Catriona
“Madam,” said I, “I think it only fair to myself to let you understand
I have no Gaelic. It is true I was listening, for I have friends of my
own across the Highland line, and the sound of that tongue comes
friendly; but for your private affairs, if you had spoken Greek, I
might have had more guess at them.”
She made me a little, distant curtsey. “There is no harm done,” said
she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more agreeable).
“A cat may look at a king.”
“I do not mean to offend,” said I. “I have no skill of city manners; I
never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh. Take me
for a country lad—it’s what I am; and I would rather I told you than
you found it out.”
“Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking
to each other on the causeway,” she replied. “But if you are landward
[2] bred it will be different. I am as landward as yourself; I am
Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther from my home.”
“It is not yet a week since I passed the line,” said I. “Less than a
week ago I was on the braes of Balwhidder.”
“Balwhither?” she cries. “Come ye from Balwhither! The name of it makes
all there is of me rejoice. You will not have been long there, and not
known some of our friends or family?”
“I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren,” I
replied.
“Well, I know Duncan, and you give him the true name!” she said; “and
if he is an honest man, his wife is honest indeed.”
“Ay,” said I, “they are fine people, and the place is a bonny place.”
“Where in the great world is such another!” she cries; “I am loving the
smell of that place and the roots that grow there.”
I was infinitely taken with the spirit of the maid. “I could be wishing
I had brought you a spray of that heather,” says I. “And, though I did
ill to speak with you at the first, now it seems we have common
acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not forget me. David
Balfour is the name I am known by. This is my lucky day, when I have
just come into a landed estate, and am not very long out of a deadly
peril. I wish you would keep my name in mind for the sake of
Balwhidder,” said I, “and I will yours for the sake of my lucky day.”
“My name is not spoken,” she replied, with a great deal of haughtiness.
“More than a hundred years it has not gone upon men’s tongues, save for
a blink. I am nameless, like the Folk of Peace. [3] Catriona Drummond
is the one I use.”
Now indeed I knew where I was standing. In all broad Scotland there was
but the one name proscribed, and that was the name of the Macgregors.
Yet so far from fleeing this undesirable acquaintancy, I plunged the
deeper in.
“I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with yourself,”
said I, “and I think he will be one of your friends. They called him
Robin Oig.”
“Did ye so?” cries she. “Ye met Rob?”
“I passed the night with him,” said I.
“He is a fowl of the night,” said she.
“There was a set of pipes there,” I went on, “so you may judge if the
time passed.”
“You should be no enemy, at all events,” said she. “That was his
brother there a moment since, with the red soldiers round him. It is
him that I call father.”
“Is it so?” cried I. “Are you a daughter of James More’s?”
“All the daughter that he has,” says she: “the daughter of a prisoner;
that I should forget it so, even for one hour, to talk with strangers!”
Here one of the gillies addressed her in what he had of English, to
know what “she” (meaning by that himself) was to do about “ta
sneeshin.” I took some note of him for a short, bandy-legged,
red-haired, big-headed man, that I was to know more of to my cost.
“There can be none the day, Neil,” she replied. “How will you get
‘sneeshin,’ wanting siller! It will teach you another time to be more
careful; and I think James More will not be very well pleased with Neil
of the Tom.”
“Miss Drummond,” I said, “I told you I was in my lucky day. Here I am,
and a bank-porter at my tail. And remember I have had the hospitality
of your own country of Balwhidder.”
“It was not one of my people gave it,” said she.
“Ah, well,” said I, “but I am owing your uncle at least for some
springs upon the pipes. Besides which, I have offered myself to be your
friend, and you have been so forgetful that you did not refuse me in
the proper time.”
“If it had been a great sum, it might have done you honour,” said she;
“but I will tell you what this is. James More lies shackled in prison;
but this time past they will be bringing him down here daily to the
Advocate’s. . . .”
“The Advocate’s!” I cried. “Is that . . . ?”
“It is the house of the Lord Advocate Grant of Prestongrange,” said
she. “There they bring my father one time and another, for what purpose
I have no thought in my mind; but it seems there is some hope dawned
for him. All this same time they will not let me be seeing him, nor yet
him write; and we wait upon the King’s street to catch him; and now we
give him his snuff as he goes by, and now something else. And here is
this son of trouble, Neil, son of Duncan, has lost my four-penny piece
that was to buy that snuff, and James More must go wanting, and will
think his daughter has forgotten him.”
I took sixpence from my pocket, gave it to Neil, and bade him go about
his errand. Then to her, “That sixpence came with me by Balwhidder,”
said I.
“Ah!” she said, “you are a friend to the Gregara!”
“I would not like to deceive you, either,” said I. “I know very little
of the Gregara and less of James More and his doings, but since the
while I have been standing in this close, I seem to know something of
yourself; and if you will just say ‘a friend to Miss Catriona’ I will
see you are the less cheated.”
“The one cannot be without the other,” said she.
“I will even try,” said I.
“And what will you be thinking of myself!” she cried, “to be holding my
hand to the first stranger!”
“I am thinking nothing but that you are a good daughter,” said I.
“I must not be without repaying it,” she said; “where is it you stop!”
“To tell the truth, I am stopping nowhere yet,” said I, “being not full
three hours in the city; but if you will give me your direction, I will
be so bold as come seeking my sixpence for myself.”
“Will I can trust you for that?” she asked.
“You need have little fear,” said I.
“James More could not bear it else,” said she. “I stop beyond the
village of Dean, on the north side of the water, with Mrs.
Drummond-Ogilvy of Allardyce, who is my near friend and will be glad to
thank you.”
“You are to see me, then, so soon as what I have to do permits,” said
I; and, the remembrance of Alan rolling in again upon my mind, I made
haste to say farewell.
I could not but think, even as I did so, that we had made extraordinary
free upon short acquaintance, and that a really wise young lady would
have shown herself more backward. I think it was the bank-porter that
put me from this ungallant train of thought.
“I thoucht ye had been a lad of some kind o’ sense,” he began, shooting
out his lips. “Ye’re no likely to gang far this gate. A fule and his
siller’s shune parted. Eh, but ye’re a green callant!” he cried, “an’ a
veecious, tae! Cleikin’ up wi’ baubeejoes!”
“If you dare to speak of the young lady. . . ” I began.
“Leddy!” he cried. “Haud us and safe us, whatten leddy? Ca’ _thon_ a
leddy? The toun’s fu’ o’ them. Leddies! Man, its weel seen ye’re no
very acquant in Embro!”
A clap of anger took me.
“Here,” said I, “lead me where I told you, and keep your foul mouth
shut!”
He did not wholly obey me, for, though he no more addressed me
directly, he very impudent sang at me as he went in a manner of
innuendo, and with an exceedingly ill voice and ear—
“As Mally Lee cam doun the street, her capuchin did flee,
She cuist a look ahint her to see her negligee.
And we’re a’ gaun east and wast, we’re a’ gann ajee,
We’re a’ gaun east and wast courtin’ Mally Lee.”
CHAPTER II.
THE HIGHLAND WRITER
Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer dwelt at the top of the longest stair
ever mason set a hand to; fifteen flights of it, no less; and when I
had come to his door, and a clerk had opened it, and told me his master
was within, I had scarce breath enough to send my porter packing.
“Awa’ east and west wi’ ye!” said I, took the money bag out of his
hands, and followed the clerk in.
The outer room was an office with the clerk’s chair at a table spread
with law papers. In the inner chamber, which opened from it, a little
brisk man sat poring on a deed, from which he scarce raised his eyes on
my entrance; indeed, he still kept his finger in the place, as though
prepared to show me out and fall again to his studies. This pleased me
little enough; and what pleased me less, I thought the clerk was in a
good posture to overhear what should pass between us.
I asked if he was Mr. Charles Stewart the Writer.
“The same,” says he; “and, if the question is equally fair, who may you
be yourself?”
“You never heard tell of my name nor of me either,” said I, “but I
bring you a token from a friend that you know well. That you know
well,” I repeated, lowering my voice, “but maybe are not just so keen
to hear from at this present being. And the bits of business that I
have to propone to you are rather in the nature of being confidential.
In short, I would like to think we were quite private.”
He rose without more words, casting down his paper like a man
ill-pleased, sent forth his clerk of an errand, and shut to the
house-door behind him.
“Now, sir,” said he, returning, “speak out your mind and fear nothing;
though before you begin,” he cries out, “I tell you mine misgives me! I
tell you beforehand, ye’re either a Stewart or a Stewart sent ye. A
good name it is, and one it would ill-become my father’s son to
lightly. But I begin to grue at the sound of it.”
“My name is called Balfour,” said I, “David Balfour of Shaws. As for
him that sent me, I will let his token speak.” And I showed the silver
button.
“Put it in your pocket, sir!” cries he. “Ye need name no names. The
deevil’s buckie, I ken the button of him! And de’il hae’t! Where is he
now!”
I told him I knew not where Alan was, but he had some sure place (or
thought he had) about the north side, where he was to lie until a ship
was found for him; and how and where he had appointed to be spoken
with.
“It’s been always my opinion that I would hang in a tow for this family
of mine,” he cried, “and, dod! I believe the day’s come now! Get a ship
for him, quot’ he! And who’s to pay for it? The man’s daft!”
“That is my part of the affair, Mr. Stewart,” said I. “Here is a bag of
good money, and if more be wanted, more is to be had where it came
from.”
“I needn’t ask your politics,” said he.
“Ye need not,” said I, smiling, “for I’m as big a Whig as grows.”
“Stop a bit, stop a bit,” says Mr. Stewart. “What’s all this? A Whig?
Then why are you here with Alan’s button? and what kind of a black-foot
traffic is this that I find ye out in, Mr. Whig? Here is a forfeited
rebel and an accused murderer, with two hundred pounds on his life, and
ye ask me to meddle in his business, and then tell me ye’re a Whig! I
have no mind of any such Whigs before, though I’ve kent plenty of
them.”
“He’s a forfeited rebel, the more’s the pity,” said I, “for the man’s
my friend. I can only wish he had been better guided. And an accused
murderer, that he is too, for his misfortune; but wrongfully accused.”
“I hear you say so,” said Stewart.
“More than you are to hear me say so, before long,” said I. “Alan Breck
is innocent, and so is James.”
“Oh!” says he, “the two cases hang together. If Alan is out, James can
never be in.”