 CHAPTER XXI. 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 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 boughs and laid an extraordinarily 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 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 smooth-steed 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 harley 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 to 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 I first 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 bra, for she could make but the one Bonnie. 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 that we were to ship together. Oh, 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 Davy, what do you think of my farewell? And what do you say to her 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 can the answer. So fill up here with good advice. Do not be too late, 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 in compliment on the leaf out of my pocketbook, put it in with another scratch from Katrina, sealed the hole with my new signet of the balfour arms, and dispatched it by the hand of Preston Grange'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. Katrina? said I. It seemed that was the first and last word of my eloquence. You will be glad to see me again? said she. I think that is an idle word, said I. We are too deep friends to make speech upon such tribals. 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 Kale-Stock, said I. Ah, yes, she will say so indeed, cries Katrina, yet it was for the name and the gentle kind of 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 or find brave, merry girl. And then there is your face, which is quite different. I never knew how different till today. 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, said she, every living soul, said I. And 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 is it you go? I told her. Ah, well, said she, we will be some days in company, and then, I suppose, goodbye for all together. I go to meet my father at a place of the name of Helvet Seuss, and from there to France to be exiled by the sight of our chieftain. I could say no more than just, oh, the name of James Moore 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, I think two of my kin folks have not behaved to you altogether very well, and one of them, too, is James Moore, my father, and the other is the Laird of Preston Grange. Preston Grange will have spoken by himself or his daughter in the place of him, but for James Moore, 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. Katrina, said I, what that mistake was I do not care to know. I know but the one thing, that you went to Preston Grange and begged my life upon your knees. Oh, I can well enough it was for your father that you went, but when you were there, you pleaded for me also. This 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, Katrina looking on the deck and I on her, and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up in the northwest, they began to shake out the sails and heave in upon the anchor. There were six passengers besides our two cells, which made it a full cabin. She were solid merchants out of Leith, Kerkaldi and Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany. One was a Hollander returning, and the rest were the merchant's wives, to the charge of one whom Katrina was recommended. Mrs. Gebe, for that was her name, was by great good fortune, heavily incommodated 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 rows, except a white-faced boy that did my old duty to attend upon the table. And it came about that Katrina and I were left almost entirely to our cells. 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 Wood 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, were 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 bow, 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 of us the less pleased. While she would tell me old wives tales of which she had wonderful variety, many of them from my friend red-headed Neil, 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. Once again we would sit entirely silent, not communicating even with a look, and tasting pleasure enough in the sweetness of that neighborhood. 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 to 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 by her on the deck, and I declare I scare spent two thoughts upon the future, and was so well content with what I then enjoyed that I was never in 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 to 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 would have been said since the foundation of the world by young folk in the same predicament. Then we remarked upon the straightness of that circumstance. The 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 to 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 forty-five, the men marched with swords and firelocks 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 tenets 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 Moore, and of Glengale himself. And here is one fine thing that I remember. The Glengale kissed me in the face, because, says he, my kin's woman, 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, in the blue eyes of him. He was pretty indeed. I had his hand to kiss in front of the army. Oh, 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 grew. Yes, I have walked in the night, many is the time, and my heart greatened me for the terror of the darkness. It is a strange thing I never have been meddled with by a bogel, 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 Inversnade, the night we took her from her friends in the old, ancient manner. She would, and she wouldn't. She was for marrying Robb 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, I or no. Well, she was a widow, and I can never be thanking a widow a good woman. Katrina, 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, Fai, 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 friends got caught 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 female since that day, and so on the end my father, James Moore, came to be cast in prison, and you know the rest of it as well as me. And through all of this you had no friends, said I. No, said she. I have been pretty chief with two or three lasses on the parades, 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, oh yes I was forgetting him, I said, but he is a man, and that is very different. I would think so, said she. Oh 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 in 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 am I right till I was tired? He took no notice. Eh, Katrina, 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 the touch the other. Till it 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 I ever got. That will be the last I can tell you of myself. You know the lave 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 one end to the other. Now in the 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 role of all that was ever written to me, Katrina's little word, and the two I had received from Miss Grant, one when I was on the bass, and one on the 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 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 four part of the ship with a broad boughs 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 had returned her again, I had a faint, painful impression as of a buckle slipped, so coldly she returned the packet. Have you read them? said I, and I thought my voice sounded not wholly natural, for I was turning in my mind for what could ale 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 suppose 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 Tom Fool of a madcap lass has written down upon a piece of paper? You know yourself, with what respect I have behaved, and I 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, she said. 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 could give her them in my own mind before the sun went down. All that had ever heard of Highland Pride seemed quite outdone. That a girl, scarce grown, could resent so trifling an illusion, and that from her next friend, that she had never weared 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 her pretty well. And only because it had been written down, and with the spice of jocularity, up she must puff in this ridiculous passion. It seemed to me that 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 groveled 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. Gibi, which I think she had a little neglected here to for. But she was to make up for lost time, and what remained of the passage was extraordinary siguous with the old lady. But on deck began to make a great deal more than I thought wise of Captain Sang, not but what the Captain seemed to be 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, or try if you can pardon me. I have no pardon to give, said she, and the word 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 curtsy. 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 Katrina. 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 The weather in the end considerably worsened. The winds sang in the shrouds, the sea swelled higher, and the ship had began to labor and cry out among the billows. The song of the Leadsman of the Chains was now scarce ceasing, for he thread 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 burling in the breeze. It was besides my first knowledge of these daft-like contrivances, which gave me a near sense of foreign travel in a new world in life. We came into an anchor about half past eleven, outside the harbor of Helvoenslis, in a place where the seas sometimes broke, and the ship pitched outrageously. You may be sure we were all on deck, save Mrs. Giebe, some of us in cloaks, others mantled in the ship's tarpolines, 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 pantcrab came gingerly alongside, and the skipper that hailed our master in the Dutch. Thence Captain Sang turned, very troubled like, to Katrina, and the rest of us crowning about the nature of the difficulty was made plain to all. The rose was bound to the port of Rotterdam, whether the other passengers were in a great impatience to a drive, in view of a conveyance due to leave them 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 Moore had tristed in Helvoet with his daughter, and the captain had engaged to call before the port, and place her, according to the custom, in a shoreboat. There was the boat, to be sure, and here was Katrina ready, but both our master and the patron of the boat scrupled at the risk, and the first was in no humor to delay. Your father, said he, will be gay and little pleased if we are to break leg to ye, distrummed, lay be drowning of you, take my way of it, so see, and come on by with the rest of us here to Rotterdam. Ye can get a passage down to the maze and a sailing-scoot as far as to the brill, and thence on again by a place in a rattle wagon back to Helvoet. But Katrina would hear of no change. She looked quite like as she beheld the bursting of the sprays, the green seas that sometimes poured upon the folksle, and the perpetual pounding and swooping of the boat among the billows. But she stood firmly by her father's orders. My father, James Moore, will have arranged it so. Was her first word and her last. I thought it very idly 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 rattle wagons 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-hapen-y 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 ye can a French and a Dutch neither, said one. It is very true, says she. But since the year forty-six 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, and others looked the more sorry. But Mr. Giebe fall outright in a passion. I believe he knew what 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's saying, ragging and saying the thing was a disgrace, that it was mere death to try and leave the ship, and in any event we could not cast down an innocent maid and a boatful of nasty haul and 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 my chests by trackscout to an address I had in Leiden, and stood up and signaled to the fishers. I will go ashore with the young lady, captain sang, said I. It is all one what way I get to Leiden, 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, swinging down so swift, and menaced us so perpetually with her plunging and passageing upon the anchor cable. I began to think I had made a fool's bargain, that it was merely impossible Katrina could be got on board to me, and that I stood here to be set ashore at Helvett 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 upon the other side and spread my arms. The ship swung down on us, the patroon humored his boat nearer than it was perhaps wholly safe, and Katrina leaped into the air. I was so happy as to catch her, and the fishers readily supporting us escaped a fall. She held on to me a moment very tight, breathing quick and deep. Thence, she was still clinging to me with both hands, we'd were passed after our places by the steersmen. And captain sang, and all the crew and passengers, cheering and crying farewell, the boat was put about for sure. As soon as Katrina 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 harbor mouth. We were no sooner in smooth water than the patroon, according to their Beasley Holland's 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 if this Katrina began to cry out with a vast deal of agitation, she'd 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 asked first, cry she. The patroons scolded back upon her in a lingo where the oaths were English and the rest write Holland's. Till at last, saying her near tears, I privately slipped the rogues hand at six shillings, whereupon he was obliged enough to receive from her the other shilling without more complaint. No doubt I was a good deal nettle'd, and ashamed. I liked to see folk thrifty, but not with so much passion, and I dare say it would be rather coldly that I asked her, as the boat moved on again for sure, where it was that she was tristed 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. Oh, 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. But 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 the same, how would I stop behind? And in 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 draft like preceding is this, to let yourself be launched on the continent of Europe with an empty purse? I counted hardly decent. Scant decent, I cried. You forget, James Moore, 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 counseled you to go, and would be driven 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 and your liloin 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 lording James Moore to them. I found out later that she must have lured him in the very dust, for the lie was originally the father's, not the daughter's. And she thus obliged to preserve 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 which she 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 directions 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 Scott's 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 into benches a 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 parlor very neat tinkling, and set out with china and pictures, and a globe of the earth in a brass frame. He was a big, shafted, ruddy, lusty man with a crooked hard look to him, and he made us not that much civility as to offer a seat. Is James Moore McGregor now in hell-wood, sir? says I. I can't nobody buy such 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 hell-wood when James Drummond, alias McGregor, alias James Moore, late tenant of Ivan Kelly. Sir, says he, he made me in hell for what I can, and for my part I wish he was. The young lady is that gentleman's daughter, sir, I said, 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 see in his gross voice. Under your favour, Mr. Sprott, said I, this young lady has 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 place, both you and me, who am but her fellow-traveller by accident, under strong obligation to help our countrywoman. Well you ding me daft, he cries, I tell you I can nothing and care less either for him or his breed, I tell you 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 wishful, know to be offensive, but ye can, sir. I'm like a weaned, good-natured, honest, canty old fellows, and my bark is worse now than my bite. To hear me, ye missed wiles fancy, I was a weathing dour banana. It's a kind old fellow at heart, Sandy Sprott. And ye could never imagine the fake and fashion this man has been to me. Very good, sir, said I. Then I will make that much freedom with your kindness as to trouble you for your last news of Mr. Grumman. Yar, welcome, sir, said he. As for the young lady, my respects to her. He'll just have clean forgotten her. I can demand, ye see, I have lost silver by him here now. He thinks of nobody but just himself, clan, king, or daughter. If he can get his wimful, he would give him the good-bye. I owe his correspondent, either. For there is a sense in which I may be nearly almost said to be his correspondent. That is, we are employed together in a business affair, and I think it's like to turn out a dear affair for Sandy Sprott. The man's as good as my partner, and I give ye my word, I can nothing by where he is. He might be coming here to Helwitt. He might be coming here to Le Marne. He might not come for a 12 month. I would wonder at nothing, or just at the A thing. And that's if he was to pay me my silver. You see what way I stand with it. And it's clear I'm no very likely to meddle up with the young lady as ye can her. She can't stop here as A thing for sure. Dude, sir, I'm a lone man. And if I was to take her in as highly possible, the helicat would try and guard me marry her when he turned up. Enough of this talk, said I. I will take the young lady among better friends. Give me pen, ink, and paper, and I will leave here for James Moore the address of my correspondent in Leiden. 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 effector dollar or two to be a cover, and he gave me an acknowledgment in writing of the sum. Whereupon, I, giving my arm to Katrina, we left the house of this impalatable 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 to my affair to seem quite easy. Now, said I, let us go back to Yon's same inn, where they can speak the French, have a piece of dinner, and inquire for a conveyance as to Rotterdam. I will never be easy till I have you safe again in the hands of Mrs. Geebee. I suppose it will have to be, said Katrina, 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 bobbies. 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 XXXIII CHAPTER XXIII. TRAVELS IN HOLAND The rattle wagon, which is a kind of long wagon 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 adored 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 last's sake and my own credit, but the truth is I felt like a lost sheep, and my heart beat into my bosom with anxiety. Once or twice I inquired after the harbor or the birth of the ship rose, but either fell on some who spoke only Hollands or my own French failed me. Being a street at a venture, I came upon a lane of lighted houses, the doors and windows thronged with wild-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 harbor. We shall be doing now, cries I, as soon as I spied masts. Let us walk here by the harbor. 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 in 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 geebies 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 Katrina might harbor till the rose was laden. Declared that 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 a rinish 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 scandalously to the young lady, jesting most ill favorably at the figure she had made on the ship's rail that I had no recourse but to 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 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 never leave you, Katrina. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if I should fail or fasc you. She crept close to me by way of a reply. Here, said I, is the stillest place we have hit on yet in this busy bike 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 harborside. It was like a black night, but lights were in the houses and near 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 hold upon me, for she still shook with the late affronts. But I wanted to think clear, disengage myself, and pace to and fro before her in the manner of what we call a smuggler's walk, belaboring my brains for any remedy. By the course of these scattering thoughts I was brought suddenly face to face with the remembrance that, in the heat and haste of our departure, I had left Captain Sank 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 supposed it was in the lane where the woman jostled us, but it was 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 doid of a coin, but in my pocket-book I still had my letter on the laden merchant. And there was now but the one way to get to laden. And that was to walk on our own two feet. "'Katrina,' 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 motion of the distance. "'David,' said she, "'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've 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 it 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 laden road. It proved a cruel problem. It may have been one or two at night, Erwees 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 more extraordinary difficult by a plain black frost that fell suddenly in the small hours, and turned that highway into one long slide. "'Well, Katrina,' said I, here we are like the king's sons and the old wife's daughters in your daft-like highland tales. Soon we'll be going over the seven bends and seven glens and 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 Moore himself. "'I will never complain of the country of my friend,' said she, and spoke it out with an accent so particular that I seem to see the look upon her face. I caught in my breath sharp and came near falling for the pains on the black ice. "'I do not know what you think, Katrina,' said I, when I was a little discovered. "'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 sadness. "'And I can never 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 Katrina. "'But I will never forgive her for all that. I will never, never forgive her. "'And let me here 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 barrenly 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, that anyone can see that knew us both before and after.' But Katrina 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 non-pulse 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 G. As for talking of mis-grant, I have no such mind to it, and believe it was yourself began it. My own 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 in 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 not 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 with which the crocs 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 have her in the same. She bade me, rather impatiently, to keep it. "'Indeed, and I will do no such thing,' said I. Here I am, a great ugly lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here you are 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. 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 air-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 slustering and scrubbing in the very stones upon the public highway. The smoke rose from a hundred kitchens, and it came in upon me strongly that it was time to break our fasts. "'Katrina,' said I, "'I believe you have yet a shilling and three bobbies.' "'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 unchancey 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! We are beggars, then!' she cried. "'You too? Oh, I could have wished for this same thing, and I am glad to buy your breakfast to you, but it would be pleasant if I would have had to dance to get a meal for 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 the 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 knew come to the town and in bakers 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 from Fine Avenue, shaded with trees, a canal on the one hand and on the other excellent pastures of cattle. It was pleasant here indeed. "'And now, Davy,' 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 Layton. 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 swayer too part for 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 a Katrina drummond.' "'And now I will be Katrina Balfour,' she said. "'And who is the Ken? They are all strange folk here. If you think it would do,' says I, I own a 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 Moore, is not used to 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 maybe thought I was the bearer of the purse, and it would never do to seem too churlish. "'Katrina,' said I, "'don't misunderstand me. I am just trying to do my duty by you girl. Here I am going alone in this strange city to be a solitary student there. And here is the 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 bound and do 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 Barber'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 to walking shod. I would have had her strip off her shoes stockings and go barefoot, but she pointed out to me that the women of that country, even in the backward 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 work 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 arbors. Here I left Katrina 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 of his letter of recommendation had condescended on a great deal of particulars, 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 of 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 accepted my tale, thinks I, suppose he invite my sister to his house and that I bring her. I shall have a fine, revealed, prim 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 that 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 behavior, and was turned to one blush. The old gentleman was not so much deceived by 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 to send his son to me my guide in caution in the matter of a lodging. This implied my presenting of the young man to Katrina. 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 tortly 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, and 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 bellies to remark her prettiness, for which I scorned him. And as soon as he had found a cover for our heads, he left us alone, which was the greater service of the two. End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of Katrina by Robert Louis Stevenson This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Wayne Cook. Chapter 24 Full Story of a Copy of Iyennekes 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 a top of a tree below us in a little court, of a piece of the canal, and of houses in the Holland's 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 lion to Allen at his chiefs, and had the same dispatched, 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 Leiden, and it was plainly needful that 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 merchants 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, the passion into which I fell on it myself, never being satisfied that I had bought her enough or fine enough, and never wary 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 Katrina was a little bra, and I had like 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 without our purchases, and go for a long walk alone and wish 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 just experienced, and the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain purchases, I began to think of it myself as very hazardous. 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 Katrina in the hands of any other Christian being. The answer to which made my face 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 which 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 unable to observe them, and, as a more human aid to the same end, purchased a study book in law. This being all 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 waiting 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 curtsies 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, said she, 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 curtsies, which were extraordinary taking. If you will be cross, she said, I must be making pretty manners at you, Davy. 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 downhill. 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 all together 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 kindness. In the midst of which I woke to better recollections, and made a lame word of excuse, and set myself borishly to my studies. It was a substantial instructive book that I had bought by the late Dr. Heinekenes, in which I was to do a great deal reading these next few days, and very often glad that I had no one to question me of what I had read. Me thought 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 followed 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 practice the same ungrateful course, or be dishonored, put me beside my reason. I stood like a man between Scala and Scarabidus. 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 councils, of which I was now to pass many. Pacing like a madman, sometimes weakening like a childish boy, sometimes praying, I feign 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 of hinacanus, surpassed my strength. So that I fell instead upon the expedient of the 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 notebook 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 fervor 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 which I could almost say, if it may be said with reverence, that I was crucified. The base of my trouble was Katrina'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 her head in love and set her cap to catch me, she would scarce behave much otherwise. And then I would fall again to wonder at the simplicity of women, from whom I felt in these moments that I was not worthy to be descended. There was one point of 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. Had her 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 bufferer. And, as it were, the renunciation of her gratitude. And I felt it so on my bosom, but was generally more wise than to appear to observe the circumstance. Once indeed, I was betrayed into a childnessness greater than her own. It fell in this way. On 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 Katrina. I do not know the name of that flower, but it was of the pink color, 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 the room again, of which I slammed the door as I went out. On the steep stair I came near falling, and this brought me to myself, so I began at once to see the folly of my conduct. I went not into the street as I had proposed, but to the house court, which was always a solitary place, and where I found 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 boishness, in civility 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 Katrina drawing near. She was all changed again to the clocked stockings. Are we not to have our walk today? said she. I was looking at her in a maze. Where is your brooch? says I. She carried her hand to her bosom and colored high. I will have forgotten it, said she. I will run upstairs for it quick, and then surely we 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, Katrina, said I. She fixed it in the midst of her bosom with a brooch. I could have thought tenderly. It is none the better of my handling, said I, 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, 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 could not have perceived my love, and the next that she had certainly perceived it long ago, and, being a wise girl with a fine female instinctive 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 iniqueness. 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 was scarce a field or waterside near Leiden, scarce a street or lane there, where we had not lingered. Outside of these I bait her confined 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 down right 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, Davy, in the house. I will never be caring for you only in the open air. I think we too 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 drop stood upon her bright cheeks like tears, and ran into her smiling mouth. Strength seemed to come upon me with a sight like a giants. I thought I could have caught her up and run with her to the uttermost places in the earth, and we spoke together all that time beyond a 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, she said, in 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 Hanukkah. 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. Me thought 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 Katrina. She sat on the floor by the side of my great male, and the chimney lighted her up, and shone and blinked upon her, and made her glow and darkened 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 into a terror of myself, and turned the pages of Hanukkahs like a man looking for the text in church. Suddenly she called out, Why does not my father come? she cried, and fell at once into a storm of tears. I leaped up, flung Hanukkahs, 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? Oh, what will I have done that you should hate me so? Hate you, cries I, and I held her firm. You blind lass, can you not see a little in my wretched heart? Do you not think, when I sit there reading in that foul book that I have just burned, and to be damned to it, I take ever the last thought of any stricken thing, but just yourself? Night after night I could have grasped to see you sitting there your alone. And what was I to do? Here you are, under my honor. 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. She bowed her brow upon my bosom, clasping me tight. I saw in a mirror whorl 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 shook all with it. Miss Grant, I cried, all in a disorder. Yes, I asked her to kiss me good-bye, the which she did. Oh, 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. Oh, 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, Davy, said she. And oh, good night, my love, I cried, with a great outbreak of my soul, and caught her to me again, so it seemed I must have broken her. The next moment I had thrust her from the room, shut 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 defense was left me. It seemed like a symbol that Heinekes, 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 I had to excuse me did but make my sin appear the greater. It was upon a nature so defenseless, and with such advantages of the position that I seemed to have practiced. 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 for 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 suprisal. 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 in 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 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. Oh, try to forgive me, I cried out. 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 shutter, and I think of my reason we awakened. You can make no hand of this, Davy, thanks I. To bed with you like a wise lad, and try if you can sleep. Tomorrow you may see your way. 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 contrarity of my feelings, mostly painful. For on the threshold in a rough wraps rascal, an extraordinary big laced hat, there stood James Moore. I ought to have been glad, perhaps, without a mixture. 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 Katrina 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 backwards 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, however, 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 pressed in grange. 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 that we too 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 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 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 windowpane, and showed it off. My bed, my nails, and washing-dish, with some disorder of my clothes, and the unlighted chimney, making the only planishing. 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 progality, more an ill appearance. He looked about the chamber for a seat, and, finding nothing else to its 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 Katrina, 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. Uh, you tell me she is here, he said 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 hatene. She is directed to Yoneman Sprott and Helvoet. I hear you call him your agent. All I can say is he could do nothing but dam 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, uh, this is what I cannot understand the least, said James. My daughter was placed into the charge of some responsible person, whose names I forgot. Gibi was the name, said I, and there is no doubt that Mr. Gibi 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. Gibi 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, quite 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 a 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 significance of the step. I think you speak very much at your ease, cried I. What else was I to do? It is a fact I might have hired some decent poor woman to be a third to us, and I declare I never thought of it until this moment. But where was I to find her? That I am a foreigner myself. And let me point out your observation, Mr. Drummond, that it would have cost me money out of my pocket. For here is just what it comes to, that I had to pay through the nose for your neglect. And there is only the one story to it, just that you were so unloving and so careless as to have lost your daughter. He that lives in a glass house should not be casting stones, says he, and we will finish inquiring into the behavior of Miss Drummond before we go on to sit in judgment of her father. But I will be entrapped into no such attitude, said I. The character of Miss Drummond is far beyond inquiry, as her father ought to know. So is mine, and I am telling you that. There are but the two ways of it open. The one is to express your thanks to me as one gentleman to another, and to say no more. The other, if you are so difficult as to be still dissatisfied, is to pay me that which I have expended, and be done. He seemed to soothe me with a hand in the air. There, there, said he, you go too fast, you go too fast, Mr. Balfour. It is a good thing that I have learned to be more patient, and I believe you forget that I have yet to see my daughter. I began to be a little relieved upon this speech, and a change in the man's manner that I spied in him, as soon as the name of Money fell between us. I was thinking it would be more fit, if you will excuse the plainness of my dressing in your presence, that I should go forth and leave you to encounter her alone, said I. What to, what I have looked for at your hands, says he, and there was no mistake, but he said it civilly. I thought this better and better still, and as I began to pull on my hose, recalling the man's impudent mendiciney at Preston Granges, I determined to pursue what seemed to be my victory. If you have any mind to stay some while in laden, says I, this room is very much at your disposal, and I can easily find another for myself. In which way we shall have the least amount of flitting possible, there being only one to change. Why, sir, said he, making his bosom big. I think no shame of a poverty I have come by in the service of my king. I make no secret that my affairs are quite involved, and for the moment it would be even impossible for me to undertake a journey. Until you have occasion to communicate with your friends, said I, perhaps it might be convenient for you, as of course it would be honourable to myself if you were to regard yourself in the light of my guest. Sir, said he, when an offer is frankly made, I think I honour myself most to imitate that frankness. Your hand, Mr. David, you have the character that I respect the most. You are one of those from whom a gentleman can take a favour, and know more words about it. I am an old soldier, he went on, looking rather disgusted like around my chamber, and you need not fear I shall prove burdensome. I have ate too often at a dike's eye, drank of the ditch, and had no roof but the rain. I should be telling you, said I, that our breakfasts are sent customarily in about this time of morning. I propose I should go now to the tavern, and bid them at a cover for yourself, and delay the meal the matter of an hour, which will give you an interval to meet your daughter in. Me thought his nostrils wagged at this. An hour, says he, that is perhaps a perfilus. Half an hour, Mr. David, or say twenty minutes, I shall do very well in that. And by the way he adds, detaining me by the coat, uh, what is it you drink in the morning, whether ale or wine? And to be frank with you, sir, says I, I drink nothing else but spare cold water. Says he, that is fair destruction to the stomach. Take an old campaigner's word for it. Our country-spirit at home is perhaps most entirely wholesome, but as it is not comatable, Renish or a white wine of burgundy will be next best. I shall make it my business to see you are supplied, said I. Why, very good, said he, and we shall make a man of you yet, Mr. David. By this time I can hardly say that I was minding him at all, beyond an odd thought of the kind of father-in-law he was like to prove, and all my care centered about the lass his daughter, to whom I determined to convey some warning of her visitor. I stepped to the door accordingly, and cried through the panels knocking thereon at the same time. Mr. Unmond, here is your father, come at last. With that I went forth upon my errand, having, by two words, extraordinarily damaged my affairs. End of Chapter Twenty-Five