into this, whether I would so

trust Catriona in the hands of any other Christian being; the answer to

which made my face to burn. The more cause, since I had been entrapped

and had entrapped the girl into an undue situation, that I should

behave in it with scrupulous nicety. She depended on me wholly for her

bread and shelter; in case I should alarm her delicacy, she had no

retreat. Besides I was her host and her protector; and the more

irregularly I had fallen in these positions, the less excuse for me if

I should profit by the same to forward even the most honest suit; for

with the opportunities that I enjoyed, and which no wise parent would

have suffered for a moment, even the most honest suit would be unfair.

I saw I must be extremely hold-off in my relations; and yet not too

much so neither; for if I had no right to appear at all in the

character of a suitor, I must yet appear continually, and if possible

agreeably, in that of host. It was plain I should require a great deal

of tact and conduct, perhaps more than my years afforded. But I had

rushed in where angels might have feared to tread, and there was no way

out of that position save by behaving right while I was in it. I made a

set of rules for my guidance; prayed for strength to be enabled to

observe them, and as a more human aid to the same end purchased a

study-book in law. This being all that I could think of, I relaxed from

these grave considerations; whereupon my mind bubbled at once into an

effervescency of pleasing spirits, and it was like one treading on air

that I turned homeward. As I thought that name of home, and recalled

the image of that figure awaiting me between four walls, my heart beat

upon my bosom.

My troubles began with my return. She ran to greet me with an obvious

and affecting pleasure. She was clad, besides, entirely in the new

clothes that I had bought for her; looked in them beyond expression

well; and must walk about and drop me curtseys to display them and to

be admired. I am sure I did it with an ill grace, for I thought to have

choked upon the words.

“Well,” she said, “if you will not be caring for my pretty clothes, see

what I have done with our two chambers.” And she showed me the place

all very finely swept, and the fires glowing in the two chimneys.

I was glad of a chance to seem a little more severe than I quite felt.

“Catriona,” said I, “I am very much displeased with you, and you must

never again lay a hand upon my room. One of us two must have the rule

while we are here together; it is most fit it should be I who am both

the man and the elder; and I give you that for my command.”

She dropped me one of her curtseys; which were extraordinary taking.

“If you will be cross,” said she, “I must be making pretty manners at

you, Davie. I will be very obedient, as I should be when every stitch

upon all there is of me belongs to you. But you will not be very cross

either, because now I have not anyone else.”

This struck me hard, and I made haste, in a kind of penitence, to blot

out all the good effect of my last speech. In this direction progress

was more easy, being down hill; she led me forward, smiling; at the

sight of her, in the brightness of the fire and with her pretty becks

and looks, my heart was altogether melted. We made our meal with

infinite mirth and tenderness; and the two seemed to be commingled into

one, so that our very laughter sounded like a kindness.

In the midst of which I awoke to better recollections, made a lame word

of excuse, and set myself boorishly to my studies. It was a

substantial, instructive book that I had bought, by the late Dr.

Heineccius, in which I was to do a great deal reading these next few

days, and often very glad that I had no one to question me of what I

read. Methought she bit her lip at me a little, and that cut me. Indeed

it left her wholly solitary, the more as she was very little of a

reader, and had never a book. But what was I to do?

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

I could have beat myself. I could not lie in my bed that night for rage

and repentance, but walked to and fro on my bare feet till I was nearly

perished, for the chimney was gone out and the frost keen. The thought

of her in the next room, the thought that she might even hear me as I

walked, the remembrance of my churlishness and that I must continue to

practise the same ungrateful course or be dishonoured, put me beside my

reason. I stood like a man between Scylla and Charybdis: _What must she

think of me_? was my one thought that softened me continually into

weakness. _What is to become of us_? the other which steeled me again

to resolution. This was my first night of wakefulness and divided

counsels, of which I was now to pass many, pacing like a madman,

sometimes weeping like a childish boy, sometimes praying (I fain would

hope) like a Christian.

But prayer is not very difficult, and the hitch comes in practice. In

her presence, and above all if I allowed any beginning of familiarity,

I found I had very little command of what should follow. But to sit all

day in the same room with her, and feign to be engaged upon Heineccius,

surpassed my strength. So that I fell instead upon the expedient of

absenting myself so much as I was able; taking out classes and sitting

there regularly, often with small attention, the test of which I found

the other day in a note-book of that period, where I had left off to

follow an edifying lecture and actually scribbled in my book some very

ill verses, though the Latinity is rather better than I thought that I

could ever have compassed. The evil of this course was unhappily near

as great as its advantage. I had the less time of trial, but I believe,

while the time lasted, I was tried the more extremely. For she being so

much left to solitude, she came to greet my return with an increasing

fervour that came nigh to overmaster me. These friendly offers I must

barbarously cast back; and my rejection sometimes wounded her so

cruelly that I must unbend and seek to make it up to her in kindness.

So that our time passed in ups and downs, tiffs and disappointments,

upon the which I could almost say (if it may be said with reverence)

that I was crucified.

The base of my trouble was Catriona’s extraordinary innocence, at which

I was not so much surprised as filled with pity and admiration. She

seemed to have no thought of our position, no sense of my struggles;

welcomed any mark of my weakness with responsive joy; and when I was

drove again to my retrenchments, did not always dissemble her chagrin.

There were times when I have thought to myself, “If she were over head

in love, and set her cap to catch me, she would scarce behave much

otherwise;” and then I would fall again into wonder at the simplicity

of woman, from whom I felt (in these moments) that I was not worthy to

be descended.

There was one point in particular on which our warfare turned, and of

all things, this was the question of her clothes. My baggage had soon

followed me from Rotterdam, and hers from Helvoet. She had now, as it

were, two wardrobes; and it grew to be understood between us (I could

never tell how) that when she was friendly she would wear my clothes,

and when otherwise her own. It was meant for a buffet, and (as it were)

the renunciation of her gratitude; and I felt it so in my bosom, but

was generally more wise than to appear to have observed the

circumstance.

Once, indeed, I was betrayed into a childishness greater than her own;

it fell in this way. On my return from classes, thinking upon her

devoutly with a great deal of love and a good deal of annoyance in the

bargain, the annoyance began to fade away out of my mind; and spying in

a window one of those forced flowers, of which the Hollanders are so

skilled in the artifice, I gave way to an impulse and bought it for

Catriona. I do not know the name of that flower, but it was of the pink

colour, and I thought she would admire the same, and carried it home to

her with a wonderful soft heart. I had left her in my clothes, and when

I returned to find her all changed and a face to match, I cast but the

one look at her from head to foot, ground my teeth together, flung the

window open, and my flower into the court, and then (between rage and

prudence) myself out of that room again, of which I slammed she door as

I went out.

On the steep stair I came near falling, and this brought me to myself,

so that I began at once to see the folly of my conduct. I went, not

into the street as I had purposed, but to the house court, which was

always a solitary place, and where I saw my flower (that had cost me

vastly more than it was worth) hanging in the leafless tree. I stood by

the side of the canal, and looked upon the ice. Country people went by

on their skates, and I envied them. I could see no way out of the

pickle I was in no way so much as to return to the room I had just

left. No doubt was in my mind but I had now betrayed the secret of my

feelings; and to make things worse, I had shown at the same time (and

that with wretched boyishness) incivility to my helpless guest.

I suppose she must have seen me from the open window. It did not seem

to me that I had stood there very long before I heard the crunching of

footsteps on the frozen snow, and turning somewhat angrily (for I was

in no spirit to be interrupted) saw Catriona drawing near. She was all

changed again, to the clocked stockings.

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

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

She carried her hand to her bosom and coloured high. “I will have

forgotten it,” said she. “I will run upstairs for it quick, and then

surely we’ll can have our walk?”

There was a note of pleading in that last that staggered me; I had

neither words nor voice to utter them; I could do no more than nod by

way of answer; and the moment she had left me, climbed into the tree

and recovered my flower, which on her return I offered her.

“I bought it for you, Catriona,” said I.

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

thought tenderly.

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

“I will be liking it none the worse, you may be sure of that,” said

she.

We did not speak so much that day; she seemed a thought on the reserve,

though not unkindly. As for me, all the time of our walking, and after

we came home, and I had seen her put my flower into a pot of water, I

was thinking to myself what puzzles women were. I was thinking, the one

moment, it was the most stupid thing on earth she should not have

perceived my love; and the next, that she had certainly perceived it

long ago, and (being a wise girl with the fine female instinct of

propriety) concealed her knowledge.

We had our walk daily. Out in the streets I felt more safe; I relaxed a

little in my guardedness; and for one thing, there was no Heineccius.

This made these periods not only a relief to myself, but a particular

pleasure to my poor child. When I came back about the hour appointed, I

would generally find her ready dressed, and glowing with anticipation.

She would prolong their duration to the extreme, seeming to dread (as I

did myself) the hour of the return; and there is scarce a field or

waterside near Leyden, scarce a street or lane there, where we have not

lingered. Outside of these, I bade her confine herself entirely to our

lodgings; this in the fear of her encountering any acquaintance, which

would have rendered our position very difficult. From the same

apprehension I would never suffer her to attend church, nor even go

myself; but made some kind of shift to hold worship privately in our

own chamber—I hope with an honest, but I am quite sure with a very much

divided mind. Indeed, there was scarce anything that more affected me,

than thus to kneel down alone with her before God like man and wife.

One day it was snowing downright hard. I had thought it not possible

that we should venture forth, and was surprised to find her waiting for

me ready dressed.

“I will not be doing without my walk,” she cried. “You are never a good

boy, Davie, in the house; I will never be caring for you only in the

open air. I think we two will better turn Egyptian and dwell by the

roadside.”

That was the best walk yet of all of them; she clung near to me in the

falling snow; it beat about and melted on us, and the drops stood upon

her bright cheeks like tears and ran into her smiling mouth. Strength

seemed to come upon me with the sight like a giant’s; I thought I could

have caught her up and run with her into the uttermost places in the

earth; and we spoke together all that time beyond belief for freedom

and sweetness.

It was the dark night when we came to the house door. She pressed my

arm upon her bosom. “Thank you kindly for these same good hours,” said

she, on a deep note of her voice.

The concern in which I fell instantly on this address, put me with the

same swiftness on my guard; and we were no sooner in the chamber, and

the light made, than she beheld the old, dour, stubborn countenance of

the student of Heineccius. Doubtless she was more than usually hurt;

and I know for myself, I found it more than usually difficult to

maintain any strangeness. Even at the meal, I durst scarce unbuckle and

scarce lift my eyes to her; and it was no sooner over than I fell again

to my civilian, with more seeming abstraction and less understanding

than before. Methought, as I read, I could hear my heart strike like an

eight-day clock. Hard as I feigned to study, there was still some of my

eyesight that spilled beyond the book upon Catriona. She sat on the

floor by the side of my great mail, and the chimney lighted her up, and

shone and blinked upon her, and made her glow and darken through a

wonder of fine hues. Now she would be gazing in the fire, and then

again at me; and at that I would be plunged in a terror of myself, and

turn the pages of Heineccius like a man looking for the text in church.

Suddenly she called out aloud. “O, why does not my father come?” she

cried, and fell at once into a storm of tears.

I leaped up, flung Heineccius fairly in the fire, ran to her side, and

cast an arm around her sobbing body.

She put me from her sharply, “You do not love your friend,” says she.

“I could be so happy too, if you would let me!” And then, “O, what will

I have done that you should hate me so?”

“Hate you!” cries I, and held her firm. “You blind less, can you not

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

reading in that fool-book that I have just burned and be damned to it,

I take ever the least thought of any stricken thing but just yourself?

Night after night I could have grat to see you sitting there your lone.

And what was I to do? You are here under my honour; would you punish me

for that? Is it for that that you would spurn a loving servant?”

At the word, with a small, sudden motion, she clung near to me. I

raised her face to mine, I kissed it, and she bowed her brow upon my

bosom, clasping me tight. I saw in a mere whirl like a man drunken.

Then I heard her voice sound very small and muffled in my clothes.

“Did you kiss her truly?” she asked.

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

with it.

“Miss Grant?” I cried, all in a disorder. “Yes, I asked her to kiss me

good-bye, the which she did.”

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

At the strangeness and sweetness of that word, I saw where we had

fallen; rose, and set her on her feet.

“This will never do,” said I. “This will never, never do. O Catrine,

Catrine!” Then there came a pause in which I was debarred from any

speaking. And then, “Go away to your bed,” said I. “Go away to your bed

and leave me.”

She turned to obey me like a child, and the next I knew of it, had

stopped in the very doorway.

“Good night, Davie!” said she.

“And O, good night, my love!” I cried, with a great outbreak of my

soul, and caught her to me again, so that it seemed I must have broken

her. The next moment I had thrust her from the room, shut to the door

even with violence, and stood alone.

The milk was spilt now, the word was out and the truth told. I had

crept like an untrusty man into the poor maid’s affections; she was in

my hand like any frail, innocent thing to make or mar; and what weapon

of defence was left me? It seemed like a symbol that Heineccius, my old

protection, was now burned. I repented, yet could not find it in my

heart to blame myself for that great failure. It seemed not possible to

have resisted the boldness of her innocence or that last temptation of

her weeping. And all that I had to excuse me did but make my sin appear

the greater—it was upon a nature so defenceless, and with such

advantages of the position, that I seemed to have practised.

What was to become of us now? It seemed we could no longer dwell in the

one place. But where was I to go? or where she? Without either choice

or fault of ours, life had conspired to wall us together in that narrow

place. I had a wild thought of marrying out of hand; and the next

moment put it from me with revolt. She was a child, she could not tell

her own heart; I had surprised her weakness, I must never go on to

build on that surprisal; I must keep her not only clear of reproach,

but free as she had come to me.

Down I sat before the fire, and reflected, and repented, and beat my

brains in vain for any means of escape. About two of the morning, there

were three red embers left and the house and all the city was asleep,

when I was aware of a small sound of weeping in the next room. She

thought that I slept, the poor soul; she regretted her weakness—and

what perhaps (God help her!) she called her forwardness—and in the dead

of the night solaced herself with tears. Tender and bitter feelings,

love and penitence and pity, struggled in my soul; it seemed I was

under bond to heal that weeping.

“O, try to forgive me!” I cried out, “try, try to forgive me. Let us

forget it all, let us try if we’ll no can forget it!”

There came no answer, but the sobbing ceased. I stood a long while with

my hands still clasped as I had spoken; then the cold of the night laid

hold upon me with a shudder, and I think my reason reawakened.

“You can make no hand of this, Davie,” thinks I. “To bed with you like

a wise lad, and try if you can sleep. To-morrow you may see your way.”

CHAPTER XXV.

THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE

I was called on the morrow out of a late and troubled slumber by a

knocking on my door, ran to open it, and had almost swooned with the

contrariety of my feelings, mostly painful; for on the threshold, in a

rough wraprascal and an extraordinary big laced hat, there stood James

More.

I ought to have been glad perhaps without admixture, for there was a

sense in which the man came like an answer to prayer. I had been saying

till my head was weary that Catriona and I must separate, and looking

till my head ached for any possible means of separation. Here were the

means come to me upon two legs, and joy was the hindmost of my

thoughts. It is to be considered, however, that even if the weight of

the future were lifted off me by the man’s arrival, the present heaved

up the more black and menacing; so that, as I first stood before him in

my shirt and breeches, I believe I took a leaping step backward like a

person shot.

“Ah,” said he, “I have found you, Mr. Balfour.” And offered me his

large, fine hand, the which (recovering at the same time my post in the

doorway, as if with some thought of resistance) I took him by

doubtfully. “It is a remarkable circumstance how our affairs appear to

intermingle,” he continued. “I am owing you an apology for an

unfortunate intrusion upon yours, which I suffered myself to be

entrapped into by my confidence in that false-face, Prestongrange; I

think shame to own to you that I was ever trusting to a lawyer.” He

shrugged his shoulders with a very French air. “But indeed the man is

very plausible,” says he. “And now it seems that you have busied

yourself handsomely in the matter of my daughter, for whose direction I

was remitted to yourself.”

“I think, sir,” said I, with a very painful air, “that it will be

necessary we two should have an explanation.”

“There is nothing amiss?” he asked. “My agent, Mr. Sprott—”

“For God’s sake moderate your voice!” I cried. “She must not hear till

we have had an explanation.”

“She is in this place?” cries he.

“That is her chamber door,” said I.

“You are here with her alone?” he asked.

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

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

“This is very unusual,” said he. “This is a very unusual circumstance.

You are right, we must hold an explanation.”

So saying he passed me by, and I must own the tall old rogue appeared

at that moment extraordinary dignified. He had now, for the first time,

the view of my chamber, which I scanned (I may say) with his eyes. A

bit of morning sun glinted in by the window pane, and showed it off; my

bed, my mails, and washing dish, with some disorder of my clothes, and

the unlighted chimney, made the only plenishing; no mistake but it

looked bare and cold, and the most unsuitable, beggarly place

conceivable to harbour a young lady. At the same time came in on my

mind the recollection of the clothes that I had bought for her; and I

thought this contrast of poverty and prodigality bore an ill

appearance.

He looked all about the chamber for a seat, and finding nothing else to

his purpose except my bed, took a place upon the side of it; where,

after I had closed the door, I could not very well avoid joining him.

For however this extraordinary interview might end, it must pass if

possible without waking Catriona; and the one thing needful was that we

should sit close and talk low. But I can scarce picture what a pair we

made; he in his great coat which the coldness of my chamber made

extremely suitable; I shivering in my shirt and breeks; he with very

much the air of a judge; and I (whatever I looked) with very much the

feelings of a man who has heard the last trumpet.

“Well?” says he.

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

“You tell me she is here?” said he again, but now with a spice of

impatience that seemed to brace me up.

“She is in this house,” said I, “and I knew the circumstance would be

called unusual. But you are to consider how very unusual the whole

business was from the beginning. Here is a young lady landed on the

coast of Europe with two shillings and a penny halfpenny. She is

directed to yon man Sprott in Helvoet. I hear you call him your agent.

All I can say is he could do nothing but damn and swear at the mere

mention of your name, and I must fee him out of my own pocket even to

receive the custody of her effects. You speak of unusual circumstances,

Mr. Drummond, if that be the name you prefer. Here was a circumstance,

if you like, to which it was barbarity to have exposed her.”

“But this is what I cannot understand the least,” said James. “My

daughter was placed into the charge of some responsible persons, whose

names I have forgot.”

“Gebbie was the name,” said I; “and there is no doubt that Mr. Gebbie

should have gone ashore with her at Helvoet. But he did not, Mr.

Drummond; and I think you might praise God that I was there to offer in

his place.”

“I shall have a word to say to Mr. Gebbie before long,” said he. “As

for yourself, I think it might have occurred that you were somewhat

young for such a post.”

“But the choice was not between me and somebody else, it was between me

and nobody,” cried I. “Nobody offered in my place, and I must say I

think you show a very small degree of gratitude to me that did.”

“I shall wait until I understand my obligation a little more in the

particular,” says he.

“Indeed, and I think it stares you in the face, then,” said I. “Your

child was deserted, she was clean flung away in the midst of Europe,

with scarce two shillings, and not two words of any language spoken

there: I must say, a bonny business! I brought her to this place. I

gave her the name and the tenderness due to a sister. All this has not

gone without expense, but that I scarce need to hint at. They were

services due to the young lady’s character which I respect; and I think

it would be a bonny business too, if I was to be singing her praises to

her father.”

“You are a young man,” he began.

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

“You are a very young man,” he repeated, “or you would have understood

the significancy of the step.”