Catriona
my dear, I think we’ll have to make a match of it—if it was just to see
the weans. And now,” she went on, “there’s no manner of service in your
daidling here, for the young woman is from home, and it’s my fear that
the old woman is no suitable companion for your father’s son. Forbye
that I have nobody but myself to look after my reputation, and have
been long enough alone with a sedooctive youth. And come back another
day for your saxpence!” she cried after me as I left.
My skirmish with this disconcerting lady gave my thoughts a boldness
they had otherwise wanted. For two days the image of Catriona had mixed
in all my meditations; she made their background, so that I scarce
enjoyed my own company without a glint of her in a corner of my mind.
But now she came immediately near; I seemed to touch her, whom I had
never touched but the once; I let myself flow out to her in a happy
weakness, and looking all about, and before and behind, saw the world
like an undesirable desert, where men go as soldiers on a march,
following their duty with what constancy they have, and Catriona alone
there to offer me some pleasure of my days. I wondered at myself that I
could dwell on such considerations in that time of my peril and
disgrace; and when I remembered my youth I was ashamed. I had my
studies to complete: I had to be called into some useful business; I
had yet to take my part of service in a place where all must serve; I
had yet to learn, and know, and prove myself a man; and I had so much
sense as blush that I should be already tempted with these further-on
and holier delights and duties. My education spoke home to me sharply;
I was never brought up on sugar biscuits but on the hard food of the
truth. I knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was not
prepared to be a father also; and for a boy like me to play the father
was a mere derision.
When I was in the midst of these thoughts and about half-way back to
town I saw a figure coming to meet me, and the trouble of my heart was
heightened. It seemed I had everything in the world to say to her, but
nothing to say first; and remembering how tongue-tied I had been that
morning at the Advocate’s I made sure that I would find myself struck
dumb. But when she came up my fears fled away; not even the
consciousness of what I had been privately thinking disconcerted me the
least; and I found I could talk with her as easily and rationally as I
might with Alan.
“O!” she cried, “you have been seeking your sixpence; did you get it?”
I told her no; but now I had met with her my walk was not in vain.
“Though I have seen you to-day already,” said I, and told her where and
when.
“I did not see you,” she said. “My eyes are big, but there are better
than mine at seeing far. Only I heard singing in the house.”
“That was Miss Grant,” said I, “the eldest and the bonniest.”
“They say they are all beautiful,” said she.
“They think the same of you, Miss Drummond,” I replied, “and were all
crowding to the window to observe you.”
“It is a pity about my being so blind,” said she, “or I might have seen
them too. And you were in the house? You must have been having the fine
time with the fine music and the pretty ladies.”
“There is just where you are wrong,” said I; “for I was as uncouth as a
sea-fish upon the brae of a mountain. The truth is that I am better
fitted to go about with rudas men than pretty ladies.”
“Well, I would think so too, at all events!” said she, at which we both
of us laughed.
“It is a strange thing, now,” said I. “I am not the least afraid with
you, yet I could have run from the Miss Grants. And I was afraid of
your cousin too.”
“O, I think any man will be afraid of her,” she cried. “My father is
afraid of her himself.”
The name of her father brought me to a stop. I looked at her as she
walked by my side; I recalled the man, and the little I knew and the
much I guessed of him; and comparing the one with the other, felt like
a traitor to be silent.
“Speaking of which,” said I, “I met your father no later than this
morning.”
“Did you?” she cried, with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at me.
“You saw James More? You will have spoken with him then?”
“I did even that,” said I.
Then I think things went the worst way for me that was humanly
possible. She gave me a look of mere gratitude. “Ah, thank you for
that!” says she.
“You thank me for very little,” said I, and then stopped. But it seemed
when I was holding back so much, something at least had to come out. “I
spoke rather ill to him,” said I; “I did no like him very much; I spoke
him rather ill, and he was angry.”
“I think you had little to do then, and less to tell it to his
daughter!” she cried out. “But those that do not love and cherish him I
will not know.”
“I will take the freedom of a word yet,” said I, beginning to tremble.
“Perhaps neither your father nor I are in the best of spirits at
Prestongrange’s. I daresay we both have anxious business there, for
it’s a dangerous house. I was sorry for him too, and 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,” cried I, “I am alone in this world.”
“And I am not wondering at that,” said she.
“O, let me speak!” said I. “I will speak but the once, and then leave
you, if you will, for ever. I came this day in the hopes of a kind word
that I am sore in 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 to
lie to you; can you not think how I was tempted to the same? Cannot you
see the truth of my heart shine out?”
“I think here is a great deal of work, Mr. Balfour,” said she. “I think
we will have met but the once, and will can part like gentle folk.”
“O, let me have one to believe in me!” I pleaded, “I cannae bear it
else. The whole world is clanned 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 to-day 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
Glenure 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 scarce a man—if this is
the story to be told of me in all Scotland—if you are to believe it
too, and my name is to be nothing but a by-word—Catriona, how can I go
through with it? The thing’s not possible; it’s more than a man has in
his heart.”
I poured my words out in a whirl, one upon the other; and when I
stopped I found her gazing on me with a startled face.
“Glenure! It is the Appin murder,” she said softly, but with a very
deep surprise.
I had turned back to bear her company, and we were now come near the
head of the brae 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 that I have
done?” and carried my fists 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 honour,” I groaned, “I gave my honour and now I have broke
it. O, Catriona!”
“I am asking you what it is,” she said; “was it these things you should
not have spoken? And do you think I have no honour, then? or that I am
one that would betray a friend? I hold up my right hand to you and
swear.”
“O, 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 die
disgraced upon the gallows than do wrong—and a few hours after I throw
my honour away by the roadside in common talk! ‘There is one thing
clear upon our interview,’ says he, ‘that I can rely on your pledged
word.’ Where is my word now? Who could believe me now? 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 about to entrap
and to destroy you! Fy! 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 ere she betrayed you—to make such a
matter! It is one thing that we must both forget.”
“Catriona,” said I, looking at her, hang-dog, “is this true of it?
Would ye trust me yet?”
“Will you not believe the tears upon 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 frighted with bogles,” 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 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 that same! And I think you are in peril, too.
O, Simon Fraser! to think upon that man! For his life and the dirty
money, to be dealing in such traffic!” And just then she called out
aloud with a queer word that was common with 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 at a change house, and the
better part of that night walked by myself in the barley-fields, and
had such a sense of Catriona’s presence that I seemed to bear her in my
arms.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRAVO
The next day, August 29th, I kept my appointment at the Advocate’s in a
coat that I had made to my own measure, and was but newly ready.
“Aha,” says Prestongrange, “you are very fine to-day; my misses are to
have a fine cavalier. Come, I take that kind of you. I take that kind
of you, Mr. David. O, 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 in to be held at Inverary, Thursday, 21st _proximo_.”
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. To-morrow your
precognition must be taken; and outside of that, do you know, I think
least said will be soonest mended.”