 CHAPTER VII I MAKE A FALT IN HONOR I came forth, I vow I know not how, on the Lang Dykes. This is a rural road which runs under north side over against the city. Tense I could see the whole black length of it tailed down. From where the castle stands upon its crags above the lock in a long line of spires and gable ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the sight my heart swelled in my bosom. My youth, as I have told, was already inured to dangers. But such dangers I had seen the face of but that morning, in the midst of what they call the safety of a town, shook me beyond experience. Peril of slavery, peril of shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had stood all of these without discredit. But the peril there was in the sharp of voice and the fat face of Simon, properly Lord Levitt, daunted me wholly. I sat by the lakeside in a place where the rushes went down into the water, and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples. If I could have done so with any remains of self-esteem, I would now have fled from my foolhardery enterprise. But, call it courage or cowardice, and I believe it was both the one and the other, I decided I was ventured out beyond the possibility of a retreat. I had outfaced these men, I would continue to outface them. Come what might, I would stand by the word spoken. The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not much. At the best of it there was an icy place about my heart, and life seemed a black business to be at all engaged in. For two souls in particular my pity flowed. The one was myself, to be so friendless and lost among dangers. The other was the girl, the daughter of James Moore. I had seen but little of her, yet my view was taken and my judgment made. I thought her a last of a clean honor, like a man's. I thought of her one to die of a disgrace, and now I believed her father to be at that moment, bargaining his vile life for mine. It made a bond in my thoughts betwixt the girl and me. I had seen her before only as a wayside appearance, though one that pleased me strangely. I saw her now in a sudden nearness of relation, as a daughter of my blood foe, and I might say my murderer. I reflected it was hard I should be so plagued and persecuted all my days for other folks's affairs, and have no manner of pleasure myself. I got meals and a bed to sleep in, when my concerns would suffer it. Beyond that my wealth was of no help to me. If I was to hang, my days were like to be short. If I was not to hang, but to escape out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me ere I was done with them. Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory, the way I had first seen it, with the departed lips. At that weakness came in my bosom and strength into my legs, and I set resolutely forward on the way to Dean. If I was to hang tomorrow, and it was sure enough I might very likely sleep that night in a dungeon, I determined I should hear and speak once more with Katrina. The exercise of walking in the thought of my destination braced me yet more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit. In the village of Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I inquired my way of a miller's man, who sent me up the hill upon the farther side by a plain path, and so to a decent like small house in a garden of lawns and apple trees. My heart beat high as I stepped inside the garden hedge, but it fell low indeed, when I came face to face with a grim and fierce old lady, walking there in a white match with a man's hat strapped upon the top of it. What do you come seeking here? she asked. I told her I was after Miss Drummond. And what may be your business with Miss Drummond? says she. I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady's invitation. Oh, so your sixpence, she cried with a very snaring manner, after a gift of Bonnie gentlemen, and had ye any other name and designation, or were ye baptized sixpence? she asked. I told her my name. Preserve me, she cried, has Ebenezer gotten a son? No ma'am said I. I am a son of Alexander's. It is I that am the lair of Shaw's. You'll find your work cut out for you to establish that, quotes she. I perceive you know my uncle, said I, and I daresay you may be the better pleased to hear that business is arranged. And what to bring ye here after, Miss Drummond? she pursued. I'm come after my sixpence, ma'am, said I. It's to be thought, being my uncle's nephew, I would be found a careful lad. So ye have a spark of slieness in ye? observed the old lady with some approval. I thought ye had just been a coof, you in your sixpence, in your lucky day, in your sake of my withered. From which I was gratified to learn that Catriona had not forgotten some of our talk. But all this is by the purpose, she resumed. Am I to understand that ye come here keeping company? This is surely rather an early question, said I. The maid is young, so am I, worse fortune. I have but seen her the once. I'll not deny, I added, making up my mind to try her with some frankness. I'll not deny, but she has run in my head a good deal since I met in with her. That is one thing, but it would be quite another, and I think I would look very like a fool to commit myself. You can speak out of your mouth, I see, said the old lady. Praise God! And so can I. I was a fool enough to take charge of this rogue's daughter, a fine charge I have gotten. But it's mine, and I'll carry it to the way I want to. Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Balfour, of Shaw's, that you would marry James Moore's daughter and him hanged? Well, then, where there's no possible marriage, there can be no manner of carrying on. And take that for said. Lasses are brookal things, she added with an odd. And though ye would never think it by my wrinkled chaffs, I was a lassy myself, and a bonny one. Lady Alardyce, said I, for I suppose that to be your name. You seem to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very poor manner to come to an agreement. You give me rather a home thrust when you ask if I would marry, at the gallows foot, a young lady whom I have seen but once. I have told you already I would never be so intently as to commit myself. And yet I'll go some way with you. If I continue to like the lass as well as I have reason to expect, it will be something more than her father, or the gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart. As for my family, I found it by the wayside like a lost bobby. I owe less than nothing to my uncle, and if ever I marry, it will be to please one person. That's myself. I have heard this kind of talk before you were born, said Mrs. Ogilby, which is perhaps the reason I think of it so little. There is much to be considered. This James Moore's a kinsman of mine, to my shame be it spoken. But the better the family, the mere men hanged or headed. That's always been poor Scotland's story. And if it was just the hanging. For my part, I think I would be best pleased with James upon the gallows, which would be at least an end to him. The train's a good lass enough, and a good-hearted, and lets herself be dieved all day with a runt of an old wife like me. But you see, there's the weak bit. She's daft about that long false, fleeting beggar of a father of hers, and red mad about the Gregora and the prescribed names, and King James, and a wean blethers. And you might think he could guide her. You would find yourself sore mistaken. You say you have seen her but the once. Spoke with her but once, I should have said, I interrupted. I saw her again this morning from a window at Preston Granges. This I dare say I put in because it sounded well, but I was properly paid for my ostentation on the return. Was this of it? Cries the old lady, with a sudden pucker of her face. I think it was at the Advocate's door-cheek that you met her first. I told her that that was so. She said, and then suddenly, upon a rather scolding tone, I have your bare word for it, she cries, as to who and what you are. By your way of it, you are balfour of the Shahs. But for what I can, you may be balfour of the devil's oxter. It's possible you may come here for what you say, and it's equally possible. You may come here for deal-care-what. I'm good enough wig to sit quiet and to have kept all my men's folks' heads upon their shoulders, but I'm not just a good enough wig to be made a fool of neither. And I'll tell you fairly, there's too much Advocate's door and Advocate's window here for a man that comes tangling after a McGregor's daughter. You can tell that to the Advocate that sent she with my fond love. And I kiss my lufty ye, Mr. Balfour, says she, suiting the action to the word, and a broad journey to ye back to where ye came fray. If ye think me a spy, I broke out and speech stuck in my throat. I stood and looked, murdered the old lady for space, then bowed and turned away. Here hoots the callants in the creel, she cried, think ye a spy? What else would I think ye? Me, the Ken's nothing by ye, but I see that I was wrong. And as I cannot fight, I'll have to apologize. A bonny figure I would be with a broad sword, I, I, she went on. You're not such a bad lad in your way. I think ye'll have some redeeming vices, but oh, David Balfour, you're damned country feed. You'll have to win over that lad. You'll have to super your backbone and think a wee pickle less of your dainty self. And you'll have to try to find out that women folk are negrineurs, but that can never be. To your last day you can know more of women folk than what I do of sow-gelding. I had never been used with such expressions from a lady's tongue. The only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being most devout and most particular women, and I suppose my amazement must have been depicted in my countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst forth suddenly in a fit of laughter. Give me, she cried, struggling with her mouth. You have the finest timber face, and you, to marry the daughter of a Highland cashew. David, my dear, I think we'll have to make a match of it, if it was just to see the weans. And now, she went on, there's no manner of service in you daddling here, for the young woman is from home, and it is my fear that the old woman is no suitable companion for your father's son, for by that I have nobody but myself to look after my reputation, and have been long enough alone with this adductive youth, and come back another day for your sixpence," she cried after me as I left. My skirmish with this disconcerting lady gave my thoughts of boldness they had otherwise wanted. For two days the image of Katrina had mixed in all my meditations. She made their background so that I scarce enjoyed my own company without a glint of her in a corner of my mind. But now she came immediately near. I seemed to touch her, whom I had never touched but the once. I let myself flow out to her in a happy weakness, and looking all about and before and behind saw the world like an undesirable desert where men go as soldiers on a march following their duty with what constancy they have, and Katrina alone there to offer me some pleasure of my days. I wondered at myself that I could dwell on such considerations in that time of my peril and disgrace. And when I had remembered my youth, I was ashamed. I had my studies to complete. I had to be called into some useful business. I had yet to take my part of service in a place where all must serve. I had yet to learn and know and prove myself a man. And I had so much sense as blush that I should be already tempted with these further on and holier delights and duties. My education spoke home to me sharply. I was never brought up on sugar biscuits but on the hard food of the truth. I knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was not prepared to be a father also. And for a boy like me to play the father was a mere derision. When I was in the midst of these thoughts and about half way back to town, I saw a figure coming to meet me and the trouble of my heart was heightened. It seemed I had everything in the world to say to her but nothing to say first. And remembering how tongue-tied I had been that morning at the advocates, I made sure that I would find myself struck dumb. But when she came up, my fears fled away. Not even the consciousness of what I had been privately thinking disconcerted me the least, and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally as I might with Alan. Oh! she cried, you have been seeking o' sixpence. Did you get it? I told her no, but now I had met with her. My walk was not in vain. Though I have seen you today already, said I, and told her where and when. I did not see you, she said. My eyes are big. But there are better than mine at seeing far. Only I heard singing in the house. That was Miss Grant, said I, the eldest and the bonniest. They say they are all beautiful. Said she. They think the same of you, Miss Drummond, I replied, and were all crowding to the window to observe you. It is a pity about my being so blind. Said she. Or I might have seen them too, and you were in the house. You must have been having the fine time with the fine music and the pretty ladies. There is just where you are wrong, said I, for I was as uncouth as a sea fish upon the bray of a mountain. The truth is that I am better fitted to go about with rude as men than pretty ladies. Well I would think so too, at all events, said she, at which we both of us laughed. It is a strange thing now, said I. I am not the least afraid with you, yet I could have run from the Miss's grants. And I was afraid of your cousin too. Oh, I think any man would be afraid of her, she cried. My father is afraid of her himself. The name of her father brought me to a stop. I looked at her as she walked by my side. I recalled the man, and the little I knew, and the much I guessed of him, and comparing the one with the other, felt like a traitor to be silent. Speaking of which, said I, I met your father no later than this morning. Did you, she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at me. You saw, James Moore, you would have spoken with him then. I did even that, said I. Then I think things went the worst way for me that was humanly possible. She gave me a look of mere gratitude. Ah, thank you for that, says she. You thank me for very little, said I, and then stopped. But it seemed when I was holding back so much, something at least had to come out. I spoke rather ill to him, said I. I did not like him very much. I spoke him rather ill, and he was angry. I think you had little to do then, and less to tell it to his daughter, she cried out. But those who do not love and cherish him, I will not know. I will take the freedom of a word yet, said I, beginning to tremble. Perhaps neither your father nor I are in the best of spirits in press and granges. I daresay we both have anxious business there, for it's a dangerous house. I was sorry for him, too, when spoke to him the first, if I could but have spoken the wiser. And for one thing, in my opinion, you will soon find that his affairs are mending. It will not be through your friendship, I am thinking, said she, and he is much made up to you for your sorrow. Miss Drummond, I cried, I am alone in this world, and I am not wondering at that, said she. Oh, let me speak, said I. I will speak but the once, and then leave you, if you will, forever. I came this day in the hopes of a kind word that I am sore and want of. I know that what I said must hurt you, and I knew it then. It would have been easy to have spoken smooth, easy lie to you. Can you not think how I was tempted to do the same? Cannot you see the truth of my heart shine out? I think here is a good deal of work, Mr. Balfour, she said. I think we will have met but the once, and we can depart like gentle folk. Oh, let me have one to believe in me, I pleaded. I can't bear it else. The whole world is cland against me. How am I to go through with my dreadful fate? If there's to be none to believe in me, I cannot do it. The man must just die, for I cannot do it. She had still looked straight in front of her head in air, but at my words or the tone of my voice she came to a stop. What is this you say? She asked. What are you talking of? It is my testimony which may save an innocent life, said I, and they will not suffer me to bear it. What would you do yourself? You know what this is, whose father lies in danger. Would you desert the poor soul? They have tried all ways with me, they have sought to bribe me, they offered me hills and valleys, and today that sleuth hound told me how I stood, and to what a length he would go to butcher and disgrace me. I am to be brought in a party to the murder. I am to have held Grignure in talk for money and old clothes. I am to be killed and shamed. If this is the way I am to fall, and me scares a man. If this is the story to be told of me and all Scotland, if you are to believe it too, and my name is to be nothing but a byword, Katrina, how can I go through with it? The things not possible, it's more than a man has in his heart. I poured my words out in a whorl, one upon the other, and when I stopped I found her gazing on me with a startled face. Plignure, it is the happened murder. She said softly, but with a very deep surprise. I turned back to bear her company, and we were now come near the head of the bray above Dean Village. At this word I stepped in front of her like one suddenly distracted. For God's sake, I cried, for God's sake, what is this I have done? And carried my fist to my temples. What made me do it? Sure, I am bewitched to say these things. In the name of heaven, what ails you now? She cried. I gave my honor, I groaned. I gave my honor, and now I have broken it. Oh, Katrina. I am asking you what it is, she said. Was it these things you should not have spoken? And do you think that I have no honor then, or that I am one that would betray a friend? I hold up my right hand to you and swear. Oh, I knew you would be true, said I. It's me, it's here. I that stood but this morning and out-faced them, that risked rather to diet is graced upon the gallows that do wrong. And a few hours after I throw my honor away by the roadside in common talk, there is one thing clear upon our interview, says he, that I could rely on your pledged word. Where is my word now? Who could believe me? You could not believe me. I am clean, fallen down. I had best die. All this I said with a weeping voice, but I had no tears in my body. My heart is sore for you, said she, but be sure you are too nice. I would not believe you, do you say. I would trust you with anything. And these men, I would not be thinking of them. Men who go out about to entrap and destroy you, fie, this is no time to crouch. Look up, do you not think I will be admiring you like a great hero of the good, and you a boy not much older than myself? And because you said a word too much in a friend's ear, that would die, as she betrayed you, to make such a matter. It is one thing that we must both forget. Said I, looking at her hangdog. Is this true of it? Would you trust me yet? Will you not believe the tears on my face, she cried. It is the world I am thinking of you, Mr. David Balfour. Let them hang you. I will never forget. I will grow old and still remember you. I think it is great to die, so I will envy you that gallows. And maybe, all this while, I am but a child frightened with boggles, said I. Maybe they but make a mock of me. It is what I must know, she said. I must hear the whole, the harm is done at all events, and I must hear the whole. I had sat down on the wayside, where she took a place beside me, and I told her all that matter much as I have written in it, my thoughts about her father's dealings being alone, omitted. Well, she said when I had finished, you are a hero, surely, and I never would have thought the same. And I think you are in peril too, O Simon Frazier, to think upon that man, for his life and the dirty money, to be dealing in such traffic. And just when she called out aloud with a queer word that was common to her, and belongs, I believe, to her own language, my torture, says she, look at the sun. Indeed it was already dipping towards the mountains. She bid me come again soon, gave me her hand, and left me in a turmoil of glad spirits. I delayed to go home to my lodging, for I had a terror of immediate arrest, but got some supper to change house, and the better part of that night walked by myself in the barley fields, and had such a sense of Katrina's presence that I seemed to bear her in my arms. CHAPTER VIII THE BRAVO The next day, August 29, I kept my appointment at the Advocates, in a coat that I had made to my own measure, and was but newly ready. Aha! says Creston Grange. You are very fine today. My misses are to have a fine cavalier. Come, I take that kind of you. I take that kind of you, Mr. David. Oh, we shall do very well yet, and I believe your troubles are nearly at an end. You have news for me? cried I. Beyond anticipation, he replied, your testimony is after all to be received, and you may go, if you will, in my company to the trial, which is to be held at Inverary, Thursday, 21, Proximal. I was too much amazed to find words. In the meanwhile, he continued, though I will not ask you to renew your pledge, I must caution you strictly to be reticent. For your precognition must be taken, and outside of that do you know I think least said will be soonest mended. I shall try to go districtly, said I, I believe it is yourself that I must thank for this crowning mercy, and I do thank you gratefully. After yesterday, my lord, this is like the doors of heaven. I cannot find it in my heart to get the thing believed. Ah, but you must try and manage, you must try and manage to believe it, says he, soothing like, and I am very glad to hear your acknowledgment of obligation, for I think you may be able to repay me very shortly, he coughed, or even now the matter is much changed. Your testimony, which I shall not trouble you for today, will doubtless alter the complexion of the case for all concerned, and this makes it less delicate for me to enter with you on a side issue. My lord, I interrupted, excuse me for interrupting you, but how has this been brought about? The obstacles you told me of on Saturday appeared even to me to be quite insurmountable. How has it been contrived? My dear Mr. David, said he, it would never do for me to divulge, even to you, as you say, the counsels of the government. You must content yourselves, if you please, with the gross fact. He smiled upon me like a father, as he spoke, playing the while with a new pen. Me thought it was impossible, there could be any shadow of deception in the man. But when he drew to him a sheet of paper, dipped his pen among the ink, and began to address me, I was somehow not so certain, and fell instinctively into an attitude of guard. There is a point I wish to touch upon, he began. I purposely left it before upon one side, which need be now no longer necessary. This is not, of course, a part of your examination, which is to follow by another hand. This is a private interest of my own. You say you encountered Alan Breck upon the hill? I did, my lord, said I. This was immediately after the murder? It was. Did you speak to him? I did. Uh, you had known him before, I think, said my lord carelessly. I cannot guess your reason for so thinking, my lord, I replied. But such is the fact. And when did you part with him again? said he. I reserve my answer, said I. The question will be put to me at the Aziz. Mr. Balfour, said he, will you not understand that all this is without prejudice to yourself? I have promised you life and honor, and, believe me, I can keep my word. You are therefore clear of all anxiety. Alan, it appears, you suppose you can protect, and you talk to me of your gratitude, which, I think, if you pushed me, is not ill-deserved. There are great many different considerations all pointing the same way, and I will never be persuaded that you could not help us, if you choose, to put salt on Alan's tail. My lord, said I, I give you my word. I do not know so much as guess where Alan is. He paused a breath, nor how he may be found, he asked. I sat before him like a log of wood. And so much for your gratitude, Mr. David, he observed. Again there was a piece of silence. Well, he said, rising, I am not fortunate, and we are a couple at cross purposes. Let us speak of it no more. You will receive notice when, where and by whom, we are to take your precognition, and in the meantime my misses must be waiting you. They will never forgive me if I detain their cavalier. Into the hand of these graces I was accordingly offered up, and found them dressed beyond what I had thought possible, and looking fair as a posy. As we went forth from the doors, a small circumstance occurred which came afterwards to look extremely big. I heard a whistle sound, and, brief like a signal, and, looking all about, spied for one moment the redhead of Neil of the Tom, the son of Duncan. The next moment he was gone again. Nor could I see so much as the skirt-tail of Katrina, upon whom I naturally supposed him to be then attending. My three keepers led me out by Bristow and the Brentsfield links. Wentse path carried us to Hope Park. A beautiful pleasantess, laid with gravel walks, furnished with seats and summer sheds, and warded by a keeper. The way there was a little longsum. The two younger misses affected an air of gentile weariness that damped me cruelly. The eldest considered me with something that at times appeared like mirth. And though I thought I did myself more justice than the day before, it was not without some effort. Upon our reaching the park I was launched on by a bevy of eight or ten young gentlemen, some of them cocketed officers, the rest chiefly advocates, who crowded to attend upon these beauties. And though I was presented to all of them in very good words, it seemed I was by all immediately forgotten. Young folk in a company are like two savage animals. They fall upon, or scorn a stranger without civility, or I may say humanity, and I am sure if I had been among baboons they would have shown me quite as much of both. Some of the advocates set up to be wits, and some of the soldiers to be rattles. And I could not tell which of these extremes annoyed me most. All had a manner of handling their swords and coat-skirts, for the which, in mere black envy, I could have kicked them from the park. I daresay upon their side they grudged me extremely the fine company in which I had arrived, and altogether I had soon fallen behind, and stepped stiffly in the rear of all that merriment with my own thoughts. From these I was recalled by one of the officers, Lieutenant Hector Duncansby, a gawky, leering Highland Boy, asking if my name was not Palfor. I told him it was, not very kindly, for his manner was scant civil. Ha, Palfor, says he, and then repeating it, Palfor, Palfor! I'm afraid you do not like my name, sir, says I, annoyed with myself to be annoyed with such a rustic fellow. No, says he, but I was thinking. I would not advise you to make a practice of that, sir, says I. I feel sure you would not find it to agree with you. Did you ever hear where Alan Grigger fang the tongs, said he? I asked him what he could possibly mean, and he answered, with a heckling laugh, that he thought I must have found the poker in the same place and swallowed it. There could be no mistake about this, and my cheeks burned. Before I went about to put a fronts on gentlemen, said I, I think I would learn the English language first. He took me by the sleeve with a nod and a wink, and led me quietly outside Hope Park. But no sooner were we beyond the view of the promenaders that the fashion of his countenance changed. You, Tam lowland scoundrel, cry, see, and hit me a buffet on the jaw with his closed fist. I paid him as good or better on the return, whereupon he stepped a little back and took off his hat to me decorously. Enough plows, I think, says he, I will be the offended gentleman, for whomever heard of such sufficiency as tell a gentleman that is the king's officer, he can speak Cots English. We have swords at our hurdles, and here is the king's park at hand. Will ye walk first, or let me show you the way? I returned his bow, told him to go first, and followed him. As he went, I heard him grumble to himself about Cots English and King's Coat, so that I might have supposed him to be seriously offended. But his manner at the beginning of our interview was there to belie him. It was manifest he had come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me, right or wrong. Manifest that I was taken in a fresh contrivance of mine enemies, and to me, conscious as I was of my deficiencies, manifest enough that I should be the one to fall in our encounter. As we came into that rough rocky desert of the king's park, I was tempted half a dozen times to take to my heels and run for it, so loathless I to show my ignorance and fencing, and so much adverse to die, or even to be wounded. But I considered, if their malice went as far as this, it would likely stick at nothing, and that to fall by the sword, however ungracefully, was still an improvement on the gallows. I considered, besides that by the unguarded pertness of my words and the quickness of my blow, I had put myself quite out of court, and that even if I ran, my adversary would probably pursue and catch me, which would add disgrace to my misfortune. So that, taking all in all, I continued marching behind him, much as a man follows the hangman, and certainly with no more hope. We went about the end of the long crags, and came into the hunter's bog. Here on a piece of fair turf my adversary drew. There was nobody there to see us but some birds, and no resource for me but to follow his example, and stand on guard with the best face I could display. It seems it was not good enough for Mr. Duncan's me, who spied some flaw in my maneuvers, paused, looked upon me sharply, and came off and on, and menaced me with his blade in the air. As I had seen no such proceedings from Alan, and was besides a good deal affected with the proximity of death, I grew quite bewildered, stood helpless, and could have longed to run away. Fat Dielelzer! cried the lieutenant, and suddenly engaging he twitched the sword out of my grasp instead of flying far among the rushes. Twice was his maneuver repeated, and the third time when I brought back my humiliated weapon I found he had returned his own to the Scabbard, and stood awaiting me with a face of some anger, and his hands clasped under his skirt. "'Petamtify, touch you!' he cried, and asked me bitterly what right I had to stand up before a gentleman's when I did not know the back of a sword from the front of it. I answered that it was the fault of my upbringing, and would he do me the justice to say I had given him all the satisfaction it was, unfortunately, in my power to offer, and had stood up like a man. And that is the truth,' said he. "'I am very brave myself, and polled as lions. But to stand up there, I knew, can nothing offence the way you did. I declare it was beyond me, and I am sorry for the blow, though I declare I believe your own was the elder brother, and my hate still sings with it. And I declare that if I can't what way it was, I would have not put a hand to such a piece of pussness.' "'That is handsomely said,' I replied, and I am sure you will not stand up a second time to be the actor for my private enemies.' "'Indeed, no, Palphor,' said he, and I think I was used extremely sufficiently myself to be set up to fetch with an old wife, or all the same as a barn whatever. And I will tell the master so, and fetch him by caught himself. And if you knew the nature of Mr. Simon's quarrel with me,' said I, you would be yet the more affronted to be mingled up with such affairs.' He swore he could well believe it, that all the levits were made of the same meal, and the devil was the miller that ground that. Then suddenly, shaking me by the hand, he vowed I was a pretty enough fellow, after all, that it was a thousand pitties I had been neglected, and that if he could find the time he would give an eye himself to have me educated. "'You can do me a better service than even what you propose,' said I, and when he had asked its nature, come with me to the house of one of my enemies, and testify how I have carried myself this day,' I told him. That will be the true service. For though he has sent me a gallant adversary for the first, the thought in Mr. Simon's mind is merely murder. There will be a second, and then a third, and by what you have seen of my cleverness with the cold steel, you can judge for yourself what is like to be the upshot. "'And I would not like it myself, if I was no more of a man than what you was,' he cried. "'But I will do you right, Palfour. Lead on.' If I had walked slowly on the way into that accursed park, my heels were light enough on the way out. They kept time to a very good old air that is as ancient as the Bible and the words of Attar. Surely the bitterness of death is past. I mined that I was extremely thirsty and had a drink at St. Margaret's Well on the road down, and the sweetness of that water passed belief. We went through the sanctuary, up the cannon gate, in by the nether-bow, and straight to Preston Grange's door, talking as we came, and arranging the details of our affair. The footman owned his master was at home, but declared him engaged with other gentlemen on very private business, and his door forbidden. "'My business is but for three minutes, and it cannot wait,' said I. "'You may say it is by no means private, and I shall be even glad to have some witnesses.' As the man departed unwillingly enough upon this errand, we made so bold as to follow him to the antechamber. Once I could hear for a while the murmurings of several voices in the room within. The truth is they were three at the one table, Preston Grange, Simon Frazier, and Mr. Erskine, Sheriff of Perth, and as they were met in consultation on the very business of the app and murder, they were a little disturbed at my appearance, but decided to receive me. "'Well, well, Mr. Balfour, and what brings you here again? And who is this you bring with you?' says Preston Grange. As for Frazier, he looked before him on the table. "'He is here to bear a little testimony into my favor, my lord, which I think it very needful you should hear,' said I, and turned to Duncan's being. "'I have only to say this,' said the lieutenant, that I stood up this day with Palfour in the hunter's pog, which I am now very sorry for, and he behaved himself as pretty as a gentleman's could ask it, and I have great respect for Palfour,' he added. "'Thank you for your honest expressions,' said I, whereupon Duncan's being made his bow to the company and left the chamber, as we had agreed upon before. "'What do I have to do with this?' says Preston Grange. "'I will tell your lordship in two words,' said I. "'I have brought this gentleman, a king's officer, to do me so much justice. Now I think my character is covered, and until a certain date, which your lordship can very well supply, it will be quite in vain to dispatch against me any more officers. I will not consent to fight my way through the garrison of the castle.' The vein swelled on Preston Grange's brow, and he regarded me with fury. I think the devil uncoupled this dog of a lad between my legs,' he cried, and then turning fiercely on his neighbor. "'This is some of your work, Simon,' he said. "'I spy your hand in the business, and let me tell you I resent it. It is disloyal when we are greed upon one expedient to follow another in the dark. You are disloyal to me. What you let me send this lad to the place with my very daughters. And because I let drop a word to you, Pfizer, keep your dishonors to yourself.' Simon was deadly pale. "'I will be a kickball between you and the Duke no longer,' he exclaimed. "'Either come to an agreement, or come to a differ, and have it out among yourselves. But I will no longer fetch and carry, and get your contrary instructions, and be blamed by both. For if I were to tell you what I think of all your handover business, it would make your head sing.' But Sheriff Erskine had preserved his temper, and now intervened smoothly. "'And in the meantime,' says he, "'I think we should tell Mr. Balfour that his character for Valor is quite established. He may sleep in peace. Until the date he was so good as to refer to, it shall be put to the proof no more.' His coolness brought the others to their prudence, and they made haste with a somewhat distracted civility to pack me from the house. CHAPTER IX THE HEATHER ON FIRE When I left Preston Grange that afternoon I was, for the first time, angry. The Advocate had made a mock of me. He had pretended my testimony was to be received, and myself respected. And in that very hour, not only was Simon practicing against my life by the hands of the Highland soldier, but, as appeared from his own language, Preston Grange himself had some design in operation. I counted my enemies, Preston Grange with all the King's authority behind him, and the Duke with the power of the West Highlands, and the Levitt interests by their side to help them with so great a force in the north, and the whole clan of old Jacobite spies and traffickers. And when I remembered James Moore and the redhead of Neil the son of Duncan, I thought there was perhaps a fourth in the Confederacy, and what remained of Rob Roy's old desperate sceptic patterns would be banded against me with the others. One thing was requisite, some strong friend or wise advisor. The country must be full of such, both able and eager to support me, or Levitt and the Duke and Preston Grange had not been nosing for expedience. And it made me raised to think that I might brush against my champions in the street and be no wiser. And just then, like an answer, a gentleman brushed against me going by, gave me a meaning look, and turned into a close. I knew him with the tail of my eye. It was Stuart the writer. And blessing my good fortune, turned in to follow him. As soon as I had entered the close, I saw him standing in the mouth of a stair, for he made a signal and immediately vanished. Seven stories up, there he was again in the house door, the which he looked behind us after we had entered. The house was quite dismantled, with not a stick of furniture. Indeed, it was one of which Stuart had the letting in his hands. We'll have to sit upon the floor, said he, but we're safe here for the time being, and I've been worrying to see you, Mr. Balfour. Close it with Alan, I asked. Brawley, said he, and he picked him up at the gill-line sands to-morrow, Wednesday. He was keen to say good-bye to ye, but the way that things were going I was feared the pair of ye was maybe best apart. And that brings me to the essential. How does your business speed? Why, said I, I was told only this morning that my testimony was accepted, and that I was to travel to Inverary with the Advocate no less. Hote-o-wa, cried Stuart, I'll never believe that. I have maybe a suspicion of my own, says I, but I would like fine to hear your reasons. Well, I tell you fairly, I'm horn-mad, cried Stuart. If my one hand could pull their government down I would pluck it like a rotten apple. I am doer for appen, and for James of the Glens, and, of course, it's my duty to defend my kinsman for his life. Hear how it goes with me, and I'll leave the judgment of it to yourself. The first thing they have to do is to get rid of Alan. They can bring in James as art in part until they've brought in Alan first as principal. That's sound law. They could never put the cart before the horse. And how are they to bring in Alan till they can catch him, says I. Ah, but there is a way to evite that arrestment, said he. Sound law, too. It would be a bonny thing if, by the escape of one ill doer, another wish to go skateless, and the remedy is to summon the principal and put him to outlawry for the non-comparance. Now there's four places where a person can be summoned, at his dwelling-house, at a place where he has resided forty days, at the head-burg of the shire where he ordinarily resorts, or lastly, if there be ground to think him forth of Scotland, at the cross of Edinburgh, in the pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days. The purpose of which last provision is evident upon its face, being that outgoing ships may have time to carry news of the transaction, and the summoning to be something other than a form. Now take the case of Alan. He has no dwelling-house that ever I could hear of. I would be obliged if anyone would show me where he has lived for forty days together since the forty-five. There is no shire where he resorts, whether ordinarily or extraordinarily. If he has a domicile at all, which I missed out, it must be with his regiment in France. And if he is not yet forth of Scotland, as we happen to know and they happen to guess, it must be evident to the most dull it's what he's aiming for. Where then and what way should he be summoned? I ask it at yourself, a layman. You have given me the very words, said I, here at the cross and at the pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days. You're a sounder Scotts lawyer than Preston Grange, then, cries the writer. He has had Alan summoned once. That was on the twenty-fifth, the day that we first met, once and done with it. And where? Here but the cross at Inverie, the head-burg of the Campbells? A word in your ear, Mr. Balfour, they're not seeking Alan. What do you mean, I cried, not seeking him? By the best I can make of it, said he, not wanting to find him in my poor thought. They think that perhaps he might set up a fair defense, upon the back of which James, the man there really after, might climb out. This is not a case, you see. It's a conspiracy. Yet I can tell you Preston Grange asked after Alan keenly, said I, though when I come to think of it, he was something of the easiest put by. See that, says he, but there I may be right or wrong, that's guesswork at the best. Now let me get to my facts again. It comes to my ears that James and the witnesses, the witnesses, Mr. Balfour, lay in close dungeons and shackled foreby in the military prison at Fort William. None allowed in to them, nor they to write. The witnesses, Mr. Balfour, heard ye ever the match of that? I assure ye no old crooked steward of the gang ever outfaced the law more imputantly. It's clean in the two eyes of the act of Parliament of 1700, and yet wrongest imprisonment. No sooner did I get the news that I petitioned the Lord Justice Clerk. I have his word today. There's law for ye, here's justice. He put a paper in my hand, that same mealy-mouthed, false-faced paper that was printed since the pamphlet by a bystander, for behoof, as the title says, of James's poor widow and five children. See, said steward, he couldn't dare to refuse me access to my clients, so he recommends the commanding officer to let me in. The Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland recommends. Is not the purpose of such language plain? They hope the officer may be so dull, oh so very much the reverse, as to refuse the recommendation. I would have to make the journey back again, twixed here and Fort William, then would follow a fresh delay till I got fresh authority, and they had disavowed the officer, military man notoriously ignorant of the law on that. I can the count of it. Then the journey a third time, and there we should be on the immediate heels of the trial before I had received my first instruction. Am I not right to call this a conspiracy? It will bear that color, said I. And I'll go on to prove it to you outright, said he. They have the right to hold James in prison, yet they cannot deny me to visit him. They have no right to hold the witnesses. But am I to get a sight of them that should be as free as the Lord Justice Clerk himself? See, read. For the rest refuses to give any orders to keepers of prisons who are not accused as having done anything contrary to the duties of their office. Anything contrary, sirs. And the act of seventeen-hunter, Mr. Balfour, this makes my heart to burst. The heather is on fire inside my womb. And the plain English of that phrase, said I, is that the witnesses are still to lie in prison, and you are not to see them? And I am not to see them until January, when the court is set, cries he. And then to hear Preston Grange upon the anxious responsibilities of his office and the great facilities afforded the defense. But I'll be caught them there, Mr. David. I have a plan to waylay the witnesses upon the road, and see if I can get a little harle of justice out of the military man notoriously ignorant of the law that shall command the party. It was actually so. It was actually on the wayside near Tindrum, and by the convenience of a soldier officer that Mr. Stewart first saw the witnesses upon the case. There is nothing that would surprise me in this business, I remarked. I'll surprise you ere I am done, cries he. Do you see this, producing a print still wet from the press? This is the libel. See there's Preston Grange's name to the list of witnesses, and I find no word of any balfour. But here is not the question. Who do you think paid for the printing of this paper? I suppose it would likely be King George, said I. That it happens it was me, he cried. Not but it was printed by and for themselves, for the Grants and the Erskins, and Yon Thief of the Black Midnight Simon Frazier. But could I win to get a copy? No. I was to go blindfold to my defense. I was to hear the charges for the first time in court, alongs the jury. Is this not against the law, I asked? I cannot say so much, he replied. It was a favour so natural, and so constantly rendered, till this nonsense business, that the law has never looked to it, and now admire the hand of Providence. A stranger is in Fleming's printing-house, spies a proof on the floor, picks it up, and carries it to me. Of all things, it was just this libel. Thereupon, I had it set again, printed at the expense of the defense, sub-de-buse, misty ray, heard ever-man the like of it, and here it is for anybody, the muckles secret out. All may see it now. But how do you think I would enjoy this, that this has the life of my kinsmen on my conscience? Troph, I think you would enjoy it ill, said I, and now you see how it is, he concluded, and why, when you tell me your evidence is to be let in, I laugh aloud in your face. It was now my turn. I laid before him in brief Mr. Simon's threats and offers, and the whole incident of the Bravo, with his subsequent scene at Preston Greenju's. Of my first talk, according to promise, I said nothing, nor indeed was it necessary. All the time I was talking, Stuart nodded his head like a mechanical figure, and no sooner had my voice ceased than he opened his mouth and gave me his opinion in two words, dwelling strong on both of them. Disappear yourself, said he. I do not take you, said I. Then I'll carry you there, said he. By my view of it, you're to disappear whatever. Oh, that's outside debate. The advocate, who is not without some spunks of a remainder decency, has wrung your life safe out of Simon and the Duke. He has refused to put you on your trial, and refused to have you killed, and there is the clue to their ill words together, for Simon and the Duke can keep faith with neither friend nor enemy. You're not to be tried, then, and you're not to be murdered. But I'm in bitter error if you're not to be kidnapped and carried away like the Lady Grange. Let me what ye please. There was their expedient. You make me think, said I, and told him of the whistle and the red-headed retainer, Neil. Wherever James Moore is, there's one big rogue. Never be deceived on that, said he. His father was none so ill a man, though akinning on the wrong side of the law, and no friend to my family, that I should waste my breath to be defending him. But as for James, he's a brock and a blaggorn. I like the appearance of this red-headed Neil as little as yourself. It looks uncanny, fey, it smells bad. It was old Levitt that managed the Lady Grange affair. If young Levitt is to handle yours, it'll be all in the family. What's James Moore in prison for? The same offense, abduction. His men have had practice in the business. He'll lend them to be Simon's instruments, and the next thing we'll be hearing, James will have made his peace, or else he'll have escaped, and you'll be in Benbecula or Applecross. Ye make a strong case, I admitted. And what I want, he resumed, is that you should disappear yourself ere they can get their hands upon ye. Lie quiet until just before the trial, and spring upon them at the last of it when they'll be looking for you least. This is always supposing, Mr. Balfour, that your evidence is worth so very great a major of both risk and fashion. I will tell you one thing, said I. I saw the murderer, and it was not Alan. Then by God my cousin saved, God steward. You have his life upon your tongue, and there's neither time, risk, nor money to be spared to bring you to the trial. He emptied his pockets on the floor. Here is all that I have by me, he went on. Take it. You'll want it to air your through. Go straight down this close. There's a way out by there to the Langdykes, and by my will of it. See no more of Edinburgh till the clash is over. Where am I to go then, I inquired. And I wish that I could tell ye, says he. But all the places that I could send ye to would be just the places they would seek. No, ye must fend for yourself, and God be your guiding. Five days before the trial, September the 16th, get word to me at the king's arms and sterling. And if you've managed for yourself, as long as that, I'll see that ye reach Inverary. One thing more, said I. Can I no see Alan? He seemed boggle. Heck, I would rather you win, then, said he. But I can never deny that Alan is extremely keen of it, and is to lie this night by silver mills on purpose. If you're sure that you're not followed, Mr. Balfour, but make sure of that. Lie in a good place, and watch your road for a clear hour before you risk it. It would be dreadful business, if both you and him was to miscarry. CHAPTER 10 It was about half past three when I came forth on the Langdikes. Then was where I wanted to go. Since Katrina dwelt there, and her kin's folk, the glingyle McGregors, appeared almost certainly to be employed against me. It was just one of the few places I should have kept away from. And being a very young man, and beginning to be very much in love, I turned my face in that direction without pause. As a slave to my conscience, and common sense, however, I took a measure of precaution. Coming over the crown of a bit of a rise in the road, I clapped down suddenly among the barley and lay waiting. After a while a man went by that looked to be a Highlandman, but I had never seen him till that hour. Presently after came kneel of the red head. The next to go past was a miller's cart, and after that nothing but manifest country people. Here was enough to have turned the most full hearty from his purpose, but my inclination ran too strong the other way. I argued it out that if kneel was on that road, it was the right road to find him in, leading direct to his chief's daughter. As for the other Highlandman, if I was to be startled off by every Highlandman I saw, I would scarce reach anywhere. And having quite satisfied myself with this disingenuous debate, I made the better speed of it, and came a little after four to Mrs. Drummond-Oklavies. Both ladies were within the house, and upon my perceiving them together by the open door, I plucked off my hat and said, Here was a lad come seeking sixpence, which I thought might please the Dowager. Katrina ran out to meet me heartily, and to my surprise the old lady seemed scarce, less forward than herself. I learned long afterwards that she had dispatched a horseman by daylight to Rancolor at the Queen's Ferry, whom she knew to be the doer for shaws, and had then in her pocket a letter from that good friend of mine, presenting in the most favorable view my character and prospects. But had I read it, I could scarce have seen more clear in her designs. Maybe I was country-fed, at least I was not so much so as she thought, and it was even to my homespun wits that she was meant to hammer up a match between her cousin and a beardless boy that was something of a lared and lothian. Sixpence had better take his broth with us, Katrina, said she, ran and tell the lasses. And for the little while we were alone was it a good deal of pains to flatter me, as cleverly, always with the appearance of a banter, still calling me sexpence, but with such a turn that should rather uplift me in my own opinion. When Katrina returned, the design became, if possible, more obvious, and she showed off the girl's advantages like a horse-cooper with a horse. My face flamed that she should think me so obtuse. Now I would fancy the girl was being innocently made a show of, and then I could have beaten the old car-line wife with a cudgel. And now perhaps these two had set their heads together to entrap me, and at that I sat and gloom and to betwixt them like the very image of ill-will. At last the matchmaker had a better device, which was to leave the pair of us alone. Even my suspicions are any way aroused. It is sometimes a little of the wrong side of easy to allay them. But though I knew what breed she was of, and that was a breed of thieves, I could never look in Katrina's face and disbelieve her. I must not ask, says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left alone. Ah, but today I can talk with a free conscience, I replied. I enlightened of my pledge, and indeed after what has come and gone since morning I would not have renewed it, were it asked. Tell me, she said, my cousin will not be so long. So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the last of it, making it as mirthful as I could, and indeed there was matter of mirth in that absurdity. And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudest men as for the pretty ladies after all. Says she, when I had done. But what was your father that he could not learn you to draw the sword? It is most ungentile. I have not heard the match of that in any one. It is most inconvenient at least, said I, and I think my father, honest man, must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in the place of it. But you see, I do the best I can, and just stand up like Lot's wife, and let them hammer at me. Do you know what makes me smile? Said she. Well, it is this. I am made this way, that I should have been a man-child. And my own thoughts it is so I am always, and I go on telling myself about this thing that is to befall and that. Then it comes to the place of the fighting, and it comes over me that I am only a girl at all events, and cannot hold a sword or give one good blow. And then I have to twist my story round about so that the fighting is to stop, and yet have me the best of it, just like you and the lieutenant. I am the boy that makes the fine speeches all through, like Mr. David Balfour. You are a bloodthirsty maid, said I. Well, I know it is good to sow and spin and to make samplers, she said, but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I think you will say yourself that it is a drenched business, and it is not that I want to kill, I think. Did you ever kill anyone? What I have as a chance, to no less, and me still a lad that should be at the college, said I. But yet, in the look back, I take no shame for it. But how did you feel then, after it? She asked. Deed, I sat down and grud like a bairn, said I. I know that, too, she cried. I feel where these tears should come from, and at any rate, I would not wish to kill only to be Catherine Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt where it was broken. That is my chief hero. Would you not love to die so, for your king? She asked. Trollf, said I, my affection for my king, God bless the pudgy face of him, is under more control. And I thought I saw death so near me this day already that I am rather taken up with the notion of living. Right, she said, the right mind of a man, only you must learn arms. I would not like to have a friend that cannot strike, but it will not have been with the sword that you killed these two. They'd know, said I, but with a pair of pistols. And a fortunate thing it was the men were so near hand to me, for I am as about as clever with the pistols as I am with the sword. So then she drew for me the story of our battle in the brig, which I had omitted in my first account of my affairs. Yes, said she, you are brave, and your friend, I admire and love him. Well, and I think any one would, said I. He has his faults like other folk, but he is brave and staunch and kind, God bless him. That will be a strange day when I forget Alan. And the thought of him, and that it was within my choice to speak with him that night, had almost overcome me. And where will my head be gone that I have not told you my news? She cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she might visit him to-morrow in the castle whether he was now transferred, and that his affairs were mending. Do you not like to hear it? Said she. Will you judge my father, and not know him? I am a thousand miles from judging, I replied. And I give you my word, I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened. If my face fell at all, and I suppose it must, you will allow this is rather an ill day for compositions, and a people in power extremely ill persons to be compounding with. I have Simon Frazier extremely heavy on my stomach still. Ah! She cried. You will not be evening these two, and you should bear in mind that Preston Grains and James Moore, my father, are of the one blood. I never heard of that, said I. It's rather singular how little you are acquainted with, said she. One part may call themselves Grant, and one McGregor, but they are still of the same clan. They are all the sons of Alpen, from whom I think our country has its name. What country is that? I asked. My country and yours! Said she. This is my day for you discovering, I think, said I. Before I always thought the name of it was Scotland. Scotland is the name of what you call Ireland, she replied, but the old, ancient, true name of this place that we have our footsoles on and that our bones are made of will be Alpen. It was Alpen they called it when our forefathers will be fighting for it against Rome and Alexander, and it is called so still in your own tongue that you forget. Truth, said I, and that I never learned, for I lacked heart to take her up about the Macedonian. But your fathers and mothers talked it, one generation with another, said she, and it was sung about the cradles before you and me were ever dreamed of, and your name remembers it still. Ah, if you could talk that language you would find me another girl. The heart speaks in that tongue. I had a meal with the two ladies all very good, served in fine old plate and the wine excellent, for it seems that Mrs. Ogilvy was rich. Our talk, too, was pleasant enough. But as soon as I saw the sun decline sharply and the shadows to run out long, I rose to take my leave, for my mind was now made up to say farewell to Alpen. And it was needful I should see the tristing wood and reconnoiter it by daylight. Katrina came with me as far as the garden gate. Is it long till I see you now? She asked. It is beyond my judging, I replied. It will be long. It may be never. It may be so, said she. And are you sorry? I bowed my head, looking upon her. So am I in all events, said she. I have seen you but a small time, but I put you very high. You are true, you are brave, and time I think you will be more of a man yet. I will be proud to hear of that. If you should speed worse, if it will come to fall as we are afraid. Oh, well, think you have the one friend. Long after you are dead, and me an old wife, I will be telling the barons about David Balfour, and my tears running. I will be telling of how we parted, and what I said to you and did to you. God go with you and guide you, praise your little friend. So I said, I will be telling them. And here is what I did. She took up my hand and kissed it. This so surprised my spirits that I cried out like one hurt. The color came strong in her face, and she looked at me and nodded. Oh, yes, Mr. David, said she. That is what I think of you. The head goes with the lips. I could read in her face high spirit, and a chivalry like a brave child, not anything besides. She kissed my hand as she had kissed Prince Charlie's, with a higher passion than the common kind of clay has any sense of. Nothing before had taught me how deep I was her lover, nor how far I had yet to climb to make her think of me in such a character. But I could tell myself I had advanced some way, and that her heart had beat and her blood flowed at thoughts of me. After that honor she had done me, I could offer no more trivial civility. It was even hard for me to speak. A certain lifting in her voice had knocked directly at the door of my own tears. I praise God for your kindness, dear, said I, farewell, my little friend, giving her that name which she had given her to herself, with which I bowed and left her. My way was down the glen of the Leith River toward Stockbridge and Silver Mills, a path led in the foot of it. The water bickered and sang in the midst. The sunbeams overhead struck out of the west among long shadows and, as the valley turned, made like a new scene and a new world of it at every corner. With Katrina behind and Alan before me I was like one lifted up. The place besides and the hour and the talking of the water infinitely pleased me. I lingered in my steps and looked before and behind me as I went. This was the cause, under providence, that I spied a little in my rear, a red head among some bushes. Angers sprang in my heart and I turned straight about and walked at a stiff pace to where I came from. The path lay close by the bushes where I had remarked the head. The cover came to the wayside and as I passed I was all strung up to meet and to resist an onfall. No such thing befell. I went by and meddled with and at that fear increased upon me. It was still day indeed but the place exceeding solitary. If my haunters had let slip that fair occasion I could but judge they aimed at something more than David Balfour. The lives of Alan and James weighed upon my spirit with a weight of two grown bullocks. Katrina was yet in the garden walking by herself. Katrina, said I, you see me back again. With a changed face, said she, I carry two men's lives besides my own, said I. It would be sin and shame not to walk carefully. I was doubtful whether I did right to come here. I would like it ill if it was by that means we were brought to harm. I could tell you one that would be liking it less and will like little enough to hear you talking at this very same time, she cried. What have I done at all events? Oh, you and I are not alone, I replied. But since I went off have been dogged again and I can tell you the name of him that follows me. It is Neil, son of Duncan, your man or your father's. To be sure you are mistaking there, she said with a white face, Neil is in Edinburgh on errands from my father. This is what I fear, said I, the last of it. But for his being in Edinburgh I think I can show you another of that. For sure you have some signal, a signal of need, such as would bring him to your help if he was anywhere within the reach of ears and legs. Why, how do you know that? Says she. By means of a magic talisman God gave to me when I was born and the name they call it by is common sense, said I, oblige me so far as make your signal and I will show you the red head of Neil. No doubt but I spoke bitter and sharp, and my heart was bitter. I blamed myself and the girl and hated both of us, her for the vile crew that she was come of, myself for my wanton folly to have stuck my head in such a bike of wasps. Katrina set her fingers to her lips and whistled once, with an exceeding clear, strong, mounting note as full as a plowman's. A while we stood silent and I was about to ask her to repeat the same when I heard the sound of someone bursting through the bushes below on the brace side. I pointed in that direction with a smile, and presently Neil leaped into the garden. His eyes burned and he had a black knife, as they call it on the highland side, naked in his hand. But seeing me beside his mistress stood like a man struck. He has come to your call, said I, judge how near he was to Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father's errands. Ask himself if I am to lose my life for the lives of those that hang by me through the means of your clan. Let me go where I have to go with my eyes opened. She addressed him tremously in the Gaelic. Remembering Alex's anxious civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for bitterness. Here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions was the hour she should have stuck by English. Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil, for all his obsequiousness, was an angry man. Then she turned to me. He swears it is not. She said, Katrina, said I, do you believe the man yourself? She made a gesture like ringing the hands. How will I know? She cried. But I must find some means to know, said I. I cannot continue to go dovering around in the black night with two men's lives at my girdle. Katrina, try to put yourself in my place. As I vow to God, I try hard to put myself in yours. This is no kind of talk that should ever have fallen between me and you. No kind of talk. My heart is sick with it. See, keep him here till two of the morning, and I care not. Try him with that. They spoke together once more in the Gaelic. He says he has James Moore, my father's errand, said she. She was whiter than ever, and her voice faltered as she said it. It is pretty plain now, said I, and may God forgive the wicked. She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with the same white face. This is a fine business, said I again. Am I to fall then, and those two along with me? Oh, what am I to do, she cried. Could I go against my father's orders, him in prison, in the danger of his life? But perhaps we go too fast, said I. This may be a lie, too. He may have no right orders. All may be contrived by Simon, and your father knowing nothing. She burst out weeping between the pair of us, and my heart smote me hard, for I thought this girl was in a dreadful situation. Here, said I, keep him but the one hour, and I'll chance it and may God bless you. She put out her hand to me, I will be needing one good word. She sobbed, the full hour then, said I, keeping her hand in mine. Three lives of it, my lass, the full hour, she said, and cried aloud on to redeemer to forgive her. I thought it no fit place for me, and fled. CHAPTER X I lost no time, but down through the valley and by stockbridge and silver mills as hard as I could stave. It was Allen's tryst to be every night between twelve and two, quote, in a bit scrog of wood by east of silver mills and by south the south mill laid, end quote. This I found easy enough, where it grew on a steep bray with the mill laid flowing swift and deep along the foot of it. And here I began to walk slower and to reflect more reasonably on my employment. I saw I had made but a fool's bargain with Katrina. It was not to be supposed that Neal was sent alone upon this errand. But perhaps he was the only man belonging to James Moore, in which case I should have done all I could to hang Katrina's father, and nothing the least material to help myself. To tell the truth I fancied neither one of these ideas. Because by holding back Neal the girl should have helped to hang her father. I thought she would never forgive herself this side of time. And suppose there were others pursuing me that moment. What kind of a gift was I come, bringing to Allen? And how would I like that? I was up to the west end of that wood when these two considerations struck me like a cudgel. My feet stopped of themselves and my heart along with them. What wild game is this that I have been playing, thought I, and turned instantly upon my heels to go elsewhere. This brought my face to silver mills, the path came past the village with a crook, but all plainly visible, and highland or lowland there was nobody stirring. Here was my advantage. Here was just such a conjecture as Stuart had cancelled me to profit by. And I ran by the side of the mill-lade, fetched about beyond the east corner of the wood, threaded through the midst of it, and returned to the west selvedge, whence I could again command the path, and yet be myself unseen. Again it was all empty, and my heart began to rise. For more than an hour I sat close in the border of the trees, and no hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch. When that hour began the sun was already set, but the sky still all golden and the daylight clear. Before the hour was done it had fallen to be half-merk. The images and distances of things were mingled, and observation began to be difficult. All that time not a foot of man had come east from silver mills, and the few that had gone west were honest country folk and their wives upon the road to bed. If I were tracked by the most cunning spies in Europe I judged it was beyond the course of nature they could have and jealousy of where I was, and going a little further home into the wood I lay down to wait for Alan. The strain of my attention had been great for I had watched not the path only, but every bush and field within my vision. That was now at an end. The moon, which was in her first quarter, glinted a little in the wood. All around there was a stillness of the country, and as I lay there on my back the next three or four hours I had a fine occasion to review my conduct. Two things became plain to me at first, that I had no right to go that day to Dean, and having gone there had now no right to be lying where I was. This, where Alan was to come, was just the one wood in all broad Scotland it was by every proper feeling closed against me. I admitted that, and yet stayed on, wondering it myself. I thought of the measure with which I had meted to Katrina that same night, how I had praded of the two lives I carried, and had thus forced her to in jeopardy her father's, and how I was here exposing them again it seemed in wantonness. A good conscious is eight parts of courage. No sooner had I lost conceit of my behaviour than I seemed to stand disarmed amidst a throng of terrors. Of a sudden I sat up. How if I went now to Preston Grange, caught him, as I still easily might, before he slept, and made a full submission? Who could blame me? Not steward the writer. I had but to say that I was followed, disparate of getting clear, and so gave in. But Katrina, here too I had my answer ready, that I could not bear she should expose her father. So in a moment I could lay all these troubles by, which were, after all, and truly none of mine. Swim clear of the epp and murder, get forth out of hand-stroke of all the stewards and cambels, all the wigs and tories in the land, and live henceforth to my own mind, and to be able to enjoy and to improve my fortunes, and to vote some hours of my youth to courting Katrina, which would be surely a more suitable occupation than to hide and run and be followed like a hundred thief, and begin over again the dreadful miseries of my escape with Alan. At first I thought no shame of this capitulation. I was only amazed I had not thought upon the thing and done it earlier, and began to inquire into the causes of the change. These I traced to my lowness of spirits, that back to my late recklessness, and that again to the common, old, public, disconsidered sin of self-indulgence. Instantly the text came in my head, How can Satan cast out Satan? What I thought. I had by self-indulgence, and the following of pleasant paths, and the lure of a young maid cast myself wholly out of conceit with my own character, and jeopardize the lives of James and Alan. And I was to seek the way out by the same road as I had entered in? No. The hurt that had been caused by self-indulgence must be cured by self-denial. The flesh I had pampered must be crucified. I looked about me for that course which I least liked to follow. This was to leave the wood without waiting to see Alan, and go forth again alone in the dark and in the midst of my perplexed and dangerous fortunes. I have been the more careful to narrate this passage of my reflections, because I think it is of some utility, and may serve as an example to young men. But there is reason, they say, in planting kale, and even in ethic and religion room for common sense. It was already close on Alan's hour, and the moon was down. If I left, as I could not very decently whistle to my spies to follow me, they might miss me in the dark and tack themselves to Alan by mistake. If I stayed, I could, at the least of it, set my friend upon his guard which might prove his mere salvation. I had ventured other people's safety in a course of self-indulgence. To have endangered them again, and now on a mere design of penance, would have been scarce rational. Accordingly I had scarce reason for my place ere I sat down again, but already in a different frame of spirits, and equally marveling at my past weakness and rejoicing in my present composure. Only after came a crackling in the thicket. Putting my mouth near down to the ground, I whistled a note or two of Alan's air. An answer came in the like, guarded tone, and soon we had knocked together in the dark. "'Is that you, at last, Davy?' he whispered. "'Just myself,' said I, "'Good man, but I've been wearing to see ye,' says he. I've had the longest kind of a time. I'd day I've had my dwelling into this inside of a stack of hay, where I couldn't see the nevres of my ten fingers, and then two hours of it waiting here for you, and you never coming, though then you're none too soon the way it is with me to sail the morn. The morn? What am I saying? The day, I mean.' "'Hi, Alan, man, the day sure enough,' said I. "'It's past twelve now, surely, and ye sail the day. This'll be a long road you have before you.' "'We'll have a long crack of it first,' said he. "'Well, indeed, and I have a good deal it will be telling you to hear,' said I. And I told him what behoved making rather a jumble of it, but clear enough when done. He heard me out with very few questions, laughing here and there like a man delighted, and the sound of his laughing, above all there in the dark where neither one of us could see the other, was extraordinary friendly to my heart. I, David, hear a queer character, as he, when I had done, a queer bitch after, and I have no mind of meeting with the like of ye. As for your story, Preston Grange is a wig like yourself, so I'll say the less of him. And, dude, I believe he was the best friend he had, if he could only trust him. But Simon, Frazier, and James Moore are my kind of cow, and I'll give them the name that they deserve. The muck-o-black deal was father to the Frazier's, a body Kenzat. And as for the Gregor, I never could abide a reek of them since I could sought her on two feet. I bloodied the nose of one, I mind, when I was still so wobbly on my legs that I gouted upon the top of him. A proud man was my father that day, God rest him. And I think he had the cause. I'll never can deny but what Robin was something of a piper, he added. But as for James Moore, that deal guide him for me. One thing we have to consider, said I, was Charles Stuart right or wrong? Is it only me thereafter or the pair of us? And what your own opinion? You that a man of so much experience, said he. It passes me, said I. And me too, says Alan. Do you think this lass would keep her word to ye? He asked. I do that, said I. Well, there's no telling, said he. And anyway, that's over and done. He'll be joined to the rest of them, Langsine. How many would ye think there would be of them, I asked? That depends, said Alan. If it was only you, they would likely send two or three lively brisk young burkeys. And if they thought that I was to appear in the employ, I dare say ten or twelve, said he. It was no use, I gave a little crack of laughter. And I think your own two eyes will have seen me drive that number, or the double of it, nearer hand, cries he. It matters the less, said I, because I am well rid of them for this time. Nay, doubt that's your opinion, said he. But I wouldn't be the least surprised if they were hunkering this wood. You see, David Mann, they be Highland folk, there'll be some Frazier's, I'm thinkin', and some of the regaigara. And I would never deny, but what's the both of them? The regaigara, in a special, were clever-experienced persons. A man kin's little till he's driven a sprig of neat cattle, say ten miles through a throng of lowland country, and the black soldiers may be at his tail. It's there that I learned a great part of my penetration. And ye needn't tell me, it's better than war, which is the next best, however, though generally rather a blush of its business. Now the regaigara have had grand practice. No doubt that's a branch of education that was left out with me, said I. And I can see the remarks of it upon ye constantly, said Allen. But that's the strange thing about you folk with the college-learning. Irregnant. And ye cannot see it. Was me for my Greek and Hebrew, but, man, I can that I dine, I can them. There's the differ of it. Now here's you, ye lie on your wane, a bitte in the bead of this wood, and ye tell me that ye've cruised it off these Frazier's and McGregor's? Why? Because I couldn't see them, says you. Ye blockhead, that's their livelihood. Take the worst of it, said I, and what are we to do? I'm thinking of that same, said he. We might twine. It won't be greatly to my taste, and for by that I see reasons against it. First it's now uncodark, and it's just humanly possible we might give them the clean slip. If we keep together, we make but the a-line of it. If we gang separate, we make tway of them, the more likelihood to stave in upon some of these gentry of yours. And then, second, if they keep the track of us, it may come into a fetch for it yet, Davy. And then I'll confess, I would be blithe to have you at my oxter, and I think you would be none the worse for having me at yours. So by my way of it, we should creep out of this wood no further gone than just the inside of the next minute, and hold away east for gilding, for I am to find my ship. It'll be like old days while at last, Davy, and come to the time, we'll have to think what you should be doing. I'm way to leave you here wanting me. Have with thee, then, says I. Do ye gang back where you were stopping? Well, of fear, said Allen. They were good folks to me, but I think they would be a good deal disappointed if they saw my body face again. For, the way times go, I am najest to what ye could call a welcome guest, which makes me the keener for your accompany, Mr. David Balfour of the Shaws, and set ye up. For leave aside twa cracks here in the wood with Charlie Stewart. I've scarce said black or white since the day we parted Korstofin, with which she rose from his place, and we began to move quietly eastward through the wood. End of Chapter 11