Catriona
with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of affairs. But for
auld, cauld, dour, deadly courage, I am not fit to hold a candle to
yourself. Look at us two here upon the sands. Here am I, fair hotching
to be off; here’s you (for all that I ken) in two minds of it whether
you’ll no stop. Do you think that I could do that, or would? No me!
Firstly, because I havenae got the courage and wouldnae daur; and
secondly, because I am a man of so much penetration and would see ye
damned first.”
“It’s there ye’re coming, is it?” I cried. “Ah, man Alan, you can wile
your old wives, but you never can wile me.”
Remembrance of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron.
“I have a tryst to keep,” I continued. “I am trysted with your cousin
Charlie; I have passed my word.”
“Braw trysts that you’ll can keep,” said Alan. “Ye’ll just mistryst
aince and for a’ with the gentry in the bents. And what for?” he went
on with an extreme threatening gravity. “Just tell me that, my mannie!
Are ye to be speerited away like Lady Grange? Are they to drive a dirk
in your inside and bury ye in the bents? Or is it to be the other way,
and are they to bring ye in with James? Are they folk to be trustit?
Would ye stick your head in the mouth of Sim Fraser and the ither
Whigs?” he added with extraordinary bitterness.
“Alan,” cried I, “they’re all rogues and liars, and I’m with ye there.
The more reason there should be one decent man in such a land of
thieves! My word is passed, and I’ll stick to it. I said long syne to
your kinswoman that I would stumble at no risk. Do ye mind of that?—the
night Red Colin fell, it was. No more I will, then. Here I stop.
Prestongrange promised me my life: if he’s to be mansworn, here I’ll
have to die.”
“Aweel aweel,” said Alan.
All this time we had seen or heard no more of our pursuers. In truth we
had caught them unawares; their whole party (as I was to learn
afterwards) had not yet reached the scene; what there was of them was
spread among the bents towards Gillane. It was quite an affair to call
them in and bring them over, and the boat was making speed. They were
besides but cowardly fellows: a mere leash of Highland cattle-thieves,
of several clans, no gentleman there to be the captain and the more
they looked at Alan and me upon the beach, the less (I must suppose)
they liked the look of us.
Whoever had betrayed Alan it was not the captain: he was in the skiff
himself, steering and stirring up his oarsmen, like a man with his
heart in his employ. Already he was near in, and the boat
securing—already Alan’s face had flamed crimson with the excitement of
his deliverance, when our friends in the bents, either in their despair
to see their prey escape them or with some hope of scaring Andie,
raised suddenly a shrill cry of several voices.
This sound, arising from what appeared to be a quite deserted coast,
was really very daunting, and the men in the boat held water instantly.
“What’s this of it?” sings out the captain, for he was come within an
easy hail.
“Freens o’mine,” says Alan, and began immediately to wade forth in the
shallow water towards the boat. “Davie,” he said, pausing, “Davie, are
ye no coming? I am swier to leave ye.”
“Not a hair of me,” said I.
“He stood part of a second where he was to his knees in the salt water,
hesitating.
“He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar,” said he, and swashing in deeper
than his waist, was hauled into the skiff, which was immediately
directed for the ship.
I stood where he had left me, with my hands behind my back; Alan sat
with his head turned watching me; and the boat drew smoothly away. Of a
sudden I came the nearest hand to shedding tears, and seemed to myself
the most deserted solitary lad in Scotland. With that I turned my back
upon the sea and faced the sandhills. There was no sight or sound of
man; the sun shone on the wet sand and the dry, the wind blew in the
bents, the gulls made a dreary piping. As I passed higher up the beach,
the sand-lice were hopping nimbly about the stranded tangles. The devil
any other sight or sound in that unchancy place. And yet I knew there
were folk there, observing me, upon some secret purpose. They were no
soldiers, or they would have fallen on and taken us ere now; doubtless
they were some common rogues hired for my undoing, perhaps to kidnap,
perhaps to murder me outright. From the position of those engaged, the
first was the more likely; from what I knew of their character and
ardency in this business, I thought the second very possible; and the
blood ran cold about my heart.
I had a mad idea to loosen my sword in the scabbard; for though I was
very unfit to stand up like a gentleman blade to blade, I thought I
could do some scathe in a random combat. But I perceived in time the
folly of resistance. This was no doubt the joint “expedient” on which
Prestongrange and Fraser were agreed. The first, I was very sure, had
done something to secure my life; the second was pretty likely to have
slipped in some contrary hints into the ears of Neil and his
companions; and if I were to show bare steel I might play straight into
the hands of my worst enemy and seal my own doom.
These thoughts brought me to the head of the beach. I cast a look
behind, the boat was nearing the brig, and Alan flew his handkerchief
for a farewell, which I replied to with the waving of my hand. But Alan
himself was shrunk to a small thing in my view, alongside of this pass
that lay in front of me. I set my hat hard on my head, clenched my
teeth, and went right before me up the face of the sand-wreath. It made
a hard climb, being steep, and the sand like water underfoot. But I
caught hold at last by the long bent-grass on the brae-top, and pulled
myself to a good footing. The same moment men stirred and stood up here
and there, six or seven of them, ragged-like knaves, each with a dagger
in his hand. The fair truth is, I shut my eyes and prayed. When I
opened them again, the rogues were crept the least thing nearer without
speech or hurry. Every eye was upon mine, which struck me with a
strange sensation of their brightness, and of the fear with which they
continued to approach me. I held out my hands empty; whereupon one
asked, with a strong Highland brogue, if I surrendered.
“Under protest,” said I, “if ye ken what that means, which I misdoubt.”
At that word, they came all in upon me like a flight of birds upon a
carrion, seized me, took my sword, and all the money from my pockets,
bound me hand and foot with some strong line, and cast me on a tussock
of bent. There they sat about their captive in a part of a circle and
gazed upon him silently like something dangerous, perhaps a lion or a
tiger on the spring. Presently this attention was relaxed. They drew
nearer together, fell to speech in the Gaelic, and very cynically
divided my property before my eyes. It was my diversion in this time
that I could watch from my place the progress of my friend’s escape. I
saw the boat come to the brig and be hoisted in, the sails fill, and
the ship pass out seaward behind the isles and by North Berwick.
In the course of two hours or so, more and more ragged Highlandmen kept
collecting. Neil among the first, until the party must have numbered
near a score. With each new arrival there was a fresh bout of talk,
that sounded like complaints and explanations; but I observed one
thing, none of those who came late had any share in the division of my
spoils. The last discussion was very violent and eager, so that once I
thought they would have quarrelled; on the heels of which their company
parted, the bulk of them returning westward in a troop, and only three,
Neil and two others, remaining sentries on the prisoner.
“I could name one who would be very ill pleased with your day’s work,
Neil Duncanson,” said I, when the rest had moved away.
He assured me in answer I should be tenderly used, for he knew he was
“acquent wi’ the leddy.”
This was all our talk, nor did any other son of man appear upon that
portion of the coast until the sun had gone down among the Highland
mountains, and the gloaming was beginning to grow dark. At which hour I
was aware of a long, lean, bony-like Lothian man of a very swarthy
countenance, that came towards us among the bents on a farm horse.
“Lads,” cried he, “has ye a paper like this?” and held up one in his
hand. Neil produced a second, which the newcomer studied through a pair
of horn spectacles, and saying all was right and we were the folk he
was seeking, immediately dismounted. I was then set in his place, my
feet tied under the horse’s belly, and we set forth under the guidance
of the Lowlander. His path must have been very well chosen, for we met
but one pair—a pair of lovers—the whole way, and these, perhaps taking
us to be free-traders, fled on our approach. We were at one time close
at the foot of Berwick Law on the south side; at another, as we passed
over some open hills, I spied the lights of a clachan and the old tower
of a church among some trees not far off, but too far to cry for help,
if I had dreamed of it. At last we came again within sound of the sea.
There was moonlight, though not much; and by this I could see the three
huge towers and broken battlements of Tantallon, that old chief place
of the Red Douglases. The horse was picketed in the bottom of the ditch
to graze, and I was led within, and forth into the court, and thence
into the tumble-down stone hall. Here my conductors built a brisk fire
in the midst of the pavement, for there was a chill in the night. My
hands were loosed, I was set by the wall in the inner end, and (the
Lowlander having produced provisions) I was given oatmeal bread and a
pitcher of French brandy. This done, I was left once more alone with my
three Highlandmen. They sat close by the fire drinking and talking; the
wind blew in by the breaches, cast about the smoke and flames, and sang
in the tops of the towers; I could hear the sea under the cliffs, and,
my mind being reassured as to my life, and my body and spirits wearied
with the day’s employment, I turned upon one side and slumbered.
I had no means of guessing at what hour I was wakened, only the moon
was down and the fire was low. My feet were now loosed, and I was
carried through the ruins and down the cliff-side by a precipitous path
to where I found a fisher’s boat in a haven of the rocks. This I was
had on board of, and we began to put forth from the shore in a fine
starlight.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE BASS
I had no thought where they were taking me; only looked here and there
for the appearance of a ship; and there ran the while in my head a word
of Ransome’s—the_ twenty-pounders_. If I were to be exposed a second
time to that same former danger of the plantations, I judged it must
turn ill with me; there was no second Alan; and no second shipwreck and
spare yard to be expected now; and I saw myself hoe tobacco under the
whip’s lash. The thought chilled me; the air was sharp upon the water,
the stretchers of the boat drenched with a cold dew: and I shivered in
my place beside the steersman. This was the dark man whom I have called
hitherto the Lowlander; his name was Dale, ordinarily called Black
Andie. Feeling the thrill of my shiver, he very kindly handed me a
rough jacket full of fish-scales, with which I was glad to cover
myself.
“I thank you for this kindness,” said I, “and will make so free as to
repay it with a warning. You take a high responsibility in this affair.
You are not like these ignorant, barbarous Highlanders, but know what
the law is and the risks of those that break it.”
“I am no just exactly what ye would ca’ an extremist for the law,” says
he, “at the best of times; but in this business I act with a good
warranty.”